DISCLAIMER: the wheel keeps turning, yet still, nothing has changed. I still own nothing. I have no money, and I am so small. Unlike this chapter. It was only recently I realized what a word dump this is. I promise this story is about Leah, eventually. A notable quotable from this part is " smeyer miss me with that subtle foreshadowing shit." Now, for the World Building Nobody Asked For:
Chapter 1: Rachel Black, Of All People?
Three days after Rachel returned home from Washington State—the night before she intended to leave, having had enough of La Push and the memories it brought back—she said farewell to the ocean. Though her hometown was full of ghosts, the sea was a familiar friend; it waved hello as she approached. The salty spray of air filled her lungs like an embrace.
The day was ending above the surf; the clouds were tinted a faint pink by the glowing red sun, which hung in the sky like a solitary red eye looking down. She was expecting to be alone. Counting on it, really. Of all the goodbyes, this would be the hardest.
Losing her mother was one thing. She was old enough then to remember how her mother had smoothed everything over with a loving smile or a gentle hand. It felt like she remembered everything—from her goodnight kiss to how she adjusted the rearview mirror. Rachel had said her goodbyes to her a long, long time ago.
It was harder to say goodbye to her brother. He'd been saddled with too much responsibility his whole life, making up for the twins' absence and taking care of Billy. Rachel felt a maternal ache in the pit of her stomach whenever she saw how the kid's broad shoulders slumped as though they outweighed the rest of his body.
She was worried about him. Why had he gotten so large? Was it some eating disorder, or did Sam and his gang of hulked-up teenagers give her brother 'roids? She wanted to get to the bottom of whatever was happening with him.
Billy knew. Somehow, Billy knew. He always knew.
Saying goodbye to her father felt more like a relief, though the guilt ate her up. She couldn't look him in the eye anymore, not after the accident, not when she had been forced to take care of him in the aftermath when he was lousy with grief and wallowing in self-pity. She knew it was wrong to blame and judge him for his inability to cope with his injury—but she had only been a kid. She couldn't have been expected to do it all; she shouldn't have. That being said, she saw all those unmet expectations in his eyes.
When she'd left for college, it hadn't been as permanent as this impending separation would be. There was always the possibility of coming back after school. But now, if she went out into the real world, she truly would be gone forever. She didn't think she could bring herself to come back. Not if she left now.
Her mother's ghost haunted her every step down the beach like she was there walking with her—Rachel kept glancing beside her, looking for footprints.
There were none. She was alone.
So now she could say the goodbye that would be the hardest of all.
Turning to face the tide as it trickled in and drew back, she collapsed onto the pebbles with a huff, her chin in her hands. She gazed at the waves, their golden arcs highlighted by the sun as they dipped into the orange behemoth on the horizon.
Rachel was still sitting in the same spot when the sun disappeared. The world became dark as if flipping a switch. Rachel thought she felt eyes on her back.
She spun around.
"Rachel?" Asked a tall figure off in the distance.
"Hello?" She called back as the figure drew closer.
She turned her head down when she caught herself staring. The stranger was attractive, and he wasn't even wearing a shirt, just some cut-off sweats, no shoes. He walked right up to her, but when she glanced up and made eye contact, he froze, his face oddly blank.
"Do I know you?" She wondered aloud, watching his expression change from shock to awe to wonder, a strange look of recognition in his eyes.
"I'm P-Paul," the stranger replied, then cleared his throat. "Paul Lahote."
Paul's story began in the distant past, shrouded in legend and myth. When he was forced to pay attention to it after turning into a giant, monstrous wolf, he decided never to look for the past again.
Ruth Uley was Levi Uley's sister and Paul's great-grandmother. She married Gene Lahote, a fisherman, and they had three children who died in middle age, leaving Ruth only two descendants in the tribe: Cathy Lahote, Paul's aunt, and Thomas Lahote, Paul's father. Cathy stayed on the reservation and took over her father's fishing rig, while Thomas moved to Tacoma and met his wife, Eleanor.
When his wife died, Paul's father moved them back to his hometown of La Push, where he promptly dropped off his son and hit the road. When her son had brought Paul home for the first time, Ruth cried tears of joy and grief, taking the boy into her heart with the wariness of a mother who had already lost too many children.
Occasionally his father—who insisted his son call him "Tom"—would swoop in for a month or two, crashing on the couch in the living room, but his Aunt Cathy and great-grandma Ruth mainly raised Paul.
"It takes a village," Tom used to joke.
It took a village to teach Paul how to speak. His stutter had worsened after his mother's death, and now he couldn't even finish a sentence. He and his great-grandmother spent countless afternoons at the kitchen table, reading aloud.
"The b-b-b-b-b-b—"
"Remember, honey," Ruth would say. "Just picture the word in your mind."
"The b-b-b-boy," Paul finally spat, his word ringing through the trailer.
"You did it!" His grandmother squealed, squeezing him so hard he thought his ribs might break.
Paul quietly admired his grandmother and her commitment to education, teaching at the small tribal school for more than forty years before finally retiring—though she still went in as a substitute occasionally, much to her great-grandson's dismay.
Ruth was old-school. Like, really old school. She wore handmade dresses and seal-skin boots, kept her white hair pinned back in a severe bun, and made Paul go out to find his own switch when he misbehaved. In kindergarten, she sat all the children down and told them the stories of the Spirit Warriors, her eyes lingering on Paul a little too long. It took him ten more years to figure out why.
But it took more than her dedicated teaching to fix his stutter. Paul found his voice in town with the elders, who told the local children stories and encouraged participation. The first words he said without a hint of a stutter was during one of these tales, told by Billy Black. The kids all said the same thing at the same time—that's what gave the words power—and so in a story about the Bear and the Raven, Paul cried out with all the others, "No, old man, your feet just keep getting blacker and blacker!"
Because everyone had been yelling, no one made a big deal out of his achievement, which only made his success sweeter. He wanted to keep building on it and grow, so he returned to school with a resolution to never stutter again.
And he didn't. However, it made his life harder.
He became even quieter than before, only opening his mouth if he knew the words would come out right. But he was opinionated; whenever he couldn't get the words out, he would ball up his fists and fume, enraged at himself. He started fighting; Ruth was quick to nip that in the bud.
But then she, too, was nipped in the bud.
All her former students and their children attended her funeral, though something felt lacking to Paul. He had known his father wouldn't be there since they couldn't get a hold of a man who was always coming and going. But still, Paul thought, she was his grandmother. He couldn't get rid of his anger and couldn't get the words out, so he punched a wall instead. When he had to stop hitting walls, he decided his peers were a far less breakable option.
But then his peers, too, became breakable. At least for him. He thought it was a good thing when he suddenly grew a foot overnight. He hadn't always been one of the tallest in the room—he was shorter, beefier, a little more muscled—but now he was. It turned out to be a significant advantage in the hallway, during the everyday ritual of teenage boys passing through a doorway, to reach up and slap the threshold. Then he had to start ducking out of the way.
Aunt Cathy tried her best. She kept the teenage boy fed—just barely—and a roof over their heads, but she was getting older, too. Paul refused to acknowledge his fear when he saw his aunt slowing down, massaging her arthritic joints, stopping to catch her breath halfway up the stairs. He could not afford to lose another maternal figure; she was all he had left. They were all each other had in the world.
But then his body ripped in two. One part of him was a wolf fueled by centuries of rage; the other was still grieving his great-grandmother and the loss of his humanity.
It took a village to give him his voice, but it took a pack to give him control of it. He'd been struggling for months, and though hard-fought, he knew he was losing to his ego. He felt it in his brothers' disappointment whenever he lost his temper, in Emily's sad but understanding look when he crawled back to her house, tail between his legs, hoping for a spare pair of pants.
Still, he hadn't stuttered since the day he vowed he never would again.
Not until the day he met his imprint, that is.
"Oh. You're one of Jake's friends, right?" Rachel asked, tucking a stray chunk of hair behind her ear.
"Yeah," Paul replied, puffing out his chest noticeably. "We go way back."
This was a lie, but they were brothers now, no matter how much Jake annoyed him with thoughts of the leech-lover. Before, he hadn't understood how Jake could keep forgiving Bella for all the crazy shit she did, but now he knew only one thing: he would always be tied to Rachel.
His world had shifted entirely in just one moment, yet nothing changed. He was still standing on the beach. The waves were still beating the shore. His anger still bubbled inside him, but now he hardly felt a part of any of it. His ears could only focus on the beat of her heart, lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub; the sound of her breath as she inhaled sharply; the slant of her eyes when she glanced down at his arms. He was already flexing, his entire body tensed from his split-second out-of-body experience.
The moment their eyes met, he'd seen the future; he did not know precisely what would happen, but he saw himself always at her side, as natural as breathing.
Oh, shit! Breathing! He remembered, dragging in a ragged breath.
"Oh, well, nice to meet you," Rachel said, stepping forward and extending her hand to him.
In a mixture of instinct and yearning, Paul took her hand in both of his, covered it completely, and sighed.
"I have something to tell you," he said. "It's gonna sound crazy, but it's all true, I swear. Jake is in it, too."
Her eyes narrowed. "What is it? Does it have to do with Sam's gang?"
Paul rolled his eyes. "Yeah, but we call it a pack."
"A pack?"
"That's what you call a bunch of wolves," Paul replied. "You know the legends. Billy must've told you about them before. Well, they're true. And I can prove it." He let go of her hands and took a few steps backward, steeling himself for what he had to do.
"What are you doing?" Rachel asked quickly, backing away when she saw him hook his thumbs under his elastic waistband and pull down.
"Just trust me, okay?"
Rachel covered her eyes and backed away faster. "Listen, I'm gonna tell Jake about all of this, and he'll beat your ass."
Paul snorted.
Then he turned into a wolf.
It took a moment for Rachel's weak human eyes to catch up to the change, but after the first wave of shock blew over, she managed to turn and run as fast as she could. The wolf did not chase her, though he howled in anguish, calling her to return. The sound hung in the air with the fog illuminated by the silver crescent moon as it climbed over the sea.
Back at home, Rachel came to know her family better.
She holed herself up in her room and hid under the covers until the stars started disappearing one by one, and the air was heavy with wet morning dew. Then, finally, at four in the morning, she ventured out to the kitchen. Through the screen door, she could see Billy smoking a cigarette on the porch.
"You shouldn't do that, y'know," she chided, coming out to sit beside him with a cup of coffee.
"I worry for you," he said, not looking away from the tree line. "And I worry for my son, and I worry for your sister. How can I possibly worry for myself, too?"
"You don't have to worry about me," Rachel said reflexively.
He turned to her then, a smile on his lips and tears in his eyes. "But you're leaving, aren't you?"
Rachel shook her head, looking down at her hands. "I can't stay."
"Why not?"
Her face hardened. "Because I want a life."
"You have a life here."
"I want a real one."
"What makes this one fake?"
Rachel scoffed. "It's a bunch of fairytales. None of this is supposed to be real!"
Billy was quiet for a moment, watching the early fog drip down the pine needles framing the backyard. He lifted the cigarette to his lips, took a deep drag, and snuffed it out on the damp wooden railing.
"I can't make you believe what your own eyes have seen," Billy said, still not facing her. "But I want you to stay, Rach."
She hadn't expected Billy to be any help. She hadn't even told him about what she'd seen. Somehow it didn't surprise her that he already knew. But it did lift her spirits to know her father still wanted her in his life after she'd abandoned him in La Push to deal with his teenage—possibly teenage-werewolf—son.
So she went to Jake, hoping against all hope that he would deny everything and return the world to how she was used to.
She shouldn't have expected that, either.
"He did WHAT?!" Jake exclaimed, standing up from the couch so abruptly it plopped backward on the floor, knocking up a cloud of dust that swirled in the light coming through the open front door her brother had just shot through faster than she could blink.
Rachel jumped up to look out the window, watching her brother rip off his shirt and explode into a russet-colored wolf.
She blinked her wide eyes twice, then looked back inside. The clock on the mantle read 05:15.
Desperate times called for desperate measures. She decided to do the unthinkable.
Rachel called her sister.
Every inch of Rebecca was smooth, shiny, and polished the last time Rachel saw her twin sister. Rachel had flown to Oahu, courtesy of her brother-in-law, who had come into some money after a relative died. Not used to owning anything in excess, he quickly spent the money to surprise his wife on her birthday. Rachel thought it was sweet, but she had an odd suspicion her sister put him up to it.
Rachel barely recognized her twin sister at the airport, where a very self-satisfied surfer reunited them. Had she gotten taller, or was it the bulky sandals with six-inch heels? Did she bleach her hair, or was everybody blonde here from the sunshine? Rachel glanced around for someone with dark hair like hers and found several, so she quickly ruled this theory out.
"Becca," Rachel gasped. "You're blonde!"
"I know!" Her sister squealed, jumping up and wrapping her arms around her sister's shoulders.
"And your nails!" Rachel exclaimed, embracing her sister with one arm as she examined the glittering diamonds on each finger, matching the widest, gaudiest, and positively most ridiculous ring Rachel had ever envied.
"Aren't they nice!" Rebecca laughed, pulling away to face her sister. "And you look…."
"Yeah, I know," Rachel sighed.
The sisters hooked elbows and began to walk out of the large terminal, falling back into an old habit of theirs where they spoke in tongues, using references to old inside jokes nobody else knew and, in their way, speaking their own language.
"You're still such a know-it-all."
"Well, I do know it all, don't I?"
They giggled, their heads bowing together.
"How was the honeymoon?"
More giggling ensued. Then the mood turned somber, and the sisters gazed at each other with a mixture of regret and longing.
"I wish I could have been there for the wedding," Rachel admitted, glancing back at Solomon, who had already insisted she call him Sol and explained to her—with such an excruciating degree of pompousness Rachel had almost laughed—that it meant 'sun' in Latin.
"Me too," Rebecca confessed, squeezing her sister's hand. "But it all just happened so fast. I knew I wouldn't go through with it if I had to say goodbye, and I just had to do this, Rach; I mean, look at this place—" she gestured to the high ceiling made of a thin layer of glass so they could see the sky.
"The sun," Rachel breathed, blinking rapidly against the bright light, unused to the cloudless sky. "Wow. I haven't seen that in, like, a year."
"I see it every day now," Rebecca said matter-of-factly. "It's much better for your skin, you know."
"I don't think so."
"I beg to disagree. Just look at this healthy glow," she said jokingly, pressing her pointer finger on one of her dimples. "You'll see. In a few days, you'll be begging me to stay."
It hadn't always been such a heinous idea for Rachel to talk to her twin sister. When they were younger, the twins were two parts of the same whole. Rachel's earliest memories were of her sister. In a way, she considered Rebecca another aspect of her personality. In tough times, when her feet dragged against the cement, and the rainy skies of Washington State became too much, she used it to motivate herself. Stop being such a Rachel, she told herself. Be more of a Rebecca.
Rachel never needed to call her sister. Her sister was always the one to call her, and she usually didn't pick up. Rachel could only stand to talk to her identical twin sister, who'd thrown away her education to be a trophy wife, after her third glass of wine on a Friday night.
Rebecca had long since run off with Solomon Finau—a native surfer from Hawaii who transferred to Washington with his parents their senior year of high school—abandoning La Push for the sunny beaches of Oahu. Her emails were ridiculously flowery and romantic, and Rachel didn't have the heart to tell her sister that the seashells she kept sending were always shattered to pieces when they made it to the mainland.
Before dialing the phone, Rachel went to the basement for liquid courage. She would need the chemical buffer if she had to endure her sister's constant boasting, the unnecessary details about her incredible life in Oahu.
Rachel slumped on the wall beside the phone and reluctantly took it off the receiver. Once dialed, she chugged from a beer can while waiting for her sister to pick it up.
Rebecca answered on the third ring with her signature, "Hey, girlie!"
"We need to talk," Rachel sighed, slumping against the back of the couch with an exhausted sigh.
"I miss you, too," Rebecca grumbled through the receiver. "What's up?"
"I think something is happening at home," Rachel hedged, chewing her bottom lip. "Something weird."
There was a pause on the other end. "What do you mean?" Rebecca asked slowly.
Rachel groaned. "Don't be like that, Becca! I'm not paranoid. There's something going on here."
"What is it?"
"I don't know," Rachel admitted. "Yesterday, I met this strange guy on the beach—"
"You met a guy?" Rebecca replied, her voice dripping with exaggerated intrigue.
"That's not the takeaway here, Becca."
"Whatever. What's his name?"
"Paul," Rachel replied automatically, shaking her head in frustration. "The guy isn't the point. Well, sorta. He said he had to show me something, and then, well…" she trailed off, wondering how she could explain the split-second transformation she'd seen on the beach without sounding like a lunatic.
"Did you have sex with a stranger on the beach?" Rebecca gasped.
"No! No, absolutely not! He said he was one of Jake's friends. One of his new friends, I think. You remember Sam Uley? Apparently, he's leading some gang of teenagers now. Leah's in it, too. I saw Seth—"
"Who—?"
"You remember—Leah's baby brother—and he said they've all been hanging out for a while now, but when I asked him what they did, he got all quiet. And they're all big, Becca. Like, ridiculously big. I think Jake's about the size of a Sequoia now."
Rachel could hear her sister's eye roll through the phone. "C'mon, Rach. Are you trying to tell me you think Jake is hopped up on steroids? What is he, like, fifteen now?"
"Sixteen," Rachel corrected. "But he looks like he's thirty or something. Did we do this to him when we left?" She wondered aloud, fiddling with the necklace around her neck.
"We had to leave, Rach," Rebecca asserted firmly. "Everyone has to leave the nest sooner or later. And I'm happy now. You should be, too. You're not sounding like a girl who got her bachelor's in only three years," she teased.
It was Rachel's turn to roll her eyes. "Listen to me. I think something bad is happening with Jake, and I want to help him. Will you help me or not?"
"Well…" Rebecca trailed off. "Sol has a big tournament next week, and I'm his good luck charm. I could go home, but—"
"No," Rachel sighed, placing her hand across her forehead. "No, you don't have to do that. I don't know what I thought you'd do, anyway. Sorry to bother you." She slammed the outdated phone back on the receiver.
Paul wasn't sure what he'd expected when he shifted into a wolf that morning after revealing himself to Rachel.
Bro, Embry cautioned. You are so dead.
Shut up, man. Jake gets it.
I don't think he'll get THIS.
How much stupid fits in one wolf? Leah wondered.
I'll have you all know, Paul thought smugly, his lips pulling back to reveal a sharp row of teeth. I caught her peeking through her fingers.
Ugh! Leah fumed. You guys are such pigs.
Don't hate the player, baby; hate the game, Paul chided.
That wasn't the way to tell her, and you know it, Jared chimed in, though his thoughts were soon crowded out by the ferocious, snarling, snapping waves of Jake's fury.
My SISTER?
I can explain—
Paul did not expect Jacob Black to give him time to explain. Jacob Black was the kind to shoot first and ask questions later. In most situations, Paul respected him for it. This was different from those times.
Rachel was busy biting her fingernails off as the boys duked it out the usual way. She couldn't wrap her head around it, but she was worrying about her brother being a wolf.
She only realized she was driving on the rain-slicked highway connecting Forks and La Push when a crack of lightning split the sky, highlighting the world in sharp contrast for half a second and then disappearing. She wasn't sure where she was headed, but she found the slow, steady hum of the engine comforting.
Her brother made this car work for her. It had been him who'd got the engine to purr so loudly. After weeks of a shrill, feeble whine, the Wagon had been brought back to life by her gawky little brother's surprisingly nimble hands.
It was the car she'd used to leave La Push. She'd driven away in it almost four years ago. Her very own Exodus; it was her chariot westward, like Odysseus on his way home to Ithaca, though Rachel was aiming to do the opposite. She had flung herself from the nest haphazardly and struggled on her own through three years of college. Coming home had not been in the plan.
At the very least, she wasn't going home at that moment. She was on her way to Forks, taking a surprisingly familiar route through the dark, mossy forest, flying past her like a muddled green wall on either side of the highway. She flexed her fingers, turning her knuckles white against the steering wheel.
She would have to end up somewhere, eventually. For a moment, she wondered where she had planned to go the night before, expecting to suddenly remember she was supposed to be at a job interview across the country—anything to give her a chance to run—but oddly enough, she couldn't picture herself anywhere but La Push.
Hesitantly, her foot raised a half-inch off the gas pedal.
Maybe this was where she was meant to end up. Her family had grown close after her mother's death but shattered apart when Rebecca ran away. After that, Rachel couldn't look her dad in the eyes for a week. She felt guilty for envying her sister. How could she blame Rebecca for leaving the first chance she got? It's what she would've done were their situations reversed.
But what her sister did was wrong. She'd run off in the middle of the night—after one of the worst arguments the Black household ever witnessed—leaving Rachel a note that said, "Gone with Sol to see the islands. Tell Jake I love him."
It was cruel. It was selfish.
All those times when she'd been at college wishing to be more like her sister-was Rebecca really the ideal? Maybe she needed to listen to herself for once.
She pulled into the gas station between Forks and La Push, parking across the pump from a familiar rusty red Chevy. Rachel groaned out loud.
After an awkward greeting, Rachel followed Bella back into town and to Emily's house, where wedding preparations were underway. It didn't feel like fate while Rachel crawled behind the red behemoth chugging on the highway. Bella insisted, in fact, on escorting her to Emily Young's house, where she would be able to get the whole story.
She wasn't surprised that Bella was in on it, too. She was way too odd to hang out with normal humans. Even when they were kids, Bella never quite fit in correctly—too oblong and abstract for their games of social Tetris.
It felt like fate when they pulled up to the once-gray house with bright orange and yellow marigolds hanging out of the one small window beside the weathered blue door. Then she met Emily, and she knew it was fate.
Like a wounded bird, Emily took Rachel under her wing, wrapping her arm around the shell-shocked girl's shoulders and leading her over to the kitchen table, where she sat down and pushed a muffin into her hand. She should've been surprised with how quickly she fell in love with Emily and her house, but both seemed to happen instantaneously as she stepped inside and smelled the freshly baked blueberry muffins of infamy. Rachel found herself halfway into her muffin as they explained.
Emily had seen the same eyes in different faces many times. The werewolves shocked everyone—Bella, Kim, Leah, the pack—but she had never been surprised.
Emily recalled how she'd felt learning about the wolves. In the hospital, when Billy Black—who had never even spoken to her before—wheeled himself into her room and started explaining fairytales as real life. Maybe it was the concussion, but it all made sense immediately as if she'd been born knowing it. From the first time she met Sam Uley, somehow, she knew he wasn't entirely human.
Rachel's shock drained from her face as she nibbled through her muffin. In the back of her mind, Rachel thought she should've been freaking out. The kitchen, however, felt safe and warm. Werewolves and vampires felt like a distant fairytale there, harmless and fake, lulling her into a sense of security, allowing magic and legends to be real.
Emily smiled warmly, coming to the end of her story, looking around the table at the other pack imprints.
"We wolf-girls are part of the ancient magic, too," she added. "We raise good men, and we make them good wolves. Because of us, they have a reason to protect our homes, and we make our land worth defending." Emily reached out, touching Rachel's hands. "This is an honor."
Kim rolled her eyes. "Are you already trying to talk her into helping you with the wedding?"
Emily laughed. "I guess, in a way, yeah."
"That's how she roped us into it," Kim explained, shooting Rachel a look of camaraderie while gesturing to Bella. "She started talking about our 'futures,' and she was all, 'I'll have to do it for you, too,' but, like, when I get married, I swear I will never handwrite all of my invitations." Kim fanned herself with a piece of stiff, frilly paper.
"It's more personal that way," Emily argued.
"Wouldn't it be more personal if they were all in your handwriting?" Bella wondered, still writing addresses on envelopes, having not paused in her haste to finish the horrendous task.
"It goes faster when Leah is here," Kim sighed, her face pouting.
"That's only because she writes so fast that her handwriting is atrocious," Emily said. "We always end up having to redo her stuff, anyway."
"I wouldn't go around saying that," Bella warned. "They're supposed to be back soon."
Jake came bounding in the doorway as if on cue, wearing a pair of cut-off jean shorts. It was like he didn't even see his sister; he had eyes only for Bella. She sensed his gaze on her back, and a smile crept up onto her haunted face, like turning on the lights to the basement stairs, both exhilarating and terrifying. He hooked his elbow around her shoulders and folded her into him, placing a sloppy, wet kiss on her cheek. She giggled, wiping her face off with her sleeve and slapping his arm affectionately.
Sam was next, wearing an identical pair of shorts and looking starstruck at the sight of Emily. They shared such an intimate gaze that Rachel had to turn her head away. Jared followed a second later, taking Kim's hand and listening to her babble about how her hand was cramping after handwriting so many invitations. Embry trailed in next, followed closely by Quil, who tried to talk him into a double-or-nothing deal on a bet he'd recently lost.
Then, like a nightmare—or a daydream—Paul stalked through the front door.
He looked worse for wear, his hair free of its usual tight braids, with sticks and leaves poking out of it. Across his nose was a scar, white as lightning, fading into the rest of his skin by the second. Rachel stared at him with horror, though not because he was a werewolf—she was steadfastly ignoring that—but because she was suddenly terrified of him being in pain.
"Did you do that to him?" Bella asked, shooting Jake an accusing glare.
He just shrugged, grabbing a second muffin from the counter and shoving it into his mouth whole.
Rachel barely noticed this. Her eyes had met Paul's, and they were both suddenly still, silent, transfixed. His eyes were black as the sea in a storm, full of turmoil; for a moment, she longed to dive into them.
She shook her head to clear it, tearing her eyes away. "Sorry," she mumbled, primarily to herself.
"You have nothing to be sorry for," Paul growled, taking two steps and placing himself directly next to Rachel's chair.
She shrunk away, frightened by his voice and the waves of fury she felt coming from him. Paul took an automatic step back.
"I'm the one who should be sorry," he said in a small voice. "I shouldn't've dumped this on you."
Despite knowing better, Rachel looked up at him and quickly got lost in his eyes again. He lowered himself into the seat next to her, bringing his head down until their eyes were level, their faces only a foot apart.
"Why don't you two get a room?" Jake snapped.
Rachel's head snapped to the side to glare at her brother.
"I agree," Bella added in a level tone. "You two have a lot to talk about."
Rachel shot Bella an exasperated look. The thought of leaving and going to the store to buy three cases of hard liquor briefly crossed her mind.
"It's hard to take in all at once," Emily interjected, her eyes going back and forth between the girls. "It was different for you, Bella—you already knew about the Cullens."
"It was still a real kick-in-the-face," Bella replied. "Jake snuck into my room at two in the morning and woke me from a dead sleep."
Rachel thought Bella would look dead while she slept; she was so pale she could've been a ghost. Standing next to Jake, however, she was less translucent, as if a missing piece had returned to her, and she was more whole.
"Who are the Cullens?" Rachel asked innocently.
The kitchen fell silent until Seth, Collin, and Brady barged in.
"Hey, guys!" Collin greeted. "Did you see that nose-dive Seth did into the quarry?"
"Shut up!" Seth cried indignantly, grabbing the other boy's shoulder and tossing him onto the couch.
"Boys!" Sam yelled over the commotion as the three started wrestling on Emily's living room floor.
They froze. Seth had Collin in a chokehold with his elbow at his chin while Brady was on top of both of them, digging his knee into Seth's ribs.
"This is Rachel Black, Jake's sister," Sam introduced her, his eyes widening and his eyebrows raised in a warning. "Can you all, please, for the love of all that is holy, stop trying to kill each other for five minutes?"
At that moment, the last wolf stepped into Emily's house, slamming the screen door shut behind her.
If everything had fallen silent after Rachel asked who the Cullens were, then sound ceased to exist when Leah came inside, scantily dressed in a cut-off tank top and baggy gym shorts, her eyes shooting daggers at Rachel.
Rachel was immediately jealous. Leah had always been beautiful, but now she was hot. She had the sort of body you only saw on the cover of Sports Illustrated, with legs that looked eight feet long, hair windswept and wavy, and a waist like a mannequin. Despite this, the most overwhelming emotion she felt was undoubtedly fear. Leah's familiar eyes were superimposed on her new supermodel figure, black and dull, like old shell casings found on the forest floor.
Leah stopped at the entrance to the kitchen. She leaned against the threshold, her arms crossed against her chest.
"Hey, Leah," Emily called over to her cousin in a tentative voice.
"Hey, Em," Leah greeted. "Hey, Bells."
"Hey, Leah," Bella chirped, a genuine smile growing on her face.
"Leah Clearwater?" Rachel wondered aloud.
Leah snarled, snapping her teeth. Rachel flinched back in her chair. Paul growled.
"Be nice," Sam cautioned.
"Why? What is she to me?" Leah spat, her fierce eyes fixed on Rachel though she addressed Sam. "She's nothing but a traitor. She and Rebecca both turned their backs on this tribe."
"Hey!" Jake shouted. "You would've done the same thing."
A violent shiver shook Leah's spine, and for a moment, Rachel thought she would see a human transform into a wolf for the second time in one day, but then Sam intervened.
"Outside! Now!" He barked.
Turning on her heel, Leah was already out the door.
"Sorry," Sam said distractedly, following her. Jake rolled his eyes and joined them after pecking Bella on the cheek around a mouthful of muffin.
"What was that about?" Rachel asked Emily in the ensuing silence.
She didn't answer for a moment. Emily's eyes were far away, her head tilted so Rachel couldn't see the long scars marring the side of her face, and for a moment, she could see with crystal clarity how little she knew about her home.
Ultimately, Rachel decided to stay in La Push. Whether it was Emily's muffins or Paul's smile, not even she was sure.
Rachel decided to take it slow with Paul after learning he was still in high school—at first, she had cut things off right then and there, but he talked her into staying like he always seemed to do. Most of their fights were about her running away and him bringing her back. In the end, though, her fighting was useless; Paul was made for her, whether she'd asked for it or not, and as time passed, she became more content with her fate until she realized she was in love with him.
She became fast friends with Emily, taking the role of the maid of honor and planning the bachelorette party. At first, Leah pretended she wasn't jealous and that it was a relief not to be the maid of honor, but as the weeks passed, it became apparent that she was green with envy of Rachel.
At first, Rachel hardly even saw Leah until Sam admitted he'd ordered her to leave Rachel alone. Rachel argued that she wasn't helpless; she could care for herself. She regretted it the next time they were in the same room together. It was impossible to ignore how fiercely the she-wolf hated her. Rachel remembered being on civil terms with her, even friends, before she left La Push. Apparently, she'd been mistaken.
Rachel decided that if Leah hated her for no reason, she could do the same. Despite her significantly smaller frame and lack of jowls, Rachel took on Leah's challenges more often than not. Paul thought it was funny at first. Jake always got stuck holding Leah back from his sister.
"Just one bite," Leah snarled one time, trying to shake Jake's hand off her shoulder. "I'll barely take a chunk out of her arm."
"Go pick on somebody your own size," Jake warned.
"Dress size or shoe size?" Rachel chimed in, feeling rather smug and safe from her spot behind Paul, who was beginning not to find Leah's annoyance funny anymore.
"I was thinking more along the lines of weight class," Jake clarified.
"Are you calling me fat?"
Bella was usually more successful at distracting Leah without becoming the target of her anger, mainly because of Leah's soft spot for her. Rachel didn't understand how their relationship had taken on such a dynamic, but it was plain to see that Leah protected Bella the same way she protected Seth.
Billy was overjoyed to have his daughter home for good. He instructed Jake to build her an office so she could work from home with her computer engineering degree. Still, Jake refused, privately telling Rachel about his plan to run away with Bella and promising she could take his room after he left. Of course, Paul had already told her this; but she decided to use the secret to get one from him.
"Why does Leah hate me?" She asked one afternoon as she sat backward in her chair to face her brother sitting on her bed.
"Huh?" Jacob grunted.
"Leah," Rachel repeated slowly as if talking to a kindergartener. "She hates me. Why? What did I ever do to her?"
He raised his legs to sit crisscross and then looked down at his hands in his lap.
"Well?" Rachel urged him. "Or do you want me to tell Dad about your escape plan?"
Jake groaned. "Fine!" He balled up his fist and repeatedly banged it on the bed next to him, going faster as he spoke. "But she's gonna know I told you."
Rachel rolled her eyes. "Like I care?"
"You're such a jerk, Rachel. I thought it was just Becca."
She bristled at the comparison to her sister. "Well?" She repeated, blinking.
He didn't look at her as he spoke. "It's a principle thing for Leah. She thinks that if you hadn't gone to college, you would've become a wolf, just like her. Then she wouldn't be such a freak."
Rachel blinked, her face blank. "I would've been a wolf?"
"We have the same genes, doofus. Plus, both our parents have it too, so we've got it on both sides. You wouldn't have stood a chance." He paused. "Just like I never had a chance."
Her heart poured over for her brother, and Rachel leaned forward with it weighing heavy in her chest, wrapping Jacob in her arms the way she remembered her mother did with her. After all, it was her duty as his sister to raise him as her own, but she'd gone off to school and left him alone with Billy to deal with all the supernatural forces lurking in their hometown. She comforted him, feeling more guilty than she'd ever felt before.
Paul insisted it wasn't her fault. She had to go to school; she should've been proud to be the first college grad in her family. And she was proud, but there was a lump of guilt in her throat when she thought of how long she'd been away from her family and how she'd willingly and gleefully facilitated that separation.
It got worse after Emily's final dress fitting. The bridesmaids were getting their dresses tailored, too. So all the "wolf-girls" were crowded into Emily's living room, the couch piled over with multicolored plastic sheets holding the dresses, and a diminutive seamstress fluttering around them with brightly colored sharp pins and a grimace.
In fairness, the seamstress was putting up with a lot. Emily wanted to wear her mother's gown, which had yellowed with age and was five sizes too big. Plus, she had added Rachel at the last minute, meaning a whole new dress to measure and tailor. To top it all off, Emily had a girl in her bridal party who was more than twice the poor little woman's size. The seamstress's eyes widened when she caught sight of Leah, and the whole room could almost hear the gears clicking in her gray head of hair.
"I start wif diss one," the seamstress declared as if she faced certain doom.
They'd set up three mirrors at the far corner of the room, reflecting the small stool the seamstress had them stand on as she worked. When Leah was pushed forward, the woman took the stool away and stood on it herself.
The bridesmaids' dresses were reminiscent of irises. They were all the same design; a narrow skirt, flared at the bottom, with a loose waist and bell-shaped sleeves accented with elaborate beadwork. For everyone but Leah, it stopped halfway above their knees, but when she put it on, they could all see her flower-print underwear. It was more of a shirt. She came out from behind the open back door—opened to let in the air, since it had become sweltering in the cramped little room, and also to work as a makeshift dressing panel—with a fierce scowl.
Kim snorted, failing to hide her amusement. Bella covered her mouth, her eyes wide. Emily froze, and Rachel followed suit, wondering what had caused the sudden tension.
At her wit's end, the seamstress threw her hands up in the air. "Ack!" She exclaimed, pulling her dark glasses up from the bottom of her nose and placing them on top of her head, holding back her long bangs. "Must be somezing in ze wadder," she surmised, leaning back with her arms crossed. "You vill have to veer different dress."
Leah ended up in a boring, purple tent dress, looking like it was initially intended to be a muumuu. Rachel, feeling sorry for her, made a mistake.
Bella was busy braiding Kim's hair and Kim was swept up in her recounting of the junior prom. Emily was haggling with the seamstress over the price of Leah's dress.
Rachel grabbed a belt off the seamstress's pile and approached Leah, her heart hammering. She had to remind herself to breathe as she approached.
"This could slim the silhouette," Rachel offered the belt to Leah with a timid, wavering voice.
"Then shouldn't you use it to hide your giant ass?" Leah barked, glaring at Rachel over her shoulder in the mirror's reflection.
Rachel blinked twice and shook her head, closed her eyes, and realized she was seeing red. Her mind had already chosen fight over flight in less than a second.
"I've got nothing against you, y'know? Like, the only thing I've done to offend you is being human, which I can't really help any more than you can control being a—"
She never got to finish.
Leah got out of the altercation with a scratch on her neck, which instantly healed. Rachel came out of it with a black eye, a broken nose, and a bloody lip.
Leah was taken home by her mother in the same state Bella had been in the woods. She didn't speak, didn't acknowledge, didn't see anything. Leah's body worked on autopilot, like an empty vessel. She was curled up in the fetal position on her bed the whole time, save for an episode where she'd chopped off her hair in a fit of rage with a pair of kitchen shears.
"She needs to wake up!" Sue Clearwater exclaimed that night.
Seth looked up from the back of his cereal box. "I'm not even sure she's asleep."
"Well, she's definitely not awake," Sue insisted, cutting up her fourth onion. "If she doesn't get her act together, I'll have to… have to… Oh, I don't even know anymore!" She threw up her hands, dropping the knife on the cutting board. "They don't make any books on parenting a teenage werewolf, do they?"
"She'll come out of it," Seth promised his mother, standing up from his seat at the kitchen table and going over to the counter, where he wrapped his arm around her shoulder. "She's in shock, I think. She didn't think she had it in her to hurt one of the pack's imprints. I guess Rachel just pushed her over the edge."
Sue sniffed, rubbing her eyes, which only worsened the stinging from the onions. "Oh, ow! Shit!"
Seth laughed. "Does that mean I'm old enough to say 'shit' now?"
"Absolutely not," Sue scoffed, shaking her head. "But this is about your sister. Do you really think she'll come out of it?"
"I think as soon as Paul's calmed down, Leah will feel better. I mean, the guilt's just gotta be eating her up. If I were her—" Seth broke off suddenly, biting his lip.
"What?" Sue demanded.
"Well, I mean, Paul is furious. Like, monumentally pissed" —he quickly glanced at Sue out of the corner of his eyes, half-expecting her to hit him on the back of the head for swearing— "and the rest of the pack isn't too happy, either. They think she might be too dangerous for the tribe."
"What does that mean?"
"Well," Seth hedged, bobbing his head from side to side like a cheap souvenir. "There was, sort of, like, a little bit of thinking about kicking her out of the pack, but only for a second or two," he amended, seeing his mother's eyebrows fly up in shock.
"They can do that?" She asked, horrified.
"I guess, yeah." He shrugged. "It's happened before. Like when Taha Aki had to kick out Utlapa when he saw what he wanted the wolves to do. Honestly, we're lucky Paul didn't kill her on the spot. The whole pack was in an uproar, going on the warpath. It was Jake who stopped them. If it's for the good of the tribe, the Alpha can do anything."
Seth's eyes fogged over for a moment, and Sue knew he was leaving something out but decided she'd heard enough about the minds of wolves for one day.
July 16th, 2006
I'm a total, utter fuck-up. If 'fuck-up' was in the dictionary, my face would be next to it. I've fucked up everything in my life so far, and at this point, I'm not sure what else there even is for me to fuck up.
I thought there was at least one thing I'd managed to salvage from my significant lapse in self-control (which I've decided to call my latest and most painful fuck-up). But then that, too, I managed to fuck up.
Running patrol with Jake and Seth used to be fun. Admittedly, it got tense after my 'accident,' but it still didn't sting as much as everything else I did as a wolf. It felt good to return to my animal self when I was with them, and I was stiff from lying still for so long. I extended my stride, working out the kinks and kicking my hind legs every few steps.
'Morning, Leah,' Seth greeted me.
Jake could have been more enthusiastic. 'Good. You showed up. Let's make the deep run,' he told me. 'Seth, take the perimeter.'
'Gotcha.' Seth broke into an easy jog.
I could see where Jake was leading us. We took a winding path to the eastern mountains. It was a familiar route. We'd run those mountains when the vampires had left a year ago, making it part of our patrol route to protect the people better. Then we'd pulled back the lines when the army of parasites invaded the wetlands.
'Off on another vampire errand,' I grumbled. I couldn't help myself.
'You got a problem with that?'
I sensed the undercurrent of tension from Jake's thoughts and backed off.
'Of course not. Wouldn't want to take any unnecessary chances when it comes to those parasites.'
'Good.' He softened a little. 'Let's see how fast we can run.'
'Okay, I'm definitely up for that!'
I was on the far western rim of the perimeter. Rather than cut close to the Cullen's empty crypt, I stuck to the old circles as I raced around to meet Jake. He sprinted off straight east, knowing that even with the head start, I'd be passing him soon.
'Nose to the ground, Leah. This isn't a race; it's a reconnaissance mission.'
'I can do both and still kick your ass.'
He gave me that one. 'I know.'
I laughed, sort of—mentally; it felt odd since I hadn't laughed out loud since the fuck-up.
This was Cullen treaty land. But that fact meant nothing now. The Cullens were long gone. We were more willing to spread our forces, reaching further into the forest with a clawed paw. Were we looking for stray bloodsuckers to poach? Looking to send a message to any leeches who might be thinking this was a luxury vacation spa?
We got deeper and deeper into the mountains without finding any traces of leeches. Fading vampire trails were everywhere, but the scents were familiar as members of the newborn army we'd destroyed before the height of summer dried out the valley, turning the river into a coiled snake between the mountains. I found a heavy, somewhat recent concentration on one particular trail—all of them coming and going here without the red-headed leech that was forgotten when we mounted the pieces of their granite bodies into heaps and turned them into a smoldering pyre.
I gritted my teeth. Whatever they'd been planning here had nothing to do with me anymore.
I didn't push myself past Jake, though I could've by then. He was paying more attention to the dying scents than the speed contest, and I kept to his right side, running with him rather than racing against him.
'We're getting pretty far out here,' I commented.
'Yeah. If there were any strays, we would've crossed their trail by now.'
'Makes more sense to bunker down in La Push,' Ithought. 'We're more vulnerable in smaller groups, and we're not going to be able to surprise them.'
'This was just a precaution, really.'
'Wouldn't want our precious imprints taking any unnecessary chances,' I thought venomously.
'Nope,' he agreed, ignoring the sarcasm.
'You've changed so much, Jacob. Talk about one-eighties. '
'You're not exactly the same Leah I've always known and loved, either.'
'True. Am I less annoying than Paul, at least?'
'Amazingly… no.'
'That will be my goal, then—to be less annoying than Paul.'
We ran in silence again. It was probably time to turn around, but neither of us wanted to. It felt nice to run like this. We'd been staring at the same small circle of a trail for too long. It felt good to stretch our muscles and take on the rugged terrain. We weren't in a huge hurry, so Jake thought we should hunt on the way back. I was pretty hungry. I couldn't face my mother's kitchen, let alone Emily's house. I hadn't eaten more than Seth's scraps for days. Still, the idea of raw meat made me cringe.
'Yum, yum,' I thought sourly.
'It's all in your head,' he told me. 'That's the way wolves eat. It's natural. It tastes fine. If you didn't think about it from a human perspective—'
'Forget the pep talk, Jacob. I'll hunt. I don't have to like it.'
'Sure, sure,' heagreed readily. From his perspective, it wasn't his business if I wanted to make things harder for myself.
Of course, I'd already made things about as hard as possible for myself. After the accident, I'd nearly been banned from La Push; I would've been forced to leave and never return. When I thought about Sam's furious roar when he found out what I'd done, it made me feel like a little girl again getting caught by my father doing something terrible, which made me all the more furious.
With what little sanity I had left, I was indignant. Who was he to banish me for something he did to his own imprint? If those were the rules, then, technically, he wasn't even part of the pack he was trying to kick me out of. I'd felt the pack's mind swirling with rage; Paul, Jared, Embry, Quil; their thoughts spiraled together into a single voice until all I could hear was their vengeful battle cry. The only thing that kept him from banishing me immediately was Jake's first edict; Jacob's authoritative Alpha voice sprung from my worst mistake. He'd seen me through my little brother's fearful eyes and taken pity, even though it washissister I'd attacked.
For the first week, I didn't leave my room. Time became warped, then; I only found out how long it had been when I emerged.
Jacob and Seth fought with the pack on my behalf, so I was allowed to stay, but I was on probation. If I wasn't with Jacob or Seth, I only got to run half as much as any of the other guys, and I still had to go to the wedding.
I realized I'd been silent for a few minutes; Jake was starting to think about turning back.
'Thank you,' I told him in a much different tone.
'For?'
'For taking my side.' With only us three phased in, I let my guard down a bit. It was easier when it was just with Seth, but Jacob's headspace was nice when it wasn't drowned in thoughts of Bella.
'You attacked my sister; I didn't take your side.'
'You argued for letting me stay. Jacob, you've been nicer than I had any right to expect.'
I pushed through thoughts of Sue's anger, Sam's disappointment, even Kim's disgust—I didn't care for Kim from the start, but she used to be nice before my fuck-up.
'It's not about sides. They can't kick out family.' After a silent moment, he continued. 'I mean that. I don't mind having you here like I thought I would.'
I snorted. 'What a glowing commendation!'
'Don't let it get to your head.'
'Okay—if you don't let this get to yours.' I paused momentarily, letting my most secret thoughts out to the forefront. 'I think you would make a good Alpha. Not in the same way Sam does, but in your own way. You're worth following, Jacob.' I'd noticed his self-doubt and need for validation, but Jacob was a natural leader and much wiser than I imagined, so I felt obligated to let him know.
His mind went blank with surprise. It took him a second to recover enough to respond. 'Er, thanks. Not totally sure I'll be able to stop that one from going to my head, though. Where didthatcome from?'
I didn't answer right away. He followed the wordless direction of my thoughts. I was thinking about the future—about how time would be up soon, and the wedding that felt like the death of me was almost upon us, and about going to the forest—my contingency plan, should Sam decide to override Jake and banish me–I shuddered at the thought.
'I can't stay here,' Ifinally told him.
The shock shot through his legs, locking his joints. I blew past him and then put on the brakes. Slowly, I walked back to where he was frozen in place.
'You're leaving anyway?'
'I don't want to be a pain. I won't follow you guys around. You guys can stay here, do whatever you want, and I'll go where I want. You'll only have to put up with me when we're all wolves.' I paced back and forth before him, swishing my long gray tail nervously. 'And, as I'm planning on quitting as soon as I can manage it… maybe that won't be so often.' The thoughts rushed out desperately, and though Jacob wasn't technically my alpha, it felt like I was asking for permission. In my opinion, I didn't need his approval, but as I released my secret plan, I realized that if he disapproved enough, he could work his rightful Alpha voice and keep me from the future I'd dreamed up.
He didn't seem to know what to say.
'Then I'll go, too,' Seththought quietly.
I hadn't realized he'd been paying attention to us as he ran the perimeter.
'Hey, now! Seth, this isn't going to be some camping trip.' I tried to put my thoughts together so they would convince him. 'I promised I would stay for the wedding, but when… after that's over, I'm just going to go wolf. Seth, you need a purpose. You're a good kid. You're the kind of person who always has a crusade. And there's no way you're leaving La Push now. You're going to graduate from high school and do something with your life. You're going to take care of Sue. My issues aren't going to mess up your future.' Iwas the fuck-up here; Seth still stood a chance, even with the wolf gene.
'But—'
'Leah is right,' Jacobseconded.
'Of course I am. But none of that applies to me. I'm on my way out, anyway. I'll get a job somewhere away from La Push. Maybe take some courses at a community college. Get into yoga and meditation to work on my temper issues… And stay a part of the pack for the sake of my mental well-being. Jacob—you can see how that makes sense, right? I won't bother you guys; you won't bother me; everyone is happy.'
Jacob turned back and started loping slowly toward the east. 'This is a bit much to deal with, Leah. Let me think about it, 'kay?'
A few thoughts flashed through Jacob's mind, but he concealed them quickly: a scene from someone's hip at a hospital bed, a slim Jacob frantically searching around the house, the sound of a voicemail recording and a feeling of disappointment, and his sister's car pulling away. The twins had left so easily after his mother died. Because of his birthright, Jacob had responsibilities in La Push, so he knew he could never leave permanently. In some small recess of his mind, there was a little green blob who was jealous and bitter about everyone going, while he would always be stuck in the same place.
'Sure. Take your time.'
It took us longer to make the run back. Jacob wasn't trying for speed. He was trying to concentrate enough not to plow headfirst into a tree. Seth grumbled in the back of our heads, but I ignored him. He knew I was right. He wasn't going to abandon our mom. He would stay in La Push and protect the tribe as he should. But neither of them could see me doing that, and that was just plain scary to them. He wondered if I'd really thought it through or was just desperate to be free.
I didn't say anything as they chewed it over, trying to prove how easy it would be if I were just a wolf in the periphery. We ran into a herd of black-tailed deer just as the sun was coming up, brightening the clouds behind us. I sighed internally but didn't hesitate.
My lunge was clean and efficient—graceful, even. I took down the largest buck before the startled animal fully understood the danger.
Not to be outdone, Jacob swooped down on the next largest deer, snapping her neck between his jaws quickly so that she wouldn't feel unnecessary pain. He could feel my disgust warring with my hunger, and he tried to make it easier for me by letting the wolf in him have his head. He'd never lived all-wolf for a long time, but he had memories of it from his ancestors, the memories handed down from Alpha to Alpha, shown to him by Sam when he first phased. He knew how to be the animal completely, to see his way and think his way. He let the practical instincts take over, allowing me to feel it, too.
I hesitated for a second, but then, tentatively, I reached out with my mind to try and see his way. It felt bizarre—our minds were more intricately linked than ever because we were both trying to think together. Strange, but it helped. My teeth cut through the fur and skin of my kill's shoulder, tearing away a thick slab of streaming flesh. Rather than wince away as my mind wanted to, I let my wolf self react instinctively. It was kind of a numbing thing, a wild thing. It allowed me to eat in peace.
We ate together until we were both full.
'Thanks,' Itold him later as I cleaned my muzzle and paws against the wet grass. He didn't bother; it had just started to drizzle, and we had to swim the river again on our way back. ''That wasn't so bad, thinking your way.'
'You're welcome.'
Seth was dragging when we hit the perimeter. Jake told him to get some sleep; he and I would take the patrol. Seth's mind faded as he phased in our backyard moments later.
'You headed to Emily's?' I asked.
'Maybe.'
'It's hard for you to be there but hard to stay away, too. I know how that feels.'
'You know, Leah, you might want to think a little about the future and what you really want to do. Sam and Emily will still be married, and Rachel will still be human. You'll have to watch it through the pack's eyes no matter where you go.'
I thought about how to answer him. 'I know it's going to be bad for me, Jacob. I understand that—maybe better than you think. I could stay, but… it's Sam. He's all I ever wanted, or still want, and everything I can't have.'
He couldn't answer.
'I know it could be worse. At least Sam is happy. At least he's alive and well. I love him enough that I want that. I want him to have what's best for him.' Isighed. 'I just don't want to stick around to watch.'
'Do we need to talk about this?'
'I think we do. Because I want you to know that I'm going to try not to make it worse for you; hell, maybe I'll even help you out by leaving—it'll be easier for you with Rachel, at least. But I wasn't born a compassionless shrew. I used to be sort of nice, you know.'
'My memory doesn't go that far back.'
We both laughed once.
'I'm sorry about this, Leah. I'm sorry you're in pain. I'm sorry it's getting worse and not better.'
'Thanks, Jacob.'
He thought about the worse things, the black pictures in my head, while I tried to tune him out without much success. He could look at them with some distance, some perspective, and I had to admit this was helpful. I could imagine that I would be able to see it that way, too, in a few years. He saw the funny side of the daily irritation that came from hanging around with the imprints. He liked my ragging on Rachel, chuckling internally, and even running through a few witty comebacks in his head that I might have been able to work in. But then his thoughts turned serious, lingering on Rachel's face in a way that confused me.
'You know what's crazy?' Heasked.
'Well, almost everything feels crazy right now. But what do you mean?'
'You didn't get angry until you pictured Rachel and Paul's kids.'
And then suddenly, I was the pain-hardened Leah again. 'I'm a genetic dead end, Jacob.'
The vicious edge to my words left him floundering. He hadn't expected that to set me off.
'I don't understand.'
'You would if you weren't just like the rest of them. If my "female stuff"' –I thought the words with a stern, sarcastic tone—'didn't send you running for cover just like any stupid male, so you could actually pay attention to what it all means.'
'Oh.'
None of them liked to think about that stuff with me. It wasn't my favorite topic, either. Of course, he remembered my panic that first month after I joined the pack and cringed away like everyone else. Because I couldn't be pregnant—not unless some freaky immaculate shit was happening. I haven't been with anyone since Sam. And then, the months dragged on, and nothing turned into more nothing; I realized my body wasn't following the usual patterns anymore.
And he remembered the horror—what was I now? Had my body changed because I'd become a werewolf? Or had I become a werewolf because my body was wrong? The only female werewolf in the history of Forever. Was that because I wasn't as female as I thought I was?
None of them had wanted to deal with that breakdown. Obviously, it wasn't like they could empathize. They usually just cringed and allowed me my separate headspace to overthink, but otherwise watched my breakdown without a word of comfort.
'You know why Sam thinks we imprint?'
'Sure. To carry on the line.'
'Right. To make a bunch of new little werewolves. Survival of the species, genetic override. You're drawn to the person who gives you the best chance to pass on the wolf gene.'
He waited for me to tell him where I was going with this.
'Sam would've been drawn tome if I was any good for that.'
My pain was enough that he broke stride under it.
'But I'm not. There's something wrong with me. Apparently, I can't pass on the gene despite my stellar bloodlines. So, I become a freak—the girlie wolf—good for nothing else. I'm a genetic dead end, and we all know it.'
'We do not,' he argued. 'That's just Sam's theory. Imprinting happens, but we don't know why. Billy thinks it's something else.'
'I know, I know. He thinks you're imprinting to make stronger wolves because you and Sam are such humongous monsters—bigger than our grandfathers. But either way, I'm still not a candidate. I'm… I'm menopausal. I'm twenty years old, and I'm menopausal.'
'You don't know that, Leah,' he hedged. 'It's probably just the whole frozen-in-time thing. When you quit your wolf and start aging again, I'm sure things will… er… pick right back up.'
'I might think that—except that no one's imprinting on me, notwithstanding my impressive pedigree. You know,' I added thoughtfully, 'if you weren't around, Seth would probably have the best claim to being Alpha—through his blood, at least. Of course, no one would ever consider me….'
'You really want to imprint, or be imprinted on, or whichever?' Jakedemanded. 'What's wrong with going out and falling in love with a normal person, Leah? Imprinting is just another way of getting your choices taken away from you.'
'Sam, Jared, Paul… they don't seem to mind.'
'None of them have a mind of their own.'
'Did you want to imprint?'
'Hell, no!'
'That's just because you were already in love withher.That would've gone away, you know, if you'd imprinted sooner. You wouldn't have given her a second thought.'
'Do you want to forget the way you feel about Sam?'
That caught me off guard. 'That's not the point.'
'I think it is.'
'I just want the options I don't have, Jacob. Maybe, if nothing were wrong with me, I would never consider it. But being unwanted isn't exactly a new thing for me. You don't know how many times I wished I could imprint on someone. Anyone.'
'Just to break the connection,' Jacobadded for me.
'That's the funny thing about knowing you can't have something,' Isighed. 'It makes you desperate.' Was I still desperate for Sam's love? Jacob wouldn't get it unless Bella suddenly left him for the bloodsucker without a second thought.
'And… that's my limit. Right there. This conversation is over.'
'Fine.'
It wasn't enough that I'd agreed to stop. He wanted a more decisive termination than that.
'And don't think about dumping all this on Bella,' he added as he stopped running about a half mile from where he'd left his clothes. 'She's stressed about you enough.'
'What's that supposed to mean?' I growled.
I thought I'd been doing a decent job of protecting Bella from all the pack nonsense. As the frailest human I knew, some maternal instinct clawed its way up to the surface whenever I was with her.
'You're tearing her in two,' Jakeargued. 'All of this unnecessary drama—and for what? Because you're jealous? Maybe youshouldjust go wolf.'
For some reason, this hit hard coming from him, even though I'd been the one to suggest it in the first place.
'Maybe it would be more convenient if I just died, then,' I snapped.
'No, Leah, I didn't mean—'
'Whatever, Jacob.'
I phased back into a human and walked the rest of the way home.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm still fucking up, if you can believe it. Did you know you can hit rock bottom and still keep digging? I didn't think it was possible.
I know better now.
A/N: Okay, so, I realize this is, like, A Lot, so I think we should both take a breath and remember that I am small and have no money, so you can't sue me for wasting your time. Low key, I considered posting this entire chapter as its own lil novella (bree tanner got her ass kicked, too, y'all) but then the ending was super anti-climactic and I thought to make the transition into Leah's voice it would be easier to introduce something she'd wrote and then I was in WAY too deep.
TL;DR: I got a lil carried away with Paul and Rachel, then accidentally made Leah and Rachel arch-enemies. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Let she who has never gone too deep into a tertiary character's backstory cast the first stone. I'm waiting.