Chapter 34

Song for this Chapter: God Bless the Boy by Cody Johnson

Izzy's POV

Mama4Dukes, has saved my butt by being my Beta, and I can't thank her enough!

It's been a week since my dad and I have become vampires. It has its good points, and it's bad. I enjoy running and the feel of the wind that surrounds me. I miss hot showers. I don't like having to eat on a schedule like a baby. Though that's what Dad and I are to this world.

After my dad saw me in his room and smiled. I couldn't help but want to help him as he learned all that I'd been learning in the last few days. However found out quickly that when it came to meal times to stay at least twenty feet away from him.

Peter, Charlotte, and Jasper laughed when I stood next to my dad. They opened the Coleman cooler and grabbed a bag of blood for him. I was so shocked by my reaction that I hated even thinking about it, but I growled at my father.

The others laughed because it was natural for a newborn to want to protect their food source and I saw that cooler of blood as mine. Needless to say, there are now two coolers out on the back porch. 'His and Hers', Peter called them.

My dad and I both seemed to have retained most of our human memories. I'd given him back the envelope that had been given to me during his change. I kept the letter but let him keep the pictures, identification, and hand prints. When Peter gave him a wooden box to keep it in. I watched as he placed an old rusty car inside as well.

Then, we all sat around the firepit and talked for a few days. I was filled in on the days after the fight in Forks. My dad was informed of the days after my waking up.

"So you guys think that there is still something on with the Quilutes? Even now?" I was stubbing out a cigarette.

Yes, I know that as a vampire, nicotine does NOTHING for me. But it gave me something to do with my hands. Not to mention, Jasper smoked my same brand. I'd had a carton and a half when I'd been turned in Forks. In a day or so, when they taught my dad and me to hunt, I'd have to get several more.

They'd been talking about theories and reasons, but something inside of my brain was adding up.

"So y'all believe this is something more than some Ponzi scheme gone wrong?"

I remembered thinking about how I wanted to take the reservation down. At the time, I'd thought that the two sets of books were wrong, but now, after the committee meeting and all that happened afterward. I didn't know what to think.

"I remember talking to Ava, the Kickapoo medicine woman, about what had happened to me in LaPush. She was the first human I could talk to. I told her everything."

Jasper and my dad both gave me funny looks.

"See, when I first got here, to Waxahachie. I wasn't in a good way…"

"She was downright suicidal, is what she was," Peter tells it like it was.

I just shook my head. "I wouldn't go that far."

"Izzy, Charlotte and I couldn't talk while you ate as a human. At first, you slept for almost two weeks straight. You wake up and start following us around the house. You barely spoke, and when you did, it was nothing but questions. Questions about us. As a couple. It was like you were in denial about what was going on in your life, and you were distracting yourself to keep from having to feel emotions that you didn't want real answers to."

Both Jasper and Dad questioned Peter at the same time.

Yeah, that was something I was going to have to get used to. Dad wasn't happy to learn that Jasper was my mate.

Not because of his past. Not because of lying to his friends for over seventy-five years. Not because he'd heard him kill his wife. My dad was upset about the mating connection. Thinking that I'd no longer want to go and do things with him.

The only two guys Dad had even seen me with were Edward, a controlling, manipulative Asshole. And Jacob, again, was someone who wanted total control and then proved over the years just how manipulative he truly was.

To be honest. I don't believe either my dad or I had ever been in a good, honest, healthy relationship. He, with Mom or Sue. Me with Asshole #1 or Asshole #2.

So when Jasper walked up to Dad and shook his hand. Calling me his mate. My dad wasn't thrilled. Though they've worked most of that out.

Jasper and I had only talked briefly a couple of times about our bond. He'd said that he and I both needed to take our time. We need to learn about each other and take things slowly. He didn't want to hamper my newborn brain with more than he thought I could and couldn't handle. And I didn't want to control his freedom so soon after receiving it.

So we decided to take our time and just be. We're vampires; it's not like we don't have all the time in the world.

Anyway….

"What do you mean, Peter?" It was my dad. His eyebrows were furrowed, worry clearing ringing through his voice.

"There are several things that come to mind. Charli..."

Yep. I had a few thousand dollars in the Lee Jar. I didn't know what I was going to do with it, but it was there.

"We couldn't talk about hard things with her while she ate. Or she'd put down her food and never finish it. If we'd tried to talk to her about some of the experiences she'd faced as she ran for her life. She'd clam up tighter than a tick. We believe that is all about control for Izzy."

"She'd had no control over anything in life up to that point. You and her mom got her through to grade school, but some traumas happened to her even before she got to you in Forks. Living a life with no rules. Trauma"

I watched as my dad nodded his head in response.

"Then she falls for a vampire, not knowing fully what he was at the time. After finding out, she's tracked by another vampire. She was beaten and bit. Trauma."

Jasper growled. He was probably thinking about how I'd ditched him and Alice.

"Then they dump her like yesterday's trash. Trauma."

"That was planned," Jasper said. "Alice knew about the papercut and all that would follow before it even happened. Had to stand with the bitch afterward while she felt nothing but glee. I wanted to end her then."

"Then, for it all to happen a second time with people she'd known most of her life, the pack. Trauma."

"Renee. Major trauma."

"Running for over eighteen months with no one she could call for help. Add on the venom that was coursing through her veins."

"By the time she got to us, she'd perfected the badass bitch face."

"Hey! That's not true."

"I know that's a lie!" said Dad.

Total and complete authority in his voice. I'd never heard him stand so firm before.

I watched as the three other vampires all seemed to pass a look between themselves.

"Are you guys keeping secrets from us?" I asked.

"NO!" Jasper objected.

"Not at all, sug." Char was laying it on thick.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Peter outright lied through his very sharp teeth.

"WHAT ARE YOU HOLDING BACK?" My dad was up and out of his seat.

As I said, we hadn't had any vampire meltdowns or the frenzy, as the others called it. But Dad was damn close to it at the moment. We'd both been weaning off of the bagged blood. Maybe we'd started doing that too early?

"My name is Steve!" yelled Peter. I was at a total loss for what was going on.

"Lie." My dad said.

"My sister's name was Kathy." Char's sister's name was Martha, not Kathy.

"Lie." My dad said.

Jasper tapped my shoulder and shook his head at me. He had a smile on his face, but he didn't want me to interrupt.

"I knew it! I knew it!" Suddenly, Peter was dancing around in the backyard.

My dad and I looked at each other, thinking that Pete had lost his ever-loving mind.

"You baked for 68 hours, my friend! That was not normal. Remember, the longer you bake, the stronger your vampire gift is..."

He was punching Jasper in the arm. "I knew it!" Repeatedly. "I knew it!" When I growled at him, he finally stopped and started talking.

"You're a vampire lie detector, Chh….Lee."

"Jasper, wasn't there another one of those somewhere?"

"Ireland Cover. Maggie."

"Lee, you are going to be handy around here. When my husband tells me a lie, you'll have to let me know. We'll come up with a strategy." Charlotte was planning inside her head already. I knew that look very well.

"A lie detector?" my dad seemed to be thinking of possible uses for his newfound gift.

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