Fair warning Leah is a bit rude and crude in this chapter. Let's talk about "leach" sex baby.

Chapter 36

"You fucking bitch!" Leah's voice burst from behind the privacy screen. Bella's head whipped in her direction. She looked away from Leah trying to calculate her chances of finding Edward. "And to think, I wasn't verbally abusive to your leach. For you!" Bella looked back toward the screen. "The bitch that ditched me."

She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath in and letting it out slowly. She made a choice: her heart wanted to protest, but not as much as she thought it should. "Leah," she sighed, making her way over to her friend. "I'm sorry. I just…" her words cut off when she saw the strange contraption that was literally screwed into Leah's flesh. "Holy crow!"

"Yeah, the doc said they would open up a normie and put internal screws and braces in there bones, but lucky me, my skin keeps mending back together, the painkillers keep wearing off and why put something in my body forever when I can just lay here like this for three days and probably be all healed. Plus he doesn't know if it will affect my phasing."

Bella continued to stand there in shock.

"Bitch, are you going to just stand there gaping at me, or are you going to come sit down so I can continue to yell at you."

Bella snapped her mouth shut and went to sit in the chair by Leah's… Bed? She didn't know what to call it. It had the base of a hospital bed but the rest? If laid flat it might be described as a bed frame or metal box spring with extra support beams, But this things sides rounded up in a shallow cradle that perfectly conformed to Leah's body. There were two bars that came up around the top of Leah's hips. Through two holes in her hospital gown you could see where the bars were screwed into her hip bones. Two more bars came up and screwed into her shoulders. What looked like a metal cap was screwed into her head preventing her from moving.

"Good, now I can yell at you properly." Leah shifted her eyes toward Bella. "Bitch how dare you leave me down here with nothing to listen to but his snores" she shifted her eyes to indicate Embry. "And you upstairs getting hot and heavy with your leach… cold and frosty?"

"Leah, that's disgusting!"

"I agree one hundred percent. That shit was nasty… ah, Down and dirty!"

"Leah!"

"Let me ask you, are you ever afraid that you'll get frostbite on your lady bits? Because I gotta tell you whenever one of them touches my bare skin I'm afraid I'm going to lose a limb."

Bella's eyes opened wide and a strange "ha," sound escaped her lips.

"Seriously girly. Inquiring minds want to know."

"Leah, we don't… we haven't… I'm still a virgin! He says it's too dangerous"

"Well no shit. But you two do other things."

Silence.

"Right?"

Silence.

"Bella?"

"Well, we kiss."

"All that noise was just kissing?" Leah's eyebrows rose. "Okay, that combustion comment you made is making a little more sense now."

"Ugh." Bella covered her face. "Leah. stop."

"Stop! But I've got questions about Vamp anatomy… that I am just now realizing you won't be able to answer.

I wonder if the leeches have a sex-ed class. 'How to boink with no blood flow.' Hey, do you think they have a set time to smash or do you think they just keep going until they get bored."

"Leah, please stop. Please."

"Fine, you prude." Leah teased. "If not leech sex, what do you want to talk about?"

"How about this contraption you're in."

"Yeah, it's gnarly right."

"Yeah, where do you think they got it from?"

"The big guy made it. Did you know he was a welder?"

"Emmett? No, I mean I know he worked on the Railroad, but I always just pictured him with one of those big hammer things smacking those long pointy things into the track."

"Wow, your knowledge and vocabulary of tools and how those tools are used is vast." Leah jeered. "Wait, seriously? He worked on the Railroad. Like he helped build it."

"Yeah, but this thing looks like a medieval torture device."

"Feels like one too." Leah grimaced.

Charlie burst through the front door. "Bell's." he bellowed.

"Over here Char… dad."

"Oh good you're awake." He said, coming around the screen. "Leah, are you feeling any better?"

"I can't really tell, you know with the bone piercing bolts still drilled into me."

Charlie cringed. "Yeah, I guess not. Shouldn't one of the boys be here with you?" A loud snore came from the bed next to hers. "A conscious one." He corrected.

"No, I'm okay, they were annoying me so I kicked them out."

"Well, shouldn't someone be here? I mean if you need something it's not like you could get it yourself."

"I'm here." Bella said huffily.

"You have to come home."

"Oh, come on dad, please let me stay. Leah needs me."

Charlie shook his head stubbornly, "You have school in the morning."

"Are you really going to make me go to school?"

"Yes!"

"But."

"It's fine." Leah interrupted. "I'm sure someone will show up soon."

Charlie huffed a sigh. "I'm going to take a look around. See if I can find someone." He glanced up the stairs.

"They're outside somewhere." Leah told him.

He nodded and walked out the door.

"Boys? Who was here? When did they leave?" Bella winced, afraid of what they might have heard.

"Jared and Seth. Don't worry. I shooed them away before all the noise. Unfortunately there was no saving you from the humiliation of you attempting to seduce the leach into forgetting about you and Jacob's umm… Anyway, I thought they would be more useful patrolling the rez." Leah frowned.

Bella's embarrassment quickly ebbed away when she saw the other girl's serious concern.

"What is it?" She had the feeling she was being kept in the dark… again.

"Quil hasn't been able to phase since that fucking leach bit him."

"Quil was bit?!"

"Yeah, and so was Embry. He doesn't seem to be healing. Not like a wolf." Bella saw the shine of tears in her eyes before she quickly wiped them away. "I'm scared, Bella. What if the bites killed their wolves."

"Could that happen?"

"I don't know. The only thing giving us any hope, is Jake is still really weak and hasn't been able to phase either."

"Why would that give anyone hope?!" Just the memory of Jacob's deathly appearance was too much. Bella could feel the dread set in.

"Because he wasn't bit. He just lost a lot of blood and doctor fang thinks he will be fine with some rest. That the blood loss is what is preventing them from phasing."

Bella's whimper caught Leah's attention. Recognizing Bella's panic she quickly changed the subject. "Did you just almost call your dad Charlie?"

Blinking, Bella let out an embarrassed laugh. "Yeah. I slip sometimes."

"How? I mean I don't know anyone else that accidentally calls their parents by their first name."

"Just a habit I guess, whenever Renee and I talked about him we would call him Charlie."

"Renee?"

"My Mom."

Leah's brow wrinkled. "Does your dad refer to your mom as Renee?"

"No, he says your mom."

"But you call her Renee?"

"Yeah, um, sometimes. Um, only when she would get distracted and not hear me calling her or she would get extra stubborn in one of her more outlandish schemes, until I called her out by name."

"Schemes?"

"You know, giving away all our worldly possessions to charity because someone needed them more than we did. Planning and paying for a skydiving trip when she's deathly afraid of heights. Using all our grocery money on protection crystals because a psychic told her the evil spirits were going to get us."

"Wow," Leah blinked. "your mom sounds…"

"Hairbrained." Bella suggested.

"Sure, that."

Charlie soon came back in with Carlisle, Emmett and Rosalie. "Oh, Hi." Bella greeted the blond.

Rosalie pressed her lips together before saying a curt. "Hello."

"Is everything okay in Alaska?"

"It's fine." She said shortly.

"That's great," Charlie announced gruffly. "Bella, let's go."

"But where is Edwa…"

"Now!" Her father interrupted impatiently.

"He's just seeing Alice off." Carlisle assured.

"Where is Alice…"

"I said now, Bella."

Frowning at her fathers inpatients she said a quick goodbye to everyone and followed him out the door. Putting her seatbelt on, she said. "I don't know what your rush is but you didn't have to be so rude."

"You're right." Bella's mouth fell open. "I'm sorry. I'm just exhausted and want to go home. The stress of the past few days and the lack of sleep is making me cranky."

Bella really looked at her father for the first time in days. He looked older; there were gray hairs and wrinkles she hadn't noticed before. His skin was sallow and he had deep purple circles under his eyes.

"I'm sorry dad, I didn't realize… When we get home you can relax and I'll make you something good to eat."

He shook his head. "Worry about feeding yourself. I'm going straight upstairs and passing out. That doesn't mean you invite your boyfriend in!"

"I won't." She reluctantly promised.

Having no appetite Bella went straight to her room as well. She tried to read but she just couldn't concentrate. Putting on music she started to clean and organize everything in her room. It was after three in the morning when she ran out of things to do. She considered scrubbing and organizing the rest of her house when there was a knock at her window.

"Edward," she breathed.