Paul.
It killed me to leave her that night.
She was all smiles and sweet laughter around the fire, her dainty little fingers clutching the neck of a cider bottle.
Rosy cheeks, satin legs glistening in the light of the fire, her glossy hair tumbling down her back when Josie pulled her hair tie – it physically hurts me how perfect she is. Soft and delicate, meanwhile I'm like twisted, jagged metal.
How can she be mine? How is that fair to her?
For hours she wandered back and forth between the girls and me, asking me questions about my life and my interests before floating off again and smiling at me from the other side of the fire.
She was an endless list of curiosities.
When I had to leave for patrol and leave her in the care of my brothers, it took every fucking ounce of my strength to do it.
I'm going fucking crazy trying to figure out how to get closer to her without destroying her in the process. I don't wanna have to scare the fuck out of her before she can know what we are, but I don't think there's an easy way to tell anyone that you can shift into a giant, vampire-killing wolf.
Jared's been so annoyed with me thinking about it every night, but he had it easy with Kim. He could've told her he eats raw cow organs for breakfast and she would've had a fucking butcher knife ready the next morning. Nothing freaks that girl out. But I get the feeling Indie might be a little more delicate than that. I mean, none of us rez kids had the best childhoods, but none of us had a sadistic vampire stalker either.
I think that shit would scar anyone.
Every time I pass Embry and Josie's place to check up on her, she's always in the window staring out into the trees. I know she can't see me when I'm out there, but sometimes she looks directly at me and I can see that her eyes are all tired and puffy. But she never lets them close – or hardly ever does.
"Hey, Paul. You okay?" Em walks into the kitchen where I'm sitting at the table, watching the clock. Her belly is bigger than ever with just three months left to go. I gotta get my place finished so they can set the room I'm using up for the baby.
I push the saltshaker around with my finger aimlessly. "You think she'll bail if we tell her?"
She opens the fridge and starts gathering different ingredients. By the looks of it, she's gonna make some kind of stir fry. My stomach automatically growls.
"Indie?" she asks for clarification – not that she needs it.
"Yeah."
"I don't think so."
I guess that's a little reassuring. "I just don't want to be the next monster in her life."
Em pauses and looks over at me, brows pulled together. "You are not a monster, Paul."
But I am.
Out of all the guys, I'm the quickest to snap. The first to anger. The only one that still can't control my phasing 98% of the time.
"I know what you're thinking. Don't let your brothers belittle you because you feel things more strongly than they do."
She always knows exactly what to say.
"Thanks, Em," I say with a half-smile.
She smiles back and continues cooking.
When she's done, she splits the food into two bowls and hands me the larger one. We eat mostly in silence and then I do the dishes while she wipes down the stove. After that, I change into a pair of basketball shorts and an old t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off.
Indie's shift ends in fifteen minutes.
I told her I would take her to the whales and I plan to deliver.
Leah groans and rolls her eyes the second I walk into the shop. "She's in the back," she says, thumbing over her shoulder. "Baking away like a fairy princess and snorting sugar like cocaine."
"I heard that!" Indie yells from the back room.
My stomach rolls because I need to see her right now.
She walks out a minute later, hair tied up in a messy bun and not a speck of makeup on her face, and she's still the most beautiful damn thing I've ever seen.
"Loverboy is here for you," Leah mumbles, uninterested, while flipping through a magazine.
I almost talk shit back to her, but Indie pauses mid-step and flashes me that gorgeous smile and I completely forget the insult I was about to deliver.
"Hey," I say dumbly. "I thought I could take you up to try and catch some whales. If you're not busy."
"Really?" Her eyes light up. "I'm not busy!"
Leah makes a gagging sound and points at the clock. "Hey, you still have three minutes left."
Indie laughs. "Just enough time to whip up a drink to survive the heat." She looks over at me and tilts her head. "Do you want one?"
I shake my head a little. "Actually, we gotta hike up, so you might wanna change before we leave." As much as I love the skinny jeans clinging to those bangin' legs, shorts would be even better.
"Can we stop by Josie's then?" She pulls a carton of almond milk from the fridge and pours it over ice, dumping some kind of green powder into the cup before stirring it and putting a lid on. Then, she unties her apron and hangs it over the hook on the back door.
"Yeah, of course."
Leah wiggles her fingers – and rolls her eyes again – at us as we leave. I flip her off when Indie isn't looking and we both crack a smile.
She hates when I say it, but she's a good bro. And she's way more tolerable now that I don't have to hear her thoughts. At first, I was disgusted that she joined Jake's pack to help guard the bloodsuckers, but once I realized she still hates them just as much as I do, and that she only left to protect Seth, I understood where she was coming from.
Loyalty is something she and I have in common.
It was torture for everyone having her in the pack anyways. Not because she's a girl, but because the history between her and Sam was too much, and being tied to him like that was causing her to lash out. And if anyone knows anything about lashing out, it's me.
Indie and I head to Josie's and when we get there, there's a brown package on the doorstep that she scoops up and checks the tag on. She holds it up with a half-smile. "I caved and got a phone," she says. "Want to wait inside while I change?"
I've been in Embry and Josie's place a hundred times before, but the second I walk through that door it immediately feels different. I can smell Indiana on the air – that intoxicating, warm cherry-almond scent.
Pulling the package apart, she takes the phone and charger out and plugs it into the wall. "I'll go change really quick."
"Okay."
Once she's up in the loft, I can hear her rustling around and it takes a lot of willpower not to imagine what she looks like naked. My basketball shorts wouldn't do much to hide what I think of that.
She comes down a minute later in a tiny pair of shorts and a loose shirt with some running shoes on. When she checks the phone, it still hasn't charged enough to turn on.
"I'll set it up later, but you have to take pictures if we see any whales," she mumbles, turning and digging through the cupboards for a water bottle. "I can only find one, but we can share it?"
God, this girl.
Freshly filled water bottle clutched in one hand and her drink in the other, we finally get going to the trail, walking at a comfortable pace next to each other.
"How far away is it?" she asks, stepping over a turned up tree root.
"This spot is the closest one," I reply. "Maybe fifteen minutes?" If we hold this pace.
We reach the incline to the trail pretty quickly. It's worn down from all of the foot traffic which makes it the easiest and most used trail for whale watching. But it's kind of a boring hike, to be honest, compared to the others, so I try to strike up a conversation.
"How'd the rest of the party go last week?"
She laughs and takes a drink from her drink cup. "Well," she starts with a smile, "Josie was hammered. Beyond hammered, actually. I tried to tell her after the sixth shot that she should probably slow down, but she's the most stubborn person I've ever met."
I snort. "Sounds about right. She and Embry are polar opposites. He's the quietest person I know."
"Except when he snores," she jokes.
"Is that why you have trouble sleeping?" The words come out without even thinking. I hold my breath and hope she'll let it slide.
Another smile graces those pretty lips of hers. "It doesn't make it any easier, that's for sure." She sighs and puts the water bottle against her neck. "Ugh, it's so hot already. I thought Washington was supposed to be rainy and cold."
It's a solid eighty-five degrees out, and this trail in particular doesn't have a lot of shade. I can see the skin on the side of her neck glistening with sweat already, and we still have a little bit to go before the viewpoint where we can catch a breeze.
I reach back and tug off my shirt, then hold my hand out for the water bottle. She gives it to me, I dump some of it on my shirt, and then I hang it over the back of her neck.
"There. To cool you off a little bit."
She smiles and takes the water bottle back with a slight spring in her step.
We talk about sports for the last ten minutes of the hike, brought on by me asking if she'll be playing softball at Quileute Days this weekend. She used to be a ballerina, and her eyes go all soft with nostalgia when she tells me about it. I wanna ask her why she stopped, but I don't think we're there yet, so I tell her about doing martial arts and boxing – and playing baseball – when I was growing up.
Proud shortstop, here.
Thankfully, there's no one at the viewpoint when we get there, so the bench is free. I plop down but she walks right up to the ledge – a little too close for my comfort – and looks out over the span of ocean in front of us.
"Wow," her voice is soft and I probably would've missed it in the wind if it weren't for the wolf ears.
I reach out and grab the hem of her shirt, tugging her back a little. She takes a few steps away from the ledge and looks at me with a raised brow.
"You were worrying me standing that close," I laugh quietly.
Humming quietly, she smiles and eventually sits down next to me, unscrewing the water bottle for a drink. She hands it to me when she's finished.
"Thanks," I mutter, bringing the bottle to my lips. A stray drop rolls down my jaw and I feel it travel down to my chest. Thank god Josie isn't here to crack a dog joke cuz I know for a fact she would take full advantage of it.
I hand the bottle back to Indie and spread my arms out along the back of the bench. "And now we wait."
"I've never seen whales in real life." She sounds like a little kid, all excited like she's about to hit a toy store for the first time. There's a lot of passion to her.
As hot as this fucking sun is beating down on us, if we see a single spout it'll be worth it to witness her excitement – to be the one to make that experience possible. I'm praying to the gods the whales will be passing through today.
"It's never long enough when you do see them," I tell her, inhaling her scent on the breeze. "But it's worth it."
Like being around her – never long enough, but every second is worth it.
After three hours of miscellaneous conversation and wondering if that wave out in the distance was actually a whale footprint or not, the heat ends up being too unbearable to sit in any longer. I can tell she's bummed when we start the trek back down, but I'm already planning what spot to hike to next time and even considering tapping into the whale tour boat radios for tips.
We hit the pavement in town quick enough. The closest place with a trashcan for her empty drink cup is Sue Clearwater's little flower shop. She opened it shortly after Harry died. He'd never admit it, but he was a garden guy under all that hunting and fishing. Their yard has always been the best landscaped on the rez since I can remember.
Sue's outside gathering up different potted flowers, her hair split in two braids. She smiles when she sees us. "Hi Paul, hi Indie. You two should get inside soon. There's a storm on the way."
In that second, I realize my rookie mistake.
A fucking storm. Of course.
"Thanks, Sue. Guess we finished our hike just in time."
We toss the cup and wave to her as we head back in the direction of Josie's.
"I know why we didn't see any whales," I tell her, swinging my shirt around. "T'ist'ilal."
Her eyebrows scrunch together. "What?"
"The storm. The whales disappear because of T'ist'ilal. It's a legend of our tribe. We can watch the storm and I can tell you it, if you want?"
Her eyes glitter in the sunlight when she looks up at me. "Really? Okay."
"There's a great view from my roof. I've got a clear tent I can set up."
She starts to bounce on her feet as we walk. "Do you mind if I shower and change first? Kinda sweaty."
I chuckle. "Yeah, me too." I like the sheepish look on her face.
We pass through the coffee shop and the resort to the paved trail back to Josie's. It's still hot as hell out, but the shade of the trees help, and I can feel the moisture starting to gather in the air.
We're quiet on this walk.
I hook my twisted shirt over my shoulder and pull up on my shorts, glancing out of the corner of my eye only to catch her looking back at me. We both laugh awkwardly as we come up to the house.
Josie is on the porch. I can hear the shower running inside and the stereo is on, but not loud enough to drown out Embry's off-tune singing.
"See any whales?" Josie asks.
Indie shakes her head and pouts.
"I'll come back in an hour?" I press my hand gently between her shoulder blades for a second. She feels so delicate under my touch.
She turns her head and smiles at me again. I don't know if I'll ever stop wanting to fall to my knees when I see that smile or not. This imprinting shit is emotionally taxing.
"Okay, sounds good."
I wave at Josie and can hear her asking for details as I walk off to shower and get things ready. My lips spread into a smirk when I hear her tell Indie that the thunderstorm is a good excuse to snuggle up to me.
A guy can hope, right?
The tent is set up, the camping mattress is unrolled on the platform, and I piled a bunch of pillows up against the backboard so it looks more like a couch than a bed. And I stuck a cooler on the end of the frame so there's no room to actually lay down anyways. Emily suggested it. Said it would look too much like I was expecting to get lucky if I set it up too nice.
I put on a pair of sweats and a hoodie – after I've showered – and head back over to Josie's to get Indie. I can see her sitting on the couch through the window, and she hops up when she sees me.
She steps outside dressed in loungewear; a pair of cuffed sweats – the same pair she wore the day I met her, I think – and a plain, long sleeve shirt. No way she'll be warm enough in that, but I got blankets.
"Hey," she starts with a grin. On top of her already light attire, she's wearing flip-flops. I think she's underestimating how cold it can get here outside at night.
I smile back at her and jerk my head in the direction we're gonna go. "Ready for T'ist'ilal?"
She laughs. "You keep saying that. Is it a person?"
Shaking my head, I start leading in the direction of my house, hands shoved in my pockets. "No questions. It'll ruin the legend," I tell her.
The sun is just barely still shining when we get there. The darkening clouds have pretty much blocked out most of its light.
I unlock the front door and hold it open for her. Right inside the door, there's a lantern that I grab and switch on. Jesse's supposed to come down soon to finally get the electricity running, but until then I've got this shitty little lantern.
It's pitch black apart from the dim light outside and what little light the lantern produces. I watch her run her fingers along the walls and over the countertops, checking for signs of approval or judgements in her body language.
"This is so cool, Paul. I can't believe you built this whole house."
Pride swells in my chest. "You'll have to come see it once it actually has lights. I'll give you a tour."
We head upstairs and onto the small porch off the master. I built a ladder directly into the wall when the house was going up. It's a little sketchy because it's so steep, but it does the job.
Indie looks around and then points at the ladder. "Up there?" she asks, as if I'm crazy.
"I'll be right behind you to make sure you don't fall."
Taking a deep breath, she grips the first step she can reach and pauses. "I know it probably doesn't seem like it after I was standing on the cliff edge earlier, but I'm actually really afraid of heights."
The urge to protect her suddenly takes over. I step in close behind her and curl my hands around the edges of the ladder, my chest brushing against her back. "I won't let you fall," I tell her softly.
There's a shiver in her breath that I find extremely cute.
Slowly but surely, we work our way up the ladder, her tiny body encased between me and the wall. When we reach the top, I grab the edge of the roof off to the side and pull myself up, then reach down for her.
She weighs practically nothing when I hoist her up and onto her shaky legs. Her hands stay wrapped tight around my arm until we move inside the tent and she's safely seated on the platform. Then, she lets out a prolonged exhale.
Smirking, I open up the cooler and offer her a cider. Didn't really think about cold drinks on a cold night, but it's too late now. I didn't have very long to plan.
"Well, since my hands and legs are numb anyways," she says with a laugh, and I pop the top off with my teeth and hand it over to her.
I grab a beer for myself and sit on the edge of the platform. "You cold?" I ask, handing her a blanket.
She unwraps it quickly and drapes it around her shoulders. "I can't believe you sleep up here sometimes," she shudders. "Aren't you worried you'll fall off?"
It's not like I can tell her that even if I did fall, I would heal up in a few hours. I just shrug and shake my head. "I pretty much sleep like a rock. Barely even move." Which is true, because I'm usually so fucking exhausted that almost nothing can wake me up.
"Lucky," she laughs quietly.
I frown and take a drink of my beer. Even now, though she seems full of energy, she looks exhausted. Every protective bone in my body wants to pull her into my arms and lull her to sleep.
Rain starts to patter softly against the tent.
"You gotta get some sleep tonight. Quileute Days starts bright and early tomorrow."
"Yeah, and I have to work the booth in the morning."
"Ms. C is making you work?"
She takes a drink of her cider and pulls the blanket a little tighter. "It's okay. Everyone is going to be doing something, anyways."
"I'm not." Okay, that came out more desperate than intended. "Until the softball game, anyways. You gotta take at least an hour or two to go through the booths. I'll come rescue you by noon."
She smiles and pushes a loose piece of hair behind her ear. Her hair is almost luminous in this lighting, piled up in another messy bun after her shower. I wonder if it's as soft as it looks.
The first crack of thunder suddenly hits right overhead, like a gunshot into the sky, and she nearly jumps right out of her seat. Her cider falls, but luckily with the neck over the roof, so it doesn't spill on the mattress.
"Shit, I'm so sorry!" She reaches quickly for the bottle and uprights it, setting it on the cooler. Her hand covers her pounding heart – I can hear it from here – and she laughs. "It's so much louder when you're out in the middle of it."
I feel bad initially, but now I can't stop thinking about how cute she is. "Sorry, I guess I should've warned you."
The lightning flashes a few seconds later, lighting the sky up for a brief moment. Then, the rain starts pouring in buckets – so dense it makes the tent look like we're going through a car wash.
I love the rain.
Everything about it; the smell, the feel of it on my skin, the repetitive sound of the drops hitting the roof. It's soothing, and I remember it being a comfort to me when I was a kid and it was all I had.
Storms in La Push are some of the best.
"Can we get struck by lighting up here?" Indie asks warily. Her chin is tilted to the sky, teeth chattering as she watches the rain pelt the tent.
The temperature has already dropped several degrees with the arrival of the storm. I shrug out of my hoodie and hold it out to her.
She looks at me, confused. "It's freezing out. You don't even have a shirt on!" she scolds.
"I don't get cold."
She just stares at me as I hold it out further.
"I promise. Here."
Reluctantly, she takes the hoodie and pulls it on. It practically drowns her with how big it is on her, but it does the trick because she stops shivering as much. She carefully takes her drink back into her hands and I kill my beer, tossing the bottle into the cooler and grabbing another one.
"I feel like we're going to fall off the roof," she admits, scooting inward while looking off into the dark. I can still hear the pounding of her heart.
I try not to chuckle. "I sleep up here all the time. This won't break," I tell her, slapping the side of the platform.
Her brows raise at me. "But that's just you. Now it's you, me, the cooler, all these heavy blankets, and the pounds of rain sitting on top of the tent."
"Do you have that little faith in my carpentry capabilities?" I joke.
There's a blank look on her face.
Holy shit. She does.
Rolling my eyes playfully, I prop my back against the backboard and pat my leg, leaving space for her to sit between them. "Alright, c'mere then," I tell her. "If the roof breaks, we can die together."
It takes less than five seconds for her to crawl over and settle between them, sinking back against my chest with the hoodie bunched up around her mouth. My wolf purrs with approval. The scent of her freshly washed hair swirls on the air and I try to be subtle about the way I inhale it. It's like sniffing sharpies. The way she smells is just as perfect as the rest of her.
"The game plan is to fall on top of you and use you as a cushion," she jokes. "Then, only one of us has to die."
She's too much.
With the next blast of thunder, she barely jumps – just looks up into the sky to catch the streak of lightning.
"T'ist'ilal is the Thunderbird," I tell her, looking up into the sky with her. "A giant bird that lives in the Olympic mountain range. He hunting tonight – whales."
She shivers, but I don't know if it's the cold or the legend. I curl my arm around her waist and she relaxes into me.
"Whales?" she repeats.
"His claws are big enough to catch and carry whales. Every time he flaps his wings, it makes the thunder, and every time he blinks, it makes the lightning flash."
Her head tilts back to look at me accusingly. "Are you trying to scare me?"
I laugh and push her forward playfully with my chest. "I'm trying to share my culture with you. Just watch, tomorrow they'll find whale remains somewhere along the coast."
"It doesn't eat the whole thing?"
"He leaves parts for the scavengers."
She continues to eye me warily, but eventually turns back to the sky.
Another crack of thunder.
Three bolts of lightning in the clouds.
"What other legends can you tell me?"
Grabbing an extra pillow, I stuff it behind my neck and rest my head, eyes falling shut.
I tell her different stories about Raven and a few legends from my mom's tribe, the Purépecha, and before I know it she's fast asleep, her breathing soft and slow. The thunder stopped maybe an hour ago, and all that's left of the storm is a gentle rainfall.
Part of me thinks I should wake her up and get her home, but the other part of me – the bigger part – wants to enjoy this a little longer. I tighten my arm around her waist and flick the lantern off with my free hand.
Somewhere along the line of counting her heartbeats and matching them with mine, I pass out, and it feels like my eyes have only been shut for seconds when Indie suddenly jolts awake and frantically starts looking around.
"Hey, you're okay," I try and sooth her, reaching for her hand. She lets out a deep breath and grips my fingers. Checking my phone, I see it's nearly four in the morning. "Damn, it's late. Emily's is closest, do you want to go there or home?"
She lets out another deep breath. "Emily's is fine. I can wait on the couch."
I chuckle. "C'mon, I'm more of a gentleman than that. You can have my room."
She smiles and moves so I can swing my legs over the edge of the platform.
It takes some time, but we manage to safely make it down the ladder without any casualties and start running to Emily's. Even though it's not raining that hard, we still end up drenched and are dripping from head to toe by the time we get there. I hold open the back door for her and lead her through the pitch black house to the bathroom.
"You should take a shower and warm up so you don't get sick," I tell her, handing over a towel to her shaking hands and spreading another on the floor. "I'll put some dry clothes right outside the door for you."
She pulls off the hoodie and plops it into the sink with a laugh. "Sorry I freaked out back there," she says gently. "I forgot where I was for a second."
I just smile and explain to her that you have to twist the hot water knob way further than you'd expect for it to get warm. Pulling the door shut behind me, I step out of my sweats and quickly run them to the laundry room. I grab a fresh set of sheets from the linen closet and switch over my bed before putting on a t-shirt and some shorts to sleep in. Then, I grab a pair of sweats and a shirt for her and leave them on the end table outside the door.
Indie comes out a little while later as I'm tossing a pillow and blanket on the couch. There's color in her skin again and she's not shivering anymore. "Thank you," she says quietly.
Walking over, I push open the door to my room and nod at the bed. "I put new sheets on for you," I tell her. "You should try and get some sleep."
She doesn't fight me this time, just smiles and briefly wraps her arms around my neck in a short hug before walking into my room. I watch her look around, noting how quiet she is on her feet and how she seems to float on air rather than walk. I bet that's the ballerina in her.
"Paul?"
"Huh?" I snap back into reality and realize she's looking at me.
"I said I hope you sleep well."
I muster up the warmest smile I can. "You too, Indiana."
A/N: 50 points to whoever guesses what drink Indiana was making! :p I hope everyone liked this chapter. Again, this is just a work of fiction, and I'm not Native American, but I tried to pull as much information from the internet as I could for this chapter. Paul is very proud of his heritage, so he would want to share things like that with her.
Also, just a random fact, I've made Paul 3/4 Quileute and 1/4 Purepecha on his mom's side (since dreamy Alex Meraz is Purepecha) excuse me while I go drool. Anyways, once again I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter! The next chapter is my favorite so far!