Chapter 48: Secrets, Exposed
After patching Kit up and administering a tetanus jab, Carlisle informed Louisa that there would be a family meeting that evening, and her presence was required. His tone gave her no indication of his mood, and Louisa spent the intervening time simultaneously dreading and desperately wishing for Mrs Mallory to return home. She tried to put her frenetic energy to good use by cleaning up the wreckage in the kitchen and Kit's room, but even that monumental task wasn't enough to quell her anxiety.
Are you angry? Kit signed for the tenth time since Carlisle left.
Louisa shook her head and paused from sweeping long enough to kiss Kit's forehead. She had long since stopped giving her an actual reply; she didn't want Kit to see how badly her fingers trembled.
However, her fear turned to fury when Mrs Mallory finally returned home and shoved two hundred dollars into her hand.
"I'm sorry for making you wait," Mrs Mallory said, sounding not very sorry at all when she finally returned home from work, still wearing her scrubs from the dentist's office where she worked. "I suppose this will be the last time we see you?"
Louisa frowned, leaning the broom against the kitchen table. "Are you sacking me?"
Mrs Mallory stared at Louisa as if she had grown a second head. "You actually want to stay?"
A part of her wanted to shout that no, she very much never wanted to step in this cursed house ever again. She wanted to take the money and run and never look back. But even as she thought this, she knew she could never leave. Kit needed her.
"I have no intention of quitting," Louisa said slowly. "But I think, going forward, I deserve to know what I'm getting myself into."
Mrs Mallory considered this for a moment. "I'll have to speak with my husband," Mrs Mallory said.
Louisa's temper spiked. After all that she had been through, had witnessed and gone along with, the best she was getting was, 'We'll consider it?' She wanted to scream at the injustice of it all. She'd nearly died less than two hours ago. She had half a mind to quit right then and there.
A text alert broke through the angry haze, and Louisa looked down at her phone. On her screen were three words from Alice.
Think of Kit.
With self-control she didn't know she possessed, Louisa managed to rein in her temper as Alice's instructions echoed in her skull. Shouting obscenities at Mrs Mallory might make her feel better, but it would only get her fired. And if she was fired, she couldn't see Kit.
"Who is that?" Mrs Mallory asked, glaring down at Louisa's mobile. "We told you that you can't tell anyone—"
"It's Katie Hyde," Louisa lied. She forced herself to roll her eyes. "She's bugging me about Homecoming again."
"Homecoming?" Mrs Mallory repeated, looking thoroughly off balance by the change in conversation.
Louisa hummed and, in a spur-of-the-moment decision, texted Alice the kitchen video before deleting the conversation. "I'm on the homecoming committee again this year."
"I—yes, of course," Mrs Mallory said. "That text you sent me earlier…"
"I deleted the video, see?" Louisa said, handing her mobile over to Mrs Mallory. "And I deleted it from our conversation too."
Mrs Mallory looked up at Louisa with wide eyes. "You can do that?"
Louisa thought a great many unkind things about Mrs Mallory but showed her how to edit text message conversations from her end nonetheless. She was immensely grateful that Mrs Mallory didn't seem tech-savvy, or else she would've noticed how the timestamps on Louisa's phone didn't add up.
With that done (and unwilling to stick around, lest Mrs Mallory start combing through all of Louisa's text messages), Louisa gathered her belongings and prepared to depart. Before she left, she slipped up the stairs to Kit's room, finding the girl sitting in the middle of her freshly made bed.
I'll see you tomorrow, Louisa signed to Kit.
Kit gave her a distrustful look. Raising a hand. She made the sign for 'future' before pointing at Louisa. Will you?
Louisa grinned and crossed the room. Kneeling beside the bed, she stuck out her little finger. Louisa didn't know the sign for 'promise,' but a pinkie swear transcended language. Kit stared at their interlocking fingers before hurling herself into Louisa's arms.
This was why she was putting up with Mallory's bullshit, she reminded herself as Kit burrowed her face into Louisa's neck. Kit needed her, and she'd be foolish to do anything that jeopardised that. She gently rocked Kit until she felt her little body relax and her breath even out. Without waking her, Louisa tucked Kit into bed and tiptoed out of the room, ensuring the door was left ajar. Kit had suffered enough closed doors for one day.
Despite wanting nothing more than to curl up in her bed, Louisa reluctantly drove to the Cullens' house. Once there, her mood only worsened. The Cullens were waiting in stony silence when she entered the dining room, and a palpable tension (courtesy of Jasper) permeated the air. Louisa slid into the empty chair beside Jasper, whose cold hand immediately found her thigh.
"Thank you for joining us," Carlisle said once she was settled.
Louisa bit her tongue at his tone—as if she were some wayward, naughty child who needed to be punished. And yes, her inaction towards Kit was morally reprehensible. Still, if Alice was right, she had a damn good reason for it. At least she wasn't the only one receiving his lecture; Alice and Jasper were in the doghouse with her too. Especially Alice, who had the audacity to look bored. Considering she probably had already foreseen the ending of this meeting, she probably was.
Whilst Alice and Carlisle argued, Louisa's eyes drifted around the room, gauging the reaction of the other family members. Esme's face was full of heartbroken despair, as if each and every one of her hopes had been pinned on Louisa, and this fall from grace had left her in ruins. It was painful to witness, and Louisa quickly moved on to Rose, whose fury was far easier to bear. Emmett was even easier to look in the eye, as he looked merely annoyed with her rather than planning her murder.
"I can't believe you didn't send me the video," Emmett groused, his muscular arms crossed across his broad chest like a petulant child.
Louisa closed her eyes as her brain attempted to recalibrate after this change in conversation. "I sent it to Alice," she pointed out.
"That's not the same, and you know it," Emmett said. "She doesn't give a shit about ghosts. How could you not think about me?"
Louisa stared at him, utterly baffled. "I was in shock! Did you miss the part where there were floating chairs?"
"Nearly. Because you didn't send me the video!"
Rosalie let out an animalistic growl that had Louisa cowering into Jasper's side. Jasper replied with a growl of his own and shifted forward, sticking an arm in front of Louisa in a subtle but effective threat. His posture didn't relax even when Rosalie sat back, and he watched her with dark, calculating eyes.
"Can we focus on the actual problem here?" Rosalie snarled, though her ire was tempered by the apologetic look she shot Louisa.
"I don't like it any more than you do, Rosie," Emmett said. "But we've got to trust Alice on this."
Rosalie batted his hand away. "Like hell we do!"
"She's never steered us wrong before," Emmett pointed out. "If she says this is best for Kit, then we need to believe her."
"Has the future changed any?" Louisa asked. She had been under the impression that they would need to wait for a lot longer before revealing the extent of Kit's abuse. For Alice to ignore her own warnings and inform the family of the situation had to mean something.
Alice froze mid-argument with Carlisle, and her eyes grew distant as she searched the millions of possible futures. "Maybe. Have your row with Jasper first."
Frowning, Louisa craned her neck to look up at her boyfriend, who hadn't said a word since she arrived. This behaviour in and of itself wasn't unusual, to be honest. Jasper rarely spoke unless he thought he had something to add to the topic at hand. If anything, coupled with his hand on her thigh, she had taken his silence as a sign of solidarity with her and Alice. A quick evaluation of his expression informed her this was not the case.
"You're not going back there," Jasper commanded in a tone he had never used with her before, although he'd heard it used with others. It was that deep, powerful voice that hearkened back to his military days when he was Major Whitlock, and his words were to be taken as sacred law. She didn't even feel a thread of compulsion with his words and still had to resist the temptation to follow his orders.
With great difficulty, Louisa managed to raise her chin in defiance. "Yes, I am."
If Jasper was impressed with her fortitude, he wasn't about to show it. "You almost died today," he snapped. "Whatever is going on, it ends now."
His words only served to irritate her and strengthen her resolve. "I'm not going to just—"
Faster than her human brain could comprehend, Jasper picked up her chair and turned it so she was facing him. With one hand, he pulled her closer by her knees whilst the other grabbed her by the chin, forcing her to look at him. It wasn't painful or even uncomfortable (indeed, if there was one person she knew would never harm her, it was Jasper), but the position hurt her just the same. She might be younger than him by several decades, but she wasn't a child. She was his mate, and she deserved far more respect than this.
Jasper's eyes were so dark she couldn't even see his pupil. "This isn't open for discussion. If you want to remain human, you're not returning to that house."
"Jasper!" Esme cried. "Don't speak to her—"
"My mate was almost decapitated today. I'm not risking her safety," Jasper snarled, unaffected by the rebuke.
That… was actually a really solid point. She didn't care for his tone, but he wasn't wrong about the danger she was in. What happened at Kit's house had terrified her, and he wasn't exaggerating how close to death she actually came.
"Jazz," Louisa whispered, changing tactics. She leaned forward and wove her fingers through his hair, sweeping her thumbs along his cheekbones. "I understand you're worried. I am too. But please don't weaponise my humanity."
That was just the tip of the iceberg of the things she wanted to discuss with him—his controlling nature, his tendency to steam-roll her when they disagreed on something. And she would, later when they were alone. Right then, she had bigger problems to focus on.
Jasper stared down at her, eyes pitch black with fury, but he didn't argue.
Louisa extracted herself from Jasper's hold and turned towards Alice. "If I were to quit, what would happen?"
"Best case scenario? The Mallory's house burns down—Kit is the sole survivor. She ends up in Kent and, well…" Alice shook her head as if it would somehow erase what she had seen.
"How does the fire start?" Carlisle asked in alarm.
Alice chewed on her lip in a surprisingly human gesture. "It just…does. I think… Kit may be the one to start it, but I haven't seen her doing it. If it's her, she's not doing it on purpose. Or maybe she is? Only, I can't see how…"
"Poltergeists can start fires," Emmett offered.
For once, nobody groaned at the suggestion.
Louisa swallowed down the panic that seized her throat, although she wasn't sure if it was brought on by fear for Kit's safety or a fear of what Kit might do. A glance around the room showed she wasn't alone. Even the Cullens looked equally perturbed by Alice's statements despite their supernatural status, which brought Louisa no comfort. If the vampires were afraid of an eleven-year-old…
A supernatural calm settled over the room, and Louisa reached for Jasper's hand, giving his fingers a grateful squeeze.
"Obviously, we want to avoid that," Louisa said, redirecting the conversation.
Emmett raised his hand. "I'm not saying we should let the kid die," he began, shooting Louisa a hesitant look, "but I don't get why all this matters."
To Louisa's surprise, Esme snapped, "Because she's a child!"
Emmett raised his hands in a pacifying gesture. "I understand that. I just think it's weird for us to be so invested. I mean, why this kid? Louisa's other human died—"
"Kelly didn't have a chance at survival," Alice interjected, her tone bland and matter-of-fact. "Even if Louisa had asked for her to be changed, she wouldn't've survived."
Grief crashed into Louisa, stealing her breath and squeezing her heart.
"If you would be less callous," Jasper snapped, pulling Louisa into his arms. He offered her a wave of peace as he ran his fingers along her scalp. As much as she wanted to accept his gift, she knew she shouldn't. There were just some emotions that needed to be felt.
Alice had the decency to look contrite.
"But that's sort of my point," Emmett said, also shooting Louisa an apologetic look. "Kids die all the time around us. I just… why are we so invested in keeping this one alive?"
Silence reigned as they considered his words. Finally, Rosalie nodded.
"He's not wrong. It's not like some of us haven't gotten attached. Remember Edward and Josie?"
Obviously, Louisa hadn't been around back then, but she'd seen the memories a few times to know the girl Rosalie was referencing. She'd been a cancer patient during Edward's residency and had managed to worm her way into Edward's heart. Her death had completely wrecked Edward; to this day, he had never practised medicine.
Emmett gave them a wan smile. "I get that Kit is important to Louisa, and I would never want a kid to die. But the more I think about it, the weirder this whole thing gets. Like, why are we all taking those ASL classes?"
"Alice has seen Kit around us. It would only make sense that we should learn how to communicate with each other," Esme offered, placing a maternal hand on Alice's shoulder.
"Except she also told Louisa and Jasper to keep quiet," Rosalie said, frowning at Alice. "Were we ever going to meet her?"
"Yes, of course," Alice whispered. "That's more clear than ever. Kit is…" she trailed off as a vision overtook her.
Beside Louisa, Jasper stiffened. "What's wrong, Alice?"
Alice squeezed her eyes shut, lips pressed into a firm line. "It's very clear now."
"What have you seen?" Carlisle asked gently.
Alice shook her head. When she opened her eyes, she gave Jasper a look that was a little sombre and wistful but strangely proud. "Everything will be fine in the end," she promised. "I can't tell you more, but you must remember that."
Jasper nodded slowly, and Alice smiled. "Louisa will convince the Mallorys to grant Kit more freedom, but it will be easier if you help her."
"I really don't think it's wise for Jasper to use his gift on unsuspecting humans," Carlisle interjected.
Alice ignored him. "Kit won't trust you at first, but I don't foresee it being a problem if you use your gift, so long as it is only to calm her." She turned her attention to Louisa. "This won't be easy. Don't be frightened of Kit."
"Is Louisa in danger?" Jasper asked.
Alice tilted her head back and forth. "Not if you're with her," she explained. For a brief moment, her eyes glazed over, and when she returned to the present, she glared at Jasper. "This is important, Jasper. Do you understand?"
If Jasper was feeling anywhere as confused as Louisa was, she was certain the answer was 'no.' There was a long pause as they stared at each other, communicating in that silent way only two long-time friends could. When Jasper nodded his agreement, Alice beamed.
"All will be well," she promised, rising to her feet. And in the blink of an eye, Alice was gone.
No Stone Left Unturned
Louisa was pissed when her mobile rang a few weeks later.
"Ignore it," Jasper growled against her throat.
She had no problems complying with his demand. In a wonderful stroke of luck, Dottie and her father were in Olympia for the afternoon to see a movie, and so Jasper and Louisa had decided to take full advantage of the empty house. She wasn't about to waste a second of her time answering a phone call.
She wove her fingers through Jasper's thick hair and tugged his lips back to hers. He went eagerly and practically devoured her lips with the ferocity of a starving man. His fingers dug into the soft skin at her hips and pulled her closer. She knew she'd have a bruise in the morning, but damn, it felt good.
The phone fell blissfully silent. Once again, the only things Louisa could hear were the purrs and growls her boyfriend made as they continued their activities.
The phone rang again. Jasper let out a deep, animalistic growl that vibrated through her body. She shivered at the sound.
"You weren't supposed to find that arousing," Jasper grunted, raising an eyebrow as he considered her, the still ringing phone already forgotten. His eyes were black as he hovered over her. Pressing hot, opened-mouth kisses down her neck and chest, he whispered into her skin, "Have you no self-preservation?"
"I'm literally having sex with a vampire." Her words changed to gasps when his tongue began to dart along her skin. "You tell me."
Jasper chuckled and disappeared beneath the blankets.
The phone rang for a third time, and Louisa uttered something so foul even Jasper raised an eyebrow.
He snatched up her mobile. "Why is Sam Uley calling you?"
"Who knows?" Louisa grunted, conveniently ignoring that Sam generally texted her if he wanted to chat. "Let it go to voicemail."
Not needing to be told twice, Jasper dropped the phone back onto her bedside table and resumed his attentions.
Sam was kind enough to let them finish before calling a fourth time.
"This better be good," Louisa growled in lieu of a greeting. Jasper ran his knuckles down her spine, and her irritation faded. "What's wrong?"
"Is Leah with you?" Sam asked, skipping his own greeting and getting straight to the point.
Frowning, Louisa pushed herself into a sitting position. "No. Why?"
Sam let out a shaky sigh. "She had a fight with her parents a few hours ago and stormed out of the house. Nobody has seen her since."
"She's probably just walking it off," Louisa said in a soothing tone. "You know how she gets. Has anyone checked the gym?"
As a gymnast, Leah could often be found working off steam by tumbling across the mats and hurling herself off of uneven bars. It was something that had been happening with more and more frequency lately.
"First place I looked," he admitted. "She's not at the beach or the cliffs. We've been ringing her friends, but so far…"
Jasper sat up as well. "Does she have her mobile with her?" he asked in a low voice. "I can track it as long as it's on."
Louisa wasn't sure if the offer was legal, but she relayed the question to Sam nonetheless.
"We found it in her room," Sam explained, and Louisa thought she could hear a tinge of panic beginning to creep into his voice. "Her parents are freaking out. They're thinking about calling the police."
"That might be a good idea," Louisa said. "She's probably off kicking rocks somewhere—you know how she gets—but if she got lost in the woods—"
The idea was almost laughable. Leah had practically grown up in those woods. She knew every path—official or not—better than the back of her hand.
"Will you come down and help search?" Sam asked in a rush before Louisa could finish speaking.
The elder's conversation from the cliffs flashed through her mind. She knew she should say no—the last thing she wanted to cause problems for the Cullens or the Quileute people. But if Leah was actually missing and not just sulking somewhere… Louisa knew she could find her. At this point, she had developed her psychometry so well that she was about as effective as a bloodhound.
"I can be there in half an hour," she promised, clambering over Jasper and getting out of bed.
She listened to Sam with half an ear as she began to dress. Fortunately, he was so stressed that he didn't question her demand that he bring her something important to Leah.
"I don't like this," Jasper said once she had ended the call. His tone was harsh, as if he desperately wanted to tell her she couldn't go but knew how badly that would go over.
Louisa paused as she bent over to scoop her slip off the ground. She rose slowly and approached Jasper, wrapping her arms around his neck. Jasper's knees parted, and he pulled her closer, one hand on her hip, the other splayed across her back.
With Leah missing, Louisa didn't exactly have time to play therapist for her boyfriend. Still, she had never seen Jasper act like this before, and she would be a really shitty partner if she waltzed off when he clearly needed her.
"Everything will be fine, Jasper," she whispered, ducking her head to gently kiss his lips. "I won't be gone for long."
"I don't like that you're going somewhere I can't follow," he admitted, his lips twisting into a scowl. "I can't be with you, and what if you get—"
Louisa twisted her fingers through his hair and massaged his scalp. Jasper's eyelids fluttered shut, and despite his anxiety, a purr of contentment rumbled in his chest.
Jasper had always been prone to catastrophising, but with the situation with Kit being what it was, his anxiety seemed to be at an all-time high. He followed her around every moment he possibly could, preferably with at least one hand touching her as he did so. He had to be dragged to classes by Emmett, sat in a tree outside of the Mallorys' house whilst she worked with Kit, and she was honestly surprised he hadn't tried to follow her to the toilet. He had even taken to stretching the days between his hunts, something that was uncomfortable for him and dangerous for the denizens of Forks.
The last point was the most problematic. She could take his obsessive behaviour and, in fact, secretly didn't mind it. A year ago, his borderline stalking would have creeped her out or pissed her off, but nowadays, she craved his closeness nearly as much as he did hers. She felt a hollow lack when they were apart, a phantom of the discomfort she knew he experienced. But to have him neglect himself until his eyes were black as pitch, ringed with dark circles, was unacceptable to her.
He was in pain, and she was partly to blame. His love was an all-encompassing, supernatural thing that her human brain couldn't entirely comprehend. This scare with Kit had him worried about her own mortality—a harsh reminder that he could lose her at any minute. And for a creature whose world centred on his mate, this had to be a terrifying thing indeed. Until she was a vampire herself, Jasper would never be able to truly relax.
Something in her solidified at this realisation, her resolve hardening. She kissed Jasper again, this one more aggressive than the last. Jasper's shock prickled her skin before he replied with enthusiasm. It took every bit of self-control not to let him carry her back to bed.
"Pick a day," she said, wiggling out of his hold.
Jasper looked adorably dazed, his blond hair rumpled from her attention. He blinked at the non-sequitur, head tilting like a confused puppy. "What?"
Louisa grabbed her clothes from the floor and resumed getting dressed. "Pick a day for my change," she elaborated. "I want you to pick the day."
Jasper was standing before her in the blink of an eye, waves of conflicting emotions crashing into her. He grabbed her hips, halting her movements as she tried to button up her dress. "What brought this on?"
"I hate seeing you like this," she admitted. "You're an anxious mess because I'm still a human. So, whilst I'm gone, you're going to sit down, and you're going to think about what day you'll fix the problem." She thought she sounded a bit aggressive and accusatory, so she pulled Jasper down for a kiss to soften her words.
"We have to wait until you graduate," Jasper reminded her. His voice was breathless, as if he dared not hope that what she was saying was true. "You can't just disappear halfway through the year. And you said that you didn't want to hurt your family by your leaving—"
"You will always be my priority," Louisa insisted.
"But you said your father would never approve of—"
"Pick. A. Day." She punctuated her words with kisses before pulling away. She finished getting dressed and grabbed a bag, tossing a torch inside. It would be dark soon, and there was no telling where Leah had run off to. "When I get back, I expect to see that you've fed. Understood?"
"Yes, ma'am," Jasper whispered, watching her with an expression full of wonder.
She grinned and couldn't resist giving him another kiss. And then, with a wink, she slipped out of her room and went to find her wayward friend.
No Stone Left Unturned
Dusk was falling as Louisa pulled up in front of the Clearwater's house. It was surrounded by half a dozen cars, only one of which Louisa recognised: a cruiser emblazoned with 'Forks Police' on the side. She wasn't as relieved to see Chief Swan's cruiser as she thought she would be. After all, if the Clearwater's were involving him (either as a friend or as a police officer), the result was the same: Leah still hadn't been found.
People were standing on the front porch and turned to face her as she jogged down the drive.
"What are you doing here, Louisa?" Mr Clearwater asked, not unkindly.
"I heard Leah was missing," she explained, bounding up the front steps.
Billy Black wheeled himself in front of her and looked up at her with thinly veiled disdain. "You need to leave," he said.
The men, Mr Clearwater included, stared back at her expectantly. Louisa felt her heart shatter when nobody rose to her defence.
Well, she wasn't there for them, was she?
She raised her chin. "I came to help," she said defiantly.
Mr Black looked disgusted by this pronouncement. "You can turn around and go home. Your help isn't necessary." Was it her imagination, or had he emphasised the 'your?'
"Oh, thank God," Sam said as he threw open the front door. His hair stood on end, and his glasses were perched precariously on his nose. He reached out, grabbed her wrist, and tugged her into the kitchen. "Thank you for coming."
"I came as soon as I could," she replied, throwing a smug look over her shoulder to the scowling men on the porch.
Inside, she found Mrs Clearwater stress baking as she chattered to Chief Swan, her words high-pitched and rushed. "—and then she just slammed the door behind her—took it off the hinges. Harry had only just finished hanging it up when you got here—"
Louisa gave the door a considering look, picking out the hairline cracks that ran through the robin-egg blue painted wood. "Have you searched her room yet, Chief?" she asked, turning back to address Chief Swan.
Chief Swan looked almost relieved to see her. "Not yet," he admitted. "But she didn't take anything with her when she left, so I doubt she ran away."
Behind him, Mrs Clearwater let out a whimper and turned back to the oven.
Louisa walked over to her and pulled her into a tight hug. "I'll find her," she promised. "She's probably just…"
Lost in the woods? Mauled by a wild animal? Fallen off a cliff or into a ravine? Regardless of what had happened, Louisa was certain of one thing: Leah wouldn't have run away. At least, not without telling Sam first.
"I'll bring her home," Louisa finished, leaving the 'in whatever capacity I can' unsaid. "May I ask what the fight was about?"
Mrs Clearwater looked almost embarrassed. "It was…" she shot a nervous look out the window that overlooked the front of the house, where her husband was clearly visible on the porch. She dropped her voice. "It was about you."
Louisa knew better than to interrupt, no matter how much she wanted to. Instead, she gave Mrs Clearwater an encouraging nod.
"Harry said that he didn't want Leah hanging around you anymore," Mrs Clearwater admitted.
Louisa wondered how much of this was Mr Clearwater's decision and how much of it was the council's.
"It started a row. I've never seen anything like it. You know how Leah is, and honestly, Harry is just as bad—she gets her temper from him, did you know?—and Harry said that Leah would never see you again so long as she lived under his roof, and Leah said that she'd live with Sam and—"
"But Leah never showed up at my house," Sam interjected.
Louisa hummed in understanding and looked around the kitchen. She could easily imagine an irate Leah, face flushed as she shouted at her father. Despite her diminutive height, Leah could cut an impressive figure when she was angry.
"Did you see where she went?" Louisa asked Mrs Clearwater.
"Just out the door," she explained, wringing her hands together. "I was trying to calm down Harry. His heart has been off lately. I told him it was all that fried fish, but he just waves me off and tells me it's fine. It doesn't matter that I'm a nurse—he just always knows best and—"
Louisa tuned out Mrs Clearwater's increasingly panicked rambling and drifted to the door. Extending a hand, she ran her fingers along the wood, her nails catching on the small cracks that marred the surface. Something twinged behind her left ear as she traced the imperfections, and some foreign emotion began to hum in her skull. Her eyelids fluttered shut as she traced the emotion to its source, like a pulsing thread that led to the centre of a labyrinth.
White hot anger spiked through her when she touched the doorknob, and it took several moments for Louisa to remind herself that this emotion didn't belong to her.
"You and your stupid fucking superstitions!" Leah had screamed so loudly that her voice had broken, ragged like glass in her throat. "Are you really such a—" she said something in Quileute that Louisa couldn't translate, but judging by the horrified look on Mrs Clearwater's face, was incredibly rude. "—that you can't even think for yourself."
"You will not speak to me this way," Mr Clearwater shouted back, his face just as flushed as his daughter's.
"Did your precious council put you up to this?" she sneered, ignoring the rebuke. "I bet they did. Were they the ones who told you I couldn't go to college, too?"
"That has nothing to do with—"
Leah let out a high-pitched hysterical laugh. "Nothing to do with it? I bet Billy Black demanded that I be kept home between you sucking each other's dicks!"
Louisa always knew that Leah had a nasty steak, but this was too much, even for her. "Why did Harry say Leah couldn't go to college?" she asked, blinking away the memories.
Mrs Clearwater startled at the question. "How did you know about that?"
Louisa didn't have a good answer, but fortunately, she didn't need one. At that moment, the door flung open, and Louisa had to leap back to avoid being trampled by Mr Clearwater as he shoved his way into the kitchen.
"Don't answer that, Sue," he commanded before glaring at Louisa. "This isn't any of your business, Louisa. You need to go home."
Temper high after riding Leah's impressive wrath, it took every ounce of self-control not to punch Mr Clearwater in the face. "Do you hate your daughter that much?"
Okay, so maybe her temper wasn't as controlled as she thought.
Mr Clearwater jerked back as if she really had slapped him. "Of course not!"
"Then I stay," Louisa explained. "If you want to find your daughter, I'm the best chance you've got."
Before anyone could protest, Chief Swan cleared his throat. "She's not wrong, Harry."
A scared, haunted look flashed in Mr Clearwater's dark eyes as they flicked between her and Chief Swan. "What do you mean?"
"I'm simply one hell of a detective," Louisa replied before reaching out to touch the cracked kitchen door again.
It was easier to grab the thread of fury Leah had left behind. This time, she ignored the argument and focused on Leah's movements. When Leah stormed out of the kitchen, Louisa followed the imprint of the memory outside, brushing past the grumbling council members loitering on the porch.
The hazy phantom of Leah vaulted over the side of the railing, her hot pink trainers practically in the late afternoon sun, and took off at a sprint into the woods. Louisa tried her best to replicate the movement, and whilst she did manage to clear Mrs Clearwater's rose bushes, it was nowhere near the impressive thirty feet that Leah had managed. Sure, Leah was a gymnast, but unless she was secretly a world record holder in the long jump, the distance she covered shouldn't have been possible.
With unease prickling her scalp, Louisa set off towards the woods, pausing only to pull her torch out of her bag.
Sam caught up to her about ten metres into the forest, a rifle slung over a shoulder. Despite Louisa's distaste for guns, she could acknowledge the wisdom of having one in the forest at night.
"This path leads to my house," he explained.
"I'm aware," Louisa said, running the torch beam along the underbrush. "That's not where she's gone."
"How do you know?"
"Because then we wouldn't be having this conversation. Plus," she directed the light beam towards the faint footprints on the forest floor. "Those footprints aren't a natural gait."
Despite his agitation and desire to find Leah, Sam paused and crouched beside one of the impressions on the ground. "I don't understand."
"Leah's five-foot-two-inches," Louisa explained, halting as well. "It's not a perfect science, of course, but going off averages, her stride length should be about one hundred and thirty centimetres. She's running, of course, so that would increase it, but…" She shone her light on the next footprint, nearly ten feet away. "Unless she has grown a lot since you last saw her, these steps suggest something is very wrong with her."
Brow furrowed, Sam rose and tried to mimic Leah's footsteps. Even with his long legs, he fell several feet short of Leah's stride. "There's no way she made these," he proclaimed.
"They're her shoe size," Louisa pointed out. "And they follow the path towards your house."
"But…"
Louisa gave him a grim smile. "I hate to ask, but is there any way she was on steroids?" It would certainly explain the anger and increased strength. Louisa hated to think that her friend was doping, but she was an athlete and certainly wouldn't be the first to give in to the temptation.
"No," Sam said at once, shaking his head furiously. "She'd never."
As Leah's partner, Louisa was inclined to believe him. She nodded. "Regardless of how she's doing this," she said, sweeping her torch's beam between the footsteps, "there's something wrong with her. I'm worried she's disoriented. Maybe she got turned around in the woods?"
Sam grimaced but didn't disagree with her.
Louisa brushed her fingers along the indent in the earth and watched an echo of Leah flash by. Her skin was drenched in sweat, and although she was sprinting, her face was pale. The anger was still there, stronger than ever, guiding Louisa deeper into the forest.
They continued on, Louisa sweeping the beam of her light along the underbrush as she looked for any sign of Leah.
Unable to take the silence, Sam asked a few minutes later, "You've still got that thing?" He nodded to the grungy cast on her arm, the same one Carlisle had fitted her for back in July.
It had once been a brilliant hot pink but had grown dingy in the intervening months. Kit, in particular, had had a blast doodling on it with Sharpies whenever they took a break from their ASL lessons.
"The cast is eternal at this point. It will outlive us all," she quipped, trying to lighten the mood.
Despite his worry for Leah, he still managed to find concern for her. "It's been ages."
"Three months," Louisa agreed. "My last x-ray showed it wasn't fully healed." Carlisle wasn't sure why and had ordered a whole battery of tests to find out. Outwardly, he hadn't seemed concerned, but he had started to throw around the word 'surgery,' which made her think otherwise.
Sam whistled lowly. "I'm surprised Leah's never brought it up. Do you remember how pissed off she was when it happened?"
"She broke Paul's nose, defending my honour," Louisa recalled with a wry smile.
Sam laughed, though it quickly petered off, his expression growing serious once more. "She's been so angry lately, Louisa."
"I know," Louisa said. "I've noticed."
"She's always had a temper, but lately, there's something… I'm worried about her."
There were no words she could give that would comfort him. Instead, she reached out and squeezed his arm in solidarity.
She was about to change the subject when something around her shifted—an energy that had her freeze in place. Her skin prickled with an emotion that she couldn't quite identify but recognised on an instinctual, primal level. She turned slowly, looking for what she didn't know and wishing desperately for more light. And then, she found it.
"Where does this lead?" she asked, indicating the path with her torch.
Sam frowned. "I don't know," he said, peering down the path. "I've never seen this before."
The term 'path' was a generous one. The narrow opening in the underbrush looked like it had been hastily cleared with a meat cleaver or a battering ram. Broken branches hung off bushes, and still green leaves covered the forest floor. Something had recently pushed through this section of the woods to create this path. Something big.
"Do you think she went this way?" Sam asked, his voice tight with barely controlled panic. "Maybe she got turned around in the dark and—"
Louisa passed her torch beam over the bushes again, halting on something that had no business being this deep in the woods: a hot pink trainer.
"That's Leah's," Sam gasped, lunging for it.
Louisa managed to reach it before he did. The last thing she needed was Sam's emotions to contaminate something of Leah's. She closed her eyes and focused on any imprint Leah had left behind. She didn't have to search hard. Within seconds, something spiky rammed into her skull, trying to burrow inside her brain. Louisa extended her mental hands and grabbed hold of the sensation without thinking and instantly regretted it. She gasped and sank to her knees.
It was as if she had been tossed into a washing machine. The world around her spun, shrinking and stretching as reality itself seemed to distort. The forest became brighter (too bright!), and her vision sharpened so she could see every tree, every bush, every bird and bug in perfect detail. Millions of scents assaulted her nose, burning her nostrils, making her sneeze and her eyes water and holy shit, what was that horrible scent it smelled like death—
"Louisa!"
Her body rattled as Sam shook her, forcing her to drop the trainer.
"It's Leah," she rasped, not recognising the sound of her own voice. After the assault on her senses, everything felt strangely muted. "She's…" she trailed off, at a loss of what to say. What the hell had she just seen?
"You're bleeding," Sam said, hauling her to her feet and steadying her when she swayed. "We should go back and—"
"She's that way," Louisa said, wiping her bloody nose on her arm before pointing into the underbrush. "She's gone this way. Something's happened and—"
"You're hurt! We need to get you back," Sam said, although he looked like he wanted to disagree with his own words. "Chief Swan is back at the house. He can—"
"There isn't time!" Louisa disagreed. She slipped out of Sam's grip and stooped to retrieve her torch, which she had dropped sometime during her psychometric episode. "Feel free to go back, but I'm getting Leah."
She didn't wait for an answer and barrelled into the underbrush, knowing he would follow. She didn't know where she was going but trusted her gift to get her where she needed to be. It wasn't hard now to pick up on the psychic trail Leah had left behind. Her fury was incandescent, her terror and confusion palpable, and Louisa let it guide her deeper into the forest. Not once did she hesitate, or her footsteps falter as she ran, bushes and branches tearing at her hair her skin her clothes. All she could do was focus on that tether of emotion as it pulled her to its source.
They reached a steep incline, their momentum carrying them down the hill at a breakneck speed. And when the ground abruptly evened out, they tumbled, knees buckling (just like Leah's had), and they landed in a heap on the ground. It took several moments for the air to return to Louisa's lungs. When she finally managed to roll onto her hands and knees, she took a mental inventory of her body. Nothing seemed broken, and she sat back on her haunches and took in her surroundings.
They had landed in a grove of some sort, the centre of it free of the soaring pines that filled the forest. On one side, a steep rocky cliff, perhaps twenty metres tall, cast a shadow over the clearing, blocking out the moon above. Mist had settled in this lowered clearing, the air humid and rank with the scent of decaying leaves.
"Are you alright?" she whispered to Sam.
"Define alright?" he grunted from somewhere to her left.
Louisa spotted her torch several feet away and crawled towards it, ignoring the rocks that dug into her bruised and battered knees. She snatched it up and directed the torch around the clearing, the beam of light visible as it caught on the foggy air. She sucked in a breath when it landed on a familiar hot pink trainer.
"Leah was definitely here," she said, hurrying over and picking up the shoe. It seemed to pulse in her hand, but the emotion had taken on a different edge—frantic rather than furious. Petrified.
Heart rabbiting in her chest, Louisa spun around, trying to make out her surroundings through the dark gloom. Her breath caught in her throat when her light landed on a torn-up piece of fabric.
"Is that…" Sam asked in a panicked whisper.
Louisa swept the light around the clearing, finding more shreds of fabric on the forest floor. Or, more accurately, what was left of Leah's clothes.
"Leah," Sam whimpered, his voice cracking.
"Something's wrong," Louisa said. "The clothes they…"
Sam let out a sob, and she heard him collapse, the sound muted by the wet, leafy ground.
"There's no blood," Louisa whispered. "An animal couldn't have done this. Something must of—"
A low growl sounded from behind her, and the hair on her neck stood on end. It was a deep, guttural thing that Louisa could only describe as monstrous—and knowing a dozen or so vampires, she liked to think she was something of an expert on the matter. Every survival instinct in her was screaming at her to flee, yet she knew somewhere deep within her that escape was futile.
Letting out a shaky breath, she slowly turned to face her fate.
Her torchlight landed on a hulking beast hiding in the cliff's shadows. It had light grey fur, and Louisa estimated it was nearly as tall as she was. It watched her with dark, intelligent brown eyes that looked out of place on an animal. But then again, this wasn't really an animal, was it?
Sam noticed it, too, and he leapt to his feet with a roar, ripping the rifle off his shoulder and aiming it at the impossibly large creature.
"Sam, if you shoot that gun, I swear I will shove it so far up your ass you'll be shitting shotgun shells for weeks," Louisa shouted, diving for him.
"That thing killed Leah!" His voice was hysterical, but he still had enough reason to point the gun upwards before he accidentally shot Louisa.
"No, it didn't!" Louisa shouted. She somehow managed to wrestle the rifle out of Sam's hands and tossed it away before he could kill the beast. "The Quileutes are descended from wolves."
"I—what?"
Louisa gave him a grim smile before turning towards the grey wolf and said, "Isn't that right, Leah?"
"The Universe doesn't like secrets. It conspires to reveal the truth, to lead you to it." ― Lisa Unger
A/N: surprise! Bet you weren't expecting another chapter so soon, were you? I mean, it's only been a month! Who am I?