Chapter 15: family
I kept slightly behind Jules as we went to stand out in front of the truck, and scanned the forest for the other werewolves. I knew Charlie would probably kill me if he knew I was letting a girl go out first into a potentially dangerous situation, but the way I figured it, Jules probably wouldn't be in much actual danger from her own pack. I was.
I squinted into the dark trees across the road, looking for four big wolves to come charging out any moment, but I felt myself relax as I laid eyes on a small group of humanoid figures.
Samantha and the three other members of the pack were all dressed as Jules was dressed, in spandex shorts and sleeveless shirts that clung tightly to their lanky frames. Although all of them were of different builds and heights, there was an odd sense of oneness about them. They all had the same red-brown skin, the same black hair cropped short. They even seemed to move with eerie synchronization. The reminded me of a military unit, and if they'd been dressed in combat fatigues, I wouldn't have questioned it for a second, in spite of how incredibly young some of them looked. Sam, of course, looked the most military of all of them, her back rigidly straight, her hair chopped in a close crew cut.
The group, as one, eyed Jules with cautious curiosity. Then they saw me.
Several hisses of outrage rose from the group, and Samantha fixed Jules with her cool dark eyes.
"Explain yourself, Julie," she said sharply, and though Samantha was only a little older than the others, she had a slightly lower voice, the kind of voice that made people start referring to her as a woman rather than a girl much earlier than any of the others.
Before Jules could answer, one of the other girls shouldered past Sam to the front. This one had a slightly more powerful build than the others, and though she was slender at the waist, she had a vaguely judo physique. Her black hair was slicked up in spikes, and though she had the kind of face that looked like it could be pretty when she was smiling, at the moment it had the faintest resemblance to that of a bull dog.
"You couldn't just stick to the rules for once, could you?" she accused, shaking a fist as if she'd have liked to plant it in Jules face. "The rest of us are out there risking our necks to save those people, fighting for the tribe—and what are you doing? All you care about is living out your little romantic fantasy."
"I brought him here because he can help us," Jules said in a low voice, with forced calm.
The girl's lip curled in a snarl. "Oh yeah, that's just what we need. Bring a big, strong man to take care of the problem, since obviously we couldn't handle it ourselves. No, don't just bring a man, bring a freaking leech-lover, that'll solve everything."
I saw Jules's hands tighten into fists at her side. "You better take that back," she said in a low voice.
The other girl gritted her teeth, and a shudder seemed to ripple down her spine.
"That's enough, Paula," Samantha said sharply. "Control it."
Paula's head was bent, her eyes shut. She breathed deeply in and out, and shook her head, as though trying to shake something off.
"Sheesh," muttered one of the other girls. "Get a grip, girl."
If anything, this only seemed to set Paula off again, and she spun her head to glare at the other girl. "You get a grip, Jaybird. I'm just telling Jules like it is. We're out there looking day and night for that thing hunting people down, and all she can think about is her freaking leech-lover boyfriend."
She turned her head back to look at me, and her nostrils flared, lips curled back from her teeth. She said in a low, dangerous voice, "Slimy leech-lovers are just as bad as the leeches themselves." Her back bent, she took a step forward, like a predator about to spring.
Jules stepped sideways, standing directly in Paula's path, blocking me from view.
That was the last straw.
Paula let out a roar of rage, and she cried, "See! That's where her loyalties lie!" A shudder again ran the length of her entire body, more violent this time, and a coarse growl that sounded nothing like her voice escaped her mouth.
"Paula!" Sam called warningly, but it was too late.
Paula's entire body was vibrating, and she seemed to collapse forward. As she did so, I watched in an instant as her body exploded outward. Dark silver fur erupted from her skin all over her body, which was suddenly the size of a creature that would have made a grizzly bear cower.
It happened so quickly that I barely had time to register what was happening. One moment a furious girl stood there, the next there was a dark wolf. The silver muzzle drew back to reveal a row of sharp teeth, and a second deep growl tore through the air, making my chest vibrate.
I had seen a lot of terrifying things in my time, a lot of terrifying creatures. But this had to rank toward the top. When the enraged dark eyes turned on me, I felt my blood freeze.
I had been so focused on the wolf, that it took me a second to realize that Jules was no longer standing in front of me. I was immediately glad about that—the last thing I wanted was for Jules to be in the way when that thing came barreling at me. Then my eyes flickered and I saw Jules in a lineman's sprint across the road, straight for the beast.
"Jules!" I shouted. "Don't!"
Too late. As I watched, a shiver went down Jules's spine. In mid-stride, she coiled the muscle of one leg and launched herself into the air like a pole-vaulter. I had thought Paula's change was fast, but it was nothing compared to Jules—I watched in shock as her slender, lanky form exploded outward in a mass of russet fur, and when her her feet hit the ground again, there were four of them, padded, and she was tearing toward the massive silver beast, teeth showing in a terrible snarl.
I'd seen big animals fight before on the Discovery channel. Big cats fighting over mates or food. But seeing something on television had not prepared me for what it was like in real life—especially when the animals were bigger than any predator alive on the planet, and one of the fighters was my best friend.
Their teeth flashed at each other's throats, the great sound of their snarls echoing like thunder off the trees.
"Jules!" I shouted again, not sure what to do, but feeling my feet taking me a staggering step forward. I noticed the torn up remnants of a white shoe on the edge of the road, and realized it was Jules's. I wondered what had happened to her other clothes.
My eyes went back up to the fight, and again, I felt one of my feet automatically edge forward.
"Don't move," said a loud, commanding voice from across the road.
My eyes flickered to see Sam standing there, her arms folded, her cool expression unusually severe. "Stay back," she ordered.
I didn't move, just stood there like an idiot. My eyes went back to the fight, and I was a little surprised to see the red wolf was gaining the upper hand. Jules rammed her shoulder into the silver wolf repeatedly, forcing her back off the road and toward the woods.
"I will meet you at Elliot's," Samantha said sharply to the other girls and, kicking off her shoes, took off into the woods after the two fighting wolves. The sound of the snarling and snapping faded as the Jules pushed Paula deeper into the trees.
The two remaining girls had been watching the fight with fascinated stares, and they didn't move until the sound of the fighting abruptly cut off.
One of the girls gave a short, soft little laugh, then started across the road in my direction.
"Hi there, Beau," she said cheerfully, waving. "I don't suppose you remember me."
I was a little thrown by her carefree demeanor. I shook my head, however, and squinted through the gloom at her face. She was tall, and of what I thought was a little slighter build than the others. "Emma?" I guessed. "I mean, Em?"
Her face lit up brightly. "You do remember."
Her eyes flickered along the edge of the road, and she spotted the remains of one of Jules's shoes. She approached and picked it up, sighing. "Well, Bonnie's not going to be happy about this." Em's gaze flickered over to the other girl. "She said this was the last pair she was getting, didn't she, Jay? Looks like Jules will be going barefoot from now on."
"This one looks okay," said Jay, picking another shoe up by its laces. "Paula's, though, they're ribbons." She rolled her eyes. "I keep asking her why she even bothers wearing shoes. I can't tell if this anger management thing she has going on is a wolf thing or a Paula thing. I mean, the rest of us have our moments, but we don't flip out three days out of four."
Emma shrugged, smiling. "Paula is...excitable."
"She's crazy, that's what she is," Jay muttered as she walked back across the road and retrieved Sam's shoes, holding them with two fingers by the heels. "Although, in this case..." He gaze drifted to me. "I guess I can't totally blame her."
"You okay, Beau?" Em asked, leaning toward me to get a good look at my face. I was still standing where I was, frozen in place. She added, "I guess seeing something like that had to be kind of..." She searched for the right word.
"Freaky?" Jay suggested. "Insane?"
Emma nodded. "Yeah, that."
They both turned, studying my face again. My eyes were slightly wider than usual, and I was sure I was white as a sheet.
"You're not seriously going to faint, are you?" said Jay, with supreme disgust. "Or throw up on the road? Come on."
Emma put a hand on my arm. "Maybe we'd better get you back over to your truck, Beau, so you can sit down. You don't look so good."
I wanted to argue. Maybe it was just ingrained in my DNA from the cave man era, but there was something about being the only guy there having a kind of episode while a couple of girls looked on with mingled pity and concern. However, I doubted either of them would buy any attempt at a tough guy act, so I only nodded, and let Emma pull me over to the truck.
"You drive, Em," Jay said. "He looks like he's going to puke." She turned and eyed me with an expression of deepest loathing. "Honestly," she muttered. "I would have thought if Jules was going to go and blow our secret like this, she would at least have the sense to choose a guy with a little more stomach. Look at him, he's a marshmallow."
"Cut him a little slack, Jay," said Em good-naturedly as she turned the key in the ignition and set the shift into drive. "The way I remember it, we were all kind of freaked out the first time we saw that. That's how normal people react. It takes a little bit of time to stop being normal."
Jay snorted and shook her head. "I'm still with Paula, I think Jules was an idiot. This is going to come back and bite us in the butt. I really hope Paula takes a chunk out of her."
I was starting to get my bearings back, and I turned on Jay, who had clambered into the back and was now lounging in the middle seat.
"Hey," I said, a little sharply. "Your friends are out there in the woods, trying to take each other apart. You think that's a joke? They could really hurt each other if Samantha can't get them to calm down."
Jay snorted, and even Emma smiled slightly.
"I know what it probably seems like to you," Emma said. "But I wouldn't worry about them, Beau. We're tougher than we look."
"Yeah, if we had an anxiety attack about someone getting hurt every time Paula flew off the handle like that, our lives would probably be at least ten years shorter by now."
I wasn't entirely convinced. I couldn't seem to force the picture of the great fighting wolves from my mind, the feeling of their deep growls reverberating in my chest, their enormous teeth snapping with the sound of cracking whips. However, if Emma and Jay weren't concerned, I knew I probably shouldn't be either.
I shook my head, trying to shake it off the nausea that continued to roil in my stomach.
Emma continued reassuringly, "Anyway, you don't have to worry about Jules. She's a natural fighter. You saw the way she phased in midair as she went for Paula—even Sam couldn't have done that."
Jay scoffed. "Paula's been doing this a lot longer than Jules has. She has more experience. She'll get a bite in, and probably more than that."
"You're always free to your own opinion," said Emma. She smiled secretly at me and leaned in, adding in a sing-song undertone. "Even if she's totally wrong."
"I heard that," Jay grumbled.
"So," I said, as the truck made its way around the road, passing by the dark coast and winding around back toward the reservation. "Where are we going again?"
"Sam told us to meet her at Elliot's house," Emma answered. "You don't mind, do you?"
I shook my head. "Course not." Then I added curiously, "Elliot? Who's that?"
Emma grinned a little. "Sam's boyfriend."
"Oh." I didn't know what else to say. I had never figured Sam for the type to have a boyfriend.
"Actually, I guess we should say fiancé now, I keep forgetting," she said. "He's nice, you'll like him."
"Maybe we can get him to put on some steaks when we get there, I'm starving," Jay complained.
"She's always hungry," Emma told me. "And she likes all her meat extra rare."
"So do you," Jay pointed out.
Emma conceded this with a little embarrassed smile. "Maybe," she admitted. "After I phased. The way we remember it, you liked rare meat before you changed. That is what we like to call abnormal."
Jay waved a hand dismissively. "Normal's overrated anyway." She turned her dark eyes to me again. "But anyway, enough about that. We want to know how Jules did it. How'd she overcome the injunction?"
I blinked. Injunction. "Um. Do you mean the order from Sam not to tell anyone your secret?"
Jay frowned, perhaps perturbed by just how much I knew. "Yeah...that," she said cautiously.
I shrugged. "She didn't actually tell me anything. I just kind of guessed right. Once I started saying stuff about it, she was able to talk about it when she couldn't before."
Emma looked thoughtful. "Hmm. I guess that would work. But how...? Seems quite a few pieces to put together, unless you saw one of us change by accident."
I didn't want to get into Jules sharing with me all the tribes' secrets before all this, so I just shook my head and shrugged. I changed subject. "So, does Elliot know about all this? I mean that his fiancée's a werewolf?"
Em nodded slowly, her eyes focused on the road. "Yeah," she said in a low voice. "...He knows."
The truck was silent for a long moment, and I felt like I'd stumbled across something sensitive, though I couldn't imagine what it was.
Jay suddenly reached forward and poked me hard in the shoulder. "Hey, when we get there, don't stare. Or Sam might deck you."
"Stare?"
"Being around werewolves like us has its risks," Emma said quietly. In a more upbeat voice, as though keen on getting the conversation on a different note, she said, "So, in the meadow. We've all been wondering for a little while now. The leech we killed. She wasn't a friend of yours, was she?"
I shook my head. "Definitely not. If anything, she wanted a dinner date, and I was going to be the dinner."
Emma smiled, slumping a little in the seat. "That's a relief. We really held back a little longer than we should have—we didn't want to break the treaty. But Jules really pushed for us to do something, and I don't think any of was too keen on sitting back and watching you get eaten."
I remembered suddenly Jules's freaked out expression when she thought that Lauren might have been a friend, and not trying to kill me. She'd really taken a risk for me. I was fervently grateful she had.
At the mention of the treaty, a dim memory flickered in the back of my mind. "Jules said something about the treaty once. Why would killing Lauren have broken the treaty?"
Emma shrugged. "Technically, you were inside Cullen territory. We aren't allowed to attack any of the Cullens when we're off Quileute land, so if she had been a new addition to the Cullen family or a friend, then...well, that would have been in violation of the treaty. We can't break the treaty under any circumstances—not unless they break it first."
"What's their part of the treaty?" I said curiously. "What would they do to break it?"
Emma made a face. "If they bite a human. That includes eating them, too. Obviously, if we had waited until that point, you would have been dead. As Jules pointed out."
"Oh," I said, considering that. "Well, thanks for stepping in. I'm glad you didn't wait. I'd be vampire chow by now."
"No problem," said Emma, smiling. "We really should be thanking you. I think some of us could have died of happiness, finally being allowed to get our teeth into one of them."
I turned to look at Emma, who was smiling faintly as she drove the truck on past the easternmost house on the highway and turned onto a narrow dirt road. I could see the lean muscle in her arms, which I was pretty sure had not been there before when I'd met her before she'd turned wolf. She still had the quiet, almost shy face I remembered, and that contrast made some of the things that came out of her mouth all the more startling.
"Hey," I said suddenly, studying her face. "Do you really like being a wolf?"
Emma was silent. She glanced in my direction once, then stared out the windshield for a long moment.
"Sorry," I said, coloring slightly. "Guess maybe that was kind of a personal question."
"No," she said with a sigh. "It's not that. It's just I don't know how to answer. There are definitely things we all miss about life before all this. It was quiet, it felt safe. Personally, I was never all that physical. But there are things I enjoy about this, too. Feeling strong, powerful. Knowing you can chase down those things that could slaughter a hundred people on whim and rip them apart, and save all the victims that monster would have killed if you hadn't been there. There's something nice about that."
I heard Jay snort softly in the back, like she thought maybe things were getting too sentimental, and Emma blushed a little, ducking her head.
"Yeah," I said, looking out the front window. "I could see that. Even though I know it's no cakewalk."
Emma nodded slowly, still staring straight ahead.
We reached the end of the lane, and there was a relatively small slate-gray house there, with a variety of garden plants outside in dark patches of fertilizer in the yard, obviously carefully cultivated, the grass around each circle neatly trimmed.
Emma opened the truck door and stepped out, and Jay was out a moment later. As I got out a second after Jay, I said, "Hey, can I ask you a question?"
Jay glanced back at me. "Sure. You might get punched in the face for it, but go ahead."
"Is your name Jay or Jaybird?" I wondered.
She rolled her eyes, lips twisting in a grimace. "It's Jay. Jaybird is Paula's polite nickname for me. Sometimes it's Jailbird, if she's really ticked off about something. You can call me Jaybird too, if you have a death wish."
Jay strolled on to the house, flexing her hands experimentally.
Emma and I lagged a little behind, and I glanced at her, my eyebrows raised.
Emma laughed. "She's nicer than she seems. Most of that tough guy act is just an act. Same with Paula."
"How much of it isn't an act?" I wanted to know.
"Maybe twenty-five percent," she admitted.
"That leaves a lot of tough guy," I said doubtfully.
Jay strode up the one step and opened the door without knocking. Emma went next, and I warily followed in behind.
The house was of a similar design to Bonnie and Jules, mainly small rooms, with a larger front room that also doubled as a kitchen. There was someone there with his back to us. He had a bowl in hand, and was stirring a thick, dark substance, some kind of sauce I thought, with the practiced ease of a guy who spent a lot of time in the kitchen.
He half turned toward us, and his face seemed to light up. He was a tall guy, though I imagined he could only be a little taller than Sam, with broad shoulders. I wondered what Jay had meant about not staring. He seemed like a handsome enough guy, with the kind of face naturally given to smiling. Maybe he had a bit of acne somewhere—or maybe Sam was the jealous type, and she didn't care for anyone to stare, girl or guy.
"Yo," said Elliot, and he had a deep, pleasant kind of voice. "You're back. I was just making up a batch of my special sauce, I was thinking I'd throw a couple of steaks on the grill for lunch."
"Throw them on now," said Jay. "We're going to kill over any second."
"Hmm," said Elliot, glancing at a wooden clock on the wall. "Steaks for breakfast."
"The most important meal of the day," said Jay.
"What about some eggs and bacon?" he asked.
Jay shook her head. "Too light."
Elliot chuckled. "All right then. A couple of morning rare steaks, coming right up." He set the bowl on the table, and turned around as he headed for the refrigerator.
As he turned, my mouth fell open in shock. I quickly looked away, hoping no one had noticed, but before long, my eyes were creeping back to look at him from the corner of my eye.
From the side, Elliot looked like a totally normal guy. But as he turned I caught sight of the right side of his face. It was covered in scars. Three thick, angry red lines ran from his hair line to his chin, distorting his features, dragging one eye down in a sagging, half-lidded pucker, and twisting the corner of his mouth in a permanent grimace. I wasn't sure I'd ever seen anything so grotesque. Rude as it was, for a second I found myself thinking of that split-faced villain from Batman.
I quickly looked away, trying to be nonchalant.
Before Elliot made it to the refrigerator, he paused as his eyes, both the whole one and the drooping one, fell on me. "Ah," he said. "Hello there. Brought a friend with you?" He looked from me to the other two a bit uncertainly, still looking good-natured enough, though I had a feeling he wasn't used to his pack of female wolves bringing people over to play.
I looked up, doing my best to keep my eyes on the left side of his face. I hesitated, not sure if I should introduce myself, or wait to be introduced.
Jay rolled her eyes. "Beau Swan. Should have known he would end up here eventually. Jules just wouldn't leave it alone. He knows everything, by the way."
The moment Elliot heard my name, his kind face seemed to harden, and he regarded me with cool dark eyes. He suddenly looked far more like Two-Face than he had a second ago.
"I see," he said. "So, you're the vampire guy I've heard so much about."
I folded my arms across my chest. Maybe it was because I'd just spent the morning in the presence of a bunch of supernaturally powerful werewolves and Elliot was just an ordinary guy like me, but I realized I didn't feel intimidated. "Sure am," I said. Got a problem with that, wolf-guy?"
To my surprise, he suddenly laughed, as did Emma and Jay, dissolving the tension. The left side of his face split out in another grin, the skin around his left eye crinkling with good humor. "I guess not."
He glanced over at Jay and Emma. "So, what happened to Samantha? Think she'll be coming along, too?"
Emma winced. "Paula might have gotten a little excited again. You know, when she, er, saw Beau."
Elliot nodded sagely. "That doesn't surprise me." He glanced at the fridge. "I really think we better stick to bacon and eggs. The steaks will take too long. I'll get them ready for afternoon lunch. You think the others will be along pretty soon?"
Jay sighed, but she didn't put up anymore of an argument. "Fine, you win. But make three batches at least. Don't worry about those three, if they don't make it, they don't make it. Their loss."
Emma looked at me, eyes twinkling, and said in a stage whisper behind her hand, "Jay doesn't think about anything besides food. It's part of her tough guy act."
"I heard that."
Elliot surveyed Emma and I curiously for a moment, before he again headed for the fridge, pulling out six gray cartons of eggs and setting them on the counter.
"Here," said Emma. "Let me help."
She started forward, but Elliot waved her off. "No, you run along and sit down." He said with a kind of joking sternness, "This is my kitchen and I don't like anyone messing around with it." His expression softened a little and he added, "And, I imagine you've all already been working hard enough."
Emma retired to the table in the middle of the room, a large wooden table that looked like it might have been hand-carved, and pulled out a chair. Jay was already lounging about there, tilting her wooden chair back on two legs.
Emma noticed I was still standing a little back by the door, a bit awkwardly, and she smiled and beckoned to me. "Come on, Beau, over here." I tentatively pulled out a chair, trying not to scuff the wood door, and took a seat beside Emma.
Emma and Jay bantered some more, occasionally throwing things out to Elliot, who inserted dry remarks now and again, and I couldn't help but relax in the warm atmosphere. Emma and Jay seemed as comfortable here as they would have been in the house of an older brother. My eyes again drifted to Elliot's back as he beat the eggs in an almost comically huge mixing bowl. The sleeves of his collared shirt were turned up to the elbows, and for the first time I noticed that the scars on his face extended all the way down his arm and over his strong hand too. He really had paid a heavy price for being a werewolf guy.
At last the door finally opened, and Samantha appeared in the doorway.
Elliot turned toward her, and half of his face broke into a wide smile. "Welcome back, love. I'll bet you're hungry. Bring the others in, too."
Samantha was always so cool and stoic, I half expected her to look annoyed or at least a touch embarrassed by the open affection and term of endearment. However, as her eyes fell on Elliot, her lips spread into the biggest smile I had ever seen on her face. Unlike Jay, I was pretty sure that smile was not because of the food.
Samantha crossed the room in two strides, and she said in a voice that was almost a sigh, "Elliot." She took his face in her hands, kissing him once on the scarred side of his face, then on his lips.
"Jeez," Jay muttered. "Somebody, get them a room. Don't ruin my appetite."
Emma watched them out of the corner of her eye, with a kind of embarrassed happiness.
I trained my eyes on the table, concentrating hard on the patterns of the wood grain. It was hard to see that and not start thinking about the black pit in my own chest.
I was relieved when Jules and Paula came in a moment later so I could turn my attention to something else, though I was a little disconcerted to see they were both laughing and slapping each others shoulders like BFFs.
I got up automatically from the table, going partway over to Jules, though I stood there uncertainly for a minute, not sure what I was going to do.
Paula passed by me and went to the table, and as she drew out a chair to sit with the others, I noticed a long pink line on her forearm.
"You do that?" I asked in a low voice as Jules made it to me. Over my shoulder, I studied the mark a bit closer. It looked like it was weeks old.
Jules shrugged nonchalantly. "Yeah. Barely touched her, really. It'll be gone by sundown."
"Really?" I said, studying her arm again. Her elbow was now resting on the table, as she and Jay suddenly burst into laughter.
"Yeah, it's a wolf thing." Jules shot me a grin. "Me, though, I don't have a scratch."
"Oh," I said. I wanted to ask more about wolf powers, but the sound of Samantha's voice interrupted all the conversations in the room, and everyone turned to look up at her, where she still stood by Elliot.
"All right," she said. "The meeting in the woods was interrupted, but Jules has important information." Samantha turned her eyes to Jules, but Paula was grinning as though she were already in on the secret. And maybe she was, if she'd heard Jules's thoughts while they were out there fighting.
Jules was looking more serious now, and she turned her eyes to Emma and Jay. "We know what the male wants. Or more accurately, who he wants. We thought he was after us for killing that one we got in the woods, the female. Turns out though, that one wasn't his mate after all. The Cullens already got his mate last year."
Jules paused, looking at both Emma and Jay in turn. "The bloodsucker is looking for revenge for his mate, but it's not us he's after. He's looking for Beau."
Jay was the first to respond. "You can't be serious. That makes no sense whatsoever. I mean look at him—he's just an ordinary guy. Obviously he didn't have anything to do with killing the leech's mate. He's not even one of them."
I tried to keep my expression even, but the words cut deep.
"Unfortunately, the situation is more complicated than it appears," Sam said coolly. "The target's mate got into some kind of confrontation with the Cullens, and she was trying to set them off further by putting Beau in the middle of it. Edythe Cullen—that's the small one with the copper hair—and the rest of the Cullens killed this vampire in order to protect Beau, who was viewed by this vampire, and the one we are after now, as her mate. Therefore, he believes that killing Beau is the most logical way to achieve his vengeance on Edythe Cullen and the others."
I didn't like the way they spoke about the Cullens, or about—about Edythe. The small one. Like they were animals. I looked down at the floor.
"Huh," said Jay. "Sounds complicated." A sudden grin flashed across her face, and she gave me a speculative look. "But what you're saying is...we have ourselves some bait."
Faster than I could follow, Jules lunged at Jay, seizing the back of her chair and shaking it hard. "Say that again, crow."
Jay turned around, still grinning, and leaned forward so her face was perhaps an inch from Jules. "Apparently, we now have ourselves some—"
"Enough," Sam snapped, looking a touch exasperated now. She pointed two fingers in two different directions. "You two, separate. Now."
Jay shrugged and, still smirking, got up from her chair and swung around to the other side of the room. Jules, looking annoyed, withdrew back to stand beside me, arms folded.
"As I was saying," Sam continued, "this information is critical. We will be changing our strategy accordingly, starting now. We've always hunted as a group up to now to ensure each member's safety, but if it is true he's after Beau, he probably won't try to take advantage of our divided numbers. We'll cover more territory if we split up into two groups, and we can try to appear to leave a few holes in our defenses. We might be able to lead him into a trap."
"Two groups will means one group will only have two," Emma said quietly.
"Not for long," said Jay. "Quil is close to phasing, I'm sure of it. Then it would be three and three."
The room was suddenly quiet for a moment. Everyone was staring at the floor. Jules looked away, grimacing as though she were in pain. These werewolves, these Amazon warriors out hunting vampires, didn't seem unhappy to me. In fact, they seemed to be getting along fine. However, I found myself thinking of the hopelessness, the pain in Jules's face as I'd spoken to her yesterday and this morning, and the conflicted look in Emma's face when I talked to her about it. And I wondered, what did I know? What did I know of what Jules and the others were really having to go through? What they had been forced to sacrifice without really being given a choice?
Sam finally sighed and shook her head. "We can't count on that," she said quietly. She continued, as always sounding like a commanding officer, "Paula, Jay, and Em will take the outer perimeter. Jules and I will take the inner. If he falls for it, then we'll collapse and we'll have him."
Elliot, who was still holding the bowl of eggs, was watching Sam, the whisk in his hand unmoving. The good side of his mouth was pressed in a concerned, almost pained line.
I found my eyes going to Jules, too. Jules and Samantha would both be in the smaller group. Of all the wolves, they would be the most exposed.
Sam turned her eyes on me. "Jules believes that you ought to stay here in La Push as much as possible until this is dealt with. If you are here instead of at home, he may have a harder time finding you."
I swallowed. "What about Charlie?" I asked.
"We'll get him to come down here, too," Jules said. "March Madness is still going, I'm sure Bonnie and the Clearwaters can wangle it somehow. We'll bribe him with Holly's fish stir fry." She put a hand on my shoulder, gripping it hard. "Don't worry, Beau, we'll look after your dad."
I opened my mouth to respond, but Sam cleared her throat.
"Before you reach your decision," Sam said. "Something you should be aware of. I tend to agree with Jules's assessment; you would be safer here than you would be at home—at least where the monster stalking you is concerned."
She gave me a hard look. "None of us would deliberately do you any harm," she said in a low, intense voice. "But you must understand the danger. If you are to be in close proximity to us for an extended period of time, your safety cannot be guaranteed."
Her eyes flickered once deliberately to Elliot, then back to me.
"I wouldn't," Jules objected. "I would never—"
Sam cut her off, continuing in a low voice, "If there was anywhere else you knew of that you might go. Anywhere else you felt safe."
I stared back at her, and I wondered where else she thought I could possibly go. Who else could fight vampires? Did she expect me to run off to sunny Florida to my mom? Drag her into this? Or, I wondered, was it possible Sam thought that maybe I still had contact with them after all...?
I shook my head. "I know the risks. I know about being around—around strong people, who can't always be in complete control. I get it." I looked back at Sam, my eyes hard with determination. "But you guys are strong, and you know what you're doing. I don't want to lead that guy anywhere but here."
Samantha looked back at me for a moment, and I thought I saw a spark of a new emotion I hadn't seen there, at least not while she was looking at me. Something like respect.
Sam nodded once. "Then we are agreed," she said. "Beau will come here as often as possible. And we will hunt the stalker on our lands until we have put an end to him."
A cheer rose up in the room, and I couldn't help but think of those old war movies, where the captain or the general made a speech before a big battle, and all the soldiers roared with passion and fervor for the cause, ready to give their blood for their country, for their ideals.
My eyes returned to Jules, and I found myself thinking of what usually followed those inspirational speeches. Violence, chaos. Death.
Oblivious to everyone else in the room, I found myself reaching out and touching Jules's wrist.
She looked back at me quizzically, still half grinning. "What?" she said. "What's with that look all of a sudden? Don't tell me you're scared again." She leaned in close, and murmured in a voice so low only I could hear, "That's more damsel-in-distress points for you."
I gripped her hand and said quietly, "Be careful when you're out there. Please, Jules."
She laughed, leaning in a bit closer, until our noses almost touched. "Idiot. I'm always careful."
I looked at her careless, almost eager expression as she contemplated hunting Victor, and I felt the anxiety in the pit of my stomach intensify.
"Hey," called Elliot's deep, warm voice above the chatter. "Breakfast's served. Better come get it while it's hot."
The strategic conversation seemed all but forgotten in the mad scramble for food. As I thought about the huge wolves that had come out of these relatively small, lean girls, it seemed no wonder that they ate so much.
Jules ate at the table with the others, but I stayed by the counter, sure that if I sat by any one of them, I was liable to get elbowed in the face. Elliot did the same, eating his eggs and bacon in silence, leaning next to the sink as he watched the girls fight and joke around.
Without looking away from them, he suddenly said softly, "You're worried about Jules. Going out there, looking for that thing."
I was startled to hear him addressing me, and it took me a moment to respond. "Yeah. Vampires...you don't want to mess with one. Every single one of them is like a Superman, all on his own. I know Jules and the others are strong, but I just don't know if they fully get what they're signing up for."
Elliot smiled slightly. "You know, I think there's a reason in most cultures, it's the men who go to war, and the women who stay home."
I glanced back at him, surprised. "Yeah? Why's that?"
Elliot shook his head, and said conspiratorially, "I think it's because we worry more."
"Hmm," I said, noncommittally. I thought there might be a lot of wives with husbands off fighting who might have disagreed with him on that.
Elliot chuckled at my expression, then amended, "All right, maybe we don't worry more. Maybe we just don't handle it as well."
The corner of my lip quirked up in the smallest of smiles.
I spent the rest of the day in La Push, mostly hanging around Bonnie's house. Now that I was in on the secret, Bonnie was friendly again. She was only too happy to help out, leaving a message on Charlie's phone at the station inviting him on down, and Charlie showed up that evening with a couple of pizzas. He watched with kind of startled fascination as Jules proceeded to devour one of them all on her own.
Charlie watched us closely all evening. Even though we'd obviously appeared to have made up, after the extremity of the the previous night's drama, he didn't seem ready to completely dismiss it. As I tried to set his mind at ease, I did my best to be cheerful and as normal as possible, which I found wasn't all that difficult. It would have been hard to describe how good it was to be back with Jules, talking and laughing again. Warmed by her presence.
Only when it grew dark and it was starting to get late, so that Charlie commented that we had better be getting back, did I feel the worry that had taken hold of me in Elliot's kitchen return. I knew that the moment Charlie and I were gone, Jules would be off in the dark forest with the rest of the pack, hunting for Victor. According to her, they'd chased him pretty far the previous night, away from the hot springs and halfway to Canada, so they weren't expecting any confrontations tonight, but I couldn't help but feel the anxiety pressing against the inside of my skull. Especially since Jules had seemed disappointed by the prospect of a night on patrol with absolutely no action.
As Charlie headed out to his car and I slowly headed to my truck, Jules followed me out. As I got into the driver's seat and fiddled with my buckle, Jules leaned over the rolled down window.
"Don't worry," she said in a low voice. "You can sleep easy tonight. We'll be close by, watching."
I shook my head. "It's not really me I'm worried about."
Jules laughed softly. "You sound like an old grandma. I'll give you some lady points for that. But seriously, we're not in any danger. If there were a lot of them out there, that would be a bit of a worry, but he's just one little leech on his own, and he doesn't want to fight us, he wants you. Personally, I can't wait until we get a hold of him."
"Be careful," I insisted again. "Really, Jules."
"I will," she promised softly. Then she leaned forward through the window and kissed me lightly on the cheek. "Get some rest tonight, you look exhausted."
I felt my neck going slightly red, and I muttered, "I'll try." I couldn't help but add, "And you know Charlie is parked right behind me, watching everything we do, right?"
Jules laughed. "Course I do." She pulled away from the window, and turned and waved at Charlie deliberately. Then she turned back to me and said, "Come down first thing tomorrow, all right? See you."
"See you," I mumbled, waving back, and I watched her go back into the house.
The moment she was gone, I heard Charlie honk loudly.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm going," I muttered, putting the truck into drive.
Charlie followed me in my truck all the way home, and the moment I was in the door, I kicked off my shoes and tried to make a break for my room. Not fast enough.
"Beau," said Charlie, coming in the house right on my heels, arms folded. "Mind explaining what all that was about?"
I feigned ignorance. "Nothing. We're just friends, Dad."
Charlie raised an eyebrow. He knew I knew that wasn't what he was talking about. "You went there to set things straight this morning," he said. "So I'm guessing you did. So what happened? What about Samantha Uley and the female gang you were talking about?"
These were exactly the questions I didn't want to answer, because I didn't have good replies for them.
I hesitated at the foot of the stairs. "Yeah, Jules and I made up." There I paused, trying to figure out what I wanted to say. I remembered last night, the way Charlie had told Bonnie off yesterday in my defense when Bonnie had tried to push the blame for the confrontation on me. He'd stuck himself out for me, and I didn't want to just brush it all off as nothing.
I shrugged slightly, eyes on the ground. "I guess I still don't know exactly what's going on. But I met Samantha, her fiancé, and some of the others today, and I think whatever it is, it's not what I thought. I don't think it's anything bad. I think I must have just misread the situation."
Charlie didn't answer, just looked at me.
My gaze still fastened on the floor, I added, "I overheard what you said last night—to Bonnie, on the phone. Thanks...thanks for sticking up for me. It meant a lot."
With that, I turned and quickly dashed away up the stairs, sparing Charlie the necessity of trying to work his way through a muttered, embarrassed reply. He didn't try to stop me.
I threw myself down on my bed, staring up at the ceiling for a long time. The day's events played through my head, as my brain tried to organize the boatload of new information, make sense of it. But mostly it just flashed through in disjointed pictures. The dinner at Bonnie's house, Charlie's confusion, the werewolf fight on the road, breakfast at Elliot's.
My thoughts lingered briefly on Elliot, on the long, terrible scars across his face, and Samantha, kissing them as she came in. No one had ever said how Elliot got those scars, but somehow, for some reason I couldn't explain—perhaps the way Samantha had looked me and then at Jules with the barest flicker of pity in her eyes, as though she understood Jules perfectly, and feared for her—I was certain that the werewolf who had given Elliot those scars was Samantha. It wasn't hard to imagine how it would have happened. If I had been standing next to Jules or Paula when they had exploded into their wolf forms, that could have easily been me. You didn't mess around with that kind of power—Samantha was right, they were dangerous.
And yet, somehow, I wasn't really apprehensive about the thought of spending more time down at La Push, or with Jules. In fact, even with Victor on the hunt for me, I was looking forward to it. Jules would never do anything to hurt me, of that much I was certain. Paula, maybe, but I could try to stay out of her way.
Instead, I felt my thoughts winding back further, all the way to that conversation with Jules on the beach. I remembered the dark fury in her eyes as she accused me of being a hypocrite. I wasn't the hypocrite she had thought I was—or was I?
My thoughts lingered for a moment over Edythe, not allowing myself to quite bring her impossibly beautiful, divine features into focus, but seeing bits and pieces, like an incomplete puzzle.
Jules and her pack were wrong about Edythe, and the Cullens. They weren't the bad guys. Although Edythe had killed and consumed people in her darker past, she had specifically sought out criminals, people who the world would be better off without. She had never been a monster like Victor or Lauren, killing innocent people without a thought.
However, there my thoughts paused. And I wondered.
Edythe wasn't a bad guy. But what if she had been? What if, when I met her during that first week in Forks, she was like any other vampire, who saw us as no more than prey to be hunted at leisure to sate her appetite? What if, when Jules had told me that story of vampires, people had been disappearing in the woods as they were now?
Would I have kept away from her? Would the thought of seeing her hurt or destroyed not send the same pain through my chest and mind as it did now?
The answer to those questions disturbed me deeply.
I tried to console myself. Love was just irrational. The more you loved someone, the less sense anything made. When you really fell in in love, you just couldn't be logical anymore.
However, as I closed my eyes, and I saw the dark Edythe from that dream that first night again, beckoning to me, beautiful, but terrible, with eyes that glowed crimson and a mouth full of grinning sharp teeth, I wondered. Edythe was one of the good guys. But if she had been one of the bad guys, a bad guy like Victor or Joss, and I had loved her, followed her into her world—how long? How long, before I became one of the bad guys, too?
I didn't want to think about this anymore, so I rolled onto my side, and closed my eyes. I thought about Jules and her sister wolves out in the dark forest, running, running to fight the bad guys, and keep me and everyone else safe from harm. Just as I teetered on the edge of drifting off, I mumbled to myself, "Be careful, Jules. Stay safe."
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