Purple Sky by A. Teller (unputdownable books .TXT) 📕

Brady wanted to put me to sleep on the couch, but I assured him I could walk to bed. After a hug, he ran into the darkness. Back home, or back to the fire, I don’t know. I walked lazily through the house, searching for one of Jake’s shirts that was obviously in his dresser. And yet, I still found myself wandering aimlessly through the house. As I crossed through the dining room, connected to the kitchen, I caught the smell of something. Something…foreign. This scent was of an intruder. I darted to the smell, not caring whether the intruder was still here or not. I ran my fingers across the linoleum of the counter in the kitchen. It was smooth, but not as much as my own skin. I could feel each and every little scratch and crack in the counter. The smell burned hotter as I walked up to the window. Looking out, I could see the darkness of the night tinted lavender purple, which allowed me to look past the trees. I took note of the six-count elk herd a few miles out. I’d need that later. But I couldn’t see over two miles away, so I gave up for fear of eye strain.

I realized I hadn’t been to Jake’s in a whole week. Not since I played chase with two vampires. We’d spent New Year’s at Sam’s, since my family went about it as a casual, boring day.

I flashed my eyes over the counter. Nothing unusual. I questioned myself. Why are you in the kitchen Renesmee? Still, I wandered across the cold tile, barefoot. I must’ve taken my shoes off and not even noticed. Or I forgot. The cream colored counter, the white, noisy fridge behind me, the off-white windowpane glowing against the bright light that clung to the ceiling. Besides the fridge and the old creaks of the house, all was quiet. I sighed. Maybe my nose was all messed up from me being tired, I reasoned. As I turned to walk out, a sudden chill of anger and fear rushed up my spine. I breathed in loudly, feeling my teeth vibrate from the snarl that ripped through. Wide-eyed and shocked, I turned on the balls of my feet, slowly, to the windowsill. My ring. Where was my ring? 

 Paralyzed. That was the exact feeling in my gut. My stomach had curled up into a ball, and I followed. I placed my back to the fridge, hoping the cold would soothe me. It didn’t.

Were they still here? The trespassers? The smell of bleach and blood was evident. They must have just left. But if I could easily smell them now, could they easily smell me? Could they find me here, alone? Jacob couldn’t have moved my ring. There was no scent of him. Just my stale scent from when I placed the ring there, and the white hot scent of vampire. The smell was too potent to be one vampire, even if the scent was fresh. No, it had to have been a group. Could they still be here in the house? Were they lying in wait, hoping for me to flee so they could have a good chase? A hopeless chase, for me…

I couldn’t process everything right away, so I stated facts in my head to keep me grounded. Fact one: vampires came into Jacob’s home…my home… and had taken something important to me. Important to both me and Jacob. Fact two: Nomads trespassing on a coven’s territory would mean they were either passing through, or wanted the territory for themselves. Of course, we had the Quileutes on our side, and they’d never allow feral vampires near Forks. So close to people…

How many people were already dead? Imagine, Forks, a small town with a population of a mere 400. If someone dies, almost everyone grieves. It’s just not right. It’s murder. And it must be stopped.

Which brought me to fact three: we had to wage battle with these nomads. They didn’t seem to be going anytime soon, which wasn’t okay. Carlisle would surely want to make contact with them, so at least we might be able to coaxed them off our land with words. But even then, simple words didn’t register well with human blood drinkers. Those who drank human blood had worse tempers and less self-control then us “vegetarians”. Which meant a fight. As I ran through the possibility of losing, I hadn’t really registered the fear. It hadn’t sunk in. Because as I just started to pick at the possibility of deaths, I was broken from my strange trance by Jake.

“Renesmee? Renesmee! What’s wrong? Renesmee?”

I sat up, realizing I was lying on the hard tile. All I could manage into words was, “Jacob…they were here,” and pointed at the counter where my ring had once sat. I hadn’t really broken my fear filled trance yet, because I hadn’t registered that with Jacob here, there surely weren’t any vampires in the house. We were safe. For now…

Jake smelled the counter. He winced and stepped back a bit when he got to where my ring had been, and growled a low, territorial growl.

“We’re getting you out of here. Now,” he said, scooping me up. He got a blanket for me, loosely tossing it over me as he placed me delicately in his car. He got out his phone before entering the car himself.

“Leah? Round up Nate and Seth. We got a problem. There was…”

I ignored the explanation of our predicament. These wasn’t just a problem for vampires. It was a werewolf violation of territory. A violation that could not go unpunished.

“Yeah…yes…we’ll regroup at the Cullens,” Jake said as he flipped his phone and cancelled the call. He was… unreadable. And this uncertainty of my mate frightened me. I sat as still as I could when Jake entered the car. He drove as fast as we could to my family’s house. I could smell the tires burning as we screeched around each and every curve of the road. There was nothing but silence.

As though they were waiting for us, Bella and Edward darted out to the car. Edward scooped me up like I was five years old and carried me in the house at human speed. Which was never a good sign.

He placed me gently on the couch, and Alice sat there as well. She rubbed my back while we waited for everyone to arrive.

I lost track of time. I lost a lot in my mind while it wandered. I didn’t know the plan, I didn’t know how many we’d face or even who we’d face. But I couldn’t focus much. I faded in an out, acknowledging only a few things. Leah, Seth, and Nate had arrived minutes after Carlisle and Esme had returned from hunting.

The werewolves’ treaty with Sam and Jacob’s packs were a bit different now. Jacob insisted that if the Cullens were in trouble, he would be there to protect me. He didn’t even trust my own family to fully shield me, but I took no offense. When there’s danger, you can never have too much help.

“…and Sam won’t agree. You know how…”

“…if he did, maybe we’d have just enough…”

“…but if we’re outnumbered, there’ll be nothing to do but break our necks,” Leah puts in. They’ve been talking strategy for almost 2 hours, and already, I can tell they won’t agree on anything.

I stood up and walked up the stairs. Everyone was quiet. Probably wondering what I was doing. But I knew what I was going to do. I couldn’t allow these vampires to kill more people, or harass my family. I pulled on some black jeans, and black leather boots. Just as I slipped my arms through my sweatshirt, I heard Jake walking up the stairs. I knew it was him, just by the smell.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked inquisitively. He was calm, almost skeptical. But I had no patience for questions.

“I’m getting my ring back,” I said, pulling on the dark blue sweatshirt and walking towards the door. But as expected, Jake’s humongous arm came swinging in my way. He held onto the doorframe, expecting a better answer.

“You’re not stopping me,” I said, not backing down.

“I’m not. But I want in. And I wanna know what your doing so you don’t get killed,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. I turned around and sat on the floor crisscross.

“Bella? Block me out?” I asked loudly.

“No!” Edward objected. But I could feel Bella shielding my mind. I always got a small, ticklish feeling in the back of my head whenever I knew she was mentally shielding me.

“Jake, I’m not going to sit by while everyone coordinates and decide whether to call in reinforcements or not. I can’t just wait around. I have to end this, now.”

“Tonight?”

“I don’t see a better night any time soon. On the night of my birth, the wolves and my family fought it out on our front lawn. I’m not letting the fight come to us.”

“Well, they won’t let you go. You know that right? And we can’t just take them on by ourselves. The pack’s not large enough. And Sam won’t help without Carlisle’s involvement.”

“Then don’t help. I’m going either way,” I said, readying myself to stand.

“No Ness. It’s way too dangerous. You have no clue how many of them there are,” Jacob warned.

“All I know is I’m sick of living in constant caution of these vampires. And I’m gonna flush the bastards out. You in or not?”

He sighed, stood up, and held out his hand. “You know I’m obligated to always be in.”

I smiled, took his hand to help me up, and then went out to face my family.

“Well, who wants to go out and kill some vampires?”

“I’m in,” Emmett called from across the room. “Why are we afraid? There can’t be more then fie of these guys, right? We’re the ones everybody’s afraid of. Now let’s show ‘em why.” Emmett grinned mischievously, and Rose glared at him.

“I guess I’m in too. Might as well since Emmett can’t be left unattended,” Rosalie pointed out, adding a hinted smile afterwards.

“I think you’re all stupid and irrational,” Edward spoke up. I frowned, but he smiled. “And I’m in too. I can’t let you do this by yourself and we do need to stake our claim. Or ‘turf’ as Emmett calls it.”

And after that, everyone kind of jumped in. Except Alice, who I noticed was now absent since my ascend upstairs.

“Alice?” I asked.

“She’s got one of her headaches again. She’s been getting them for the past few—”

“Carlisle!”

We all froze. Jasper entered the room, holding Alice’s hand. Alice seemed alright, physically. But in her eyes, you could see, she was a thousand miles away.

“Alice?” I asked, waving my hand in front of her face. Not even a blink.

“She’s just been frozen like this for the past two minutes. She’s blind to the present,” Jasper said coldly.

“I can’t make it stop. I can’t see any of you right now. Just an empty field of nothing. I can’t turn it off!” Alice panicked.

“Edward?” Bella asked, going to Alice’s left and holding her hand.

“I can’t read Alice’s thoughts. Bella, are you blocking me?”

“No, not at all,” Bella said.

Jake was holding my hand, but released me and went over to the window. Both realization and a bold, fierceness overtakes his features as he looks out into the dark.