Eventide

Eventide Prologue

EVENTIDE

Prologue

(The high Road, by Broken Bells)

　

　

　

I waited out front as Jacob and Mom pulled up in his Volkswagen Rabbit. Dull, gray primmer coated Jacob's car. Jacob had droned on and on all week about his damned car and how sweet it was going to look. He was preparing it for a new paint job, with the Cullens' assistance, of course. If he knew what was good for him, he wouldn't allow Rosalie to paint it. She'd hit it with hot pink or something, maybe add purple polka dots. Rosalie, like me, was not the biggest fan of this absurd alliance between the packs and the Cullens.

The car rocked as Jacob climbed out. Mom had a resigned look in her eyes, so I knew the outcome of the tribal counsel before they had set one foot on the walkway.

"Are you sure about this, Leah?" Mom had asked me that question at least half a dozen times before she had taken her place among the elders at the meeting with Jacob and Sam. I think she was hoping for a different answer. It was a vain hope.

"I am."

"But you'll be all alone. What will you do in Alaska?"

Same argument.

"My job."

Same response.

"But--"

"No buts. I need this."

La Push felt like living in a closet to me. I couldn't go anywhere without reminders of Sam; common friends we used to hang out with, places we used to go together. Home was even worse, a little box within the little closet. Dad's things were all over the house. I couldn't walk from one room to another without his memory in my face.

I needed to leave this place behind, but I couldn't abandon my pack, not now of all times. This mission was exactly what I needed. I would find solitude, as much as possible with the pack's mind-link plaguing me, and I would still uphold my responsibility to defend my people.

"It doesn't have to be you," Jacob said. "I can talk to Embry, maybe--"

"Think about it, Jacob. You and Quill are imprinted, so both of you are out on this one. Embry is still in school, not to mention how his mother would take it if he left."

Embry's mother was in on the secret of the packs, thanks to Jacob's decision to let Embry tell her, but that didn't mean she was happy about it and it definitely didn't mean she would be willing to let her teenage son leave home to live by himself in Alaska.

"There's nothing holding me here. I'm it." The thought of bringing Seth into this was so out of line that I didn't bother to address it.

"I can talk to Sam again, make him see reason." He made a sour face at that prospect.

Sam was not onboard with this at all. When Jasper and Garrett had met with the tribal elders to discuss their theory, Sam had scoffed. He didn't believe the Volturi would take action against us so soon after our last encounter, if ever. It had been only two weeks since they had come for us. To his way of thinking, they had come, believing they could slaughter us easily, and we had stood our ground beside the Cullens and various other leeches who had allied themselves with them. When the Volturi had realized that not only would they have a real fight on their hands, but they would probably lose that fight, the cowards had retreated with their tails between their legs. End of conflict. Though Sam's pack was much larger than ours, he was not willing to weaken his pack by even one member for Jasper and Garrett's admittedly thin theory.

Jasper and Garrett didn't think the Volturi were finished with us and neither did I. I didn't know if their theory about how they might come at us again held water or not, but I did know their request for a wolf near the Denali's would get me what I needed, so I was all for it.

"Let me know how that turns out. In the meantime, I'll pack."

He had no other alternative and he knew it. I would be living by myself in Trapper Creek, Alaska, which bordered Denali National Park, by this time next week.

"There are conditions," my mother insisted. "You will check in often."

"You will keep a low profile while you're there," Jacob injected, going all alpha on me.

"And you will stay out of trouble." She crossed her arms and gave me a look reserved only for mothers when they laid down the law.

I grinned, knowing I had won. "No problem."

As it turned out, I would break every one of those conditions.

The first condition was subjective, so it went without saying that I would break that one. I could check in three times a day and it would not be enough for my mother.

I would break the second condition not once, but twice, the second time in grand fashion.

All Hell would break loose when I shattered the third condition and found the true meaning of trouble, something so alien and terrifying not even Alice could have foreseen it.