The Girl Who Was Taken (Renesme Cullens Twin Sister)

Sixty-Nine

I hid in Paul's bedroom for two weeks. Sometimes his dad would go out, and I was free to wander into the rest of his house. But that's how long it took to have green contacts delivered, even with fast shipping. Most of the color contact had been out of stock, and I could only suspect all the other vampires around the world that were trying to blend too.

I tilted my head back, and dropped the contacts in, blinking until they sat right. Then I inspected them in the mirror. They mostly worked well, although the green wasn't the same as my natural eye color, and they left a small line of dark red around the edges. Luckily, the red was already darkening to burgundy though, so it wasn't so obvious. I leaned in close, really looking at myself. "They're going to be able to tell," I said.

Paul was sitting on the edge of the bathtub as he waited for me to get ready. "Nah. Human's don't pay too close of attention. Their eyes aren't as good either. Just don't look directly at any wolves, it'll be fine." He reached out and patted my butt to calm me down.

"Haha, not like there's going to be twenty wolves there or anything."

He waggled his eyebrows at me, and joked, "Just don't make eye contact with anyone. Easy peasy."

Today was the first day I was venturing outside again, the first day I'd say hello to Billy and Charlie and anyone else who had been wondering about where I was. There was even some push for me to go over to Forks and say hello to Edward after Charlie called him in concern, but I wasn't sure I was ready for that especially since it would be impossible to keep the truth from him.

I could only imagine him finding out, then going after Renesme to try and drag her back to a life of shame and animal blood, and I knew she needed more time away. I knew eventually she'd figure it out by herself. If I could keep him from telling her what to do, then I would.

"Okay," I said. "Let's go."

We hopped in the car, drove down to Sam Uley's house where the packs were meeting for a "small" house party. A couple people had birthdays falling around this week, Sam, Jacob, and little twelve-year-old Claire, who was Quill's imprintee. It was a much needed distraction with the cold political climate of the world, and America gearing up for world war III or a civil war or some sort of declaration against vampires. Things kept popping up on the news, but nothing had been acted on yet. There were vampire sightings being reported everywhere, although most of it seemed to be fake. Any dead bodies that were found were now being examined for loss of blood, and vampire attack was added to the list of causes of death. The statistic had been zero a month ago, but it jumped up to thousands within no time as old files and cold cases were being reexamined and new bodies were being found. But the Olympic range and most of the west coasts reporting seemed low since the Cullen's and wolf packs had kept others from entering our territory.

But I had been keeping out of public until today, so it was hard to see what the public perception was until I was sitting in the passenger seat, looking out at the town as we drove through. There weren't that many people out with the weather getting steadily colder, but we passed a few people hanging out on a stoop to smoke, and they waved at us. Paul waved back, and nodded his head toward me, and I lifted my hand to wave too. They seemed pleased as I watched them in the rearview mirror, and I let out a breath I was holding.

"You look so worried," Paul teased. "They have no reason not to trust you."

"That they know about," I added. He didn't answer that. He just raised his eyebrows with his classic smile, like I was being dramatic, but I knew even with his willingness to cover for me, he was still trying to process his own feelings about the whole situation of me murdering a room full of people in five minutes.