Fatigued after the extensive band practice, Lorelei's foot lazily pushed her forward, her hands keeping themselves busy by picking at her calluses.
After one last turn on the black cement, the familiar building stood before her; once she reached its wood porch the lamps automatically flickered on, she squinted her light-colored eyes as she grabbed the keys attached to the snap hook placed by her belt, she enjoyed the jiggling sound they produced every time she moved, paying no mind to the fact that a lot of people didn't.
Once she entered her house she delicately laid her black and red skateboard against the umbrella stand, it was its designated spot, chosen by her parents so that it wouldn't stain the white walls.
The living room was the only font of light and sounds so she reached it, her parents were watching some random show about someone renovating houses, already wearing their pajamas
"I'm going to bed, byeee," she dragged out the last word and smiled when her mother whipped her head around
"Oh, hello! Yes, hi Rory," her mother, a woman about to reach her fifties, long and naturally unruly gray hair framing her visage, exclaimed, she hadn't heard her come in, obviously
"How was the band today? Did you rock it??" the man asked, his thick fingers supposedly imitating someone playing the guitar
"Yes, Dad, we "rocked it" the redhead replied, her hands mimicking quotations marks
"Good for you guys then" he smiled, his lips almost completely hidden by his well-cured and long, grey beard, a few red strands still visible.
As tired as Lorelei was she still spent a few more minutes catching up with her parents, she had already told her mother about her first day back in school in the afternoon, her flower shop was closed on Mondays, but she hadn't talked to her dad since breakfast and, even then, they hadn't exchanged anything more than a good morning, neither of them being particularly chatty in the a.m.
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The moon's glow filtered through the curtains, mixing with the dim light coming from the living room's abat-jour as it cast shadows on the stairs ahead. Her hand lightly grazed the railing as she ascended, trying not to make the steps crack to not disturb the sleep of her little sister, Jessica.
As soon as she reached the floor and passed in front of the kid's room, seeing a beam of light seeping from the door, she realized that her sister wasn't asleep at all, stopping in her tracks she concluded it would be funny to mess with her or, at least, try to. Hoping she would be successful, she entered the bedroom as silently as she could. The little one was hiding under her covers and didn't notice the sudden appearance, in an instant though she was exposed and jolted up, her book and torch ruinously falling on the moquette that, luckily, softened the otherwise harsh noise
"Rory! What the hell! You scared me!" she exclaimed, her hand placed by her heart as if to check if it was still moving
Meanwhile, Lorelei couldn't help but chuckle, amused by her reaction but trying at the same time to not attract her parents' attention
"Sorry but I just couldn't help myself," the older girl replied, still giggling
"Well, it wasn't funny," she countered, her arms crossed in a failed attempt to look angry
"Yes, it was. Anyways, you should be asleep, you have school tomorrow," she switched to a somewhat serious tone
"You do too but you are still up, why do you get to be awake and I don't?" the kid asked, her ginger locks messily falling in front of her eyes
"You know that it's because I'm a grown-up and you are only nine,"
"Nine and a half,"
"Yeah, nine and a half," she replied while rolling her eyes "If you actually go to sleep right now, I won't tell Mum and Dad that you were up an hour past your bedtime. Deal?" she asked, her hand extended outwards
"Deal," and she shook her hand, the other one, hidden under her covers, fingers strategically crossed
"Night then," Lolerei ended the brief conversation, not before stealing her sister's book and source of light "These come with me," a grin on her lips
"Rory!" the child whisper-shouted, her freckled nose curling up in disappointment.
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When the redhead laid or, more correctly, plummeted, on her mattress, she turned on her left side, giving her back to the slightly open window, she never completely closed it, not even during the colder months, since she hated the smell of stagnant air. As she buried her face deeply into the pillow she breathed in, her eyebrows corrugated and she found herself repeating the action, a part of her trying to pinpoint the source of the unfamiliar scent, she was mostly just enjoying it
"They must have changed the fabric softener," she thought, not preoccupied with the fact that she had been sleeping in the same sheets for at least a week straight.
As she rolled in her bed her mind was inevitably driven to the weird family that arrived in her small town so out of the blue. She had lived here all of her life and, as much as she couldn't say that no one had ever moved in this humid land, it still was a rather peculiar occasion. Lorelei wasn't a particularly nosy person but she wasn't exactly known for minding her business either. She would have really liked to find out the reason behind their transfer but had to admit that she didn't know nearly enough about them to guess it. She might ask around to see if she could find something out about them, specifically regarding that weird couple that stared at her every time they were in the same room, her cheeks warmed up slightly at the memory.
Bored of staring at the dirty clothes piled on her chair she closed her eyes, her curls spreading messily on the baby blue cushion, her lips slightly parted; unknowingly, she was comforted by the alien fragrance.
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School had been going reasonably normal, Lorelei's hair was frizzy due to the high humidity, the friend group was now casually hanging out at their usual, outside, lunchtime spot, until a new girl, with long bronze hair tied in a purposefully messy braid, made her entrance, she looked to be around their age
"Hey, sorry to ask but could you please give me a smoke?" she questioned, noticing the cigarettes held by each one of them, Elijah the only exception
"Sure," Alex replied, since she usually was the one asking around for it for once being able to be the provider was enjoyable, it also made it easier to ask for a cig the next time she forgot to buy them, or left them in a different jacket, or found them destroyed by her cat, or put them in the washer...
"Thanks," Renesmee replied while the guitarist lit her fag, she inhaled deeply, it didn't have any effect on her, nor negatively or positively, but smoking wasn't the reason she was here anyway,
Clay thought about breaking the silence before it became weird
"You are part of that family that just transferred right? What brings you here?" the blonde asked but quickly added, after a not-so-gentle nudge in the back from Elijah, "If I may ask, obviously... Not a lot of people move here you know?"
"Yeah, I get it. We mostly wanted to move away from the city, too chaotic. Also, our father got a job offer at the local hospital so everything worked out," she smiled
"My mother did say that a new doctor arrived at the hospital," Alex intervened, conveniently leaving out her mother's comments about the physical appearance of the physician, she definitely would have shared the details later though, once they didn't have to worry about his daughter.
— — —
The coven's members were all wondering where the youngest of them was, who more than others, her appearance, though, sprang vastly different reactions, while some relaxed, a specific duo tensed so much it's likely their muscles would have snapped had they not being made to resist the pressure of, well, basically anything. They listened attentively to any words exchanged between the group
"Do you know what food here is even remotely edible? It's always better to ask when in school cafeterias, you know,"
"Oh, yeah. Usually, you can never go wrong with pizza, salad is a pretty safe choice too, the beef sandwich is also decent, I guess" the redhead replied, after their smoke break Renesmee had followed them to the cafeteria "We need to all go there anyway," that's what she had said, no one had had anything against it, why would they?
Lorelei seemed to remember that Renesmee, they had exchanged names not long before, had eaten with her family yesterday but, having just got here, it was perfectly reasonable that it had taken her a day to find someone else to eat with.
There was a small part of her that thought it was weird that she wasn't talking to any of the other freshmen and had decided to only interact with an older group but she brushed it off.
While Renesmee talked to the clueless humans, turmoil grew at the cafeteria's other side. The teenager's behavior had been completely unexpected; the gaps in Lorelei's future should have been a warning of what was to come but they hadn't thought too much of it back then, they would certainly not let it slide from now on.
The couple's eyes were fixed on the group, unwavering.
"Bella, would you please take the shield down? I think knowing our child's thoughts could calm Alice and Jasper a little bit," Edward politely asked
Shortly after the birth of Renesmee Bella had concluded that she wanted her to have a normal childhood, at least in the parts she could control. That was why she almost permanently kept her shield up, engulfing her child's mind with it and effectively stopping her loving but terribly invading father from involuntarily entering it.
It was also why she had kept contact with the only people that could understand her rapid growth, namely the werewolves, or, rather, shape-shifters, that lived at Forks. After the initial aversion and understandable fear, and after Renesmee learned to control her thirst, a skill she now mastered, she had made quite a few friends in the packs, mostly in Jacob's
"Only this once," the brunette replied
In a moment, he picked the hybrid's thoughts out of the myriad around him, "Dad, please tell uncle and aunt that I don't mean any harm. We would have had to interact with her sooner or later and this was a way to install a relationship between us like any other. At least I don't risk draining her," clearly, while she chatted with the others she had attentively listened to her relatives' conversation, it was no news that vampires were great at multitasking, thoughts continued to form but Edward cut them off, nodding at Bella to bring the shield back up.
He reported the message but the couple of motionless vampires didn't show any sign of being more relaxed, Jasper's discomfort seeping through him and rubbing off on everyone around him. He soon started directing it towards the source of their problems, annoyed by her chirpiness, but, predictably, Edward snapped at him
"Don't you even try" he hissed
Jasper growled in response,
Rosalie never had much patience and, soon, not even Emmett's soothing hand on her back was able to hold her back.
Standing up, she started confidently walking straight across the room, her blond waves elegantly falling on her back, and her tight-fitting jeans, chosen by Alice earlier in the night, gaining her various looks from all genders.
The scowl on her lips turned into a forced smile as she neared the table
"Could we borrow her for a moment? Me and my family need to ask her something," she asked, her left hand already latched onto Renesmee's arm, she wasn't particularly good at coming up with excuses, she didn't so much as try to, much preferring a straightforward approach.
She wasn't particularly good at coming up with excuses, she didn't bother to, much preferring a straightforward approach.
"Sure," Elijah replied, a bit taken aback, like the rest of them after all.
In a few, long strides, the blond returned to her seat, prize in hand.
"What were you thinking?? You could have jeopardized the whole thing!" Alice was the first to lash out, Renesmee had yet to touch her chair "And you should really pay more attention to your child since you wanted her so badly," she continued, harshly addressing the two irresponsible parents, they didn't reply for the sake of salvaging the family relationship
"Always so exaggerated," the troublemaker dramatically huffed
"Not the right moment, Ness," Emmett affirmed, not without a hint of a joke in his voice, probably the reason why he was promptly ignored by all parts
"Honey, you need to understand that they have every right to be annoyed. When Mum was still human I also didn't want her hanging out with people who would block Alice's vision, it's true that, in her case, they were a lot more unpredictable than you but I still see where they are coming from. You can't do things like what you did today because you are putting everyone in danger," Edward intervened, stopping the couple from replying with what would definitely not have been a sentence nearly as constructive or civilized.
"I know that they are overprotective of her but maybe they should loosen up, she did make it this far alive and without their help. Plus, I have every right to interact with whoever I want, isn't it the reason you finally enrolled in a public school?"
"As long as you aren't putting them in danger with your reckless behavior!" Alice squicked
"I find it hard to see how what I did today would have had different outcomes if they had been other people, also please tell me how my behavior puts her in danger but your sneaking in her room doesn't. By stealing something with her scent you could have become hypersensitive to it and lost all control once you met her, but you didn't think of that, didn't you?"
"We didn't have to worry about it because Alice could see it wasn't going to happen, but with you in the middle of everything we can't predict what'll happen," Jasper retorted, his southern accent making his presence known more than usual
"Maybe you shouldn't try to control her life so much, I mean, have you even spoken to her? Maybe acting like a human will get you further than staying in a corner scheming,"
Emmett emitted a low, appreciative, whistle
"We will when the time is right,"
Renesmee limited herself to shaking her head.
After a few moments of silence, Bella finally spoke her mind, nobody except her husband looked at her but they were listening, Rosalie was too, regardless of her desire to be somewhere else
"As someone who was in Lorelei's place before, I can tell you that having someone control who I can spend time with or not because of some possible danger felt quite constrictive. Me and Edward had quite a few fights about it in the past and, even though I get his reasoning, I still hope he didn't act that way. I'm not sure you want to make the same mistake with her. After all, Renesmee can control herself better than any of us," the two overprotective immortals seemed to have, negligibly, relaxed.
Edward didn't regret anything about what he had done to keep Bella away from the werewolves but preferred to keep his mouth shut, not wanting to dig up an old argument
"Why don't you try to see it under a different light? While you two need to slowly get closer to Lorelei Renesmee doesn't have to take things slow, she could look over her in first person when you can't," Bella continued
"It doesn't seem like such a bad idea, good job Bells," Emmett ruffled her hair and laughed, his deep voice resonating loudly.
"This way we are presented with the same problem. I want to be able to see what Lorelei will do and with her interfering I can't,"
"I'm not saying to be mean or anything but, has it ever crossed your mind that you are being a bit of a control freak? Now, calm down, don't snap at me but, maybe, it's actually best if you don't see her all of the time. Like I already said, if you act like a human would it is a lot more likely she will voluntarily get with you," Renesmee said
As Alice opened he mouth a sturdy hand met her forearm "We'll think about it," Jasper said.