Lucy POV
As we finally got to the top of the mountain overlooking LaPush, I looked around, the memories of the last night I was here flooded back. Everything looked the same—even the air smelled the same. Jake pulled my hand and led me closer to the edge and as we did I could see more of the view. The twinkling lights of the tiny houses below looked almost like a painting. The only thing missing were stars in the sky and we’d have our own Starry Night by VanGogh. However, the midnight sky was clouded over with thick, ready to leak clouds. I really hoped it wouldn’t rain while we were here.
Jake stopped a few yards away from the complete edge and pulled me down onto the ground with him. We sat side by side with our legs out in front of us. I looked at him to see that he was gazing off to the distant, his eyes almost clouded over. Again, I felt my heart squeeze with worry.
“Jake..” I put my hand on his shoulder, rubbing it gently. “What’s on your mind?”
He sighed, not breaking contact with the horizon and rested his arms on his knees. I expected him to say something, anything, but the silence remained.
“You said one more thing needed to be done before it was right.. what is it?” I softly urged him on.
“Well if that isn’t the perfect opening to this conversation, I don’t know what is.” He muttered more to himself as he straightened up and turned to me.
He was silent for a moment or two before he began. “Luce, did you ever think about what it would be like if our world didn’t just consist of human and animals..and that there were other things out there besides all that we’ve known?”
I was a little taken off guard by his question but answered it anyway, “ “What do you mean, like.. supernatural things?”
He nodded.
“Well yeah.. But I mean it’s kind of hard to imagine. Things like that only exist in books and movies.” I shrugged, “but I guess it would be pretty cool… I mean, just as long as those other ‘things’ don’t want to kill me.” I chuckled lightly.
Jake joined me and looked back down.
“What’s this about?” I questioned, very curious.
“Remember Billy’s Legends?..”
“Yeah, of course. What about them?”
Again, silence. “What if I told you that they weren’t just legends?” His eyes caught mine.
My eyebrows knitted together, “Um.. what do you mean?” If I thought I was confused before, I was definitely beyond confused now. “What, those stories are.. real?” I ended with an amused tone.
He was obviously trying to pull some kind of joke or prank on me. And knowing me I probably would have believed it if it wasn’t so absurd. However, his gaze was serious—no smile, not a hint of amusement. Maybe he wasn’t kidding….
“Yes.” He curtly replied. He looked at me trying to make out my reaction which was simply a blank look. However, inside my mind was a mess of confusion and wonder.
“Shut up” I pushed his body in a joking manner, laughing. However he looked at me and shook his head his face still serious. My smile immediately faltered. “Explain..” I let out slowly.
“Okay, this is going to be a long one.” He let out a long breath. “ And I just want you to listen and keep an open mind about this. I’m not expecting you to accept this right away, so there’s no pressure. I just need you to hear me out.” He told me, his brown orbs filled with nothing but sincerity and care.
I couldn’t help but offer him a little encouraging smile and placed my hand over his to let him begin his explanation. He put his other hand over mine and returned my smile.
“In the legends, Billy tells us that the first chief of the Quiluetes wasn’t completely.. human. He was a shape shifter right?” I nodded letting him continue. “Well it didn’t just stop with him. It was some kind of… mutation in his genes that he passed on through the bloodline. So basically there have been many Quiluete shape shifters after him seeing as he was alive way back in the 1700s.”
“Okay, sorry, but when you say shape-shifters you mean like.. werewolves?” I interrupted.
He nodded. “Yes. But they’re not like the ones you read about in the books, or see in the movies. That’s just stereotypical garbage.” I nodded, not completely understanding, but wanting him to finish his explanation. “But I’ll explain that later. Anyway, it was found that the gene skips a generation and only affects certain men of that generation. There isn’t really a reason why some have it and others don’t. I guess it’s just random.”
“Wait. Again sorry.” I apologized for interrupting again. My mind was completely blown by what he was saying. And how rationally he was saying it! He was talking about werewolves like it was the weather for God’s sakes. “Are you meaning to tell me that there may be werewolves around here right now?” I pointed in the direction of the horizon, motioning towards the reservation. Just the thought of that was frightening to say the least. Werewolves! Just lurking about and we don’t even know who they are? It’s like something out of a horror movie. Actually this whole conversation felt like it was taken out of a movie.
Jake chuckled a little half-heartedly, but nervously all the same. “Yeah, there’s quite a few of them. You see.. the gene kind of affected this generation.” He slowly let out. “Eight of us.”
I felt my breath catch in the middle of my throat as soon as the words escaped his mouth. Us. He said us. I felt like the entire cliff was spinning, my mind fogging up to his words echoing off the walls of my brain. Jake, my best friend for seventeen years, had just told me that he was a.. a.. werewolf. HE was one of those horrific monsters they portrayed in the movies and the books and all common media. He had said they were nothing like the stereotypes, but how different could they really be? I looked up at him, my expression nothing but shock and horror.
“What? You?... You’re one… one of them?” I had difficulty getting the words out.
“And Quil, Seth, Embry, Jared, Sam, Leah, and Paul.” He added.
My eyes widened, my mouth agape. Suddenly it all made sense. The incredibly built bodies after being so lanky and suddenly so fit, the abnormal giant height, the inhuman strength, the high threshold for pain, their constant togetherness like a.. pack. A pack! Paul must have slipped up that day we went to Port Angeles! All those weird little pieces fit together to make on big shocking picture. They were all werewolves.
“How is this possible?” I muttered more to myself than to him. Images flashed in my mind of all the things I have heard and read and seen about the werewolves and I just couldn’t at all imagine that these people that I have grown up with are.. them. And Jake! How could I have not known? How could he not have told me in the seventeen years? It hurt to even think about the fact that he was able to keep something like this from me.
With these thoughts, I got up not bothering to look back at him and started walking back home. Home where all the other werewolves probably still were. God, that felt so weird to even think. I wrapped my arms around myself to shield against the now bitter chill around me. Before I used to love the cold air on the reservation, but now it just felt unfamiliar and foreboding. I looked at the ground as I walked, feeling the pang in heart that was increasing now that I realized he really wasn’t going to come after me. It wasn’t like Jake to just let me walk away- but I guess I didn’t really know Jake that well after all.
JAKE POV
I watched her get up and leave without a single word or glance to me feeling a numbing wrench in my heart. Everything I was worried about and feared would happen after telling her was unfolding right before me. I couldn’t even bring myself to get up and follow her because I knew nothing I could say would make her want to stay. Lucy hated who I was and I couldn’t change that. I saw the fear and hurt in her eyes when I told her and I didn’t want to ever see that again. Especially when it was caused by me. I felt the stiff tremors run through my body as I got angrier at myself. Angry that I was what I was. Angry that after finally finding the thing I have been looking for all my phased life, it was going to be taken from me because of that phased life that I had. I tried to stop myself, trying any way to calm down before the inevitable happened. Before I succumbed to what she hated and feared. And that thought alone seemed to slow the tremors down until they were just small shudders
A loud roar of thunder crashed from above as a warning for another heavy thunderstorm. I didn’t move though, I just sat in that same spot allowing the dreadful empty space in my heart to return. That same empty space I had before I saw Lucy.
I didn’t know how long it was that I stayed there, but I eventually decided to get home, realizing the cliff was just too hard to stay on without her.