A/N: Hiii! A big thanks to everyone who is reviewing and watching and favoriting! I hope you enjoy :)

And also, because this story is about more than Claire (and because I limited myself with her POV), I wanted to give everyone ways to find out what's going on with everyone else - Quil, the other wolves, the Cullens, the baddies... So, what that means for you guys: for each of your reviews (from three on; one and two don't apply), I'll send you a snippet of something that's going on outside of Claire's sphere. They'll probably be about 500-1000 words each and will give you more ideas as to what's happening. I don't write them until after the chapter, so I can't guarantee who will be in each one. You don't have to review if you don't want to, I promise: I won't reveal anything major that you can't already glean from the chapter, as that wouldn't be fair. They're just little deleted scenes, if you will :)

And I know that people who reviewed the old chapter three will not be able to review this one, so if you'd like, just throw me a quick PM and I'll send you this chapter's extra!

I am forever in debt to Sprut, who deserves SO many thanks! Fahrenheit wouldn't be here without her!

As always,
Mina :)

FAHRENHEIT

Chapter Three

“…stopped short and turned. We had to trace him back to the line.”

“Not like it matters anymore. You should’ve gone for it.”

“Ugh, right? But you know how Jake’s all adamant about it, so Sam here wouldn’t let us cross. It’s been, what, fifteen years? You’d figure it wouldn’t matter. We could’ve caught him.”

“Or a duplicate of him. Again.”

“We almost had the real one! If you would’ve let us follow him, Paul and I could’ve caught up to him easy, ripped his smarmy ass apart. But no, Jake says this, Jake says that. When you lost your balls, Sam, that’s what I wanna know.”

“Hey – ”

“So obv – ”

“Shut the hell up, moron, she’s sleeping. Has he heard anything from them?”

“Them? Not since… well, you know. Not since he came back. I don’t think any of us has heard from them since then. Don’t really want to, either.”

“S’pose not. But why would there be another leech around if they haven’t been here?”

“Curious, I guess? We are a pack of rank-smelling wolves. Maybe he caught wind, decided to investigate, and wanted to play around once he discovered us.”

“It’s been years, though. Hell, the Cullens were the last leeches that’d been ‘round. Doesn’t make much sense.”

“He’s gone for now, though. We’ll just have to put more people on patrol and keep up watch. You stay here tonight, Quil, and make sure she’s okay. I’ll cover your shift and let Emily know what’s going on.”

“Thanks, Sam.”

“I definitely don’t envy you that.”

“Yeah, well… yeah. If you don’t hear from me tomorrow, you’ll know why.”

“Call us if…”

- - - 212 - - -

Instead of the sound of Quil banging around in the kitchen, cursing and fumbling and being generally noisy and irritating, I wake to a soft humming and the mouthwatering shhhh of bacon on a skillet. It makes my stomach grumble, and for a second everything feels okay, like it’s an ordinary summer morning with a delicious breakfast and the promise of silly cartoons.

But then I try to move.

Pain shoots up at my arm as I attempt to turn onto my back and I automatically still, gritting my teeth. Besides the pinpricks of blood rushing through my sleeping veins, which is just lovely, there’s a band of violet circling my upper arm. I move my other hand to enclose gently around it, and my fingers almost fit with the outline of Quil’s. Great. Just one more thing to be added to the list of reasons why I shouldn’t be speaking to him. Physical abuse? Check!

“Oh, sweetheart, that looks pretty bad.”

And, of course, Quil dumped me at his house and brought Emily over. Who else would be cooking breakfast, Claire? I turn away from her as she sits next to me on the leather sofa and pull my arm back as she grabs my shoulder to get a better look. A leftover bitterness is still there from yesterday. I can’t help but wish anyone – anyone – but her was here with me. What, was she an ambassador now? Human-Werewolf Relations?

“Claire, stop it,” she sighs, pulling her hands away as if stealing my thoughts through touch. “I’m sorry about yesterday, but we didn’t have any time to prepare; everything happened at once.”

I push the blankets off my legs and get to my feet, crossing my arms over my chest as I toe at the carpet. “I want to know what’s going on. Because we were in the woods last night, and – ”

“I know. Quil told me,” she says softly. “That’s why I’m here.”

“Where is he?”

“There was…”

Her pause pulls my eyes to her face. She’s biting her lip, her eyes narrowed, clearly wrestling with words. Giving her patience that surprises even me, I wipe the sleep from my eyes and stretch my exhausted muscles while she stares. Last night – early this morning, whatever – was not such a draining exercise, but for some reason I feel like I’d been steamrolled. Half the time Quil had even been carrying me around on his back.

Emily sighs again, grabbing my hand to pull me down next to her on the couch. “There was a fire this morning, in Forks. Usually we wouldn’t be so concerned, but… have the boys told you anything about a girl named Bella?”

“It doesn’t sound familiar,” I say. “But it’s not like they’ve told me anything about that anyway.”

She massages her temples. “We’ll have to start from the beginning, then. Do you want me to, or should I call Quil back?”

I’m not sure. He had promised to talk to me about all of this, but if he actually wanted to, he’d be here right now instead of traipsing around with the guys. It feels like I don’t know him anymore. I know that I’m not the center of his universe, and, okay, maybe I’m acting like a brat, but he should be here. He promised.

So I ask, “Who is Bella?”

She takes this as my answer. Sitting against the arm of the couch, she faces me and folds her hands in her lap; I mirror her pose. If I didn’t know any better, it’d look like we were settling in for a gossip session. “Bella Swan was Chief Swan’s daughter.”

Maybe we were. “I didn’t know he had a daughter. I thought nobody came back to his house when he died?”

“You were so young,” Emily says almost wistfully. “Bella had left a long time before that. She and – maybe I should slow down. Okay. Bella’s parents divorced when she was a baby, and she’d been spending summers in Forks for years.”

“Is this relevant to the werewolf thing, or are we just talking about the fire?”

She purses her lips. “If you’d have patience, Claire… Chief Swan – Charlie – and Billy had been good friends, and so Jake and Bella naturally grew up together during her summer visits. But when she was your age, she moved here to live with Charlie. That was the time a lot of the Quilieute men started transforming into wolves. There’s a reason, and I’ll get to that soon. Bella went to school in Forks, and it was there that she met the Cullen family.”

Something indefinable passed through her voice as she spoke the name, and I was a breath away from asking who they were when she shook her head. “They were… I never met all of them personally, but Bella adored them. She used to come to the rez a lot, especially when – when the Cullens left for a while. She was a sweet girl. Jacob loved her.”

I sat back. I was probably gaping. But then, hello, Jake? Serial dater Jake? “What?”

“Don’t sound surprised,” Emily laughed. “Jake’s been through a lot. He loved Bella, but Bella was in love with one of the Cullen boys, Edward. That family was… do you remember the legends?”

Do I remember the legends? What kind of a question is that? They’re only etched into my brain. I probably don’t know them as well as Emily does, seeing as she glues her face to that notebook every time we tell the stories by the fire, but I know them well enough to narrow my eyes in suspicion at her swift change of subject.

What is she trying to say?

The werewolves are real; the stories are real. Is that it? I understand that easily enough – our ancestors were the original spirit warriors, and the wolf gene, so to speak, is passed through the bloodlines like a totally strange sickness. Instead of something normal, like hemophilia, my family is in danger of lycanthropy.

I don’t know which would be worse, but, well, there it is.

But how does this fit into this hidden soap opera? I hadn’t even known that this Bella existed – what had she done that’d kept her story from being spoken? Who were these Cullens that Emily was so wary to talk about? Did she run away with them or something? Scorned Jacob, abandoned her dad, took flight with Edward, never to be seen again?

“The story with the missing maidens and the third wife,” Emily prompts me, bringing me out of my thoughts. Her eyes are wary. “Do you remember that one?”

The third wife. The third wife… what did she do again? I stare at Emily’s hands, cinnamon and lined, the blue of her veins showing on the underside of her thin wrists. The third wife sacrificed herself, didn’t she? Grabbed someone’s knife and stabbed herself. But why? There was a fight or something, wasn’t there?

Emily jumps as the front door swings open. I’m momentarily distracted by Quil walking in, shirtless, a cautious smile on his face. It’s apologetic, a little guilty, a little ashamed. He doesn’t take his eyes from me as he shoves his hands in his the pockets of his cargo shorts and steps into the living room. There’s a pink line stretching across his chest that I hadn’t seen last night. It’s faint, near invisible, but I’ve seen him without a shirt more often than I’ve seen him with clothes on, and it sticks out against his skin.

What’s out there is bigger than you and me.

Emily asks him how everything went in Forks, but I’m too lost in a sudden thought to comprehend his answer.

There is something to be protected from. The legends are true, after all – the wolves are the guardians, and the enemy… the third wife killed herself so that her blood would be spilled. Cold ones. Vampires. With white skin and red, red eyes.

Like the one that had been running next to the truck last night.

This time, I do laugh. It’s borderline hysterical and not at all indicative of anything humorous, but I don’t have any other reaction. There is no way to refute this. I’d seen Seth as a werewolf, and if I can trust my eyes, I’d even seen one of the cold ones. A few inches of air and a weak plate of glass had been the only things separating my face from a vampire’s teeth.

I rub absently at my bruised arm. Quil’s watches me, wincing as he notices the purple band on my skin, and moves slowly to sit on my other side.

“Claire?”

“We were being chased by a vampire and you didn’t tell me?”

Quil throws Emily a dirty look before placing his large hands on my face. His voice is as soft as his eyes. “I would not – I will never let anything happen to you. Nothing was going to happen.”

“You don’t know that,” I snap, pulling my face out of his grasp and standing. Emily gets up from the couch, whether to give us some measure of privacy or escape the line of fire I’m not sure. Probably both. “You… you… a vampire, Quil? How many were there?”

He sighs. I barely catch the eye roll he tries to hide as he braces his hands on his thighs. “There was one, but he could multiply. Sometimes leeches have special talents.”

“Really,” I say. And then I don’t say anything, because… what? Werewolves as big as cars and vampires that multiply. What else is there to say?

“It would’ve been easier had you stayed inside like I asked you to,” he grumbles. “You just egged him on more.”

My mouth drops open. “I’m sorry, next time a murderous mythological creature out for my blood is in town, I’ll be sure to alert the townsfolk and grab my torch and pitchfork. Maybe we’ll wait for our werewolf friends to save us with our little garlic necklaces and crosses.”

“Claire,” Emily says from the kitchen, her voice low. “Watch your mouth.”

“Are you done?” Quil asks. His jaw clenches as he crosses his arms, and I’m glad that he’s sitting down and not towering above me with those glowering eyes.

“What?”

“Are you done throwing your fit? Can we sit down and talk about this?”

My face colors. “No! No lies. Remember that? No lies.”

“Why do you keep insisting that I’m lying to you? I’ve told you nothing but the truth, Claire. And you were four when we started that. I think you’re older now.”

This, more than his anger, feels like a slap in the face. “So that makes it, what, invalid now? Like you can lie to me because I’m older and we grew out of a stupid little saying?”

“I haven’t lied!” he shouts, jumping to his feet.

“Quil…” Emily warns.

“Stay out of this, Emily,” he growls. “What is this about, Claire? Really. It’s not the damn vampire, is it? Because so far I think you’re just making up excuses to be angry with me.”

I stop. Stare. He’s right. Of course he’s right. A big part of me is indignant that it’s taken them this long to let me in on this big secret, but then… It only makes sense that Quil would read between the lines. There’s something heavy stuck in my heart that keeps the truth somewhere deep, and, as always, he’s there to wait patiently, to help me string it out word by word.

It’s just so much easier to stay angry with him than admit something much more vulnerable.

“I was… scared. I’m scared.”

To my horror, traitor tears start to swim on my lower eyelids and there’s a stupid waver hiding in my voice. I want to turn away from him, to run from this, but I can’t look away. He processes this and I watch his face fall as he pulls me to him. I’m still upset – at him, at Emily, at myself – but I sink into his arms anyway, resting my head against his chest and winding my arms around his waist.

Languid yet hesitant, his knuckles run down the ridges of my spine. “Of me?”

I don’t answer.

His hand stops after a moment.

It’s a non-answer, but what can I say?It’s partly true, partly not, but I’m mostly afraid of what’s inside of him. He’d said himself that he could lose control of himself and kill me. He’d been shaking so badly at the time, trying to keep himself from shredding through his skin. I felt his muscles ripple as he held me to him, and it was the sound of Seth and the vampire in the darkness of the woods that kept me from pushing him away. Seth had been docile, but Quil… is he unable to control it?

What if I make him that angry? Would I end up like Emily?

Or worse?

We don’t speak, and as I watch the sun rise in the morning sky, clear and vibrant like the perfect shade of faded jeans, I tell myself that there’s not a chance in the world. He’d never – there’s no way that he’d hurt me. Accidental bumps and bruises aside, he’s always been gentle with me.

I press my face into his neck, hiding from the answer. “Does it hurt?”

“No,” he says. He rests his chin on the top of my head. “Not always. It did at first, but you get used to it.”

“Oh. Um, are you that color, too? Sandy, like Seth?”

His chuckle rumbles in his chest. “More of a chocolate color. Do you want me to show you?”

His face is very, very close as I pull back, my hands resting on his forearms. My reply dies somewhere on its way out of my mouth – You won’t maul me, will you? – as he stares down at me, his eyes wide and brown, and I find myself getting nervous. Very, very nervous.

Why is he looking at me like that?

“I’m sorry,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t want you to be afraid of me. You shouldn’t be. We’re not like them, I swear.”

He presses his forehead against mine and closes his eyes and there’s a moment where I’m tempted to reach up and place my hand against his neck. I don’t know what it is or where it comes from, maybe some instinctual, primal kind of thing, maybe something I’ve seen Emily do to Sam when she tries to placate him, but the urge startles me.

I press against his arms instead and he leans back immediately. I smile – forgiving, hopefully masking – and nod. “It’s okay. I, um, think I’m going to go to Zoe’s house today, though, if that’s cool. She’s been asking me to hang out since school’s ended but I’ve been spending all my time…”

With you.

The rest of the sentence peters off into silence, and we’re left staring at one another, the two words just hanging there. He looks hurt and taken off guard and confused – we’ve always spent time together without complaint, so this shouldn’t be anything new – but the room’s gotten hot and all I want to do is escape. His arms are scorching underneath my hands; how had I not noticed that, either? And the weight of his stare, sometimes…

“I’ll, um,” I say, cutting off my thoughts. “I’ll just go back home and pick up some stuff.”

He pushes his hands in his pockets again, a reflex hotwired to his nerves. “Do you want me to drop you off?”

“I’ll take her,” Emily says, making a miraculous appearance at my side and cupping her hand around my elbow. She won’t look at me. “You coming over later for lunch, Quil?”

It takes him a prolonged second to respond, but he nods. “Yeah. I’ll be there. Sam wanted to – ”

He glances at Emily, and then at me.

No lies.

“Sam wanted to talk about tracking the leech. He thinks we might’ve missed a trail near the South,” he finishes. Without a word, he turns around and disappears up the stairway. There’s the sound of the faucets turning in the bathroom, and then the shower starting up.

“Do you still want breakfast?” Emily asks, dropping her hand.

“No,” I say. I’d forgotten all about it, but my stomach’s oddly full now. I take a deep breath and let it out slow, closing my eyes. “Can we just go to Zoe’s? She might be up.”

“Sure.”

No radio, no humming, no talking. The wind doesn’t even blow loudly in the open windows. There’s just silence. Emily steers and I sit staring at the dashboard. She’s disappointed in my behavior – I can feel it radiating off of her – but I’m just numb. And it seems not even the sun can thaw that.