LINSPACE

CHAPTER 6

It was another typical day at Forks High School and Bella was bored out of her mind. She usually enjoyed learning and she was one of the students with the highest marks. But today she felt like time was going by painfully slow and all the lessons were dull and uninteresting. She couldn't wait for the bell that signalled the end of the day to ring.

Edward, Jasper and Alice, the members of the Cullen family that attended school with her, obviously noticed her change in behaviour and Alice, always the curious one, couldn't help but enquire about it.

"Is something on your mind Bella?"

It was lunch time and they were currently seated at their usual table in the school cafeteria. Bella looked up from the food she was poking at.

"No, everything's fine." She replied in a fake cheerful tone. She sighed and continued "It's just... my cousin is back from England and yesterday was the first time I saw her after several years. I guess I'm just a bit eager to spend time with her."

"Oh..."

Alice cheerful look morphed in to one of confusion and worry and everyone but Edward, who had read her thoughts and was now matching her expression, looked at her strangely.

"I didn't see her coming." She elaborated.

Bella wasn't surprised. It was probably due to the fact that Hermione was a witch. She didn't say anything though, it was not her secret to tell.

She still couldn't believe that magic existed. She really shouldn't have been that shocked though, her boyfriend was a vampire and her best friend a shape-shifting wolf. It almost seemed like she was the weird one, being normal. And now that she thought about it a lot of peculiar things that she had noticed while growing up with Hermione actually made sense.

It was true that she was excited to spend time with her cousin. After the shock had faded she became insanely curious about this Wizarding World and she couldn't wait to learn everything there was to know, surely Hermione had tons of books on the subject. I almost sound like her, thought Bella amusedly.

The Cullens, sensing that she wasn't going to comment, dropped the conversation but it was obvious that there was something she was hiding.

And Edward, not for the first time, was incredibly frustrated that he couldn't read her mind.

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Paul Lahote hadn't had the best childhood. It wasn't easy growing in a household with an abusive father.

He hadn't always been like that. Paul was five when his father had started drinking. For whatever reason, Paul had never understood. But from that moment on things had started going downhill. Conversations almost always ended in shouting matches and his mother started sporting bruises more and more often. And after three years she decided she couldn't take it anymore and left them.

And Paul became his father's new target.

No one could really blame him if he grew up to be bitter and quick to anger. Anger that brought him at the age of 16 to shift in his wolf form for the first time.

But it was really a blessing in disguise. The transformation caused him to grow taller and more muscular. He towered over his father now and could easily take him down if he decided to beat him again, but he was too scared to try and instead just ignored him. Paul was fine with that. He tried to stay away from that house as much as possible.

That's why he was often found at the pub looking for company for the night or taking more patrol shifts than the other pack members.

That's why he was currently on his third consecutive shift of the day. He was tired, but it was better than the alternative.