Rayonnante - Paul Lahote

Chapter 15

There were many things in her life that Lena Blanchard had regretted. She'd regretted not keeping better track of her pink glittery handbag and losing it when she was eight. She'd regretted getting bangs when she was twelve. She'd regretted painting her nails bright red and spilling the entire bottle on her wooden floor when she was thirteen. She'd regretted not studying enough for that Spanish quiz when she was fifteen. And now, she was desperately regretting following Bella Swan in her urgent quest to get answers. The girl hadn't even tried to be polite. She'd marched right to the Black house's doorstep and banged on the door even louder than when she'd knocked on Lena's earlier that same morning. She'd scowled and tapped her foot on the wooden porch while waiting for someone to answer, looking as if she thought that every second of waiting was comparable to torture. Uncomfortable with her companion's attitude, Lena tried to make herself smaller behind the girl, crossing her arms over her chest in a protective way. She hated feeling like an intruder and demanding entry into someone else's house this early in the morning felt like it. While Billy assured her that she would always be welcome in their home, she always made sure to visit at reasonable hours. She also usually waited to be invited. And her unease wasn't just caused by Bella's attitude. She had a bad feeling about where this was heading, like some kind of instinct deep inside her body had been awakened and was screaming at her to run for the hills.

Finally, Billy opened the door, looking surprised to see the Swan girl glaring back at him. Lena noticed that he looked a bit less tired than the last that she'd seen him, which she took as a good sign. If Jacob's illness had truly been worrisome, she had no doubt that his father would've looked much worse.

"Bella?"

"I need to see him."

The man frowned, shaking his head. It obviously wasn't the first time that they'd had this conversation. Lena could just picture Billy answering the phone over and over, trying to get his son's friend to understand that he was currently unreachable. Unfortunately, Bella seemed to be like a dog with a bone. She just wouldn't let it go.

"He's not in."

And then, she did something so rude that Lena gasped. Skirting around the elder's wheelchair, she just entered his house and started marching down the hallway towards Jacob's bedroom.

"Ok I'm sorry I really need to see him."

Billy tried to call out to her, but nothing was going to make her budge. She'd made up her mind. Looking stunned, both pair of eyes followed her form as she reached Jake's door and opened it, not a care in the world. It was only when Lena whimpered a small apology that the man finally noticed her presence.

"What are you doing here, sweet girl?"

Relieved at the warm greeting, she gave him an apologetic smile. She didn't really know what the proper etiquette was for a situation like this, so she awkwardly remained halfway inside and outside the house at the same time.

"Bella came to me first. She wanted to know if I had answers about what was going on with Jacob. She told me that he was sick?"

Billy sighed, nodding. He wasn't exactly thrilled at the thought of lying to her once again, but he knew that Paul was planning on telling her the truth soon. Sam kept the elders aware of almost everything that was happening with the pack, especially when it was related to who was made aware of the tribe's secret. While none of the elders had ever shifted, they'd still grown up with the legends of their ancestors and took their job very seriously. They made sure to enforce the law that meant that no one should know about the abilities of some of their members unless they absolutely needed to. Sometimes that could be very hard on the boys, especially when their family weren't part of the council. That was the case with Embry Call, whose mother had no idea what was going on with him. According to Sam, the boy and his mom kept fighting because she was absolutely certain that he'd started taking drugs. She tried her hardest to keep him inside the house and freaked out every time that she noticed he'd sneaked off to patrol. It got so bad that Embry spent most of his time at Sam and Emily's house. In the end, the elders had decided to intervene. They'd spoken directly to Tiffany Call and explained that Embry was part of a youth program meant to keep the streets of La Push safe. She'd been a bit suspicious at first, but she'd finally bought it and been much nicer to her son ever since.