You & I Collide

Rachel

“Rachel!” Renesmee called out as she leapt out of Bella’s Ferrari. Esme, Rosalie, Alice, and I were all approaching them from Alice’s Porsche. Nessie leaped into my arms, her springy curls bouncing over her shoulders. Bella joined us momentarily with a kind smile on her lips.

“Hey, Nessie!” I replied, squeezing her tight for a minute then setting her back on the ground. “Wow, have you grown! Hi, Bella.”

“It’s good to see you, Rachel. How are things?” she asked, flipping a strand of hair behind her back.

“Uh, good,” I answered shakily. “You?”

“Not bad,” she said with a nod as we began walking toward the mall. “Charlie’s been getting a little suspicious. On Thursday when it was sunny, he called to see if he could come over and visit. But of course he couldn’t, since it was sunny, and well, you know.”

I did know. Whenever the sun touches a vampire’s skin, the skin sparkles like a million diamonds, creating shimmering rainbows of light. It was a mark of their difference.

“Anyway,” she continued as Renesmee took her hand, “I was the one who answered the phone – and you know how bad I am at lying – so he got all suspicious from my lame answer. But he’ll be over tomorrow afternoon, so hopefully that will clear things up.”

I nodded vigorously in agreement. Charlie could not know about the secret world of vampires that was connected to the secret world of werewolves – a world that Jacob had revealed to Charlie at a time when he had thought it was necessary. Turns out it helped a little, but it sure had everybody on edge for a while.

We entered the mall and hadn’t been in the building for half a minute when Alice was dashing into stores, a gleam of wonder in her eyes. “Look at these shoes!” “Look at that bracelet!” “Did you see those jeans?” She was unstoppable in a mall. Like a tornado.

Alice dragged us around the entire mall, making sure we stopped in every store that had something desirable in the display window. Well, she was dragging Bella and I around. Rosalie was enjoying herself, it appeared, and so was Renesmee. Esme was far too compassionate to make any comment on Alice’s obsessive-power-shopping, so she just followed along with a smile, having fun, too.

Bella had never been a shopping person, so it was easy to understand her perspective. Me, I didn’t mind shopping, but there was too much worry in my heart to allow me to have a good time. Even though I had tried to banish that worry, it still crept back in.

After a very long day, we were all driving home with at least one thing we had bought. Rosalie had a new red coat that made her look even more beautiful and glamorous than she already was…if that was possible. Alice had a bag full of jewelry, Esme had a light blue scarf made of shimmery fabric. Bella bought a funky-looking bracelet made of green and blue beads, Renesmee purchased a plush wolf that looked an awful lot like Jacob in his wolf form – too much to be a coincidence – and I had bought a new tube of lip gloss. Strawberry-kiwi flavor, to be exact. I had only gotten it because it smelled heavenly.

I invited everyone to come inside when we reached my house. They all accepted the offer graciously, but Rosalie wrinkled her nose in disgust as soon as she stepped out of Alice’s Porsche. Oh. I had forgotten about the werewolf smell. As much as they all tried to hide it, everyone was a little adverse to the scent in the air that only they could smell. Everyone but Renesmee disliked it. Nessie was used to it, what with spending so much time with Jake.

“Oh, right,” I said, feeling my cheeks burn crimson. “Sorry about the smell. You guys don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”

Rosalie looked ready to agree, but Esme – kind, loving Esme – cut in.

“Nonsense. If you can live with some werewolf smell, then so can we. There’s no reason not to accept your generous hospitality, Rachel. Thank you.”

Never mind the fact that I couldn’t smell werewolves or vampires. But I welcomed them in, regardless of Esme’s easy loophole.

Renesmee cuddled up to Bella on the couch, snuggling into her shoulder. Rosalie occupied the thickly-padded armchair Charlie had surprised Billy with on his birthday while Esme, Alice, and I slid onto the sofa next to Bella and her daughter. Nessie was exhausted from the long day of shopping, and she drifted off to sleep. Alice, however, was still full of energy. So full of electric, spunky energy that she looked like she might burst at the seams.

“Wasn’t that just the best?” she squealed, clasping her hands together.

“Lots of fun, Alice,” Rosalie said with a smile that implied she was just trying to make Alice happy.

“Couldn’t have been better,” Bella muttered, sarcasm oozing from her tone. I had to laugh – Bella’s aversion to all things shopping along with her flustered expression was a funny combination. Alice let a giggle slip through her lips, too.

When Billy got home, he wasn’t too surprised to see the female Cullens there. After the solid alliance that had formed between the werewolves and the vampires, the treaty had been switched around a bit. The only difference was that there weren’t any “territories” anymore, and that everyone could just go where they pleased. But should any other part of the treaty be broken – for example, the Cullens hunting on Qulieute lands – nothing else mattered but the war that would surely break out.

“Well, I guess we better be going,” Esme said after we chatted with Billy for a little while.

The rest of them agreed, and stood up, gathering their things. Bella held Nessie in her arms as she thanked me before heading out the door. Alice, Rosalie, and Esme followed, giving me parting smiles which I returned with grins of my own. And then they were gone, zooming away in their shiny vehicles.

“So…how was the shopping trip?” Billy asked me.

“Uh…good. What was it like up at Sue’s?” because of course that’s where he would have been all day, even from the early hours of the morning. Sue, him, and Charlie, all having bacon and eggs together…no doubt.

But my dad did not give me an easygoing response. Instead, a nervous twitch overcame his left eye, and he shifted his position in his wheelchair uncomfortably.

“Oh…nothing too exciting,” he mumbled, not really looking at me completely.

I gave him a questioning look. “Right.”

My tone demanded that I know more information.

He sighed heavily. “All right, look. That Egyptian vampire that the packs have been looking for…well, Leah picked up his scent just outside the house. ‘Course, she couldn’t make a big deal out of it, having Charlie there, but I guess it was pretty fresh. She and Seth took off into the woods and went to alert everybody else – had to wait a little bit for Jake to catch up, since he was out on his own, doing his job. They’re all tracking the vampire down right now, following his scent through to Forks. They might just get him this time, Rachel.”

I gripped my hands into the cushion of the couch that I sat on, the tension building up in my chest. It pounded inside my ribcage, threatening to break every bone in my body with its immensely powerful strength. Right now, they were out there. Right now.