Empty

Kara set the cup of hot chocolate on the coffee table, eyeing Jacob as she did. He's harmless, right? He wouldn't turn into a closeted serial killer and hurt her, right? Jacob took the cup into his hands and thanked her.

"So, why La Push?" he murmured into his cup, looking up to meet her gaze. Kara blushed a little when he did. She cleared her throat.

"I didn't really have a choice, to be honest."

Jake took a sip of his drink and shrugged, "I don't think La Push is a place people really go to when you have a choice."

After selecting Play on the TV remote, Kara took her own mug (Mickey Mouse one, mind you) from the table and took the seat opposite Jacob. "So many people have told me that, you know? You guys really should have it on your travel brochure. Warn people a little before they make the commitment to move here."

Jake smiled at the thought, "I can see it. La Push, hell away from home."

Kara snickered at that.

"No, but really, why are you in La Push?"

The insistence silenced Kara for a moment. She hadn't really figured out what she would tell people who asked her that. And so many people had. At church, her Uncle Sol, Leah, and now, Jake. She wondered what she should tell him. It had to be a great story because really, who give up sunny golden beaches for a place that rained 370 days a year?

"My mother made me come here,"she finally said. Jake felt the air around them tense a little, and had enough sense to pretend to look at the figures playing on the television screen before he urged her on again, "Am I allowed to ask why?"

Kara sipped her cocoa, then took another one, and another before she replied. "Let's just say my staying back home wasn't helping too many people a whole lot."

Jacob felt the weight behind the single sentence and decided that maybe he didnt really want to know. Kara was beginning to look less like Embry's crush, and a lot more like a girl who had a tortured past too. And Jacob knew all too well what a tortured past could do to someone.

"Where is that?" he asked instead, eyes dancing between Kara's sombre face and the tv screen. In an instant, Kara's frown lightened and Jacob swore he could see a light return to her eyes. She looked so nostalgic, so happily doused in a memory that he felt kind of bad for being there. "Fiji,"Kara told him, "I'm from Fiji."

The boy sucked in a breath and tried really hard not to let the ignorance he felt show. Fiji, as in Fiji Water? That was an actual country?

It wasn't until Kara's laugh that he realized he had asked the question out loud.

"Yes it is, thank you very much. It's the Republic of the Fiji Islands and we are indeed, an actual country."

Jake rubbed the back of his ear sheepishly. "Sorry, I didn't mean to say that out loud"

Kara smiled understandingly at him, "It's okay. Not a lot of people here know about Fiji. Or that Uncle Sol is even Fijian."

Jacob thought of the intimidating man, with his mean right hook and frame broad enough to rival even Sam Uley's. "Yeah - I don't think I knew that either."

Kara shrugged. "He migrated here before I was even born, and he has lived here ever since."

"I wonder why he would have chosen to stay in La Push - your uncle."

Kara sighed, "He was married to a woman from the Quileute tribe."

Jacob turned to face Kara, completely surprised. "I didn't know that."

Kara pointed up to a small framed picture on the wall. Jacob turned. He saw a much younger and happier looking Sol with his arm around a very pregnant and laughing indigenous woman. If there was a photograph that captured hope of a lifetime of joy perfectly, it was this one.

Jacob stood from the sofa and walked towards it. The woman was beautiful. Bright eyes, shoulder length hair flying in the wind, she seemed to be saying something to the person behind the camera when the photograph had been taken. Dragging his eyes across the other framed photographs, Jacob noticed that every single photograph had the woman smiling, either with Sol by her side or her alone. It was not hard to miss that she had been very loved, and very adored.

He had been so engrossed in the photos that he didn't realize that Kara had left her seat to stand next to him as well. "She was beautiful, wasn't she?"

Jacob nodded wordlessly. The photos reminded him of his sister, Rebecca and her husband in Hawaii. How ironic that his brother in law was called Solomon too. "What happened to her?"

"She was killed,"a different voice broke through both their reveries. Jacob and Kara turned suddenly to find Sol standing at the door. They had not heard him come in. Jacob gulped the instinctive ball of apprehension that rose in his throat. Sol Whippy had a reputation in the reservation. While he was close with a few of the council members, even Jake's own father, he was so enigmatic, that some mothers used his name often to scare their naughty little sons into obedience.

Kara's cry of surprise embodied both their exact reactions. Sol smiled warmly at his niece and then turned his dark eyes back to teenaged boy, "Keeping my niece company, Mr. Black?"

Jacob stammered and took a short instinctive step away from Kara. He really wasn't looking for trouble right now.

"He dropped by to go over some school stuff, Uncle Sol,"Kara started to say, Jacob turned to her. He was a little thankful she had enough foresight to cover for him. Sol raised an eyebrow but said nothing else. He nodded back to the photographs on the wall, "She was your father's cousin, Jacob."

Jacob gawked. He didn't even know that his grandfather had had siblings.

Kara cleared her throat. She felt bad. She remembered that her mother had warned her not to talk too much about her Aunt Mariane. While she had died well before Kara had even been born, Sol had never moved on after her death. Her mother had told her that he had been so overcome with grief that he had left the Marines and refused contact with his own family for months until Liana had been able to find him again.

"I'm sorry Uncle Sol,"Kara said, "I didn't mean for us to pry."

Sol's dark eyes softened when they landed on Kara. "It's okay Kara. Could you get me a hot cup of that, please?"

Kara looked down into the mug in her hands and then back up. "Okay sure. Let me just walk Jacob out. He was just leaving."

Sol turned his smile to the now uncomfortable boy. "I'll walk him out, don't worry."

Kara nodded and turning on her heel, walked back into the kitchen. Jacob had to force himself to walk towards Sol, who was still standing in front of the door. "Thank you for having me,"he felt he had to say. Sol patted his back gently, but leaned in close before he said, "Vampires killed her, Jacob."

Jake froze. His head whipped up and he looked directly at Sol. There was ice now where just a few seconds ago there had been warmth. Jacob could see in them the young husband who had had to bury a wife and child, and the man who was still rearing for revenge.

"How?"

Sol continued, as if he hadn't the boy speak. "I know what you are, and what you're required to do to protect your people."

Jacob felt a chilling coldness wash over him How did he know?

"But I need you to stay out of my niece's life. You and every single member of your pack. You hear me?"

Jacob opened his mouth to say something, anything. He felt affronted, like he should be defending his pack, his friends, himself. But he couldn't. He was truly still at a loss of words at how Sol could possibly know all this. Could his late wife have told him the myths too?

"I can't have her getting messed up in whatever you guys having going on with your resident vampires. I can't lose someone else to a war we didn't ask to be a part of."

Jacob opened the door and glanced at Kara once more time before he turned back to Sol, "I'm sorry about what happened to your wife. But we're here now. We won't let the same thing happen again to an innocent."

Sol followed his eyes to Kara, before turning to face Jacob, "Your wolves were here when my wife was killed too, but she still died. Just stay away from my niece, all of you. And no one will get hurt."

Jacob felt the lump that had formed in his throat settle in the pit of his stomach. "That's not your call to make. It's hers. If you didn't want her to get involved with us, why would you have sent her to our school?"

Sol shook his head, "Between vampires and wolves, I had to pick the one most familiar. Just stay away from her, Jacob, I mean it."

Jake glanced one final time at Kara, who was now watching them from the kitchen, before saying, "Tell her to stay away from us too." And with that, he shut the door behind him and walked away.