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The drive home was slow and quiet. The rain pattered gently against the windshield as if trying to lull the entire town with its constant murmur. Forks seemed grayer than usual as if the tension of the day had merged with the weather.
In the passenger seat, his grandmother broke the silence with a barely contained smile on her lips. "I didn't expect you to react like that today, Nathaniel," she commented, with that tone somewhere between calm and mocking that only a woman of her age could handle with such mastery.
Nate kept his eyes fixed on the wet road, his hands firm on the wheel. "Are you disappointed?" he asked finally, his voice low, almost restrained.
"Disappointed? Please." Her grandmother gave a small, dry, but genuine laugh. "Your father was a shy boy. Peaceful. In some ways, he resembled you… but that fire you showed today wasn't inherited from him." She paused, then added conspiratorially, "You got that from your mother. She was sweet, quiet even… but when something touched her heart, it could burn."
Nate looked away for a second, curious. "I never saw her angry," he murmured. "I don't remember that much, at least."
"She rarely did it… and only when it was worth it. But when it did happen, you better have a good excuse to be in her way," she said, her tone of amusement softening. "I didn't see a hotheaded guy today. I saw someone who got fed up at the right time."
A small smile touched Nate's lips. Sometimes he forgot how much his grandmother knew; all this time he'd taken her for granted as a free spirit or a slightly odd person, but in these brief moments, he felt the weight of her age.
Once home, he went straight up to his room, threw his jacket over the chair, and sat on the edge of the bed. The silence of the house was profound, interrupted only by the occasional creaking of wood in the cold.
He wondered what the hell he'd do during a week off from school. Forks wasn't exactly a hotbed of emotion. His gaze inevitably ended in the corner of her room, where a blanket covered the box of his parents' mementos. He hesitated. That box had always been like an emotional pit that was hard to climb out of.
To avoid her, he took his cell phone out of his pocket and wrote to Jacob:
"I have a week off. Do you want to do anything tomorrow?"
The answer came quickly:
"Sounds good. But tell me the truth… Are you going to invite Bella again, or will itbe Bros time?"
Nate let out a small, tired laugh.
"Bella doesn't need another boy crush around her. Trust me. I already had to deal with one today."
Jacob answered with a call. "What happened?" he blurted out immediately, straight to the point.
"Mike Newton. He grabbed her. He left a mark on her arm. He tried to hit me and… well, I knocked him out." Nate decided to leave out the fact that Mike was upset because Bella was going to prom with him, thinking that if he didn't tell Jacob in person, he might misinterpret it.
"AND I WASN'T THERE?!" Jacob yelled. "Damn, I missed it!"
"It wasn't a big deal, Jake."
"I swear if I run into that guy, I'll rip him to pieces. What an idiot!"
"I don't think it's necessary. He's already learned. Or so I hope."
They chatted for a few more minutes, in a more relaxed tone, joking around as usual. When he hung up, Nate lay down on the bed, his phone still in his hand. He was exhausted. Not just from the day… but from the consequences it brought.
He woke up to the cold. The room was freezing, and a gray glow filtered through the window, announcing that something had changed. He sat up in bed, shuffling his feet to the window. Outside, Forks was sleeping under a blanket of white. It was snowing. Slow, thick flakes that seemed to fall without haste, as if they wanted to stay.
His car was covered. Moving it would be a bad idea.
"Jake, it's snowing hard. I don't think it's safe to drive. We'll have to leave it for another day."
"Forks is a fucking freezer," Jacob responded with an angry emoji.
Nate put his phone aside. The house was silent. The world seemed to stand still.
He looked back at the box. He had no excuses. Not today. He stood up, walked over, and carefully removed the blanket covering the box. He sat down in front of it as if it were an altar.
He opened the lid. The first thing he found was his parents' wedding ring. He'd made it into a necklace, which he sometimes wore when he needed to remember where he came from. As he continued to leaf through the things, something caught his eye.
At the bottom of the box, he found his father's knife.
He'd left it there ever since he'd arrived. He'd never opened it. Nate didn't see much use for it for a normal student, so he hadn't touched it much.
He picked it up. It was a bit small, but it weighed more than he'd imagined. It was solid. Almost elegant. The worn leather sheath felt much older than he was.
He pulled it out slowly.
The blade gleamed in the dull light. It wasn't ordinary steel. It had a hue... not gray, not blue. Something deeper. Like the reflection of ice beneath the surface of a dark lake.
And then he felt it.
Cold. Not cold because of the weather. Cold in another way. Cold like…
Like something that seemed familiar but he couldn't remember.
Nate stepped back slightly, a chill running down his spine. This wasn't normal.
He put the knife away, still confused. Then he pulled out his father's journal. The pages rustled as he opened them as if waking from a long sleep. He'd read it before when he'd moved to Forks… but now something felt different.
"The Cold Ones" was the title of one of the chapters.
"Those who came before us spoke of them. They were beautiful. Perfect. Inhuman. With skin as icy and hard as a rock, with shining eyes and a scent so sweet it hurt the nose. Fast as lightning. Seductive. And dangerous, as much or more so than a spiritual warrior in his prime."
Nate felt his mind trying to rationalize. It was impossible. It was just folklore. Local myths.
But the Cullens… Their appearance. Their isolated behavior. Their smell… their coldness. And the way everyone looked at them. Their undeniable attraction to Alice… and Rosalie. Not emotional. Biological. Instinctive.
He swallowed. "This doesn't make any sense..." he muttered. But his voice sounded weak as if he were trying to convince himself.
But that wasn't the strangest thing. Other things struck Nate as odd: something about Edward Cullen's pause when he spoke, the way he overreacted to some people… Nate's mind was beginning to unravel the pieces of the puzzle; now he felt them slowly coming together.
But Nate wasn't the type of person to assume something just by reading it, he needed undeniable proof.
He was so focused on his journal that he barely noticed his cell phone vibrating on the bed.
He took it.
Bella:
"Are you awake? I don't know if you took advantage of the suspension to sleep in."
The screen glowed softly on the sheets as if announcing that something new was about to begin.
Nate looked at his cell phone for a few seconds, the journal still open in his lap.
Author's Notes: Don't forget the Powerstones! :)