I had thought he was joking, but Emmett actually, legitimately made me shower outside. (Albeit, it was a nice outdoor shower, but still.) I towel dried my hair as I walked back into the living room.

"Hey Emmett," I said in a normal voice, though he wasn't in the living room. "Is there like a pizza or burger place I can go to pick up some food?"

"You're not going anywhere." I recognized the voice too quickly for it to frighten me: Alice. I turned around slowly; she sounded pissed.

"I'm hungry," I said smoothly. Jacob flashed across my mind. I actually was hungry, but if I could just get out alone…

"Not going to happen," this time it was Edward. He had suddenly appeared beside Alice.

I froze, caught in the act. But I continued to lie, hoping it wasn't true.

"What's the problem?"

"The problem?" Alice said, her voice raised. "The problem is that I can't see werewolves, Kayla. That's the problem."

"I don't understand."

"Yesterday I was getting five visions an hour about your future. Your future with your brother, with our family. And today—" I interrupted her.

"I disappeared." I was stunned. "I'm so sorry I worried you. I didn't know," I told her. She sighed. Edward was stoic at her side, expressionless.

"Where's Emmett?" I asked.

"He's burning the clothes you were wearing today; they smelled too strongly to bring them in the house to wash," Edward said.

"You're manipulating me out of outfits. I'm not going shopping with you," I said this last part to Alice.

"This is serious," Emmett said from behind me. I jumped.

"Stop doing that," I told him.

"Why were you meeting with the werewolves today?" Edward asked. His voice was in the same curious tone it had been in earlier.

"I…I wasn't."

"Oh, so you wondered into the woods. Six miles into the woods. And the werewolves were following you." Alice.

"I must have smelled suspicious to them. Human with just a hint of Cullen."

"So suspicious that they had to get real close. And breathe on you." Emmett.

The room became silent.

Then, I gave up. "What's happening?" I asked them, taking a deep breath. I can handle a lot of things. I'm a strong woman. Demons attacking me and my brothers: no problem. One of my brothers missing: hard, but still bearable. Romantic drama: piece of cake. Dean turning into a vampire: certainly new, but it's bittersweet. But all of them at once? My head was spinning.

"La Push werewolves are different than normal werewolves. They do something called imprinting. It's when they see someone they think they would enjoy the company of and they manipulate emotions to draw the person to them. If you stay away from La Push and the werewolves the feeling will go away," Edward said.

"Edward," Alice snapped at him.

"You're lying," I told him. Emmett sighed and sat down.

"I'm not," he told me, and he sounded honest. But my abilities were turning my nerves into electric wires through my body. I needed Jacob's calm so badly all of the sudden.

"She deserves to know," Emmett said.

I whipped around. "Tell me," I pleaded to him. He turned his gaze to me—previously it had been fixed to the TV—and sighed again.

"Her brother will kill us," Edward warned.

"He doesn't have to know," Emmett said. "Not yet." And then he turned to me. "Imprinting is when you meet your soul mate." And he threw in a wink at the end of his sentence. My knees buckled and I fell onto the couch next to him. He patted me on the leg. "It could have been worse."

"Yeah. Maybe it's not that bad," Alice said, nodding to Edward. "Who is it, Kayla?"

"Are you sure this is what's happening? Are you positive?" I asked, locking eyes with Edward. He nodded once.

"Kayla, tell me who it is," Alice said. I looked at my hands.

"It's Jacob Black," Edward answered for me. My hands tightened; my breath hitched. I knew his last name now. And then I cleared that stalker-ish thought from my head.

"Oh. Well, then… yeah, it's pretty bad," Alice answered.

"These next few months are going to be entertaining," said Emmett as he leaned back and grabbed the remote on the table next to him.

I turned back to Edward. "Does this happen often? I thought you said werewolves were bad…they're not real werewolves, though, are they?"

"You saw one? As a wolf?" Alice asked, disbelief thick as acrylic paint coloring her voice.

"Yes. I heard Jacob howling from the house after Edward left. That's why I was out there. I wasn't wondering aimlessly; I just had to find the source of the howling. I had to."

Alice sighed and sat down next to Emmett, defeated.

"No." This word came from Edward. He was staring defiantly at Alice and Emmett. They looked back at him and he shook his head once more. "No," he repeated.

"No what?" I asked.

"We should talk to Sam, the alpha werewolf from Jacob's pack," Alice said. "Carlisle can talk to him. We can work something out. You're going to need to see each other soon."

"With her brother a newborn?" Edward exclaimed. "No way, Alice."

"We should just reverse it," I said. Edward scoffed.

"Sure, just let me get out my time machine," he answered grimly. "You've already seen him. There's nothing we can do that I know of."

"It doesn't work like that," Emmett said suddenly. I thought he was talking to me, but when I looked over at him he was talking to Edward. "It's not like she saw him and then they were soul mates. They were soul mates before they saw each other, and if they hadn't seen each other they would have been lacking that their whole lives."

"Romantic," Edward mocked.

"It's what I get for watching so much TV—Lifetime is so hard to stay away from when there's nothing on."

"Now she's hyperventilating," Alice said. Who was she talking about?

Oh, right. Me.

"Breathe," she advised. I tried.

"Let's get some air," Edward said, and he was at my side in a blink, leading me by the elbow out of the house and into a car. "We'll get something to eat."

"I'm not hungry; I hope you're not either," I told him. He smiled.

"What do you need?" he asked.

"I need…" I couldn't think straight.

"Slow down," he soothed.

"I need…Sammy. I need to see my brother is okay. And I need to talk to my dad and ask what he thinks… I need to have Dean hate Jacob because he's the boy I like and not because he's a werewolf."

"I'm sorry none of those things are possible. But if there is something possible that will make you feel better, just say the word," he said, and the instant he finished speaking, I knew what I needed. I looked at him. He must have known what I was thinking; his face was almost daring me to say it.

"I need Jacob." I tried my hardest to think about the calm I felt earlier that day.

"Your brother will murder all of us. Do you really wish carnage that terrible?"

"He'll never know. Leave me at the border, I'll get to Jacob's myself. No one else is going to come back until tomorrow. I'll be back by then, I promise. And if Dean calls, I'll answer the phone," I pleaded.

"What if he asks for one of us?"

"I'll tell him you're out patrolling, and that I suggested it."

My abilities told me to keep going.

"Aren't I, like, your sister now or something?" I asked him.

"All the more reason to keep you away from teenage boys," he told me.

"If you want to be that kind of brother," I said. My abilities screamed for that extra step, so I took it: "Sammy was the other kind of brother. The kind that supported my happiness, no matter what. You think that's going to be Emmett, Jasper, or you?" He sighed.

"You're going to die and then my infinite life will come to a halting stop: Dean's going to murder me. Mangy, idiotic pups," he muttered, but he took the turn that put us on the road to the reservation anyway.

"Thank you," I said sincerely.

"How are you going to get to his house from the line?" he asked.

"I'll start walking," then, at the look on his face, "I won't be cold. And I'll wait for him to notice I'm there."

"You think that will work?" he asked.

"My abilities are telling me definitely, yes." I answered, and in addition to the normal reactions my body had because of my ability, I felt the strangest thing: a flutter in my stomach, a skipped beat in my heart.