6.0

"Dammit!"

Kate had been working for hours with the boys but she wasn't making any progress.

"Chill out, Kate! You've only been doing two weeks. If Paul can't control his temper in that time, I'm pretty sure you can't master this in two weeks," Jared laughed.

Paul punched his arm, "You think you're so funny."

"Enough," Sam barked. The two boys stopped bickering immediately.

"Kate, concentrate," he directed at her.

She threw her hands up in frustration. After two weeks of coming to La Push to practice everyday there was still no progress. She was being stretched thin. The Saturday's with Jacob, Quil, and Embry were the highlight of the week. She and Jacob made progress on the car while Quil and Embry sat in the corner and laughed the whole time. She and the three boys bonded over their Saturday experiences and she soon found herself counting them among her friends. When she told them this, they all made fun of her for choosing rotten friends. She honestly found herself enjoying their company more than anyone else's.

But Saturdays ended far too soon for her and she was forced to face the hell that was her week. In the mornings she would go to school all day then after school she would be picked up at her house by Sam for training.

Billy and Sam stressed to her the importance of being able to fight vampires and wolves and to do that she would need to get stronger. According to tribal history of their siren, he could run almost as fast as a vampire and was almost as strong as one. Sam would push Kate to run around the forest trying to make her go faster and faster but she was still slow even by human standards. Then they would move on to controlling and strengthening her energy. Paul and Jared would come at her in their human and she would have to stop them. She couldn't even stop them at a walking pace. When Sam suggested she try lifting them, she about had a fit and the subject was not brought up for the rest of the week. They would all work sometimes well into the night. She felt like a burden on the pack but Sam kept insisting that she needed to get stronger.

When she got home she would normally do about two hours of homework before Alice would throw a stone up to her window to begin working on her siren's song. This was even worse than the physical training. Alice kept telling her Carlisle's instructions over and over again but she would just get more frustrated. On Wednesday night she flung a pillow at Alice's head but she caught it easily and chided her on her childishness. Kate felt as if she was in a rut and was just hopeless.

"Sam, I am concentrating. It's not my fault I'm going up against human bulls," she complained.

"You hurt me, Princess," Paul put his hand over his heart dramatically. Paul had started calling her that after her freak out over lifting the two boys. It had escalated to the point where he refuses to call her Kate.

Jared laughed and did the same. He put a hand on his chest, the other on his forehead, and staggered around.

Kate had had enough. She growled and waved her hand in front of her. Jared suddenly stopped laughing and toppled forcefully into Paul sending them sprawling on the ground.

"Let's call it a day," Sam sighed, "Why don't you run over to the Black's and see if Jacob is home. I'll take you home around eight."

"Really?" she asked excitedly.

Sam nodded. She let out a whoop of excitement and ran up to kiss Sam on the cheek before running off into the woods towards the Blacks' house. When the familiar red house came to view she sped up and practically jumped up the stairs.

She quit knocking a couple of days ago when Billy told her there was no point to it seeing as she was coming around so often. So she just let herself in. Billy was sitting in front of the TV with Harry Clearwater watching a game. Kate had met Harry last week when Billy wanted to introduce her to the rest of the council, which included Harry and Quil's grandfather Old Quil.

"Hey Billy, hey Harry, where's Jacob?" she asked them.

The two men hardly looked over at her but Billy pointed toward the back of the house where she assumed Jacob's room was. She walked right through the house into Jacob's room. He was sitting on his bed with homework stretched in front of him.

"I thought you were too big and tough to do homework," she said leaning against the door.

Jacob looked up and his face split into a smile when he saw her, "Hey, I didn't know we were hanging out today?"

She pushed herself off the door and sat down next to him on the bed, "So now I can only hang out with my friend one day a week?"

"Yes," he said with a bigger grin.

Kate banged her shoulder against his and looked to his homework, "Biology, fun."

"If by fun you mean 'sucks ass' then yeah," he laughed. He then frowned at her, "You look tired. What's up?"

She quickly looked away from him and observed his room. It was very small and simply painted. Around the floor were clothes and car magazines spread all over. The walls held a few things like calendars and posters and in the corner of the room there was a small desk with more textbooks on it.

"Nothing."

Jacob dropped his pencil, "Come on, Kate. Friends tell each other what's going on."

She smiled back over at him; "You're going to drive this friend thing into the ground aren't you?"

"Pretty much. So what's really up?"

"I've just been busy with a lot of homework. None of my teachers are letting me off easy," she wanted so badly to tell him. There was a burning desire in her gut to tell him the truth. She felt as if she could trust Jacob with her secret. But for his safety, she held her tongue.

"That sucks," he sat there for a minute before he jumped up, "Come on."

She gave him a strange look, "Where?"

"Do you trust me?"

"Hardly," she scoffed.

Jacob rolled his eyes, "Just come on."

Kate stood up and followed him out of his bedroom door. She honestly had no idea where he was leading her but when he started for the woods she had to stop him.

"Jacob where are we going?"

He gave her a small smile, "You'll see."

Kate followed Jacob until they reached a dark beach. The salt water stung the air and hit her face. She breathed it all in with a little sigh. Beaches were supposed to be warm and sunny but this beach was beautiful in it's own way.

"Do you remember it?" Jacob asked her.

"No. I only remember your house."

Jacob smiled as he lead her along the beach, "Mom used to take us here when dad was about ready to kill us. She said that coming to the beach was good for the soul. I remember one time you trampled through the sandcastle that Rachel was building and she cried for hours."

Kate laughed so hard at this forgotten incident.

"Is sounds like I was a horrible kid," she laughed.

"You still are," Jacob joked.

Kate pretended to gasp and then reached down to grab a handful and sand. Jacob looked at her with wide eyes.

"No. Kate. No," he yelled.

"Well if I'm so horrible..." she smirked before she threw the wet sand that hit Jacob squarely in the back.

She then took off sprinting because she knew Jacob would be right behind her. She was right. She heard his footsteps gaining on her and at this moment she wished she could run as fast as Sam said she could. Wet sand hit her in the back of the head and she screeched. She whirled around and Jacob grabbed her by the arms rubbing sand into the top of her head.

"Ow, Jacob," she tried to fight him off. She could feel the pulsing energy begin to rise up in her and she began to panic. She tried as hard as she could to push Jacob off of her but the pulsing was only getting worse.

"Jacob get off," she yelled quickly.

Hearing the panic in her voice he let go. She walked over to the water and stuck her feet in, shoes and all just trying to feel the cold water. The coolness worked and she slowly began to calm down. The pulsing subsided and went back to its usual dormant state. Breathing heavily, she turned back to Jacob who watched her cautiously.

"You okay?" he asked her.

Kate nodded her head slowly, "Yea I just really wanted you to let go?"

Jacob looked horror struck, "Did I hurt you?"

"No," she said quickly but then tried to turn it into a joke, "I just really didn't want any more sand in my hair."

Jacob gave her a look that told her he didn't believe her but let it go.

"It's getting dark. We should go back," he said.

"Right."

When Sam dropped her off later that night she immediately went to the shower. It took about thirty minutes to get the last of the sand out of her hair. The second she stepped out of the shower Bella burst out of her room and pulled Kate into it.

"Bella, what the hell?" she asked her sister.

"Kate, you're not going to believe me but I need you to," Bella said quickly.

In fact, Bella said it so quickly that Kate had to take a second to process what she said.

"Okay, I'm listening."

Bella launched into her story with Edward Cullen. She told her of all of their encounters and what happened tonight when she went to Port Angeles with Jessica and Angela. Apparently Bella had been up for hours doing research.

"Vampires. The Cullen's are vampires," Bella finished.

Kate stood there shocked. Her hair was dripping onto Bella's floor but at that moment she couldn't care less. Edward had been so reckless with their secret that Bella found out about it. How long would it take Bella to find out about her? How long would it be before Edward just told her? Kate finally came to the conclusion that she had two choices: one, pretend that Bella was crazy and keep Carlisle's trust, or two, agree with Bella and keep Bella's trust. Either way she was fucked.

"Are you sure," Kate asked Bella.

Bella nodded furiously, "I'm going to confront him about it Monday after school. Do you believe me?"

Kate held her breath for a moment before letting it all out, "I do."

A look of relief crossed over Bella's face and she gave her sister a quick hug. Kate hugged her lightly back. She couldn't help feeling guilty at not telling her sister the secret she had been holding in for weeks now.

When Bella finally released her Kate quickly crossed to her room and dialed Carlisle's number. After the second ring, he picked up.

"Carlisle, we have a problem."