Jacob has to "find" Leah in the woods, because Seth thinks she's lost. But Leah has never felt more at home than in the dark forest. When Jake finally sees her, lying under the stars with her features smooth, he discovers a different Leah. One that holds onto his waist when he gives her a ride home on his motorcycle. Blackwater.
The headlight from Jacob's motorcycle spilled over some ferns, the rumble of its engine almost deafening in the otherwise silent, dark forest. Almost as loud was the boy's grumbling under his breath. He wasn't good at being quiet, especially not when he was angry and irritated and cranky and tired.
"What the fuck," he wanted to know, asking no one in particular. "Kind of werewolf gets lost in a forest?"
The trees couldn't come up with an answer. They stayed silent as he flew by them. He could relate. He couldn't come up with an answer, either. And yet his cell phone (brand new, bought with his salary from that stupid convenience store he had been working at for a year and a half now) had somehow managed to buzz in the middle of the night.
"What?" he had mumbled into the phone. It was only once his eyes cleared from sleep did he realize he was holding the phone upside down. Turning it the right way, he cleared his throat. "What?"
The person who was on the other line hadn't even noticed that he had talked into the wrong end of the phone. "- Mom's gonna freaking kill me, Jake! She asked me a million freaking times if I could handle staying home and taking myself to school when Leah was going to be hanging out with you all day and I was like yeah, mom but now Leah's not even home when she's supposed to be and she's not even answering her cell phone and I just know she's lying face down in some ravine or something and – "
It was too early for his brain to function, too early for him to try and decode the language of a seventeen-year-old Seth. The kid had talked fast when he had been younger, but now he was just… seventy thousand words per minute. "Seth. Slow down."
He heard the sound of a breath being sucked in, then silence for a few seconds. "Jake. Leah. Is not here."
Jacob Black rubbed his face, groaning as he pressed his cheek into his warm pillow. Too, too early. Definitely. He wanted to go back to sleep. "Right. Is your mom there, Seth? Just ask her to – "
"No, she's not. I told you. Mom went away to do something for her new job. And she told Leah to come home at night so she could make sure the house was all locked up. So Leah's supposed to crash on our couch or in her old room or whatever, but she's not home. She called me after she left your house and said she was going for a walk, but she's not answering her phone or anything. Could you go, um, look for her?"
Gragh. Jacob got up, sliding his jeans over his boxers. He was going to fucking kill her. That was the only option. Seth woke him up at three in the freaking morning whining that Leah never got home. He wasn't her baby-sitter. "What are you doing?"
Seth knew that 'what are you doing' translated into 'why the fuck can't you go look for her and let me sleep?' "If my mom calls the house, who will answer the phone?"
"And your mom's gonna call at three in the morning?" Jacob asked skeptically, scowling over at his alarm clock. Resistance was futile, he guessed. He was too awake now to go back to sleep, anyway. "Screw it. I'm going to go hunt her down. See you in a few years, kid."
"A few years?" Seth had questioned.
"Yeah. When I get out of jail for homicide." With the snap of his phone shutting, Jacob had pulled his shoes onto his feet and shuffled out into his garage.
And here he was. Looking (and feeling) like a moron as he wound his way through the trees. How was he supposed to find her? There was so much forest and only so much freaking stuff he could search for. And as the trees grew thicker, he had to slow down on his motorcycle so he wouldn't crash into something, which made him feel all the stupider. It would have been quicker if he would have just ran and –
There was something up there. A light, maybe. From a flashlight. Or a fire? He was too tired to tell. But he walked towards it anyway.