(AN; Don't own Twilight. Thanks to Connor for beta-ing this chapter. X)
The forest was thick here. A rocky dirt road led off to the left of the one-lane highway. Nothing marked it. The late midday sun was still bright in the sky and it gleamed off the two cars that turned down that unmarked road. Jacob, in the front car, looked in his rearview mirror and saw Sam in the car behind him. Sam looked confused.
Jacob forced himself to breath. "It's going to be okay. I found Sam, he's okay. He doesn't know yet."
Then he said, "Shit."
His hands gripped the wheel so hard that the rubber grip surrounding it ripped open on either side of his hands. Ripped like a body might.
Jacob shifted gears and tried not to think about the word ripped again, or the way they had found Emily. He also tried not to think of the word 'pieces.'
"How am I going to tell him?"
Too quickly, he arrived at the two-story cabin. The sight made his stomach churn. The blue paint - which Emily had supervised the pack over last summer, because the cabin needed 'character' - and the big MAXWELL HOUSE coffee tins that served as flower pots arranged on the porch, which Jacob had mocked Sam for endlessly, all seemed to scream, Emily was here! She was! But she isn't any more! We found her body, and THAT screamed character, too!
Jacob shook his head - hard - and killed the engine. All four members of the pack stepped out of the house, the blood visible on their skin and stained into their shorts, and they arranged themselves in a half circle between the gravel of the driveway and the house.
Jacob heard Sam's car door open and shut. Sam passed his car.
He paused, breathed in, and released his hands from the wheel. The ribbed steering wheel cover fell off and into his lap. Jacob grabbed the pieces, put them on the passenger seat, and got out, too, jogging to catch up with Sam.
"Emily?" Sam said, and he sniffed the air.
"Sam," Jacob said. "hang on a second." He knew what Sam was smelling. Blood. Emily. Leeches. More blood.
Jacob thought back to before he phased, when, in a baseball game, Jacob saw Embry break his arm sliding for second base. It was a compound fracture in Embry's forearm, and Jacob, playing short-stop, had almost vomited. Even before the change, it was the smell of split meat, metallic and tangy and somehow hot.
Now though, it was worse. Because they could tell whose blood it was.
"Emily‽" Sam called again. He tried to push between Embry and Quill, but they grabbed him by the arms. Paul and Jared moved to hold him, too.
"Let me the fuck go! Emily I'm coming!"
Sam pressed forward. Embry lost his grip and fell backwards against the porch.
Jacob hadn't known how to tell Sam. It was nothing like telling the boy his wolf was dead. So he had brought Sam here. Now, though, as three members of the pack tried and failed to hold him back, that seemed like a very stupid idea.
"Sam," Jacob said, "She's not in there, and...I didn't make it in time. We didn't, I mean."
"I'm COMING!"
And with that, Sam started to phase.
"Fuckin shit!" Paul said.
Quill fell, too, landing on his side against the lattice bottom of the porch.
"Embry, throw me a plant," Jacob said.
"What?" Embry said.
But Quill heard, grabbed the tin pot, flower and all, threw it to Jacob. Soil sprinkled down on them, and time seemed to go slow, too slow, and dirt was raining, and Sam was ripping out of his human form and into the shape of a beast, and things were about to get very very ugly if Jacob didn't do something now.
He caught the tin, and slammed it down hard on the back of Sam's head. The dirt exploded out of the can, and the metal crumpled against Sam's skull with a clicking tang sound that, for no reason Jacob could understand, reminded him of a screaming armadillo being hit by a car.
Sam's phasing stopped, and for half a second, they all stood there. Sam had stopped pressing forward, and he stumbled sideways. The crumpled MAXWELL HOUSE tin slid off his head and hit the gravel. Blood glistened in the back of Sam's hair. And that smell. The meaty smell. The hot smell, this time smelling like Sam, reached Jacob's nostrils.
And then Sam's knees buckled and he fell. Jacob caught him and lowered him to the gravel.
About a minute later, Sam opened his eyes. They had dragged him back to Jacob's car and sat him on the gravel beside the tire.
"Leeches?" Sam said simply.
When they didn't answer, Sam put his hand into the gravel and started to get up.
Jacob put a hand on his shoulder, "It was this morning. Paul, Quill, and I found her on our patrol route."
"Phase out and show me." Sam commanded in his Alpha Tenor.
Jacob felt the wolf rise up in him, ready to phase. But Jacob held his human form, and his ground. "No Sam, I won't take you to see that right now."
"Why isn't someone phased and tracking them? Or on guard in case the leeches come back!" Sam said.
Jacob could see Sam breathing deep, in and out. His skin was pale, but his cheeks were red, and blood ran down his head beside his ear. Jacob knelt beside Sam.
"Paul and Jared tracked them until the scent stopped at the ocean. It was three different leeches. The scent headed north away from La Push."
Sam put his head forward into his hands. Blood dripped onto Jacob's hand where it sat on Sam's shoulder.
Sam spoke without looking up.
"Where is she?"
Jacob saw that Paul had left and was now approaching with a bottle of Knob Creek from inside. He held it out to Jacob. Jacob took it and held it in front of Sam.
Sam lifted his head.
For a moment, Jacob thought Sam might knock it away. In a movie, he would have. Sam was the straight-laced Alpha, after all.
But he took it, and Jacob saw that his eyes were wet.
Sam unscrewed the top and took one drink, followed immediately by a second.
Jacob cleared his throat. "Well, Dad got in touch the coroner in Clallam County. They'll send the forms out to file for a death certificate. But since it happened on the res and we're saying it's a car accident so that the feds don't get involved..."
Jacob watched Sam grip the bottle neck hard, tilt it back again, then hang his head. The bottle shattered in his grip. Paul went back into the house.
"Anyway, the arrangements are made. Traditional Quileute funeral."
Sam looked up. "Is that what she wanted?" He ran his hands through his hair and leaned his head back against the wheel well of Jacob's car. "Damnit, we never talked about it. I never asked her."
Jacob stood up as Paul approached with Jack Daniels in-hand. Jacob took it and knelt again beside Sam.
"Actually, we had her last wishes."
Just say it, Jacob thought. But it was hard, no matter what he told himself.
"I guess...she talked about it with Leah."
Sam laughed out loud at that, and tears streamed from the corners of his eyes.
"Of course," he said, and took a long drink of Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey.
He finished, handed the bottle to Jacob, then stood up.
"Where are we going, then?" Sam asked, wiping his mouth.
"We're cleaning you up. Then I'm driving you to the beach."
Sam nodded and walked, steadily as an Alpha should - drunk or not - through the middle of Jared and Paul, Quill and Embry.
Jacob sat in silence with the others on the porch while Sam showered inside, and no one commented on the sound of Sam's crying reaching them where they sat.
After the funeral, Jacob stood on the edge of the forest beside Emily's red-orange Geo Metro hatchback. The sun was setting on the water past the cliffs, and to anyone else, it might feel like the cool of night had come.
Jacob pulled his shirt off over his head.
"You sure you're up for this?"
Sam walked over to the pile of sledge hammers. His eyes were red. "Report says car accident. It has to be done." Sam looked at Jacob, then Billy, Jared, and Embry. Quill and his grandfather stood behind Jared and Embry, and Paul was just coming out of the forest. He had stayed behind to see the guests off and pick up the canoe launch site after the ceremony.
Sam bent and picked up the top sledge hammer. His jaw went tight, and he swung the hammer at the door of the car. The noise was tremendous.
After that first swing, everyone but Billy and Old Quill stripped to the waist and picked up hammers.
And while they swung, the canoe came into view below, burning against the water and drifting further and further away on the ocean waves. It looked small and violent.
At first Jacob wasn't sure if Sam saw the boat or not, but Sam's swings got harder after that, so Jacob guessed he did.
Jacob heard Billy's mobile phone ring and took the excuse to put his sledge hammer down. It had been a very long day. The others kept bashing, sending safety glass and pieces of plastic flying from headlights. He walked across the open rock to where Billy sat in his wheelchair.
Billy had set up call forwarding to his mobile after years of Jacob pressuring. Now it seemed like Billy had been right. If you're out, you probably don't want a call.
But he answered anyway. Maybe because it might be Emily's parents having forgot something.
"Hello."
"Hello?" said the voice on the other side. A woman's voice.
"Hello this is the Blacks," Billy said.
"Billy, it's Bella. What's that noise?"
Jacob grabbed at the phone. Billy pulled away and pointed to Sam with his free hand as if to say, No Jacob, you're here for him right now.
Jacob didn't grab at the phone again, but he didn't move from Billy's side, either.
"I'm at the mechanic," Billy said. "What's up, Bella? You get into town okay?"
"Sorry to call so much, but is everything okay? Is Jacob okay? I've been so worried-"
"He's fine Bella. Just out with friends."
"Oh...okay, um..."
Jacob grabbed at the phone again.
Billy waved him away and spoke. "I didn't mean it like that; the Clearwaters have had a family emergency and Jacob is taking care of a few things for them."
"Is everything okay? I ran into Emily on my way into town today," she said.
At that, Jacob saw that everyone had stopped smashing the car except for Sam. Tears and sweat slicked his face. The others had stepped over toward Billy.
"You did? Where did you meet her?"
Jacob heard the last hammer drop to the rocky ground and looked up in the dusk to see that Sam had pushed through everyone and was kneeling in front of the wheelchair.
"At the gas station," Bella said, and cleared her throat.
"Did you see anything odd, Bella?"
"That's why I've been calling all day," she said. "To see if Emily was okay."
Jacob almost got his hand on the phone this time, but Billy batted the hand away and pointed. It was the Do-that-again-and-you'll-regret-it pointer finger.
Jacob felt himself go hot.
"And there was a weird woman that came in while we were talking," Bella continued.
"Came in?" Billy asked.
Jacob heard the squeak. The Bella-squeak. The noise she made when she was embarrassed.
"It was in the ladies room. We were talking while we were...you know..."
"Go on," Billy said.
"Well, we were talking about her getting married and her cookies, and everything going on this summer, and then I heard the weird woman come in."
"Did you see her?"
"No," Bella said, and squeaked again.
"Oh, so you were in the..."
"Yes," Bella said quickly. "So the woman said something about little red riding hood, and that she smelled of wolf..."
Jacob felt himself go very still. He hadn't told Bella about them. She couldn't know what she was saying.
"She said a lot about the wolf, actually, except she got the story wrong, and it kind of made me worried, because she said that, in her version, the wolf gets eaten. Or I think that's what she was saying, but Emily interrupted her, and that's what worried me."
Sam moved to the other side of Billy and knelt.
Bella went on.
"She said to tell Sam and Leah that she loves them and it's okay?"
For a moment, everyone was quiet.
"Hello?" Bella said.
"I'm here, Bella."
"Oh, you broke up. Anyway, when I came out, both Emily and the weird woman were gone."
Again, silence, and a piece of the puzzle fell into place for Jacob. He had wondered why Emily. She couldn't phase. Why had the leeches targeted her?
But the smell. He could smell the leeches. And the leeches could smell the wolves, even on other people.
Jacob had discussed Bella's arrival day, and she had almost come a day earlier. If she had, like they had discussed, then Bella would have smelled of wolf at that gas station, too.
The thought of Emily's body flashed into Jacob's mind, except instead of Emily's half-scarred face on the severed head, it was...
He put his palms to the sides of his head and pressed hard.
"Hello? Hello?"
"Bella, I have to go. Something came up here, too. But I'll tell Jacob that you called." And without waiting for her to reply, he hung up.
No one said anything. The wind blew, and Jacob stood. He saw the speck of fire nearing the horizon. The sun had set, and the blazing canoe, as though trying to eclipse the sun, or replace it, hung there where sky met water.
If I had met her earlier, Jacob thought.
"We've got to be done here," Billy said, pointing to the car.
Sam looked angry at that, then something went of him. He hugged Billy, then stood up and walked to the smashed side of the car. Paul handed him a torch that he had brought up from below, and Sam lit the cloth hanging out of the gas tank. After, he reached into the car and lowered the e-brake, then put the burning torch into passenger seat.
Sam went to the back of the car and started pushing. The others joined in, and Jacob came last and walked beside the rolling car.
At the cliff edge, the battered car teetered, then scraped loudly on the rocks along the underside, and all of a sudden, too quietly for what was about to happen, the nose of the car pitched forward and the scraping stopped.
Freefall.
And then it hit the rocks below with a crunch.
It burned for two whole minutes before it exploded.
Jacob watched Sam move to the cliff edge and ease himself to sitting with his legs hanging down. Jacob sat beside him, and Paul sat on the other side.
When the canoe disappeared, Paul twisted and looked backwards. Jacob did the same. Everyone had left.
Paul spoke, and it was more like a whisper than Jacob had ever thought possible from him.
"What is it like now, Sam?"
Sam rubbed the fingers of his left hand together, like he was signaling for the check in a restaurant. Only he kept rubbing them, his thumb sliding back and forth across his little finger, then ring finger, then middle and pointer, and back. Jacob saw then that he was lingering on the ring finger every time.
Sam hung his head. "Unreal. I still feel these fingers. I still see the sky and the ground and the water. Everything's the same. And I'll see her tomorrow. I know it. Except I know I won't, too."
Pointer, middle, ring.
Pause.
Little finger, ring finger.
Pause.
Middle finger, pointer.
"It doesn't feel real."
"Not that," Paul said. "The imprint, man. What is it like now?"
Jacob leaned back and made a cutting motion across his throat to Paul. This was not the time for solving the mysteries of imprinting.
But Sam shook his head and answered without waiting, his fingers still moving.
"I may as well tell you. You'll see inside my head the next time we phase."
Middle finger, ring.
Pause.
"Otherwise I'd never tell anyone."
Little finger, ring.
Pause.
"It's like it never happened." He chuckled, quietly and sadly, and shook his head. "If I had known that death could break the imprint without horrible consequences, I would have died so she could be free of me."
His thumb stopped. His hand closed into a fist.
"The terrible thing is that I'm not consumed by this. I feel like I lost my best friend, but not my fiancé." He drew a deep breath, and his next words all came out in a rush. "I feel free, okay?"
Jacob stared out at the water, and clouds rolling in.
Sam went on.
"I will always respect her for what she went through with me. It should have been me that died, so she could be the one feeling free."
Paul put his hand on Sam's shoulder. "You don't know if it works that way, man. What if Emily is just built like that?"
Sam looked sideways at him.
Paul kept his hand there, and went on. "So instead of a gene for blue eyes or pale skin, she got the one that lets her get imprinted on?"
Sam tilted his head to the side, picked up a rock, and threw it out into the air over the waves.
Jacob leaned forward. "Did you just talk about genetics, Paul?"
Paul tapped the side of his head. "Phasing makes all the muscles bigger, man."
Sam almost smiled at that. "Your brain isn't a muscle, Paul."
"I'm just saying," Paul said, "if you died, she might have been imprinted on by the next wolf to see her, and that could have been way worse, right? I mean, what if I had imprinted on her?"
Jacob put his arm around Sam, too. "Paul's right. If that had happened, she'd have been fucked."
"Hey!" Paul said, reaching around Sam to slap at Jacob's head. Jacob knocked Paul's hand away.
Sam stood up.
"Where are you going?" Paul asked.
Jacob stood, too. "You want to crash at my house?"
Sam shook his head.
"I'm going to head out," he said. "I might be gone awhile. Jacob, you have the pack for a few days?"
At those words, the Alpha in Jacob rose up in his chest. It felt like adrenaline, the way it made his hands shaky and yet steady, so that he could fight. It was always there, but with Sam around, his body did something to block it, or dampen it, so that it couldn't flood him.
It flooded him now.
Jacob rolled his shoulders. He cracked his neck. Then his knuckles. He was bouncing on his toes, he realized, and he forced himself to stop.
Sam started walking back towards the trees.
"Keep a close eye on him, Paul."
"And what if he orders me to go away?"
Jacob fought the urge to shiver. He would grow used to the feeling over time, the way Sam must have, but when it rose up suddenly, it was drug-like.
"I'm making you my Second, then, so you outrank him. Don't leave him alone, no matter what he says. We don't know what's going on in his mind right now."
Jacob punched Paul on the arm. "Don't worry about Rachel. I'll tell her you're with Sam. She'll understand."
"Ow, man! Easy." He started to walk after Sam, towards the trees. Paul turned and walked backwards, and he pointed at Jacob. "You better talk me up really good to her so I'm not in the doghouse with my fiancé." He raised his eyebrows up and and down, laughed to himself, and turned around, breaking into a run.
Jacob shook his head and walked away. He considered phasing and running home, but he had too much energy, and if he spent that energy running as a wolf, he'd wake up on the fucking east coast.
He picked up his shirt, pulled it over his head, and walked along the cliff edge instead, thinking.
Today was supposed to be different. It was supposed to be amazing.
"I should be with Bella right now."
He picked up a rock and bounced it on his hand.
And if she had smelled like him, either because she came the day before, or because he had met up with her before she went to the gas station?
"Fuck," he said aloud, and he threw the rock out over the cliff edge.
A single question repeated in his mind for the entire walk home. And when he reached his back door, he paused with his hand on the doorknob.
"Can I really bring her into this, knowing she could die just for being with me?"
He stood there a long time, because he didn't know. He should say no, but it wasn't that simple.
"Fuck," he said again, and went inside.
He walked through the dark hallway past Rachel's room. He saw light coming from under the door.
He paused there. Should he check on his sister? She hadn't been close with Emily, but Jacob never knew how Rachel would react to something heavy.
Jacob knocked.
"Come in," Rachel said.
"You got clothes on?"
"Yep, all grandma'ed up."
Jacob opened the door. Rachel was curled up in bed with her laptop, looking at the screen and frowning.
"You okay, Rach?"
She looked up and smiled at him. "I just thought you were my LOVER."
"Gross! Just gross." And, in an impulse Jacob didn't really understand, he responded the way he would have a decade earlier. He stuck out his tongue at her.
She laughed.
"Your soon-to-be old man is out with Sam, making sure he's not alone at Emily's house. He'll call as soon as he can."
Jacob closed the door.
"Jacob?"
He paused.
"Be a good little brother and turn off my light."
He opened the door again and made eye contact. She put on a mock serious expression, as though he had just challenged her to a staring contest.
"You really love him, Rach, don't you?"
"Yeah, I do. Why are you asking?"
"Well, you stayed up to wait for him. That's sacrifice."
"Yeah?" she said.
"Absolutely. You sacrificed your time, your beauty sleep, and...every mirror in this house."
She pulled the pillow out from behind her head and threw it at him.
He let the pillow hit his face and caught it as it fell. He laughed at thew it back to her.
"What the fuck, I'm so much better looking than you even without sleep," she said as she tucked the pillow back behind her.
"Night, Rach," he said, and he switched off the light and shut the door.
In his room, he took off his shirt and jeans and crawled into bed.
"Crap," he said, leaning over and setting the alarm. "Six o'clock."
He had to sort out the patrol. He was Alpha, now.
"Damn vamp."
His head hit the pillow, and he fell almost immediately to sleep, too tired to dream, even of Bella.
