A/N about darkness: this fic is written to be brutally honest, not dark for dark's sake. I wanted to take an honest look at where Jacob might be if this actually happened and see if I can't transform/heal that with realistic romance. (Hint: I think I can)
This chapter attempts a technique that both switches between two POVs and makes a metaphorical point about the characters. It starts off with a scene intended to simulate a certain metal state. We start putting things back together in the next installment.
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Prereader: Tayjayfan
Thanks for reading and hope you enjoy!
* Quote is truncated and embellished from: Twilight, Chapter 6, p.124
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Chapter 4 - Transformation
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Breathe.
In, out. In, out.
Bella heard breaths soughing across her lips in curt, efficient jerks. Each inhale caught in the back of her throat with a little click.
In, out. In-in…out.
The sunny sky had been gathered up in the fist of afternoon storm clouds and the air rushing through the truck was sopping and thick. The driver had rolled his window down.
Why-…?
What-...?
How-..?
A whimper of stress stole out on an exhale and Bella's body twitched. She rearranged herself in the seat, her hands curling into loose quivering fists on her thighs.
Breathe.
In, out. In, out-out.
The first raindrop hit the windshield, as loud as thunder and Bella jumped, her eyes snapping to the crystal splatter on the glass like it was a bullet. Blinking rapidly, she watched another drop land beside it. Then another.
The driver rolled his window up with a quick jerking motion of his arm.
Embry.
It was Embry driving the truck. He stole another glance at her and swallowed. It was a loud squirting sound that made his Adam's apple lurch. His hand raised and Bella flinched away. He pulled down the lever on the steering wheel and the windshield wipers groaned to life, making her freeze - halfway to the safety of the door.
Back, forth.
Back, forth.
Dancing like a squeaky automatic puppet show. Like those horrible creatures at Chuck-e-Cheese in Port Ange. Embry, Jacob and she had gone there for an early celebration of her birthday one summer just before first grade. Bella had cried and fled into her father's chest from that big-headed, musty, matted mouse: another teen hating his summer job. Jacob had thrown his arms around the costumed character and laughed.
Jacob.
Where was Jacob?
Who was that?
How was that Jacob?
Why had she spread her craving legs, tipped her yearning neck back and pressed her wanting breasts into his slick musky chest? And burned?
Oh, she had burned.
"You okay, sweetheart?" Embry's new deep voice undulated through the car and Bella jumped, whipping around and pinning him with wide eyes.
His brow was furrowed: sad, sorry, concerned. His caramel hand left the wheel, reaching out toward her. Offering comfort.
Bella surged back, hitting the door with a hollow thunk, and that hand froze. Trembling in the air between them.
"Sorry," he whispered, and it again gripped the wheel. Those eyes again returned to the road. That jaw clenched, pressing his lips in a thin line. He had no comfort to offer.
Bella turned her back. She turned into the door and pressed her cheek on the cool glass that was gathering moisture from the air. Outside the rain tapped and ran, hundreds of kamikaze drive-bys. The sky was defiantly weeping like a taunt.
Bella wanted to do the same, but she knew that if she leaked hot salty sorrow from her burning eyes, it just might relieve the pressure in her chest so that her heart could pump freely - instead of the squished gurgly compressions that ached with each beat - but she was afraid. If she razed the dam right now, she might never stop crying.
Or maybe she was afraid that if all the sadness leaked out she'd be left nothing but a lump of icy inert panic in her chest. Because where she used to find comfort and friendship and home, she now found fear. Terror, really. She was terrified.
Of Jake.
Those eyes: impossible incandescent anger.
The sound: grating feral fury.
His touch: burning and narcotic.
The way he moved: smooth and quick like an animal.
Her mind desperately scrabbled across the cold hard pebbles of impossible facts, searching for some reasonable explanation. Extreme jet-lag? Drugs in the tootsie pop? Fatigue, stress and an all too vivid imagination?
A psychotic break was the most rational conclusion.
Bella was a grounded girl. An earthy girl. She had her feet firmly planted in plans and action and physical world. She had always been the most reasonable of the two of them. In middle school, on firefly and bonfire summer nights, they'd sat around the licking flames and listened to the old men tell their stories in deep shaking voices that made the children squeal and couples cuddle. One such night Jacob had leaned into her ear:
"You see, the cold ones are the natural enemies of the wolf—well, not the wolf, really, but the wolves that turn into men, like our ancestors," Jacob had whispered, his eyes sparkling with mischief and firelight as he tightened his arm and the blanket around her shoulders. "My own great-grandfather knew some of them. He was the wolf who made the treaty that kept them off our land." *(dialog is quoted as noted.)
"So you're saying you're part puppy 'cause your grandfather was a wolf, Jake?" she teased him, snuggling into his side.
"Great-grandfather," he corrected with a grin. "And I ain't no puppy… I'm a mean, scary, kick-ass wolf." Jacob howled theatrically.
Bella snorted. "Those are just some old stories and you're a big fat dork." And she'd promptly grabbed a handful of sand and shoved it down his shirt.
Bella opened her eyes from memories as the truck slowed down over the crunch of gravel. Her front yard swam behind the rain-soaked window.
The truck shuddered into silence and the creak of the parking brake jerked her body upright.
Could the stories be true?
Embry's heavy sigh breathed through the cabin and then the driver's side door opened to the rushing whisper of a full-on downpour. She heard him slip to the ground and the door slam afterwards on lonely silence.
A supernatural hypothesis made all the inconceivable suddenly make sense. Who turned from sunny rambunctious best friend into an angry and sexualized male in his prime in the space of 14 months? Who grew a foot, pounds of muscle, and aged ten years at 17? Who's eyes glowed like coals and body prowled like an undeniable predator stalking its prey?
Who was Jacob Black?
Wolf.
The car door opened and Bella's gaze jerked up from her lap. Embry was watching her carefully from the hard lines of his new face. And -with that hypothesis in the back of her mind - in a flash of insight she saw him as he was, not through her eyes' flimsy attempts to make sense of it. He wasn't a boy who'd gone through an abnormal steroid-fueled growth-spurt.
He had changed.
Completely.
A metamorphosis had left him with lithe muscular limbs and a cagey tension in his spine, a piqued and alert attentiveness as if he were perpetually lodged in the starting blocks of a sprint. There was a tight sadness and lost innocence around his eyes. It hemmed his mouth and weighed down the corners. His shoulders were unnaturally broad but still subtly bowed under a weight too heavy for his meager years.
He was lost and suffering and doing the best he could.
But Bella was still afraid.
As if he had seen fear in her face - he probably could - Embry took a graceful step back, the muscles in his soaked shirt rippling with incidental power.
Bella's eyes trailed down that massive physique to his muddy bare feet, and she slipped down out of the truck. It was still too high, and she still stumbled, but this time Embry made no move to help. She steadied herself on the armrest of the door and then squared her shoulders and turned toward the house.
The cool cleansing rain washed over her face as she took one step after the other. One breath after the other.
In, out.
Right, left.
She took each step like a regret, slow and tortuous, until she reached the dry shelter of the porch. The storm tapped out a Morse code of her reeling thoughts.
S.O.S.
It was all too much. Just too damn much.
Bella reached for the screen door and tugged - the swollen wood stuck and it wobbled open. With a sharp intake of breath she remembered: she didn't have her keys.
She whipped around.
Embry was standing several feet behind her, her keychain dangling from tentative fingers.
Bella's gaze flitted up to his rueful dark eyes and she swallowed thickly, reaching out a hand that shook. He dropped them in her outstretched palm without so much of a brush of that burning skin. It didn't matter though, the keys were hot from his touch and she could see the water evaporating off his shoulders in a wispy smoke anyway.
She curled her hand around the clinking metal, her gaze falling down to her fist. Her mouth opened with a wet click of her tongue, but she didn't have the strength to push words over her lips.
"I'm sorry, Bella," Embry murmured then, and her gaze snapped up to his face. He was watching her with those sad and searching eyes.
The muscles in her face twitched, pantomiming a thousand silent words and questions. She licked her lips and tried once more.
"Wolf," she whispered hoarsely. It was the gaping impossible rolled into a single word.
His eyes widened infinitesimally before dropping like lead and his nostrils flared with his inhale. "Don't come back, Bella," he breathed.
Without another word or glance, he turned and jogged soundlessly down the old wooden steps and out into the rain. She watched his long easy stride lope across the grass into the woods behind her house.
He'd answered her question with his eyes.
Her hands were shaking like leaves as she tried over and over to fit the key into the lock. Finally she shoved it in and twisted it with numb fingers, opening the door to the stale still air of the house.
The screen clattered shut behind her as she tripped numbly into the entry, leaving the keys dangling in the door. She stumbled into the vague familiarity of the a living room she'd known all her life and collapsed in her father's old lazy boy chair. The afternoon rain tapped at the kitchen window and roared across the metal porch roof with an insistence that demanded she open her eyes and face the storm that was tumbling over her.
In the distance, thunder rumbled.
Jacob looked up at the sound, past the silhouette of the window panes to the darkening afternoon. It was the perfect soundtrack for the storm that he was trying to cage in his quivering muscles.
He'd fled to the last place that reminded him he used to be human. But sitting in his father's worn easy chair, in their tired little house and listening to the rain taunt the corrugated roof with merciless fingers just reminded him of how little human was left.
He felt like a stranger in his own childhood house. He shifted in the chair that used to be big enough for him to sprawl across his father's knee and watch football games while his old man stroked his weathered hands through his hair. Now that chair could barely contain him alone. His large hands dwarfed the shabby arm rests, threadbare down to the stuffing, while his middle finger traced a restless circle that somehow kept him grounded in his jerking body.
He was nothing but a beast hunched in the charred out ruins of a past that was irreparably lost, while his entire being continued to burn.
And oh, did he burn.
She'd submitted so easily to his hands. So powerful was this curse, that she'd bloomed under his touch, her entire body opening and soft. Yearning. The honeyed scent of her arousal had risen with her delicate sighs as she'd turned her neck to him in the instinctual lupine surrender to mate, unknowingly hypnotized by the magic that had ensnared them both.
He could have taken her right there.
On the hood of the Clearwater's now-deceased truck he could have torn the impediments of clothing off those parted thighs, freed himself and plunged into her welcoming warmth. He could have clasped her tiny body in his steely embrace and thrust into her yearning cries, pushing his scent and his seed into her womb. His soul and his child would take root in her flesh and no male would dare look at or touch her again.
Mine.
Jacob's eyes popped open to the ceiling with a gasp. His body was tense, arching in the chair in the throes of need. He'd be lying if he said she hadn't been his favorite fantasy for years, yet they'd been the comparatively chaste daydreams of a boy. But after just a whiff of her scent and a glance in her eyes, this curse - this imprint - had irreparably transformed them into a man's dark and voracious obsession.
Bella was a girl who was meant to be cherished and charmed, courted and loved… not lusted after by some animal. His love for her had been the last thing in his life that had been pure and comforting and true. And even that had been taken from him now.
His wolf wanted her - all of her, only for him. The beast was no longer content to crouch alone and isolated in the cage of duty. For the first time it reared its ugly head and imperiously demanded - not for the safety of his tribe or good of his Pack, but for its own selfish needs and desires.
Mine.
Jacob understood a little more about Sam now: how his restraint had buckled under denial. And how, in his weakness, when he'd torn his imprint to ribbons, his mind had been stretched to the breaking point of sanity.
In little more than 24 hours, Jacob was already there.
Clawing his hands down his face, Jacob doubled over with a strangled groan.
A soft gasp slipped over Bella's lips.
Her body was still tingling and raw. Far more frightening than supernatural speculation, was this yawning hunger that had awakened deep in her belly. She leaned back against the chair that smelled like her father's Old Spice and closed her eyes as she tried to swallow it down.
Bella was not the most sexualized of girls. Over the last years she'd seen her heartbeat flutter for heartthrobs, she'd given away her first kiss at a 10th grade dance and she'd be lying if she said she'd never dreamed of Jacob's full russet lips, much to her own chagrin.
But, she'd never felt anything like this.
His touch - the surprisingly gentle brush of his calloused heated fingers had awoken something inside her like a sixth sense, and, just as impossible as it was to put on a blindfold and forget how to see, Bella had been irrevocably transformed.
She brought trembling hands up to her cheek, tracing her fingertips over the fiery trail that he had tattooed into her skin. Tipping her head to the side, she ghosted her palms over her hair and then thrust her fingers into the thick damp curls at the nape of her neck. Like a kitten picked up by the scruff of its neck, her body had submitted to his fist and curved up, searching for what would finally make her whole.
Jacob.
It was nothing like the Jacob she'd known, but yet it was also everything he'd always been. His breath and his lips, the tender touch of his hands and steely give of his body. His scent, musky and sweet like a rainy afternoon. It slowed her breath and quickened her heart and liquefied her body with an anticipant longing. It hollowed out her chest with a velvet knife and swelled between her legs with a sultry ripened ache.
It was a want, a need…a craving.
With a strangled moan, Bella's hand slipped back around to cover her face. Her affection and that latent little crush on her best friend had been immutably transformed. This was far more terrifying than whatever impossible wolvish nightmares had pounced from the pages of fairytales and swallowed him whole.
Fisting both hands in her hair she fell forward over her thighs.
Lightning flashed outside and low velvet rumble of thunder was echoed by the heavy crunch of gravel. Bella looked up and glanced at the led clock on the dvd player - her father was home.
"Jake?"
At his father's hesitant voice, Jacob harshly rubbed his face and let his features settle into a stoic mask. He'd heard the Atera's van pull up outside and felt as much as heard his Packmate helping his father into his chair under the rolling thunder.
He looked up at the two men in the doorway, his dispassionate gaze sweeping over his father's worry to land in Quil's grave eyes. The severity looked wrong on his face.
Quil now knew about the imprint, of course. Jacob hadn't expected any different: after his staggering display of explosive weakness this afternoon, his entire Pack would know. And they'd be left reeling and disconcerted. Jacob was their only solid tether in the maelstrom they'd all been thrown into and the only one who kept them afloat.
Jacob unfolded from the chair and squared his shoulders, letting the mantle of duty settle over them to mask the way they wanted to cave. "We'll meet at Sammy's this evening. Tell the others," he intoned, grounding his words in a deepened bass.
Quil's gaze slipped to the floor deferentially, and without another word he turned around and disappeared into the dusk and pouring rain.
Billy's astute eyes stared at him from under his furrowed brow as another clap of thunder crashed outside. Setting his jaw, Jacob crossed the small dark room and pulled the door closed behind him while his father silently watched.
"Quil told me about Harry's truck," he related quietly in a way that could have been a statement about the weather. And, in a way, was.
Jacob said nothing but turned and stalked across the room and down the hall to the bathroom. He pulled the musty towel off the rack and strode back into the main room, tossing it into his father's lap as he made his way into their wreck of a kitchen. Billy had spent last night and today at the Clearwater's - he'd sent Quil to check on him - and that meant he hadn't taken his medicine. He'd probably been "officially" talking about him - he'd been there for the imprint after all. He picked out the two plastic amber prescriptions from the wreckage of dirty cups, empty cans and unopened mail and shook the dosages into his palm.
"You imprinted, didn't you son?"
And there it was. Jacob squeezed his eyes shut as he filled a glass with tap water.
"Aren't you glad it's Bella?"
His father and the Counsel never had really understood. To them this was a game. It was a little bit of dawn in their twilight years that made them feel like maybe their ceremonial positions meant something more than playing wizened old granpa and telling stories around a bonfire to a generation who'd turned their backs on traditions decades ago. Even in his father's generation the old ways had quickly taken a backseat to ten cent movies and soda pop, now the distractions were even more seductive: iPhones and Facebook and reality TV. The old ways just weren't part of the everyday anymore.
Until suddenly - with the crack of bone and shattering of life as you knew it - they were.
Jacob turned around with his father's medication and a bitter smile. "Am I glad it's Bella?" he chuckled darkly - it was bereft and humorless sound. "Yeah, it's just what I always fucking wanted: to drag my best friend and the girl I love into my fucking shithole mess. I'm ecstatic."
Shock at both the bitterness and crassness of his words flashed across the lines of his father's face before being quickly subverted by worry.
Jacob held his father's gaze as he crossed the room and handed him the glass. "It doesn't even fucking matter. I'm fighting it," he spat, letting the pills drop into his father's wrinkled palm.
Billy's eyes darted between Jacob's obdurate gaze for several silent moments. "An Imprint is a gift, son. The Spirit has blessed this generation more than any other in our history. Our legends they say it's a rare -"
"Fuck the legends," Jacob barked a hateful laugh as he pushed a rough hand through his hair and spun on his heel. "They left a whole helluva lot out. They didn't say shit about losing everything, did they? Your friends, your family, your mind! The whole Rez thinks we're nothing but a gang of crack-head dropouts." Jacob paced across the room with agitation while the rain continued to play a restless counter-rhythm to his racing heart.
"The Counsel knows the price you're paying for us all-..."
"The Counsel doesn't know shit!" He spun back around with a glare that included his father in that statement. "This isn't about some kinda bullshit honor. This is about our ruined lives! Emily lost her face and Sam lost his mind now they're gonna have a kid before they're even old enough to buy beer," he took a step toward his father that was quivering with both heartbreak and rage. "Quil would be rotting in jail for his imprint if he wasn't the Chief's grandson. Embry's mom's pulling double shifts because she can't stand to be home anymore she's so worried. Jared lost his scholarship and his rep. Kim's moving in because, oh yeah… her parents are disowning her. And Paul… hell, Paul's the only one who maybe broke even, only because his life was already a living hell." He finished only a foot away from his father who had sat back in his chair, his glass and pills forgotten in his hands as he stoically took his son's lashings.
Jacob's hands curled into quivering fists. "Every fucking day, every fucking one of us wakes up feeling like we just got shot with a fucking horse-load of meth. We're not hunting deer any more, we've got fucking jobs! Try working on an carburetor when your hands are tweaking because you wanna kill something so bad it hurts," his lips flashed up from his canines. "We're made to kill."
Billy's nostrils flared minutely as he fearlessly held his son's gaze. "You're made to protect, Jacob. And you've done a real good job," Billy bit out crisply, as he leaned forward. "Even as a young Pack, you've caught every Cold One who's dared cross our lands. You should be proud."
"Yeah. Proud," Jacob huffed acerbically with a roll of his eyes. "Three in 422 days. What about the other 419? We're running fucking pointless patrols or holed up in some shack of a garage on the edge of nowhere… trying to keep from going nuts like Sammy." His ire deflated from the words in a flash of desolation, leaving nothing but a limp, puckered shell. With a huffing breath he slapped his palms on his face as he again turned away from his father.
Giving had always come easy to him. As a boy, he was generous with his time and attention and smiles and he'd always gotten a tenfold return on his investment.
If only leading were so simple. It was something that had to be done with not only heart but with acumen and might. He had to do what people needed - not necessarily wanted - and there was no one to show him how or fill him back up when he'd run dry. His father and the others didn't understand.
"And now with this… this gift," he twisted the word with animosity into his palms. "I'm on a fast track to the same hell. How am I s'posed to lead like this?"
A thunder clap cracked the air in two, sounding like it was just overhead. His father's heavy sigh followed on its heels.
"Do you know I can still smell her?" Jacob mumbled into his hands as he squeezed his eyes shut against his wolf's clawing swipe at the admission. "Charlie held her and Charlie helped you into the car…yesterday," he rasped hoarsely, letting his hands flop down to his sides with a slap to his thighs in defeat. "And I can still smell her on you," he whispered forlornly to the floor. "It's driving me nuts."
He was just so damn tired. Inside his enervated body, his wolf was going ballistic - it's acidic ire had already eaten away at the tough shell this last year had formed around his heart and now it was flailing into the raw and tender quick.
It wanted Bella.
The man did too. She'd always been there for him, she'd always made things better. Seeing her had reminded him of that - like the first glimpse of shore after years of endless ocean.
But this time she couldn't. He couldn't...
"It could be a good thing, son." Billy's velvet croon slipped across his skin, soaking in with seductive fingers. His father's words gave uncanny voice to the insidious secret longing that sat, mute and muzzled, in the back of his mind.
Jacob's hands again flew to his face and he rubbed briskly.
"I know it's been hard, son. You an' Bella always had something real special," he continued in a soft hypnotic murmur. "She might be what's been missin'. It could be a good thing."
His entire being rose in a tsunami of assent and met his mind's desperate denial head on. The impact erupted in an explosive rage.
"For who? !" he yelled whipping around with flashing eyes. He took an automatic step back as a tremor shimmied down his body and his skin itched to split from the pressure building inside him. "For Bella? !" he roared. "Do you think she wants to be shackled to this!" He thrust his fist into his chest with a hollow boom that was echoed outside by thunder. "I'm a fucking animal!"
His father had jerked his chair himself back a foot in surprise, the water sloshing over onto his thigh and the chair crooked from his one handed push. "Jacob," he warned. "Calm down, son."
"Calm down? !" he bellowed. "Do you know…? ! Do you know how close I came to -… h-how I almost-…" he swallowed his horror in a painful gulp. He couldn't say it: lost it…took her like some rutting animal right then and there? Disgust filled his mouth with acid and both hands came up to fist in his short hair as he doubled over against his wildly bucking muscles.
"Now wait a Goddamn minute, Jake," his stern tone surprised Jacob just enough.
He froze, his teeth chattering softly.
"The imprint's a powerful thing-.."
"No!" Jacob snarled, shooting back up straight and baring his teeth.
"BUT!" his father yelled the word in a harsh baritone Jacob had never before heard. "You're stronger! You're not Sammy. You're wolf is the Alpha! It's in your blood!"
Jacob's wolf stopped trying to snap its tether and perked up at both the old man's tone and acknowledgement.
"And you're my son," his voice softened slightly as control slowly solidified Jacob's heated gaze. "I know that heart a' yours an' that's one damn thing that don't change no matter how much crap gets shoveled your way." He licked his weathered lips and looked deep into his son's eyes. "And what you're thinkin'… what's got you so scared, boy. Well, that just ain't who you are."
Jacob's breath was rasping harshly through his teeth and his muscles were again jumping and jerking under his skin.
"I don't know who the fuck I am anymore," he hissed.
With that he stalked past his father, throwing the door open so it knocked forcefully against the house.
Without a backward glance he leaped the railing and jogged out into the pouring rain.
"Do what you gotta, Jake," his father's voice called out behind him - knowing it would reach his preternatural ear. "I'll call Suzie if I need anything."
Clenching his eyes shut in remorse, Jacob sprinted out into the trees, the rain washing over his skin and siphoning some of the heat away in soothing rivulets. He was ashamed at how he'd neglected his duties with his father this year. But he simply didn't have the bandwidth for any more guilt or failure right now.
His mind had only room for one single obsessive thing at the moment. Or, more accurately, one person…
"Bella?" her father's voice was peppered with worry by the time he'd reached the porch.
Sucking in a breath, Bella whipped her head up as she shot to her feet.
Charlie stopped in the doorway, his eyes taking brief assessing stock before his face relaxed. "You okay, baby?" he asked softer, tossing his soaked umbrella carelessly to the floor and taking several steps into the house. He pulled the keys from the door with a jingle.
Only then did Bella realize she'd left the door wide open and her father had put two and two together. Forks might be a small town, but the man was still good at his job.
Bella nodded hastily, smoothing fingers under both eyes as she sniffled and tried to pull herself together.
Charlie closed the door softly behind him. "You went down there, didn't you?" he murmured, turning around slowly.
"Not to Billy's," she corrected defensively.
Charlie sniffed a laugh, his mustache hitching up on the side with his smirk. "I saw that tool bag out there this mornin' but I was already late. It ain't there now and there's clay on your tires. Rez clay."
Bella's eyes flicked up to the ceiling. Damn cops.
But in some ways she was glad; she could lie if she had to, but it made her sick to her stomach. "I went down to their garage," she admitted in a whisper.
Charlie's brows lifted encouragingly.
All of the tension and confusion that she'd only marginally been able to push down, rose in a suffocating wave. Bella bit her lip as the pressure threatened to break free in a disastrous display.
The light scolding twinkle in his eyes was snuffed out by concern. "Aww, c'mere kid," he murmured, holding out his arms.
Bella didn't have to be asked twice. She threw herself across the room and into his chest, wrapping her arms around his waist. "He-he's different," she bewailed into the stiff polyester of his uniform. "He's so d-different dad."
Her father's hands smoothed protectively over her head. "He didn't do nothin', did he?" he asked low.
Bella sniffled and shook her head against his shirt. It was one lie she'd take with her to the grave. She wasn't even ready to admit to herself how good Jake's arms had felt around her and how in that moment - that that heated, heady, intoxicating moment - she'd come so dangerously close to losing herself. Her body reacted to the mere passing thought and a warm ache rose up from her bones.
She quickly switched tracks, focusing on more practical things. "How, dad?" she asked plaintively, pulling back and searching his eyes for any kind of logical explanation. "How could he change so much? How's it even possible?"
Charlie looked down at her as he drew in a deep breath through his nose, his eyes darkening with his own unanswered questions. "I dunno, Bells," he mumbled, as his hand came up to smooth over her hair. "I mean I really got no idea," repeated with a little shake of his head as his face grew thoughtful.
Bella let her hands slip from around his waist and he took a shuffling step back. Charlie wasn't comfortable with physical contact for long.
"People always see what they wanna see, y'know? So 'seems like everyone just shrugs it off," he mused as he absently yanked down his uniform. "But I'm s'posed to see it like it is." His fingers came up to idly straighten his badge.
Bella blinked and took a step back to lean against the couch, waiting for more.
"Best I can come up with is drugs," he reached up and scratched the back of his neck. "But anabolic steroids don't work that good. And they don't make you taller - opposite in fact in young boys. It stunts 'em."
Bella's hands twisted in the hem of her tee shirt, paying rapt attention. Her father had had more time obviously to think about this. She kept hoping that some logical explanation could explain what only her crazy theory (which had been all but confirmed by Embry) had done so far.
"There are some growth hormones that work a little if you're young enough, but that's only about two inches tops," he continued rolling his shoulders and resting his hands on his hips. "I mean when I asked Harry about it, he just said it was a tribal thing," Charlie snorted. "I told 'em smoking peyote shore as hell don't do that."
Bella rolled her eyes. "Quileute don't use peyote."
"I know, but it pissed him off good," Charlie smirked. "Him, Billy and me 'been thick as thieves since second grade, and suddenly he's pullin' this 'paleface' crap?" Her father's face darkened in a frown as his hands moved to loosen his gun from the holster.
Bella nibbled on her lip as her gaze fell to the ground. Her father was obviously dealing with loss of his own - his best friends had pulled back and it hurt him.
"I dunno, Bells," he sighed, making her look up at where he was pulling off his utility belt and setting it on the side table. "It all don't make sense. I probably shoulda tried a little harder to get you to go with your mom." He looked up and met her gaze with uncertainty. "Guess I'm jus' selfish like that."
Bella smiled in spite of herself. "Dad I'm glad to be home," she reassured him. "I shoulda come back a long time ago." Regret slipped into her voice without her permission; she couldn't help but wonder if things would have been different with Jacob if she'd been here whenever all this crazy stuff went down.
"I don't think it woulda done any good, Bells," he murmured astutely. "I'm sorry you're getting dragged into this mess. I' been keeping my distance - I don't wanna get too close and have to get the law involved, y'know?"
Bella pursed her lips thoughtfully, bracing her hands on the couch behind her. It was switching tacks, but there was one question that she thought he might actually be able to answer. "Do you know anything about a girl - maybe 14 - Claire?" she asked obtusely.
"Claire Young?" her father's brow arched, surprised at the change of subject. "Was she down there too?"
Bella nodded hesitantly.
"Yeah, I heard 'bout that." He shook his head and sat down on the stairs to pull off his shoes. "Poor thing - it got real ugly. I arrested her mama - she's got fifteen for trafficking and it's a damn good thing. Heavy into ice. Beat that lil' girl whenever she was coming down and sometimes jus' for the hell of it too."
Bella squeezed her eyes closed with a shudder.
"But yeah, the State gave Old Quil custody," he continued, standing again and stretching his back. "And that's exactly the kinda thing I'm talking about. I don't wanna know nothing more than that," he said emphatically with a meaningful look.
Squinting her eyes apologetically, Bella nodded. "She looks like she's doing better," she tentatively offered.
"Yep. S'what I hear," Charlie agreed.
Bella drew in a breath and let it out in a long puff through her cheeks. This was just a glimpse into the delicate balancing act her father dealt with every day - things were obviously very complicated. It made her head spin.
"Maybe we should just stay out of it, Bells."
Bella looked back up to see her father considering her pensively.
"I mean, you got a new school comin' up on Monday and you don't need to get all tied up in something crazy," he mused, crossing his arms over his chest. "Maybe it'd be better if we just let Billy an' Jake do whatever they gotta do right now."
"No!" Bella pushed off the couch, her heart leaping up to her throat in a magnificent overreaction. "Dad, they need us!"
Charlie's eyebrows shot clear up to his hairline. "Bells, we don't know what's goin' on down there…"
Bella took two anxious steps forward. "We know their house is a mess, right? We know they're not eating well," she pressed. "They're our friends." She stopped herself at her father's sympathetic grimace. "Or used to be," she amended quietly.
"Look, I know things are different," she continued with an air of desperation. "And I agree. I don't think I should be spending any time alone with Jake right now either," the words hurt, but they were true (on too many levels to count). He scared her right now - and worse, her reaction terrified her even more. "But I really wanna go down there and maybe help clean things up. Bring some food. Please?" she practically begged. She needed time to figure out what the hell was going on, so she could figure out what to do about it - even if it meant walking away. But she wouldn't give up on Jacob yet.
Her father's mustache buckled over the press of his lips and he hummed with a cock of his head, hedging.
"Please," she pressed, widening her eyes in that little-girl plea that she knew got him every time. Desperate measures were certainly appropriate.
Charlie drew in a long deep breath. "Alright," he expelled the word on a sigh of resignation.
Bella grinned, fisting her hands at her side to keep them from pumping triumphantly.
"How 'bout I take you out to dinner and we can swing by the grocery on the way home?" Charlie offered with a smile that told her he knew exactly how much he'd been played. And, in this instance, didn't mind.
Bella nodded enthusiastically. "Thanks dad," she gushed.
Charlie smacked his lips blandly. "Alright, lemme get changed," he mumbled and turned up the stairs without another word.
Bella watched him go as another spectacular clap of thunder shook the house. Worrying her lip, she wandered over to her father's abandoned umbrella and closed it up, propping it up against the wall.
Her mind was spinning as she idly opened the front door and peered out at the rain, falling in sheets. Lightning flashed across the cruiser and her truck parked forlornly in the yard.
"Oh, Jacob," she breathed into the sodden stormy dusk. "What happened to you?"
In the distance, a long eerie howl rose in uncanny response, threading the rumbling thunder with a haunting filament of sorrow.
Bella shivered and quietly closed the door.
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