A/N: Thank you to my beta, bookworm411
I do not own Twilight or the characters within. I am grateful to Stephenie Meyer for having created characters and stories that are so fun to play with.
Chapter 4 – Fight
We came in through Charlie's screen door with Jacob carrying our luggage. He was still laughing at the terrible movie they had screened on the flight from Florida to Washington. Jacob could always be counted on to find the humor in terribly executed gore movies- but whose idea was it to put Chainsaw Mommas on a flight? It seemed inappropriate for general audiences, making it even more hilarious.
Charlie was waiting for us on the couch in front of the television, watching baseball.
"Hey kids, did you have a good time?"
"You bet!" Jacob answered with a wide smile.
"Don't forget to call Renee. She'd want to know you got in safe. Oh, and Jacob, there were a bunch of calls here for you." Jacob's smile dissolved into a puzzled look. I guess my face must have looked similar because Charlie answered our unspoken question.
"Bunch of guys from down your way – knew you were out of town but coming here first? They wanted you to call as soon as you got in. Sounded urgent, but they wouldn't say what. I called Billy, and he assured me everything's okay…" Charlie trailed off.
Jacob made an attempt at nonchalance. "I'm sure they're just waiting to harass me for spending so much time with a girl," Not likely, I thought, with Sam, Jared, and Quil spending all of their time with girls. "Mind if I use your phone?"
"Go ahead. Let me know if something's up, will you? I may not have any real authority down the reservation, but the badge still holds some sway if you need any help."
"Sure, sure." Jacob moved stiffly, at least to my eyes, into the kitchen. I excused myself to follow.
"Hello? Paul? What's-" Jacob didn't have time to finish. I could hear a flurry of expletives almost barked into the phone. I watched the confusion fade from his face, only to be replaced with shock, then anger.
I tried to guess what was going on based on what I could glean from the conversation I could overhear, which wasn't much, and Jacob's expression. I couldn't come up with anything. Not until I heard Paul yell one word that brought everything into relief: bloodsucker.
I sank into a chair, the blood draining from my face. Jacob stared ahead, jaw clenched, his eyes never leaving the wall, his expression never shifting but his silhouette shimmering. Were they back? Why?
He took a deep breath. "I'll be right there. No, I'll bring her. She has a right to be there," he looked over at me, "She'd want to know." He hung up the phone with more force than necessary.
Jacob came over to me and crouched by my side, his face only slightly lower than mine even as he tried to compact his body. He reached out to move the hair off of my face.
"It's going to be all right, Bella. Sam is going to explain, but you're going to be all right." He took my hand and led to the kitchen's back door. "I'm going to tell Charlie- something- I'll be right back."
I was still numb. The Cullen's weren't any danger, so why was Jacob trying to tell me that I'm going to be okay? Sure, I would be okay. I had Jacob now, and if Edward were here, well, we could be friends, right? If he still wanted to be, that is.
Would I ever get used to the way Jacob moved? He had silently and suddenly come up from behind me.
"Stay here. When I get back, hop on." He burst outside through the screen door.
Hop on what? Was he going to get the motorcycles? How could he carry both of them? Maybe he just meant on the back of his-
Before I could think other interpretations, out of the woods strode a very large and very furry wolf. My eyes popped open.
"You want me to hop on you?"
The wolf lowered his head. I suppose that was a yes. He knelt down from his front paws and let me climb on his back. He howled once, softly but urgently- I took it to mean "hold on."
As he took off into the words, the trees were flying past me too quickly to see them individually – the forest was a blur. I had to close my eyes- this sort of traveling brought back memories I had worked hard to forget. Unlike when I rode on Edward's back, I could feel Jacob running beneath me. It took all of my concentration to keep the limited contents of my stomach down.
When I finally worked up the courage to open my eyes several minutes after I felt us stop, I recognized the house.
"Emily and Sam's," I reminded myself. I carefully slid down off of his back and waited for him to change in the woods. "Jacob, what did you tell Charlie?"
"Oh." Jacob shrugged as he returned. "I told him that we hadn't eaten since we left Florida and that I was going to take you out for dinner." I could see the flaw in his plan.
"Won't Charlie be suspicious when my truck is still in the driveway?"
Jacob looked at me, realizing his error. "Shoot, I knew I was forgetting something. Be right back. Sam!" he yelled out. Sam appeared in the doorway. "Watch Bella for me, will you?" He turned around without a second glance and ran away into the woods.
"Might as well come inside, Bella." Sam gestured me over. "Emily made some muffins, if you're hungry."
I walked inside the small house, and looked around the kitchen. Five boys, all larger than life, were crowded around a small kitchen table, staring up at me. I reached over to the bowl in the middle and pulled out a muffin. I wasn't hungry, but picking at the pastry gave me something to do with my hands.
"Hey guys," I made a nervous attempt at small talk. "How was the weather while we were gone?" Meanwhile, I was wondering why the return of the Cullens would warrant a meeting like this.
"She wants to talk about the weather." Paul was almost growling. Sam went over to him and put his hand on Paul's shoulder.
"Relax, Paul. This isn't Bella's fault."
Not my fault? Why else would they have returned? Nothing was adding up.
"What's not my fault?" I looked at Sam, my head cocked sideways.
"We'd better wait until Jacob gets back," he replied, still holding on to Paul.
The possibilities whirled through my mind. Did Edward want me back? Was this going to end in a fight? I couldn't bear to have the two men in my life fighting over me. I loved Edward, but was it enough- did I want him back too?
I stood still, trying not to look into the eyes of the five giants sitting in front of me. I turned my attention to the muffin, pretending to analyze it until I heard the familiar roar of my truck's engine outside.
As soon as Jacob walked through the door, Sam relaxed his grip on Paul and cleared his throat.
"She's going to pay. We're through playing her game; we have to lure her in and finish this once and for all."
I felt all of the blood drain from my face as I collapsed backwards into Jacob's arms. I was wrong. The Cullens weren't back.
Victoria was.
The blackness pulled me under; or rather, I wrapped myself in it, welcoming its familiar numbness. Of course Edward hadn't returned- hadn't he said he didn't want me? I followed the blackness down, so I wouldn't have to think about it. Finally, my mind was quiet. I could still hear a familiar voice in the distance.
"Bella, Bella! Bells, talk to me! Sam, Emily, what should I do? Bella!" Jacob's voice was making its way through the blackness, showing me the way to the surface. I felt my eyelids flutter and open, momentarily blinded by the light shining in them.
"Oh, thank God," Jacob said as he crushed me to his chest.
I started to hyperventilate as I remembered the reason I for my passing out.
"What happened?" I asked, my eyes darting around the room. "Where is she?"
"Relax, Bella." Jared piped up for the first time. "She's pretty far out at the moment, but she keeps circling back. We've been taking turns scouting the woods."
"When you guys were gone," Sam continued, "she slipped past us." He looked over at Quil- his face was down, his eyes on the floor. It must have been Quil on duty that night. "It wasn't his fault, of course," Sam added quickly. "She's slippery, has a knack for escaping. The rest of us went to intercept her before she could make her way into Forks,"
"I owe the bloodsucker," Paul interrupted, his jaw clenched, "you take a chunk out of my shoulder, you should expect consequences."
I gasped as my hands flew to my mouth. "Paul! Are you okay?!"
He chuckled darkly. "Yeah, took me a full day and a half to heal after that scuffle. Now I just want revenge– to tear a piece off of her."
She must have come pretty close. The panic was fresh in my chest as I thought of Charlie – he was all alone at home, unprotected.
"Wait," I started as Charlie's vulnerability occurred to me. "If you're all here, who is scouting now?"
Jacob sighed, but it was Sam who spoke with a grimace. "Seth…"
Little Seth. I found it almost impossible to think of him as a giant wolf, out in the woods; I couldn't help thinking about how vulnerable he looked at Harry's funeral.
"How many of you are there?" I started to count again.
"There are seven of us now. Still, it's the largest pack the elders have ever heard of." Sam's voice seemed far away.
"She's outnumbered, Sam. We can take her. We just need to be more...diligent." Jacob's voice, in contrast, was hard and determined.
I sat in the little kitchen, staring at the back of Jacob's head as I listened to them planning. I cringed as I thought about the price of my safety – I couldn't bear it if anything happened to my sun. I thought about how wrong I had been about which immortals were back in town. As I looked at Jacob, my Jacob, I knew who I couldn't live without.