Chapter seven.
I grumbled and rolled over, pulling my good arm out from underneath me and searching the bed next to me. She wasn't there. I pulled the blanket up to my face to see how long she'd been gone, but the smell burnt my nose and I cringed away from the blanket. I sat up abruptly, putting too much strain on the shoulder that was torn apart. Shit. I jumped out of the bed, taking the blanket with me and holding it over exposed bottom half. Apparently I'd slept too long. "This is NOT what it looks like! Honest!" His furious eyes never faltered, never even blinked as he stared me down. "Then what is it really mutt? Or were you not sleeping in my daughters bed unclothed?" I didn't have an answer for that. "Okay.. well it's exactly what it looks like, but nothing happened, I swear!" My find flashed back to Ness awakening, feeling over with me with her hands, licking the blood off my chest... The tiniest smile escaped my lips. Edwards growl broke my through my thoughts. Goddamn mind-reading vamp. He was inches from my face in half a second, flat. The scent of him so close sent my nose aflame, erasing any trace of the smile I'd had before. I threw one arm up in surrender, as I usually did whenever I did things that offended the bloodsuckers, careful to hold the blanket still over myself. Nessie'd never forgive me if I hurt one of them, but of course they never got in any trouble for messing me up. "I do not care what did, or did not happen here Jacob. It won't happen again." Great, now I pissed off Daddy. His eyes lightened a little when I thought of the way she often said it, like he was a hero or something to her. "Let me make myself very clear to you Jacob Black, the next time I catch you on any legal Cullen property, I will consider the treaty in full effect and you will be banished to your side of the line." "What?" I stuttered, "you can't be serious Edward! I won't stay away from her, you can't make me!"
I felt his reaction immediately, a cold fist in my stomach and as I folded over, a granite knee in my nose. The blood ran fluidly down the front of me.
He stood straight in front of me, composed again. "You can take that blanket with you, it smells like dead dog." I stood up, angry and in all the more pain, but still too afraid of Nessie's wrath to hit him back. "Christ, man!" I said feeling my once again, broken nose.
"What if she wants to see me huh?" I asked, attempting to reason with him. "You gonna keep her locked up in the house?" A laugh almost escaped my lips watching his pull together in thought. I could tell he was contemplating it. Ness had always been a good kid, usually listened to what she was told to do.. but I'd spent years trying to push some rebellion into her, for a moment just such as this. I knew that if she really wanted to see me, she'd find a way. He knew it to. "You think your wolf imprint gives you claim to her Jacob," he said "but it doesn't. Knowing that she is the only person you will ever Love doesn't mean you are the only person she can Love." I remembered the image in my head that had shaken me so badly when I'd fought Roman, I could see the tears in Ness's eyes as she'd screamed at me, angry because I'd killed him. The words stung, just as he knew they would when he said them. They stung because I knew they were true. "Sure, sure" I mumbled, as I quickly and unsteadily took the two steps to the door, opened it and walked out. I phased inches away from the house, leaving the blanket behind me.
I was greeted with Seth's update on the run back home. 'We almost caught him Jake. We were this close and then we lost him! Sam thought we could catch up to him but then I got his picture in my head.. like you should be the one to kill him, so I told Sam and convinced him to turn around.' I didn't comment back at first, I was focusing on how difficult it was on to run, how much it hurt... I must look like a freak limping around like this. 'Naw, Jake. Everyone gets beat. Look at last time when me and Leah went at it! She tore me up.' 'Where is Leah'
I thought, I hadn't heard from her in days. As my right flank she was gonna get Hell for not checking in for three days. 'Look, I'm gonna run the a new perimeter tonight. I'm not aloud on Cullen property so I want you to run that loop okay?', 'Oh man, Jake what'd you do now'
I let my confrontation with Edward play in my head for him to see, wincing at the sound of my nose splintering.'Alright, I'll run your loop,' he was trying very hard not to ask what really had happened with me and Ness, instead he thought about me, 'but you need to go home. I KNOW that shoulder is killing you and if you keep runnin on it it's gonna set wrong.' The pain in my arm echo'd his words. I hated it when he was right. 'Yeah, okay.. but just for tonight. And if you catch any trails you come get me. Got it?' 'Yeah, I got it.' I reached the trail through the grounds that led to my house and phased back.
That was why I'd bought this place, no-one ever came this far to the edge of the reservation... I could shift and run, unshift and be naked... I could run around with a toga on, and no-one would know... whatever I wanted. It'd cost a little more than what I had but it hadn't taken too long to pay off. Not after... after selling Dad's old place. Neither of my sisters wanted it after Dad passed, but I didn't really either. The house wasn't worth a whole lot but the grounds were. Ness had found the lawyer and buyers and all that.. I don't know anything about that kinda stuff. Even help me pick out this place right before she.. before she left. It was nice, kinda smallish but still a lot more room than I needed. I walked through the backyard, up the cobbled stone path and straight through the unlocked back door. I passed through the small kitchen, filled with appliances I'd almost never used, and through the living room and up the stairs to the bedroom. Whenever I was in the house this is usually where I was. Ness knew that everything in the rest of the house was pretty much for her, so for Christmas she'd filled the bedroom up with things she'd known I'd never be able to afford. I walked in and layed down on what was quite possibly the biggest bed I'd ever seen in my life, no joke. I could lay on it up and down, diagonal or sideways and not an inch of my six foot eight frame would dangle off the edges. I got up slowly, feeling my body ache and walked to the closet. I opened the door and pulled out one of the hundreds of pairs of cut-off jeans she'd filled it with and pulled them on. I turned and looked in the mirror on the back of the door. Most of the scabbing on my face had fallen off when I phased, leaving bringht pink scars underneath, but my more recently injured nose was covered in blood and felt familiarly stiff. I could handle that, it would only take a few days for the bones to mend together again. I let my eyes wander to my shoulder, and I cringed. To be fair it looked a little worse than it felt, but it looked horrific. The skin had only begun to grow back, and the bone was very obviously out of place, jutting out at an odd angle. I lifted my good arm and placed a hand on the awkward bone feeling the soft underflesh that might not be scabbed until tomorrow night. I took a deep breath and braced myself, and with a sickening crack, I pushed it back into it's rightful position. My knee's buckled from the pain underneath me, and I landed on both of them, still wobbly. I looked back to the mirror. I looked pathetic, on bended knee and covered in blood and dirt, my shoulder was now much more swollen.. I wrenched myself up and walked across the room to the master bathroom. I started the water and adjusted it, one-oh-two exactly. I pulled off the jeans with one hand and climbed in the shower. Standing there under the water for a good long time before finally turning it off and stepping out. I shook my head until my hair was almost dry, and pulled a towel off the rack for the rest of me. I tugged my pants back on and walked unsteadily back into the bedroom and climbed into the bed. I stared at the ceiling for a minute before I rolled over onto my bad arm, the pressure felt nice against the break. Like a cast would be to a normal human. Looking across the room I saw the familiar vanity, with the black iron intricately worked chair sitting in front of it. There were still brushes and combs on the surface, and one of the drawers were left open. Just the way she'd left it. I let my eyes roam to the top of the mirror where there hung a golden chain with, at the very bottom of the chain, a crystal heart with the image of a wolf etched in it. It has been for Nessie's sixth (sixteenth) birthday, and she'd never seen it.
She'd crept out of her own house, knowing I had no patrol, come over here and force me to play games on the unnecessary X-box she'd gotten me. I'd all but passed out after the first two hours and when I woke up and followed her scent up the steps here. The bathroom was all fogged up from her shower so I set the necklace there, hoping to surprize her and layed down on the bed. When she came out she was dressed for bed with out of season Halloween shorts on and a matching strappy tee. I remembered the smell of her sweet curls, still wet hanging to the middle of her back. I could remember the look on her face when she breathed in the air and looked at me on the bed. Shock, then confusion.. then fear, then she'd ran. The memory played over in my head several times, before my eyes were too heavy and I just couldn't stay awake any longer.
