Hello, everyone! Here is chapter seven. It's a bit of a basic chapter, but we get to see some more of Jasper and that's always exciting!

BTW: I forgot to mention that I do have this story crossposted onto Wattpad, if any of you do any reading on there.


Chapter 7


"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."

- Pablo Picasso


I was bouncing in my seat as Bella drove us to La Push, a huge grin on my face.

Bella was watching me, wearily, from the corners of her eyes as she navigated her truck down the road. She smiled, though, and turned away from me as we passed the welcoming sign for the La Push reservation.

I had a piece of sketch paper clutched in my hand. Normally, it was tucked away in my memory book. I'd taken it out for this perfect occasion, rubbing the edge of the rough paper between my fingers. I lifted it look it over once more, as I'd done thousands of times in the last couple years since I'd gotten the piece from my younger sister, Sierra.

Like I said, the girl was a beautiful artist, both with makeup and her drawings. She'd always wanted to be a tattoo artist, and while I promised her that I would be the first person she inked once she was able, I knew that I mostly likely wouldn't make it that long. It would be another ten years, tops, before she'd be able to actually tattoo people. I'm lucky if I had one.

So, I'd gotten an idea. While it wouldn't be her hand doing the tattooing, it would be her piece that would forever be etched onto me. And I couldn't be more excited. I'd always wanted a tattoo but I'd always had a hard time deciding what I wanted. When I was younger I swore I'd save my skin for a tattoo dedicated to my children and other important things. As I'd gotten older, I'd become more liberal with my views on them and understood that people loved getting them for the sake of putting art on their bodies.

I picked at the frayed corner of the page, and hoped that the artist would be able to get the picture right.

We pulled into Jacob's drive first thing, the boy coming out of the garage as he heard the roar of Bella's truck. He had a shit-eating grin plastered across his face, and he started walking towards the truck as he wiped the grease from his hands with an orange rag.

Bella shifted into park and I scooted over so that I was sitting in the middle of the cab, after I'd swung the door open for our friend. Jacob stuffed his oil rag into the back pocket of his pants and swung himself up and into the cab with ease. He smelled purely of motor oil, which wasn't a surprise considering he had it all over his shirt and jeans.

"Where is your coat?" I berated, huffing as I had to scoot even further over towards Bella to compensate the boy. "And why do I get the feeling you're getting even buffer?"

He rolled his eyes. "It's not even that cold outside. And you're just noticing my extremely nice muscles now? I'm offended, Gweny."

I stuck my tongue out in return. "Stop calling me that! And tell us where we need to go!"

Jacob instructed Bella how to get to the tattoo parlor in La Push, the only local one for miles. It got a lot of business, both from Forks residents and La Push tribe members. According to Jacob, even people from Port Angeles and sometimes from Seattle would come down to get tattooed at the parlor, just because they had that good of a reputation.

It was a small, hidden away place just across the street from La Push's small general goods store.

Bella parked in the lot for the grocery store and the three of us walked across the street together.

"Harley's Ink Gallery?" I read the front sign aloud, the sign depicting a tattoo gun with a whole galaxy spewing out from the tip, with the name written in the stars.

"Harley's pretty cool," Jacob says as we got to the front door, "He's friends with my dad but he doesn't really come around to any events, definitely doesn't tattoo anymore. Too old, and he was really sick there for a while. His sons run the shop now. Don't worry, they won't tell my dad or Charlie about this stuff."

We entered and a small bell chimed once the door opened. Inside the floors were a dark hardwood, and the walls painted a deep burgundy. All along the walls were pictures of finished ink pieces, piercings, and mockups for potential tattoo's. There was a counter set up with two large computer monitors, along with a cash register.

Right at the entrance there were two leather couches, facing each other with a coffee table planted in the middle. Beyond all that there was a short, wooden half-wall fencing in a section of the room, and that seemed to be where all the work was done. There were three leather massage chairs, the ones you could adjust to just about any laying or sitting position.

Right at the back a man with long, black hair tied into a pony tail sat on a leather stool, hunched over the muscly arm of a tan, muscular boy laying lax on the leather chair. A familiar group of men were standing on the other side of the wood wall next to them, watching as the guy worked on their friend.

"Be with you in a moment!" the guy yelled to us, over the sound of steady buzzing coming from the gun in his hand.

We sat down on the cracked leather couch, and Bella and I glanced over some of the binders that sat atop them. There were two, each a portfolio for each of the brothers that apparently owned the shop, filled to the brim with pictures of fresh tattoos and piercings. It wasn't hard to be impressed with them both; they had pieces ranging from portraits copied from real photographs to watercolor and minimalist tattoos. These boys definitely knew their stuff.

Jacob, I noticed, was looking a little sick, glancing back at the group of guys in the back anxiously from time to time. I knew it had to be Sam Uley and his friends standing there at the back, considering how big the guys had been and how Jacob was acting. But I couldn't understand why he looked so concerned.

"Did you bring what you wanted to get?" I asked Bella, and she nodded softly, pulling out a piece of paper out of her rain coat pocket. "You know you can still back out. I don't want you to do anything that you don't wanna do, Bells. I just appreciate that you came here for me."

Bella stared at the picture, then shook her head. "No, I want to do this. I think I need a little change."

Jacob's gaze snapped from the back of the shop, to Bella, looking just a little hopeful.

All of a sudden, someone came from behind the couch and swung their arm around Jacob's neck, trapping him in a headlock. He nearly gagged at the force, and Bella and I instantly stood to get out of the way as he swung around to try and get the person off. The guy was laughing hysterically and giving Jacob noogies.

The guy let go, swiftly ducking as Jacob swung a punch. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, Black, it's just me!"

Jacob stood, swinging around. "Cam, damn it! What's your problem?"

The guy stopped laughing, but there was a playful grin on his face. He shrugged. "I haven't seen you in a while, you just happened to give me a good opportunity to mess with you, kid."

Jacob looked like he wanted to keep yelling at the guy, but let out a few hard breaths and calmed himself. I couldn't help but notice that he was clenching and unclenching his fist, still, as the two started to talk.

"How's Harley doing?" Jacob asked.

Cam folded his slim arms over his chest, giving another casual shrug. "Same ol', same ol'. He beat the cancer, did Billy tell ya that?"

Jacob nodded. "Yeah, that's good. Glad he's doing alright, then."

Cam raised a brow at him. "I hope you're not here to try and get me to give you a tattoo, again. I know how old you are kid, and I don't care how wheelchair bound Billy is, he can still find a way to whoop both our asses. Last time I distinctly remember chasing you and your friends out with a shop broom."

I looked at Jacob with a raised brow, and he scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. "Nah, I'm with my friends. They want the tattoos."

Cam finally looked at Bella and I, and grinned widely, showing off rows of pearly white teeth. He was a fairly attractive older man, and I wouldn't have pegged him any older than twenty-five. He was lean, with a very lanky build and nice russet skin. He wasn't built to the same capacity as Sam and his gang, but his lithe build gave him a very model-esque appearance. He was also covered in tattoos, from the inked sleeves on both his arms to the pictures poking out of his shirt collar and tangling around his neck.

"Well, you came on the perfect day, ladies! We're not booked at all today, for once. Gavin's just finishing up a walk-in back there and then we can get you both underway. I can get you filing the paperwork, first, though. Got your ID's?" he said, holding out his hands for them as we dug through our wallets.

Cam exchanged our IDs for two clip boards, each with a couple pieces of paper clamped to them. "Go over those and initial where it tells you, and sign. The last couple pages are on proper tattoo care, so those are yours to keep once we're done."

He gave us back our ID's, and we were both filing out the paperwork when Cam's brother had just finished his tattoo in the back. Sam and his group were walking up to the front to pay, and I couldn't help but glance up at them.

Sam was watching me again, with that same rude ass stare on his face as before. He nudged one of his friends, who also turned to look at me, then turned away, tugging Sam's arm a bit as if asking him to look away. Sam didn't stop staring, so I finally flipped him the bird, grinning when he finally turned.

See how you like that, asshat!

Bella nearly choked when she saw me lift my finger and she quickly batted my hand down. "Gwen!"

"He started it," I muttered darkly, my eyes drifting to Jacob.

He wasn't laughing, which was what had made me turn to look at him. I'd figured the moment definitely would've at least gotten a chuckle out of the boy. But, instead, he was staring at the fourth figure getting up from the tattooing chair and throw his shirt on, a glare on his face as he watched the guy.

I followed his gaze, and my eyes widened in disbelief. Embry was straightening his shirt out, looking extremely uncomfortable with it on, and also looking pretty depressed. On his arm was a fresh tribal tattoo, which I assumed had some meaning to the La Push people. Now that I saw it, and noticed who exactly he was with, it dawned on me that the other three had the same tattoos on their arms.

Embry followed Paul up to the front, who was talking with the other shop owner, Gavin. He looked a million miles away, and a million times bigger than the last time I'd seen him. Sure, I'd thought he was growing, but this was ridiculous. The boy was built like a damn brick house now, sculpted and tall just like the other three boys. Something about this felt so wrong.

Embry saw us and he went pale, instantly turned to look away.

"You coward," Jacob snapped under his breath, but Embry clearly heard him and looked down at his feet.

I looked between the two, confused. What in the world was happening? Last I'd saw Embry had been a week ago, when he'd gotten angry in the garage and left in a huff. Now, it seemed, he was hanging out with Sam's gang and there was now a dark tension between him and Jacob. To the point that Embry wasn't even acknowledging his childhood friend.

"This one's on the house, per usual," Gavin told the group, bidding them farewell.

For a second, while leaving, Embry's gaze caught mine. I tilted my head in question, frowning at the boy. He gave his head the most minimal of shakes, and that was the last I saw of him as he followed his news friends out of the parlor.

Gavin clapped his hands together, and turned towards Bella and I with a grin on his face that basically mirror Cam's. It was then it clicked for me that the men were twins, nearly identical accept for the different pictures and colors littered across their skin. Gavin, also, had a small bar pierced through his left eye brow.

"Alright! Let's see what you got!" He said, rubbing his hands together eagerly.

Bella handing her picture to Gavin, while I had already given mine to Cam a few moments before.

I looked to Cam, who's eyes were gliding over the slightly aged paper very carefully. "Did you draw this?" he asked, not even looking up from the paper.

"No, it was my younger sister. She's fifteen," I told him. "She does want to be a tattoo artist, though."

"Well, she's a fucking natural, this looks like something Gav or I would've drawn up ourselves," he said softly, and held the picture up to the light. "I can definitely do this. It may take a second session to get it done, but this I can definitely do."

I grinned. I couldn't wait to tell my sister that a popular tattoo artist had loved her work. I'd tell her that after I sent her picture of the finished piece.

Gavin leaned over to look at the paper, and whistled lowly. "Hell ya, give that girl some props. She's got talent. We'd hire her."

I chuckled. "Maybe once she's graduated. And if she moves all the way from Montana."

Soon, the twins had Bella and I in the two chairs closer to the front. Jacob was leaning over the edge of the wall, watching with a hint of jealousy in his eyes as we got prepped for our tattoos. His eyes nearly bugged out of his head when Bella told Gavin she wanted hers on the lower part of her side, on the thicker part of her hip, and he quickly spun around even though she was only shimmying her jeans and lifting the back of her shirt up enough to show her hip.

Cam, however, was scratching his head as he looked at stencil and then at me. "You're sure you're not on any type of blood thinners? I'm not calling you a liar, girl, but your skin looks paper thin and I don't want to do too much damage on you."

I smiled at his concern. "Actually, I'm the opposite. I have really poor circulation." As if to accentuate my point, my left foot start going to sleep on me and I started to shake it a little.

He nodded. "Alright, let's get you ready. And none of that foot wagging while I've got the gun on you. I'm thinking I'll be able to get the outline done and some of the shading today, and then finish it in a second session."

I stopped shaking my foot and watched as he pulled out a small fold-able screen on wheels. He made it face the window of the shop, then looked at Jacob sternly. "Turn around again, kid. Give the lady some privacy," he said, also turning away.

Sheepishly, I started to pull my shirt over my head and then reached around to undo my bra. Once I had my clothes in a heap on the floor and I was lying flat against the leather chair, Cam finally turned around. He kept the screen up, just in case. And then started to prepare his tattoo gun and prepare my right shoulder and back for the tattoo.

"You can turn around now, Jake," I said, laughing at my friend. "It's just my back."

Jacob turned slowly, and then his eyes widened and he swung back around. "Nope, nope, I'm going to go sit in the front. It's like I'm nearly seeing my sister naked and I just can't deal with that trauma."

I raised a brow as he walked away, and then realized that he was probably freaking out because he could see the sides of my breasts. While I'd become stick thin over the years, my breast size hadn't decreased much along with the rest of me, so there was still enough to squish out from me laying right against the table.

Cam barked out a laugh, shaking his head at the retreating boy, and then quickly got to work. I could see Bella and Gavin perfectly from my position, and I watched as a small rose began to blossom against her hip. Watching the man work was almost hypnotic, seeing plain, alabaster skin suddenly alive with beautiful color. It was so interesting to watch, I barely noticed when Cam's tattoo gun had started to jet into the skin of my back. It was a dull, annoying pain, I noticed, not as agonizing as I'd expected.

This went on for a few hours. We took a break when Gavin finished Bella's, a beautiful, fully-bloomed red rose against the side of her hip, slightly towards the beginning curve of her butt. It had vibrant green leaves and looked like it was glistening from dew or a mist of rain. Gavin had truly made it come to life, to the point where the picture she'd brought in to show him didn't do the tattoo, itself, any justice.*

"It's gorgeous, Bells," I told her, as she looked over her shoulder in a standing mirror to check out the finished project.

She smiled. "Yeah, I really like it… It looks so natural. I feel… I don't know, I don't know how I feel."

I grinned, placing my chin into my hand. "You feel sexy! Admit it, you feel all empowered now 'cause you got a sexy butt tattoo."

Bella turned to glare at me playfully. "It isn't on my butt! It's on my hip, you goof."

"I'm going to make a song for you, Bella, about your sexy butt tattoo," I told her, grinning widely as I riled her up. "About how everyone will swoon for you when they hear about your sexy butt tattoo."

Cam came back into the tattooing area, chuckling as he listened to me taunting my cousin. She blushed, gently pulling her jeans back up over the tattoo and quickly walking out to go sit with Jacob in the waiting area.

I rolled my eyes. Of course, my cousin would feel shy around a tattoo artist, someone who'd probably been close to more private parts then he could count. I hissed as he started up again where he'd left off.

"Sorry," he hummed, nearly in sync with the gun. "So, what's the story?"

"Hm?" I mumbled with confusion, my eyebrows pinching as I tried not to flinch away from the painful digging near my arm pit.

"You got some scars on your sides, and on your shoulders. I'm an artist, I notice this shit," he said, running some ink off of the needle of the gun after he'd taken a moment to dip it back into the black color. "If you don't want to tell me, that's fine. I just feel like you're a person with a story to tell."

I smiled leaning my face against the leather of the chair. "I guess. It's not hard to tell that I'm sick, I'm sure you've figured that one out. Sometimes my illness makes me scratch, so I've got marks just about everywhere from the times I really did a number on myself. Otherwise, it's not much to tell about. I don't self-harm purposefully, if that's what you were wondering."

"No, I didn't think so," he said, and chuckled when I sighed with relief when he move away from near my arm pit. "So what do you have? Is it like a cancer, oorrr?"

"That's what they thought, initially. I have no tumors, though. They just noticed that some of my organs are starting to die off, slowly. I can eat a mountain of food and end up smaller then next day. It's like I'm not taking any nutrients from anything. They can't figure it out, so we made them quit the tests and decided to accept fate," I told him.

He was silent for a moment, and then the needle stopped. "Okay, girl, we've put in four hours in today and I bet you're stiff as hell. So, let's pick this back up next weekend, okay? You can pay for yours then, since we've only got it half done."

I nodded, and he looked away so that I could get up, stretch tenderly, and then redress. He started cleaning his station, putting the folding screen back into the corner he'd pulled it out of. I started to walk to the front, where Jacob and Bella were waiting with Gavin, who was sitting behind the desk with computers and was leaned back playing air guitar to a Gun's N Roses song.

"Alright, so, for the rose on the hip, we're going to say…" Gavin paused, sucking air in through his teeth. "Eh, for such good clients we'll say one-fifty."

Bella started rummaging through her wallet, and Jacob nabbed it out of her hand. "Jake! What the hell, give it back."

Jacob grinned, winking at me as he held it just out of Bella's reach. "Can't, I'm on strict orders to confiscate this at the moment of payment. If I don't I'll face the wrath of Gwendolyn the Terrible, and I think I'm a little more scared of her than I am of you, Bells."

Bella swung around just in time to see me hand Gavin the money I'd pulled out of my wallet, the man chuckling at our antics.

"Gwen!" Bella protested. "I have my own money!"

"I know," I chirped, grinning at the annoyed look on her face. "Look, this was my idea. And what if you don't like it down the line when you're old and wrinkly? Then you can blame me for cleverly coercing you and paying for it so that you had no choice but to say yes."

She shook her head. "You are so ridiculous. I'm paying you back."

"You can try!" I sang to her, the twins chuckling as they bid us farewell. "Thanks, guys! See you on Saturday, Cam!"


Jasper Whitlock


I was sprinting through the forests, following the trail of some wildcats I was hunting down. It would be too easy to just race to the nearest animal and kill it. It wasn't what our kind were made for. We were born to hunt, to chase our pray and stalk it down. Since out natural prey was humans, hunting animals was a bit different. We drew humans in with our beautiful, while most animals could tell instinctually that we were creatures to be feared.

Coming to a screaming halt, I closed my eyes. I was at the base of a steep cliff, standing just below its overhang. I could hear the soft padding of paws above me, and the calm heartbeat of the wild cat. It was above me, having found a way to climb up the cliff some ways further off, judging by the direction the smell went.

I wasn't about to take the easy way and climb the same way as the mountain lion, and instead threw myself at the cliff. I began to climb silently.

My nails scratched and dug into the rock easily, and I was climbing higher and higher. I could feel the wind whipping through my hair as I broke over the tree lines, and I relished in the feeling only momentarily.

Hot coals burned in my throat every time I swallowed. I'd waited much too long to hunt this time. I was ready to rip into that mountain lion and satiate the burn. It wasn't just a want, it was a need. No vampire could truly live with the burn without going mad. I'd seen that happen plenty of times back in the older days of my vampiric youth.

My hand grabbed the edge of the cliff, and soon I was crawling up and over the edge. I saw her, the lion's back to me as she stalked her own pray. She was sniffing the ground and crouched lowly, an oblivious elk sniffing loudly at the ground only a few feet away from her.

I watched the two carefully, slinking closer and closer.

The cat lunged for her prey, and so did I. My arms grappled around it right in midair, and the animal let out an ungodly scream as it writhed in my grasp. It always sent a thrill through me when they fought back. I knew it was a sick feeling to enjoy, but pushing back vampire nature was a hard thing to do. We were always predators first and foremost, especially when we hunted. The human facade stopped the second our hunt began.

The elk that the lion had been hunting brayed loudly, startled by the sudden commotion and seeing the danger before it, and instantly began to run away in fear. The dull sound of hooves hitting the earth faded into the background as I wrestled with my soon to be meal.

The cat stopped struggled the second I'd managed to twist its neck, it's breath and life fading away slowly, and I felt it go limp in my arms as I brought my mouth to its neck. I always hated that sound. It was a horrible feeling, killing such beautiful wildlife, but I would prefer it over doing it to a human a hundred times over. Maybe, I had too big of a conscious for a vampire, but feeling your meals emotions as you ate was nearly sickening. Yes, I definitely preferred eating animals over humans, even if the taste was lackluster in comparison.

When I dropped it, the dead animals glassy eyes seemed to stare at me. They were a golden brown, not nearly as bright as ours after we hunted, but still very beautiful in their own way. For a moment, they penetrated me motionless, and I stood atop the mountain with the wind whipping all around me, staring at the dead cat.

Something feels wrong.

That was when that weird pain came back, but this time it was more fierce wild than any of the other times it'd been before.

Jesus Christ!

I doubled over, groaning as fire blossomed in my chest. It felt like someone had punched right through where my heart should be. This shouldn't be possible. Vampires can't have heart attacks or heart spasms, but that's exactly how it felt. I felt like fire was literally crawling through my arms and legs, almost like I was going through the change all over again.

Stumbling backwards, I cursed as the cliff crumbled beneath my foot. I'd stepped too heavily when I staggered back and the weak dirt and rock had given way.

I fell backwards along with the crumbling cliff peak, suddenly in thousand-foot free fall. I couldn't even try to stop it, the pain in my chest burning through my veins. I was clutching at my chest even as I started crashing through the trees, breaking each branch with my body on the way down. All I could do was brace myself and wait for the impact, as I tried not to scratch fiercely at the skin over my heart.

Finally, I hit the forest floor with a loud boom, a small crater formed around me from the impact. The noise had sent several flocks of birds flying off in a frenzy, chirping and cawing and they fled the crash site.

Carlisle and Esme were soon next to me, concerned. They'd been hunting in sections of the woods near me, but not extremely close by. They knew all too well that I got really protective of my food when I was hunting.

"Son, are you alright?" Carlisle asked. "We saw you fall, what happened?"

The pain was slowly fading away, and I was left touching my heart where it had begun. I could also feel a faint burning in my left calf, which had also slowly started to ebb away from me.

"Something's wrong," I muttered, pulling myself up and brushing some of the dust and debris off my ruined clothes. It was silly to try and clean them, since the fall had literally torn them to shreds.

They ran back to the house with me, Carlisle bound determined to assess me over after I told him of the pain I'd been experiencing at odd intervals.

I, however, wanted to talk to Alice. I wanted answers. After hearing her skirt around every question I'd thrown at her and feeling this pain, I was done with waiting for an answer. This obviously had to have something to do with what Alice had seen before we'd split as a couple, as the chest pain had only started doing so after that. I was tired of being held in the dark from something I felt had to be very important.

When I got there, however, she was gone. Rosalie and Emmett, however, seemed to be back from there trip and were sitting in the living room, waiting for us. I knew Edward had to be up in his room, just sitting there and moping.

"Have you two seen Alice?" I demanded, storming inside.

Rosalie raised a brow. "Hello to you, too, brother. You look like hell. What, did the food beat you this time?"

Emmett laughed, but sobered up when I glared at them both. "No, she isn't here. She left a note in the kitchen, though. Something about needing some time from the house and that she wasn't going to answer any of your questions."

"What," I growled, stomping into the kitchen.

Sure enough, a note was taped to the refrigerator with Alice's pristine handwriting scrawled onto it.

Dear family,

Don't worry, I'm not going to be gone for long!

I just need to take a break off on my own for a bit. I love you all and will keep in contact. I'll be back with you all before you know it, trust me! I'll let you guys know if something important is going to happen. Don't worry, things will start to look up for us all really soon.

Love, Alice

I blinked, seeing nothing related to me, until I finally turned the notepaper over in my hand.

Dear Jasper,

I know you're mad at me right now. I can't really explain the pains you're having, I don't have a direct answer. I have an idea, but I can't divulge it yet. I know you are thinking of hunting me down now that you've read this note, and I'm asking to please, please, please, don't.

Everything will come to light very soon. Sooner than I anticipated.

I need you to be patient with me, and with all the stuff happening to you right now. And, please try not to be too mad with me once it all happens and you figure out what's been going on behind the scenes. I promise I'm only doing this because I'm trying to keep you both alive and well.

Love, Alice

Both? I raised an eyebrow. Who they hell else was she even talking about?

I sighed, rubbing my temples. Of course, she'd been right about me wanting to go hunt her down. I struggled with deciding whether I should go against her note or not, and finally gave a heaving sigh. Alice had never lead the family astray, not once. She'd never let me down any of the other time she'd felt she'd had to keep me in the dark about something. She certainly wouldn't start now.

Rubbing my chest, I retreated to my room without another word to the rest of the family.

Sooner than she anticipated? Well I sure as hell hope so, I don't need to be falling off anymore cliffs.


Gwen Swan


I stood in the bathroom, sighing as I shed my clothes. It had been a couple days since I got my tattoo fully finished, and I couldn't get enough of it. Sierra couldn't have been more over the moon about how I'd gotten her picture on me, and that she'd been complimented by two extremely talented tattooists. I was proud to wear her art on me.

Looking over my shoulder, into the full-length mirror behind me, I smiled. The scene painted across my left shoulder was of a collection of roses entwined with a pocket watch and some elegant curls, a sheet of music paper faded delicately into the background of the scene. The roses were all brilliant shades of red except for one on the right side, which looked like it was made from music sheet paper.**

Cam had done an amazing job copying the piece from my sister's sketch. I was absolutely in love with it. For a moment, seeing the beautiful art work on my skin, I felt pretty. It was an odd feeling, even though I could see my shoulder blades and ribs poking out through my thin body and my arms, I felt beautiful with that piece on me.

Stepping into the shower, I let out a long, heaving sigh of all the weight this week had placed on me.

This week had been a bit weird. After I'd went and got my tattoo finished, we'd ended up leaving La Push in a bit of a hurry. Jacob had been really testy when we'd come to pick him up, and had kept the attitude the whole time we were in the parlor the second time. He even snapped at Gavin, who'd only been teasing joking with him. To be fair, he had been joking about Jacob and Bella in a together sort of teasing, but he hadn't meant it meanly.

After Cam had finished me up and we'd paid, we'd had another small run in with the steroid gang, and that seemed to make Jacob even more furious. Embry, who still looked a little sad like he had the day he'd gotten his tattoo, looked like he was enjoying himself with the other men, laughing with them as they sat together at an outside table of a small diner, and that had seemed to be what had made Jacob even more angry than he already was.

He told Bella the next day over text message that he needed some space, just that he needed to sort out his anger and that he wasn't feeling very good. He'd said he'd text us when we would be able to finally start coming over again, but the text never came.

I could tell it was affecting Bella to have Jacob shutting her out, so much so that she was actually starting to retreat into her room again. I'd managed to snag her a couple times to get her to watch movies with me or hang out in my room to talk, otherwise she was staying up in her room, clearly depressed. I think she was comparing it to the abandonment she'd felt from her ex, and that was what was driving her to act so dramatically about it.

I couldn't try to corner her too much, as I was finding myself in worse health as the week went on. I was becoming sensitive to loud noises, and my vision was fading in and out at random intervals. To top it all off, I'd had three panic attacks all in which I'd lost my breath completely during that week.

Things were coming to a dim turn, and I felt sad that I couldn't reach out more to my cousin. I didn't have the strength to even make it halfway up the stairs to try and hang out with her in her room. Charlie'd all but forbidden me from using them without help when he came home to me sitting down on a step halfway up, face nearly blue and gasping for air.

Maybe my time is coming to a close.

I finished up my shower, shaking my head at the thought. No, I had time left. I had to have more time left, because there was still so much that I wanted to see and do.


It was the afternoon of the Friday after Jacob had told us to give him space, that Bella stormed into my room. "Gwen, we are going to La Push."

"We are?" I asked wearily, looking up from my 3DS. "Jacob never texted me though… Did he text you?"

She shook her head. "No, but something doesn't feel right. I feel like he would've told us more or tried to talk to us by now. I want to go over there and see what his problem is. He has no right leaving us to hang high and dry like this."

I sort of agreed with her. Though I believed Jacob had his right to his privacy, it hurt that he'd suddenly turned us away. I'd never been close enough to have a friendship like I had with Jacob, and it bothered me that he suddenly didn't want us around, seemingly out of the blue. I missed hanging out with him and Bella in his garage, ragging on each other with lame jokes and working on the motorcycles together.

Soon we were in my car, Bella at the wheel. I was too weak to drive that day, I felt too light headed and I was afraid that if my noise sensitivity flared up at the wrong moment, we'd end up in a ditch somewhere.

We pulled into the driveway of Jacob's house, and it felt eerily still. There was no way he didn't know we were here, even my little Buick made enough noise to be noticed. Bella got out and helped me out from the passenger side.

The garage was empty and dark when we peaked inside, so Bella marched us up to the front door.

To my surprise, it was Billy Black who opened the door. "Bella, Gwen. How are you two doing?"

"We're okay, Billy," Bella said, not trying to seem pushy or rude. "Is Jake home? We'd like to talk to him, if we could."

Billy shook his head, an odd, knowing look in his eyes. "I'm afraid not. He isn't home at the moment, he's out with some friends."

Bella and I shared a look. Friends? Last I checked, we were his only other friends aside from Quil, ever since Embry stopped talking to us all. Unless Jacob had gotten close with some of his other school mates, which didn't seem too likely.

"Well, you girls have a nice afternoon, alright?" Billy said suddenly, and quite literally shut the door in our stunned faces.

Bella turned to face me, a frown on her lips. "He's lying, he has to be. Jacob wouldn't have just traded us in for other people. We were close."

I shrugged, sighing softly as Bella helped me down the porch steps and back to the car. "There isn't much we can do about it, Bella."

"Don't you care that he's left us?" she accused, giving me a soft glare as she buckled her belt.

"Of course, I do," I snapped, glaring back at her finally. I was tired of her acting like she was the only one hurting over this. "He was my friend, too. It sucks, it hurts, but I can't dwell on it. I don't have time to dwell on it. I have you, I have Charlie, and I still have my family in Montana. If Jacob felt we weren't important enough for him to stick around, then fine. Let him go, do whatever it is he's doing. I still have what is most important to me."

Bella squeezed the wheel in her hands. "But it feels wrong to you, too, doesn't it?"

I bit my lip a little, but nodded. "Yeah, something doesn't feel right… Jacob didn't seem to be the type to take friendship lightly. Like how he reacted when he saw Embry with Sam and that bunch…"

Bella said nothing as we drove back from our failed mission, not even flinching as we once again hear the howling of wolves somewhere in the distance once we reentered Forks.

"It sounds like there's more of them every time we hear them," I mused, staring out the rain spotted window to look deep into the woods.


Well, this is chapter seven! I hope you all enjoyed it and I'm super thankful for all the reviews, favorites, and follows!

*Bella's tattoo: pin/A9GOBQEQgCkHQPX7TvYZuJY/

Note: The picture seems to show this on an arm, but I picture it more on the side of Bella's hip. So just ignore the placement in the picture!

Extra note: I found a better picture of how I wanted Bella's to look so if you've looked before, take another look because you may have seen just the first picture!

**Gwen's tattoo: pin/319263061064107034/

Alright, thank you all so much for your time, see you next chapter!