DISCLAIMER: SM STILL OWNS TWILIGHT. WE KNOWS THIS. I STILL WEEP.
What have I become?
My sweetest friend.
Everyone I know,
goes away in the end.
And you could have it all,
my empire of dirt.
I will let you down,
I will make you hurt.
I wear this crown of thorns,
upon my liar's chair.
Full of broken thoughts,
I cannot repair.
Beneath the stains of time,
the feelings disappear.
You are someone else.
I am still right here.
-Hurt Cover - Johnny Cash.
A/N: Once again, large thanks goes out to LizBit for making this chapter so eloquent, I'm still attempting to scrape my jaw off the floor.
The remainder of the ride home was nerve wracking.
She spent a vast majority of it staring into her rear view and side mirrors, sure that at any moment a sickeningly familiar car was going to pull out suddenly behind her. Every person she passed on the street was a cause for suspicion; every car deemed a second or third glance to verify its occupants.
Safely beyond the point of paranoia, she felt crazy and irrational, hysterical and keyed up. She was treading in unfamiliar waters and she was drowning in them. She wasn't even entirely sure that her body was strong enough to be dealing with all these ranging emotions. Not after so long of being completely barren.
Every so often, she'd find herself mulling over Emmett's words, as if the panic brought on by their presence wasn't enough to cope with.
"You don't need any more marks on your arms," he had said. "You didn't do a good job covering that black eye."
She had been right in her thinking.
He could see.
He had seen.
They had both seen.
They knew.
And she had a feeling, a strong one, that she was screwed.
Maybe they didn't know everything in depth. No, there was no way for them to know that. But they certainly knew something wasn't right.
Then, of course, there was the million dollar question. Just what did bring them to Port Angeles today? She couldn't believe it was just a chance meeting. Fate was cruel, that much had been established, but she just couldn't fathom a fate conniving enough to set that whole fiasco up.
So, what else was there?
It just didn't seem like something he would do. She just couldn't imagine he'd suddenly ditch his oath and allow his family to return, not after promising her that very thing wouldn't happen. Were they here without him, then?
She didn't know whether she was relieved at that thought, or comically disappointed. She should be relieved, she knew this, but there was a part of her that questioned it.
With or without him, they were back. At least two of them, this much was certain. And the knowledge they held, however slim it was, was too much for her comfort level.
Before she knew it, she was passing familiar houses, signaling she was close to her own. It caught her off guard. The ride home had seemed unnaturally long, giving her far too much time to obsess.
Shit, she thought. I shouldn't have driven directly here!
Alarmed, she glanced around wildly at her surroundings, straining to recognize any sign that she had been followed. There was nothing to indicate it. Of course, that didn't exactly mean anything. It wasn't as if these people were notorious for advance warning, as they proved today. It took very little effort on their parts to catch their victims by surprise.
Wow, a bit melodramatic there, are we? she thought bitterly.
Maybe not.
They all should come with a damn bell. Like a cat.
Nervously, she passed by the thin tree line separating their property from that of their closest neighbors. What had once been a huge selling point for their house was now a cause for heavy speculation. The privacy and feelings of seclusion it had once offered had suddenly turned into a double edged sword. Whose privacy could it be concealing today? Just hers and Jacob's? Or, someone else's?
Slowing down right before her driveway, she peered intently into the trees. There was nothing. No movement. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just green as far as the eye could see.
She wasn't as satisfied as she'd like to be, but she pulled into the drive none the less, finding no reason to prolong it. Stopping just before the house's second major selling point, she killed the engine and sat quietly in the car for a moment, waiting.
The garage was what thoroughly sold Jacob on this house back when they had first looked at it. Not overly large or spectacular by any normal standards, it had still excited Jacob to see it was attached to the rest of the house. That and it wasn't crudely built from bits and pieces of miscellaneous sheds like he was accustomed to. It wasn't much, but it was enough for him to do repairs and he wasted no time making it his own, transforming it into his safe haven and manly refuge.
Must be nice, she thought bitterly to herself.
Slowly and cautiously, she finally climbed out of the car, paying careful attention to everything around her. It was quiet on her street, save for the distant barking of a neighborhood dog.
She trudged up the uneven path leading around the garage, watching her footing. It wouldn't be the first time she tripped over the broken concrete and she really wasn't in the mood to kiss the ground again today. Her palms were still stinging from their encounter earlier. Stopping short on the front walk, she glared reproachfully at the front of the house.
The mid-century rancher with its faded tan, aged brick was still standing in all it's mediocre glory with large thanks to Jacob's handiwork and determination to uphold his silent motto. (Destroy the evidence.) The white shutters had been repainted time and time again, effectively disguising the scratches left over from many a drunken rage.
Too bad the memories of them still lingered. Home Depot should start thinking about investing in a product that could erase those, she thought resentfully.
The shutters combined with the door screamed agitation and discomfort, the white matching the padded walls of asylums everywhere.
Even the lawn was very plain, covered in rough patches of brown, decaying grass. The only saving grace the front really had were the two overflowing bushes framing the recently repaired front porch. (How that particular fiasco had happened, she still wasn't sure.) In the spring, those bushes sprouted vibrant pink flowers of an unknown origin. She had fallen in love with them when they had first moved in, and had immediately set to work enlisting Jacob's help in constructing large flowerbed that extended to the far corner of the house. That first summer she had spent hours planting flowers and grooming the space, content to sit back and admire her little garden at the end of the day. The serenity and peace it the sight of it had given her was incomparable.
It was overgrown and dominated by weeds now.
Seemed almost fitting.
Tearing her eyes away from that pitiful excuse for a flowerbed, she made her way up the front walk and across the small porch. Cringing, she opened the front door, the hinges of it creaking loudly as if they were protesting and demanding the use of WD-40 immediately.
Glancing around the barren front hall, she sighed. The reaction was involuntary and felt badly misplaced given the anger still churning within her. Not even an interior decorator could transform this house into a home. The dull and scraped hardwood of the floors caught her eyes and the sight of them only served to fuel her rage. Jacob had been saying for ages he was going to sand and refinish them to match the ones in the bedrooms.
Jacob talked a lot when he was sober.
Crossing the entry way, she turned to the right and heaved a bigger sigh. The living room was just as unwelcoming as the outside landscaping if that was at all possible. The standard beige carpeting had probably started out nice enough, but after years of wear it was now uncomfortable beneath her bare feet. Hating the stark, suffocating white of the walls, she and Jacob had spent their first night there painting them a much warmer tan color. Ironically, it made it easier to see the evidence of all those many horrendous nights.
It wasn't uncommon to smell fresh paint on a weekly basis.
The white crown molding offset the walls from the floors nicely, but they too showed signs of wear and tear. They were in dire need of a touch up job, as the natural wood grain was starting to show through the many chips and dings.
("Just let me finish this beer, Babe. I'll get to it soon.")
The chocolate brown sectional couch sat directly in front of their big screened TV.
("It's a 50" LCD Flat Panel, Babe. Top of the line. Complete with Bose Sound System. Paul is beyond jealous already. You should have seen the look on his face when I told him and he hasn't even SEEN it yet.")
It was the one thing in the house that Jacob always seemed to bypass in his fits of rage without fail.
She had dreams of throwing a large, heavy object through that bitch.
Her favorite part of the room had to be the tranquil fireplace, and Jacob had even managed to ruin that for her. She couldn't bear to look at it without her bronze haired angel sitting atop the mantle. Now, the whole thing just looked desolate with just its few pictures, that were mostly of the pack to match the sparingly hung frames on the walls, and the wrought iron fireset on the hearth.
Glancing at the clock, she moved into the kitchen. Jacob would be home soon, no doubt hungry and expecting some big production for dinner.
On the wall closest to the kitchen doorway, a random picture of she and Jacob caught her gaze. Taken in 'happier' times, not too long after they settled in this place, it did nothing but piss her off to look at now. They had moved into this house hopeful and excited for their future in it. They'd been infatuated with the prospect of starting fresh, of adding their own happy memories to a place that was already chock full and bursting with the previous family's.
That was back when Jacob was still holding the bottle and the bottle wasn't holding him.
Oh, how the mighty do fall.
Though, whether 'the mighty' was her or Jacob, remained to be seen.
Once she was in the kitchen she began pulling out steaks from the ancient-looking refrigerator and placing them on the indistinctive counter tops. Her feet scuffled against the faded linoleum floors as she moved to pull out odds and ends out of the wooden cabinets that looked like they could use a good dousing with Murphy's Oil. The vast counter space filled up rapidly, she always cooked more than needed in case a random pack member showed up.
Under normal circumstances, she would have gone out of her way to at least marinade the steaks. Tonight, however, it was effort enough just to cook. She knew she should go down the hall and into the bedroom and attempt to make herself presentable - Jacob liked for her to make an effort for him when he got home from work, but quite frankly, she just didn't care what she looked like. No doubt she resembled hell.
No sooner than she had placed the steaks in the warmed up pan on the stove, she heard the familiar click of the front door.
Let the games begin.
Fleetingly, she wondered if it was Jacob that had crossed the threshold or if someone else had just entered their front hall.
I didn't even lock the damn door! she cursed internally.
Not that locks were an issue for who she was currently worried about.
So much for any sense of self-preservation.
Before that last thought had fully formed, Jacob's voice rang out from the living room.
"Bells Honey, I'm home! What's for dinner?"
Keeping her back to him, she rolled her eyes. It was the same greeting every night.
She fought to keep her voice even. "Steaks," she called out to him.
"Smells good," he answered from directly behind her, his breath tickling her neck unpleasantly.
She jumped a mile. He moved too damn quietly for someone his size, and no matter how often he took her by surprise this way, she never failed to react to it.
He chuckled darkly in response. "We alone?" he asked, his tone thick with implication.
Slowly, she turned to face him, a sense of foreboding filling her.
"Yes," she said, dread settling in to the pit of her stomach. Her brow furrowed slightly as she glanced up, meeting his somber eyes. He stared down at her, his face void of all emotion.
Without warning, he closed the slight gap between their bodies and seized her roughly by the arms. She squeezed her eyes shut at the pressure, feeling him incline his head towards the top of hers.
"Hmm. Really?" he asked quietly.
This couldn't be good.
"Yes," she responded, nodding her head once. The change in his normal homecoming routine was unnerving, it was throwing her off balance, and she just knew nothing good was going to come out of it.
"It smells weird in here," he hesitated, and in that hesitation she felt her heart speed up. "You smell weird."
Her breath caught in her throat.
"That so?" she replied after a moment.
"Yeah. You do. You know what you smell like?"
"Erm, no." She sounded nervous and she hated herself for it.
"You smell just like a filthy, fucking bloodsucker."
A/N: Thank you thank you thank you to every one who has reviewed thus far. You all make me as giddy as giddy can be.
I gotta take one more opportunity to gush over Liz and her superb editing skillzzz as well as shamelessly promote my Beta-turned-proof-reader, RayneKaplan. Both her's (The Monster Within) and Liz's (Eternal Dawn) stories are in my favorites over on the ol' profile. Be some dears and go check them out. They'll leave you just as awe struck as they left me, I assure you.
As always, reviews don't make me write faster, but they give me a big cheesy grin while I'm doing it.
