Chapter 11: E for Esoteric
I don't remember falling asleep in Jacob Black's truck, but I guess I did because that's where I woke up.
It was hard to sleep comfortably on such a reclined chair and, as I woke up, I realized was I curled up in a ball with Jake's sweatshirt tangled up around me. My neck cracked as I lifted it up off the chair and I looked over to my left, only to realize Jacob wasn't there. I sat up at the same time I opened and slid out of the car door.
I glanced upright into the rearview mirror and sighed with relief. Phew. Sleeping upright definitely had it's advantages when it came to smearing makeup in the night.
Maybe I should just put it on before bed and sleep in a chair…
The air was chipper and sweet when it hit my morning face. I wrapped his sweatshirt over my arms like a blanket in the cold air and went back into the car for my other sneaker when I realized it had fallen off in my dreams.
As I half searched for Jake, half took in the scenery, I wandered away from the vehicle and ended up looking out over some sand.
It was a beach. The truck had been parked on the cold concrete last night, because of the driver's need to sleep ,of course, and now I could see dark clouds looming on the water's front.
Nature debris of logs and seaweed were strewn around the beach where large rocks came up out of the ground and leaned over and up in pride. "Wow." I muttered, taking in the landscape. Anyone but me probably would've stuck their nose up in the air, jumped in back in the truck, and driven straight to the shores of California.
I'd always been one for the rainy weather, preferring it over a sunny, cloudless day. This was my type of coast.
I eagerly ran down into the sands and ran all the way to the nearest rock, surrounded by others stretching up around it like the four remaining fingers of a hand. I sat on the ledge of what looked like and could've been the thumb, practically waiting for the hand to form a tight fist.
How long had we been driving? Did I fall asleep or something, unconscious to the fact that we were headed towards something so cabalistic?
My thoughts were interrupted when I was cut off by someone prodding my sneaker bottom. "Yes?" I asked smiling and peering down, knowing it could only be one person. Jake was looking up at me, holding a random stick in his hand. I must've been up higher than I thought if I was up enough that his height alone wasn't enough to reach me.
"Uh, how in the world did you get up there?" he started, his feet getting wet by the sea foam curling onshore.
"I climbed." I smiled like a little kid as I put my hands on my hips, acting like I had a huge triumph over this boulder. He laughed at my minor achievement and I slid down right in front of him. "You stole my sweatshirt." he said jokingly.
I shrugged. "You stole my sneaker." His head immediately snapped down at my feet, both wearing a sneaker, and then looked back up at me smiling.
"Liar." he said quietly.
"Thief!" I yelled laughing and running.
Why I thought I could outrun a werewolf was beyond me.
Within a second of running, he had me at the waist and I stopped with a small, "Oh, ouff." He was smiling when I turned my head and glared at him. "Oh, that was hardly fair." I said seriously, despite my smirk. He just shrugged. "You should've ran faster."
"The sand slowed me down."
"Suuuuure it did."
He still had me locked at the waist and I was just looking out into the surf. "Where exactly is this?" I asked, blunt and curious. He let me out of the death grip and I sat on a dead, salt-bleached log that had washed ashore.
"La Push." he smirked. I gave him a questioning glance, consisting of one raised corner of the mouth and one raised brow. I had no idea where that was so, naturally, I bluntly asked.
"Where's that?" I asked sticking both my hands in my pockets as a gust of wind blew by. His mouth opened in answer just as I pulled my right hand back out of my pocket. My face went blank as my mind tried to remember why a piece of paper was randomly in my pants.
"What's that?" he asked as I unfolded it.
"Don't remember." My eyes scanned the first sentence at the same time my heart skipped a beat.
"What?" he asked, suddenly eager to know why I suddenly gotten so nervous so fast. I got a weary look on my face and he seemed concerned about my random change of mood. "Jake?" I asked looking up at him with jaded eyes, "Do you mind if I ask you something."
"Sure."
I handed him the crumpled piece of paper. "What does this mean?"
Back at Campus:
"And you're sure that's what you saw?"
"Yes, Edward. Positive. It was somewhere in the woods though. Back in Forks."
"We have to get there and find her before they run into her."
"It was raining in my vision, Edward…"
"Hey, Garret? Turn on the weather channel."
"I will when Emmet decides to hand over the remo- Oh, okay. It's on! Now what?"
"What's the forecast for this week?"
"Uh… Sunday, cloudy… Monday, cloudy…"
"What about the rest of the week?"
"Well, I stopped reading it. It was kinda depressing me, Edward."
"Can you please just tell me the weather?"
"Ugh, fine. Tuesday, cloudy… Wednesday, rainy-"
"But is three days enough time, Edward?"
"It's going to have to be."