Chapter 11: Tension
"You're not fast enough to catch me."
"Well, you're not as strong as I am anyway."
"Maybe not, but I beat you all the same," I teased, laughing at Emmet's annoyed face and jumping, once more, out of his reach.
It was the weekend and, as planned, Alice, Jasper, Emmet and I went on a hunting trip to Canada. Luckily, the first week of classes was over. I had actually began feeling like a high school girl, hoping to get out of that horrible place as soon as possible. The trip, though, made up for everything I had to put up with the whole school days.
Things hadn't improved a bit from our first day, except they had probably gotten worse than ever. At the beginning, most guys at Forks High had observed me from afar, sending lustful glances at me whenever I was in sight. As the week rode on, though, they had somehow found the courage to approach me and actually ask me out. I couldn't believe it! I always considered myself to be intimidating enough to actually avoid being asked out by a flood of over-hormonal teenage boys, but apparently I wasn't.
After their first irritated reactions, specially from Emmet's behalf, my brother and my new friend were teasing me continually, saying I had lost my touch and arguing playfully who of the boys who approached me had a nicer cutis and hair. I almost lost it when they began acting girlish and discussing which of the boys was cuter and who would match better with me. The results of that, were two fuming male vampires with water splashed all over them from a floating hose. I declared myself innocent, but they didn't believe me anyway.
At the moment, though, Emmet was chasing me around the forest, while I ran as if I had the Volturi behind me, not that I had ever had the pleasure to meet them. He was pretty upset I managed to beat him on our little wrestling match, but I was still faster than him and, therefore, out of danger.
"One of these days I'll get you," Emmet threatened, giving up on his attempts to catch me and smelling up a fresh, grizzly bear trail. His eyes were closed and his dark curls were tousled around by the light breeze, giving off an image of complete tranquillity and peacefulness. I found myself staring at him, unable to tear my eyes off his flawless features. Shaking my head and chastising myself mentally, I snapped out of it.
"Yeah, and that'll be the day Alice burns her whole closet and says that she won't go shopping anymore," I replied, rolling my eyes teasingly, trying not to lay my eyes on Emmet again. I then noticed the pixie-like vampire and my brother were nowhere to be seen. "Where is she, by the way?"
"She and Jasper said they picked up an elk trail and that they wanted to follow it, but, who knows?" Emmet asked rhetorically, opening his eyes and looking at me suggestively. "Maybe they just wanted time to make out in the depths of the forest."
"Ew," I complained, glaring playfully at Emmet and smacking him on the back of his head. "That's something I could've gone the rest of my existence without knowing."
"Glad to be of help," Emmet said, as he laughed at my sour face. "Come on, I want some grizzly."
"Think you can keep up?" I asked, smirking playfully as, like a silvery bullet, I sprinted through the trees, following the trail Emmet had picked up before. I heard his laugh and soon felt his presence behind me, always running, but never managing to catch up.
I was actually very relieved to hear his laugh. After the small incident we had when he entered my bedroom and saw me in nothing but my bra and jeans, he had been acting weirdly, always keeping to himself. When someone asked him the reason for his sudden mood swings, he would say he was thinking about something. I wasn't the only one surprised by that. I mean, I'd never pictured Emmet like a philosophical person, but his family knew for sure he wasn't one to give much thought to things. Whatever he wanted to do, he did, and that was the exact reason he was always getting into troubles.
I stopped when I ran into a small clearing in the woods, coming face to face with a huge and rather irritated-looking grizzly bear. It had to be at least three times my size, not that that counted for much, but it was still a threatening sight; for anyone that didn't have super strength and could make the bear turn to dust in a second. The bear looked at me with furious, little black eyes and started moving towards me but, before I could do anything about it, not that it would've hurt me anyway, Emmet came speeding through the trees, crashing against the bear and sending it to the other end of the clearing with the mere force of his weight.
"Nic! Are you alright? Are you hurt?" Emmet's voice asked, filled with desperation, as he approached me and held my by the shoulders, examining me for any type of wounds, the battered, unmoving and bleeding figure of the grizzly forgotten. I realised some smaller part of my mind was wondering what the hell was going on with the dark-haired vampire in front of me, but, at the moment, I could only see the concern glowing in his topaz eyes, which had darkened considerably the second he thought I was in danger.
"Em, I'm fine, really," I assured him, puzzled by his strange reaction and looking directly at his frantic eyes to let him know I was completely unharmed. "I'm a vamp, remember?"
He hugged me, sighing with relief and I hugged him back, not knowing what the hell had happened to him, but liking the comfort his strong, cold arms provided anyway. After a while, though, Emmet must have realised what he was doing, because I felt him tense and he immediately let me go, the mask of thought I knew so well by them already cast over his beautiful features. What was going on with him? One moment he was acting all worried because of a simple bear and a few seconds after he was pushing me away like he had done the whole week.
"I'm sorry, Nicole," he apologized, too formally for my liking. "I shouldn't have acted like that."
"Em, it's fine, you were worried," I told him, waving my hand dismissively and hoping he would return to his overly cheerful usual personality. He didn't.
"I mean, I'm sorry I hugged you," he clarified. "It was out of place."
Why? Why was he acting like that: so distant, so detached? Was he always like that with vampires outside his family? I don't know why, but, all of a sudden, I felt a deep pang of the sharpest pain I could imagine going through me, and I wished for nothing more than the relief of being able to cry it out, though I knew the tears wouldn't fall from my wet eyes.
"Well, I'm not," I confessed in a small whisper, lowering my head so that Emmet wouldn't see my tear-filled eyes.
He was about to say something, I was sure of that, but we were interrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps coming from the forest, followed by the familiar figures of Alice and Jasper coming through the trees behind me. Alice had an excited look on her face, much like she always did. Jasper looked happy too, though his face fell and his expression turned to one of concern as soon as he looked at me.
"Nikki, are you alright?" he asked worriedly, quickly coming to my side and swinging his arm around my slim shoulders, probably feeling my pain and getting worked up over it. "What happened?"
"Nothing," I lied, trying to act brightly and careless. "I was just thinking." Wow, that seemed to have become a most used excuse during the last week.
"Are you sure?" Jasper said, disbelief clear in his face.
"I've already told you I'm fine, Jasper!" I snapped moodily, getting rid of his arm around me, secretly hoping for a different contact. "Lay off, will ya?"
"What happened?" Emmet asked, cutting through the tense silence that had settled in between us after my last words.
"Oh, Alice had a vision," Jasper answered him, though his eyes never left me. I ignored him and turned to look at the pixie-like vampire in front of me, asking with my eyes, like Emmet was doing, for a further explanation.
"Edward's coming back," she informed, bouncing excitedly, though I could see her sneak glances at Emmet and I from time to time. "He'll be here tomorrow afternoon. Isn't that great?"
"It is," I agreed, not knowing what else I could say. I didn't know Edward very well, but I could tell his family missed his presence terribly, specially Esme, who was like the heart of the Cullen family, and Carlisle, who brought and kept them all together.
"Yeah, just peachy," Emmet said, though I could sense some mild sarcasm present in his reply.
"Got used to the privacy, didn't you?" Jasper teased, nudging his brother playfully.
"You have no idea," Emmet sighed.
"Well, we should get going if we want to get there before him," I suggested.
Everyone nodded and, soon, we were on our way back. Unfortunately for me, Emmet had complained all week about how he wanted to take his jeep, while Jasper argued he wanted some alone time with Alice. So I was now seating next to the dark haired vampire on his huge car, silence spreading like a disease between us while he drove through the Canadian roads.
I couldn't understand what I had done to make him upset with me. If he had acted that way from the first time he saw me, I would've thought he was irritated by my mere presence, but we had gone along just fine. I even had taken him for a ride on my baby, and I didn't do that for anyone. Maybe he had realised in the past couple of days he didn't like me that much and was therefore acting distantly. Well, if he didn't enjoy my company, I wasn't going to become a burden for him, even if that meant to stop spending so much time with his family and him. I didn't know why, but only the thought of being away from him and the Cullens caused a pang to go through my dead heart and, as I usually did when I wanted to avoid the pain, I turned it into anger.
"Okay, I'm done with this," I snapped, startling Emmet.
"What are you talking about?" he asked, frowning in confusion.
"If you have a problem with me, that's fucking fine," I snarled, glaring at him. "But I want you to tell me what the hell I've done to you."
"Is this about today?" Emmet asked, his gaze softening, his eyes never on the road but the car never wavering from its path.
"No, it's not about today, it's about the whole fucking week!" I said, my voice raising and the breeze outside turning colder and stronger, fuelled by my increasing anger.
"Nikki-"
"Don't you dare 'Nikki' me," I growled. "You've barely spoken to me these past days and I don't know what I've done to make you angry, dammit."
"You've done nothing wrong, Nikki," Emmet said soothingly, his eyes two golden pools of topaz filled with sadness and regret.
"Oh, right, you've been thinking," I drawled sarcastically, in a very accurate imitation of Emmet's deep and rough voice.
"Don't use that tone on me," he snapped angrily, finally showing something that wasn't pity or confusion.
"Sorry mum," I pouted, continuing with my teasing.
"Stop it Nicole," he warned.
"Or what?" I challenged. "What's the big bad Emmet gonna do to me?"
"Okay, that's enough," he hissed, pulling the car aside and glaring at me as he stopped the engine, his expression turning menacing for the first time since I met him. I understood then why many vampires were scared of him. "I want you to listen and I want you to listen carefully. I'm not angry at you and yes, I've been thinking."
"Oh, yeah, what a coincidence," I said, sarcasm deep in my voice. "You suddenly have something to think about, keeping you apart from the rest of us when I appear and I have to believe you don't have a problem with me? What is it, then, that has your mind so busy? And-"
"Nic, just listen, okay," Emmet pleaded, placing one of his soft fingers on my lips to force me to shut up. As soon as his skin made contact with mine, I felt as if a spark had gone through it. I couldn't be sure if Emmet had felt it as well, but I thought he did because as fast as he was able to, he removed his finger from my lips, looking apologetically at me with a mischievous smirk on his sexy, kissable lips… hold on! Where did that come from? "I can assure you I don't hate you at all."
"Then what is it that has you so silent and all?" I asked, my anger having vanished as soon as I took in the pleading look in his eyes. "You seem to have withdrawn all of a sudden and I know it's totally egocentric, but I can't help but thinking it's because of me."
"You're right," he agreed, shifting uncomfortably on the car seat. "But it's not what you think. I could never hate you."
My heart melted at that, not only because of his words, but also because of the sincerity behind them that was reflected in his clear topaz eyes. However, I was too curious a person to let the topic go without further discussion. "What is it then?"
"You remind me of someone," he simply said. I was about to ask him more about it, but, probably to avoid my questioning, Emmet started up the engine again and started driving down the road again at that speed only vampires can keep without causing an accident. "Have you started up on Mrs. Goff's assignment already? I think human teachers seriously make it too hard on students. I mean, if I was still human, I probably wouldn't be able to do such complicated stuff…"
With that, Emmet began a conversation that stretched through the remaining part of the trip back to Forks, successfully diverting my attention from his recent confession and preventing me from asking him about the person I reminded him of. However, being both vampires, we knew the subject wouldn't be avoided much longer, for I would always remember about it and would certainly find the right moment to ask about it.
As much as he tried to hide it with unimportant chatting, I could still feel some kind of tension between Emmet and I. It was as though there were too many things unsaid between us and I was certain that, when they came out, it wouldn't be pretty at all. I knew things were about to change, but, at that point, I had no idea how severe that change would be.
A/N: And so it begins... Okay guys, I'm really proud of all of you! You gave me the seven reviews I asked for and it was great encouragement! So, seeing as you can do so well, would you do me the honour of giving me 10 reviews for this chappie? I promise things between Emmet and Nikki will get much more heated in a chapter or so! Hope you like! xoxo
