Book Eleven: Jacob Black

Saturday – July 21, 2012

I ran beside Seth keeping to the woods as Bella drove. I was alert for any danger that might come to Bella while his mind was focused on the blood-curdling screams from the dying vampire girl. She smelled of death and blood and vampire venom and I couldn't see how Seth could stand it.

And then there were his thoughts when Bella pulled to a stop in the Cullens' driveway. My summer angel, you can't die, you won't die. I saw memories of his flash through his mind so quickly I wondered if I'd been imagining them or not.

Seth walked along the beach as the three new vampire girls, as humans, surfed the waves. He'd noticed the girl with the red hair the most. He picked out, over all that distance between them, the vibrant green of her eyes and the slightly tanned yet sunburned pink skin under her wetsuit.

I shook my head as he jumped to another memory of one summer that he'd gotten up the nerve to talk to her.

"Hey you guys are pretty good with the body boards. You ever think of trying surfing instead?" he asked the redhead but she was staring wistfully off into the water.

"Na, we're not quite that coordinated," the blonde girl had answered.

"You guys think maybe we could try cliff diving this year?" the redhead asked not even noticing Seth.

"You're crazy, Katie," the brunette had replied.

"Ya, we're sure to catch our deaths if we try that! It's not like we're the Twilight wolf pack or vampires," the blonde had laughed.

Seth had really liked this girl. How had I not seen that before? Maybe his sister was just too caught up in her own angst that I hadn't noticed her brother's love tragedy. The three of us seemed to need imprints more than any other wolf in either pack.

Seth was running in the woods along a red jeep. The three girls were in the car singing along to some song with their hair flowing behind them. He'd gotten too close to the edge of the tree line and the redhead had seen him.

"Hey, did you guys see that? It looked like a huge wolf in those trees," the redhead had said to her friends.

"Eyes on the road, Katie. We don't want to get into an accident," the blonde had replied.

I could feel in this memory, Seth's heart jump in his chest at the idea that she'd seen him.

He'd shifted back to human and was now helping them with the dying girl but I'd caught his last memory, the one that kept him motivated to get her better.

Seth had been running alongside the jeep as he'd come to do every year when he'd seen the elk step in front of the speeding vehicle. He watched in horror as the girl he called his angel ricochet off the elk and into a pine on the side of the road throwing her and her friends from the vehicle and onto the class covered ground. He'd been frozen in horror as a pool of blood built up around the girl he'd called his angel and the smell of her death hung in the air. He'd then seen the blonde man emerge from the trees as his dying angel sang to her death and watched in horror as the vampire man gave her quite literally the kiss of death. He could never be with his summer angel again because from this moment on, she was technically the enemy.

I shook my head as I heard another scream rip from the dying girl inside the house and went, in my human form, to check on Seth. When I entered the bathroom he was on his knees next to the tub with the dying girl. He had one of his hands in hers. "It'll stop soon," he promised her though I could see on his face that he'd lost most of his hope that his summer angel would live through the day. I heard footsteps of the Cullens then.

I placed my hands on Seth's shoulders then, "They're back. We need to leave," I said pulling him to his feet and willing him to let go of Rikki's hand. He could say his good byes when she was gone and cleaned up so he wouldn't have to remember her in this awful state.

We walked silently out of the room and even I could hear her struggle to breath. But when Carlisle pushed passed me I heard it stop. She had never stopped breathing in the time I'd known her, even when Sam had sedated her. But her lungs didn't beg for air anymore and I knew she was gone. "No," I heard Seth utter under his breath and knew he'd heard her stop breathing too.

I grabbed his arm wanting to get him as far away from her death as possible and growled at him, "This is not our place to be Seth." It hurt to be so firm with him knowing just how much he'd lost. I had to wonder if it would feel that way if I lost Bella. I knew I'd lose her eventually. I'd already given up the fight for her heart when I'd seen the way she looked at Edward and remembered the movies that I'd seen that had depicted our story. I had to have faith that their daughter would come to me in the same way and that I would be complete again. But I knew that it would hurt until that moment that I laid my eyes upon her face.

Then I heard Carlisle's voice, "She's gone, there's nothing more I can do." I'd wanted Seth well away from that so he'd have a sliver of hope left but it didn't seem that it was possible now. I stood frozen in the driveway. Seth was on his knees and he was looking over to the forest line. The small Cullen, Alice was standing there glaring at him and I knew she blamed us for the passing of one of her kind. Carlisle came to the front door then, "Jacob, if I may talk to you in private please? Seth you're welcome to wait in the living room."

I followed him inside and waited until I heard Seth sink into a couch before I closed the door to Carlisle's office. "I don't know any more about this girl than you do," I said.

"I know. It's nothing I've ever seen before. But you said you didn't know who Embry's father was, that it's possible that he left the tribe and found a wife somewhere else. I want to know if there's any possible way that this girl might have somehow come in contact with the gene through him," Carlisle said.

"No, she would have died when she was bitten if that were the case. If she'd had any kind of wolf gene in her at all it would have had to be so small that it took weeks to realize there was venom in her system and the gene doesn't react like that. One of our younger wolves got bitten by a passerby a few months ago and he'd gone into a seizing fit within seconds. He was dead in an hour. There's no way this girl had the wolf gene," I said.

"I've never heard of this kind of reaction happening in any other case," Carlisle said, "When I went in to check on her she'd literally pushed all the vampire venom in her system out through her pours as if her body had been expelling toxins. Her blood was laced with it in what she cried out too."

"So you're telling me that this girl's body was turning itself human again and it thought it could do it by pushing the venom out of her pours?" I asked bewildered.

"I don't think her body was trying to turn itself human. But it was definitely trying to expel the vampire within her," Carlisle said.

"So it was like she'd built up immunity to vampirism?" I asked somewhere past belief that I was speaking.

"Something like that. Only her body trying to fight it off like an infection killed her," Carlisle said.

"She and her friends were turned on the edge of death; do you think that maybe fighting off the infection brought her back to that state of near death?" I asked.

"No. Her body was completely healed from that thanks to the vampire venom she was turned with. But something in her wasn't strong enough to live without that venom. It's a very curious case and I've taken samples of her DNA to test so that we can be prepared if one of her friends exhibits the same problem," Carlisle said, "Thank you Jacob."

"I just wish, for Seth's sake, that she'd pulled herself back from the brink of death," I said leaving Carlisle's office.

Bella was sitting alone on the couch when I got back to the living room. I sat down beside her. Apparently Edward hadn't gotten the news of the vampire dying in his house yet so she was alone. "I've never watched someone die before," she said to me.

"I've watched plenty of people die," I said unable to find more cheerful words, "If you become one of them you'll have to watch the people you care about die off one by one anyway."

"Way to lighten the mood Jake," she growled.

"Hey, I fought for you but you've made it clear that you're going to follow the books. If that's the case I can only hope that you give me a consolation prize and get vamped up pregnant," I barked back.

"Why do you do this Jake? Why?" she asked.

"Because this is the way I found to cope with it. You know how Seth felt about that girl? You know what he's wishing right now? He's wishing that he could imprint on the next girl he sees so that the pain of losing that girl will melt away and he'll forget her name. That's how I've been feeling since I saw you with Cullen. I know how it feels and he'll have to learn some way to get over it. But at least he knows that the girl he loves is dead and not off with a bloodsucker," I growled getting up and walking out the front door.

"You don't have to be like that Jake! You could be happy if you just tried!" she yelled at me as I ran for the shelter of the trees and my wolf body. I knew she was right but I didn't want to feel anymore. Even though Seth hadn't become a wolf while I raced through the woods I could feel that he wanted to be numb too. He wanted the pain to stop.

I got up a hill that overlooked the Cullens' backyard and watched as Bella lead Seth, numb with pain, out the back door. They'd set up a memorial service and I could see the pain on his face lessen when he saw Rikki cleaned up and looking ready to join in an angelic choir as soon as her dove wings grew from her back. I felt as if the whole world was crushing around me as I looked at how hurt he was looking at the dead girl he never got a chance to truly love. We were a broken pack now, Seth, Leah and I. We all fit, we were the misfits. Leah had lost her fiancé to her cousin, I'd lost my girl to a vampire and Seth had lost his girl to death. I let my head fall back as a mournful howl filled my throat. I cried for Seth, Leah and myself. And then I heard Paul's thoughts crashing through the undergrowth toward me.

She lose the fight? He asked me.

Ya, and I don't know how Seth's going to recover. Why are you here anyway? I asked.

I came to join the misfit pack. Looks like I'm just as messed up as the rest of you. Rachel came home today and I thought it would help considering the books have been right about so many things but when I looked at her there was nothing. That vampire chick has her hooks in me deep. Paul said to me as he looked down on the field with me.

But you didn't imprint on her. I said.

Sam said I might not be able to since she'd kill me if I kissed her…you know the whole venom thing…but he said that the brunette had some sort of power that willed things to be true so maybe it won't be so Romeo and Juliet.

I had to laugh at that but when I looked down at the blonde and the glare she'd thrown Paul I had to think it was a one way love there too. He definitely fit in the pack of misfits. Welcome my troubled and screwed up brother.

A/N: YAY! Paul's screwed up! Although we already knew that, I mean he's got worse anger management issues than all the rest of the pack put together. But I loved the idea of giving this story a real Romeo and Juliet kind of story to it. Well with Rikki dead who's POV should the story continue on? Do you guys want the story to be focused on Valkyrie and Paul or Lara and Dante? Well it doesn't really matter much because by the time most of you will get around to reading this chapter I'll be halfway done with the next one! Well oh well. I love how I have so much inspiration for this story! I'm totally bringing James back in the next chapter too so get ready for some evil action!