Anxiety

Eventually I was able to squeeze out of Lucas that he was my designated babysitter for the trip. If I would have thought about it, I would have figured it out sooner considering he hadn't left my side the entire time we've been here. We watched lame movies on his laptop and ate on the curry and brownies all day. The motel room didn't' seem like such a prison anymore now that we had talked through everything that had been bothering us.

We stayed up until 3am waiting for Yohannah to come back and all the time Lucas was trying to convince me to sleep. He sat sideways on the opposite side of the couch to me, trying to get me to sleep. He would yawn loudly during quiet parts of the movies, laying there with his eyes half closed, commenting on the movie in a monotone voice that seemed way too slurred for it not to be some trick. Even though I knew that there was absolutely no way that a vampire could be tired, I found myself falling for him, drifting closer and closer to sleep. I drifted in and out of sleep on the couch, waking up during random points of the movie and inserting lame commentary just to prove to Lucas that I was awake and watching the movie, even though I wasn't. He would just smile and nod slightly, his eyes still half closed. He sat on the couch with me all night, pretending to be sleeping for the most part, except to get up and change the movies with exaggerated clumsiness when I ordered him to.

I fought sleep as much as I could at night. My dreams were so vivid, and while the mood had lightened considerably since our talk this afternoon I was still worried about what was to come tomorrow: our meeting with Jacob Black, the man who would tell us more. After the third movie, Lucas refused to put another one in. Instead we laid there on the couch together while he sang quietly in the dark. He was about half way through his third song, Desperado, when sleep finally overtook me.

My dreams that night continued from the place they left off last, but they weren't as vivid as they had been last time. This time I could feel myself dreaming, I was there in the moment of the dream, but also aware that I was also lying on the couch with Lucas, safe in our motel room. Although the girl in my dreams had no fear of the wolves, the body on the sofa shook in fear like the trees touched by the wild wind in the dream.

--

I stood over the body of the small broken girl. The wind was whipping into a fury around the clearing. The wolves huddled closer to each other but did not leave the spirits side. The man-bear stood apart from all of them watching with curious eyes. I could feel every emotion emanating around me. The wolves were filled with wonder, reverence almost but they also feared for each other's safety with the bear being so close to them, and it was the fear that made them beautiful. The fear was there because of the love that passed between them. They desperately wanted to keep each other safe. The bear was filled with wonder, and confusion, but there was also sadness. The sadness that permeated every piece of his being made him seem as fragile looking as the small body under my hands. I felt protective of him even though he was larger than anything I had seen before and could obviously handle himself.

All at once the animals turned and looked to the west. I turned my eyes in that direction as well, but while I could see nothing through the blurry shapes of the trees, I could feel the disturbance in the forest as sure as the animals could hear it. Something didn't belong here. Whatever it was, it pulled for me. I stretched out my perception to include the rapidly approaching threat. What I saw surprised me.

There were men coming forward. I had nearly forgotten what I had been running from before I was attacked. The men were coming to take me back. Their appearance is what shocked me the most. It was obvious that they were the same kind of creatures, but some of them were absolutely hideous. The leaders especially, the edges of their body were as sharp as the others, but there was a different quality to it. The sharpness looked dangerous, like the sharpness of a knife. The emotions rolling off of them disconcerted me. The strongest emotion of them all was greed; it tainted every part of them that was beautiful. There were other emotions: lust, superiority, anger. It twisted their beings into abominations. They didn't belong here or anywhere. Along with them were others, not beautiful likes the wolves or the bear, but not nearly so dangerous. The emotions in them were fear and worry but it was obvious they followed the ugly ones. They would need to be dealt with as well, one way or another.

I was back with the wolves in an instant. Take care of them, I ordered. The wolves took off immediately. The man-bear almost moved to follow but I stopped him by holding my hand out. Don't let them find the girl, I told him. The bear was confused, and the sadness in him burned. I was sure that he understood me, but he hesitated. He seemed to want to tell me something, but had no way of communicating with me. Frustration started to flow from its body. I heard its emotions perfectly clear, but I couldn't understand what it was trying to tell me. Please.He grabbed the body tenderly in his snout by its nightgown and wrapped one of its front paws around its trailing legs. It ran as fast as it could with its package in its mouth to the North. I desperately wanted to follow him, but I knew I would be able to find him soon enough.

The wolves circled the hunting party. I watched with grim satisfaction that the wolves would not go hungry after all. The wind stopped as suddenly as it had picked up and in the quiet I contemplated. As the wolves prepared to attack the hunting party I speculated what it made me to be so eager to see these men die. As evil as they were, one should not be so eager to watch someone die. Surely, not all of them deserved this. I was among the hunters within a moment. They had begun to notice the wolves' presence. Fear began to permeate their being, giving me further strength for what I was about to do. The fear was beautiful, just as it had been with the wolves. The younger men became almost breathtakingly beautiful, as their drive forward was halted by their fear. The ugly tainted men felt fear as well, but their ugliness was so deep into their core that nothing, not even the fear they felt, could make them beautiful.

The wolves crouched in the woods around the hunting party. Just eight men, it wouldn't be too hard. A few of them stepped out of the cover of the ferns to watch me as I passed through the ranks of men. I gestured to the ugly ones and in no uncertain terms told the wolves that they were not to survive. When I passed the younger, more fearful men the wolves tensed waiting for my orders. These are allowed to return, I told them. I traveled towards the smallest of the men, who seemed to burst with all the fear he felt. Some of the men whispered at him to run, but he was unwilling. His drive to protect was too strong. I felt like smiling at the beautiful creature in front of me. Take special care that this one stays unharmed, I ordered and then turned back towards the bear-who-is-not-a-bear. I would not stay to watch them die. I feared that I would enjoy it too much.

--

I woke on the couch just a few hours later shaken to my core. Lucas had given up his pretense of being asleep some time during the night, he sat on the floor in front of the couch now, leaning toward me, running his fingers through my hair. Our faces were less than six inches apart. His red eyes were fraught with worry. "Are you alright?" he asked. I nodded mutely and avoided his gaze. I pulled my legs up toward my body and wrapped my arms around them to keep them there. My fingers tightly clasped each other in an attempt to keep them from shaking so bad. I could feel the cold sweat on my face as I turned my head away from Lucas to lean it against the back of the couch. "Meri its okay, you're safe. What happened?"

I swallowed hard and forced my mouth to curve around the words I needed to say. "Bad dream. Give me a few minutes." He let his hands drop and I concentrated on my breathing. It wasn't so much the dream that had me shaken, but the way I felt about the people. Even now I didn't regret ordering them killed. What kind of person did that make me? Even harder to accept was the feeling that this dream wasn't just a figment of my tortured imagination. This really happened. Long ago, in another life, this happened. I had ordered men killed and I enjoyed the hell out of it.

I began to feel bile rise in my throat. I shot up off the couch and headed towards the bathroom. "Give me a minute," I ordered Lucas as he rose to follow me. I shut the door behind me and locked it in one fluid motion. I leaned over the commode and tried to control my breathing.

My mind had done a pretty good job of protecting itself over the years. There were times where my sanity was in question after my attempts to compartmentalize all the pieces of my existence that I couldn't find the strength to deal with. There was pain at first, my life felt shattered, but then just numbness. I knew my time with Orson to be the best five years of my life, but I never allowed myself to think about that time. I didn't want to forget, but the memories were too hard to remember. The pain I felt when I thought about them was enough to break me, I had to keep it separate at any cost.

The feelings of hate towards the two people who loved me the most whenever I thought about his death were overwhelming. They weren't there, Lucas wasn't even alive when Orson had died, but I couldn't help but seethe in hatred towards them. Towards the Cold Ones who took my Orson away from me. Unthinking, I stripped the clothes off my body and stepped into the shower. The water was freezing, but I felt too numb to care.

I'd be forced to face all of it soon. If I did find Orson's people, I would have to tell them how he died. I owed Orson that much, to tell his family how he had lived in those last years, to tell them how he had died. It was something I never wanted to think about, but if I was going to learn any more about my Orson, I would have to give up that much at least. I can't expect them to just see me, this tiny pale thing, following around the Cold Ones like I belonged with them and expect them to tell me anything at all.

The heat of the water was beginning to sting, so I reached to adjust the temperature. Already down on the floor of the half bath half shower, I sank to the floor and faced my back to the spray. I sat in the water, unmoving for a long time. I tried not to think about what was going to happen today when we finally met this Jacob Black. I tried to think about the least I had to tell him for him to believe my story and give me the information that I needed. I didn't want to open up too many old wounds.

I shut off the water and stepped out of the shower. The towels the motel provided for us were so small I had to put two of them on to keep myself from feeling completely naked as I walked out to talk to Lucas. He was leaning against the wall across from the bathroom already dressed for the day in a pair of blue jeans and a chocolate colored shirt that would have exactly matched his eyes, the way they were when we had first met. His brow was creased with worry. He stepped across from me and put his hands on my shoulders gently. I began to shiver. "Cold," I reminded him. He dropped his hands. "Give me a minute."

I went into the bedroom and began to dig through my clothes. I pulled on a pair of black leggings and black camisole, wrapped a towel around my hair and headed out to try to explain things to Lucas. Once again he was standing by the wall waiting for me. Before I had a chance to speak, he put his hands on my shoulders again. "Meri, if you don't want to do this we won't. We can leave at any time, no matter how little or long you want to stay," he promised.

Obviously he had attributed my little panic attack this morning to anxiety over the meeting. I couldn't stop the meeting now, not after coming so close. Even though I had convinced myself that this was not Orson's tribe, I couldn't come this far from home and then not meet with them. I had come too far to stop now, even if Lucas felt differently. I tried to calm him. "No, it's not about that. I just had a bad dream."

"You're anxious," he pointed out.

"Yes, but I still want to talk with Mr. Black. The dream had nothing to do with that," I lied. The dream had everything to do with the reason I needed to talk to Jacob Black.

"What was your dream about," he asked, trying to sound nonchalant as he took his hands off my shoulders and plopped himself down on the couch lazily. Lucas was just too good at seeming human. I hesitated, really not wanting to talk about it. "Then it was about today," he accused, assuming from my silence that he was right.

"No, it's just that…it's just that it was a freaky dream. I dreamed about being chased, and killing the people chasing me. It was…" I struggled to find the right word, "disturbing."

Lucas cocked his head to the side and wrinkled his brow in confusion. Just then the door opened, Yohannah walked through, not bothering to shake the rain off of her. "They're here," she breathed excitedly, hurrying to change her clothes. Once again she didn't bother with privacy while she undressed. I averted my eyes toward the couch while she dug through her suitcase. Lucas was ignoring her for once, watching me. I walked back into the bedroom to finish getting dressed. I pulled a black and white toile de jouy dress over the leggings I was already wearing. I didn't bother drying my hair, knowing that with the way it was raining outside, it wouldn't make much of a difference. I twisted my light brown hair into a bun behind my head. When I went back into the living room Lucas and Yohannah were standing together, he was whispering something into her ear in a quick voice that I was unable to decipher. Yohannah looked worried. "Are you going to be alright, Meri?" she asked.

"I'm fine, I just had another bad dream," I insisted. "Lets go." I grabbed my purse and headed toward the RV before I had a chance to change my mind.

"Wait," Yohannah called out. "I borrowed one of their cars."

"Really, where?" Lucas asked his interest piqued.

"Red convertible," she told us, pointing toward the beautiful machine parked directly in front of the motel room.

"No way," I gasped. I didn't know much about cars, but this one was gorgeous. "Can I drive?" I asked, suddenly interested. It would take my focus off of the upcoming meeting, and keep me from overanalyzing everything before I got there. I hoped that not thinking about it would keep me from stressing about it.

"No," Lucas laughed. "This car is worth more than you are. You'll never be able to find the turnoff anyway. Let us drive."

"Oh come on, just until we're out of town? You can't drive fast in town anyway. Please Yohannah?" I begged. I was sure the only reason Lucas didn't want me to drive was because he wanted to do the driving himself, Yohannah would be more reasonable.

"Umm," she hesitated. "No, I think you'd better let us drive. It is an expensive car."

I slid into the back seat of the car in defeat and turned on my iPod to keep myself occupied. Lucas took it from me and connected it to the radio of the car, in just a few seconds Flogging Molly was blaring loudly over the speakers. I reached over into the front seat and turned the volume up a few notches. I could feel the base shaking the windows as "Drunken Lullabies" played loudly on the speakers. Lucas and I sung along with it as loud as we dared. The noise was enough to clear my head the entire way to the Cullen's house where we would finally meet with Jacob Black.