"How much of that did you hear?" Jacob asked. His hands began grinding back and forth over his eyes, and when he pulled back, she could see that whatever choice he had made for whatever reasons, hadn't come to him easily.
"Oh, I think I'd say just about enough." Bella surmised, her hands crossing firmly across her chest, because even though she could see the emotions written clear on her old friend's face and in many ways they made her fallible, she was hurt in the knowledge that she had truly believed he had been honest with her. "I have to say though, it's got to be something pretty fucking huge if you don't want me to know. I mean seriously, what's bigger than you guys… well you guys…?" Bella fumbled her words, her eyes landing square on Jacob and pleading for his help.
"It's okay Bells, she knows about the packs."
"Oh… Bella concluded. Her eyes moved from Jacob's face to Leah's, and then finally they landed on the body hidden in the darkened corner. It felt like a further stab in the gut to have him sit there and be a party to her betrayal.
"It was my choice to make, and I made it Bells. There are just things going on that are too important to risk you." Jacob said sadly, but it was Leah scoffing loudly at his words that drew her attention.
"Are you kidding me, Jake? She's too important to risk?" Anger faded in her voice only to be replaced by sadness, and for the second time that day Bella found herself regarding Leah and Jacob with entirely new eyes.
"I don't get it." The words stumbled from her lips, breaking their intense stare. "I mean, am I being completely obtuse or is there something going on between you two?" Bella asked incredulously. Perhaps if she'd known the ground she was stepping on was volatile, she might have held herself back with a little more caution, but she simply had no idea. The first indication that she'd mis-stepped was Embry slowly shaking his head in the shadows, his frown full of foreboding.
"And what the fuck would be wrong if there was?" Leah retorted, rising to her full height, one raised eyebrow helping to highlight her derision.
"Leah, just calm down okay?" Embry hissed, but he had already said too much and Jacob whirled his body, turning to his old friend with impassioned eyes. "Don't fucking talk to her like that."
The room didn't feel big enough for whatever this was, so Bella took a step back, feeling the sharp edges of the night embrace her as she gave herself a little room to breathe. She still felt a little claustrophobic, but the panic had been subdued, knowing she was no longer trapped within so much bubbling testosterone.
"I didn't mean anything by it Jake, but I do think everyone just needs to calm down, to stop hiding shit, and talk. There's just no point in keeping this from her when she knows something isn't right. She just hasn't figured out the words." Embry spoke slowly, remaining in his lowered seat as he opened his palms out expressively.
"He's right." Leah said a little snidely, but it didn't stop her from slumping to the floor, using a wooden crate as a body to lean against, her legs drawn up to her sleight frame. That left only Bella and Jacob standing, and somehow she knew it was her turn next. She didn't feel comfortable bringing herself entirely into the room, so she sat just inside the doorway, making her silent declaration.
When a few minutes passed and no-one moved, Leah snapped out loudly "Jacob, sit!" and while Bella tried to hold in her snort from her friend being commanded, and obeying, like a common dog, Embry did nothing to hold back his guffaws.
When the room finally managed to reach a silent decorum, Bella let out a repressed sigh. "Can you all seriously stop talking in riddles? I thought we were done when you told me about the whole wolf thing, but now I'm getting the impression that I've only just scratched the surface… so somebody, please start talking." Her words were well thought out and passionately presented, the problem was that the two bodies who felt she should be in the know, turned to Jacob for his verdict.
"…And can you please tell me why you need his permission?" She added, not missing a beat now that her mind was functioning at capacity.
"He's the Alpha, so he makes the final decisions." Embry replied succinctly, holding back how he truly felt about those simple words.
Bella looked at Jacob, who was now sitting on the rough ground, his legs bent slightly at the knee but taking up so much casual space that everything seemed smaller around him. "You gonna make my decisions for me too, Jake?" Bella asked jokingly, but from the silence that she found in return, she wondered just how close she was to the truth.
"He can't. Not yet." Leah said softly, and Jake turned to her, obviously surprised that she was saying anything at all.
"What's that mean? Not yet?" Bella asked, not caring who would respond, just hoping somebody would.
"Just tell her Jake. Tell her or I will." Leah implored, her whole demeanor suggesting she was beyond frustrated with the situation.
"If I tell you something Bells, you have to promise me that you won't go and do anything stupid, that you won't try to interfere." Jacob said, looking at her firmly.
The thoughts spun around in her head, and then she remembered that she was done making promises, done giving parts of herself and getting so little in return. "I will do my best." She offered finally, but it only seemed to rile Jacob further.
"Not good enough, Bells. The least you have to promise me is that you won't get involved?" Jake said, rising to his feet. She could feel the energy he was throwing off as he began to prowl about the room, his hands pulled into tight fists.
"If it's so important why don't you just force me?" Bella threw out, pushing for the answers she so desperately wanted.
"Because you aren't in my pack. Is that what you want to hear? Because, right now, you belong to Sam." Jacob was angry, so angry that the fists he had formed could no longer hold back the ripple of tremors that threatened to overspill throughout his body. Instinctively Bella knew that she should be moving away, but the way his skin was trembling had her utterly enthralled, too stunned to move.
"Jacob?" Leah rose slowly to her feet, deliberately approaching him with measured steps. Experiencing a moment of unfathomable déjà vu, Bella tried to puzzle through her memories to find the origin of the strange sensation. Fascinated by the languid confidence of Leah's approach, Bella awed as Jacob's tremors subdued, her presence alone enough to damper his rage.
The memory hit her just as Leah's small hands traced their way up Jacob's arms, the sickening reminder of Sam and that dirty little room in his home pressing violently against her repulsed skull. Whatever influence Leah held over the two men seemed particularly powerful, and as Jacob allowed her to pull him down to the floor, her body wrapped around his, Bella wondered just how much of an error it would be to state her conclusions.
"I'm not Quileute." Bella thought aloud, working her way past Leah and Jacob's embrace to the words he'd spoken to bring forth his own wrath.
"That you aren't." Embry said brightly, and three heads found themselves turning his way, his presence actually forgotten in the midst of the tension.
"So I can't be a wolf right?" She deduced further, keeping her eyes trained on Embry, as right now he seemed to be the one willing to give up the answers.
"Pretty unlikely, but then again, a month ago I would have said the same about us. So who knows? Maybe your people morph into possums or something?" Embry shrugged, a friendly glint in his eye letting her know this was his way of trying to bring some normality to the occasion.
A loud sigh diminished the smile that had been working its way onto her lips, bringing her attention back to Jacob and the girl he was currently extricating from his body.
The question that eventually fell from his lips though seemed to come from nowhere. "Do you believe that people have souls?" Jacob was looking at her with an intensity that she couldn't describe, and so she gave the question the thought it deserved instead of simply answering blindly. "I don't know." She concluded honestly. "I think so… yes." The question was a struggle for her, one which she didn't think she'd ever be able to answer with anything approaching finality.
"Good, because believing in souls will make what I'm going to tell you a whole hell of a lot easier to swallow." Jacob nodded as he spoke, seemingly pleased with her.
"Sam told the Elders about something which had happened with the previous wolves, something which was extremely rare, but guarded intensely within the pack. Sometimes the wolf and the man are at odds with each other, the spirit and the body at war. In times like these, the gods would bestow that wolf with an imprint, someone chosen by the wolf to counter the imbalance created after phasing." Jacob paused to take a breath and Bella watched as he turned to Leah and winked, clearly sharing a private moment.
"Leah is my imprint." Jacob said, affirming what had just popped firmly into Bella's mind. "When I phased for the first time, I didn't want to be Alpha, I didn't want the responsibility or the power. I tried to fight against it, something which should have come to me as naturally as breathing."
"So your wolf chose Leah?" Bella asked, looking at Sam's now obviously ex-fiancée with new, more hesitant eyes.
"Yeah, she's the other half of my soul Bells, the thing which brings a balance between myself and my wolf." Jacob said a little dreamily and she couldn't help but feel a little skepticism, a little uneasy in this new knowledge.
"Sam told the Elders that an imprint would become an honorary member of the pack, someone to protect above all others, even above the innocents of the tribe." Jacob's words carried a huge weight with them, and though she couldn't place why, she felt a burden press down on her shoulders.
"So Leah is part of the pack now?" Bella asked, unsure whether Jacob was actually welcoming questions at this point in time or not.
"Yeah, she's part of my pack, just as you're a part of Sam's." Jacob concluded, looking at her emphatically. Bella felt the burden twist, what she'd thought morphing into what she now knew. "Paul." She answered, a name which carried an unfathomable weight.
"You're his imprint, Bells. It's why you aren't yourself around him and it's exactly why I didn't want you to know. Sam, Jared and Paul are bound to protect you, but I don't trust them Bells, and I didn't want you to know about it until I managed to get to Paul, to bring him across to my pack."
Bella's arms swept her knees up close to her chest, pulling her whole body inwards as she tried to think rationally about everything that she'd seen and done when Paul was near. She knew that she hadn't exactly been herself, but she also knew that her actions had been choices, each and every one made in the balance of her mind.
"So I could help you then? I could help get him away from Sam?" Bella asked, not understanding that this was precisely what Jacob had feared.
"No Bella, you can't." Jacob growled, his fist pounding into the dry earthy floor as he whipped around to look at the only two members of his pack. "You see? This is exactly what I knew she'd do, fucking sacrifice herself for him."
She felt herself shrink under the callous tone of his voice, visibly attempting to diminish herself down to nothing.
"Yeah we get it, Jake. We never said she wouldn't. But it's kinda irrelevant, don't you think? We need to be convincing her why she can't, rather than scaring her with your temper." Leah said firmly, bringing him back to focus on what was important, rather than playing a game of 'I told you so'.
Jake huffed once, but he also seemed to subdue somewhat under her words, and Bella figured the hand that she was running up and down his forearm wasn't going amiss either.
"Bells, Sam isn't stable right now. With him in charge, you aren't safe being around him or Paul, and in a lot of ways, you aren't exactly safe with us either. He's Paul's Alpha right now, and while he might respect the imprint, it doesn't guarantee you any safety. I'd bet money that Paul feels the same way too. If he wanted to be around Bells, don't you think he would be?" He raised one eyebrow in her direction and she knew he was challenging her ability to make sensible decisions when the handsome man was near.
"But what if I asked him to switch sides, to join you?" She implored, looking for some way to make this right.
"It might work, but then again if Sam finds out, there's no telling what he might do. He's fucking volatile, Bells. He could hurt you, maybe even kill you if he lost control." Embry offered, but she was stuck on the possibility of might, not the caution of harm.
"Bells, just fucking forget it. If you think you're going to help, I can promise you it won't. If you get involved you might end up getting one of us killed in the process." Jake said firmly, hitting her right where he knew it would hurt the most. "Paul's a big boy Bells, he can make his own choices, and he knows the options he's got open to him. Just give him time to come around."
Bella nodded her head slowly, but it didn't stop her mind from processing through the options she had available to her. The most important thing, she decided was that no matter what, Jacob and Embry needed to believe she was going to sit idly by, doing nothing that could potentially rock the boat.
"Okay, I get it and I won't do anything crazy. But do you think you could maybe tell me a little more about this whole imprint thing?" She asked, throwing on the sweetest smile she thought they could tolerate without giving herself away. It didn't stop the curious looks being thrown her way from Leah, but she knew that Jacob and Embry had bought her act. When they shared a clear, yet obvious grin between them, she allowed half her mind to wander away, to plot just what she could do next as they waxed lyrical on the pros and cons of being offered the other half of your soul.
a/n: I'm having a bit of a snarkle-fest today, so I really hope I've done the right thing with this chapter. A thank you to my wonderful beta, Twiticulate. And another to all of you who're along with me for this story; for anyone who's taken the time to review/to alert/or simply to follow along with the words on the page... I'll see you again on Wednesday!
xxx