The song was calming in that trippy sort of way as he opened the door and saw her sitting on a bar stool on stage with a microphone to her lips and rocking to the beat. She wasn't playing her guitar today and looked on the verge of crying on stage. Jacob slid into the booth Evan was sitting in and raised an eyebrow at the man. He'd been called around six o'clock that evening and told to met him at the Nightmare Café at nine o'clock and be prepared to stay for a while.
He'd taken a short nap and headed over, not expecting to see a very emotional Elena on stage.
"Watch," he said and turned to watch her as well.
Jacob pouted and did as asked, he was sure there was more to him being called out than watching her performance, but for now there was no other option as the sounds of the sow and trippy music filled his mind and then her voice, low, sultry, and sad, joined it. The lights played tricks with his mind as the technicolor disco ball flew over the stage coloring her the color of the stars and planets, he could almost see the cosmos in her eyes.
"I heard you driving in my car. Then in a frozen bar and I claimed I didn't care for you. But your verse got trapped inside my head. Over and over again."
Jacob wasn't one to read to much into anything, but the song sounded a lot like the truth coming from her lips. Her eyes didn't lie as the lyrics spilled from her full lips and the emotions that went with them weren't dredged up from long past memory. They were…they were now and damn it if he didn't want to hold her and make her world stop collapsing around her. Then again, it was his fault wasn't it?
"You played yourself to death in me…"
His inside clenched at the glistening in her eyes. She was really about to cry on stage… worse than that he couldn't do anything about it and it was probably in some way his fault. Why was he so stupid and why couldn't they have a normal, simple, imprinting? He imprints on her, does everything he possibly can to make her happy, make her his, grow old together and die happily with about 3 kids and 5.6 grand kids on the way? But no, he had to be trapped in a relationship with Bella because of his own stupidity while pining and lusting after the woman on stage. Goddamn his life sucked.
"I thought I'd drop you easily, but that was not to be… You burrowed like a summer tick. And so you invade my sleep and confuse my dreams… turn my nights to sleepless itch."
He almost laughed, at that deep sorrow and the memories of those dreams that kept him awake for hours at a time. However, Jacob wasn't the only one with a serious sleeping issue. Every dream she had, he starred in a fantastic screaming match that ended up with her in tears and him killing her in a new and more creative way. She was half vampire after all what could she expect? If he wasn't killing her, then he was bleeding out in her hands or she was draining his life, maliciously and sobbing. To say that her dreams had turned her nights to nightmares would be an understatement. In the haze of all the insanity, she'd had one dream in which he made love to her in a bedroom she couldn't really place. That one had been a surprise to say the least.
"Stuck You Till the end of time. I'm too tired to fight your rhyme. Stuck on you till to the end of time. You've got me paralyzed."
He couldn't move when their eyes met across the room and he swallowed hard. Her eyes softened and tears fell before she looked away. His entire body recoiled at her gaze as it passed over him and she was suddenly more concentrated on her singing, closing her eyes, and making that pained expression again. God he needed to get out of there. He stood to leave and Evan pulled him back down.
"Holding on the telephone, I hear your mid range moan. You're every where inside my room."
"You did it," Evan said, "You deal with it."
He swallowed looking trapped and helplessly, gazing back up at the stage. He couldn't deal with this. Not with her tears or his wolf howling in agony, begging him to do something, anything to make her pain stop. Her eyes were listless for a few moments and his entire world was lost in them. What had he done?
Elena hadn't felt the tears coursing down her cheeks, and if she had she would have made no move to wipe them away. She realized then why no other relationship would have worked out and why none of her attempts did. It wasn't just because of the few assholes that sprinkled the batch of boyfriends she'd attempted at having. No, it was because none of them were him. Looking back, most of them reminded her of him in some way. Their smiles lit up rooms, they were taller, they were protective of her… All of them reminded her of Jacob and she saw now that all of her future boyfriends, her husband too if she ever got out of this depression, would always relate to him in some way or another.
"And even when I'm alone, I hear your mellow drone, you're everywhere inside of me." She scoffed a little.
He was inside her head around, screaming victory. He'd done the guy thing and made her cry, now could he leave her alone? She knew Evan was only trying to help, but there was nothing left to do but help her move out and away from the Reservation. She needed to be away to deal with this, and even if the Volturi planned on killing her it was better than dying slowly.
"Stuck You Till the end of time. I'm too tired to fight your rhyme. Stuck on you till to the end of time. You've got me trapped."
She'd be stuck until the end of her time that was true and he would be stuck there in his stupidity. She couldn't help but smile wryly under the passing and shifting technicolor light, there were so many things that she'd meant to do and maybe if she wasn't so tired she would fight against and for them.
"I can't escape your incessant whine… When you beam it out all across the sky.
No I can't escape…"
Don't leave me, Elena… please. His heart begged but the rest of him was so confused. The sound of her voice, belting out those pained notes, the memories, the facts spinning around his head.
"You're insipid rhyme, when you shoot it deep."
Your voice is going to haunt me forever… he knew that but that didn't mean he would stop listening or wish it gone. His mind dredged up the softest dream he'd ever had of her. The first one when he hadn't known who she was and there was nothing but her voice surrounding him and mystery fingers stroking through his growing hair. She'd sung to him softly and made his enter body relax. That was how it was supposed to be. That peace and love that he longed for ever since this imprinting feeling started and started flickering.
"Straight into my mind," the song ended with her voice and the silence of the Café as the band began to set up for the next song and she shifted on her bar stool.
He choked at the last note of the song and somehow breathed in a breath that he hadn't known his was missing. Is this what he'd turned her into? His proud Elena, crumbling on stage and screaming her pain?
Song after song the mood wasn't getting any happier. The next song was faster but the tears made it hurt. He almost died with her tears and her expression. Was she angry? He didn't think so. There was just a deep sorrow welling up inside watching her, hold her self and shiver, pulling her jacket tighter around her. She was cold? He wanted to be her jacket. She was lonely more than anything by the looks of it.
"How can I decide what's right, when you're clouding up my mind? I can't win your losing fight, all the time. Nor can I ever own what's mine, when you're always taking sides but you won't take away my pride no not this time… not this time."
Her voice was stronger in this one and Evan figured this was the other part she was feeling. Her anger at imprinting on Jacob, her pride being demolished every time he hurt her… It was at this point that he wanted to skin the wolf man alive but looking at the other's expression, he didn't need to. Jacob was already massacring himself on the inside.
More than what Jacob felt for Elena and how this al got mistranslated on the path from his heart to his mouth, he needed to asses Elena's stability. If her expression was any indication, she was so tired that if she wasn't so angry she would have let the Volturi take her away already.
"How did we get here, when I used to know you so well? How did we get here, well I think I know…"
"You love her," Evan said, drawing Jacob's attention. "You just wouldn't let her know that."
"The truth is hiding in your eyes, and its hanging on your tongue," she shook her head. He hated her, she knew that. "Just boiling in my blood but you think that I can't see what kind of man that you are if you are? If you're a man at all well I will figure this one out on my own… On my own~…."
She was definitely on her own on this one, and that was okay. She could do with being on her own. On her own meant there was no one to nag on you, to judge you, to betray you, and no one would be responsible for your pain except you.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Jacob asked, throwing up his default of a front.
"And because of that, she thinks you hate her." He continued and leaned back into his seat.
Looking over at him he smirked, " But you didn't know that did you?"
"Know what?"
"There's a lot more to Elena's predicament than the Quileute tribe legends, there's vampire lore too."
He growled, "You say that as if I care."
"You will," he said. "If you don't want her to die."
The sound of her voice filled the silence in between, "Do you see… what we've done? We've gone and made such fools of ourselves. Do you see what we've done? We've gone and made such fools of ourselves…Yea-yeah-eah~….."
"What do you mean? What's going to happen to her?" Jacob asked and Evan turned to face him.
"There is something I see you. It might might kill me, I want it to be true..."
"They're going to turn her," he replied as the Café went up in applause and the band took a short intermission to grab drinks and Elena grabbed her guitar to play the next song as the guys went to help out in the kitchen.
"When I was younger, I saw my Daddy cry, and curse at the wind. He broke his own heart and I watched as he tried to re-assemble it…"
"But she's already half, they can't turn her all the way can they? The werewolf in her would burn off the venom, that's why they can't turn us."
Evan smiled sadly, though this was true. Elena wasn't exactly all werewolf.
"Tell me Jacob, what exactly did Sam tell that Elena was?"
"He said she was a hybrid between shape shifters and vampires that was supposed to be able to end the feud."
"That was it?" He inquired and Jacob nodded.
"Then this is going to be more difficult than I thought. That was the native version of the story, there have been several attempts to do this before, to create a version of Elena before and they all failed. The Volturi has been orchestrating the attempts for centuries and have failed every time… until seventeen years ago."
Jacob swallowed and while a portion of him didn't want to listen, he listened anyway.
"Maybe I know somewhere deep in my soul that love never lasts. And we've got to find other ways to make it alone and keep a straight face I've always lived like this, keeping a comfortable distance. And up until now I have sworn to myself that I'm content with loneliness cause none of it was ever worth the risk. Well, you are the only exception…"
"Her father was a member of the Volturi, a vampire, and he was sent to Forks to find out more about the shape shifters…Her mother imprinted on him."
He frowned, "I don't think I've ever met Elena's mother…"
"Nor is she talked about," Evan said. "Right?"
He nodded. It wasn't odd that people that left the Reservation were never mentioned again, but it was odd that once Elena and Joshua returned, her parents weren't talked about.
"If Joshua half and half?"
"No, Joshua's human. It's only Elena that has the vampire venom coinciding with the werewolf DNA. Don't ask me why it worked for Elena and no one else because it gets too complicated. The point is that they were supposed to turn Elena over to the Volturi to grow up under their care."
"You are the only exception…"
"Let me guess, they didn't…" Jacob said watching his expression and taking glances at Elena's slowly growing voice.
"You are the only exception…You are the only exception…"
She was the only exception to an age long DNA battle.
"Okay, so she's a once in never chanced child, so?"
Evan sighed, "Do you understand what a living werewolf with traits of a vampire could do? The Volturi wanted Bella because she has resistance to their powers. What on earth do you think they'll do with Elena's unforeseen powers in their hands?"
"I've got to take it with the reality but I can't, let go of what's in front of me here. I know you're leaving in the morning when I wake up, leave with some kind of proof it's not a dream. Oh~ oh…"
Jacob gulped at the possibilities, "Okay so they're not going to kill her?"
"No, they are going to experiment on her until she dies. And if she survives, they'll use her to overthrow the status quo. You do know that vampires outrank and out number human beings right? That vampires, Halflings, and other mythological creatures that hide themselves from the human world are pissed off at being subjected to their food."
Jacob growled, "You don't have to say it that way."
"You are the only exception…"
"Admit it Jacob, it would be easier, wouldn't it? If you didn't have to hide yourself from the world? It would be a lot easier wouldn't it?"
He quieted and looked up at Elena on stage and back to Evan. He nodded.
"You are the only exception…"
"You don't sparkle in the fucking sunlight, think about how vampires feel?"
He nodded, "I get your point."
"Vampires up until now have only had powers over other people, their emotions, their minds, their pain… It's because vampires aren't exactly the most natural people in the world."
Jacob scoffed, "Yeah, unnatural living marble and freezing. Not to mention dead."
"You are the only exception…"
"Yes," he replied. "Vampire lore says that if they could successfully cross breed a vampire and a werewolf, then the resultant offspring would have powers greater than just over other's minds but over the earth."
"You are the only exception…"
Jacob scoffed, "Are you telling me the leeches think that Elena will become some type of real life Storm or something?"
Evan looked at him pointedly.
"You are the only exception…"
"You're full of shit," Jacob said moving to get up and was pushed back into his seat.
"Don't you think I know how ridiculous this sounds? Don't you think I realize that? If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes then I wouldn't believe it… You've seen it Jacob. Don't you think it was a little strange that it started storming when you dragged her outside yet there hadn't been a cloud in the sky all day?"
He swallowed, "Well… Well why does only a werewolf work? Humans are natural enough."
"Yeah but they aren't that kind of natural. There has to be an inbred sense of nature in order for it to work the same. Humans don't have enough of it."
"But a native American… that just so happens to turn into an animal does…"
Evan nodded cementing the idea.
"You are the only exception… And I was on my way to believing… And I was on my way to believing."
Evan swallowed at the change of lyric and the entire café was quiet. The party had been earlier, right now it was late night coffee house and bar with solemn lounge entertainment. That was the real reason she took the shift. It helped that she could sing how she felt and it be appropriate for the atmosphere. She heard someone crying in the back and took that time to announce her moving. From the tone she used and the change she'd made, it was obvious that they were running out of time.
The Volturi wanted her and she wasn't wanted here, what was the worse that could happen other than them keeping her as their personal blood bank and henchman… a tool in the destruction of shape shifter and werewolves… the take over of the human world. Eh, worse things could have happened.
"I'm sorry to say that'll be my last song for the night and probably my last one here at the Café… I'm leaving Forks in two weeks. It's been a great summer run here at the Café and I hope I can come back someday…"
Jacob swallowed hard at her words and Evan watched him pointedly. It was true, the man had imprinted on dear little Elena. While he loved her, wanted her, there was no competing with an imprinting werewolf. There were compromises that he would make that he could never and things that Jacob knew about Elena that he could only dream about knowing being part of the pack and able to link with her mind. He resented his inability to read her mind more than ever now. She got off the stool and walked off the stage, her mess of black cherry hair followed behind her and vanished behind stage as the band started to pack up for the night.
"So what do we do about it?" Jacob asked. "If she's going to become some type of status quo destroying tool then what do we do to stop it? What do they have to do to make her do it?"
Evan sighed, "There's a ritual, the details I'm not too sure about, but all they really have to do is get her away from anyone that would stop her. Thus what we need to do is keep her under tight surveillance."
Jacob nodded, "But there has to be more. As she's said before, there's no one on earth that make her do anything she doesn't want to."
"Yeah, that is before she's had the taste of blood in her mouth and whatever else they plan on doing to her."
Jacob swallowed as she appeared again behind the bar and into the kitchen. He heard the clatter of dishes and her humming as he looked back at Evan.
"How do you know all of this?"
"Because I knew her parents," he replied. "Her father, Rafael Devereaux, knew exactly what he was getting into when Heather Lune imprinted on him."
Jacob sighed as Elena reappeared and waved goodbye to the staff, coming towards their table.
"I'm ready to go," she announced shifting a backpack on her shoulder.
Up close, she looked a little past exhausted. Her skin was pale with stress and he couldn't feel the heat he should have radiating off her. She was cold and he bit hi lip before he said anything.
"Let's go, shall we?"
Jacob stood up as well and followed them out. They climbed into Evan's car and tried not to be too awkward in the very awkward silence of the cab.
"Are you hungry, El? We—"
"I'm fine," she replied, in that dead tone that made the two of them stiffen. They pulled up to the front of the Lune property somewhere around one o'clock in the morning and she climbed out of the car silently. Jacob got out as well and Evan shut off the engine.
"El, wait."
She didn't listen to him, instead she opened the door to her house and walked in, not even flinching at the small fist heading for her face as Evan and Jacob barreled up the steps behind her.
"Oh—I thought it was someone else. You don't smell like her at all."
Elena blinked and looked at the unfamiliar vampire. Her eyes were soft and brown with a short reddish brown hair cut. She had to be about 5'5 making everyone else feel gigantic in comparison. From her memories, Elena dredged up the name Faye Valencia and recognized her as the girl Evan kept pictures of in his wallet. Some were extremely old but the more recent and in color pictures resembled the girl standing in front her. Furthermore, she could see why Evan had become so attached her, she and Fay definitely shared some characteristics. They could have been sisters. Elena shrugged off her prim little appearance and headed upstairs without another word. No question about why a vampire was ready to slug her in her own house, or why the girl was there in the first place. She'd really been depressed if there was no reaction at all.
"Faye…" Evan said more than shocked as Jacob raised an eyebrow at the girl who was in a werewolf's house and looked like she belonged there even more than Esmerelda had.
"Evan, don't get confused. I'm not here for you, I'm here for Elena." She said and turned, "Rafael told me to keep an eye on his little girl."
Evan blinked, "He's still alive?"
"No, don't be silly. The Volturi just decided to come here for a reason and I figured it was time."
Jacob huffed, things only got weirder around Elena and he doubted that would ever stop happening for as long as the girl lived. Speaking of the girl, he could hear the shower turning on up the stairs and gulped turning to leave. The last thing he needed was to catch her scent when she came out of the shower, as if he didn't have enough things to think about.