The light flickered. Again. I looked up at it and glared, as if it could glare back. I wasn't in the best of moods. I slammed my book down on the chair arm. I got to my feet and stomped towards the light switch. I smashed it off and then turned it back on again. It flickered once again. Stupid bulb. I dragged a chair from the kitchen into the living room, and placed it directly under the light. I stood on it and began to unscrew the bulb. Jacob walked through the door and lent against the wall. The bulb came out of the fixture. I stomped back through to the kitchen and got another bulb. I heard Jacob chuckle. Once I was close enough to him I shot him a glare. He held his hands up in surrender and tried to suppress a giggle. "Don't you dare, Jacob Black!" I huffed, as I screwed the bulb back in. I jumped from the chair and dragged it over into the kitchen again, after running over Jacob's foot first. I shouldn't derive pleasure from that. I didn't look at him as I re-entered the living room and snatched my book from the chair's arm. I fell back into the seat and rummaged for my page. "Honey, come on…" Jacob said, pleading with me. I sat next to my feet. He pulled them across his lap and started rubbing them. "No, Jacob." I muttered cutting him off. "Tell me, what's wrong?" I didn't dare meet his eyes, for I was sure my will power would crumble. I shuck my head and thrust myself into the goings on with Helena and Hermia. Suddenly, Jacob's hand lifted my chin up. His eyes met mine. "Please?" His voice was gentle. I knew I was being stupid. Even more stupid when I thought about how mature my children were compared to me at this moment in time. "You're all keeping something from me. Its not fair Jacob, I don't feel like a part of this family, when all you do is keep me out. For my own good, or not, I want to know." I snapped my book shut and placed it beside me.
Jacob took a while to respond. And when he did it was only a one syllable answer. "Oh." His eyes looked down at my feet again. "I know that you know something Jacob." He glanced to his left and then back at me. "I can't tell you." His hands gently quivered. I grasped them in mine. "Can't or won't?" I stroked circles into the back of his hands. "Both. I used to hate how Edward would keep things from Bella. But now I understand. Now I see." He muttered, almost to himself. I waited for his breathing to slow, and his to stop shaking. I lifted his chin up, so his eyes met mine, just like he'd done with me. "What aren't you telling me?" My voice was gentler now. I hated to be mad at Jacob. I hated being out of the loop even more. "Its nothing that you need to worry about." He tried to smile. I chuckled darkly, knowing full well what he was more than likely keeping from me. "If it's something that is worrying you, then yes, it is my concern. I may know more then you think I do." His eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "What do you mean? Has someone said something?" His hands began to shake again. I counted eight of my breaths before I spoke again, waiting for him to calm. "No one has told me anything. They just underestimate my hearing sometimes." I smiled wryly to myself. It wasn't often I was glad of being underestimated, but at least I got to find out more. Especially when my father wasn't around. "Well, what did you hear?" Jacob was now a little perplexed himself, possibly thinking that I'd kept something from him. "Only a brief conversation, just after Sarah was born." His eyebrows furrowed deeper. He was more easily annoyed than I was. "And?" My index finger of my right hand pushed in between his brows. "I know that the Nomads are coming soon. Alice said that we had two to three months. But its been over a month and no one has said anything, so I thought everything had just fizzled out." I waved my hand over his shaking form, "But looking at you, I'd say not. And that you've been keeping more from me than I'd ever anticipated." He closed his eyes and didn't speak.
When his eyes finally opened, they were calm. I pulled my feet off of his lap and let them rest on the floor. "Yes. I've been keeping things from you." He sighed. Jacob grabbed my hand and rested it on his chest. I could feel the warmth of his skin, and the pulse beneath it. "I love you too much to see you worry. To see you worry over something pointless. Something easily dealt with." He shuck his hand and kissed the back of my hand. "I'm so sorry." I moved his face with my hand again and stared into his eyes. "Then tell me everything." I released his face, but continued to stare into his eyes. He shuffled uncomfortably. "So you heard about the Nomads then? What more did you hear? I need to make sure nothing's missing." I thought about what I'd heard. It didn't seem like much had been revealed to me. "Alice said the female had met up with some others, and they'd asked two others to join them. Emmet said that if it came to fight, it would be easy because everyone is more experienced. Jasper said to not get complacent because they will have learnt. Then Alice said that it would be in two to three months time. So I'm guessing there will be a fight in a month or two, if they haven't decided anything else?" Jacob gulped, and stroked my face with the back of his hand. "You don't even know the half of it." He sighed. Clearly he was upset that he'd have to tell me this. "What you heard was true at the time. We have just under a month, before they even come close now. Things have sped up since you found out. They've gathered more 'troops' so they are very complacent. There's about nine of them in total now. They've been killing a lot, most of the settlements around Alaska have gone. They made the news a lot. CNN were going crazy. Jasper still wants to believe that Newborns are involved. We're not so sure. Edward thinks that if newborns were involved the death totals would be higher. Marcus called to ask if we were aware of the situation. He was saying that he doesn't want to interfere unless things get critical, he's scared that there's an ulterior motive, as do Stefan and Vladimir. All this hits Vancouver in three weeks, and gets closer to us around the fourth week. That's when they decide to ambush and we attack. Their plan is concrete. They are unaware of Alice's decisions, but they are all set on attempting to massacre us. We don't know why." Jacob moved his gaze from mine, as the information seeped into my brain. They had a schedule. My family knew exactly when this was going to happen, yet they didn't tell me. I didn't understand this. "Why didn't you tell me?" My voice was cold. Jacob rested his hands in his head. "I don't know." He sighed.
We sat in complete silence for a long time. I was furious with Jacob for not telling, for keeping me out. That was the one thing that he'd always promised me; to never keep me out, to tell me everything. But at the same time, I couldn't help but worry for him. He'd kept this from me for so long, he'd worried in silence. I was also worried that one of us would get hurt, or worse. I couldn't stay mad at him forever. I curled myself up on his lap. His arms wound around my waist, wordlessly, and pulled me closer to him. His lips touched my hair once. I pressed my hand to his face and showed us talking like mature adults. He smiled at me, but it didn't touch his eyes. "I'm sorry, Renesmee." He choked out. "I'll never keep anything from you again. I only did it to protect you. I didn't want you to worry, I was going to tell you shortly before. I promise I was." I lifted my head to see his eyes. I knew he was sincere. "You thought I wouldn't notice how on edge you were? How on edge my whole family was when I was around? Why didn't one of them tell me?" He glanced away again, sheepishly. "You told them not to." I stated. He nodded. His hand lifted my left hand from his shoulder. He fiddled with my wedding ring, and then kissed it. "I just want to keep you safe. For forever. You mean everything to me, I didn't want you to be upset. I didn't want you to panic." He stroked my face. "I understand now. Lets not tell Chaska, he'll be scared. Sarah's too young to understand anyway. I'll love you forever Jacob, regardless how silly you can be sometimes." He kissed my cheek. "I'll love you forever as well, Nessie. For longer than forever. We're as constant as the stars, me and you." I kissed his lips and smiled, my bad mood forgotten. "See, you can be a romantic at times. I'll let you off the hook then. Just tell me next time. I'm not a total wuss you know." He laughed at that. "Renesmee, you screamed when you found a spider in the bathroom last night. You are super fast, have impenetrable skin, sensitive hearing and freaking thirty-thirty vision, and you screamed at a spider!" I lightly punched his shoulder at the reminder of my only phobia. "Jake, it was freaking huge!" I laughed with him this time.
I had just over three weeks before myself and my family would face the possibility of annihilation for the thousandth time. I knew we had experience on our side. And of course special ability. But what else did we have over them? Number for certain, there were 9 of them, 10 of us, excluding the wolves. I felt like I was missing something. Something vital. I didn't even think Jacob knew this either. Why would they want to attack us? Why did they attack the Denali's? Was it the aversion to human blood that they were trying to "cure" just like Aro had tried, or was it something more? I couldn't imagine why they wanted to change this so much, if this was in fact, the reason. I glanced up at Jacob and kissed his chin. "For longer than forever." I whispered as I settled down into my whirlpool of thoughts.