CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
(JPOV)
I made it back to the Reservation a few hours before midnight. Sam was waiting for me there when I arrived, his concerned gaze meeting my own when he called out to me from the garage.
"Jake...-"
"Sam, I thought you'd be back home with Emily by now. It's late."
"I came straight here. Didn't think I'd beat you back though. Are you alright? Some real heavy shit we just heard."
I leaned against the door next to him there, the two of us falling into a stony silence as we peered out toward the black woods ahead.
My chest felt so heavy and tight that breathing was almost painful, my lungs feeling as if they were shrinking with every quaking intake of air for me. I could hardly swallow as I pondered over all Edward had said, my throat burning as if I had just downed six shots. Every part of me was on edge, rigid and tense, so much so that even my knuckles felt tightly locked in place.
"We can beat him." Sam solidly countered beside me, his voice sounding off when he spoke. I inwardly cringed at the way it sounded.
"You don't know that." I countered.
"-but I damn well know you. I know your determination and fierceness."
"None of that will matter if I can't keep her safe, Sam. None of it."
He pushed off the door and stepped in front of me as he squared his shoulders and held my troubled stare.
"We will do whatever it takes to stop them." He stated.
"I know you will." I told him.
"If you did, you wouldn't be entertaining the idea of throwing yourself at them in order to save Bella."
"-and if that's my only option." I hedged. "I won't let them take her away from me, Sam. Demetri's interest in us, in our abilities, it plays to my advantage. You heard what Edward said-"
"I don't trust him." Sam blurted out then, his eyes sharply narrowing into slits with his admission.
"You think he's misleading us?"?
"I think his motives are mixed- that they aren't clear. Bella was living her own life in Maine for years after she left Forks, and he never followed her there. I find it odd that he and the Cullens are so involved in her well being, given that they didn't seem to care much when they took off all that time ago and left her in the woods. I'm wondering what's in it for them."
I shook my head in confusion and balled my hands into fists at my sides from the idea of them purposefully misleading us.
"Tell me what you're thinking, Sam."
"I think Demetri's real interest is in Edward and Alice. I don't buy what he's selling. I'm nowhere near sold on it. I think Edward is trying to save himself at the expense of Bella. I really do."
All I could see was red from his words as a rage fit to be tied roamed over me.
"As in- he's playing as another pawn for Demetri, instead of an alliance for us? You truly think he's playing both hands here-"
"Yeah, I do. There's something about this that doesn't set right with me. Call it old intuition." He clarified, and my skin heated in response to his statement.
"Alice is the only connection to Demetri and the new Volturi, to their decisions." I ground out in irritation. "As it is, her visions are spotty and clouded at best."
"-and that makes them unreliable as hell, and it also makes us fully dependent on trusting the Cullens and planning around them. I know I'm supposed to be out of the action, that I have been laying low for a while now, but for this, I'm coming back. There's no way I'm not joining the fight for Bella."
"I want you with us and I can't tell you how much I appreciate you stepping back in for this."
"Of course, Jake. We're family. Through and through, and family sticks together. This Demetri doesn't know what he's up against. He's vastly underestimated us." Sam stated.
"I won't lie to you, Sam. I'm scared shitless that this will go wrong. That we'll end up losing some of us and they'll find a way to her."
"That fear makes you a true leader. Embrace that feeling, Jacob. It will push you to give your all when you feel you don't have anything left."
"If they get through us- or worse- I need to know that you and Gentry will be there for her and the kids. Can you just promise me that?"
Sam turned his head to me and swallowed thickly before offering up his answer.
"You want me to give it to you straight, right? No lies and no half-truths here?"
"Yes, I do." I admitted.
"If Demetri and the new Volturi he's built try to take over these lands and flood us to get to Bella, I won't be able to just stand back and watch you throw yourself at their mercy. You'd be asking me to do the impossible." He paused then, clearing his throat as he continued. "Whether or not you know this, Jacob- You're like a little brother to me- my family and I'm telling you that I'll fight them all, until I can't anymore before I'll watch them take you. That's a promise. You hear me?"
I managed a nod and saw the rare emotion that filled Sam's gaze as he looked toward my dimly lit house.
"Sometimes I wish things were different, Sam. Simpler-... easier- without all the magic and the monsters. Mason and Clarissa could be next in line for the fever to set in. I don't want that for them. God, I don't. You probably thinks that makes me a terrible Alpha, huh?"
"No, I don't. I think that makes you one hell of a father though." He hedged. "I know the feeling of wanting more for your kids than for yourself. I think that way all the time."
"Do you think it will ever stop? That we'll ever be able to just grow old with our families in peace?"
"I don't know. Truthfully, it shouldn't have happened the way it did with Brenner before either and now with the Cullens close by again, I'm afraid your worry isn't unfounded."
My head fell at this and I tried to talk around the lump that lodged into my throat at the thought of either of them phasing this young.
"Clarissa wasn't even the one I thought of first. It was Mason. He was my first concern."
"I would have thought the same way if being in your shoes."
"They're both too young, Sam. I was scared out of my mind during my first initial phase and I was sixteen. Years ahead of them. I wish I knew how to stop it!"
"You and me both, bro. You and me both. I loath the idea that our kids have to endure what hell we did years ago."
"The elders still don't have answers for it. The younger phasing has come as a mystery to them. We still don't know why the fever is being triggered at an earlier age than it was for the rest of us."
"All we can do is be there for them when it does happen. There's no other solution, as maddening as that is." Sam sighed. "Your Clarissa though, she's tough, she really is. If anyone could handle it this young, it would be her."
"She is tough and she's brave." I agreed, catching sight of the kitchen and living room lights suddenly turning on. I took a step forward, following Bella's rushing shadow as she hurried across the room.
A pained cry from Clarissa reached me and I felt my skin start to crawl with a knowing dread as Bella's shadowed lingered there in the window.
Sam shot a worried glance my way as I headed for the house, my quickened steps turning into a run when another cry left her from inside.
A/N: Thank you so much for your kind reviews. Look for more to come and tell me your thoughts.