Disclaimer: Not mine, all Disney's--for the moment. This whole "stealing the boys from Disney" plan that Bea, Arcadia, and Mo cooked up (I don't know the details yet, but I plan on finding out tonight!) is starting to sound like a REALLY good idea! :) Anyway, I don't have much else to say besides that, except that I own Jade Kwan, Jamie's mom and sisters, and heck, I even own the town (I think) that Jamie comes from. To my knowledge, there is no town called Tueur de Loup--though I could be wrong! Don't shoot me if I am! Anyway, with out further ado...
Call of the Blood
Chapter 4- "Midnight Discussions"
Jamie swallowed hard, reaching up to run his fingers through his hair. Oh Lord--what was he going to do NOW?
Caitie stared at him, her eyes boring through the walls that he had carefully constructed years ago, seeing right into his soul. For the first time in his life, Jamie felt exposed and vulnerable, her beautiful hazel eyes his undoing.
How could he...how could he explain? How could he tell her? Could he tell her?
She would never understand, a voice whispered in the back of his skull. You can't tell her.
But...she might. He argued with himself, losing himself in his thoughts.
"Jamie?" Caitie whispered, her voice soft and scared. The young man looked up at her, and swallowed again at the sight of the fearful and bedraggled, though still beautiful, picture she made.
Her long brown hair had come out of the two pigtails she had had it in before, and now the thick locks hung in her face, obscuring most of her features. Her lips were parted and trembling, as if she had just been kissed senseless, but her cheeks were too pale and her eyes were too dark.
He could still smell the perfume of fear radiating out of her--only, this time, it was different.
This time, it wasn't nameless strangers, intent on robbing, raping, and possibly killing her that she feared.
No this time, it was him.
The thought of Caitie fearing him made his guts twist, and he turned away from her, his shoulders hunched and his head bowed. Fear, he knew, was the beginning. Fear led to anger, anger led to hate--hate led to pain. Jamie had learned that lesson a long time ago, and he had vowed to never let it happen again.
Before he knew it, his feet were pounding down the concrete sidewalk, carrying him away from the fear he saw in Caitie's eyes--fear that he knew, knew without a doubt, would soon be replaced with hate. Hate that he didn't think he could go through again--not from her. Not from Caitie.
"JAMIE!" Caitie called to his rapidly retreating back, her heartbeat increasing. What in the world? What was going on? "Jamie, where are you going?!"
But he was already gone, out of earshot, and she was left alone--alone with her questions and the gnawing pit of fear that was growing steadily more stronger in the pit of her stomach.
What was even worse, she realized, was the fact that she wasn't sure that she knew her best friend.
At all.
---=====**=====---
The echo of the slamming door rang in Jamie's ears, and he leaned against the hard oak of the heavy door, his fingers clenching and unclenching around the golden knob sporadically.
This was bad.
Scratch that, this was very very VERY bad. This was, possibly, the worse thing that had ever happened, shy of loosing his father and being sent to live with people that he didn't know or understand--even now, after nearly three years of living with them.
Taking a deep breath, he let it out slowly, trying to calm his raging emotions down. Okay--it wasn't as bad as he was making it out to be. Really.
Then why did his heart feel like it was going to burst through his chest, and why was every instinct that he possessed--human and not--screaming at him to run, as fast as he possibly could?
The shrill scream of the telephone cut through the darkness surrounding him, and Jamie jumped half out of his skin. Taking yet another breath, he ran his fingers through his spiky hair, and moved into the kitchen of the two story, white house that he had lived in for the years that he had lived in Kingsport, Virginia.
Since the phone had rang three times, and no one else had answered it, Jamie assumed that no one else that lived in his house was there at the moment. Which was odd since it was--his eyes darted to the clock--one o'clock in the morning.
Wait--one in the morning? Who in the world would be calling him at one in the morning?
Scooping up the phone out of his cradle, Jamie held it to his ear. However, before he got a chance to speak, an all to familiar voice tinged with sarcasm and the barest hint of an Irish accent rang through his ears.
" 'Bout time."
Jamie blinked and a small smile pulled at his lips. "Jade?" He asked, surprised.
"No duh! Who else would call you at--what time is it there? Two? Three?" Jade Kwan asked, and he could almost see her almond shaped green eyes twinkling.
"One." Jamie reminded her, rolling his eyes. "I thought you were suppose to be a genius or something?"
"Screw you, Jamie, I am a genius."
The young man couldn't stop the snort of laughter that welled up in his chest. Why was it that even after everything that had just happened to him that night, that Jade could make him laugh within a minute of talking to her?
A fond smile pulled at his lips, his mind slipping back through the years in an instant.
Jade Kwan had been his friend--his best friend--since they had been two years old. His first memory was of the first time he had ever seen the tiny, green-eyed Korean-Irish girl in all her stubborn beauty. He had just turned two--she had been only twenty months old. His father had brought her home, claiming that the little girl had been standing, with her arms crossed, in front of her mother's house, in the pouring rain, completely and utterly refusing to even think about going in the house like her mother was screaming at her too. Kathleen O'Leary, Jade's unwed mother, had finally given up, storming into the house, her long black hair streaming behind her.
Sam Waite, noticing the little girl on his way home to his wife and son, had simply gone over to her and asked her if she would like to get out of the rain. After a minute of serious consideration, the little girl had consented, allowing Sam to take her to his house next door.
From the very minute that Jade had been set in front of Jamie, they two had been the best of friends. Their similar stubborn natures had, strangely enough, complimented one another perfectly, and the two had shared a bond that was impossible to break. Jade was, actually, the only person in the world, outside his family, that knew him--utterly and completely.
"So--what happened?" Jade asked, her voice turning serious. Jamie let the smile drop off his face, as the events from the past few hours caught up with him again.
"I...I think...someone...God, Jade...she...she SAW me..."
A choked sob threatened at the back of his throat, but Jamie shoved it back, willing himself to hold onto his emotions.
"Saw you--what do you mean saw you?" A pause, and then he heard Jade gasp, low in her throat. "You mean--SAW you-saw you?"
Jamie nodded, then mentally smacked himself--she couldn't see him through the phone. "Yeah." He muttered, all the fear and pain from before flooding through his system once again.
"What did...what did she say?" Jade asked, her voice uncharacteristically worried.
"I...I left before she could really ask." The young man admitted, and he heard Jade snort.
"Isn't that just like you. What are you going to do now?" She asked, still in her deadly serious tone.
"I...I don't know. I might...I mean, I have to..." Jamie trailed off, unable to put into words that half formed plans that were whirling through his mind.
"What? You might what--leave? Run away? Like before?" Jade challenged--in his mind, he could see her expression, her thin eyebrows drawn together, her small, bow shaped mouth pulled into a deep frown, and her deep green eyes spitting emerald fire.
"If I have to." Jamie breathed.
"Jamie!" The exasperation in her voice was apparent. "Not everyone in the world is like the people in Tueur de Loup!"
"How would you know?" The young man challenged, his hackles going up.
"I'm not!"
"You're different."
"I am not! Saints and crooked angels, Jamie, you're enough to make a girl pull her out!" Jade informed him, even though there was an undercurrent of understanding in her tone. "I know what happened before..."
"So why are you yelling at me?"
"But that doesn't mean that you have to hide what you are from the entire world!" Jade continued on, as if she hadn't even heard Jamie's comment.
"What I am? What I am is a freak of nature!" Jamie could feel tears burning at the back of his eyes, but he blinked them back, once more fighting for control of his emotions.
"You are NOT a freak! You're just...different." Jade stressed, but her argument fell on deaf ears.
Jamie gave a coarse laugh, the kind of laugh that you expel when there's nothing else you can do. "Yeah right."
"There's nothing wrong with being different." Jade told him, trying to make her see his part.
"Tell that to the people that killed my father." Jamie snarled. He could almost hear Jade wince, but he knew that she realized that his anger wasn't directed at her. For a long moment, she was silent, and h knew that she was fighting tears, the way he had been moments before.
"That wasn't you're fault."
"Wasn't it? If I hadn't been born, my father would still be alive."
"Don't say that!" He could hear her tears now, and it ripped at his heart--this was the second woman he held close to his heart that he had hurt tonight. But, try as he might, he couldn't stop the flow of words that spilled from his heart and his self-loathing.
"You know it's my fault...if I had been more careful...if my father hadn't tried to protect me..." Jamie told her, trailing off.
"Then you would be dead, instead of him!" Jade wept, anger coloring her words.
"Maybe it would have been better that way."
"Stop saying that!" Her words were cut off by a sob, and Jamie wanted to die for making her cry.
"Jade..." He whispered, wishing that she was still living right next door instead of across the ocean.
"How can you say things like that? Don't you know that I would DIE if you were gone? And your mother and Sami, Molly, Crimson and Jazz? Jamie..." Jade trailed off, her voice cracking on his name.
"I'm sorry Jade. I'm sorry--but I...I just can't shake the image of how...of how Caitie looked at me...it was just...just like the way that Delphine looked before..." Jamie stopped speaking, his eyes darting to the window. The lavender light of a false dawn dance across the sky, the silver light of the moon waning.
"She would understand Jamie, I know she would." The girl on the other of the line tried to tell him, but Jamie shook his head.
"I don't think so..."
"She might--I did." Jade reminded him. "Why don't you tell her?"
"Okay, let's just say, for a minute, that I was to take your insane advice and tell her--how exactly would I go about explaining something like that?" He questioned, allowing the more serious part of their conversation to slip to the back of his mind, vowing to think more about it later.
"The same way you told me."
"Jade, we were four!"
"So, what's your point?"
Jamie shook his head, a small smile pulling at his lips. No matter how important the topic was, Jade just could not remain serious for more then fifteen minutes at a time, it seemed.
"My point is, I don't think going up to Caitie and saying 'Hey, guess what, I'm a werewolf! Cool, huh?' is going to fly." Jamie informed her.
