CHAPTER 3

Waking up with Jesse's arms around me, and the sun shining brightly on my face was exactly how I was picturing waking up the next morning.

Being woken up with Jesse's arms around me and a ghostly alarm clock with the name of Jacob, accompanied by two friends, however, was not how I wanted to greet the day.

"Jesse! Susannah!" he shouted, sounding very close to my ear in a demanding voice. "Wake up!"

I groaned, frustrated, and turned onto my stomach, untangling Jesse's arms from around me and tried to muffle out Jacob's voice by placing a pillow over my head.

"I do not sleep!" Jesse snapped, sitting up on the bed. Apparently upset about the rather rude intrusion on our relaxing moment.

Well, I was sleeping, but that's relaxed, and I'm sure Jesse had been plenty relaxed just holding me for the night.

"And if you wish for Susannah to do anything asked of her, I suggest you change your tone! You do realize you are asking for a lot from her and getting on her bad list will only earn you a place on mine?" Jesse warned, sending him a threatening look.

Jacob's face clearly softened and flashed to panic.

"I didn't mean to be so rude, Susannah, but he is coming! He's coming sooner than we thought!" He exclaimed, closing his hands over his face and shaking his head dramatically.

"It's Suze," I began, turning onto my back and sitting up off the bed, "And what the hell are you talking about?"

"I didn't really get a chance to explain last night, but if it is all right with you, we should really talk about it now," he said, taking his hands off his face and calming down a bit, maybe at the thought of explaining his reason for being rude and narrowing Jesse's glare to a minimum.

"Fine," I said simply, making a move to get off the bed. The temptation to lie back down and fall asleep was just too much. It was, after all, only five thirty in the morning and I had not gone to sleep until well after eleven.

As soon as I stood up to walk over to the window seat, I felt a hand slid into mine and hold me in place. I turned and gave Jesse a questioning look, which he responded to with one of his own disappointed ones that told me not to leave his side and pulled me back down in the direction of the bed onto his lap. He laid my head down on his chest and started to stroke my hair gently while we both waited for Jacob, who looked somewhere else in his own world of thought, to start talking.

When Jacob continued to neglect saying anything, a voice from behind filled the silence for him, seeming to notice the same too-long pause that Jesse and I had.

"Oh," the voice, which I could tell from the high-pitched tone was obviously a girl, started, "Just give him a second. He goes into his thinking mode sometimes, where..."

I mostly tuned her out after that, not really caring why Jacob has decided to go off into his own little thinking world.

I was more curious about the other two ghosts standing in front of me. I had barely noticed them at all, since I woke up. They hadn't really said anything until now so they could have been not there at all; I wouldn't have noticed them any more than I was now.

The girl who first brought the two strangers to my attention, with the high-pitched voice had short, straight, brown hair that barely reached her shoulders and deep blue eyes that resembled the darkest parts of the ocean. She was wearing a knee length black skirt and a tight black tee-shirt that showed of her slim body. She seemed a little calmer than Jacob, but her eyes gave her away. They looked just as scared and worried as his.

I looked further behind Jacob until my eyes connected with the second stranger. There stood a very calm looking boy leaning against the back wall acting like he never had a care in the world, with dirty blond hair and high cheekbones that shaped his face perfectly. He seemed to be about six foot or so and somewhere around my age. Give or take a year or two. The things that caught my attention the most about him though, were his eyes. He had dark brown eyes that were almost black. They looked scary in my opinion and I was sure that if those eyes gave a hard enough glare, that they would send someone into shock. Or close to it, anyway.

At the moment though, he was so calm . . . it was almost scary . . .

Despite his eyes, he had a soft, gentle expression on his face when he looked at me that made me wonder if there were two sides to him: one resembling his eyes, that was dark and almost evil, and one resembling his expressions, which was smooth and kind. He was wearing dark blue jeans and a slightly loose, blue tee-shirt.

I mean slightly loose as in, it wasn't sticking to his skin or anything, but it wasn't loose enough that you couldn't see the strong arms and nice six-pack through it.

All in all, he was pretty cute.

Never as cute as my Jesse though . . .

While in the middle of my thoughts of Jesse, I shifted up to look at him and noticed something.

He was already looking at me.

I looked around and noticed that everyone else was also staring and looked like they were waiting for some sort of answer.

Uhh . . . It was safe to say that I had definitely missed something.

"Huh," was my intelligent way of getting a repeat to whatever I was supposed to be answering.

Jesse had an amused smile playing along his lips at my response.

But Jacob, now out of 'thought world', looked irritated, the girl looked annoyed, and the bored boy looked like he could care less what I said.

"Any questions you want to start off with?" Jacob asked again, a little less tolerant, seeing that he had to repeat himself.

"Yeah. How about . . ." I started going through the long list of questions that were sweeping through my brain.

I decided to start with the more obvious questions first and work my way to the more complicated.

"How about, who are they?" I asked in what I hoped was my least-sarcastic and most curious voice, signaling the only two people in the room I didn't already know.

"Oh, sorry about that. These are the two friends I mentioned yesterday. The guy hiding near the wall back there." He said, pointing a finger over to said guy, " yeah, his name is Dale and-"

"I'm not hiding," Dale interrupted slowly.

I guess he didn't know that was the part where he was supposed to acknowledge being introduced or something . . .

"Yeah? Well you're pretty far away for someone who is seeking attention." Jacob replied.

"Perhaps I was just watching the whole seen from an on-lookers point of view. Observing you get hysterical for something that is two weeks from now is quite a different sight. Kind of like a movie," Dale said with a satisfied smirk.

"Whatev-" Jacob started.

His words were broken by a sharp "Ah-hem" from the brown hair girl, knowing that she had yet to be introduced.

"Oh, sorry again. This is Mimi. I think you will find that she is a lot better to be around than others I could mention," Jacob stated sending a small victory smile over his shoulder to Dale.

"Please ignore them to the best of your ability. They have been like this ever since they met. It doesn't really mean anything. At least, I don't think it does . . ." said Mimi letting her sentence trial off to give them both doubtful looks.

I shrugged off the two boys bickering like Mimi said to do, thinking it just sounded like two brothers fighting over the remote or something.

Totally pointless.

But what did catch my attention was the' two weeks away' remark. I wanted to find out what that was about, even if I had the felling I already knew what he was referring to.

"What is happening in two weeks?" Jesse asked, reading my thoughts.

Jacob's face, which had gone to a playful half smile when he had been fighting with Dale, turned back down to a frown again and the fear returned to his eyes.

"He's coming. In two weeks. That is how much time we have until he gets here. I wasn't expecting him to come for a month or so. I though it would have been plenty of time for you two to thoroughly think about if you were willing to help or not. But, we don't have that time anymore. Did you think about it at all?" He asked with a steady look in my direction.

Was he absolutely crazy? I mean, when someone tells me that I have the chance to help bring someone I love back to the breathing state and save a lot of other people and ghosts lives but I had to die to do it, did he think I was thinking about unicorns the whole night or something?

And Jesse was probably thinking about it all night long while I was sleeping.

Jacob, noticing the sudden glares Jesse and I were giving him, must have realized how feeble-witted his question was and blushed slightly.

"Uhh...I mean did you decide on anything yet?" He asked briskly.

"I do not want Susannah to have to die for me to live. There has to be another way. She is said to be a very powerful shifter already. Couldn't I just help her get better, teach her, and then have her fight him herself? I could be with her every step of the way." Jesse said hopefully, holding me a little tighter in his arms.

"I'm sorry you have to go through this. I really am, but I don't think there is enough time for her to get at the level of strength he is. There is only two weeks and this shifter has been training for many years. The odds are highly against her getting strong enough in time." Mimi said for Jacob in a small, sad voice.

Everyone went quite for a minute. Probably thinking about what Mimi said.

Was she right, or had she lost all hope like Jacob had?

Jesse wouldn't give up though. I knew he wouldn't.

So I wasn't going to either.

I would have hope, just for him.

"Its worth a try." I said, looking back up at Jesse. "But if there is no improvement in the next week, we will have to do the alternate option. And even if it comes to that, Jacob did say that 'most' shifters don't make it through the process alive. 'Most' not all. There is still a chance that I might be okay." I said to him reassuringly, searching his face.

Jesse leaned down and gave me a quick kiss on the mouth. I could tell from his eyes that a quick kiss wasn't all he wanted, but we did have other people in the room and I don't think they wanted to see a public display of affection while they were clearly thinking about a different matter.

About the this killer shifter matter . . .

Jacob and Mimi kept calling the shifter we were fighting 'he'. 'He' didn't exactly tell me a lot of who Jesse or I, were fighting.

Except for that it was a guy.

Like that's very helpful.

"What's his name?" I asked.

Jacob, Dale, and Mimi all gave me a confused look.

"I mean the shifter." I said a little exasperated.

"Slater," Jacob stated.

I felt Jesse Jesse tense behind me, and I was sure my face was pale.

"Paul Slater," he confirmed while giving Jesse and I curious glances at our reactions.

"Oh, shit" was the last thing I thought . . .

Before everything went black.

A/N

I am sure you have noticed how fast these past three chapters have been posted and its because, like I said, I already had them written and I am only editing them so they are a little better from the first time I posted them. My later chapters will most likely not be posted nearly as fast as this. Maybe once a week, because after chapter 3 I haven't already written the rest of the chapters and am just starting to write ch.4.

Oh, and I just thought I should mention that I am not going to give away the big question right away. You guys are going to have to keep reading and wait to find out if Suze will end up dying for Jesse or not. But I'm sure you have figured out that he is going to fight her on the topic every step of the way.

Thank you so much to:

MerakSardonyx

nikki007

Jeese's Querida

You guys are so awesome! Thanks for reviewing! And, again, thanks to Unangelichalo for all your help!

Love,

Amber