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Chapter 8

Bella?

Edward

Jake was ... tense. He obsessively tried to ignore us while we were standing by our cars. No thought of us. He didn't relax until he got to his friends and didn't give any more thought to the fact that we were here or even what we were. But he had changed. He was a wolf. The smell was unmistakable and horribly penetrating. And I was sure that I was right with my guess. He had come to know the animal within himself over the past few days. The physical changes were simply impossible to miss and the other students were taking disapproving note of it. Jake wondered how many would assume he'd taken a chemical substance and was quite off the mark with his guess of 'most'. It was everyone - except his friends.

Then Leah arrived in the parking lot with her boyfriend, Ben.

She had changed as much as her brother, but her feminine figure was still there. Rose was still envious of it.

I smirked.

Leah didn't waste a thought on us, but she didn't force herself to. We really didn't seem to matter to her. At least as long as her boyfriend was with her.

"Let go of me!" I heard a girl screech fearfully and looked in her direction.

I knew that voice and in her mind she was screaming in panic for help. It was the girl from yesterday.

The football player, Michael Hanks, had wanted to put his plans from last Monday into action.

He had picked up his girlfriend Becky Young from home last evening and taken her to a seedy diner. But the evening had gone differently than Michael had planned. Becky had broken up with him. He didn't agree with that. Actually, he did, but he still stuck to his plans and decided to drive somewhere with her. To a place where no one would hear her cries for help. Because as I had heard over the course of the week, his thoughts had not been purely theoretical because of his girlfriend's approval. He didn't care what the girl wanted or didn't want. He was ready to take what he wanted for himself. By force if necessary. He'd thought about how it wouldn't be the first time.

Jazz and I ending up disabling his car in front of the diner. Becky had walked home alone at some point. She didn't have far to go and I stayed at a safe distance until she walked through her front door. Jazz and I were almost disappointed that it was so easy, but his car was far more important to this Michael. But today things looked quite different again. His car was running again and he was demanding what he was denied last night.

Emmett had already started moving to go to Becky's aid, but Jake had the same idea.

You stupid boy, the thought went through my head. He was already angry. How long would he be able to control himself without phasing. Werewolves were dangerous. And young wolves even more so.

But Jake surprised me.

He knew that his appearance was disproportionate to his actual strength.

He controlled himself and Michael moved away.

I kept my eyes on his thoughts to be on the safe side, but now focused mainly on Jake.

His thoughts were interesting as he looked Becky in the eyes. It resembled my own thoughts when I first saw Bella. No. Not the first time. When I realized that Bella became my life. When I had visited her for the first time secretly at night in her room. As I sank into my own thoughts, all brought on by this angelic being, I reemerged as a completely new man. Jake found his soulmate.

Michael's thoughts alarmed me.

A snap reaction when he saw Jake and Becky leaning toward each other.

I quickened my pace and called out to Jake, but he paid no attention to me.

His thoughts only revolved around his Becky.

Brutally, Jake was dragged across the lawn and an upper cut to the chin sent him rolling across the grass.

Becky was hurt! Now he would lose his temper! Was there anything I could do to stop it?

I couldn't think of anything at first without exposing myself to people.

They fought and Jake amazed me even more with how much he was in control of himself. Was I too hasty in my judgment that they were dangerous and unpredictable? But I wanted to play it safe.

"Hey, Jazz, calm him down a little!" I asked Jasper.

He looked at me in amazement, but did it immediately.

"Otherwise, he'll be standing right there as a wolf," I explained. That was something we really had to avoid. So, if these children were exposed - as something unnatural that shouldn't exist - suspicion would hit us sooner or later too.

The principal separated the two and quickly the school entrance way emptied as the bell rang.

We had nothing to do with them, so we slowly followed the flow of students. But I stopped behind Jake.

"Well done!" I quietly but appreciatively said, referring both the fact that he had beaten up Michael of all people, and also that he had handled himself so well. I was curious to see how his thoughts reacted to that, and he didn't disappoint.

'Do you know what I am yet, you miserable bloodsucker?' it went around spitefully in his head.

You're not human, I thought to myself.

But I couldn't let on that I was hearing his thoughts and forced myself to be even-tempered.

"He deserved more than just a few slaps in the face, and they certainly won't be the last!" I added. It should be a warning to him what this Michael was capable of, because he was already imagining plans of revenge.

Jake had understood me perfectly and I followed after my siblings.

'NO! Anything but that!' Jake thought a moment later when the principal called his mother in to see him.

But why was he so panicked about it. It was obvious, after all, that if you violated school rules, they would notify your parents.

'Great, you ass! You did a great job with that! You couldn't even keep your promise for a ridiculous hour! Mom had to come here. Near the vampires. How pathetic was I? I had screwed up big time. She would be mad at me ... Mad? ... Worse! ... She would be bitterly disappointed in me!' he continued to think.

I became curious.

Extremely curious. I would continue to follow his thoughts.

I went to my class and sat in the back row.

I laughed out loud when Brandon told Jake that his mother wouldn't pull the fur over his ears yet.

But then my ears perked up when he was on the phone with his mother.

'Well, get a good explanation ready, son,' I heard through Jake's mind and I thought hard.

That voice! It captivated me. As if I knew it.

But she would come here. I would see in a moment if I knew her.

A motorcycle drove slowly into the parking lot.

A nice machine. I would like it.

I was taken aback for a moment.

That was Jake's mom? So, this is what Brandon meant by his mom being 'cool about it' after all. An obviously still young body got off the Honda in smooth movements. She had to be younger than was usual to have kids Jake's and Leah's age. But Jake's gaze immediately went to the ground.

I cursed inside myself.

"Look at me!" Jake was prompted, but he shook his head.

The voice wasn't nearly as bitter as it sounded or as Jake feared it would be.

'No. I'm not going to show HIM who you are,' Jake thought tensely, focusing on a small crack in the stone that graced the stairs right between his feet.

By HIM he meant me. He knew that I could hear thoughts. But from where? And why wouldn't he let me look at his mother? What did I care about his mother?

I continued to eavesdrop and at some point, began to fidget in my chair impatiently.

That voice!

I listened carefully to every word. Every change of pitch, every undertone, every tremor, every trembling of her voice.

I stopped paying attention to the teacher's lesson. I focused completely on that tone, which seemed more familiar than anything else.

But from where! The answer to all my questions regarding these twins was within my grasp, I felt it keenly, but it just wouldn't reveal itself to me.

'Inevitable! Like I didn't have a choice!' Jake tried to explain his feelings to his mother.

This term 'imprinting' meant nothing to me, but she seemed to be able to do something with it, but doubted it. I could have confirmed it. I had already followed his thoughts last Monday and had heard him thinking of this Becky. In love, no doubt. But the moment he looked into her eyes, his life priorities had unconsciously changed. There was really nothing more important to him than his Becky. Only she was important to him now. Being in love was not sufficient a term to describe for these feelings. I knew it. All too well. For over nineteen years. I was a little surprised that there seemed to be few secrets between mother and son. I heard the love Jake felt for his mother and I heard the same love in her voice. It was a very close relationship and should be no different between Leah and her. Somehow this fact pleased me, but didn't know why I should care at all.

'Haven't seen it yet. Feels like a black eye.'

His face had really not been very handsome earlier. A bruise had formed around his eye, which had already taken on a purple hue. Drops of blood were stuck to his lower lip and his lower jaw had been dislocated. In addition, there would certainly be some bruises all over the upper part of the body.

But now he carefully touched his face and felt no bruises.

How was that possible? The answer came promptly and he thought of a large sandy brown wolf explaining to him something that all wolves held inside. There are few limits to this ability, he said. Leah and Jake, as long as they phased regularly, would no longer get sick and would heal unnaturally quickly when injured. In addition, they would now quickly reach their highest stage of development physically and then not grow older. They were Quileute wolves. It was not just his mother's words that gave me the last bit of unmistakable proof. I recognized the area where this sandy brown wolf had stood. It was near our house.

Then his mother was on the phone with the principal and her voice became even more familiar to me.

I didn't know where I had heard it before. The manner in which she argued with him. The quivering sound the man did not hear. I did not want to be able to assign a face to the voice.

"Good luck with Becky," his mother wished him as she walked over to her motorcycle.

She had the helmet on already again and Jake looked after her lovingly and proudly. And then she slipped! On an absolutely flat and dry piece of road tar, where there was nothing to slip on.

I toppled over the chair I had been impatiently rocking on!

All eyes were on me.

I put a hand to my head, stood up quickly, muttered to my teacher that I needed to get to the nurse immediately, and as soon as the door clicked shut behind me, I ran.

"You leave her alone!" Jake threatened with deadly seriousness as I stormed through the front door and tripped over his foot, which he had deliberately placed in my path.

I was too engrossed in my thoughts and too anxious to catch this woman to have noticed.

I had to drop hard to the ground. Publicly. I could have been seen.

"Who is your mother?" I asked in a broken voice, still lying on the ground.

I still had no proof that what I thought was correct. But this possibility seemed to make sense. Which is why her voice seemed so familiar and yet somehow foreign to me. Which was why Jake and Leah looked so familiar to me and Alice. Why my imaginary Bella stopped me from breaking into their house. Which is why he wouldn't let me look at her, and why both twins were forcing their thoughts so vehemently in other directions. It all made sense! If Bella was their mother!

His face showed all shades of hatred as he approached me, squatted down next to me, and roughly turned my face in his direction.

"The only thing I'm going to have a conversation with you about is why there are eight of you now and not seven!" Jake replied in a harsh voice, pushing me down the stairs with all his might.

No sign of the seventeen-year-old boy remained.

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