forty.
(Jacob)
Exactly as Leah predicted, they're hardly halfway to Forks before a familiar silver car comes into view — though it remains to be seen whether the rest of her predictions prove to be true: Edward has parked just off the side of the highway, as close to the treaty line as he can legally be. And though his impassive expression is easy enough for Jacob's keen eyes to read, it reveals nothing immediate about potential murder plots.
Although . . . If the way Edward frantically paces around his car is anything to go by, then there is every chance that he has indeed been considering it.
(Nothing new there, Jacob thinks. He has spent hours, days, thinking of ways to kill Edward Cullen, and anyone would be stupid to believe that the same courtesy is not being returned — because despite what Bella thinks, no vampire is that saintly.)
To her credit, Leah doesn't say "I told you so". Instead, she glares through the windshield at the piece-of-shit car and its piece-of-shit owner (Jacob can't blame her; he wouldn't allow either of them to be seen dead driving a Volvo), and says, "I just had to go and open my big fat mouth, didn't I?"
Jacob stops the Rabbit a healthy distance away and cuts the ignition. He's not particularly surprised this is the way his night is going, and he's aware that his resignation shows, even from all the way across the boundary line. "Honestly, I would have been shocked if he wasn't here."
He had hoped to avoid Cullen at all costs, but as long as the bloodsucker stays on the right side of the line (or rather, the wrong side of the line, where it smells like Bella's terrible life choices and a whole lot of vampire — seven of the bastards, not including the redhead and that other damned leech with a clothes kink who they have yet to track) then he is more than happy to get this day over with as quickly as possible and find his way to his bed . . . Not that he would ever admit to being grateful to the enemy for such things, of course.
Beside him, Leah grumbles underneath her breath, crossing her arms in a show of mild petulance. She lets them fall back in her lap once she remembers the stitches across her bandaged palm. Her mom will skin her hide if she starts bleeding out again. "I hate it when I'm right."
"When are you ever wrong?"
Her answer comes easily. "Never," she declares, and they share a quiet grin. Until she remembers herself, anyway, blinking back and ever so slightly lifts her chin, almost as if she's steeling herself for battle. The look on her face is one he has seen before — he will never forget her facing off against Cullen in the middle of the Forks High parking lot for as long as he lives. She had been invincible.
Jacob bites down on a smile. "Are you cussing him out again already?"
"Maybe." The crease between her brows deepens in concentration, bothersome enough that he has to refrain from rubbing it away. He settles for reaching over and tucking loose strands of her dark hair behind her ear. "Stop distracting me."
"Sorry," he tells her, sounding anything but. He drops his hand and looks away before she can catch him laughing at her. "As you were."
Leah waves him off with a vague gesture, although she seems to share his amusement, so he knows he's not in too much trouble.
Behind them on the back seats, Bella is curled up against the door and sleeping again, although Jacob doesn't think she was completely conscious to begin with — not when he woke her up and not when he steered her away from the fire and into the car. She had muttered nonsensically the whole way up the dunes, barely able to pick her own feet up, and when they had finally caught up with Leah, she had looked about as unimpressed with the other girl as she often looks with Billy whenever the old man eats something loaded with sugar.
"Bella? Bella, c'mon." Jacob reluctantly reaches over with one hand, awkwardly pushing at her knee. "Wake up. We're here."
It takes another nudge for her to stir. She blinks in confusion, looking around and— "Crap!" she exclaims with sudden alertness, jolting upright before diving straight into panic mode. "What's the time? Oh, man, he's going to be so worried. Dang it. Can I use your phone?"
"Woah. Sheesh. Take it easy. It's not even eleven yet," he tells her. "Leah set an alarm just in case, although it looks like it wasn't needed. Your bloodsucker met us halfway."
"Eleven?" Bella repeats stupidly, still confused. She looks around — first at Leah in the front passenger seat, then at him again, twisted around in the driver's seat as he is, before she turns her eyes on the darkness outside. No doubt looking for . . .
"Edward," she breathes. "He's here?"
The familiar sound of Leah's snort fills the car. "Yeah. And he's getting impatient."
Indeed, when Jacob turns back and reaches for the door, he can see that Edward is pacing a little more wildly than before, his too-quick shadow illuminated by the headlights across the highway — either down to his eagerness to be reunited with Bella or because Leah has won their mental battle and has royally pissed him off. Maybe a bit of both.
Jacob gets out of the car and pulls his seat forward so that Bella can slide across and hurry on home. "Better hustle. I'm not in the mood to fight him tonight," he says.
He's only half-joking, but he receives a frown from his friend-not-friend nonetheless. "I'd rather you didn't fight at all," she mutters as she climbs out of the car, sullen, and her words earn a second snort of derision from Leah.
Somehow, Jacob manages not to laugh. "Lighten up, Bella. We're playing nice now, aren't we?"
"Are we?" Leah asks from inside the car, too quietly for anyone but him to hear, and he shushes her underneath his breath, still fighting not to laugh.
Bella looks across the treaty line. "Yeah, I guess we are. Thanks, Jake," she says, turning back to him. "And thanks for inviting me tonight. That was . . . Wow. Something else."
He leans against the door, not bothering to point out that it was Embry who did the inviting. "Sure, sure. Glad you liked it. It was . . . nice."
"It was, wasn't it?" she says, smiling. She dips down, peering into the car. "'Night, Leah. Thanks."
"See ya, leech lover," Leah replies easily. And, surprisingly, Bella's smile doesn't waver. If anything she seems to be more amused by the response, and — not for the first time tonight — it leaves Jacob wondering exactly what they spoke about for this kind of understanding to have been reached between them. Clearly, there's a lot more to it than Leah has already shared with him.
"'Night," Bella says to him, and she hurries away.
"Thank God that's over," he huffs as soon as he gets back into the car and shuts the door behind him, not caring who can hear him. He turns the ignition. "Yours or mine?"
Leah's lack of response has him looking up, his heart sinking from the tension he can suddenly feel emanating from her.
"What," he demands flatly, a sense of foreboding settling over his bones as the dome light above them dies. It appears to be too much to ask of the world to just allow him to go home and sleep.
"Look." She jerks her chin towards the silver car, her expression inscrutable save for the slight tightness to it and the loathing in her eyes. "I think he wants something."
Jacob considers feigning ignorance and turning the car around to speed back to the Rez, but inevitably he looks and sees that Bella's bloodsucker is . . . waiting?
Across the highway, said bloodsucker in question nods as if to say, yes, he is.
Great.
It is with no small amount of irritation that Jacob gets back out of his car for the second time in as many minutes. He waits just long enough for Leah to follow suit, waits until she wraps her good hand around his, a steady force at his side before they make their way towards the treaty line together — if only because Edward cannot save them the walk by crossing it for them. Jacob can't possibly imagine what else the bloodsucker wants from him, or from Leah. It's not as if they've exactly got anything left to give — nothing that they're willing to part with, anyway; Bella and her beloved ticks have robbed them of everything else.
The boundary line is invisible but potent — at least, it is to him. Maybe it's because his senses are heightened, or because the treaty was agreed to by his bloodline, or maybe even because he's tied to this land in ways the undead can never be. Either way, he's as aware of it as he is of Leah, and stepping across it sends a ripple up his spine and has him clutching her hand a little tighter.
"This better be good, bloodsucker," he grumbles on their approach.
"Good evening. Thank you for coming over," Edward responds, annoyingly amiable as he inclines his head to them. Bella is tucked safely underneath his arm, looking tired but wary. It seems she doesn't know anything about this impromptu get-together, either.
"Yeah, yeah." Impatience works its way into Jacob's voice before he can muster enough energy to check himself. It's all he can do to remember to not breathe too deeply lest he gags on the stench. "What is it? Have you found out who the bedroom stalker is?"
"Not as such. Have you and your pack come across anything?"
"Give them a chance," Leah says. "Embry only passed on the scent this afternoon."
Edward's golden gaze flickers to her wrapped hand she is holding stiffly at her other side. "Of course. I merely asked you as a precaution, anyway. I imagine the perpetrator will be long gone by now."
His words feel like an insult, but Jacob allows them to wash over him, valiantly attempting to keep his mind clear of any stray, private thoughts. He silently wills Leah to do the same. "So why are we here?"
"Bella and I thought of something this afternoon which I believed might be of interest to you and your Alpha," Edward tells him calmly. There is malice lurking, of course — anyone would be stupid to believe a vampire wishes a werewolf well — but he is more skilled, more experienced at hiding it than anyone else present. He's had decades to practice. "I wasn't sure if she would find the time to raise it with you tonight, so I wanted to speak now, should we not get another opportunity before studying for our finals takes over."
"Finals?" Jacob scoffs. "Haven't you graduated six hundred times over already?"
"Eighteen," Edward says, smiling back at him with the barest hint of humour.
"I'd say get a life, but I wouldn't want to offend you or anything," he retorts, bolstered by Leah's warmth at his side. She leans on his shoulder, and he knows without looking that she's hiding her smile against him. "You know, considering."
"Jake," Bella protests with a slight groan. "Playing nice, remember?"
He waves her off. "Yeah, yeah." She's right. No matter how much he enjoys it, butting heads with bloodsuckers is the least of his concerns right now. "What did you want to talk about?"
"I thought it prudent to let you know that whoever Bella's . . . visitor was, we believe they were gathering traces — evidence, if you will, to prove that they'd found her."
"What do you mean, found her? Jeez, Bella. Don't you have enough of the undead trying to kill you? We're already working overtime as it is." Jacob runs a ragged hand over his face, his breath equally as unsettled. The second he tells Sam about this . . . Forget double patrols, he and his brothers are all going to be running triple shifts before their Alpha is satisfied there's no threat to their people. "Fine. Whatever. What's one more leech?" he asks sarcastically. "Tell me the plan, then. I assume your psychic is keeping a lookout."
"Of course," Edward says. "But it's quite hard to see something — or rather, someone — she's never seen before. Those visions don't come as easily to her unless they're tied to our immediate future, but she's watching nonetheless."
Jacob nods. "Good. Anything else? The redhead?"
"No, nothing. Except . . . Well, I assume you're tracking the situation in Seattle as closely as we are?"
"What situation?" Leah asks, straightening.
Edward's blink is the only show of surprise he allows himself to display. "It's all over the news."
"Forgive us if we're a little too busy to pick up the daily paper," Jacob drawls. As if they've not got enough on their plates with two vampires lurking around.
"Do you not have a television? Radio?"
"Seriously? Who has time to watch television in between spending all hours hunting your kind and protecting—"
A warm palm against his chest interrupts him, and he closes his mouth obediently.
"What situation?" Leah repeats, her frustration audible. There is not an ounce of fear about her. "The short version, if you would. It's late, and I reached my limit for supernatural crises a long time ago."
Jacob fights to school his face. Butting heads with the enemy might be the least of his concerns, but it's something Leah enjoys just as much as he does. He will even yield that she is more skilled at it than he is, managing to earn a rise out of her intended target every time.
"There's been significant activity in Seattle," Edward begins to explain without preamble. He regards them both carefully, though his glances towards Leah seem to last a second or two longer. It sets Jacob's teeth on edge. "We initially thought that it was all down to a single vampire, a newly-turned one, but the rising numbers of disappearances and murders suggest there may be more, and we believe the Volturi will intervene soon unless we can find some way to calm the situation."
"The Volturi," Jacob echoes. He processes that for a second, his breathing turning shallow, and he looks down at Bella. She has turned unnaturally pale — more so than usual, if that is even possible. "They're those Italian leeches, aren't they? The ones you went to and—"
"Yes," her bloodsucker says before that sentence can be finished. "As you can imagine, I'd rather they didn't visit Seattle. If they come this close, they might decide to check on Bella."
If Jacob clutches Leah a little tighter than before, she doesn't complain. The thought of all those leeches coming anywhere near the Rez — near her, let alone Washington . . .
She is the first to voice the question on both their minds. "Check on her?"
"Check that she's still human," Edward clarifies, and Bella's heartbeat stutters in fright.
Jacob's blood runs cold.
"Exactly," says Edward, apparently agreeing with the sudden gut-wrenching feeling that Jacob knows courses through him and Leah both — although he is willing to bet that Edward is not agreeing for the same reasons. "It would be more preferable for us to intervene instead and prevent them from coming here. It's not just Bella's life we're discussing here — it's yours, too. Certain members of the Volturi would be against your very existence."
It doesn't need pointing out that the Pack's existence is entirely down to one thing and one thing alone.
Edward hears the thought and dismisses it, shaking his head. "As long as you stay off their radar, you'll be safe."
Jacob takes a step forward without thinking about it, preparing to fight before the implication of the bloodsucker's words settle. "If you ever—"
Edward raises a white hand, the other splayed wide to shield Bella. As if she is the vulnerable one here. "There's no need for threats," he says. And, after a beat after listening to unbidden thoughts, he adds, "Verbal or otherwise. You misunderstood me. Carlisle would never allow us to dishonour our agreement like that."
Unsurprisingly, that does little to calm Jacob's temper.
"He will insist we learn more before we decide on any course of action," the bloodsucker continues, "whether that includes the Volturi or not. Perhaps if we can talk to the newborns and explain the rules then it can be resolved peacefully . . ."
He trails off, snapping out of that thought as his eyes narrow on Leah, deliberating.
"I'm not sure," Edward says to her then, though he sounds intrigued nonetheless, inching ever closer. The bastard even inclines his head slightly as if to hear more clearly.
Leah shrugs, unperturbed. "Why not?" she challenges. "Seems pretty plausible to me."
They stare at each other as their discussion turns silent, driving Jacob — and Bella, it seems — to the point of insanity. Edward's expression shifts every few heartbeats, listening and responding to whatever Leah is saying to him. Listening to whatever she is thinking whilst her emotions play out across her own face.
"What are you talking about?" Jacob asks, not bothering to mask the sourness to his tone.
"Interesting," Edward says to Leah instead of answering him. "I can see why you would come to that conclusion. It's not something I considered — if only because it's so far-fetched . . . I'll admit there is some merit to your way of thinking, even if you are wrong. Perhaps there's another angle I'm not seeing . . ."
Leah turns to Jacob, dismissing the bloodsucker with disdain, and finally explains. "I was just thinking — it seems a little unbelievable to me these are all separate issues. I mean, it's like you said, isn't it? How many enemies does Bella have, exactly? Nobody could possibly think they aren't one and the same."
Jacob looks at Edward, eyebrows raised. She has a point.
The vampire doesn't seem convinced. "It's impossible that the Volturi, Victoria, the newborns in Seattle and Bella's visitor are connected."
"Fine, so not all may be the same," Leah concedes rather impatiently. "But they are related, at least. You say the Italians are coming to see if Bella's still human. You say her clothes have been taken to prove that someone else has found her."
"Found me . . ." Bella says slowly, eyes widening more and more as the pieces start to fit together. " . . . Or checking that I'm still human."
"Thank you!" Leah exclaims, throwing her hands up. "At least someone sees where I'm going with this. I'm telling you: this is all connected. It has to be."
Edward shakes his head. "You don't understand the Volturi; they don't make house calls. And I imagine that even if they did, they wouldn't have left Bella's father alive."
Jacob scoffs. "Maybe they made an exception for old friends." He ignores the way Bella's knuckles whiten around Edward's arm. He has no time for softening the blow of his words. No time, and no patience. "Or maybe," he adds heavily, recalling Bella's reluctance to tell him the whole story of what happened in Italy — he'd just known she had been withholding the life-threatening details from him, "you didn't get off as lightly as you thought, and they're sending you a message."
"No. Alice would have seen them decide."
"Everyone makes mistakes," says Leah. "Even vampires."
"I will . . . consider it," Edward says slowly, evidently not liking the idea — that Alice could be wrong, or that Leah could be right. "In the meantime, we'll keep track of the situation in Seattle and let you know once a decision about our course of action is made."
"How kind of you," Leah mutters.
Jacob puts his arm around her shoulders, eager to start making their way home. "Well, once your decision is made, you better let Sam know. If these leeches get any closer, you'll have to answer for a lot of kids suddenly phasing." The idea of more kids younger than Collin and Brady running around the Rez has him wrestling his wolf into submission as it scratches at his bones, yowling to be let free. "He might have turned a blind eye to your last breach, but he won't forgive that. None of us will."
Jacob doesn't need to add that there will be a reckoning — one that he will personally lead if he must.
Edward knows. Knows that he has no intentions to be Alpha, but that there are some things he's willing to make an exception for if it ensures his people's safety. Leah's safety.
"As his second-in-command, I imagined you would inform him," Edward says pointedly.
Bella lifts her head, eyes suddenly bright. "What?"
Jacob doesn't give her sudden piqued interest any attention. There's a reason he has not mentioned this to her before, if only because her questions will be relentless. His thoughts about hierarchy can be heard just as loud if he deigned to give them a voice, anyway, and anything that goes unsaid will only be shared with her later on. It's not worth the oxygen, trying to explain himself. Certainly not to a goddamned leech who is holding court at this time of the night. Who knows exactly what wounds are being opened up by mentioning these things.
"Let Sam know," Jacob repeats.
"If you prefer." Edward is cordial, the perfect gentleman. But Bella doesn't see the slight lift of those stone lips, the only private indication the bloodsucker dares give that he believes he has won.
What has been won exactly, Jacob doesn't know; there are a lot of things he still doesn't understand about Cullen, still a lot he doesn't understand about his motives behind his actions in recent weeks: withholding the truth from Bella about the imprint, spiriting her away to Florida, allowing her to step foot on the reservation — to name only a few things.
Jacob holds his stare, trying to figure it out. Waiting to see who will break first and rise to the challenge hanging in the air between them until Leah's voice suddenly slices through the night.
"Are we done here?" she asks, though she doesn't wait for an answer before she's tugging on his fingers and moving her feet. Because whatever he is feeling, she is feeling just as strongly, and she knows that he is only moments away from exploding into fur and teeth and claws on the wrong side of the treaty line.
"We'll be in touch," Edward promises.
"Awesome. Can't wait," she says, her tone sharp and dangerous. Jacob barely hears either of them over the roaring in his head. Barely hears her as she adds, more gently this time, "Come on, Jake, let's go home."
It's only because of how much she means to him that he allows her to push him back to his car — before any irreparable damage can be done.
He's not sure anyone else would have managed it.
It takes a whole half an hour for Jacob to painstakingly pull himself back together, by which time he's falling into bed, utterly drained on all fronts, and he's well on his way into unconsciousness when he vaguely realises he should have followed his own advice and reported to Sam before turning in.
Damn it.
New information about the leeches — of whichever kind: the Italian ones, the baby ones in Seattle, that slippery redhead; and that's not forgetting this other fucking leech who has a fetish for Bella's clothes, regardless of whether they are all somehow connected or not — is exactly the kind of news Sam needs to know. Unfortunately, it is not the kind of news that Jacob is willing to get back out of bed for.
Leah takes longer to settle. She moves slowly around her bedroom, so deep in thought that she's barely uttered a word since they got back into the car, taking her time undressing. They're long past taking turns in the bathroom, although it usually takes effort of the Herculean kind to keep his gaze pointedly averted when she shimmies into her nightwear. Only this time, he's so tired that his eyes are already closed and he only knows her movements by ear.
When she eventually slips underneath the bed covers, it's with a sigh that is far too world-weary for her eighteen years, far too burdened than anyone he loves deserves to be. The sound has him reaching for her before it fully dies away, closing the distance until not even a pocket of air exists between them, if only so that he can remind her she's not alone. Because he feels it, too. The horror of what they've learned tonight . . . The dangers they are facing . . . It's all they can both do to not give their fears an inch of space.
Jacob teeters on the edge of unconsciousness for the longest while, refusing to fully give in to his own exhaustion until the sound of Leah's deep, steady breathing fills his ears and her body relaxes in his arms, but neither comes quickly. She seems to be fighting it as adamantly as he is.
He knows why when she presses her face into the crook of his shoulder, shuddering from whatever terrifying thought that has most recently crossed her mind, and whispers, "What are we going to do?"
He swallows the automatic responses the imprint demands he says to soothe her, because he knows that's not what she's looking for . . . except he doesn't have another answer to give.
"What if I'm right?" she asks then, voice filled with dread. "What if it's all connected, and we're just too blind to see it? What if—"
"Then we'll do what we were born to do," he says, because that part comes easy to him, too. "We'll kill them. All of them."
Despite her warmth, she shivers. "If they come here," she says, "— the ones from Italy . . . You heard Edward. They'll kill you first. They'll kill you for just existing. They'll level the whole reservation. Mom, Seth, Billy. Embry, Quil. People will die. And Charlie, Jake." Her voice finally cracks. "They'll kill him just by virtue of being—"
Jacob rolls onto his back, pulling Leah with him. The unexpected movement stuns her for a quick second, but that's all the advantage he needs.
He pulls her against his chest, his arms holding her in place as tightly as he dares, and thinks he could quite possibly murder Edward fucking Cullen for this. No — he will murder Edward Cullen.
"Nothing is going to happen to Charlie. Or you, or your mom, or Seth. Nobody. We don't even know this has anything to do with them, not for sure."
"But—"
"No, stop. One supernatural crisis at a time, remember?" His voice is light, entirely put on, but he doesn't feel her smile or hear her laugh.
"I don't want to be right," she says, her voice little more than a whisper as he brushes his lips against her head, "I really don't. But this . . . It feels wrong. And we're just supposed to trust the Cullens to make the right decision as if all our lives don't depend on it."
If they even make a decision, Jacob thinks but does not say. He wouldn't put it past the bloodsuckers to pack up and leave right after graduation, taking Bella with them and leaving the Pack to deal with their mess. Again.
"Do you have a better idea?" he asks gently, already knowing her answer without her speaking it aloud.
"No," she says finally, "I don't."
Pushing the point further is futile, if not entirely cruel, and so they lie there in silence, the combined heft of their dread lingering like a dark cloud. Even so, Leah falls asleep quickly after that, quicker than he would have thought possible with all that is haunting her, exhausted to the point that she sleeps atop his chest, still and unmoving for the rest of the night.
Despite how bone-tired he is, sleep doesn't find Jacob until the early hours of the morning, not until the warm glow of the sun spills into her bedroom and the world feels infinitesimally less dark.
When all is said and done, he may not be able to save them all from the marauding bloodsuckers' clutches, and Leah's dismal predictions may very well come true in a firestorm of gristle and gore to rival any of the tribe's horrific legends. Still, he knows that he will endure the atrocities of battle until his very last breath to give Leah the best chance of making it out of their pocket of the universe alive.
As long as he doesn't dwell on what comes next, that terrible purpose is — strangely, or perhaps not so strangely — the only thing which gives him comfort and helps him finally fall asleep.
A/N, 23 December 2021 (Christmas Eve Eve!): If you're suddenly confused by the dramatic change of chapter titles/numbers (here's to you, 'Ummm' and '1tinac' and your eagle eyes), fear not. For various reasons (not all of them sensible) I have compressed this fic into fewer chapters on FFn. It shouldn't be noticeable, and hopefully will be a smoother read to newcomers/re-readers. (Friendly warning that apparently you can't delete/rearrange chapters on AO3 without losing comments. Unless anyone is an AO3 whiz and can show me how, because I've buggered myself right up and now have to navigate different chapter titles when cross-posting. Oops.)