Fair warning, this one gets a little intense. The beginning, up until the time Sam leaves, is also one of the two scenes I've been aching to write since the idea for this little stroll away from the original story popped into my head. I'll tell you more about why once you've finished. Happy reading! -SS
Chapter 7 (Jacob)
"I said I'm coming," I growled at the fist pounding on my door. Whoever was waking me up at this hour better have a good reason. Only the tiniest rays of light were beginning to show on the horizon. Human eyes wouldn't have even been able to tell that night was fading yet.
I flung the door open to see Sam standing on the front ramp.
"What?" It was another growl.
He didn't say a word, waiting for me to step aside. He wasn't going to get to the point until I let him in, so I backed up and made my best showing of ushering him in.
"What?" I said again.
"Sit down." My knees buckled at the command. I grabbed a chair and shoved it behind me as I fell, thankfully landing squarely in it instead of the floor.
I didn't ask again. This time I just stared. I was already mad at him for waking me, mad at him for commanding my actions, and now I was getting mad that he wouldn't speak. Finally, he opened his mouth.
"I have to tell you something. Jacob, these next words are an order." The alpha timbre entered his voice, and every fiber of my being snapped to attention. "You are going to sit here and listen to every word I have to say. You will not leave, you will not phase, you will not act at all. You will stay right here until I allow otherwise. Do you understand?"
My eyes were slits. This was bad. This was very bad. There was only one reason Sam would act like this. But no...it wasn't possible. She'd said after graduation.
Still, I nodded. I had no choice.
Sam at least had the good Grace to look painted as he spoke. "Bella is in transition. She's been bitten."
Heat licked up my spine, making every muscle in my body tremble with the urge to phase.
The chair legs wobbled beneath the weight of my shaking body, carving small divots in the floor. I would kill them. Every last one of them. The doctor too, his help be damned. They would all pay for this.
The heat spread further, turning my vision red. I wanted to phase. I needed to phase. To rip and tear and fight. I was nothing anymore, nothing but a ball of anger, of fury, of rage, of hate. Tremors tore through me, extending my ligaments and tendons, stretching them into the wolf's.
I'd never been so consumed before with the fire, the need to be something stronger. But Sam said I couldn't. The alpha said I couldn't. The shaking got worse. My muscles worked against me, contracting and launching my body out of the chair and onto the ground. Faintly I heard my name. Someone was shouting it from the end of a tunnel.
I needed to phase. I was going to die, to literally rip myself apart from the inside out, if I didn't phase. But he said I couldn't, and betas obey their alphas. Black spots entered my vision now, displacing the haze of red, of anger, of loathing and disgust and hatred. I needed to destroy them. Like they destroyed her. They deserved this.
My back was popping, turning into something somewhere between the man and the wolf, with not enough humanity left to tie me to one and not enough strength gained to tie me to the other. The black dominated the red now. My ears were ringing and my body scorching and my muscles tearing and screams ripping through my throat. I was going to die in this limbo of rage. The black swam in, swallowing the red, and finally the shakes stopped as I lost myself in a sea of emptiness.
I woke up in my bed. The light was above the horizon now, but dark still lingered on the far side of the sky.
"Try to stay calm, Jake. Your body can't take that again." Sam was standing over me, Billy at his side, both looking at me with fatherly concern.
"You have to let me do it, Sam. They took her. They took her and they killed her and they deserve to die!"
I was shaking again, but this time, it wasn't animalistic rage that ripped through me; it was a sob. It was swallowed by a second, a third, fourth and fifth, until I was crying in earnest, letting grief and sadness and pain flow through me. Billy wheeled closer, embracing me as well as he was able as I let Bella's death hit me. She was gone. My best friend and the only girl I'd ever loved. Just gone.
I cried for a long time, weeping like a child in his father's arms until I couldn't anymore.
When that moment arrived, I mumbled a thank you to Billy, then I rolled over, suddenly exhausted and despondent. I wanted to be on my own, to sulk and retreat so far inside myself that I'd never feel again.
Billy patted me on the back and sighed before he wheeled himself out of the room. Sam stayed.
"Jacob." I stayed silent and motionless. Maybe he'd take the hint. "Jacob, I know you don't want to hear this. But you need to know. So please listen to me. I don't want to put you through this twice."
If he was expecting a response, he was going to be disappointed.
He started again. "It was the newborn. Apparently there was a miscommunication and Bella thought the house would be clear and safe, but she was wrong. The newborn attacked, but the big male caught her quickly. It was too late though, the newborn had already bitten. Edward and Carlisle weren't there. They couldn't stop it. The big male and his mate have taken the newborn away. I guess Edward is very angry, and they're afraid he'll kill her if she stays. I don't know where they are."
He recited the story robotically. No inflection, no feeling. He was angry and didn't want me to know it.
"I do know this though." The alpha's timbre returned. "No member of this pack, including you, will attack the Cullens. You will not hunt the Cullens. You will not fight the Cullens. You will not kill the Cullens. Bella made her choice. This is only the consequences of it coming sooner than we thought. We will not go to war over her informed choice."
My only reaction was to retreat further. But still I felt the weight of his words settle over me. I knew I was bound by them the moment they crossed his lips.
"I am so sorry, Jacob," he said before he finally exited the room and left me in peace.
I wanted to spend the rest of my life in bed, not feeling or thinking or even living. Billy was having none of it. He kept coming into my room to ask how I was doing, or if I was hungry, or if there was anything he could do to help. It was maddening, and I only lasted until nightfall before I got out of bed and walked out to the kitchen.
A grilled cheese was sitting on the kitchen table, and I took it with a grunt of thanks. "Sam said you can phase again if you need to." I nodded. I most definitely would need to. "Will you be gone long?"
I scarfed down the sandwich before I answered. "Just need some time to clear my head, Dad."
"Alright. Just come home soon."
I didn't stick around for more conversation. Billy wheeled himself further into the house, thankfully allowing me to take off my clothes and tie them to my ankle before I stepped outside to phase. The transition was quick and smooth, just as I'd gotten used to it being.
I allowed my legs to stretch out beneath me, feeling the raw strength in my hamstrings, my glutes, my back and each my front legs. Sam said I couldn't kill the Cullens. I wasn't going to challenge that. I'd learned today that his commands would win over my will, conscious or subconscious. But he'd left me a loophole. The newborn wasn't a Cullen. I could hunt the newborn. And if the big one and Blondie got in the way of that, Sam wouldn't tell me I was wrong to defend myself.
I let out a low rumbling growl as I ran to the Cullen house. I needed to catch her scent, and I needed to be quick about it just in case Sam phased and tried to stop me. So far, there were no other voices with me. I prayed Sam had told them not to phase to give me some peace and pushed myself to run harder and faster. I was close. Their cloying smell blew in the wind, but I couldn't make out individual scents yet.
It didn't take long before I found them, though. Blondie and the big male were familiar. A third scent joined them, though, and it was new. So this was her, the newborn who'd killed Bella. She smelled rotten, just like the rest of them. Her particular brand of rot reminded me of peaches sitting too long in the sun and wine aged longer than it was intended to be. It was not an attractive smell, but it was one I could follow.
I didn't hesitate. The scent led east first, crossing the line into Idaho before I lost it in the Coeur d'Alene Lake. I had to circle the lake twice before I found the scent again on the northern bank. It repeated this pattern, leading me north before I had to trace it out of the water and follow it back west, then South, then East again before backtracking to the west. They were trying to confuse the scent.
I remembered then what Sam had said about Edward being angry. I wouldn't have thought it possible only a few days ago, but after the night in the tent, I knew it was. He was a demon, but he was a demon who loved Bella completely, and he didn't want this for her. For himself maybe, but not for her. I was surprised, though, that these three felt so threatened by Edward that they would work so hard to hide from him.
I was also surprised by how piss poor of a job they were doing. Their scents were easy to track, and my speed allowed me to find it quickly when I lost it. I'd been running back west for a while now with no changes in direction. Near Mount Rainier, the trail quickly started to take northern turn. They were headed straight for Seattle, and I couldn't imagine why they'd take a newborn into the city if the goal was to remain inconspicuous.
The trail was fresh too. It felt like it singed my nose each time I inhaled. I pushed myself faster, trying to gain as much on them as I could. I wanted that newborn.
Finally, I had to phase. The trail was literally on the city sidewalks in Bellevue. It was also painfully recent. In this state with constant rain, scents faded quickly. This one was brand new. I was silently thankful I'd been wearing athletic shorts this morning. The shorts paired with my hoodie wouldn't attract too much attention. I just hoped no one looked down at my bare feet.
The scent was no longer a trail, it was a cloud that surrounded me. They were still here! I looked around me as fast as I could. To my right were nothing but trees, to my left a nice yellow house. The sidewalk stretch on in front of me, but they were here, I knew they were. I opened my nostrils wider, trying to identify where the scent was strongest. This was so much easier as a wolf, and I had to try hard to keep myself from phasing in the backyard of the yellow house. I couldn't catch the scent, but I finally caught my break, a rustle in the trees, too large to be a squirrel or a bird and too high to be an animal on the ground brushing up against the trunk.
I climbed the tree in question in less than a minute, but the bloodsuckers were gone. I tried to get higher, to get a feel for what direction they were moving in, but by the time I broke through the treetops, there was no longer any movement. I couldn't see them, or hear them, and from this high up, I could barely even smell them.
I climbed back down, hoping to pick the scent back up on the ground, but I stopped about halfway down the tree. What had they been doing up here? Had they been about to let the newborn attack the people in this house? Heat flared up my spine, forcing me to take deep breaths to maintain control.
When I opened my eyes, a beautiful girl was peering back at me from the window. Her eyes weren't focused on me directly. I was deep enough in the trees that she couldn't see me. But I could see her, and nothing but. Suddenly, my world's focus shifted. All the strands that made me who I was lifted from the Earth and tied themselves to her. Her dark, round eyes bound me. Her soft face centered me. The sad smile toying around the edges of her lips captured me and wouldn't let me go. I sat down on the branch, never taking my eyes off of her, and thought of nothing more than how I could meet this girl.
Because I knew I couldn't live without her. The bloodsuckers, Bella, my own burning rage…it was all forgotten as I sat and watched my entire life change in an instant.
And there you have it! I promised to explain why the scene where Jacob finds out about Bella has been in my mind, and so here it is: Jacob, truly, is good. He is full of anger and angst and all kinds of flaws, but he is still so good and so intensely loyal and loving. That is often forgotten in the entanglements of the greater story, and I think this scene highlights that. Many of you are probably wondering, if the need to phase and attack the Cullens was literally ripping him apart, why didn't he just defy Sam? Why didn't he take his place as alpha, like he does in Breaking Dawn?
The answer is threefold. First, Jacob gained a respect for the Cullens in the events surrounding the battle. Jacob watched a clan of his enemies set aside their own distaste in order to protect the girl that Jacob loves (more on that momentarily). He began to see hints of selflessness and family and humanity in them. He may not yet be willing to admit it, but I'll always believe that those seeds were sewn in the battle clearing. He also saw a bit of Edward, and again a bit of the man that lives within the monster. Say what you want about Jacob, but he softened and matured ever so slightly in that tent. And finally on this point, Carlisle healed him. His enemy picked him up and put him back together. I'll let that point speak for itself, as I think it did for Jacob.
The second reason Jake didn't take his place as alpha in this scene is because he loves Bella. Jacob is reckless and impulsive, and he often hurts Bella in his blind reactiveness. But here, he cannot deny that to kill any of the Cullens (yes, even our queen Rosalie), would hurt Bella. And Jacob does not ever do that intentionally. Not even now.
And finally, in Breaking Dawn Jacob's defiance of Sam was driven by his need to protect Bella. Here, it would've been driven by her need to avenge her. I personally really like to think that difference matters most of all.-SS