[Jess Arc]

"The Vampire and the Wolf"

"We met, it seems, such a short time ago
You looked at me, needing me so
Yet from your sadness
Our happiness grew."

– The Fox and the Hound

Chapter 7

My eyes took in the ominous sky above me as I hit the ground with a large thud. Grey clouds were beginning to take siege in the upper atmosphere.

I didn't understand what Jake was talking about. Mom, dad and Daniel? My mom and dad were dead. Who was Daniel? Who were the people he was mentioning?

I wanted to accuse Jake of trying to trick me. Inform him I saw through his bull crap and knew he was my enemy after all, only trying to trick me.

But after all the time we spent together, I felt like that was impossible. He wouldn't do that. He was right. We were not enemies. I had even dared to call us best friends as of late. He knew all of me. Including the me I had to hide from my family

I reflected on Jake's careful enunciation of the name Daniel. I wanted it to stir up something. Dust off memories in the far reaches of my mind.

They all sounded like important people. I just didn't remember them though.

"Jessica, open your eyes," Jake sneered. His unsympathetic command rubbed me the wrong way, but I obliged anyways.

I found myself staring at a picture when my eyes snapped open. A picture of Jake and myself. My skin had more color to it. A peachy color versus the luminescent pasty white skin I rocked now as a vampire. Jake's massive arm was wrapped around my shoulders. I was wearing a black graduation gown and cap. My hair was shorter, just stopping above my chest. It looked unruly and wild. Opposite of my polished hair style now that came with the vampire beautification process. My smile stretched across my face and my eyes were...a vivid blue. Unlike the gold eyes I would gaze at in the mirror at home. I looked happy. And Jake looked happy too with a white button up and black slacks. We looked like friends. Real friends. He hadn't been lying to me.

"Do you remember?" Jake asked. His voice reverberated between rage and frustration. I shook my head. The image looked real. A captured moment in time that triggered nothing for me. I felt a sense of unease slither inside of me while looking upon it.

"I...uh..." I was at a loss for words. I didn't understand who Jake was to me before becoming a vampire.

Before I could process the first image, another was shoved in my face. I was in it again, with that graduation gown on, pinned between three strangers this time. An older man and woman, and a young boy.

I squinted and outlined their facial features with my eyes, trying to locate them somewhere in my memories. I wanted to remember them. I looked just as happy with them as I had in the previous picture I saw before with Jake.

"Jake, where the hell did you get these?" My question was an attempt to stall Jake's rash behavior of bullying me into remembering.

Jake's dirt covered fingers directed me to the hole in the near distance. Next to the disturbed soil and grass was an ajar cigar box. I strolled on over to it and became disappointed when no more pictures were contained within the box.

"You buried this here?"

"After I found you, I went back to retrieve them."

"From where?"

"Somewhere else."

"Where, Jake? Another hole in the ground?" I knew his secret he was avoiding talking about. "How long have you been searching in these woods for me?" I asked with an accusing tone.

"Months. Maybe a year? But not always in Canada. I went a lot of places to search for you, Jessica." His voice was too light and casual for such an important topic. The one he desired to have with me since our first meeting.

"Why?"

"I spent three years trying to find you. THREE YEARS. They told me to give up. I probably should have. But something told me you wouldn't give up on me, so I didn't want to give up on you. The last year I went rogue and left the pack to find you. I was at the point where I just wanted to find a damn Cullen to explain what the hell happened." Jake lowered his hands to his waist and began to wipe his hands off from the dirt they were caked in.

"Finding you was almost worst because you didn't even remember me, Jessica. Don't you get it? You forgot everything- no, you forgot everyone that mattered to you. You forgot us and you don't even care. You're complacent in this bullshit narrative they have set up for you."

His words seeped through the surface of my impenetrable skin.

Staying away from you would never be by choice, unless that is what you wanted.

I gripped my chest. When had I said that? Who had I said that to?

Jake was walking away from me. He was giving up. The sun broke through the clouds and began to shine a single beam of light on his path away from me.

Something was clicking into place.

"Jess, why do you stare at the sun so often?"

"It reminds me of something or someone"

Maybe in this moment he is my sun after all.

As long as the sun rises and sets, I will keep living each day until my last breath.

"We will be in touch soon, bye Jake."

He was my sun.

"JACOB!" I called after him in a shrill, panicky voice.

Jacob stopped but didn't turn around.

"How can you stand being around me when I am all pale and cold and dead?" Jacob spun around and his eyes brimmed with excitement.

"Someone once told me it's what is on the inside that counts."

"She sounds smart," I choked out before Jacob was standing right in front of me.

His hands gripped my cheeks and he lowered his face to meet my own. "Are you...do you remember?" Jacob's words were cautious, and I understood why.

"Pieces. Fragments are hitting me, Jacob. What...what happened? Why am I a vampire? I was supposed to die." Jacob lowered his hands from my face and balled his hands into fists at his side.

"Die? What are you talking about, Jessica?"

Piece by piece the illusion was being chipped away. My faith in my family crumbled away with my grip on reality.

"The Volturi were coming. I was on borrowed time, and I was going to be executed by them since I knew about vampires. I had accepted that was my fate, but I am this now." The ramifications of this realization were finally sinking in.

My body began to writhe in pain as my brain began to rewire itself. Making connections I had long forgotten even existed in me.

An agonizing scream fled my lips as the memories resurfaced in me.

It was stolen from me. My time remaining with my friends and family. Going to heaven or an afterlife. My soul is now chained to this immortal body and the earth until the end of time.

Panic ricocheted through me. I began to turn around in a frenzy looking for an escape from the hell I found myself exposed in.

"Jessica!" Jake pleaded to me over and over, failing to calm me down.

"WHY THE HELL AM I A VAMPIRE? Why?! I chose my fate!" Fury snapped my soul in half as I became engulfed in rage, confusion and regret.

I took off speeding like a f**king demon out of hell to the first thing that popped into my mind

Forks, Washington.

Home.

AN: Okay, a month later but…this chapter was hard to figure out because I kept going back and forth on how her memories would come back. SO, there ya go. It is short and a cliffy too *_* Til next time! I think we got 2 or 3 more chapters to go in this short story. gettin there! - Lalaland972

LalaLand972's response to reviews:

WPear: It has finally kicked off! The moment you have been waiting for has arrived :D Yay! Hope you liked it! Thanks for the lovely review!

SuzyQBeats: Thanks for reminding me I needed to get back to this and figure it out! Sometimes you need a push when you're stuck! Hope you enjoyed!