Into the Woods
By: Everleigh Allen
Chapter 13
A/N: Some of this chapter is carried from the scene where Jake was in Bella's room and wouldn't leave. It's Edward's take on it when Bella borrows his gift/ memories of the event. You can skim, if you'd like, of course! A bit of lemon, too.
"Jake was there!"
"Yes."
Bella lay on the blanket that Edward put over the grass. He quickly followed, side by side with only their hands touching. Silently, they staring into each other's eyes, as pictures started to filter from Edward's mind and through Bella's.
Jake seething mad that Edward was watching Bella.
Jake considered Bella his.
"He was surprised and not pleased to see me there, that night." Edward chuckled.
"I remember that night. It was earlier, but the first night that I was there he followed me upstairs into my room and he wouldn't leave. He kept looking out the window, temper flaring."
"Bella, he was looking at me." Edward whispered. "He was running interference while trying to claim territory."
Then as if it was a movie, the scene played over for her, except she was now watching Jake and herself run through the events from Edward's point of view, through her window. The voices were clear.
"Not me, I hope," Bella laughed uncomfortably. "I am a bit older than you."
"I like older women," Jake winked. His hand reaching to touch her cheek but Bella moved away. Jake shrugged and sat down at the desk.
Jake looked out the window. He glared at Edward who was sitting in a tree about 20 feet away. Jake's eyes narrowed before he said, "There are people you need to stay away from."
"You going to tell me who I can be friends with now?" Bella's voice was angry, though Edward could no longer see her.
"There's things you should know, but that I can't say."
"Whatever that means." Bella muttered. "Look, I'm an excellent judge of character-"
Jake watched Edward closely, his lip curling minutely. "But you don't know what I know."
"What do you know then?" Bella challenged.
"I can't say… just, the Cullen family isn't on the list of acceptable friends."
"The Cullen's? Why is that?"
"Their family and ours don't, uh, mix."
"What? You need to mix?" Bella scoffed, "Like breeding capabilities or something?"
Jake's thoughts filled Bella's mind.
"What's the matter, Edward? Afraid if given the choice she would choose you? Not if I imprint her first!"
Jake's creepy cackle filled the room.
Edward jumped out of the tree and walked across the lawn, and bound up into the tree right outside Bella's window. "You will not," Edward sneered. "I will not allow it!"
"We definitely don't have breeding capabilities! We imprint on our mates, Bella, where they just suck the life out of people." He scoffed, shaking his head. Then he whispered, "Just you watch me, Edward."
"What did you just say?"
There was a noise of something set down.
"What? When?"
"You said imprint."
"I was rambling. It's nothing." He scoffed, shrugging.
"She's my mate!" Edward stood straight on the branch.
Jake's eyes were wild, glaring out the dark window at Edward.
"Is something out there or are you needing medication?" Bella's voice tapered off with worry.
"What? No." Jake turned away from the window. "I don't take medication."
"You're a bit unstable naturally?"
Edward glared at the man parallel to him, only glass separating them. "She sees you for what you are, Jake, an animal. I bet you smell horrible to her. Why would that be, hmm? Because you know she's mine. She was always meant to be mine and she will always be mine and there's nothing you can do about it."
"No!"
"No. Okay." Bella said, "So, you're making glaring faces at your reflection for fun, then?"
"No!" He scoffed, turning away.
"Then what were you glaring at!? Is there something outside?" Bella growled.
Jake was twitching, fists balled. "Stay away from her," he said in his head.
"Jake, stop. Just walk away from her while you still can, because I will go in there if I need to."
"Is there anything else, Jake, because I'd like to eat my food in peace-"
Jake instantly turned on Bella. "Look, you don't understand, Bella!" He came at her but stopped, when he saw her sudden fear. She held hands up to defend herself.
When he stopped and she turned angry.
"No, you look, Jake- I am not going to pretend much longer that I care on what you have to say about everything and anyone. I am old enough to make my own decisions on people. And frankly, you are totally freaking me out! You need to go back downstairs."
Jake stood, shoulders shaking, red faced, and fuming a little before he calmed, Jake got up from his perch on her desk and moved in front of the window.
"We have a treaty, have you forgotten, Edward?" Jake sneered, whispering silently.
"Why are you here, Jake?"
He turned his face from the window and back to Bella. "What?"
"Why are you really here, Jake? And in my room?"
"What?"
"You heard me, why are you in here when all your friends are down stairs?"
"See, Jake? She's on to you, that clever girl. She knows as well as I do what you're trying to do here."
"I was getting to know you, is all?" He flushed but his smile betrayed him. He was livid.
"That is definitely not what you are doing here. If that's what you were doing you would it would be a volley not one sided."
"Bella," Jake, put his hands on her shoulders, stilling her from moving away from him. "We were childhood friends I was merely trying to tell you about myself, baby. We'll get to you."
"First, I am not your baby. Second, let go of me, now."
Edward could hear her panic, as her heart raced. Fear laced her features when his grasp only tightened on her.
"Stop. Just listen to me."
"I have been! Let go, Jake," she tried to pull away from him.
His face showed his irritation before he smiled caustically then his body started to shudder. Anger rolled off him in waves. Muscles twitched and curled under his tan skin.
"You're losing control, Jake. Remember what happened to Sam's wife." Edward said carefully.
"That was an accident!" Jake screamed in his head.
"I'll scream!" Bella said with fear, "Charlie will be pissed to see you missing from the party and up here in his daughter's room manhandling her!"
"I know you don't want to hurt her, Jake, but if you do, I will rip you apart child." Edward seethed. He was in crouching position and ready to go through the glass.
Jake stared at Bella. Hearing Edward's chastising words made him seem to gain some control. He even took a step back, but not enough to let her go. His grip only tightened. Bella moved to get away, but it was in vain.
"Sorry," Jake laughed, not releasing her.
"Let go of her, Jake!"
"I don't know what came over me." He smiled gave her an idle smile but Bella looked ill.
He ran a thick finger down her cheek. "Besides, I think you're wrong, Bella, Charlie would encourage us to be together. Anytime it will happen for us."
Bella recoiled away.
Jake whispered the Quileute imprinting chant.
Edward growled and bounded forward through the trees, but was thwarted by Emmett's huge body. Emmett tackled him to the ground as Edward tried to fight him off. But Emmett held him tight, not letting go. Alice walked forward.
"Really brother?" She sighed, bored. "You know he was just trying to piss you off. If you go in there all crazy like, you will ruin everything! Do you want her afraid of you?"
"No."
"Then calm yourself. Let's see how this all plays out. If it's goes awry we shall intervene."
Edward nodded as Emmett loosened his grip. Edward ran his hand through his hair as his eyes, large and soulful looked up at the window with worry.
"It should have worked," Jake thought as he watched Bella. It was as if he was waiting for her to suddenly fall in love for him, but there was nothing in her eyes but anger and fear. "Hmm, maybe I need to seal the deal with a kiss?" Jake wondered, lost in his thoughts.
Seconds went by as he watched her body turn away from him.
"Let go and leave." Bella demanded in a low, cold voice from within the room. The vampires outside stilled, as if they were lawn statues.
"I am not going anywhere. I need to see if it worked. Look," Jake sighed, "you may as well know; we are to be mates, I just know it. You just need to be more open, I think. I don't know why it isn't working. Maybe we need to kiss?" Jake started mumbling.
Edward watched in horror as Jake leaning forward while pulling a fighting Bella forward.
"Don't you dare!" Bella yelled, turning her head away from him.
Edward could see her face, all pinched up.
Edward growled, his body bounding forward again, only to be blocked again from Emmett and calming vibes emoting from Jasper.
"Alice is on it, dude." Emmett said, pointing toward the front door.
Then the doorbell rang.
…
"So that's how all of that went down, huh?"
"Yeah, pretty much," Edward sighed. "Maybe in an alternate universe I would have acted completely different. Maybe I would've waited and met you in school. Perhaps we'd sit next to each other, dancing around each other before I got the nerve to ask you for a date, or I could have stalked you a bit, first, waiting for a sign while you dreamed of me at night."
"You did do the stalking and watching me sleep thing."
"I regret nothing."
"Did it make your journals, Edward?"
If vampires could blush, Edward would have.
Bella snickered.
"Those same stalker-ish qualities were also at work when you were outside my room when Jake was in my personal space."
Edward scoffed. "I helped in aggravating him even more but I couldn't leave you defenseless."
"Which made him not himself."
"He was himself, just… desperate?"
"What do you mean?"
"I don't think he really wants you, per say. I think he likes the idea of being with you. I also think he sees it as a competition that he wants to win. You are his prize."
"Some prize." She laughed, shaking her head.
"If not a prize, you're definitely a gift, Bella."
"Edward, he sees you as an enemy. Maybe he thought trying to imprint on me would protect me from you."
"Perhaps," Edward lay there contemplating her statement, but he didn't like it. If Jake believed in imprinted mates for their tribe, then it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to believe vampires had one. He didn't understand why Jake was so hell bent on imprinting Bella.
There had to be something he was missing.
Bella wrapped the blanket around her, suddenly feeling a remaining wintery chill pass over them in the soft breeze. "So you were going to come in crashing through my window to save me, huh Edward?" Bella had released Edward s hand and both her hand lay over her chest. Her mind was spinning with the events he saw from his perspective.
He had excellent self-control when it came to Jake, if she did say so herself.
"Well, he was trying to steal a kiss. What was I supposed to do?" He tried to make light of the situation, but Bella was one to him. She laid there with a frown on the grass as little puffs of white clouds floated above them; the sun was blocked by the tall trees.
"Actually, I'm glad someone was there. He kind of scared me." She whispered, moving her hand to see the faint bruising that lined her wrists.
Edward quickly took her wrists into his hand and held them, he had the urge to lick the bruises but he was sure Bella wouldn't appreciate it.
"Well, I wasn't about to leave you with alone with him and a house full of wolves." It still irritated him just thinking about it. "He's an adolescent werewolf and I am a 100 year old vampire. I'd like to think I've had a lot of maturing to do during those years, where he's had months to adapt."
"Yet you're only seventeen."
"I may be a seventeen year old in body, but you cannot live as long as me and not evolve mentally. However evolved I could be, I still saw red when my mate was being manhandled by a child werewolf." Edward smirked at his jab on Jake.
Bella turned her head toward him to look at him. "But I'm so much younger than you mentally, even though my mother says I am older than her- in soul and mind." She scoffed, but she was internally worried about where they would go in their relationship. She was inexperienced when it came to love and lust, but he's seen it time and time again, however inexperienced he said he was.
"Technically, you're older than me," he smiled, easing some of her fears but he could tell she was getting herself worked up. He propped himself up on his side and held his head with his hand on his elbow. Very carefully he touched her face with the back of his finger. When she didn't smile he said, "We'll learn as we go, Bella. We have all the time in the world. But first we have to get through school together."
That did it. Bella snorted a laugh. She had completely forgotten about starting school.
"You're going to school with me? That's hilarious."
"Yes. It will be great fun, I imagine."
"Why is that?"
"Well, for starters, Alice, Jasper, Rosalie, Emmett, and I all attended Forks High for a bit last year at the other students was quite enamored with the only single Cullen. "I'm sure college would be the same."
Bella's eyes widened at his words and what they meant.
"Tell me, Edward ,"
"Oh, I imagine once they find out we're together, they will be spitting nails."
"We're together?"
Edward leaned in to kiss her. She moved to close the distance and when his lips touched her lips they tingled with electricity and excitement.
He pushed forward, deepening the kiss and she allowed it.
In a moment he was over top her, his body propped over hers as he cupped her face and neck with his palm, feeling her heart beat quicken.
"So what's going to happen when school starts?" Bella asked, curious.
"Well, that's a bit away; we still have the summer to get through." He teased, pulling at a lock of her hair. "But I imagine extreme, irrational jealousy."
"Sounds like fun."
"I think it could be. Alice sees that it will be… for us."
"What do you mean?"
A small smile played on his lips. "I don't want to give it all away, but she said that we go there as if we don't know each other."
Bella's eyes lit up. "That could be fun. Make them befriend me, then make them jealous."
"I am sure the girls won't be the only jealous ones."
"Whatever." She said, but was dancing inside. "So, in the meantime are you going to date me?"
"I'd like to." He smiled shyly.
"Well, you need to ask me out, then?"
"Is that how it works?" He said in a low, sexy voice. He was seriously good at seduction.
She was a goner.
"Mm, hmm." She smiled, biting her lip.
"Well, then I may just need to think about how I would ask you on this date."
She may or may not have been squealing inside, but outside she was playing it cool.
"And I look forward to the asking."