Chapter 16: Her Disobedience
My blue race car sped across the finish line of our 20th lap at the same time Jake's red one did. Jake dropped his controller onto the ground and stood up with his hands fisted in the air above him. He looked down at me with a broad grin spread across his face. "Damn, you're good, but not good enough to beat me!" He laughed.
I stood up quickly, abandoning my controller on the floor. I placed my hands on my hips and frowned up at him. His grin turned into a smirk as he waited for me to say something. "You." I poked him in the chest. "Did." Another poke. "NOT" Another poke, harder this time. "Win." One final poke brought me flush against him, and my head tilted all the way back as I glared into his eyes which shone.
Jake raised his eyebrows. "Oh?"
"No!" I waggled my finger in his face. "Look!" I pointed back at the screen where a replay of the end of the race was occurring. "We crossed at the same time."
"Sure, sure." He shrugged, eliciting an eye roll from me.
Jake's smirk grew large enough to show teeth. I couldn't help but notice that his canines were more pointed than most, alluding to the beast that was just under his skin. I had the sudden desire to see his inner wolf let out. The last time I had seen the russet creature was before he was deployed. I could remember the way the red in his fur came out when the few streaks of sun caught it through the trees of the forest, and the way he had moved in his second skin, his body so at ease but held such power. I remembered the course, thick fur that he would rub against me or that I would bury my hands into. It had always felt soft to me, but not to others. I remembered the gleaming, pointed teeth that shined every time he would smile in his wolf form. I remembered running my fingers along them once, and he opened his jaw to jokingly close them around my fingers because they played too close to something dangerous…
A sudden pressure enclosed itself around my index finger, and I yelped. My vision focused to find Jake staring down at me, his teeth were closed around my finger. I realized that I must've subconsciously reached up and ran my fingers across his teeth. His human teeth.
I pulled my finger towards me gently, and Jake let go. I lowered my hand slowly, but maintained his gaze which was smoldering might I add. We continued to look into each other's eyes with such intensity that I could feel heat pass between us, and I'm not talking about physical heat. I hadn't realized how close we were moving towards each other until my phone began to ring. He had leaned down and I had stretched up to the point where our breath mingled.
I stepped away, turning my head down and to the side before moving to grab my phone from where it lay on the floor next to our controllers. I heard Jake sigh behind me. It sounded sad and made my chest ache for something that was ancient history: an easy, uncomplicated relationship with Jake.
I answered my phone without looking at it and turned to face Jake. "Hello?"
"Ren!" Seth's chipper voice on the other end brought a smile to my face, and I giggled. I thought I heard a growl rumble out of Jake, but when I looked over at him, he wasn't looking at me but out the window.
I rolled my eyes in frustration at the secrets that I knew hung between us, and then let it go. "Seth! Hey! What's up?!" I could hear background noise that told me he was in a car, but I couldn't discern anything else.
"Where are you, gorgeous?!" Another grunt from Jake's direction. I ignored it. "Quil and I went to your dorm to pick you and Claire up, but Claire said that she woke up and you weren't here. Everything okay?"
I allowed myself a small smile for sweet Seth. "Yeah. Everything's good. Actually, things are looking up." I was still watching Jake for any reactions, and he looked up at that. He bit his lip as he tried to figure out what I meant. It was sexier than I wanted to admit. "Why were you guys going to pick us up?"
"Well, it's sunny out for once in the Push, and we want to go cliff diving. You want to join?"
"Hell, yes!" Cliff diving was one of my favorite things to do after Jake left. I loved the feeling of flying, if only for a few minutes, before being surrounded by the salty tang of the ocean. The next best thing was swimming around for a while after getting done with feeling my heart drop to my stomach.
"Sweet! Where are you? We'll come pick you up!"
I brought my eyes up from where they had been analyzing Jake's torso to look at his face. His eyes were narrowed in my direction, and he was pouting. I gave him an exasperated look and said, "I'm in La Push actually. I'll meet you there. What's your ETA?"
"Half hour. Why are you there?" Seth sounded completely confused.
Instead of answering him seriously, I decided to mess with him. "Well," I purred. "I'm waiting for you…in your bed…wearing absolutely nothing… too bad you're with Quil and Claire, or we could have some fun…"
Seth burst into laughter on the other end of the line. "I'm not opposed to you jumping without clothes on."
"Ha. Ha. You wish." Seth laughed again and hung up.
While talking to Seth, I had paced out into the hallway. I returned to Jake's bedroom to find the mirror that hung above Jake's dresser shattered from a single point. A couple of shards had fallen onto the dresser, and Jake stood in front of dresser, his hands braced on the edge of it. Blood dripped off of Jake's right knuckles and onto the dresser. There was enough of it that it spilled down over the edge. It looked more vicious than I knew it was, but it didn't stop me from freaking out any less.
"Jake!" I rushed over and picked up his cut hand. He tried to pull it away, but I held on. "What the hell were you doing? Did you have a… flashback or something?"
"No." His tone was harsh, and unwelcoming.
I looked up at him, but didn't say anything. I inspected his hand which was healing, thanks to his wolf half. I raised his hand up to my mouth and sucked off the blood from his knuckles in order to see the wounds more clearly. I heard Jake take in a sharp breath.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you." I looked over his knuckles again. The wounds were now just light pink lines. "You're going to live. You wanna tell me why you punched the mirror?" Jake looked up at me, and I saw pain in his eyes. I softened my facial features. "Jake?" He shook his head.
And changed the subject.
"We can go to the cliffs to hang out, but you're not diving." He said it the way I imagined my over-protective Dad would have said it.
"Exsqueeze me, bitch?" I gave him a slightly amused look, but inside I wanted to put Jake's head through the mirror for acting like this.
Jake looked exasperated. "No. Don't be cute, Ness. It's too dangerous. I don't want you to get hurt." He turned away from me. "And I don't want the guys to see you in wet clothes." The last part was said below a whisper. It was low enough that I wasn't sure he had said it.
I walked over to Jake and yanked him around to face me. "Newsflash: I'm not as breakable as you think, Jake."
"You never used to cliff dive when I asked you not to."
I took a deep breath. "Yeah, but after you left, I decided to try it because it looked like fun. The guys didn't want me to, probably because of you, but I did it anyway, and guess what? I'm still here. I'll be okay."
"No. I won't let you." Jake looked as if he was about to go wolf any second. He was even beginning to tremble.
"Fine. Fine." I held up my hands in surrender. "I won't dive, but we're still going."
Almost instantly Jake's body relaxed as if the idea of my being safe instantly calmed both him and the wolf. "Thank you."
"Let's go." As we headed out to walk to the cliff, I began to wonder how pissed Jake was going to be at me for jumping, regardless of my promise.
Seth, Quil, and Claire finally joined Jake, the pack and me after what seemed like forever. I ran up and gave Seth a big hug because we hadn't parted on the best terms yesterday. He easily caught me and swung me around as we laughed. I whispered in his ear, "I'm sorry about yesterday."
"It's okay, babe." Seth chuckled. "You were having a rough day."
"It's no excuse." I grumbled.
Seth replied, "You said it, not me," and laughed.
We were still holding on tight to each other when Jake suddenly roared in fury. Seth gently set me down and stepped away from Jake stood, now in wolf form. He immediately became submissive and bowed his head and shoulders with his eyes downcast. Jake took a few steps towards him and jerked his head in the direction of the tree line. Seth quickly scampered away, and the tension hung around me, the rest of the pack, and the imprints as we stood in the clearing next to the cliff.
Just before Jake disappeared I called his name, and he shifted back to human form. "Stay here." His voice was icy cold, and I took a step away from him. I expected Jake's face to soften, but was shocked when it didn't. He looked at Quil and Embry. Claire was locked protectively in Quil's arms as they watched Jake with caution. "Watch her." He jerked his head in my direction. Quil and Embry's eyes slid to me and didn't move. Jake hadn't just told them to watch me. He had ordered them to watch me. Jake never liked to pull rank on the rest of the pack, so whatever was going on, it wasn't good.
As I replayed the scene over and over in my head, I couldn't help but think that Seth had done nothing wrong, and Jake was just overreacting. I began to become furious at Jake. I didn't understand why he couldn't just talk to me. I thought we had made progress last night, but then he goes and acts like a jealous boyfriend. I mean I know Seth and I had gotten closer after Jake left, but we weren't that close. Motherfucker. I was going to kill Jake.
At that moment, every person in the wolf pack and myself cringed as we distantly heard Jake roar at Seth. The humans in the group couldn't hear it because they didn't have the supernatural hearing the rest of us did. "What the fuck do you think you were doing, Seth?! She's mine!"
If I was a wolf, my hair would have bristled at what he said. Damn him. I'm not property, and I'm no one's. Jake and I are friends. Seth and I are friends.
"Jake, I would never- never- do that to you. We're just friends. When you left, she needed someone to be there for her, and we were already friends. I just stepped up and was there for her"
"I wish you guys would stop bringing that up!" Jake growled.
Before he could say anything else, I cupped my hands around my mouth and in a sing-song voice I yelled, "Jaaake! Remember what I promised I wouldn't do?" Silence from the forest. The imprints looked perplexed because they had missed Jake and Seth's conversation. Quil let go of Claire, and Embry and him looked at each other. They were preparing to stop me, I knew.
I smiled at them wickedly and turned back to the forest. "Well, I've decided that I'm going to do it anyway!" Quil and Embry tensed but didn't move when they realized I was waiting. I took off towards the cliff when I heard the wolf crash through the forest in my direction, and thanks to my father's genetics, Quil and Embry couldn't catch me. I flew off the edge of the cliff and began to plummet to the black, cold depths of the ocean below.
