So... chapter 20. yeah. yah? YAHHH TRICK YAHHH! haha... sorry.
Cara:
By the time we reluctantly climbed our back up the cliff, the sun was just beginning to go down. The waves down below weren't as rough and crashing. Jake leant me a hand whenever my arms couldn't quite reach a handhold.
"I didn't realize how short you are" Jake chuckled and shook his head sadly.
"I prefer height challenged?" 5'3 isn't exactly Munchkinland but compared to Jacob's towering 6 something we were definitely an odd couple.
Hand in hand, we walked through the woods as the light slowly gave way to night. The huge weight that had been on my shoulders was temporarily lifted and I was free to just enjoy the time I spent with my imprint. We talked about things from the original batman being better than deluxe batman to the future and what we wanted out of life.
"I dunno… last year I just wanted to live life the way I wanted to and be happy, I guess. Now, I want to live to make you happy. Looks like you're stuck with me forever" For that, Jake got a kiss filled with all the love and passion I could muster- he also got a sore neck from bending down for so long.
I could finally see the dim lights of my house, twinkling through the windows like fireflies. The forest seemed oddly still and quiet which is never a good sign. Take it from past experience, when the animals disappear, so should you.
Jacob didn't seem to notice or be bothered by it but I knew him well him enough to see the alert look in his eyes. They flickered from tree to tree, never fully resting on one thing. When the house was finally splayed out in front of us, my stomach dropped to my feet.
"Dad" I whispered. The blood started pumping in my veins and it whooshed in my ears. I dropped Jake's hand and ran to the back door, swinging it open as the adrenaline started to really take over.
The kitchen looked like it had barely survived a hurricane. Chairs tipped over, dishes thrown around and shattered. The microwave had been knocked to the floor, the glass door cracked. Those hideous curtains my dad had liked so much were torn and tattered as if a bear had raked its claws down the length of them.
I barely managed to swallow the lump in my throat as Jake came in behind me. I heard his intake of breathe and the heavy sigh. He knew what I was trying to deny.
Running through the house I could see the places where he had been, the impossible strength he had used against my human father. The television thrown across the room, the sofa twisted around and jammed in the corner. I couldn't smell anything out of the ordinary- like blood- but I could smell the faint traces of the fear my dad had felt.
Steeling myself, I forced my legs to carry me up the stairs. My door was flung open, clothes spilling out of drawers thrown onto the floor, as if he had been searching for something. The shower curtain in the bathroom had been ripped down. And finally, his room.
Jacob had stayed behind me the entire time, cataloguing damage done, ready to leap into action if needed. His hand had been hesitantly stretched out so he could catch me if I fainted.
I collapsed onto my father's bed- which had basically been turned inside out- and did the one thing I hadn't done since I was seven.
I cried.
Jake:
I held her for what seemed like hours, gently rocking back and forth, whispering stupid words that I knew wouldn't change a thing. At first, I'd been nervous, not sure if I was doing the right thing because Cara never cried. Not a single tear. And there she was, sobbing into my chest.
It was all my fault. Not directly, obviously, but if I had just stayed away from her, stayed in my depressed little bubble of self-pity she never would have been sucked into this whole mess with vampires. Was I finally beginning to understand Edward's point of view?
Curled up on my beat up old loveseat, she had never looked so… lost and angry. Is it possible to be both at the same time? The Pack talked in low murmurs, trying not to use words that would make her burst into more tears.
"There's a good chance he's still alive. Probably being held someplace way out of the way of town" Sam leaned over a map of the immediate area, surveying the forested section.
"We can track his scent as long as the leach didn't cover it up" I murmured agreement. As the First and Second, it was up to me and Sam to plot and plan how to get Cara's father back. Just then, lightning cracked overhead and Cara jumped right out of her seat, snapped out of her daze.
"Looks like he didn't need to" Jared said from the window. Rain pelted the glass turning the ground to mud and the ocean into a churning mess. Well there went the easy route.
"He was looking for something" Quil was in one of his rare "muse" moods, sitting in an old Lazyboy, thinking. "I mean, he basically turned the house upside down. He was probably looking for that"
He nodded toward Cara who looked down at the slim, silver chain around her neck. Without it, Stefan hadn't been able to cross the line into La Push, stuck in Forks…
"Oh, damn" I whispered the same time Sam slammed his fist down on the table. Cara jumped yet again, shaken and pale. I glared at him as I moved to sit next to her. My arm slipped around her shoulders and she leaned into me, shivering despite her high body temperature.
"What?" She asked, looking from me to Sam to Quil back to me. Paul and Jared exchanged a look. "What is it?"
Her voice was hoarse and thick from crying for hours and from the effort of not crying for a few hours more. She was trying to be strong around the guys and that made me hug her closer.
"Oh… oh, no" It clicked in her head right before my eyes. The sudden realization like a light bulb going off. Dad's eyes met mine over her head and he nodded with a sigh. "You mean… he's being held captive by two of them?! There are two Stefans out there?! Oh, God!"
"Cara…" I started, my voice low. She was beyond being comforted though. Her eyes were dry now, angry and sparking with inner electricity. Cara rounded on me, the color slowly returning to her beautiful face.
"Don't you Cara me! We have to go find him- now! What are we waiting for?!" She was almost shouting, the sound more startling than the thunder, her new energy more powerful than the lightning.
"There's nothing we can do out in the rain than confuse and muddle the trail more, we'll have to wait till morning… I'm sorry" Sam looked like he meant it, his usually hard brown eyes softening at the hopeless look in Cara's.
How could I have let this happen? Why did Bella have to drag us into this mess? Not only was she missing a father, but soon Cara would be too and I couldn't help but feel like it was all my fault. While Cara broke down into more tears and the others shifted nervously, I tried to convince myself otherwise. I couldn't relapse into the depressed person I was a few months ago. They couldn't take that again.
"Come on…" I whispered in her ear and brought her up into my room, my arm never leaving her shoulders.
Cara:
I stared at the ceiling, wrapped in my own frenzied thoughts. I was curled up under the covers of Jake's too big bed in his too small room, no longer crying my eyes out. The point of hyperventilation was over.
Two of them. Two! How is that even possible? Before I moved to La Push, I just considered myself some weird freak-show of a birth defect. A hairy kid, maybe? But then I came here and my entire life flipped right upside down. A pack of werewolves, living the lives of normal teenagers. Vampires weaned off the blood of humans, devoted to taking a higher path and not hurting the people they lived among. And then some phenomenon of nature. Vampire-like creatures that have no scent and make no sound.
What else was out there? Unicorns? Dragons? Freaking fairies?! It was too much to think about on top of the images that kept flooding my mind. Things I didn't want to see but had imagined and couldn't make go away. Something to do with chains and fangs and blood.
A tiny, tentative knock on the door pulled me out of my daydream for a moment but couldn't make me look away from the ceiling, covered in shadows. It creaked open slowly, the light from the hall pouring in along with the worried face of Jacob.
"Don't worry, I'm all cried out" I muttered with a tiny smile. He sighed dramatically with relief and came in, closing the door behind him. He crawled onto the bed and slipped under the blanket, nestling close to me.
"Tears or not, I'm still gonna worry" He kissed my cheek lightly, leaving a burning impression. With Jake next to me, the shadows seemed less haunting and more like the shapes of the objects they were.
"That's what makes you so sweet" For some reason, I didn't want to speak too loudly. I felt like the air itself would turn into something terrifying. Something with pale skin and red eyes.
My hand fiddled with that stupid chain, the cause of all the trouble. Maybe I should just give it back, use it as a plea for my father. But would it work? No, definitely not. If anything, he'd take it and kill my dad anyway. Because he can. Why did I have to wear it anyway? If I hadn't been, he would have found it my room and left- right? No… definitely not. He would have killed my dad anyway. Yet again. God, this was hopeless.
"He'll be fine, Cara. I promise you" Jake whispered gently- I had started to shiver again. I kept expecting my dad to come bursting through the door with a spatula and a glare at the sight of me and a boy in a bed. But of course, he'd never do that.
Jacob held me closer than usual, humming lightly, stroking my hair, and trying to keep me warm from the cold I'll never feel. And eventually, after the numbers on the clock read well past 4:00a.m. , all I could do was sleep.
Sniffle. A bit dramatic, yeah, but I was in a very dramatic mood and alas, wrote this... did I just say alas? Yikes, reviews are cool.