For I Am Captured Straight to You

You may want to check out this short video if you're having trouble understanding what's happening in the beginning. ;)

www[dot]youtube[dot]com/watch?v=XHdXG2gV01k

PART TWO

"Where're the CHEETOS?"

"Right next to you."

"I cast a spell!"

"Where's the Mountain Dew?"

"In the fridge! Duh!"

"I wanna cast a spell!

"Can I have a Mountain Dew?"

Jacob was going to rip his ears out. He was going to rip his ears out, walk into the living room, shove them down Quil and Embry's throats, and laugh maniacally they as suffocated on his ratty, old carpet.

"Hey, Graham, I'm not in the room, right?"

"What room?"

"I wanna cast magic missile."

"The room where he's casting all of these spells from."

"He hasn't cast anything yet."

Nope. Choking to death on his bloody ears was too nice a way to go. Gruesome, sure. But not painful enough. Jacob eyed the serrated knife in Bella's hand.

"Why are you casting magic missile? There's nothing to attack here."

"I…I'm attacking the darkness."

Obnoxious laughter.

Jacob quite accurately pictured Quil and Embry crowded in front of Embry's laptop, watching that fucking YouTube video on mute while they made complete asses of themselves doing the voices. You couldn't even do it right with just two people.

"I am Galstaff, Sorcerer of Light!"

"Then how come you had to cast magic missile?"

MORE obnoxious laughter.

Jacob's left eye twitched. Bella, who was slicing up some exotic-looking loaf of bread at the kitchen counter, just smiled and shook her head, murmuring something about "silly boys" and "better them than me."

Jacob couldn't find it in himself to agree.

"Y- Y- Y- You guys are being attacked."

"Do I see that happening?"

"No! You're outside by the tavern."

"Cool! I get drunk!"

"There are…there are seven ogres surrounding you."

Slamming his pencil down on the table, Jacob groaned in annoyance. "Those stupid fu—"

"Jake, can you set the table for me?" Bella chirped. "The soup's almost ready."

Ugh. "Sure."

He dramatically pulled his Pre-calculus book from the table, dropped it to the floor with a loud 'thud,' stomped over to one of the over-head cabinets, and angrily stole the ceramic bowls from the shelf. He scowled when the door didn't bang shut like he'd intended.

"But you never actually cast it."

"Roll the dice to see if I'm getting drunk!"

"Ugh. Yeah you are."

"Are there any girls there?"

"Yeah!"

Bella ignored all of Jacob's Neanderthal-like grunts and sighs as he trudged loudly around the room getting silverware and cups. Choosing not to acknowledge the fact that he was acting like an attention-starved two-year-old, she hummed off-key while turning off the stove and carefully grabbing the steaming vat of soup between two singed potholders that Jacob's mother had bought when he was in the second grade. "Boys! Dinner's ready!"

Despite the fact that Bella lacked anything that resembled an "outdoor voice"—even her "indoor voice" was lacking, more closely resembling a "church voice" than anything else really—Quil and Embry still waltzed into the room three seconds later. Still in character.

"OGRES! Man, I got an ogre slaying knife!" Embry crowed, brandishing a closed umbrella. "It's got a +9 against ogres!"

Quil snatched it from his hand and shoved him down into a chair. "You're not there, you're getting DRUNK!"

A cute, little surprised squeak escaped Bella as Embry suddenly snagged her waist to pull her onto his lap. Lips pressed to her ear, he whined, "Ok, but if there're any girls there I wanna do them!"

Jacob adored it when her cheeks got all pink like that. Bella's blushes were small like everything else about her—except her eyes, which were the size of fucking planets, and her lips, which were…pressed to Embry's ear.

He watched as she continued to whisper to him even as Embry began making up both of their plates, and Jacob was masochistic enough to wonder what she was saying.

Because Jacob Black was a voyeur. Not in the perverted sense that he hid in the tree house just outside Embry's room to watch them make out (just making out—Embry was still very much the epitome of 13-year-old virgin girl), but in the pathetic sense that he blatantly watched them touch each other in public.

Not that they were touching each other like that. It was more like they were both slightly retarded magnets whose fields took some time finding one another, but when they did it was like ZING, and suddenly Embry's hand is in her hair and Bella's tracing the entire alphabet on his back with her fingers (yeah, the whole fucking alphabet, and sometimes she did it backwards…in French).

"Jacob, my man, we were hurting there without you," Quil garbled over a mouthful of salad. "Embry can't pull off a decent Cheeto voice worth shit."

But Embry was too pleased that he'd defeated Bella's attempts to wiggle into her own seat to give a damn about what Quil had to say. He just shrugged and grinned smugly. "What can I say? I was born to be Nightblade."

Bella groaned. "Please tell me that isn't your only aspiration in life."

Still smarting from the earlier fuckery, Jacob retorted, "Of course not. He also wants to learn how to touch his tongue to his nose, get laid sometime before he's forty, and name his first born son 'The Batman.' I'm telling you, Bells, he's a keeper, this one. Big dreams."

Jacob relished in the glare Embry skewered him with. It only added to his delight that Bella was ineffectively trying to stifle her snickers.

"The Batman Call." She grinned and affectionately squeezed her arms around Embry's neck. He was still violently stabbing Jacob with his eyes. "Aw, that's cute, Em."

Well that certainly caused him to perk right up. "Really? You like it? So, do you think we could—"

"Nope."

Jacob took a long, triumphant slurp of his soup. Yum.

Something rubber and size eleven connected painfully with his shin. Jacob choked. "What the—"

"So have you guys heard anything about why Paul wasn't in school all week?" Embry nonchalantly began buttering a piece of bread. "We're supposed to be starting our biology project tomorrow."

Quil shrugged and swallowed down a massive gulp of soup. "He's Mad Paul. He can do whatever the hell he wants. Bella, these wormy things are delicious. What are they?"

"Noodles," she replied, showing off her multi-tasking abilities as she simultaneously answered Quil's stupid, numskull questions while rolling up the sleeves of Embry's shirt to his elbows AND sliding into her own chair—which Embry promptly pulled flush against his.

The bench seat. The fucking bench seat. Those two chairs had to be suffering from an identity crisis.

"Who's Paul?" Bella asked.

"Mad Paul," Quil corrected.

"Why is he mad?"

Quil shrugged. "No one knows. He's just big on the Three Gs: Glaring, Grunting, and Grinding his teeth. Real caveman like. Probably shouldn't be allowed to run free in public."

Bella caught Jacob's eye questioningly, but he could only shake his head. Where Quil came up with that shit from was anyone's guess.

"He's not that bad," Embry defended, and Jacob had to agree. From what he'd heard from his dad, Paul had a hard time at home. His father had died two years back, and his mother hadn't taken it well. She alternated her time between the bar where she worked and the couch where she drank.

Jacob shrugged. "He probably just caught whatever Jared had a couple weeks ago."

"Dickheaditis?"

"Quil!" Bella scolded as if he'd just wiped his ass with the Old Testament.

Freaky Talent Number Three: Bella could make a rock feel guilty for disrespecting Jesus. And she'd only ever been to church twice.

So, of course, Quil looked appropriately chastised. "Sorry, Bella." For four seconds. "But maybe Sam Uley should get a shot so he stops spreading that shit around. Ever since he missed all that school, Jared's been on Sam's nuts like a white kid on Lunchables. And this morning I saw Paul heading into Sam's house on my way to school. He looked reeeeeeal healthy to me. And from the look of him, I'd say there's a fair chance he's working part time as a Schwarzenegger impersonator."

Over on their bench seat, Bella and Embry frowned and turned to each other in unison.

"Probably means he won't show up to work on the project tomorrow."

"Well, I get out of class at 1:30, so I can stop by and help. In case he doesn't show."

"What about—"

"It won't take me long."

"Chicken?"

"I'll probably just go directly to Sue's."

"Could you stop at the store?"

"Make a list. But no explosives. Or alcohol."

"Or asparagus."

"You've never even tried it! I make it special."

"Very, very special. Poor Seth nearly died."

"Only because he refused to keep it in his mouth long enough to chew it before swallowing. And Seth only eats foods that are a shade of brown, so you can't take his word for it."

"Masticate."

"Oh, good one."

"So, tomorrow at four."

"5:30."

"5:30 without asparagus."

Yeah. They were one of those couples. Normally it took a few years for two people to establish the type of telepathic link that Bella and Embry demonstrated on a daily basis, but just eight months into their relationship they were finishing each other's sentences and playing some obscenely nerdy thesaurus challenge quest thingy with their vocabularies. Game nights on the Rez had turned into staging grounds for mass slaughterings, Charades, Pictionary, and Taboo the tools by which Bella and Embry single-handedly raped and pwned every brave soul they faced.

Jacob only considered the term "single-handedly" to be appropriate because when their minds melded into one (okay, it was less of a melding and more of Embry's mind piggybacking on top of Bella's), they became a four-eyed and eight-appendaged being known as…

EMBRELLA!

Even when forced onto separate teams, they kept blurting out the answers—Embry—or used clues and references that only the other would be deranged enough to ever figure out—Embry and Bella.

But as obnoxious as it could be to get creamed every other Saturday night by Regis and Kelly, Jacob couldn't bring himself to actually mind. He saw their eagerness for one another, their desire to inhabit each other's orbits, and their instinct to always be touching—which they never fought.

And almost as often as Embrella made an appearance, Embrellacob (which unfortunately sounded less like a two-headed monster and more like a sexually transmitted disease) could be found terrorizing the masses as well. Because Embry and Bella were like an amoeba. Yeah, they were a two-headed monster of an amoeba—one of those blobby puddles of jell-o you could only see through a microscope and that consumed its food through endocytosis (why, yes, Jacob had gotten a B+ on his last biology quiz) when it used its membrane to absorb the particles it touched.

And who wouldn't like swimming in a puddle of jell-o?

Embry was always there when he needed help rebuilding a part for the Rabbit or when he needed help sneaking a peak at Old Quil's moonshine recipe; Bella was there to keep him honest with his school work and to indirectly remind him that he did in fact possess more hormones than he did brain cells; Quil was there to makes sure he didn't act too safe or mature and to trash talk about the assholes on the Rez—like Sam Uley; Leah (whom Jacob didn't particularly care for, but whom Bella insisted on dragging around since The Great Breakup) scowled and blew cigarette smoke in his face.

Other kids from school came and went, and all in all Jacob imagined he got in and out of more fuckery than any teenager had a right to.

And he could hold Bella Swan's hand whenever he damn well pleased.

Jacob was collapsed on his living room couch, staring listlessly at the screen of the square, hulking television that had been sitting on the same little wooden table for as long as he could remember—back even before Power Rangers had been a good TV show to watch on Saturday mornings. Leah was slouched in Billy's recliner, unenthusiastically flipping through the seven channels over and over again as if it were going to change the fact that they didn't have cable. Jacob wished she would just stay on Yu-Gi-Oh. That cartoon chick was kinda hot.

"God, this is pathetic," Leah mused to herself in disgust. "Standing outside the library twenty minutes early waiting for it to open would be a more socially acceptable way of spending my Saturday than sitting here with you."

He shrugged lazily, the insult hardly registering in his mind as he tried to count the number of times the picture flashing across the screen showed someone smiling. "Then go to the library."

And good riddance.

"I said that it would be less embarrassing, not more fun."

Four. Four smiling people. Were four out of seven people actually smiling at any given moment? Maybe that was just what The Man wanted the world to believe. "You think hanging out with me is fun? Leah, I had no idea you felt that way."

"Nothing," she continued, "is more fun than watching you jizz in your pants every time Bella bends over to tie her shoe."

Eyes still on the TV, he reached for the cup of orange juice on the coffee table and took a large gulp. "Really? More fun than locking yourself in your room, pulling all the shades down, and writing angsty gothic poetry? You know, where love is an autumn flower and Sam's the unrelenting, cold-hearted winter freeze come to wither—"

A throw pillow was put to exemplary use, but it bounced off his chest harmlessly.

"—you away so that the ice of his callousness creeps into your heart and into your loins—"

"Shut the fuck up, Black!"

"—turning your desire barren for any other man who'd come to pollinate your—"

The front door opened and his mouth snapped closed. Billy was supposed to be gone on a fishing trip with Charlie and Harry for most of the day, but Jacob wasn't going to risk being banned from the garage for an entire week (which was exactly what had happened the last time he'd gotten caught letting Leah know what he really thought of her).

But it wasn't his dad who turned the corner from the hall; it was Bella. And she didn't stand in the entryway any longer than it took to scan the room and furrow her brow before disappearing into the kitchen.

Jacob waved at the empty space she'd so briefly occupied. "Hey, Bells. Nice to see you. Yeah, I'm doing fantastic. How was your week? Oh, that's too bad. But keep your chin up! I'm sure next week will be better. Of course I'll give you a back massage."

Bella reappeared and this time deposited her book bag on the floor against the wall like she usually did. "Where's Embry?"

Jacob shrugged. "Don't know. But he didn't show up to school yesterday, so he's probably at home still pretending he's sick." Mrs. Call had been less than pleased the last time she found out Embry had skipped school, so Jacob couldn't blame Embry for taking extra precautions.

But Bella was shaking her head and frowning gravely. "I just stopped over there. His mom said she hadn't seen him since dinner on Thursday night. She assumed that he'd come here after school yesterday and ended up staying the night. Did you say he didn't go to school?"

Jacob shrunk under the stare of her narrowed eyes. Now that he thought about it, that was probably a tidbit of information he should have kept to himself. "Well…I mean…I never saw him, but maybe we just missed each other."

"You have three classes together."

"Embry's deceivingly stealthy for his size. He is double jointed after all."

"You eat at the same lunch table."

"You make it sound like it's a date. It's not like we plan together to sit at the same table every day. It just so happens that once we get our food, we usually end up heading over to the same side of the cafeteria, and there's only so many safe places to sit. We're not girls. We don't agree to have lunch together; it just happens to work out that way. Most of the time. Maybe Embry ate with Mad Paul yesterday. Or maybe he ate outside.

Leah turned to Bella. "They sit together at the same table every day. Embry wasn't at school."

Jacob scowled at the betrayal, but Leah answered with a slick smile.

"Chicks before dicks."

"Then where is he?" Bella demanded, and Jacob had no idea why the question would be directed so accusingly at him.

"I've got no idea," Jacob defended and even went so far as to raise his hands in surrender when it looked like she didn't believe him. Arms crossed and lips slightly pursed, she regarded him sharply.

Freaky talent seven hundred and eighty-four billion zillion quadrillion gazillion: Bella had a built in lie detector—that only worked on defenseless Quileute boys and painfully transparent police chiefs. It had a 99.6% accuracy rating. (The other .4% was something that was never ever discussed. Ever. Because the body of Quil's cat Chicken Little was still missing, and as far as Bella knew, the little feline was living with an uncle in South Dakota.)

Reluctantly satisfied that the warning bells hadn't gone off during her inspection, Bella sighed as her hands dropped. "Where would be a good place to look?"

"You've checked your bed, right?" Leah leered.

Bella blanched the color of porcelain, causing the red slowly seeping into her cheeks to stand out alarmingly. Jacob gallantly returned the throw pillow to the side of Leah's face.

"It was a joke, Jacob," Leah condescended while batting the cushion away. "Your Bella's still the poster child of a blushing virgin. Won't even say 'penis' out loud."

For a moment Jacob was so caught up in a world where Bella was your Bella that he didn't see Embry's Bella contemplating the living room floor as if planning to melt and seep between the wooden cracks. Didn't see her biting her lip and blinking her eyes.

"Maybe, um," Bella began once she had found her voice, "maybe he's at Quil's. I'll give him a call." She pulled out her cell phone—the one Charlie had insisted on getting her when it became clear she would be driving back and forth to Port Angeles every day for classes at Peninsula College—and began prodding at the tiny buttons.

Jacob leapt to his feet and snatch phone away. "We'll go over in person. Chances are if Embry's at Quil's, it's because he figures you know that he skipped school, and he's too chicken shit to face you. Calling will only give him time to hide. Successful infiltration will require sneakiness, careful planning, and professionalism." He glanced down at himself. "Just let me change out of my pajama pants."

Embry wasn't at Quil's. In fact Quil was still sleeping when Jacob and Bella climbed through his window. While Bella checked the rest of the house, Jacob found a black marker on the floor and doodled cat whiskers on Quil's face.

That would teach him to leave food in the Rabbit's glove compartment for a month.

"Quil Sr. said he hadn't seen Embry in a couple of day." Bella's whispered voice interrupted Jacob quiet snickers. "But then he said he was sure Embry was just fine and that I shouldn't worry about looking for him because he'd come around when he was ready to be found. It was really strange. What are you doing?"

"Oh, just…"—he slipped the marker under Quil's pillow—"looking at these strange markings on Quil's face. Almost looks like he dressed up as a cat or…yeah, I think that's actually the only explanation. Oh, Quil, what will we ever do with you? You're a four-year-old trapped in the body of a six-year-old steroid junkie."

"He must really miss Chicken Little," she mused. And Jacob felt a wave of pride and affection because he knew exactly where she'd leaned to tease like that with a straight face.

Nonetheless the subject was taboo. "Um, yeahthatmustbeit. So, no Embry? We'll have to look somewhere else then."

"Where?" Bella muttered morosely but headed for the window regardless.

Jacob thought about reminding her that it was safe to use the front door, but then the hem of her shirt rode up, and the back of her jeans slid down as she swung a leg over the sill, and he shut his mouth.

They spent three hours searching the Rez. They knocked on a dozen different doors, walked the length of the entire beach, scouted the trails, and turned over more than a few large rocks. At first Jacob found it to be an enjoyable Saturday diversion. Bella's nervous chatter eventually dwindled into a determined silence, and in the back of his mind, Jacob imagined Embry was in some isolated little cave doing physics problems on the walls with finger paint or rehearsing an audition for the school play—which he would never actually follow through with. But slowly the amusement began slipping away into contemplation, and contemplation gave way to concern.

Embry wasn't anywhere.

Bella spent a good five minutes staring over edge of one of La Push's many cliffs, but once Jacob realized exactly what she was wondering, he quickly decided that they had done as much searching as would be useful. And it was time for lunch any way.

They stopped by Embry's house on the way back to Jacob's, and his mom frowned and tugged nervously at the sleeves of her shirt when they explained they hadn't been able to find her son. She told them, "Thank you for looking. I'll call if he comes home, and if he's not back by tonight, I'll report him missing."

Bella wanted to stay at Embry's place and wait there, but Jacob managed to convince her that making them something to eat would help take her mind off things, and they trudged off, feet heavy with their failure. When Jacob opened his front door to find Quil—his scowl outlined with faded cat whiskers—on the other side, he couldn't even work up the amusement to properly gloat over his own cunning.

"And you checked the shed behind Wilma's?"

"Yes."

"Travis got a new TV. Did you check his house?"

"Yes."

"What about the trail that heads up through—"

"Yes."

"The backroom at—"

"Yes! I told you: we checked everywhere."

There were many times in Jacob's young life when he wanted to throw Quil Atera through a second story window. This was one of those times. And Jacob took a few moments to lament not having a second floor.

Quil reclined back in the couch while stuffing a handful of cheese puffs into his mouth. "Dichu chuck Bewas hoss?"

That brought Jacob up short. And Bella, who had been studiously sitting at the coffee table, not outlining her English essay, perked up like a Foxhound catching the fading trail of a rabbit.

"We never left the Reservation," she said slowly, sounding hopeful. The brightness, which usually inhabited Bella's eyes, but had been conspicuously absent for the past several hours, sparked back to life.

Jacob felt a little guilty about playing devil's advocate. "Why would he be at your house if he's hiding from you?"

"Heswhite," Quil garbled, still crunching away. "Emwie dunnant halv shi fer brais. Luggy baster ."

Bella was already closing her notebook and getting to her feet. "Exactly. He knows that I always spend Saturdays here and that Charlie fishes. So the house is empty."

"How'dhe gitin?"

"He knows where we keep the spare key."

So did Jacob. It was in a little slot inside their mailbox. He and Embry had used it once in order to borrow Charlie's spare pair of handcuffs while the Chief was out of town and Bella was in Port Angeles for class. Of course, they'd had to use it again to return them the next day. This had him wondering just what exactly Embry was doing in their house. All day. Alone. Unsupervised.

Jacob was struck by a sudden chivalrous urge to protect Bella's underwear drawer. "Well, there's no harm in going to check."

Bella gathered her backpack in a hurry while Jacob tried to locate his elusive shoes. If Embry was at Bella's, there was no way Jacob was going to miss her tearing into him for not getting in touch with her or his mom. Bella rarely yelled. But when she did, it was a thing of beauty. Her face would go perfectly still, her hands tensed into little fists at her side, and sometimes she stamped her foot. The pink that flushed her cheeks when she was embarrassed, darkened and spread down to her chest when she was furious. Then her eyes would narrow into ridiculously intimidating points, and just before she opened her mouth to shout—which was more of a husky exclamation, her tongue would dart out to lick the perspiration from her lips.

It was with no small amount of anticipation that Jacob retrieved his sandals from under the kitchen table and grabbed Bella's hand as they left Quil to lick his cheese-stained fingers in front of the television.

She started moving off to where the Beast was parked out front, but Jacob pulled her in the direction of the garage. "We'll take the Rabbit."

"What about my truck?"

"You can get it tomorrow when Charlie comes over for the Clearwater's fish fry. Chances are Embry just hitched a ride into Forks this morning, so he and I are gonna need some sort of getaway car to ride back in. Might as well be something classy."

His proud swagger momentarily distracted her from the anxiety of the day. She smiled knowingly. "I thought the Rabbit died on the road up to the store a few days ago."

Jesus Christ. Did Embry have to tell her everything?

"I fixed it." Reluctantly he released her so that she could get into the passenger side. "And if it breaks down again, it's a good thing you have an in with a talented mechanic who has no qualms working shirtless. Road-side service and a nice view."

Bella made a face that would have been offensive if not for the faint pink rushing into color her cheek bones. Jacob took moments like those as small, personal victories in a game he was the only one playing.

Throwing the car into drive, Jacob pulled out onto the main drag that ran through the Reservation. He was sort of watching the road but mostly brainstorming other ways to get Bella to unconsciously admit her physical attraction to him when her anxious voice had him hitting the breaks.

"Stop! Jake, stop the car!"

She was out of her seatbelt and opening her door while the tires were still rolling.

"Bella, what—"

And then he saw through the passenger window. Embry was walking across the front lawn of Emily Young's house. And he wasn't alone.

Pulling off to the side of the road, Jacob put the car in park, killed the engine and hesitantly got out. For a moment, all he could do was stare incomprehensibly at the site of Embry strutting around shirtless and barefoot with three other guys all in a similar state of undress.

His first coherent thought was: What the hell had they been doing together in woods?

His second was: Quil was right; Mad Paul does look like he's well on his way to being the next body builder with an obnoxious Austrian accent and an embarrassing acting career.

Followed closely by his third: And so does Embry.

Jacob couldn't be certain, but it almost looked as if Embry had grown since the last time he saw his best friends a few days ago. This seemingly ridiculous suspicion was rather disturbingly confirmed as he watched Bella march up to Embry, her form shrinking with the approach of his towering figure. The top of her head barely reached his shoulder.

Jacob felt his eyes widen almost painfully. Bella's head has always reached Embry's chin. Embry always wrapped his arms around her from behind and laid his chin on top of her head.

And he was barefoot. Bella was wearing sneakers.

If Bella noticed the change she didn't show it. Her determined little feet didn't stop moving until they were practically on top of Embry's. She craned her head back and exclaimed in an angry voice washed raw with relief, "Where have you been!"

Embry, who had gone completely immobile, stared down at her in shock, as if he were seeing her first time in years. As if not quite believing that Bella Swan was standing a foot under his nose, scowling up at him with her pretty scrunched face.

"I left you a dozen messages! You never called me back, your mom said you never came home last night, and Jacob said you weren't at school. We spent all morning looking for you. Your mom was going to call the police if you didn't show up by dark! Have you been here on the Rez the entire time? I thought maybe you were lying hurt somewhere…or worse. Couldn't you have at least called me?" At this point, her anger was petering out, and Jacob, who was uncertain about approaching and still standing several yards away, saw her shoulders shake and then droop.

She sagged into Embry, arms wrapped around his back. And with the natural tendency of a flower embracing the sun, his arms slid around her in return, hands gripping her hips where they'd created natural impression from holding her there so many times before.

But Jacob was watching Embry's expression, which hadn't looked so uncertain since that unsuspecting day in his garage when Embry first admitted to having a crush on Bella Swan. He witnessed the unsubtle exchange between him and Sam Uley. The latter was frowning and shaking his head as if to say, No, don't hold her like that. You can't touch her like you have every right to. It doesn't matter what she wants.

It made Jacob want to punch the asshole in the face.

He pictured Bella sitting beside him in the ER, clutching his good arm while she wept and praised his chivalry. She would offer to give him a sponge bath later. He would agree—reluctantly and on certain terms.

Only if I get to give you one afterwards.

Plus, Jacob thought Sam might even be prettier for it. At least it certainly couldn't make him any worse.

It was an unnatural thing to watch, Embry's hands tightening against the denim of Bella's jeans before convulsing away and falling stiltedly to his sides. Embry and Bella were always moving toward one another, never away.

And Bella sensed the wrongness of it. Arms still wrapped around him, she leaned back and seemed to really look at Embry for the first time since she'd spotted him from the car.

Jacob couldn't see her face, but he heard the confusion in, "Why aren't you wearing a shirt…or shoes?" And the wonder in, "You…look different."

The three other half-naked guys were stepping forward menacingly, crowding Bella like a pack of wolves intent on a kill. Of course, this only caused her to press instinctually closer to Embry—despite his apathetic posture and pained eyes. Because he would keep her safe.

"You need to leave."

At first Jacob would have sworn the cold words were Sam's. Because the guy looked like the sort of bastard who'd say something like that to her. But Bella's head whipped up toward Embry.

"What?"

What?

"You need to leave." The pain was gone from Embry's eyes; they'd turned to mud—dark and off-putting. But the ache had only seeped down into his voice, so that when he spoke, he it sounded strained and forced. "I can't talk to you now."

Bella fell an awkward step backward. "What do you mean? What's going on?"

Jacob could see exactly what was running through Bella's mind in those terrible moments because he was thinking the exact same things. Maybe something terrible had happened. Maybe someone had been badly hurt. There was an emergency. And Embry was just upset—

"I can't do this with you, Bella. Not anymore."

There was a painful pause of silence. The sun was draining from the sky, streaks of bright colors whirling after it. Bella didn't see any of it. Neither did Jacob.

"This?" she echoed like a child learning a new word. The single syllable turned to two on her reluctant tongue.

Embry looked away. "Us."

It was a joke, Jacob decided even as his mouth dropped open. Bella and Embry had this all planned out. It was an Embrella thing. Just a very bad joke. Soon Embry would laugh, Bella would snicker, and Jacob wouldn't talk to either of them for twenty minutes as retribution for nearly making his heart fail.

The approval in Sam's eyes was only slightly less disturbing than Bella's response, which was to blink stupidly at Embry for several long moments before all at once lunging forward and shoving at his chest. "You can't break up with me!" she cried angrily.

It was quickest she'd ever moved

When Embry stumbled back several steps, Jacob thought it had less to do with the force behind the push and more to do with the force behind Bella.

"You can't!" she yelled, both her voice and body trembling. "Not after…because of…"

"It's over, Bella," Embry accused as if he was the one on the receiving end of the betrayal.

Jacob watched mildly horrified from several feet away. If seeing Embry and Bella love each other was painful, watching them tear apart was almost unbearable.

Bella turned to the side, allowing Jacob to catch sight of her face, which was pale and beginning to wet with tears. Forehead scrunched in confusion and eyes wide in a lost sort of way that probed viciously at Jacob's heart, she peered back at Embry. "I don't understand what's going on," she whispered. "I thought…"

Embry was shaking his head. "I can't. Not anymore."

"But just a few days ago, we—I don't understand. Embry, what's going on? What are you even doing with these guys?"

She was small, and helpless, and crying, and Jacob hadn't seen her this way since he'd cut the hair off all her Barbies when he was six.

Raising a hand to her face, she scrubbed at the tears with the edge of her sleeve. "Is this about…Monday…about that..?"

Embry threw his hands in the air. "Yes, Bella! Because of that. Now can you please just go!"

She stared at him.

Jacob had never imagined he'd see the day when Embry struck Bella. Embry's anger had always been a slow burn, even and non-violent in its consumption. And easy to extinguish. But Jacob watched as he struck out at her ruthlessly with hateful words, the action as disturbing as if he'd delivered a physical blow to her splotchy, upturned face.

"I don't want to see you anymore."

"Em…"

"Don't…you can't call me that."

"Talk to me. Plea—"

"Go!"

She flinched back.

Jacob inched forward to her side and quietly called to her, "Bella."

But she only had eyes for Embry's retreating form as he and the others turned toward the house. Jacob did his best to ignore the lingering look Sam sent his way. Instead he tentatively laid a hand on Bella's shoulder.

She startled toward him. Her lips trembled as she needlessly murmured his name. "Jake."

He sighed. Comforting Bella had always been Embry's job.

"Jake, Embry just…He just broke up with me."

But he'd watch Embry do it enough times to know what she needed.

His arms encircled her back, guiding her face to the crook of his neck. And he kissed her temple with an, "I know, Sweetheart."

AN: I hope that everyone who celebrates Christmas enjoys next Saturday! I probably won't be updating until that following Monday.

Thanks for the all the awesome feedback last chapter!