For the record, my Jacob Black is and always will be Steven Strait, not the guy they casted. Just like to put that out there... and sorry for the wait!
The first step of plan Get Rid of Strange Stalker Werewolf was to wait. I sat under the window, as the rain lightly pattered against the glass. My sneakers were laced up; my best outing clothes were on, which really meant grungiest. You had to be prepared when facing a member of the supernatural. I was ready for him this time and I would not, I repeat, would not, shriek like there were monsters in the closet.
That was silly. They were at my window.
I hadn't told Jake, which was probably dumb on my part. In fact, sitting under my window waiting for a trespassing wolf to show up, I was really regretting that I hadn't told my Second-in-Command werewolf imprint boyfriend/secret fiancé.
It was just that smile. The one he was probably sharing with his sisters and his father right now as I did one of the dumbest things I'd ever done. I could just see it slipping away, his smile, as I said the words out loud- that there was a lone werewolf stalking me at night... and day as the case may be. Once Jake smiled, I never wanted him to stop, which he inevitably would once he found out. In fact, his face would probably be twisted in a permanent snarl until that werewolf was taken out. And I don't mean to lunch.
I pitied the poor guy, really, putting aside everything. I was also way too curious to meet him, once the initial shock and fear had subsided. Here he was, another lone werewolf just like I had been. Without a pack, presumably, wondering from place to place. But that just raised more questions like how had he found me? Was he even looking for me? Why was he here? All of the answers were of course unknown in my twisted little world.
Hence me sitting under my window, waiting. The first step was underway. I was determined to figure it out, figure him out and then get rid of him and not by ending his heartbeat but just by politely leading him off our territory. If I really took the time to think about it, my plan was doomed for disaster, but I'd tackle that dilemma as it came.
So I sat… and sat… and sat. The clock went from 9p.m. to 12p.m. without me even noticing and my eyes started to droop. Maybe I'd missed him? Maybe it was just a one time thing and he'd left already… yeah, he left right after he stole my wallet and then handed it to me in the middle of an airport after following me from a distance. I hadn't even officially met him yet and already he was getting on my nerves.
I was just getting ready to kick off my shoes and crawl happily into bed to dream of things not relating to him when a howl sounded. Right in my backyard, proving that I hadn't missed him after all. I wasn't sure whether I should be happy or scared, so I settled with frazzled. Adrenaline started pumping into my system, making my heart race. I rolled onto my knees and peered over the edge of my window sill, barely able to swallow with my throat so dry.
There he was circling in the yard, his eyes trained on my closed window. I could see him better with the moon out, the lack of a tropical storm also helping, and could see his sleek dark coat, the glint of huge fangs in his jaw, and the massive set of his shoulders. Triple the width of my own as a wolf.
Come on, phase back. I thought, suddenly wanting nothing more than to just see what he looked like as a human, if his eyes were really as green as they'd been in the airport. I blinked and he was gone, the faint rustle of something moving in the bushes the only sound.
Seconds ticked by slowly, my heart beat steadily increased, and it felt like I was waiting on the edge of me seat despite the lack of an actual chair. It seemed like the sky was darkening, the moon was swelling behind the clouds, everything glowed in the eerie light and then the rustling stopped. All was silent for a minute, time stood completely still, and then a figure was standing where the wolf had just been.
"I know you're watching" His voice carried up to me, dark and smooth, and I jumped. I bit my lip to keep quiet but he must have heard anyway. A low chuckle echoed in the quiet. "Might as well come out and say hello"
Instead of doing what I'd actually planned on doing, I whipped around and threw my back against the wall, ducking completely out of sight. Hiding. This was an immensely bad idea, one I knew I was going to regret. Stupid, Cara! I thought, throwing a glance at the phone. It wasn't too late to call Jake, send him running over but the thought of him getting into a fight with that guy, even as humans, just wasn't worth the safe feeling. This was up to me. My plan and I had to follow through.
If I could just get myself to come away from the border of hyperventilation.
I took two deep, long breaths, letting the oxygen fill my lungs and wondered why in the hell this had seemed like a good idea ten minutes ago. And why I had listened to my own stupid self. Then I pushed myself up into a semi standing position and opened the window, a crack at first, then all the way.
Possible mistake number one, as I'd learned from all those horror movies Jacob makes me watch. Never open the window. You're basically inviting the killer to come on in, make himself at home and then... oh, yeah. Kill you.
But he was gone, my rogue. There was nobody standing in my backyard, just shadows and trees and grass that whispered in the breeze. My heart beat slowed down and spiked at the same time as I thought of all the possibilities. Was he gone or just waiting to take advantage of the naïve girl's mistake? Funny, but my conscience was more leaning toward the second one.
Possible mistake number two, leaning somewhat out the window to get a better look. That's always when the hero gets grabbed or beheaded or something equally as not good. However, my thought processing as of late wasn't functioning up to par so I edged forward until the entire upper half of my body was hanging out of my room.
"Or I could come in, if you prefer?" I let out a barely concealed scream and my head jerked to the right. My entire nervous system had temporarily shut down at the sound of his gravely voice.
He leaned against my window frame, which jutted out from the roof, one elbow propped against it, the other hand shoved into his dark, denim pant pocket. He looked every bit the cocky guy, right down to his patent leather shoes and all the way up to his carefully arched eyebrow. His eyes were actually green in the faint half-moon light.
For a minute we just sort of stared at each other, assessing the possible enemy. Or in my case, flat out gawking at the -sadly- very attractive guy right outside my room. He didn't look evil, conceited maybe, but not kill your cat evil. Our eyes stayed locked together.
"Are you going to make me wait outside?"
His green eyes darted around my room, leaving me with a slightly violated feeling. There was nothing embarrassing left lying around in my plain, old room just the typical bed, dresser, desk and closet. And yet I somehow felt like he had simultaneously learned each and every one of my darkest secrets with that single, swift glance. It was stupid, and I knew it, but I felt that I needed to explain myself, why my room was a complete mess, until I realized who I was looking at.
"Are you going to kill me in my sleep?" I asked, only partly joking. He seemed to think it was funny because his eyes sparked in a way that was all too familiar and he gave off that deep, throaty chuckle.
"That's not part of my job" He replied before silently slipping through my window. I gulped when his shoulder gently brushed mine and every nerve ending in my body sparked to life. There was something very wrong about that, and very wrong about him.
"I never said you could come in here" My brain was clouded and fuzzy all of a sudden, but enough of it was working to know that it was a bad thing to have this stranger in my bedroom and the shine in his green eyes was too sharp to be good.
"I was never really asking" With an ease and grace that would make anyone jealous, he glided through my room and pivoted on one heel, planting himself on my bed as if he ruled the world, which in his head, he probably thought he did.
In the dim lamplight, I was able to see him better. I noticed the faint gold flecks in his green eyes, his short and curly brown hair, how tan his skin really was. If my every thought wasn't of Jake, if I wasn't overly aware of Jake's presence in the world, the sight of this new guy sitting calmly on my bed would have sent me into a coma of obsession.
"Who are you?" I blurted out. It seemed like an important question after I'd already said it and I allowed myself a silent pat on the back. Still, I hadn't felt so awkward since that sex-ed class in seventh grade. Even after the third school I attended that year, I still wasn't comfortable with the Miracle of Life tape.
"David. You?" David grinned, flashing his straight, white teeth making it clear that was all the info I was going to get.
"Cara…" I said, mentally smacking myself in the head. Here it was- the entire point of my great "plan" and I was royally messing it up. True, I hadn't technically thought this part, the entire communication part, through but I'd assumed that… I don't know. Some twist of fate would give me some clue as to what to do.
And all I could think of was my name. Pathetic, really. Years of starting over and knowing exactly which questions to ask to get to know a person and yet I couldn't think of a single one. So I resorted to the one thing a tongue tied girl can depend on.
Staring.
David walked around the room, picking up my shirts, tossing them to another spot and making the room somehow seem cleaner in the process. He picked up books I read for school, notebooks from last year I hadn't thrown out. But when he picked up a picture of me and Jake a sudden anger flared inside of me and my brain finally started working.
"Why have you been following me?" I asked. I crossed my arms over my chest, wishing he would stop touching my things. If he touched my things, he was touching an extension of myself and it made me squirm in my own skin.
"Why do you think it was me?" He countered, smooth as anything. It took me a minute to pull realize he'd spoken, it was that fast. Like lightning striking and momentarily blinding you.
"You're kind of hard to miss" David didn't know that I actually had missed him, quite a few times. The fact that he really had slipped under my supposed radar wasn't a good sign on my part and it only added my own frustration.
The picture was placed back on my desk and David turned to look at me. Study me actually. His green eyes made me nervous, raking over my entire body a few times before settling on my face. I couldn't meet his gaze, I'd be surprised if anybody could because it pierced right through me.
"Well, I did make it obvious, didn't I?" His eyebrow arched with irony and his eyes sparked like he knew something I didn't. Which was probably true in a lot of ways.
"Doesn't answer my question. Why?" I asked. I hated admitting that I didn't know something, especially in front of him. Just standing around him drove me insane with the need to be better and smarter and more clever.
"Because I had to" was all he said. David reclined on my bed, the same way Jake does, but he looked wrong there. Jake seemed to fit so perfectly like he'd been born to be there, David was too out of place in my average room. He was too wild and yet still too refined. The two contrasted so widely it made something entirely new. And not altogether a good something new.
"Well, I want you to stop" I wasn't sure when I'd ever sounded more pathetic. The time when I'd told my father that the cat we didn't have had spilled all the paint when I was nine or now.
"Like I said, I have a job to do" David replied and it started to really get on my nerves. Would it kill him to give me just one straight answer? Not including his name? My brilliant plan was beginning to go downhill so I changed tactics.
"I don't care about your job. Frankly, any job that involves stalking a sixteen year old girl seems kind of disgusting and pervy. So, if you don't want things to get very unpleasant for you, I suggest you get out of our territory" There. I'd tried the good cop, but the bad cop seemed like the better option with him…. Or so I'd hoped.
For a minute, he just stared, his green-gold eyes wide, and then he burst out laughing. I couldn't stop myself from noticing that he had a nice laugh, but I shook my head to get rid of the thought. Anything that cast him in a positive light was bound to make me feel bad, make my genuinely nice side overflow until I caved and let the guy stay. Which he could not do.
"The Forks Police Department is hardly capable of handling me, Cara" A wicked gleam filled his eyes as he spoke, shining even brighter when he said my name. He'd sat up when he'd been laughing, and now he placed his hands on his knees. A cloud passed over the moon, plunging the room in semi darkness. "But I'm not going to hurt you"
"I don't believe you" I said, glad that my voice was under control. David was handsome, that was obvious, but he was dangerous. Anyone who can turn into a wolf is dangerous of course, but even as a human there was just something about him that said danger… trouble it hissed.
He sighed, and stood, shoved his hands into his coat pockets. I stopped pacing and stared at him, he did the same. For a few minutes all we did was watch each other and the sound of the clock ticking away was all you could hear. A floorboard creaked outside in the hall and I jumped at the sound that seemed to loud all of a sudden.
"I won't hurt you" David repeated but this time I almost believed his sincerity, despite the voice screaming in my head not to. "I'd never hurt you"
"I want you gone" I said, in an attempt to stick with my original plan which had turned out to not be as well thought as it could have been. Really, I'd only gotten as far as the first step. And the last, which was getting rid of David and that now seemed to not be happening.
"Sorry, but it's not up to you to say. Though I have to admit, you are just like her"
"Just like who?"
But twenty questions was up, apparently, and David was perched on the window sill before I could even blink. A breeze carried through the window, bringing his scent, like pine cones and rain, with it. For a second it was all around me, suffocating me, and then it was gone. As quickly as rain clouds gliding through the La Push sky.
"See you around, Cara" David said from the ledge. I had a bad feeling he meant that literally. His teeth flashed in the moonlight, his green eyes sparked. With one easy jump, he flew from the roof to the lawn, landing gracefully on his feet like I had done so many times.
For a while I could do was stare, his scent still lingering in my room, almost overpowering everything else. His job was to watch me? I was like who? Well, wasn't that just fantastic. I'd wanted him answer a few questions at most, then disappear forever, before things got way out of hand. And now?
My plan had gone from Get Rid of Strange Stalker to Befriend the Possible Enemy all in under- I glanced at the clock and sighed- ten minutes. Below, David was making his way toward the shadowed border of trees and paused his graceful lope for just a second. Just long enough to send chills through my entire body, hairline to toes.
"Sweet dreams"