Hey. So sorry I haven't updated in a while, my internet's been down, and, uh… my hand got cut off, and a tree started growing out of my face, so typing has been a little difficult. Ok, so the first one was true, at least. Oh, and exciting news (not really!) multiple people reviewed saying that they wanted to see Juliet interacting with Jacob more, so, um, here it is! Almost an entire chapter full of awkward, lame, badly written interactions. Hope you enjoy.
Added note: I fail at this chapter! Sorry! So I'm making it extra long to make up for that. Or, trying to. By the way, HOLY FREAKING CRAP! Why are there so many characters in this story whose names start with the letter 'J'?!?
Oh man, I started writing this about a week ago, and just finished now. Sorry! I actually have a kind of, semi-decent (I hope!) way to finish the story. I think it's going to have a sequel. Very fancy, no? I hope someone actually reads this. I hope YOU actually read this. Wow, that was lame
Disclaimer: Twilight is totally © Stephenie Meyer.
"Where am I?" I asked as I opened my eyes slowly. Of course it was basically the most over-used thing to say when waking up after being unconscious, but I was genuinely confused.
"Hey, Juliet," Alice said, appearing at my side, not answering my question.
"Alice, what's wrong?" I asked, seeing the worried look on her face.
"Well, um, see, after you yelled and we found out where you were, Nathan attacked us, and we're all totally fine, but while he was doing that, Lily managed to, uh, kind of beat you up a little," she said, looking me over.
I raised my head, which resulted in a sharp, shooting pain in my neck, but I didn't care. I could see that my clothes, and the floor I was laying on, was stained with blood—my blood.
"Alice, how bad is it?" I asked her, not really being able to tell for myself—or even stare at the blood for too long without feeling light headed. It was then that I decided that I would've made a horrible vampire.
"Uh, I can't really, can't, um, can't really say—" she said, before disappearing from view with a look similar to having to throw up.
"Alice?" I called as loudly as I could, although the room was beginning to spin.
"Sorry about that, Juliet. Alice still gets a little… uh, panicked, shall I say, when she's around large amounts of human blood," I could hear Carlisle say, although I couldn't see him. I blinked slowly, trying to figure out whether he'd been here the whole time.
"So, am I, um, well, am I going to die?" I asked, not sure how to phrase it, but for some reason feeling that I had to ask.
"No, Juliet, you most certainly are not going to. We'll see to that. But you did get a little bruised. More accurately, your left arm is broken, you've lost a lot of blood, and you have some rather deep cuts that we should attend to as soon as possible. I think it would raise too much attention were we to take you to the hospital, so we'll move you back to Forks and try to come up with a cover story," he said.
I inclined my head as much as I could with the amount of pain that it resulted in. "How is everybody else?" I asked quietly, with my eyes half closed.
"They're just fine. One good thing about us is that vampires heal miraculously quickly. Werewolves, too." He said, chuckling a little.
How many people were here? I wondered. Alice, Carlisle… I'd heard Edward earlier, and Emmett, and Jasper, and maybe even Rosalie. Some of the werewolves had been here too. Seth, Quil, Jacob…
"That's nice," I said slowly, before closing my eyes and laying my head down. I was so tired, that for a moment I was struck with fear that maybe Nathan was still there, but I was too tired to consider this, too tired to think. Too tired to do anything but try and ignore the pain taking over my whole body that was making the world very fuzzy, and just sleep.
***
"Where am I?" I asked as I forced my eyes to open despite their reluctance. It was the second time I'd said it, and I decided as firmly as I could while I was still trying to grasp my surroundings, that I really needed a new line.
"What are you doing here?" I added, while I sat up a little straighter and realized that I was sitting next to Jacob in some sort of vehicle.
"Nice to see you too," I could hear him mumble, and I smiled a little. It was so weird to think of him as a normal person, or, I guess, as normal a person as he could be. "You're in my car. I'm taking you back to Forks."
"Oh," I said, looking out the window and seeing the scenery flashing by, which made me feel like throwing up.
He nodded, and I turned my attention to my hands. My left arm was held in a sling that looked like it was just someone's sweater tied around my arm and neck. I had some cloth wrapped around my hands in what looked like make-shift bandages.
I suddenly felt a major feeling of déjà-vu. It was just like in grade three when I had fallen out of a tree while my class was on a field trip, broken my arm, and I had to be driven back to the school while the rest of my class continued learning about the native Australian wildlife. Except for the fact that I'd been in the back seat with a pack of ice, and the mini-van had been driven by my principal who was on his cell-phone the entire time.
"So you like cars, huh?" I asked, determined to make this car ride less awkward than the one in third grade.
He glanced at me quickly, I guess surprised that I had said anything at all. Then he turned his attention back to the road, and said, "Yeah."
"That's cool." I said, looking back at my hands. Ok, so, mission 'non-awkward-car-ride' had definitely failed.
We stayed quiet for a few more minutes. I tried to convince myself that Jacob was too intent on driving to make any attempt at conversation, but the highway was so empty that I knew that was hardly the case.
"You went to the campfire, right?" he asked, shifting in his seat a little. I looked up; completely taken aback that he had said anything at all.
"Yeah, yeah I did," I said slowly.
"You and Seth left pretty quickly afterwards," he said slowly. I turned back to my hands—that by now I had examined in great detail—and felt my face turn red. He had actually noticed when I'd left?
I nodded a little, not really sure what I was supposed to say. "So, do you and Seth, uh… well, do you, you know…" he said, trailing off.
"Um, sorry, but, I don't," I said, again not sure what he meant.
"Do you like Seth?" he asked, turning his full attention back to the road.
"What?" I asked, completely surprised.
"It's okay if you do, you know. I don't mind, I just, uh, wanted to know…" he said, shooting me a sideways glance.
"No, no," I said, shaking my head. "I definitely, one hundred percent, do not like Seth. Oh, I don't mean it like that. He's really nice. But I don't like like him, or… whatever…"
He looked a little relieved all of a sudden, and I took this moment to ask, "Why?"
"What?" he asked, and now it was his turn to look totally confused.
"Why does it matter if I like Seth?" I elaborated. "Unless he's like, a serial killer, which would be really creepy, especially since he gave me a ride home once, oh God, he's not a serial killer, is he?" I continued, immediately jumping to the most horrible conclusions.
"No, he isn't, or, uh, I don't think he is," Jacob said, a small smile on his face. "You remember the legends from the beach though, don't you?"
I nodded, suddenly wishing that I'd paid a bit more attention to them.
"Well… I kind of imprinted on you," he said quickly, not looking at me at all.
My eyes widened slightly, but other than that I was a little surprised that I wasn't more surprised. "Oh," was all I could think of saying.
Again the car fell silent, and I bit my lip, trying to think of something to say. Talking out loud wasn't really my forte.
"Um, so, would you still like me, even if you hadn't imprinted on me?" I asked, suddenly feeling a weird need to know.
"Depends," he said, a grin appearing on his face.
"On?" I asked.
"What's your favourite band?" he asked, still smiling.
"Um…" I said, virtually unable to answer. I was never too great at picking out just which bands I liked the most, and now I had to deal with the added distraction of being questioned out of the blue, and the extremely hot guy who was sitting next to me, waiting for an answer.
Oh God, get a room. I heard Edward's voice in my head.
We have the whole car. I replied, before I really realized what I'd thought. I could practically hear him laughing. What are you doing, anyways? Why don't you stick to your own thoughts?
I had to make sure that you too didn't crash, what with that animal at the wheel, he thought, and I could practically hear the disdain in his voice.
Jacob cleared his throat, and I remembered his question. "I don't know, maybe Metric?" I said, phrasing it as more of a question as I wasn't really sure about my answer myself.
"Oh, well, sorry then," he said, laughing. I smiled in return. "We're here," he added, and I looked up in time to see a sign saying Welcome to Forks before it whizzed by.
"What's with you mythical creatures and driving fast?" I asked, thinking of the vampires.
"Mythical creatures?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.
"You know what I mean, like, vampires, werewolves, that stuff," I said, waving my hand in the air and trying to explain while he laughed.
He had pulled up to my Aunt's house before I even knew it. "Oh, do you know what happened to my aunt?" I asked, afraid that Lily had done something to her.
"I think Carlisle said that she was knocked out, or something. I don't know. She's fine, though, she called him while we were waiting for you to wake up. I think he told her that you were staying over at their house, or something." He said, shrugging.
"Didn't Carlisle say that I was supposed to go to the Cullens' house when we got back?" I asked, just remembering it myself.
"Oh, right," he said sheepishly, and began to pull out of the driveway when the door opened and my aunt came flying out of the house.
"Juliet! Juliet, are you there?" she called, and came careening towards my door.
I rolled down the window just in time so that she wouldn't hit her head on the glass, or something, at the speed that she was running at. "Juliet, what happened to your arm? Where were you? What happened?" she said, talking so fast that I could hardly follow what she was saying.
"Um… I fell out of a tree," I said. At least the third grade incident was useful for something. "And I'm staying over at the Cullens' house tonight, or I was… didn't Carlisle talk to you?"
The fierce look on her face faded, and she said, "Oh, well, um, yes, I guess he did… Are you sure you still want to go though? And who's this?" she asked, instantly finding something else to interrogate me about. It was nice that she was concerned, I suppose.
"Carlisle's a doctor, Joan, so I'll be fine. Oh, and this is, um, Jacob. Jacob, this is my aunt," I said, not really sure how I was supposed to introduce a werewolf to my aunt who was standing in front of his car wearing her pyjamas and a bathrobe.
She nodded slowly, and said, "Ok, I guess… I'll see you later sweetie… do you want to take anything with you?"
"No thanks, I'll be fine. Thank you, Joan. I'll see you later," I said, smiling up at her, and waving as Jacob slowly drove his car out of the drive way, and in the direction of the Cullens' house.
"Um, I'm sorry about my aunt, she's kind of…" I began, not really sure what words to use to describe her.
"That's ok, she's nice," he said, smiling, although it looked a little strained.
"Are you ok?" I asked, immediately panicked that perhaps he had been hurt more seriously at the school than Carlisle had let on.
"I'm good, it just… smells kind of bad," he said, tightening his grip on the steering wheel.
I widened my eyes in horror. This was absolutely the most horrible time in the entire universe to have B.O. "I'm uh, it's—" I began, having no idea what to say.
He shot me a weird look, before breaking out into a grin. "No, it's not you, it's just the leech—uh, the vampires." He laughed a little.
We talked a little more as we made our way to the Cullens' house, and by the time Jacob pulled into their driveway, I could see lights on through the windows, so at least some one was home. "So, do we go to the movies, or something?" Jake asked suddenly.
"What?" I asked, looking up at him, brought back to the real world suddenly after I'd been busy wondering how I should say good-bye to him without sounding like a total idiot.
"Well, are we supposed to go out on a date now?" my face went red, as I realized that maybe, just maybe, he was asking me out.
"I don't know…" I began, trying my hardest not to jump up in my seat and start dancing around yelling "YES! YES! YES!" Instead I said, "I've never really been, um, imprinted on before."
"And I've never imprinted on anyone before," he said, with a laugh.
"So what are a completely good looking, amazing werewolf, and a mind-reading imprint-y to do?" I asked without really thinking.
Jacob was quiet for a moment, before cracking a grin and saying, "You think I'm good looking?"
My face became a deeper red than even the blood that was seeping through my bandages a little. "Um, I guess, you know, what I mean is…" I said, completely unimpressed with my current verbal skills.
"It's always nice to hear about it, because sometimes I wake up, and I think,'wow, I look really good today,' and even Seth can't help staring, but we all know how jealous he is of my looks," he continued mockingly, laughing.
"I should go," I said, smiling and unbuckling my seat belt.
"OK," he said, nodding, and added, "I'll call you."
I snorted, laughing out loud at how cheesy that sounded. "Bye," I said, closing the door behind me and waving while I walked up to the Cullens' front door.
***
"Juliet, unfortunately the very fact that the two vampires, Lily and Nathan, knew about you in the first place suggests that somehow word has gotten out about you, which is very dangerous indeed. It would be foolish of us to simply assume that they had just been in the area… No, I think not. Since you're a human who knows about our being vampires, that alone could put you into a lot of danger, but considering the fact that you can read minds… I just don't know if it's safe enough to keep you here," Carlisle said, while wrapping a clean bandage tightly around my arm.
"What do you mean by that?" I asked, looking up at him with my eyes wide—from a combination of pain and horror at what he could mean.
"What does who mean by what?" Alice asked, bouncing into the room and handing me the water bottle she'd gone to get. Her eyes were now a light golden color, and she seemed oddly okay about being around my blood.
"Alice," Carlisle said in a constricted sounding voice, that led me to believe that he was trying to convey a lot to her without letting me know everything. "Do you think you could contact Tanya and see if they might be able to have Juliet stay with them for a while?"
Alice maintained eye contact with him for a moment, before she nodded slowly, and again bounced out of the room. If she could read minds, I would've sworn that she had read his.
Oh wait—I can read minds, I remembered. It seemed a little crazy that I would've actually forgotten about my 'gift' at the one time that it might've been the most useful at all.
"I may as well just tell you what's going on, and save you the trouble of having to read my mind," Carlisle said, distracting me.
I nodded, and brought the water bottle to my lips. I took a deep sip of water, enjoying the soothing sensation it brought as the cool liquid hit my throat. I saw Carlisle watching me, almost intently, and I wondered if he was just waiting me to finish so that he could continue, or maybe trying to remember the last time he'd needed to drink things like water to stay alive.
"Like I said earlier, if other vampires know about you, they may, like Lily and Nathan, try to hunt you. This isn't just because of your gift, or the fact that you know about us. Actually, it could be as simple as the fact that you've been to our house on several occasions, and the scent of your blood is—don't take this the wrong way—rather appealing, so they could really just follow that. There are some vampires out there, however, that aren't quite so concerned with your blood as they are your gift.
"The Volturi are a group of very old vampires that reside in Italy. Normally they don't bother themselves with the affairs of other vampires—well, except other vampires with abilities they themselves want, I suppose—but when humans are involved they tend to care more. For instance, when they discovered that Bella knew all about us, and yet she was a human, they kept a bit of a watch on us for a while, and needless to say, they weren't pleased.
"If they were to find out about you, then I really doubt that they'd hesitate to come over here themselves, track you down, take your ability, drink your blood, and leave you to die. Yes, I know it's fairly gruesome—" he said, in response to my look of disgust, "—but they don't really care about ethics when it comes to humans."
"Um, who's Tanya?" I asked, trying slowly to digest this new information.
"She's a friend of ours, who we used to stay with in Alaska, along with several other vampires, all of whom believe in our 'vegetarian' way of life. I thought that perhaps if you could stay with her for a while, to get you out of the way until we can… let's say, discuss the matter with the Volturi peacefully, without any way for them to harm you." He finished his rather long explanation, and I thought about it for a few moments, before two thoughts came into my head.
'Oh my God, what about Jacob?!' And 'oh my God, what about Aunt Joan?!'
"Wh-what about my aunt?" I chose to say, deciding that it might be easier, and infinitely less awkward, to talk to Carlisle about.
"That's the difficult part, given that we can't by any means tell her about what's really going on, and we can't exactly come up with any kind of credible excuse given that I've no idea how long you'd actually be gone for…" he said, trailing off in thought.
No idea how long I'd be gone for. I blinked slowly and kept my eyes closed for longer than necessary, hoping—as stupid as it sounds—that when I opened them again I wouldn't be here, and none of this would be happening. Where would I rather be, though?
While my eyes were closed I pictured myself as a little girl again, laughing and smiling with my parents, but for some reason I couldn't picture it right. My parents' faces were twisted almost maliciously with their smiles, and my laughter sounded like the sound that some kind of large bird might make. I tried to concentrate harder, this time on a different picture.
Now I was arriving at Forks again for the first time. My first day at school, I didn't look up at Edward, or Bella, even when I had to sit near them in Science. The wall in my mind never broke down, I never read anyone's mind, and Edward never found out about me. The picture was coming out wrong too. I played it back like a movie being projected on my closed eyelids. The whole time it seemed like no matter how hard I tried, they both already knew about me, and they kept shooting each other knowing looks, and grins, laughing at how hard I was trying to keep them in the dark.
I decided that I couldn't imagine that because I didn't want them not to know. I didn't want myself not to know them. That doesn't make much sense, but it's true.
The last time, I tried to picture something more recent. I decided to imagine myself back in the car with Jacob. A faint smile traced my lips, and I realized that that's where I'd most want to stay. I would forever sit there, blushing, laughing, and trying not to say something totally wrong. I would come up with a much better answer—no offense, Metric!—to Jacob's question about my favourite band, and he'd instantly fall in love with me.
I shot my eyes open, remembering that this whole time I'd meant to be 'blinking'. Luckily for me, Carlisle was looking at the wall to his right, apparently deeply lost in thought. I breathed a little sigh of relief that he hadn't been looking at me, and when he didn't look up even though he'd obviously heard me, I thought that I ought to do some deep-thinking myself. Real deep thinking.
I thought about Lily and Nathan coming to get me, and then I tried to imagine them as dark hooded figures that practically gave off gloomy, scary, threatening vibes—the kind of images that I'd gotten from Carlisle's thoughts when he'd told me about the Volturi.
If they were as powerful as he'd said, then I was genuinely afraid of them—but not for myself. It's not like I was a particularly selfless person at all, but I figured that after I'd been kidnapped by two vampires, the worst might just about be over for me. I was far more concerned with what they might be able to do to my aunt, or the Cullens (not that they had any real reason to be afraid of anyone), or the werewolves (although, same as the Cullens), or Jacob, who was basically in a category all of his own.
"I'll go," I said quietly, jerking Carlisle out of his almost-trance.
"You'll what?" he asked.
"I'll go. To Alaska—to stay with your friends, Tanya, if they'll actually have me, I mean. We can tell my aunt… I don't actually know what we can tell her. Maybe that I'm going away to a camp or something. Or I could say that I'm going to stay with some other family—I'm pretty sure my dad had a brother…" I elaborated, trying to remember the name of this maybe-uncle.
"Alright. I suppose that could work. Are you at all concerned about, uh, well, the… Mr Black?" Carlisle asked.
"What?" I asked, wondering how he knew about Jacob (although I really should've made the connection. Vampire, werewolf, they probably at least know who each other are) and why he was asking.
"Well, you see, Juliet," he began in the same tone as my sixth grade teacher when she'd decided to give us a spontaneous sex-talk. I was practically bracing myself for the words, 'and when a man and a woman both love each other very much' to come out of his mouth, but instead his took on a more… supernatural aspect.
"I don't know if you really understand what imprinting on someone means to one of the werewolves," he continued, leaving me to wonder how everyone but me had already known that Jacob had imprinted on me. "Being away from his imprint for an extended amount of time, and not knowing what was happening to you… it would be pretty hard on Jacob."
"I know," I answered shortly, not really trusting myself to say much more. "But if I stay here, and someone comes after me…"
Carlisle nodded, and I was relieved that I didn't need to continue. I knew what I would've said already—it was practically on the tip of my tongue. What if they hurt him? The thoughts were whizzing through my head, making it a little hard to focus.
"Carlisle!" Alice practically dancing into the room. She had the sing-song quality back in her voice. "Tanya wants to talk you to!" she held out a phone, which Carlisle took, and I found it hard not to laugh that vampires, vampires, talked to each other on the phone.
He spoke in a hushed voice, and made his way out of the room—undoubtedly so that he could explain the situation without me hearing.
"So, Juliet, what's up?" Alice asked, practically radiating joy and confidence into the room. I sat down slowly onto the couch that was behind me—I hadn't really realized that I'd been standing this whole time before now—and Alice flopped down beside me, even though I knew she'd have been perfectly comfortable standing.
"I think I'm going away for a while," I said slowly, trying the words out on my tongue. "To stay with my uncle."
She nodded, paying more attention to my expression than my words, and I knew that she knew what I was really talking about.
"You have a good time, Juliet. With your uncle, I mean," she said, just as slowly as I had. "And be careful."