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Prey For Protection

Chapter Five:

I can't do this! I absolutely positively cannot do this!!! To say I was freaking out might've been a slight understatement. I thought I could hold it together; at least long enough to sit down, at the kitchen table, and rehash the past year with Charlie and his friends. I'd all but convinced myself that there was nothing to it; but when I moved to step out of my bedroom with my journal and the shoebox full of things I'd rather forget, I lost it.

Who was I kidding? I cried every time I read over one of James' notes or poems. How was I supposed to share all of that with total strangers? That box, had come to represent the fear that James had brought into my life. I suddenly wished I hadn't saved the notes. Why would I even want to save something like that anyway? I wondered. What kind of masochist am I?

I was suddenly angry with Charlie for arranging this whole stupid meeting of his in the first place. Why would he subject me to this? How could he possibly see it as a good idea? As though it weren't enough to make me relive it all, to admit just how afraid I'd been, he had to make me do it in front of people I didn't know?

I was frantically pacing back and forth across the hard wood floor of my bedroom, the box and journal lying in the middle of my bed. I'd just worked up the courage to go downstairs and demand that Charlie call his friends back and tell them not to come; when I heard the sound of a car pulling up out front. Shit! Perfect Timing, Bella. I rolled my eyes and sighed at myself in disgust, too late to cancel now. I peeked out my bedroom window; and saw the tail end of a police cruiser parked at the curb. At that same moment, I heard a knock at the front door.

Charlie answered the door, and I heard the deep mutterings of two men talking in the living room. I closed my eyes and took another deep breath, desperately trying to calm my nerves. I gathered my things from my bed and strode purposefully out of the room. At the top of the stairs I paused for one last deep breath, squared my shoulders, and started down the stairs.

Charlie must've heard me coming; he was waiting at the bottom to introduce me to the man that had arrived.

"Bells, this is Deputy Stan Hawthorne from down at the station. He's a real good friend of mine. He wants to help make sure you're safe here." He turned to Deputy Hawthorne and continued, "Stan, this is my daughter Isabella. She just got in last night, so I don't wanna push her too hard today. We just need to make sure we're all aware of what we're dealing with here."

"Of course," the deputy responded. "It sure is good to meet you, Isabella," he said, turning his attention to me. He had light brown collar length hair that hung loose around his face, soft hazel eyes and a warm smile. He was younger, I'd guess him to be in his mid-twenties, and a little taller than Charlie, with a slightly more muscular build "You're dad has told me a lot about you."

I nodded and offered him a weak smile in return. There was a genuineness about him that helped me feel a little more at ease. I followed Charlie and Stan into the kitchen and sat down at the table. Charlie quickly strolled over to the fridge, retrieving a couple beers; he offered one to Stan and took a long pull from his own, as he practically fell into the seat across the small, square, oak table from where I sat.

He and Stan took turns telling me about Forks High School and the 'good group of kids' that went there. Then they moved on to the discouragingly short list of things the local teens did for fun. I knew that they were trying to make me feel more comfortable; but I had a hard time following their conversation. My mind was stuck on the millions of butterflies fluttering around in my stomach, the way my hands were trembling, and the fact that I had no idea what I was actually supposed to say once things were underway.

"Bells, I need your cell phone please," Charlie cut through my thoughts. "We'll run out this evening and get ya a new one."

I nodded and hopped up from my seat, the chair scraping against the floor as it slid back, and rushed up the stairs to grab my cell phone from where I'd left it in my tote bag. As I hit the bottom step, there was another knock at the front door.

"I'll get it," I called into the kitchen at Charlie. I opened the front door to find a vaguely familiar looking older man in a wheel chair. I immediately realized that this had to be Billy Black. He looked to be about Charlie's age, with coppery colored skin and long black hair that hung straight down his back. He had smile lines around his mouth, and his eyes were so dark brown, they almost looked black.

"Hey, Billy, right?" I asked as I opened the screen door and stepped back for him to enter.

"Isabella! How are you?" he smiled warmly. He gestured behind him and said, "You remember my son, Jacob?"

"Just Bella, please," I corrected him automatically; suddenly realizing that Billy was, in fact, not alone. Standing directly behind him was a very tall, very broad younger man. I say younger, but I couldn't fathom a guess at his age. He was really tall, and muscular enough to easily pass for twenty; but there was youthfulness in his face and his eyes. He had the same jet-black mane as his father; but Jacob's was longer, and he wore it pulled back into a long ponytail at the nape of his neck.

I smiled up at Jacob, and noticed he had a far-off look in his eye. Probably thinking about all the places he'd rather be, I thought. I couldn't blame him; if I could be somewhere else I most certainly would.

I led them into the kitchen where they exchanged greetings with Charlie and Deputy Hawthorne. I slid my phone, across the table, to Charlie. He shoved it in his shirt pocket as he hopped up and quickly grabbed a beer for Billy. As he sat back down the conversation in the room stilled. Here it comes, I thought to myself.

Charlie cleared his throat and took the lead. "Alright Bells, let's start at the beginning."

~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~

Jacob

Wow… I mean… She was twelve the last time I saw her. She had always been cute, in her own awkward, quiet, sort of way. But… Holy Hell… At first, I didn't think that this was the same girl. The girl that answered the door sure didn't seem shy. She smiled her dazzling smile down on my dad, "Hey, Billy, right?" There was absolutely no denying that it was Isabella once she spoke; she didn't stumble over her words like she used to, but her soft voice chimed familiar.

"Isabella! How are you?" dad asked her.

She mentioned preferring to be called Bella.

She didn't seem to have grown much taller since I'd last seen her. She did however, seem to have, kind of, swollen out in all the right places. Her hair was chestnut brown, and it hung loose and straight around her shoulders, she wore no make-up as far as I could tell – and she really didn't need it. She was a little thing; more than a foot shorter than me, like 5'3ish… Maybe 100 pounds soaking wet… Maybe.

She was… gorgeous. She was wearing a dark pair of jeans that hugged her curves; and a white tank top, that was cut just low enough in the front to hint at cleavage. She was barefoot; which to me, made her perfect.

Billy cleared his throat, and I realized that she'd stepped back to let us in the house. I was just standing there, like a dumbass. Smooth Jake, I thought to myself. I pushed dad's chair through the door, and she closed it behind us. She was holding a cell phone in her hand and she waved it at us indicating we should follow her as she stepped past us heading toward the kitchen. That had to be the sweetest little…

"Jacob?" Billy spoke up, having caught me staring dumbly after Isabella Swan twice in less than two minutes time. I shook my head in an effort to clear the haze that had settled in it; and pushed my dad through the living room and into Chief Swan's kitchen.

There was only one empty seat at the small, kitchen table; and lucky for me, it was right next to her. I pushed dad's chair to the corner of the table, so he'd be sitting next to me; and I sat down in the only remaining chair. Chief Swan was sitting on the other side of my dad and there was another guy, a cop, sitting between the chief and Bella. He was quite a bit younger than the chief, who had introduced him as his deputy, Stan or Dan or somethin'… I wasn't really paying attention to Chief Swan during the introductions.

She slid the shiny, black phone she was holding, across the table to her father, and a sad look crossed her face. She sighed deeply, and bought her hands to rest on top of a shoebox that I hadn't even noticed in front of her. She slid the box closer to her and I realized there was some sort of book underneath the box. When I looked back up at her face, she was chewing on her bottom lip.

I felt myself grinning, as I remembered the countless times I'd seen little Isabella nervously gnawing on her lip. She was a shy, quiet, clumsy girl; she always seemed to be nervous about something. Maybe the nervousness and the clumsiness went hand in hand?

I almost laughed out loud as I thought back to Bella's summers in Forks. She was beyond accident-prone. She tripped over tackle boxes, fell outta fishing boats, hooked herself and several innocent bystanders with fishing hooks. If there was a loose board on a pier Isabella would step on it or fall through it. Huh… No wonder she stopped coming to Forks; I think she always went back to AZ nursing some kind of injury.

Forcefully returning my attention to the now, I looked up, and our eyes met. It was only for a second, but wow… She makes me say that a lot. When I looked into her eyes… They were… Wow… I mean… She had the biggest, most soulful, chocolate brown eyes I've ever seen. There were dark circles under them. She looked like she hadn't slept well in a long time. She looked away almost immediately, and her cheeks flushed a warm pink.

I knew then, that I would have no problem doing what I was expected to do. How could I do anything but protect her? Sitting there, in Chief Swan's kitchen, I had to fight the urge to pick her up and hold her in my lap. I wanted to wrap my arms around her, and swear to her, that so long as I lived, no one would ever hurt her again; that as long as I was breathing, she would be safe.

I felt drawn to her, in a way I'd never felt drawn to anyone before her. It wasn't the earth shattering experience that went along with imprinting. I knew that from reliving it through the minds of some of my pack brothers; but it was definitely something.

By the time I realized that she was talking, she stopped. I had no idea what she'd been saying; but she took another deep breath and removed the lid from the plain brown shoebox, and nested the box inside the lid. She bowed her head forward and her soft, brown hair fell forward, creating a curtain that blocked her face from my view; and she slid the box across the table to her dad. What was in the box? I had a feeling I would've known if I'd been paying attention.

Chief Swan and my dad were asking her about the book that she was clutching to her chest. She was biting her bottom lip so hard I half expected to see a trail of blood run down her chin. I looked over at my dad with a look that probably left no doubt as to how lost I was. He shook his head and smirked at me, allowing his eyes to dart from me to Bella and back several times. He knew exactly where my mind had been. I was so gonna hear about that later.

I heard my dad mention her 'going thought it and making a list for them'; at which point I caught up enough to realize that the black leather book that she was holding must've been some kind of diary or something. How could I have been sitting there all along and have absolutely no freaking idea what was going on around me?

Charlie spoke up then, his words directed at his daughter. "Alright. I want a list Bells. You go through and you get me everything you have in there about this guy. Every time you saw him, spoke to him, or received anything from him. I know you're a teenage girl and that he was at one point your boyfriend; but I need details. I need to know everything that was said and done and all that. From the first time you thought something was wrong until you got in my car in Seattle. Can I trust you to be completely forthcoming with me Bells?"

She quickly nodded in acquiescence, and turned an incredible, grateful smile on my dad.

"Alright then. I uh… I hate to push, but I'll need you to get right to work on that Bells. I need it ASAP," his voice had softened considerably. The cop in him seemed to be warring with the dad in him when he looked across the table at his daughter.

I knew he'd missed her like crazy. He used to start talking about her upcoming visit two months before she'd get here; and then he'd go on about how much she'd grown and the things they'd done for two months after she left. He was really upset when she told him she didn't want to come to Forks any more.

She and I had never been close. We'd each been dragged along to several fishing trips and Charlie brought her out to La Push several times each time she visited; but she was so quiet and standoffish. She almost always brought books with her; and preferred hanging back with her dad and reading to going off with my sisters and me. In fact, I doubted that she'd even remember me.

Deputy Dandy cleared his throat, and noisily scooted his chair closer to Bella. I felt a growl start deep inside my chest until Billy reached over and pinched me on the ear in warning. I pulled away from him but made it a point to harness my inner wolf before returning my attention to Bella and Deputy Dipshit.

He had taken something out of a dark brown, soft leather briefcase that sat against the leg of his chair; and was looking down at it as he spoke.

"Your mom sent us a photo of that James fella. She mentioned that it was several years old though, five to be exact; but it seems to be all we could come up with. The kid hasn't had a school picture taken since elementary school; we checked. So anyway, I'm talkin' to a buddy of mine in Seattle, he's on the force over there, and he's really into forensics and new technologies and whatnot. So we're talkin' and somehow this case comes up, and I mention the fact that we don't have so much as a recent picture to go on. He tells me how they can have computers 'age'," he finger quoted, "a picture. Can you believe that shit? What the hell are they gonna think of next?"

This guy reminded me of Barney Fife without the funny. By this point I was pretty sure he had a point, I just wasn't sure if any of us would still be alive by the time he got around to it.

As though he could sense my growing impatience he went on, "Well I sent him the picture and this here's what he sent me back. I figured you'd be the best judge of how good a job they did." He slid the picture in front of Bella, and looked down at her expectantly. "What do ya think? Is that your James?"

Her James?

I cringed, hearing it put that way, and I thought she did too. She picked the picture up and gave a little gasp as she brought her eyes to it. Then she furrowed her brow and started shaking her head. She seemed lost in her own world for a minute; and her cheeks flushed pink when she looked up to find us all watching her expectantly, waiting to hear what she had to say about the picture.

"Well…" she started, tilting her face lower to hide behind her hair, as she laid the picture back down on the table. "Yes, and no?"

What? I glanced around the table and was actually relieved to see that I wasn't the only one confused this time.

"It could very well be a photograph of James; but it's not what he looks like now." She glanced around nervously, and when no one spoke up she started to explain. "When James disappeared, he looked like that," she pointed at the picture on the table in front of her; "but when he showed up again, he… didn't."

"Hmmm… "The deputy pulled a black ink pen out from his shirt pocket, and reached for the picture. He flipped it over and looked back over to Isabella, "I didn't figure it'd work as well as he said it would," he muttered. "Well if this is at least a good start, how bout you tell me what's different and we'll get Jimmy to get started on a sketch for us? I'm surprised it even turned out close to tell ya the truth." He sat there, pen hovering the paper with James' picture printed on the back waiting for her to answer.

I rolled my eyes and looked back over at Bella. She was staring down at the table and chewing on that bottom lip of hers. She looked uncomfortable, like she was struggling with something. She glanced up at each of us and then back down at the table several times. She mumbled, something about thinking she was crazy, before she finally spoke again.

"Well… He… Um… He changed, last summer. I don't know. Like I said, before he went camping, which was when he disappeared, he looked almost exactly like that," again, she pointed toward the now facedown picture, "except his hair was a little longer – just past his collar."

Deputy Dillweed, yeah I was having fun with the nicknames, jotted that down on the back of the picture and waited for her to go on.

She had an almost pained look on her face; brought on, I assumed, by having to remember the prick that had harassed her so much that she had to leave home. I couldn't help but wish he would show up looking for her. I'd love the opportunity to kick his ass; and I didn't even know much of anything about what he'd done, other than scare the hell out of her like some crazed stalker.

"Anyway… When he showed up again he… He looked different. He acted different. He just was different. He and his new friends liked to scare people; they all wore these stupid, red contact lenses all the time. It worked to," she chuckled darkly, "they were really scary. Sorry, anyway…" she shook her head once like she was trying to clear it. Her voice was sad, and barely above a whisper, when she added, "I'm… I'm afraid he might be doing drugs now too." She glanced quickly up at her father, and then back to the table in front of her. She cleared her throat, and spoke a little louder as she continued. "He was always tan." The corners of her mouth twitched in to the faintest hint of a smile. "He was like a poster child for the 'Valley of the Sun'," she finger quoted. "When he came back though, he was pale. Really, really pale…" She shuddered, and looked up at Deputy Doofus, her brow furrowed, a sad frown on her lips, and a faraway look in her big doe-like eyes; "I know your sketch artist can't exactly draw this; but, when he touched me… every time he touched me… Christmas, or when it was a hundred and eight outside… His skin… It was like ice."

No fuckin' way! I heard my dad's sharp intake of breath and knew we were thinking the same thing.

He'd told me that we were going to have to help Chief Swan's daughter weeks ago. My dad has these 'feelings' sometimes and well… He's not known for bein' wrong. He can't predict the future or even get the winning lotto numbers; but sometimes, when he sees something or hears something he gets a feeling about it. It's usually pretty vague. In this case, dad had gone fishing with the chief and they were talking about his efforts to convince Bella's mom to send Bella to Forks. He had just gotten word that afternoon that Isabella was, in fact, coming to stay with him. Dad came home and told me about it and said that we would need to help them. He didn't know how at that point; he'd said he just 'had a feeling', that we would need to help.

Now I understood. As un-fucking-believable as it seemed, Isabella Swan needed more than a couple of big strong Quileute bodyguards; she needed the protection she could only hope to find from a pack of werewolves.

Billy tapped me on the arm, bringing me back from my thoughts, and motioned that we should go. Chief Swan was standing between Isabella and his half literate deputy, flipping the picture back and forth, discussing differences and making notes. We interrupted them long enough to say our goodbyes, dad claiming some forgotten tribal counsel excuse for our sudden departure. He promised to call Charlie as I wheeled him out the front door.

Neither of us spoke as I helped him into the front seat of my beat to shit but beloved VW Rabbit. I stowed his chair behind his seat before climbing in behind the wheel. When I turned onto the two lane highway that would take us back to the reservation; I broke the silence.

"So what do we do?"

He sighed deeply, "I have to talk to the elders first, but I think we should tell him. There is no way he can fully comprehend the danger she is in. There is no way he can understand that you and your brothers are her only hope, unless he knows."

I nodded in agreement and drove the rest of the way to La Push in silence. Both of us were caught up in our own thoughts; thoughts of Charlie Swan, his beautiful daughter Bella, and the bloodsucker that picked the wrong girl to mess with.

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