~*BROKEN PROMISES*~

Chapter 10 – The Fallout

A/N: My apologies for taking so long on this chapter. All characters belong to Ms. SM.

JacobPOV

The dark garage was all ablaze with florescent lights as we flipped the switch for our area. All our cars lined the back wall of the giant garage and I was quite certain that he amount spent on them exceeded any money that I would had made in my mortal lifetime.

I slid into the seat of my beautiful blue Aston Martin. It went so fucking fast – faster than any car I'd ever been in before. The perks of being immortal, I could drive over a hundred, crash and walk away as though nothing had ever happened. It would be almost impossible for me though. My reflexes are almost cat like and I can see further than most wild animals can.

I started the engine to my car as did the other Cullen members and it felt good to have the car purr beneath my hands and feet. I always loved cars and the mere fact that I had this one made me thankful for Alice – even as annoying as she could be.

One by one we shot out of the garage. We drove slowly through the streets of Seattle, but the moment we reached the back roads to Forks, we shot up to speed. Emmett tried to pass me in his Jeep but couldn't even touch me. My Aston Martin was fast – I think I pissed him off. I slowed to his pace and the driving actually calmed my thirst down a little bit. There was this stark pain still in the back of my throat that burned horribly.

We finally got the Cullen house in only an hour and a half. The moment we pulled into the driveway, I let out a sigh of relief.

Carlisle and Esme met us at the driveway and instantly welcomed us back into their embrace. It was such a great feeling to be back somewhere familiar.

"Where's Edward?" Esme asked me.

"He wanted to drive his car so he fell back a little bit." I said.

Esme shot a glance at Alice as a blank stare fell over her face. She cringed in pain and said, "No, Edward… don't… don't…"

Carlisle shook Alice out of her daze.

"What is wrong Alice?"

"Edward… he just… oh no."

"He what?" Carlisle asked.

"He bit someone."

Esme gasped and Emmett and Roslie both shook their heads.

"Did you see who it was?" I asked.

"No. I could only see Edward's face, and it was covered in blood."

The rest of the time waiting for Edward to arrive seemed to drag by slower than it ever had.

I sat on the steps outside waiting on him. I knew he'd be an emotional wreck, just as I had. We chose the life of being a "vegetarian" for a reason and killing humans, even though appetizing, wasn't something we took pride in.

I saw a Silver Volvo pull into the drive of the Cullen house and I noticed that he had someone with him in the car.

He jumped out screaming, "Carlisle, come quick, help me."

Carlisle ran out the door and straight to Edward's aid. They pulled a blonde man out of the car and took him straight into the house. I had no idea what they were thinking but they had to be crazy to allow him to transform. I wouldn't wish this on anyone now that I knew what I would be missing.

I followed behind the madness and found a familiar face, slowing dying and changing into the very monster that the rest of us were.

James.

Bella was going to fucking kill me.

Well, she would kill Edward first, and then kill me second by association.

James let out a huge scream as he wriggled in pain and I screamed to Carlisle, "Do something for him, we can't let the change happen."

"Do you know this gentleman?" Carlisle asked Edward and me. We both shook our heads yes.

"Well, you both need to be here when he wakes. He'll be really angry and confused. Emmett, you'll need to stick around too. He's going to be a newborn and they have tremendous strength, if you remember well, Jacob."

Of course I remembered. I literally shot through a brick wall towards a deer during my first couple of months. The thirst became too much for me to handle and before Edward or Emmett could catch me, I was gone through the wall of the house. It cost Carlisle a pretty penny to have that wall fixed.

I shook my head yes.

The next twenty-four hours would be tough to endure. I knew what was happening to his body and I felt a ton of sympathy for him, even though his dick had been inside my girl for the past couple of months.

I couldn't blame him for anything. I was the one who fucked up and now he lay in front of me, slowly fading away from his human life and I wanted to apologize for what Edward had done to him. It wasn't fair.

I walked outside to get away from all the death that fumed the air around us. I could hear his heartbeat slowly dying. It would speed and then slow down at rapid rate.

I watched as the sun came up over the horizon in Forks and I remembered the first time I noticed myself sparkling in the sun. I was actually quite pissed off that I would sparkle. I always thought that was the gayest thing about being a fucking vampire. I now embrace it but it took a year for that to happen. At least I didn't explode in sunlight. That was a huge plus.

After the sun met my skin, I decided to check in on our new member. I felt like I should have been waiting with a member's only jacket or some cookies or shit when he woke up. It almost did feel like a club of some proportions – a fucked up, members only club where you got eternal thirst instead of a jacket.

I sat down in the chair next to where James laid going through his change. Esme was in the other room with Alice and Rosalie while they tried to help me come up with a way to tell Bella. Edward was off hunting with Emmett and Jasper sat across from me, trying to lighten the mood with his ever present gift. It was helping and soon I felt a little more relaxed.

A sudden ringtone hit my ears and I reached James' pocket and quickly removed a cell phone. It was Bella. I wanted so bad to answer her call but I knew I couldn't. Alice and Esme quickly joined the rest of us in the room.

"Jacob, you need to just talk to her. You need to tell her what is going on. I'm sure she'll listen to you," Alice said.

"I-I can't. It has been too long. I'm sure she'll hate me once I tell her."

"Then I'll tell her," Edward said from behind me. "I'll let her know that you had nothing to do with this and it was my fault."

I stared at him with such interest. I couldn't believe he was doing this.

We let the phone go to voicemail and waited for James to get further into his transformation before we called Bella.

BellaPOV

"What do you mean you can't do anything for me until he's been missing for forty-eight hours? No he's never disappeared like this before… Can't you do something? … Fine, thanks for your non-help."

I slammed the phone closed and glanced around James' apartment once more to make sure nothing gave me any clue as to where he could be.

I locked his door and shut it behind me and walked home in the rainy streets of Seattle worried to death about my boyfriend.

I'd finally come to terms that he was in fact my boyfriend and I was ok with that. I felt some since of betrayal in his disappearance. He promised me that he would never leave me or hurt me the way Jacob did, and yet he was gone.

I walked slowly hoping that I would run into him somewhere on the streets. I kept thinking that maybe he got drunk and slept at the club. I called the club several times on my way to my apartment and finally got the club owner. He said that James left last night and that he had not even been drinking the entire night.

That theory got thrown out the window fast. I called a friend of his who would come to the coffee shop and hang out for a while, but she wasn't answering her phone either.

I finally walked into my apartment and sat down on the couch bewildered to his whereabouts. I tried his cell several times after that and each time would not get an answer.

I turned the television back on to keep my mind occupied. I must have checked my phone a million times over the course of the hours that flew by.

I finally got so upset that I couldn't take it anymore. I got dressed and decided that I couldn't be in Seattle alone anymore. I stood up, put my shoes on, packed my bags, watered my plants and went to retrieve my car from the garage. I was going home to Forks. I needed my dad and I was tired of being alone.

The four hour drive flew by as I listened to music and hoped that James would call me. The closer to Forks I got, the better I felt. I felt like James did this to me on purpose for the way I treated him before I said I'd spend the night.

I pulled into the drive at Charlie's house and looked up to the window of my old bedroom. The flood of memories of the good times I had living here came back to me and then the tears began to fall. I looked at the doorway to see Charlie standing with his hands in his pockets.

"So what do I owe the pleasure of my little girl coming home?"

I ran straight to him and hugged him so tight. I was crazy to think that I needed to be away from home.

"What's wrong?" he asked as he wiped a tear away from my cheek?

"I – I just missed being home is all."

"Well, you are welcome anytime. You know that."

He escorted me back into the house and I kept glancing at my silent cell phone for any sign that James was ok. I still had nothing and I didn't know what to do. I wanted so bad to tell my dad about James but after the Jacob fiasco, the mere mentioning of another guy to my dad was hard. He never understood why I left Jacob, especially when he needed me the most. I couldn't even begin to explain to him how he hurt me and I wasn't about to start tonight.

We ate our dinner in silence. I cooked, like I had done as a teenager living at home with him. My dad couldn't cook anything except fried fish, and we had plenty of that still. He would go with Harry Clearwater still to their favorite fishing hole.

"I haven't heard from Jacob in a while," Dad said as he cleared his plate into the trash.

"Dad, do we really need to talk about him right now?"

"I just thought I'd let you know. You never had problems with me talking about him before."

"I know, it's just this place brings back more memories of him than I care to think about," I said.

"Ok. I won't say anything else about him until you are ready to talk."

"Thanks Dad. I'm going upstairs to take a shower and dress for bed. I'll see you in the morning, ok?"

"Sure Bells. Hey, we are going to Billy's place tomorrow to finish working on the old boat. You wanna come with us and just hang out?"

"I don't see why not. Just try not to mention Jacob's name." I cringed as I said his name out loud. It still hurt to say it.

Sleep did not come easy at all for me that night. I kept envisioning Jacob leering over me with his mouth wide open ready to consume me. I would wake up screaming into my pillow, trying so hard to not wake Charlie. I think it worked each time. I could hear him snoring still as the pillow did a great job as a muzzle to my pain.

The morning came too early for me as I tried so hard to get out of bed. I promised Dad I would spend time with him and Harry down at Billy's house. I was torturing myself in even setting foot in La Push but I knew it was the best idea for me to finally get past all this guilt that I put myself through for hating Jacob as much as I did.

I rode with my dad to Billy's house and standing on the porch waiting patiently was Harry Clearwater. He'd aged a bit since I saw him last and he immediately gave me a huge bear hug the moment I got within three feet of him.

Charlie caught me up to date on a lot of the people who remained behind in La Push. I told him about what happened to Jessica and Lauren. He asked me if I felt like coming home and I told him I had thought about it but wasn't sure if I needed to or not.

"You know the door and your room is always welcome to you. Or, if you felt like living under your old man was too childish, I could let you have the keys to Billy's place. I'm sure him or… you know who wouldn't mind you living in it."

I loved the idea of living near the beach but I also knew that it was still Jacob's house. Dad was only overseeing the house. He refused to let Jacob give it to him and told Jacob that if he ever changed his mind, he could have the keys back.

"I'll think about it," I said.

He tussled up my hair a bit and got back to work on the boat. I sat on the ground staring into the woods. Through a small patch of the woods that stood opposite of the garage where Dad and Harry worked hard on the boat stood the cliff that Jacob talked me down from. Those memories seemed like years ago and I wanted nothing more than to have him in my arms again.

Sadness took over my body again as I remembered his warm embrace welcoming me, letting me know that I was ok and that everything would eventually change. I missed his smile. I missed his heavy heartbeat that I could hear when I would lay my head on his chest.

I stood up from the wet ground and dusted my wet ass off.

"I'll be back in a bit," I said. "I'm going for a short walk."

"Be careful. Watch for wild animals," Harry called back as I walked towards the clearing.

The pain that I felt that day slowly began easing back into me like a wound that had been re-opened. I felt the same kind of fear that I would never be loved completely crept back up my spine and into the open sores that sat in my heart. I felt the tears as they began to fall and I couldn't help the over abundance of despair that poured over me.

I stood at the cliff's edge watching as the waves crashed into the side, just as I had done that day that Jacob came to rescue me. The only difference today would be he couldn't save me this time. He was off, somewhere, living the life of immortality that he had chosen for himself. I wanted to crawl into a ball on the side of that cliff and not move. I wanted Jacob back so bad.

As I took a step towards the rocks I heard a familiar voice call to me softly, "Bella, don't… I'm sorry."

I didn't even look up. "Jacob," I whispered, "Why were you so selfish?"

"I realize now that I was… I'm so sorry I let you down," the voice whispered back.

I turned around slowly. Standing, in the clearing, was Jacob Black.

My heart stopped for a split second and I felt like I was hallucinating.

JacobPOV

I watched a James' body wriggled and struggled in agony. His transformation was almost complete and I had no idea how I could explain everything to him. I knew it was only a matter of hours before he was done and I walked away from his couch, staring out the massive windows of the Cullen house.

Edward came up behind me and said, "Bella is in Forks."

"I had a feeling she was." My mood began to shift only an hour ago. I knew she was near. I could feel her emotions as they took over me the moment she drove over the town line of Forks.

"How is she?" I asked.

"She seems ok for now. She's worried tons about James. I think you need to go talk to her."

"I can't Edward; I wouldn't know what to say to her."

"Just go talk to her. I think she needs you right now. She's at your dad's old place. I can see her thoughts. She's thinking about waves, and water."

I bolted right out the door. That was all he had to say to me and I ran through the woods right for my Dad's house. I stopped at the edge of the woods as soon as I realized that Charlie and Harry were there. I couldn't let them see me this way.

I crept through the woods until I reached the clearing in the brush where I found Bella years ago, daring to hit the rocks below.

"Bella, don't… I'm sorry."

She called me selfish. The mere thought of her thinking of me as that sent me into a tailspin. To hear her words as she released so much pain from her lips tore the last piece of humanity I had left I me out and I wanted nothing more than to make her realize that I still loved her.

"I realize now that I was… I'm so sorry I let you down," I said softly.

She turned slightly to me and realized that I really stood before her. Her tear stained cheeks took me back to the day I had to rescue her from here and I only hoped and prayed that she would let me again.

"Bella, you deserve so much better than the pain you've been living with. I'm so sorry I let you down and I would do anything on earth to relieve all the pain that I've caused you, and…"

"Just shut up and come to me," Bella said.

I walked slowly to her and she met me halfway, wrapping her small arms around my waist as I took her back into my arms, determined to never let her go again.