Transcendence
Chapter 15
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Anyone is welcome to my student loans if they want them.
A/N: As always, I just want to profusely thank my patient, amazing beta Lemon-of-the-tent for all her work with my story. It wouldn't be the same without her.
Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. The mantra kept repeating over and over in my head. Jake was going to react very badly to this news. Gloom and terror were taking hold of me – I had never thought it would be possible for Alice to drive any faster, but she proved me wrong on the way back to the house.
"Alice? Do you see any…?" my voice sounded so tiny in the confines of the car.
"Please be quiet, Bella," she snapped. "I need to concentrate."
Alice never snapped. I had never heard Alice speak to any one shortly.
Jasper was already descending the wide porch steps when the sports car skidded to a stop in the drive.
"What's wrong?" His worry was obvious in his tense features. He would have picked up Alice's agitation from farther away than anyone else.
"Bella's ex knows we're back."
"The wolf?"
"He doesn't exactly know yet…" I supplied pitifully.
The setting sun cast even deeper shadows than usual across the open yard. The high trees ringing it took on a monstrous quality, as if the creatures of the night were lurking within. Prowling, stalking through the overwhelming gloom.
The transparent gloom faded away as the light of the setting sun, barely granting its parting glow to the sky behind the towering forest, seemed to recoil and was replaced by overwhelming darkness. Time felt like it was moving in such a lurch around us. It may have thirty seconds or thirty minutes as we waited.
Of course I was the only one that noticed this. Poor little human Bella. Not like the vampires and werewolves. I could see nothing, hear little more. Even the usual night time critters had gone silent in anticipation of whatever was coming. Alice was only a few feet from me; I could see her vague outline and Jasper's just a few feet beyond her. When the hell did it start getting dark so quickly? How could they manage to be so utterly silent, so still? If I hadn't known better I would have thought the outlines of figures before me were ancient statures; some long forgotten Greek gods carved from pure alabaster.
I jerked my eyes closed and blinked to adjust when the porch lights suddenly illuminated the yard. Esme's steps were slow and measured as she crossed and came down into the grass. I had never even seen Carlisle come out, but there he was, standing beside Jasper. They were listening; straining for anything that would warn them the pack was coming.
My phone began to ring and the vampires all turned toward me, surprised. I hit the tiny button and sound began pouring out.
"He took off!" Seth was running. I could hear the leaves and branches hitting him and the phone as he chased the others through the forest. "Sam doesn't want to order him off. He's afraid Jake won't listen. The others are behind him, I gotta catch up."
"I know." I hung up. I knew Seth would need to phase to have any hope of catching the others.
I appreciated that I didn't need to relay the message to the vampires. They all stared off in the direction I knew the reservation lay. By the time I heard the rustle of leaves I was surrounded, all of them watching carefully as the gigantic wolf broke through the tree line, the others must be close on his heels.
Jacob skidded to a stop just before me. The few feet between us hardly seemed sufficient with his display. He was nothing but a jumbled cacophony of snarls and snapping teeth. Jasper crouched, waiting for the seemingly imminent attack.
This couldn't be how things turned out. It couldn't come to this. I had them back! I finally had them back, and now…
The decision came to me as easy as breathing. I rested my hand lightly on Jasper's shoulder as I walked around, between him and Jacob.
"Don't you dare start a fight, Jacob Black." I ordered.
The wolf was still snarling as he stared at the forms behind me.
"I mean it, Jacob. You know damn well which side I'll take in this if you do."
There was a commotion as the other wolves dove out of the trees. They skidded to a stopped a few feet behind Jacob. Quil and Embry slowly continued forward, obviously intent on standing by Jake's side should he be attacked. They stilled with a look from Sam as he passed them, coming to stand at the head of the pack. He was silent watching, assessing how much damage had already been done. The other's watched the scene with wary curiosity. It was almost like a group of bystanders watching a train wreck that was about to explode. Not bystanders, that wouldn't be fair to them. Maybe paramedics that knew damn well it was too dangerous to approach but where there to try to pick up the pieces if they had no other choice.
Jake looked over his shoulder at them and then began to pace in front of me, annoyance and anger radiating off him. He was still growling. I had spent enough time with him to know that it wasn't overt aggression – he was simply complaining.
"We are not doing this. If you want to talk to me you go phase back and talk." I crossed my arms over my chest as our battle of wills began. When the hell did I get so assertive?
He was glaring. Jacob never liked being ordered around, especially not in front of the pack. Most especially in front of a group of vampires and the pack. I couldn't back down now – why did he think I would respond to his growled complaints? I never had before.
Our staring match was interrupted as one last wolf burst through the woods and came to a skidding, rolling stop in the clearing of the yard. Seth scanned the assembly desperately before he took a seat on the ground near Sam, somewhat sheepishly.
Jacob shook his head and looked back to me, with a whine.
"I am not going to have a conversation with you this way, Jake. If you want to talk, you talk to me as a man. If you won't, then go home." I punctuated my ultimatum by pointing back the way he had come.
He huffed and gave one last low growl before dropping his head and turning. The light, barely stifled coughing laughs from his brothers made his shoulders tense. It seemed Seth's entrance had triggered something in the pack. They all seemed to give off this impression of... detachment maybe, as if this was some stupid thing, like Jacob was being as ass and tomorrow we would all be back to normal. Or whatever normal was for us. I couldn't even imagine what Sam must be saying to them to encourage this turn. Or maybe destroying a century old treaty with their sworn enemies, because Jacob was having a tantrum was just an exciting way to spend a Thursday night. Looking at the assembled pack I could see the amusement on many of their faces. Only Sam and Seth were silent and still in their seriousness with the whole thing. Jacob stalked back toward the pack. Embry yelped as Jacob's heavy body smashed into him and he roughly grabbed the shorts tethered to his hind leg. The laughing became focused on the sufficiently cowed wolf as Jake skulked around the corner of the house.
He emerged a moment later stomping in my direction. He was fuming, enraged.
"Hello, Jacob." I said slowly. It was so strange to see him again. There was a bittersweet twinge at the sight of his face, even if his hard eyes focus on me in anger. I still missed him. I really missed him.
"Bella. You look... You look... beautiful." His mask of anger slipped and his eyes softened just a bit seeing me. I'd completely forgotten about my makeover.
"Thanks." I appraised him. He looked terrible; he smelled even worse. If even I could detect his general odor with my dimmed human senses… "When was the last time you phased back?"
He shrugged. His eyes rested on me again then drifted back to the vampires behind me and his lips curled into a sneer. "Come here, Bella" His hand was outstretched toward me. The wary command hung in the air.
"No, Jake. I'm not going to do that."
"Bella…" his voice held a warning.
"I chose to be here. They're my friends, and—"
"They're fucking leaches." He spat before I even finished my sentence.
"Please don't do this – they would never hurt me."
"They already did."
I shook my head. Things had changed so much in the way I thought about things with them so much in the past two days. "He hurt me, Jake. It wasn't their fault."
"Bella, you need to come away from them now."
"No, Jake. I'll go where I want."
Jacob took a step forward. "Please take my hand, Bells. You need to come home now. It's okay. You're just confused."
"I've never been less confused." He was in denial, grasping at straws.
"They're messing with your mind. You need to get away from them and you'll come back to your senses."
"I'm so sorry, Jacob. It's just not like that. I need to do things for myself now – I need to stand on my own."
"And you choose to stand with them?" He was incredulous.
"They didn't tear through the woods, over a treaty line, in a temper tantrum."
My accusation went straight over his head. "You can't expect me to just stop worrying about you. I love you."
He always knew how to wound me best. "I know you do. I love you, too."
"Then come here. We can go home."
"It's not that easy. You're my best friend…"
"Exactly."
"But…" I sighed. This was the first time I ever had to explain my feelings and reasons to anyone else. "We were great as friends, Jacob. We were shit as a couple. You know that." I took a deep breath. "We need to start over."
He shook his head in denial. "They put that idea in your head, Bells. You come home now, and I'll help you get past this stupid little... thing you think is going on.
The wolves behind him had stopped laughing, the amusement dropped from their faces. A few cringed at his last sentence.
"It's OK, Bella. I'm not angry with you. You're just confused. You don't understand what's happening. All of this… we'll put it behind us and we'll be better."
It was odd that at that moment my mind snapped and shuffled through so many conversations with Edward. Jacob sounded so much like him at that moment it made my stomach churn angrily. The feelings of betrayal reared up.
Why was it so hard for the men in my life to accept that I could make my own damn decisions?
I hadn't even realized I was crying angry tears when I finally spoke again. "Just like him…" I whispered.
"What?" Shock coloured Jacob's voice.
"You're just like him."
He knew exactly who I was talking about. "I'm nothing like him."
"No, you are – you can't let me decide anything for myself! You know best, right?"
"In this case..."
"It's my fucking life, Jacob." I cut him off. "Why is it so goddamn hard to accept? Am I so fucking stupid that I can't even manage to get angry on my own?"
"I put up with you pining over him for the last 5 years, Bella! I get some say in things."
"If I pined it was because you never let me mourn."
"He threw you away, Bella." He paced in a circle. I should have seen the warning signs. I should have seen the level his rage was reaching. "He threw you away, and you better remember I was the only one willing to take a bloodsucker's used-up whore."
His words hit me harder than any physical blow could have. I gaped at him, my breath had rushed out. Suddenly there were cold hands on my elbows.
"Bella…" Alice was at my side.
I waved her away and took a step toward Jacob.
"Well… at least I know what you think of me. You sure as hell didn't mind my past when you were on top of me." I had never told Jake that Edward and I had never slept together. He, like pretty much everyone else, simply assumed we had. That that was the reason I took his departure so hard. No point in correcting him now. "But then you didn't really think about much past getting off and passing out did you?"
"You never complained. You were quite the little bitch in heat if I remember."
"Oh yeah, it feels great to get fucked by a hot poker. What a shame you shoot blanks at 21."
There was a cumulative cringe on both sides. The pack of course knew about Jacob and my fertility problems. We had even gone so far as to start fertility treatments the year before.
There was a light tingle in the back of my mind and the anger bean to drain away. "Don't you fucking dare calm me down, Jasper Hale!"
In my peripheral vision I saw him raise his hand and back away.
"You like being told what to do, Bella." Jacob smirked out of spite. "You enjoyed being my bitch and you know it."
"Yeah, it was great to be bossed around by a fucking coward."
"What?" My comment cut him short.
"You act so tough. But you're nothing but a pathetic little coward."
"Where the hell do you get off…?"
"You can't even accept your birthright, Jacob. Yeah, I got to be the beta's wife, since you were too much of a fucking pussy to accept being the alpha."
He shook with bottled rage. I had crept closer in my tirade. His eyes were squeezed closed. "Well, when he comes back, I hope you enjoy your time on your back before he drains you. That was all you were ever good for anyway."
I wasn't even really conscious of it when my fist pulled back and flew at his face.
It must have been the shock that I would dare raise a hand to him that made Jacob fall to the ground since I knew there no possible way it was due to my strength.
I turned away and started walking toward the house in slow measured steps. I was absolutely furious. The very sight of him made me ill.
"We're not finished, Bella." I could hear Jake scrambling up from the dirt.
"I am." I answered quietly, just loud enough for the assembled non-humans to hear.
Barely a moment later was I thrown to the ground. The force made me notice the throbbing ache in my hand that the adrenaline has thus far drowned out. I looked back over my shoulder almost frightened to see my soon to be ex leering over me violently.
What was there shocked me even more.
Jacob was frozen mid step, his hand extended toward where I had been standing.
He hadn't knocked me down.
The large tawny wolf standing between us, hackles up, teeth bared, growling at him had. There was a cold hand gently resting on my shoulder. I was too shocked with the situation to really notice who it was.
"This doesn't concern you, Seth." The inflection of Jacobs's position as second resonated in his voice.
Seth obviously disagreed. It seemed to have no effect over my step-brother.
"This is finished." I hadn't noticed Sam slip away and phase back in the midst of the fight. "Go home, Jacob. Don't leave LaPush for now."
The command was given and Jacob turned with one last glare in my direction. Within two steps, he exploded into his wolf form and galloped off into the woods.
"The rest of you follow him." He called back. The other wolves slowly crept away, casting looks over their shoulders at me.
I could feel tears running down my face and I sat in the dust. "My hand hurts." I whispered. It was so silly and mundane after everything that had happened.
"We all heard the bones snap." Carlisle was at my side examining my offended digits. "Jasper?"
Jasper was there a second later gently lifting me from the ground.
Seth whined quietly.
"It's fine, Seth." I whispered.
"He wants to stay." Sam stated more to Carlisle than anyone else.
"It's Bella's decision. He's free to come and go as long as she wishes it."
They all looked to me.
"Yeah, it's fine. You know the bag in my truck has clothes."
He wasn't listening; his attention was on Sam and Carlisle.
"The treaty?" Sam asked.
"It is intact. This was… a unique situation. And entirely between Jacob and Bella."
Sam nodded. "I'll get Seth some clothes from her truck before I go."
"Sam…" I called as he turned to leave. "You know I didn't mean…"
"It's fine, Bella. We all say things when we're angry."
The subject was closed. Jasper carried me in the house as the yard finally cleared.
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