"Life is one of those precious fleeting gifts, and everything can change in a heartbeat."

UNKNOWN

Cupid's Chokehold; Chapter Thirty-Three. Bella.

Edward slowed down when he reached boundary lines. He helped me slide down his back until my feet hit the dirt road that led on to the reservation.

"I can walk the rest of the way, Edward," the rain had reached here yet so the road was dry. It would be a long walk, about three miles, but it would give me time to think about what I was going to tell Jacob. He was going to flip, he wouldn't see how funny it was that I little human Bella had killed Victoria. He would be angry, no, furious that I had done something so stupid. He would probably say that I should have gone for help, maybe even blame me that I had fallen for the trap.

My counselor!

"Someone needs to check the offices, my counselor called me from the school. That's why I went there. My counselor is a guy Mr. … something. I don't know. Victoria wouldn't be able to mimic his voice, would she?"

Edward was somber and avoided my question with his answer, "They will check all the classrooms before leaving in order to make sure that they didn't miss anything. It will look like nothing more than a bad fire," he ran his fingers through his hair in what could have been his signature move. "And I will not let walk home, Bella, I can get you to the house safely, which is more than I can say for you. This road is riddled with pot holes, you would hurt your ankle."

I took little offense, but still defended myself, "Hey, I just killed a vampire. How many humans can say they've done that? I think I can walk three miles without getting hurt." A quick pain went through my head and Edward laughed. I placed my hands on my head and looked around, a devious pinecone lay a few feet away. "That could have happened to anyone!"

"Perhaps, Bella. But it doesn't matter; I would be very upset with myself if so much as another pinecone hurt you." He looked down, unsure of how to carry on. "I still care for you very much," he said in his very proper tone, "I will still do anything to insure your safety, Bella. Please just—" he stopped and looked off into the dense woods. "Perhaps not. One of the wolf boys will be picking you up, they've made it clear that I am not welcome here. Please call us to ensure your safety, I don't trust them as easily as you do." He placed a firm kiss on my forehead and I heard a growl in the woods, I turned and jumped, still seeing nothing. When I turned around again, Edward was gone.

I looked back into the woods where I had heard the growl. Sam walked out from the woods in human form sporting his usual cut off jeans. He looked like he was ready to explode and he had every right to. Yet again, I, Bella Swan, had gone off and done something stupid and after promising Jacob not to. But this would probably be the last time unless someone else wanted to come kill me for revenge purposes. It was always a possibility.

"Can I just say I am really, really sorry?"

"Sorry hardly begins to cover it, Bella!" he was tense but his voice stayed quiet. I was slightly surprised. If he decided to lecture me and yell at me for hours, I'd take it. "Not only did you go off on your own and create God knows what kind of trouble, but you brought a Cullen close to our land."

"Sam, I didn't bring him back!" Okay, so maybe I wouldn't take it exactly. "He didn't want me to be alone, he didn't—" okay, interesting point, my truck was still at the school "—well, what if it was all switched around? What if it was you and Emily? Wouldn't you do anything in your power to keep her safe? Even if it was incredibly stupid and dangerous?"

"Despite your entanglement in all of this, Bella, there is a lot you don't understand about this world. There is a big difference between me and a Cold One, Bella! He is dangerous!"

"So are you!" I shouted. I couldn't help it. All it took was one look at Emily's face to see that protector or no Sam was a very dangerous creature.

"I don't trust him. I can control my ability; he will always be a vampire craving your life every single moment of every single day."

"Yeah and so far he hasn't killed me, besides Sam, I'm probably never going to see him again—" not true since I would be seeing him later today in the event of a meeting, but Sam didn't need to know that just quite yet"—it doesn't really matter. I'm going to go home, with any luck Jacob is still sleeping. I'm sure he'll be really hungry when he wakes up."

I strode past Sam and stalked off down the road. Sam came after me. "Bella, don't be ridiculous. The town is three miles away, you can't walk that. Not on a dirt road and not with your track record."

I turned around, I was sick and tired of people underestimating my ability. Maybe I couldn't tune up a truck or climb trees like a monkey, but I could walk three miles down a road without killing myself. "For your information, Sam Uley, I just killed a vampire. Can you say that? Can you say that you've killed a vampire in human form? I don't think so! So, just back off! Let me walk home, I need to cool off anyway." I took a deep breath, "If Jake wakes up tell him I'll be home in a little bit. I guess he can meet me along the way, probably would even I said not to." If Sam was upset, Jacob was going to be off the wall livid.

"Bella, wait!" Sam was calmed down now and more than a little interested in what I said. I looked at him, exhaustion was starting to seep in to me. "Slow it down, you killed a vampire."

"It wasn't really a well thought out plan, Sam. I didn't mean to. Victoria tricked me into going on to school and I don't even know how I managed to kill her, I think she was in shock or I was possessed or something. Alice and Rosalie and Emmett and Edward are there cleaning it all up and making everything look like an accident. They'd like to meet up and talk, Carlisle can be down if you'd like to talk to him or whatever. Right now I just want to go home and sleep. Killing things is kind of exhausting."

"Can I at least walk with you?" I knew he had a thousand questions, but this one was the easiest to answer.

"I don't want to talk, just walking."

&

We didn't end up walking—or rather I didn't end up walking. Sam went back into the woods where he changed by into his wolf form and let me ride on his back all the way to Jake's house. This worked out well because it meant that Sam couldn't lecture me and that I didn't have to walk all the way back to Jake's house on my own two feet. Despite what I told Edward, it really was a bit of a ways away.

I slowly nudged the door open in hopes that if Jake was still sleeping I wouldn't wake him up. I wasn't too sure how to go about this but I thought that if he didn't wake up to me coming in from killing a vampire that he wouldn't be as mad as if I woke him up and told him this. My theory was rather weak and unsupported, though.

Jake was still sleeping, in fact he had smashed the box of Poptarts in to oblivion underneath his rib cage. "Jake," I nudged him slightly and he moaned in that way that meant he was still sleeping but apt to respond. I knew that this would be the moment where I could ask him anything I wanted and I could get an answer. The first time I had been teased for my sleep talking at some childhood sleepover I had found out that people could in fact have an entire conversation with you and get the God awful truth.

"Jake," I nudged him again. I figured, if he woke up then I lost my chance and shame on me for wanting to mess with him this way, but if he didn't wake up well… I really couldn't be blamed for what I was about to do. "Jake, I need to tell you something. Promise not to get mad?"

"'Course not, baby," he responded, except it came out all thick and sleepy.

"I mean, really," I curled up next to him and rested my head on his chest, "You're really going to get mad at me but you need to promise not to."

"I promise, Bells, pinky promise."

Hopefully that meant something.

"Jake," I nudged him again, trying to wake him up this time. Getting him to promise not to be mad about what I was about to tell him while he was sleeping was pretty low, but as far as I was concerned, it was completely necessary due to the situation. I hoped that there was some morsel of him that really meant that no matter what I told him he wouldn't get mad. I wasn't counting my chickens though.

"Bells?"

This time, when he spoke, his eyes opened up and I knew that he was really awake this time. Suddenly, my stomach filled to the very brim with butterflies and bats and probably a few pigeons. And they all wanted to come out at the same time.

"Bells, what is it? What time is it?"

"About eleven, your sisters will be here in a little bit." They were probably my saving grace right now. If they were over, Jake couldn't get mad at me to the same extent that he could if it was just us. And besides, now that I really thought about it, what was there to really be mad about? I had killed the big arch-nemisis Victoria!

Well, there is the tiny fact that you risked your life. You know that he's built to kill vampires, Bella. And honestly, he just told you to not go to do stupid things. You know that killing vampires qualifies as something stupid, especially killing vampires. Honestly, Bella!

Some voice that was not Edward spoke to me inside my head. I think it was my conscience. I had a feeling that if I listened to it more often I wouldn't get in to half as much trouble as I tended to.

"Mmmm," he rolled over in to the pillow, grabbing my on the way. "They said noon, that's time for sleep." He pulled me with him and ended up lying rather uncomfortably across his side.

"Actually, I need to tell you something," I scooted off of him, resisting the temptation to just give in and curl up next to him and fall asleep. It sounded like a good idea, but only in theory. Logically, I knew that I needed to tell him about what had happened at school. I just didn't want to.

"That's weird, I had a dream that you wanted to tell me something, but you woke me up," he rolled on to his back, appearing to be awake now. "What do you need to tell me?"

I took a really deep breath. Why didn't Sam stay as some sort of body guard or backup?

"You remember how I went to school? To talk to my counselor?" I started off hesitantly. He nodded so I continued, "So, when my counselor called and asked me to come to school I assumed it was very important, and you know, school's kind of safe," okay, so with Victoria playing counselor for the past several weeks it wasn't exactly safe, but it was Saturday, it was perfectly logical for me to assume that she was not at the school. "I didn't really think you needed to come with me," I continued on slowly. Jake stretched and took in a deep breath.

"You smell like gasoline," he commented absent-mindedly. "Did you do something stupid at the gas station?"

Did you do something stupid? Now that was a good question.

"No… uhm, you see… when I got school… my counselor wasn't there…" I leaned over and put my head on his chest. His heartbeat was calm, at least to wolf standards, as was his breathing. I knew that if I continued that was all going to change. His chest rose again with another deep breath. He held it. I looked up to see his face scrunched up in curiosity.

Then he growled.

"You smell like vampire," his voice was as dark as oil. "What did you do?" he pronounced each word slowly and through gritted teeth.

I didn't think I would regret what was about to say. I thought wrong though.

Note: I beg your forgiveness, although you should be used to this by now. Between NanoWrimo (which I won!), the holidays and family drama that ended in me moving out of my home, this story just kind of got pushed to the wayside like a garbage bag in need of being picked up. I'm really sorry.

There's probably two or three more chapters left… unless Jake kills Bella… I don't know how I'll clean that one up. Except a new update…. sometime in the future. Happy New Year!