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Playing With Fire
Chapter Sixteen: Reprieve

School got harder after that day.

I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing, most times. During my zombie phase, I had been the model student, making A's without even blinking an eye. Now, however, I found myself struggling to concentrate. I studied as hard as I could, but even then everything I did was as if I was pulling teeth.

I managed to make good grades, but just not with the ease with which I had when I was barely living.

Now, it seemed as if I was living too much - especially by Victoria's standards. I hated the fact that I had to be watched everywhere I went. Paul had relayed my thoughts to the pack, that I thought that it could be a possibility that Riley was working with Victoria. That had everyone on edge, but it was Jared that spoke up one day, when I had been allowed to be at a pack meeting.

"Well, he could be with the Cullens." Jared had stared at me as if I was particularly interesting. "Just how well did you know them, anyway?"

The words stung. Just how well did I know the Cullens? I knew a lot of things about Edward, but was that all there was to know? I'd seen his eyes as he told me some bits and pieces of his past. I'd thought he had been skimming over some areas for my sake, but…now that seemed more true than ever.

Jared was harsh in nature, but was he right?

I didn't like it.

"It could be anyone when you put it that way," I had replied. "No one knows everything about anyone."

He shut up after that.

I wasn't sure why Jared disliked me, and I didn't care to be honest. I had other things to worry about than a werewolf with a grudge the size of his ego. And that was pretty damn large.

I think Angela might have noticed my funk, because she offered to go shopping with me one weekend. I remembered thinking a few days ago as I sat in my truck after the encounter with Riley that I needed some new clothes. Normally, I wouldn't care what I wore, but it would be something to do.

And I desperately needed the distraction.

I walked through my front door after coming home from school the Friday before our scheduled shopping trip. I had yet to bring it up to Paul for fear that he would shoot down my happiness altogether. But I figured I needed to tell him sooner or later. And currently my only option was now, seeing as the trip was tomorrow.

I knew why Paul would get upset. I practically had thought of what he'd say. I had landed on, "What the hell, Swan? A psychotic vampire is out to get you and you want to go shopping?"

Either that or, "Oh, whatever. Get yourself ripped to pieces. See if I care."

Those two possible lines from him were stuck in my head as if on spin-cycle. It was odd not to come home with Paul next to my side, but I had gotten a text from him just as I shut the door to the truck, Pack meeting today. Embry is following you home. I'll be in your room. Don't freak out.

I idly wondered why he was just going to meet me in my room, but I didn't push it. A pack meeting was reason enough.

I opened the door to my room and immediately searched the room for Paul. I didn't have to look far. He was standing near the window, looking out at the woods beyond. Like this, he looked rather calm. It was a strange sight, but not an unwelcome one.

"Long time no see," I ventured as I shut the door.

He didn't turn around, only said, "I have expected you to freak out when you got here."

"You sent me a text."

"It'd be like you to forget."

I blushed, "Shut up."

That caused Paul to turn around, "Now that wouldn't be any fun, would it?"

He was smiling, an odd looking thing, his teeth white and perfect against his dark skin. I found myself staring for a moment, and then looked away. That wasn't a good thing to do - stare too long at him. I'd end up seeing something I liked…

"Angela asked me to go shopping with her tomorrow." I slipped off my shoes and placed them by my door. "I'm going."

"You do know that there is a vampire out there that wants to kill you, right?" he asked skeptically, as if he thought I was playing a very elaborate prank on him. "But, fine, get yourself ripped to shreds."

Hm, a combo of the two possibilities from earlier. Intriguing.

"At least you ran it by me, I guess," he said, running a hand along his hair. "Now we can get a couple wolves out patrolling the area."

"…we're going to Port Angeles."

"Not in wolf form, obviously." He looked at me like I was a particularly special kind of stupid. "Just a few. Probably me and Jake would do. We won't interfere with you and Angela's girly shit, so no worries. You probably won't even see us."

"You don't have to - "

"Yes, we do," he said. "No telling what would happen. That Riley guy had the nerve to show up at your school."

"But that was my school. This is a public place."

"Public places have parking lots, too, Swan."

I wrinkled my nose at him, feeling that he was right yet not wanting to believe it. I hated it when he was right. But I really wanted to get out and do something. It was selfish, I knew, but didn't I deserve to be just a tiny bit selfish? And besides, my wardrobe looked like it might just fall to threads if I washed it one more time.

"I supposed you could use a shopping trip," Paul cheekily remarked, glancing at where I had managed to pull both thumbs through the sleeves of my long-sleeved shirt. "Your clothes have more holes than Swiss cheese."

I rolled my eyes, "Bad joke."

"Would you say the joke was cheesy?" He winked overtly.

I burst out laughing, surprised at myself. "You're stupid."

I was glad that I was able to weasel myself into the shopping trip with Angela without much problem from the pack. Paul had talked to them about it after I had brought it up. Sam, surprisingly, had been for it.

"'You shouldn't not have a good time just because of this little problem,' is what he said," Paul relayed back to me as we drove to Angela's house. "I think Sam has a bit of a soft spot for you."

I felt my cheeks flush, remembering the night in the woods with painful clarity. I had remembered that night so many times that it seemed etched into my memory. I remembered hot arms around me, lifting me up, a muscular chest that I had all too welcomingly laid my head on. Sam had found me that night. Maybe that was the reason he wanted to try and make me comfortable. I felt a smile cross my lips.

"That's nice of him," I whispered as I turned onto Angela's drive.

"Yeah," Paul shrugged. "He's a good guy."

As soon as I parked, Paul jumped out of the car and bounded to the woods behind Angela's house, a blur heading off to La Push to meet Jake and Quil, then circling back to trail us. I hated tearing so many of them away from Sam and the rest of the pack, but he was fine with it. And I needed to learn how to have confidence in the wolf pack. They weren't incapable in the face of stony-hard vampire skin. "This was what we were made to do," rang through my mind in Jake's deep tones.

"I can always not go," I had offered, still feeling guilty that they had to plan all of this because of me. A normal girl could go to the mall without having bodyguards around her at all times. Though, I admit I didn't go to the mall often, I would have liked the option to browse the bookstore without having wandering eyes on me.

"You're going." Paul had pointed to my sleeves. "Seriously. Even I notice that you need some help - and that's bad. Because I'm a guy."

"Never would've guessed." I had looked down at my sleeves, paint smeared on them from a day I had gotten bored and decided to try my hand at art. I failed miserably, of course, unable to do anything that remotely resembled the woods I was looking at. But maybe that was because I was uninterested in the woods themselves and only in the memory that haunted me - the memory of being left there.

I watched as Paul disappeared in to the woods, leaving nothing that would have indicated that he was there in the first place. Sighing, I made my way up the steps to Angela's porch and rang the doorbell.

Angela answered in a matter of seconds, her light brown hair pulled back in a loose ponytail and her eyes kind as always. "Hey, Bella. Ready to go?"

Her voice was odd sounding, as if she was hiding something from me. I quirked a brow and shifted my weight to my other foot. "What is it, Ang?"

"Is Bella here yet?" an all too familiar voice called from inside the house. I groaned inwardly.

Angela moved her gaze to rest on me, her eyes apologetic. Though she would never say anything bad about a soul, she knew how I felt about Jessica Stanley. Well, it could be worse. She could have brought Lauren.

She explained quickly, "She just came over out of the blue," she said, "and when I told her I was going shopping, she insisted on coming…I'm sorry."

I shrugged in response, "No big deal." I rolled my shoulders. "The more the merrier, right?"

I could even hear the tone of sarcasm in my voice, but Angela just nodded, not able to say anything else because Jessica suddenly poked her head out the corner of the door, curly hair flying everywhere. "Bella! Let's get a move on!" She was smiling openly, but I found myself struggling to return it.

Angela grabbed her purse from a hook beside the door, secured her keys, and we were off.

The car ride over there was constantly punctuated with conversation. Most of it didn't involve me, but I found that I was included more often that I would have been had Lauren been in the car. It seemed like she brought out the worst in Jessica, but I didn't dwell too much on that. The day was to relax, a slight vacation from all the troubles that plagued me.

The hardest thing for me, on the way, was listening to music. I couldn't ask Angela to turn off the music in her own car. I couldn't request that of her, like I did with Jacob so often. Song after song after song played over the radio, and I found myself fighting against memories that were like shackles weighted against my limbs.

I inhaled the crisp, evening air as I emerged from the backseat, almost as if I was trying to take in fresh air to cleanse myself from all the loaded music lyrics.

We walked into the mall, and as we did so, I couldn't help but glance around, hoping for a glance of the wolves. I knew they were around here somewhere, either in wolf form or human form or transitioning somehow. They would be here, I knew it, but it felt odd to not be in the presence of them.

Jessica was talking about something or another as we made our way thought the automatic doors that led into the mall. I found myself thinking back at other things, things that I was trying so desperately to get out of my mind. Wasn't the whole point of this trip to help me with this? Well, plus the fact that I was beginning to look like a hobo…

I forced the thoughts from my mind - the ones that involved Edward and Jacob and Paul and Victoria… I had to. If I kept dwelling on it, I would most certainly go insane. If I wasn't already. It was kind of hard to tell, most days.

We ended up walking through the mall, chatting and window-shopping and sometimes we would actually end up going inside a store and trying things on. The mall in Port Angeles wasn't the largest I'd ever seen - that honor went to the one in Phoenix - but I wasn't really concerned. One less place for me to get lost, I suppose.

Angela explained to Jessica how I needed some new clothes, and she looked at me as if to say, "Duh." But, unlike her friend Lauren, she didn't feel the need to say that to my face. I found myself grateful for Jessica's restraint. That was the last thing I needed today.

The stores we went into were almost empty. The whole mall was surprisingly empty for a weekend. I was able to find several tops on sale, which I was grateful for. I wasn't too keen on spending all of my savings on clothes - there were several new books out that I wanted to get as well.

I had been doing okay throughout the whole time, looking at clothes and trying things on. Even Jessica started to warm up, seeing that my zombie time looked to be officially over. I knew that Jessica wasn't intermittently a bad person, it was just certain people that brought that out in her.

The only thing that brought back the throbbing in my chest was, strangely enough, a soft blue cardigan. The material was smooth and warm in my hands, and then I heard it. Just a whispering, edging memory on the fringes of my mind.

"I like how that color looks on your skin."

Edward's former words had punched through the hole, ripping the edges ragged at the same time. I found myself gasping, throwing the cardigan back into the bin as if it were a venomous snake.

Jessica looked at me oddly, "That would have looked good on you, Bella."

I turned to face her. Her eyes were strangely concerned, as if knowing why I had thrown the cardigan back. It was odd seeing Jessica so observant. Maybe she was benefiting from hanging out with Angela so much. I know I would have liked to see her more Angela-like than another one of Lauren's lackeys.

"Erm…you think so?" I asked her, slightly surprised.

Jessica nodded, "Yeah. I remember that blue was always your color and now…well, you don't really wear it as much as you used to."

Another sharp jab to the hole Edward made. I could hear the hidden meaning to her words. She was practically saying, "After Edward left, it's been rare for you to wear blue." But I supposed that Jessica had a bit more tact than that, for which I was grateful.

I bit my lip, staring at the crumpled blue fabric in the bin before picking it up again. I shouldn't be scared of it. I shouldn't be scared of wearing a color just because it reminded me of my time with him. Just like I shouldn't be frightened of listening to music just because the lyrics reminded me of both Edward and Jacob in a bizarre way.

"Yeah…you're right." I said, and took the cardigan - and other items - into the dressing room to try on.

It was the little things, I supposed, that would end up building up over time and allowing me to fully heal.

After shopping for longer than I ever had in my life, we decided to eat in the food court. The food there was cheaper had we gone to the little Italian place across town. I was grateful that we didn't. I might have been able to buy that blue cardigan earlier - it had looked pretty decent on me - but I wasn't sure I could handle going into the same Italian place where Edward and I had our first encounter outside of school.

I sighed, my feet aching, as I put my bags down and lowered myself into one of the dinky plastic chairs, plopping the McDonald's bag in front of me. I was looking forward to eating my greasy, unhealthy double cheeseburger with reckless abandon, excited to chow down on the fries and maybe go back up there for seconds. Just because I could.

Angela had settled on getting a box of Chinese food from one side of the food court, while Jessica had gotten a salad and a serving of pasta from the little Greek place. I didn't care that my food choice was as unhealthy as eating fried mayonnaise. This was a day of relaxation for me, and that included being able to bite into something that could lead up to a heart attack later on down the line.

Jessica started talking about a new episode of some teen drama that I didn't watch, but Angela seemed to be well-versed on that matter. I listened, though, to what they had to say about it, and actually found myself wanting to watch it. I hadn't wanted to watch television in the longest time - not to mention a teen drama whose main focus was romance.

I found myself looking around for any sign of the wolves. I hadn't seen them the whole time I had been shopping, and neither did Angela or Jess. I knew the latter was a good thing, but I still felt kind of exposed. It wasn't like Victoria didn't have enough power to kill everyone in the mall and then some, and if Riley was on her side, then…

Well, I didn't want to dwell on that.

I shook my head a bit, and then rose from my seat.

"I'm going to the restroom," I told them. "Watch my stuff, please?"

Jess and Angela both nodded, and I departed, adjusting my small purse on my shoulder as I went. I suddenly felt slightly nervous. Not that separating myself from the group would have any effect on whether or not Victoria attacked me, it was still enough to make me queasy, thinking of the red-haired vampire quickly snapping my neck.

But, then again, if Laurent was to be believed, my death would not be quick if Victoria had any say in the matter.

I had just entered the small corridor that led down to both bathrooms when it happened.

A hot hand pressed across my arm. I started to protest, but then looked up and saw Paul's face, worried and anxious. I was immediately taken aback. Openly showing concern like this was not in his nature. Though I felt a nudge in my chest, a light skipping of my heart as I finally saw him again, I knew that this was not anything to be relieved about. The set of Paul's mouth and the tenseness of his shoulders revealed that much.

"P-Paul…?" I started, my voice wavering, "What's wrong - "

"We have to leave," he said. His hand was painfully tight, fingers almost overlapping the top of my arm.

"What…wh-why?"

"There's been an accident."

End Chapter Sixteen.