Author's note: Okay, well, although the poll didn't get quite as many votes as I'd hoped, those that did vote said loud and clear that they wanted Ch. 7 to have a blend of Evie, Jake, and Paul's POV's, so…that's what you get. As always, I own nothing except my OC's and the plot line.

Chapter 7

EVIE

The sharpness of Jacob's tone made my eyes fly over to the door frame and on instinct, I curled closer to Bella, knowing full well that Jacob wouldn't dare do anything to her…right? He stalked closer to Bella and me, his eyes blazing. "Start talking," he snarled. Instead of speaking, I glanced upwards at Bella. What do I do? I thought. After all, it was one thing to tell Bella, but telling Jacob was another thing completely. I could—no, would be breaking another major cosmic rule and I didn't want to risk the wrath of the magical world. Or more importantly, that of my mother.

A thick silence and tension overtook the room as I looked from Bella to Jake, motionless and unsure of what to do. Seconds that felt more like hours passed by, punctuated only by the whisper quiet sound of each one of us breathing until Jake finally snapped.

"I said start-!" he shouted, bending down and putting his face an inch from mine.

The fear inside me turned into anger and boiled over. Who the fuck does he think he is? I tried to shove him backwards, unsuccessfully. "I don't have-!"

"ENOUGH!" Bella shouted, effectively cutting the both of us off. "Jacob, get away from her!"

Jacob stared at her in disbelief. "You can't be fucking—"

"You heard me, Jacob. Stop it!"

He stood up and growled in frustration, practically stomping away from us. "I'm not letting this go, Bella. I need answers—"

"And you'll get them, Jacob! But for God's sake, at least give Evie some time to get up and get herself together; scaring her even more than you did with that door slam isn't going to do any good. I know that this'll all get sorted out," she said, giving me a pointed look.

I sighed, not sure of what to do. As I wracked my brain trying to come up with a somewhat believable lie, a tense and awkward silence settled over the three of us, which is why when my phone rang, I jumped out of my skin.

"Son of a bitch," I hissed out as my mom's ringtone blared in the room. "At the rate I'm going, I'm going to have a damn heart attack in an hour!" I glanced at the phone. "I have to take this; it's my Mom."

Bella nodded, but Jacob looked more upset than ever. "Go ahead and take it, then," he said when I made no move to answer the phone.

"It's a private call," I said, glaring at him.

"Yeah, right, like we're going to leave you alone so you can run—"

"Look, I'm not going anywhere, ok? If you want, you can leave the damn door open and do random spot checks, but I'm not taking this with you in here!"

Just when Jacob was about to start arguing again, Embry entered the room, giving me a wink and giving him a serious look. "Come on, Jake. Let's give Evie her moment," he said. From beside me, I heard Bella breathe a sigh of relief and watched as Embry dragged a reluctant Jacob out of the room, with Bella following dutifully behind them.

I sighed and finally answered the screeching phone. "Hey Mom," I said.

"Hey sweetheart, are you okay? Did you get there safely?" she asked.

I sighed. "I got here fine, Ma. But…they know I left. And I'm guessing they partially saw me come back because I thought of the living room in Bella's friend's house, completely forgetting that when I left, Bella and I hadn't been alone."

"Damn it," she swore. "I was hoping that part of the vision was wrong."

I felt my eyebrow arch in confusion. "I thought you said you didn't get visions, Mom," I said.

I almost felt my Mom get tense. "I—I don't. I had a little help."

"From who?"

She sighed. "Look, that doesn't matter. Go ahead and tell them. Answer their questions. But make sure you're not the only one giving out secrets; ask them about theirs."

"What?"

"Bella and her friends have secrets of their own. And if they expect you to give up yours, you'd better make sure they give up theirs."

"But Mom…"

"Trust me, Evie. Everything's going to be fine." She sighed. "If you need me, for anything, don't be afraid to call me. And remember, whatever you do, keep Charlie in the dark."

I sighed. "You got it, Mom. But I gotta run…before they come in here and start arguing again."

"Okay, baby. Love you."

"Love you too." I hung up the phone and took a breath, not sure what was waiting for me just outside the door.

JACOB

As soon as we were away from the bedroom and out of earshot, I shook out of Embry's grasp. "Why the hell did you do that, Embry?" I hissed.

He rolled his eyes at my outburst. "Jacob, haven't you ever heard that you catch more bees with honey than with vinegar?"

From the couch, Paul snorted and for the first time in a long time, I didn't feel like telling him to shut the hell up. "Dude," he said to Embry, "you just dropped your man-card."

Embry's eyes widened. "No, I didn't!"

Paul just laughed. "Sure you didn't, Embry. What the hell kind of response was that to Jacob's question?"

"Technically it was an answer," Embry protested. "But you want cut and dry? Fine—you weren't getting anywhere with her by yelling at her, Jacob."

I rubbed the back of my neck in frustration. "As I recall, Embry, I wasn't the only one that was just a little freaked out when blue sparkles came into the living room from out of nowhere and then disappeared, only to be followed by a blue glow coming from down the hall seconds later!"

I felt a tap on my shoulder coming from beside me. As I looked down and locked eyes with Bella—suddenly realizing that the tap had more than likely been a shove, delivered with all her human strength—I knew that I was in deep crap. "Your being freaked out didn't give you the right to be a completely demanding asshole to her!" she snapped.

Paul snorted. "Coming from you, Vamp Girl, that's really funny. I seem to remember a certain somebody going completely Rambo on Jacob for answers a few weeks ago."

"That's completely different, Paul," Bella said shortly.

"How is that different?"

"Jacob and I are best friends. And he promised that he wouldn't ever do what Ed—he did to me. So when he broke that promise…I was justifiably pissed. But Evie…Evie doesn't know Jake…doesn't owe us anything," she said to Paul. Then, she turned to me. "And besides, it's obvious that she's scared. Embry was totally right in pulling you out of there, Jake."

"Thank you!" said Embry. "Finally, somebody who gets me!"

I sighed and started pacing. "Look Bells, I know that she's your cousin and all, but we have no idea what we're dealing with. I mean hell, you didn't know you were in love with the undead when you first started getting goo-goo eyed for the leech! We don't know what your cousin is, or what she can do or—"

"How dare you put her on the same level as Ed—him! She's my cousin, Jacob. Hell, before you and I got really close, she was the one that was there for me. She listened to me, she was patient with me…and when you left, she was the one who picked up the pieces again."

"In our world that doesn't mean anything! It could be an act, Bells, you know it!" I said.

Bella rubbed her face. "For once, can we stop thinking in separate worlds, Jacob?"

"You can't be serious," Paul said from the couch, sarcasm dripping from his voice. I glared at him from where I was standing, knowing full well where he was going with it.

"Don't start, Paul," I said.

"I think we've passed the starting line, Black," he said to me. He stood and went toward Bella. "How in the hell can you not expect us to not think in separate worlds when we just saw a person disappear and reappear in a puff of blue sparkles? If you ask me, Jacob was absolutely right in chewing her out and he should've done more! You, just like the rest of us in this room, know damn well that danger is around us all the time. Or do I need to remind you of the redhead that's after your ass?"

Bella's eyes widened and got glassy. "I didn't ask to be hunted!"

"But you sure as hell didn't run when you had the chance, did you?"

I slammed my fist into Paul's shoulder. "Back off, Paul!" I hissed. "Stop being such a damn prick!" I pulled Bella away from Paul and held her close to me. Against my chest, Bella began to shake, out of anger or sadness, I couldn't tell. I stared Paul down, biting back my growl. "Go make yourself useful and make sure that Evie hasn't pulled another disappearing act."

When he didn't move, I shoved him. "Damn it, Paul, I said go!"

He shot me a look of disgust and stalked down the hall. "Jesus Christ, I'm going. Get the ants out of your ass, Black," he snapped.

As soon as he'd turned the corner, Bella's shaking got even worse and I heard her take tiny gasps of air. "Shh, Bells," I soothed. "Don't mind him; he's just an angry bastard." She tried to shake her head against me, and when that proved almost impossible, she backed away from me.

"No…he's angry, right bastard," she said. "If I hadn't tried jumping, she wouldn't be here and you guys wouldn't have had to go against Victoria today and—"

"Hey, hey…look, we would've had to go against her eventually. This is our job, Bells. This is what we were made to do."

"And it's my fault that you have to even deal with her!"

I glanced at Bella before a heaving sigh escaped me. Once Bella got into one of these moods, it was damn difficult to get her out of it. Instead of answering, I guided her to the couch that Paul had vacated and sat down, pulling her onto my lap.

"Hate to break up the love fest," Embry said suddenly. "But if Evie is going to start talking, I think we need to call Sam. He definitely needs to know about this."

Bella's head snapped up from where it had been resting on my shoulder. "What? No. No. At least not yet; it'd be too much for her. After Jacob's little number, it's a wonder she didn't poof away right then—you can't add Sam to this mix; she won't say a word," she said, shaking her head emphatically.

I placed a hand on Bella's back and rubbed it softly. "Embry's right, Bella. We have to. He's our Alpha. He's the one who's most responsible for us, our people, our land. He, more than any of us, has a right to know what's up."

Bella sighed in resignation and I glanced at Embry. "You're lucky you're my best friend, Jake," he said after a moment of staring at each other, making his way out the door.

"Where's he off to?" Bella asked softly.

"Well, somebody had to go get Sam, Bells. And I didn't want Sam to chew me out for being overprotective of you in front of someone who doesn't know the secret."

"Coward!" she said playfully.

I tickled her in response. "Who's a coward?" When she didn't give, I tickled her even more.

"Okay! Okay! You're not a coward, I take it back!" she giggled.

With a chuckle of my own, I let her go. "Besides, if Sam killed me, who would be your tickle monster?"

PAUL

As soon as I turned the corner, I heard Jake soothing the leech lover. "Damn jackass," I muttered, looking for Jake's room. "She's not even his imprint and she's got him whipped. If he ever does imprint, he'll be the wussiest wolf in the pack."

As I got closer to the door, I could hear Bella's cousin—what was her name? Ellie?—take a breath. "Wants me to spill all my guts to a pack of big Native Americans but God forbid her brother know anything. Right, because that makes total sense. A+, Mom. A fucking plus," she muttered. I peered around the door and found her talking to herself, bent over something on the floor.

"Is the talking to yourself part of the poofing in and out package?" I asked with exasperation as I tapped on the door.

Quick as lightning, she straightened up and whirled around. She looked so comical while doing so that I chuckled. When her eyes met mine, though, the laughter died on my lips. My jaw practically fell to the floor as I took in her eyes, orbs of a deep steel blue color. Those orbs had changed everything; everything that had held me to the earth before: my mother, my brothers, La Push, meant absolutely nothing. All that mattered now was her.

Part of me, the wolf side, wanted to stare at her forever, to memorize this exact moment. The way her eyes were, opened wide with shock. The way her hair, which was tied up in a ponytail, cascaded in a golden wave down her back. The way her heart was drumming, driven by adrenaline. The other half of me though, the human side, was cringing internally (as much as I tried, I couldn't do it physically; the inner wolf had me smiling, probably looking like a damn fool.) Ever since I'd first heard about imprinting, long before realizing that the legends were true and that we very well could be condemned to such a fate, I'd hated the idea. I saw firsthand what it had done to Sam, Emily and Leah and I wanted no part of it. Commitment in itself was overrated—my parents had succeeding in drilling that into my head at a very young age—but when it was forced on you by some magical ties? Hell no. I, Paul Rose, was having no part of that. Not now. Not ever.

With a gasp, I tore out of the room, not caring if she saw my wolf speed. I heard Jake and the leech lover call out for me, but I paid them no mind as I raced toward the tree line. My human disgust with the current situation was so much that my transformation—and subsequent tearing of my clothes—was almost immediate, and just as quickly, my head was flooded with multiple voices.

What's wrong? asked Embry.

Did something happen at Jacob's? asked Sam.

Did the poofer disappear again? asked Jared.

Too quickly for me to control it, a low growl rose from the depths of my throat. Don't call her that! Son of a bitch, I sound like fucking Jacob…I thought.

Yeah, but why—? Jared thought.

Embry yipped then. Oh no! You didn't! Holy shit, you did!— Embry thought.

Jared nudged him and the two just stared at each other for a few minutes before bursting into mental laughter. No way, Paul!

Paul? interjected Sam, calmly. Is it true?

I snarled angrily. Yeah, Sam. I fuckin' imprinted.