"Damn plot development." I whine while waiting for Jacob to answer his phone. He'd been acting weird ever since the movie. I'd been calling, but he hadn't been answering.
"Hello?" A broken voice crackles through the phone.
"Jacob! About time. I've been calling forever." I say.
"Sorry." He says. All humor is gone from his voice.
"From your voice I'm going to take a wild guess that you're not feeling any better?"
"Not really at all."
"You'll get better soon." I say. "Mike called me this morning and he's better already!"
"I don't think I have the same thing he did." Jacob says after a pause.
"Don't you have the stomach flu?"
"No. This is something else." Uh oh. He's being unresponsive and mysterious. This is worse than I thought.
"You want me to come visit you?"
"No. You can't come here."
"Eeexccuuuuuse me?"
"I'll call you when I can. I'll let you know when you can come down again." Jacob says and hangs up.
WeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEeeeell then. I promptly decide to visit him.
The cars are in the driveway, so I know that Billy and Jacob are home. I knock on the door. Billy answers and looks shocked, but hides it well. He tries to make awkward small talk and get me to leave. I push past him. I call Jacob's name and hear an answering moan from one of the bedrooms.
"Bella, you can't go in there!" Billy yells. I pull the door open and step into the room. Jacob is lying in a pile of crumpled blankets, covered in sweat and not wearing a shirt.
"Bella?" He weakly moans. "I told you not to visit me. I'm sick."
"I'm calling BS on this one Jacob," I say, angrily putting my hands on my hips. I point towards his abs. "Who the hell develops a six-pack from the flu?"
"You've just never seen me without a shirt." Jacob explains. I roll my eyes.
"Why do you assume I'm stupid enough to believe that? Something is clearly going on and I want an explanation! And I swear to god if you give some half-ass ambiguous answer that skirts the question, I will be pissed." I say. Jacob is quiet. Maybe his fever caused him to suddenly go into a coma? I'm about to let Billy in, when Jacob shows signs of life again.
"Do you smell cat?" He asks. I bite my lip. All my anger dissipates and is replaced with paranoia. How does he smell my cat scent? I thought I lost that!
"I-I um. Well, it's definitely not me because I don't have any cats or have been around any cats or am a cat myself, that's just craaaazy," I say, stumbling over my words. Then my nose catches a distinct smell, and I sneeze violently. I haven't sneezed that much since Lucas in The Mortal Instruments. Together this can only mean one thing…"Do you smell dog?"
Jacob tenses up and looks anxiously around the room. He starts stuttering, "I-I um. Well, it's definitely not me because I don't have any dogs or have been around any dogs or am a dog myself."
He finishes and we both stare at each other suspiciously. There's definitely something going on here. AND I WILL FIND OUT WHAT. My eyes narrow. I need to be careful that Jacob doesn't discover my secret, because that'd be a clear flare to the Editors to find me.
"I should go now," I say and step out the door. "Sorry for barging into your house, hope you feel better soon...I'll see you around."
My research begins. Unfortunately the search results for "dog sickness" are not helpful. I get more specific. "Sickness that turns you into a dog". That just gave me a weird article about this guy that got super high one time. Not helpful. This goes on for a while. Eventually I'm reduced to reading an articles about werewolves. Can you image? That desperate for ideas. Pfft. At that point I know I've hit a dead end.
Next I grab some binoculars and a pair of camouflage pants and stakeout his house. The pants are bright pink, so they draw some attention, but they're the only camouflage I could find! It's alright though because I offset it with a badass bandana and black streaks of paint under my eyes. Unfortunately, the stakeout is pretty boring because Jacob just stays in his room all week. Lame.
I'm ready to give up, when Jacob gets some interesting visitors. It's the La Push gang. Next thing I know, Jacob takes off with them into the woods. That's not suspicious at all. Now I HAVE to follow them. I jump out of the car and take off after them. Five seconds of running and I've lost them and the path back to civilization. I may have underestimated my tracking abilities. I try to use my cat skills of smelling but it's no help.
After wandering aimlessly through the woods for an hour or two or five (I don't really know), I'm ready to break out the wings and fly home. Who cares if someone might spot me or if I accidentally alert the Editors to my whereabouts? I refuse to spend anymore time away from the internet and alone in nature than necessary. Then my eye catches a change in the scenery. I crawl through the brush until I come upon a clearing. It looks kind of familiar.
As I step into the field, I realize it's the meadow from the nightmare about Nemo. AAaaaand I'm ready to leave now. Just as I come to this conclusion, a figure steps out from the trees to the north, some thirty paces away. Ah shit. Just my luck.
"Bella?" The figure asks, sounding astonished. He comes closer and I recognize his features. He's one of the vampires from the first book. A name pops into my head. Laurent. That's a fake name if I've ever heard one.
"Lauuurent. Long time no see." I say. His eyes scan me.
"You seem...different."
"More personality, humor, and less whining teenage angst you mean? Why thank you."
"I didn't expect to see you here," He says. I shrug. He grins. That's not a good sign. He continues, "I didn't expect...When I found the Cullen place empty, I thought they'd moved on."
"They did," I confirm. "And let me tell you it's about time. A girl needs her freedom, ya know? And the single life is off the hook."
Laurent's dark red eyes seem hungry. Hmm. Those are the first dark red eyes I've seen.
"Do they visit often?" he asks, still casual, but his weight shifts toward me. I'm so done with this shit.
"Lie," the beautiful velvet voice whispers anxiously from my memory.
"Son of a biiiitch." I say outloud. Laurent gives me a sideways look. I play it cool. "I just remembered I left the stove on. That's gonna be a mess when I get home."
Laurents shrugs me off. He takes a casual step to the side, gazing around at the little meadow. I didn't miss that the step brings him closer to me. In my head, the voice responds with a low snarl. I roll my eyes and put my hands up.
"Okay enough with the bullshit. I'm sure you think you're being subtle about wanting to eat me or whatever, but this is getting really old really quickly," I say to Laurent. He pauses. Edward makes a noise. "Shut it Edward. Now look, I haven't eaten in at least three hours which is three hours too many. So if we're going to fight can we just get on with it so I can get home?"
Laurent is taken aback, but quickly regains his composure. "Victoria won't be very happy with me for killing you, but oh well. Really I'm doing you a favor."
"Whoa. In that case, please never do any favors for me. Ever."
"You see, I'm hunting. I'm quite thirsty and you do smell...simply mouthwatering." He seductively purrs.
"Ewww," I groan. "Do you hear yourself when you talk? Because you sound very rapey right now."
"Clearly Edward doesn't care enough about you, because he just left you here without protection, so I don't have to worry about him coming after me." Laurent says. That's it.
"I don't need any man, vampire, or anyone to 'protect' me, thank you very much. I am more than capable of taking care of myself. And I hope you're ready to get your ass kicked by this 'mouthwatering' human." I say angrily. I roll up my sleeves.
Laurent raises his eyebrow, but doesn't move to defend himself. Clearly he thinks I'm not a threat. Little does he know that I still have Annabeth's knife and kickass skills. I seize the moment and punch Laurent full force in the face. He falls back and looks up at me in shock.
"Did you just punch me?" He asks.
"I'm repaying your favor." I say, and pull out the knife. Laurent laughs. He puts his hands on the ground and starts to get up. He's lightning fast, but all my previous experiences make me just as fast. My arms grip his neck. I kneel down and crush his head into my chest and restrain his neck with my arms. Luckily for him, he doesn't need to breath. Unfortunately for him, I have my knife which I hold above his heart.
"I hope this will make you think twice about threatening someone." I say. Now I just have the dire question of whether or not I should kill him. I made that promise to Rue, but I also broke that promise so what's the harm in hurting one more person? On the other hand, shouldn't that make it more important for me to amend my broken promise?
As I'm having this internal debate, Laurent starts making wheezy noises and seems distressed.
"Can you shut it for a moment, I'm in the middle of a moral conflict." I say. Laurent does not shut it. Then I see it's not me that he's scared of, but something that just came into the meadow. Or somethings.
I swear to god.
The creatures approach. In the second that I'm trying to figure out what they are, Laurent wiggles free and flees. I grab for him, but the creatures are already pouncing after him.
"Hey! He's mine!" I yell in vain. One of the creatures pauses to look at me. At a closer range, I can see very clearly that the creatures are giant wolves. Yeah. You heard me. Wolves. If its werewolves…
The wolf looks long and hard at me, and then trots off to follow its brethren. It was definitely Jacob. Jacob is a wolf. I have no explanation for how or why, but I guess that's just part of my life now. Left alone in the meadow, I roll my eyes and start heading home, only to realize I still have no idea where that is.
"You know Edward voice, now would be a great time to speak up with the directions home." I say out loud. I'm met with silence. Great. Real helpful. I grit my teeth and start back into the woods.
Wow, 40 chapters! That's honestly so crazy. Thanks to everyone that's review, favorited, followed, and just read up to 40 chapters of my story and hopefully even more! You are all awesome.