It's been three months since I got Carly back from Volterra. She doesn't say much anymore, but when she does it's usually only to me. We've bonded silently over our mourning for my brother. She sleeps a lot and I stay in the chair beside her bed in case she has a nightmare. She has them a lot.
Charlie is apparently engaged to Sue Clearwater, the woman who helped me when I was hit by a car. Harry died of a hear-attack just over a year ago when Leah and Seth phased. Anyhow, Charlie has been made an official member of the Rez, and he's been told all about everything supernatural, especially since he woke up one morning and remembered seeing me phase. So, he's still in the process of selling his house in Forks, so he's letting me and Carly stay there free of charge until she's stable enough to decide where she wants to go.
Jacob hasn't tried to get into contact with me at all, but Bella comes over everyday to check on us both, her oddly welcoming vampire family always in tow.
Carly gets twitchy around the vampires, but she rarely comes downstairs for long enough to speak to them anyway. The only one she'll let touch her is one that I've learned is named Esme. There's something maternal about her that seems to keep Carly calm.
I know that Jacob is outside the window every night, but he never makes any noise. He stands guard all night long, and every time I look out he crawls deeper into the shadows. I've decided that tonight I'll invite him in for dinner. He may have stayed away from me, but I haven't made the effort to see him either.
The creak of bed springs has me jumping to my feet, holding a quick finger up to Bella and shooting her an apologetic smile as I shoot into the next room where Carly is sitting with her legs over the side of the bed. "Mornin', you want anything?" I ask her casually, leaning against the door frame as she looks up as me, a strangely bright fire burning in her eyes. This is how our days usually begin now.
"Do we have any peanut butter?" She asks me in reply.
Raising a brow, I nod. "Yeah, you want PB and J?"
She nods, showing enthusiasm for the first time in months. "Please." She mutters kindly. "N- he... he told me about it but he never made me one. I made him eat peanut butter and Nutealla though. I remember that he loved it." A single tear slips down her cheek as she smiles, remembering my brother. She knew a side of him that even I never got to meet, but at the same time she never knew the man that I called my brother.
She finds it difficult to say his name without breaking down, so she tries to avoid it. "Nate gave me his sandwiches at school once when some kid knocked me and I dropped mine. My first peanut butter and jelly." I tell her, grinning as I leave and wander into the kitchen. Esme is already stood there holding a jar of peanut butter and a knife. "Thanks." I say quietly, grabbing the Nutella and jelly. Carly makes me smile when she calls it jam.
A minute or so later I hear the soft padding of Carly's footsteps, followed by her gasp as she sees the vampires in the rooms. She walks quickly straight over to where I stand with Esme, making a few sandwiches. "PB and J." I present to her, holding the food out on a side plate.
When the vampires are here I try to act normal with her to avoid her freaking out, and most of the time it works.
As she finishes her sandwich, she keeps looking at me, only to look away when I glance back. "Spit it, Brit." I say as I get bored of it. "Come on, off your chest."
She's slow to reply, but she does it anyhow. "I want to do something reckless." She states. Nodding slowly, I raise a brow. "I want a tattoo." She adds, seeming very conscious that the Cullans are here.
A tattoo? Fuck. "Car, that's kind of... you know. Permanent." I try, being gentle in how I speak.
She nods, determined. "I know." She huffs, acting as if I'm treating her like a child. "That's the whole point."
Fuck. If she cries there's no way I'm going to win. "Fine, but if you get a fucking tramp stamp then I'm leaving you in the parlor, chill?"
She grins and nods happily before walking back into her room, not speaking to any of the others. I think about the more recent tattoos on my body, and particular scars that I'd like to cover up, and decide that I'll get one too, maybe even two. I could get some cool tribal art or something like that. "We're going in an hour!" I yell, making myself a sandwich and reentering the living room, sitting beside a vampire named Alice on the couch.
Bella carries on talking about something random, and I pretend to listen, ignoring Edward's smirk as I nod and act enthusiastic.
Bella and I have been having long chats of late. She and I talk about vampires, about the ones we've both come across and the ones we're heard about. Tori is a large topic of conversation. Apparently she caused quite the problem once I was gone. It turns out that I really was end game for Tori; she expected that I'd wipe Bella out and all the wolves given enough time. Naturally, she didn't predict that I'd be pegged as the mate of one of the wolves. I entirely fucked her plans up without even realising it.
We still don't know if she ever actually did set me on Bella, but we assume that could be the reason that she cut my money, the only problem being that I wasn't in Forks at that time.
The Cullens all take their leave when Carly comes out of her room, having showered and told me that she's ready to go.
Two and a half hours later we're in the shop with Leah having decided to come with us -something that Carly was a little stiff about at first but soon warmed up to- since apparently she wants something doing around her tribal ink.
Carly and I watch as Leah gets hers done first, and I literally smell Carly's fear as the needle touches Leah's arm.
"Do you have any female artists?" Carly asks, shy and quiet.
One of the guys smirks. He obviously thinks it's a sexual orientation thing. "We sure do, buttercup." He replies, cocky and kind of cute. "Loads more pretty girls over here, huh?" He teases, clearly making a point of her accent.
Her eyebrows are lost in her hairline. Her mouth drops open and I hate seeing her like this. She's not their toy, but at the same time she won't respond. "It's for me." I state. Truthful. "And no, I'm not gay."
"Her boyfriend's six foot seven." Leah pipes in as an almost empty threat, grinning at me and winking.
That's the first time anyone's called Jacob my boyfriend. Ever. My insides curl in on themselves, unsure of what to think. How do I feel about that? I mean, he's not my boyfriend. For that we'd have to stop ignoring one another.
"These asshats teasin' you, ladies?" A woman asks, coming out of a separate room. She's got full sleeves, her chest, and both sides of her neck covered in tattoos. She grins and waves me forwards. "Come on, we can see what I can do."
I flash Carly and encouraging look before following the woman into the room that she just came out of. "So, do you have any idea what you want?" She asks me, pouring some kind of solution over a few things and washing them.
"Not really. I'm here more for encouragement, but I want one, so I figure why not." I reply, hopping onto the table in the center of the room.
She nods.
And so the questions carry on.
When I pull my shirt off she gasps, muttering a quick apology. I know that my scars are ugly and I've got a lot of them, but something tells me that she's gasping at my newest tattoos. I did all of them in my cell in Volterra with the help of a particularly skilled artist that was there -The Volturi allowed us hobbies in order to make our stay bearable and I guess to encourage us to think that they were nice and to spill our guts, so they let the guy have anything he asked for- everyday I'd add to it, sometimes having to break a bone in order to reach certain places. It was worth it. They cover most of the left side of my stomach and hip, a few of them crawling onto my back. "Who's Jacob?" She asks me quietly, her fingers brushing the small mark on my back. It lies over where my heart is. It's a small, simple tattoo. It's just his name with an infinity symbol wrapped delicately around it.
Smiling inadvertently, I tell her. "It's kind of complicated."
"Oh yeah? Well, lucky for you we've got a long time."
Lying on my front, I begin to talk as she begins to stencil on what I've asked for.
I give her the human version of my story.
The other version though, the other version is a little more colourful.
Some vampires, as I've said before, enjoy having a werewolf at their mercy. A vampire having the power to kill you and you not having any strength to defend yourself is one thing, but being silvered down while they defile you is an entirely different situation. Trust me, I'd know. That happened to me every single day for over a year.
"So, the wolf, how does that tie into your story?"
"I was so incredibly lost in the woods once and a wolf helped me to find my way home." I tell her, letting it hit home just how true those words are.
When I leave, my train of tattoos run like a thick fog over a large proportion of my body, particularly my neck and back, a few on my hips.
With my clothes fully on you can't really see any of my new tattoos, and I like it that way. The three of us leave and we end up in a hair salon. I want a trim.
"Hello, ladies." A tall, perky, blonde woman greets us, smiling sweetly. "Which one of you can I help? Or possible all of you?" They both point at me. "Perfect, what can I do for you?"
She's too fucking happy. "Uh, I'd like it cut and the colour removing."
Twenty minutes later my hair's been washed by a moody teen. Someone I can relate to. Apparently she's also going to be the one cutting my hair. When she asks how I want it, I can't think how to describe it, so it takes a while. "Like, well, I guess like a lot shorter. I mean, like, really close here but a little-"
"Short back and sides?"
"Yeah." I reply, not offering anything else. God, I try to be nice and speak to people only for them to be blunt with me.
She gets to it, telling me that she'll strip the colour first before cutting it.
"What's your natural colour?" Carly asks once the remover has been on for about twenty minutes.
Grinning, I tap my nose with my index finger, telling her to mind her own business.
"No fucking way..." She mutters twenty minutes later when the stripper is removed from my hair.
I laugh at her reaction. "Dude, you're blonde!" She exclaims. "I mean, you're not blonde, you're practically white!"
Laughing, I shrug as my hair's washed again. "Nate was blonde, my mom and dad were both kind of blonde, what did you expect?"
Yeah, I have almost white hair. Most of my family are blonde -or at least they were- and I'm no exception.
She and Leah stare, wide-eyed as I let them cut the hair so short on my head that they actually use clippers on the sides, cutting the top just a little longer. By the time it's done the top of my hair is about two inches long and the sides and back are about half an inch around my ears. Using some mousse, one of the women pushes the top up a little, letting the tips hang slightly to the right, still just messy enough to look like I styled it myself.
I have to literally drag Leah and Carly behind me when we leave to avoid them both just standing and staring at me. Leah mutters something about Jacob having a fit when he sees me, and part of me smiles. He must still care then if he'd be bothered about my hair.
Why am I so pleased by that?
Only a few minutes later we're all back in the car. Carly and I invite Leah round for dinner, but she politely declines, saying that she's already been roped into going to Sam and Emily's with most of the pack. Apparently as Jacob's imprint I'm invited, but since we haven't spoken he hasn't told me about it. Leah rings Emily, saying that me and Carly are coming for dinner. Apparently Emily is ecstatic as she screams down the phone before Leah ends the call.
"No! Change it!" Carly whines, trying desperately to change the CD.
I swat her hand away, turning the volume up. "What's your problem? Don't they make good music in England?" I snarl, swatting as she carried on trying to change the song.
Leah snickers in the back as we squabble, smacking one another away from the radio.
All the way home. That's how far Carly and I battle for the radio station. Naturally I win, but with her fingers being so naturally fragile as a human I have to be careful with her, so she gets me a few times.
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Running my fingers through my freshly cropped hair, I wait as Carly pulls her jacket on and jogs up the steps to Sam and Emily's house, pulling my hat on as we go. The jogging pulls the front of her shirt up a little, revealing a tiny amount of her tattoo. It's so cute. It's simple, just Nate's name. Only, she's had a few of his favourite things incorporated into it. Nathaniel Nivalis. There are a few tiny things like hockey sticks and gummy bears around the words. Apparently they're both things that meant something private to the two of them. A private joke that she's not willing to share but also one that I don't want to take from her and Nate.
Emily swings the door open with a grin, ushering us both inside. She seems super excited to have us here.
I'm wrapped up in black skinny jeans, a long-sleeved grey shirt, a thick muddy-green cargo jacket, a scarf, thick boots, and a knit hat. The hat covers the little hair I've got left, but doesn't give away that I've had it cut. I could just have easily have stuffed all the hair into the hat.
The house is lovely and warm as we step inside, so Emily tells us that we're welcome to shed anything we want and leave things in the spare room.
Leah comes over and takes the three boxes from me, grinning as she smells the food. Carly made about six trays of cookies, emptying the trays into a single box. The other two are full of cake that I made. I love cake.
I sense him.
How fucking weird is that? I can feel him before he's even in the damn room, but let me tell you, I would have given anything to have felt that when I was in Volterra.
Before he even steps inside I know he's here.
Carly and I all but sprint to the spare room. She's become better at reading me over the past couple of months, and she knows that the look I'm sporting now only crosses my face when I know he's around. It's a look of utter numbness. How am I supposed to look? Am I supposed to skip over to him, all smiles and shit? Well, I'm not the only one that can make an effort.
Neither me or my wolf knows what to do about him. He comes so close only to stay hidden. What does he expect us to do?
Sighing, I take my coat and scarf off, dropping them beside Carly's things on the grand spare bed. Smirking, she grabs my hat and yanks it off. "Don't be a pussy." She growls teasingly, winking. "You look hot." She adds, trying to quell my doubts.
Nodding, unconvinced, I scratch my hands over my hair, ruffling the front a little. "Let's go then." I reply, waving towards the door. She walks through it with me in tow. I'm incredibly aware of everyone's eyes on me as we both step into the living room. The entire pack is sat around a TV while Jared and Paul fight on an XBox, and in the small kitchenette area Leah is with all of the imprints and a couple of children.
No one moves for a good minute or so before Emily makes towards us, grinning the size of Jupiter. "I love it," She says, flicking the tip of my fringe from where it sticks up. "Blonde?" She adds, raising a brow.
I know she's trying to get me to speak. To get me to calm down. Hell, she wants everyone to calm down. "Yeah, it's... uh, it's my natural colour." I reply, clearing my throat awkwardly.
Nodding, she turns to the boys. "Close your mouths, half of you are imprinted for Christ's sake." She snaps playfully, rolling her eyes.
Well aware of Jacob leaning against the wall beside Sam, I follow Emily and Carly into the kitchen area, knowing damn well that he can still see me perfectly. His eyes burn into my back, but I know that if I turn to face him that he'll be looking intently at the TV. There's no way to win.
Carly and I help out for about half an hour before Emily and the other women decide that they're going to sit outside on the decking. We're dragged out with them.
"It's girl talk time." Kim announces, grinning like a Cheshire Cat.
"Yay." Leah deadpans, rolling her eyes dramatically with a smirk.
Emily shouts that we're all going to sit in the shed, mouthing to me that they can't hear us talking in there. She picks one of her children up, Carly takes the other one in order to help her out a little, gaining to toothless grin from the baby and a smile of thanks from Emily.
The lot of us squish into the small shed, sitting on a load of knitted blankets and everyone sitting in a circle before extra blankets are passed round to put over our legs. I end up between Carly and Leah, comfortable enough. "Sometimes it's nice to get away, even for half an hour." One of Jacob's sisters moans, rubbing her eyes and leaning back against the shed wall.
"It sucks that they can hear everything." Kim adds, basically telling me that this girl talk is a little like bitching.
Leah scoffs. "Try having them in you head." She growls, rolling her eyes dramatically and making a couple of the others groan as if they were in actual pain at the sheer idea.
I keep pretty quiet through it all, smiling when someone says something particularly funny, but then it begins to get serious. Sex. The one topic that makes me shrivel up like a prune. "Not for about a year and a half." Carly replies when everyone goes round in a circle, saying when the last time they had sex was. "I don't think I'm ready to move on yet." She adds, shrugging and getting a few sympathetic nods.
All eyes are on me. My silence only seems to excite them all more. "I don't talk about it." I shrug. I really don't. I don't even sleep for more than half hour chunks because I know that if I do I'll have nightmares about what the vampires did to me.
They all take my answer with suspicion, but when Leah makes a grand announcement of "Last night." she saves my hide, distracting them all with a covert wink my way.
I smell him as I sink into myself. I know he's outside, they all are. They're listening, but they don't know that I can smell and hear them all. The whole pack, watching out for their imprints. I announce that I'm going to the bathroom, knowing that the more I think about what was done to me the angrier I'll get.
My wolf wants out.
Now that she's back full force almost anything Volturi related sets her off and in turn sets me off.
I stumble from the shed, registering the shocked looks on the faces of the pack. I ignore them and wander off Sam and Emily's land and into the woods, feeling the way that my muscles begin to shift and change.
"River," Comes his voice for the first time since he left me in San Francisco. It's really been that long since he spoke to me.
He only makes me worse.
Her claws, my own wolf's claws, scratch at me for release. I know she want out, but I'm so damn scared.
Some part of me registers his heavy footfall behind me. Us. Me? Us? Are we still one, after all of this is my wolf still my own? Can she forgive me for my cowardice?
"River, stop, please!"
I do as he says, stopping. I order my feet to halt and I stand as still as I possibly can. He reaches me a second later, standing awkwardly a meter or so behind me. My wolf is suddenly torn between being free or letting my human form curl into a ball beside Jacob. He'll protect us is what she tells me. Us. Because in the end we've only ever been able to rely on one another.
No one came to our rescue. No one ever has. But would he? If he had known, would he have come for us?
"Please turn around." He whispers, his voice so very... broken?
Closing my eyes and curling my fingers into my hands, I turn. I don't want him to see her, my monster, because if he sees my monster then he'll know. He'll know that I'm the only monster here. I may be able to accept her and she may be able to accept me, but I doubt anyone else could.
I don't hear or see him coming closer to me, but I feel it. I feel the way the air around me shifts, and I feel the way that his very essence reaches me, almost calming. I sigh into his touch as one of his hands comes up to cup my left cheek, ever so gentle in his movement. "River," The way my name falls from his lips makes something within me curl, confused. "Were you just gonna leave?" He asks me, a certain croak to his voice that tells me just how little sleep he's been getting. Just like me.
My mouth doesn't move. If it opens then he'll see them. My fangs. My imperfections. Me.
My wolf reminds me that he still loved us even after he'd truly seen us and we'd attacked his pack. I mentally snap back that if we'd attacked them then they'd be dead, what we did with them was nothing more than playing as far as our strength's concerned.
She forces our eyes open, begging me to let him in.
I don't know who's in control as our fingers uncurl and we reach out, pressing a palm flat against his chest. Now I understand, as his heart goes into overdrive within his chest, she wants me to see what she does. She wants me to truly see him. He's not afraid of us though, is he? No, he's afraid of losing us again. Or so she tells me.
"River." My name is so incredibly soft falling from his lips, telling me that once again Jacob is putting me first. Remembering the time I spent with him I guess that's what he's been doing all along really. "We can make it." He tells me, stunning molten chocolate eyes caressing me. Not once does he move even an inch and I know it's because he doesn't want to spook me which admittedly is far too easily done.
We can make it. Can we? I suppose if anything, all we've proved so far is that we're most certainly survivors. No matter what happens, we're always thrown back together. Then again, this isn't about survival. For the first time in my life it's not about planning every step. Maybe that's because I don't need a plan with Jacob. We don't need a plan because neither of us will let the other fall.
Granted, we've had our struggles and we've certainly had our fair share of scraps -all cause by my beautiful self- but that's what makes us fit. Surely that's how we know we'll work?
Fuck imprinting. I was head over heels for him before this shitty wolf magic
"River?"
I don't need magic to tell me how we work. I may be damaged, but I'm not broken. There's a difference and only now am I learning it.
He's mine.
"I love you." I croak freely.
And I'm his.
"Forever."
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Well, I guess that concludes it all. I'm not too keen on the ending but if I didn't stop there then I'd never stop and I vowed to myself that I'd finish this before posting it in order to ensure that it was completed.
I'm not sure about the idea of an epilogue, but if anyone wants one then just say in the reviews or whatever and I'll post one as soon as I can. It'll be posted separately but it will clearly be labelled as the epilogue for this (obviously only if it's wanted) so there won't be any confusion.
Also, if anyone HATES the ending then I may be inclined to change it, but I hope it's okay. I realise I haven't tied up all the loose ends but I figure that it would take me too long to rewrite it with all the stuff I've got going on so it's better to post it as it is.