When You Love Someone

Chapter 10

Mason

"How are you?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Bella Renee tells me. Her eyes are closed but tears have been creeping out of them for all of the three hours we've been driving, tailing the Cullen car on our way to Forks, Washington. They drive really fast, and maybe that's why someone tampered with my car, putting a new engine inside. I'm driving faster than I have ever been able to, faster than I should be able to since mine and Bella's sixteenth birthday isn't for another month.

I'm only going on this doomed hunt for my mother because Bella wants to. That's it. I don't want to spend any time with the Cullens, and I definitely don't want to get to know Edward any more than I already do, but Bella couldn't stay in Maine after the blow up with that Jacob guy...our godfather.

Just thinking about it makes me sick, makes me want to find the guy and tear him apart, especially when I remember how things ended...

(Flashback)

"You're supposed to be dead," Jennifer said to Jacob, stabbing him with her eyes. "Why aren't you dead? Why did you lie?"

"I didn't lie," Jacob responds past the swelling in his face from Edward's punch. "I did die. Some vampire named Victoria came to Forks to kill Bella, but I wasn't about to let that happen. I took the fall, only something happened...something weird."

"Weird like what?"

"I woke up. That's the best way I can explain it," Jacob shrugged. "I woke up like I'd only been sleeping. I rolled out of my coffin right in the middle of my funeral. It was...crazy. Later, Bella told me she'd had something to do with it, but she wouldn't tell me what."

"That's not possible," Carlisle refuted but sounded like he was trying to convince himself. And failed. "Bella is only a human. She isn't capable of resurrecting someone."

"I only know what she told me," Jacob defended his story with his hands raised in honesty. "She said she did something to bring me back, but she was ashamed of it. It wasn't until the twins were born that I realized the seriousness of what she meant. I imprinted on Bella Renee."

"You filthy dog!"

"How dare you?"

"Give me one good reason not to rip out your throat."

Insults flew after Jacob's announcement; insults and death threats and curses. Jennifer left the room, too angry to stay in one place any longer. It was only Isabella Renee's gentle question that brought a semblance of calm back into the room.

"What does Imprint mean?"

She looked to Jacob, so he answered her.

"Because of what I am," he explained, "I can Imprint, which means that I become bound to a certain person for the rest of my life."

"So that's what it is," Isabella Renee blinked in wide-eyed realization. "That's why I always want to be near you. You imprinted on me. But if you're my mother's friend and my...my godfather...why would you do something like this?"

"I can't control it. Believe me, I wouldn't have chosen this for any of us."

"What does Bella have to do with any of this?" Edward returned the conversation to the point he cared about most. "Why are you blaming her for what you've done?"

"Weren't you listening?" Jacob growled. "She brought me back to life. I don't know much about magic, but I'm guessing you have to have life to give life."

"What do you mean?"

"Bella brought me back to life because, somehow, she gave me some of Isabella Renee's life."

"What do you mean?" Edward asked again, this time through the bars of his clenched teeth and this time on the edge of his chair. "What do you mean she gave you some of my daughter's life?"

"My life is Isabella Renee's life, and Isabella Renee's life is my life. It saved me, but, unfortunately, that's the definition of an Imprint. Technically, Bella made me Imprint on Isabella Renee by tying us together."

"Take that back! Don't you ever say that any of us did this!"

"Edward, calm down," Carlisle put a hand on his shoulder, the good one. "Son, please. Getting angry won't solve anything now."

"I don't believe you," Edward spat at Jacob. "I don't believe a word of this. Bella would never tie our daughter to you, Mongrel! If she did, then why did she leave you? What happened between you that made her hide our children from you?"

"Okay," Jacob admitted, swallowing his pride, "you're right about that. At first, Bella just felt guilty for using some of her daughter's life to save mine, but when she found out that meant I had to imprint on Isabella Renee, she got mad. She got scared, and she left me."

"What was she doing with you in the first place?" Rosalie hissed menacingly. "You couldn't wait for Edward to get out of your way. Even when she was pregnant with his babies you still couldn't stay away from her!"

"I took care of her," Jacob retorted. "Can any of you say that? She needed you but none of you were anywhere to be found. I was there! I loved her more than any of you, and I would have never hurt her. I didn't choose this life; she chose it for me."

"How old were the twins when she left you?" Edward asked, rubbing his temples from the weight of it all.

"Two," Jacob answered and darted a quick, guilty glance at Isabella Renee. "She left the day after their second birthday."

"Jennifer said the year after the twins turned one neither she nor you had any idea where Bella was. Are you trying to say Jennifer lied to me?"

"I'm saying I lied to Jennifer. I knew exactly where Bella was-with me, but she didn't want Jennifer to know that. Jennifer has never approved of me."

"And neither have I. So, for the first two years of their lives, the twins and Bella were with you. When they were four, they came to live with Jennifer. That leaves two years unaccounted for."

"I can't help you."

"You will help me!" Edward grabbed Jacob by the throat, but Carlisle and Emmett pried him off, calmed him down. "You will tell me everything you know! Where did Bella go when she left you?"

"When you ran away from Bella, did you tell her where you were going? It kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it? She didn't tell me anything."

"What was the last thing you ever heard about her? Where was the last place you heard she'd been?"

Jacob was quiet for what felt like forever. He tried to decide what to say, how to say it, whether he should say it at all. Then he began, slowly and determinedly, staring at his hands.

"Eleven years ago, I got a call from Jennifer. She told me Bella had just given her sole custody of the twins, and she wanted to know why Bella didn't want me to see them anymore. I told her it was none of her business. She told me whatever issues I had with Bella, I needed to settle them because she didn't foresee Bella living more than one more year.

"I hung up on her. I didn't want to hear that. I didn't want to believe it, but a week later during the middle of the night, I had a knock on my door. It was Bella, Bella like I'd never seen her before," he sighed and hung his head a little, hurting over the memory. "She was skin and bones. She didn't look like she had an ounce of blood left in her, and all of her hair...it was gone. She'd had to cut it so short because of her treatments, she told me, but she was tired of treatments. She didn't want to die full of chemicals in some hospital, but she didn't want to die alone, either, and she didn't want to die in front of her kids. She asked me if she could die with me, in my house right there. I didn't want to be responsible for that, but how could I say no to her? She had given me life even though she'd had to sacrifice her own daughter to do it. I couldn't say no to her, so I held her and she died. She died in my arms that same night.

"My pack and I, we buried her in the forest and as close to Charlie's house as we could, knowing we could never tell him. We could never tell anyone, so we tried to move on. We tried to forget it; forget we ever met the Cullens, forget we ever knew Bella, and forget about the twins. Eleven years passed and we were nearly there. We had almost completely forgotten. Then, three days ago, I felt someone in my house. I think it was her. It didn't smell like her, but I thought it looked like her...only different somehow. Not human and not vampire but something...different. No one believes me, but I swear it was her. She was in my house in Forks carrying some weird-looking knife. She went to Seth's room, and when I tried to make her leave, she stabbed me. She tried to kill me like she didn't know who I was. I left town to get away from her. I don't know what's going on, but if she's attacking the pack, they will deal with her, and if it really is Bella, I can't. I can't hurt her.

"You want to know the last time I saw Bella? I'm supposed to say it was the night I buried her eleven years ago, but I don't really think that. I think it was three nights ago when she broke into my house and tried to kill me and my brother."

(End of Flashback)

Not only did Jacob know our mother, but he had watched her die and never thought to tell Bella and me, his friggin godchildren! He kept my mother's death a secret and then tried to get with my sister despite it being obviously gross and illegal! On top of it all, he imprinted or whatever on Bella, which is why she wasn't angry right now. She was hurt. Her feelings were hurt because she actually cared about this guy, even after everything he'd done, including possibly seeing our mother miraculously alive again yet refusing to tell us until Edward had beat it out of him.

At least Edward is proving to be good at something. I still hate him, but now I hate Jacob even more.

"Believe it or not, we're nearly there," I tell Bella Renee, kind of stoked at the progress. "This new engine is beastly. We're covering so many miles, I wouldn't be surprised if we hit Washington in the next few two hours."

"Fine," Bella Renee says, still crying with her eyes closed. "Good. That's great."

"Bell..."

"No, really, it's great. I can't wait to see Mom. I could really use a mom right now."

"Even though she used your life to bring back Jacob? Even though she bonded you to that creep forever?"

"Don't talk about Jacob like that."

"You mean our godfather?"

"Stop. This is why I don't want to talk about it with you. You don't understand, but Mom will."

"You really think we're going to find her, don't you?"

"Jacob said he saw her."

"He said he thought he saw her. He also said she died and he buried her. Bell, think about it. If Mom really is alive, do you really think she would rather be in a town called Forks than with you, me, and Jennifer? If Mom were alive, she would've told us...and she hasn't."

"If you don't believe it, then why are you here? Why would you come with me if you're just going to be a cynic?"

"You'll see."

That makes her quiet, makes her realize that in the haze of her emotions, she missed something with me.

"Mason, what are you planning?"

"You'll see."

"We promised we'd never keep secrets."

"That was before Edward Cullen and Jacob Black."