Hello. School has started, but chapters are still coming. Enjoy.
Living within the newborn army was like a constant sensory assault.
When you hid upstairs or behind furniture, screams and bangs would come without warning, usually due to a quickly escalated fight. Everyone had a bad temper here.
The smell was awful too. We all had naturally pleasant aroma, but it was always overclouded by something dreadful. There was the sickly sweet smell of a vampire turning to ashes that often came after a racket. Add that to the smell of mud everyone dragged in to the house, and it was enough to make my sensitive nose wrinkle in disgust almost constantly.
Seeing was dangerous. Catch the eye of a testy vampire, and your arm could be ashes a moment later. I always kept my head down, but sometimes they searched for someone to provoke. To play with their new strength or burn off some anger, usually. My arm was nearly torn off once- leaving it hanging off my shoulder in a strange, horrid way- and I would not want to relive the process of reattaching it.
I felt the burn in the back of my throat constantly. Sometimes it felt under control, like how my brain used to monitor hunger. I could feel a bit peckish for a meaty construction worker, but I can hold out. Other times, it's like if I don't get some blood in me, the burn in my throat is going to spread and make me a pile of ashes.
There was a mix of all three offenses tonight. I was hiding upstairs in a bedroom of the large abandoned home we made habitat. It was almost dawn, and a few newborns were still coming home. Raoul was out tonight, thank the Lord. The fighting downstairs was bad enough without the gang leader fanning the flames. This room had long windows, framed by moth-bitten drapes, so naturally only I came in here during the day. The others are afraid of frying in the light. Another benefit is that the light creeps out under the crack of the door like a big KEEP OUT sign.
This decrepit old house's thin floors and my too-good-at-their-job ears amplified the noises of fighting downstairs. I could smell the smoke that wafted up between cracks in the wooden floors. I buried my nose in the crook of my elbow which helped some.
The cellphone in my pocket seemed to weigh more and more as this long wait stretched on. I play with the idea of calling Jacob. The nearly gone memory of his voice and the clearer pictures I have of his face awaken a longing worse than even my thirst.
Since Rosalie and her siblings' visit affirmed that they were very much reality and not a desperate, detailed fantasy my head devised as a coping mechanism, I have not been able to help comparing the newborns with my memories of them. The Cullens were calm. They were polite. They were kind. Most of all, they were in control. None of them acted without a moment's thought. I couldn't picture one flying off the handle. I was trying very hard to be like them, and some days I was very proud of myself. Some days were worse, mostly days when I needed to feed. Then I felt like I was as motley as the rest of housemates. But I reminded myself that trying meant something, a little something. And that even if I was awful that day, I still didn't belong here.
I didn't think any of us belonged here. Not even Raoul or Kristie, although they looked very much at home feuding and bossing others around. We all belonged back in the human world, flawed and extremely imperfect, but better than the impending doom that came with fighting for Victoria. I loved thinking her name because none of the others knew it or would if they did. It felt like an act of defiance. That she does not control me. Then again, I can't control me a lot of the time.
A classic sadness rested around my heart, and my mind returned to Jacob. Sometimes my memory of him felt so distant and at other times it was as if I could smell him next to me, so close I could hear his rapid heartbeat.
A heartbeat which may provide complications. I don't often think of that, purposely. I'll get back to him before worrying about that. I like to believe though, that I do not have it in me to kill someone I love so dearly.
I took the phone out of my pocket. It was Mrs. Cullen's. At first it felt weird holding another person's phone, and I felt like I was betraying her privacy by looking through it so I didn't touch it. That did not last long though, and my curiosity got the best of me. It was salvation to have this reminder of my Jacob and the family I need very badly right now. Mrs. Cullen didn't seem to use it much. Her contacts were mostly comprised the Cullens and few unfamiliar names as well as a few different schools and hospitals, probably Carlisle's. I think she must have had this phone through a few different moves. I played with the thought that maybe all these different numbers were for Jacob-related emergency scenarios which made me smile. I was probably wrong, I barely know what Mrs. Cullen is like, but you take whatever humor you can get during these long days.
There were some pictures on the phone, all of Jacob except the stray Mr. Cullen one, usually doing something like using a log as a sword in a fight with his brothers or jumping off an insanely high cliff. Those made me laugh, but the Jacob ones were just great as well as plentiful. I spent some time thinking about each one-when it might have been taken and what was going on outside the picture. The most recent was the graduation. I doubt Mrs. Cullen captured it to commemorate another high school diploma. It was probably to blend in with the other relatives or maybe because Jacob and I were standing next to them. My smiling, human face was staggering to look at.
From what I was learning, Mrs. Cullen really liked taking pictures of Jacob. You'd think he'd been a kid for a century. I especially liked the ones from before he was a werewolf. I knew his huge, muscled body came from that transformation. It was kind of insane how he and the spindly kid in some of these pictures were the same. There was also a lot of him with a broken leg I never heard the story behind. I continued to scroll backwards through time. Bella looking nice in a prom dress with the injured Jacob next to her. One of him smiling weakly in a hospital bed, bruised black and blue. Now I was very curious.
She had a lot of pictures of childhood pictures which were pretty adorable. When we were in a happier place, I may not be able to resist the teasing possibilities. Toothless grins in countless sports photos, holidays with a shrinking (I was moving backwards on a timeline) child surrounded by unchanging family members.
The great thing about pictures is that people take them on happy occasions. No one hires a photographer for their funeral, only weddings. So it was nice seeing Jacob happy. He was always sunny in my memories of him, but if his longing for me was anything like mine for him, the grinning boy in these pictures would be very different than the present one in Forks.
My favorite one was a picture of a framed, black and white photo. It was a very endearing moment featuring a toddler Jacob. It looked like it was taken at a black-tie event although I could not imagine why the Cullens would attend one. There were a few unfamiliar humans in the background, some dancing like the subjects. The picture was of Mrs. Cullen in a long, sparkling gown looking more gorgeous than most people, including myself, could ever hope to be. She was holding the tiny, tuxedo-clad Jacob who had dozed off. He was leaning his little round head on her shoulder and looked too adorable for words. She smiled at the photographer, the symbol of motherly bliss and held up her sleepy dance partner's hand with hers. It was her phone's wallpaper. I guess she liked it too.
Today I was scrolling through the contacts, stopping at every familiar name and lingering especially long at Jacob's. I had his number memorized by now. What would happen if I hit the call button? Would I be discovered? What would a vampire do if they discovered someone making a phone call? It could be one of the violent ones, who can get angry so quickly over so little. I didn't want Jacob to hear me scream.
But I could text him, couldn't I? I wouldn't hear his voice like I longed, but it was better than no communication at all.
Jacob? It's Adrian.
It was simple, but I didn't want to go very deep into what I was feeling. This format couldn't fit it all, and I didn't want to try. I considered sending another and wondered why I hadn't gotten a reply yet, two seconds after sending it.
There was an animal-like screech from downstairs, and my first though was "Is that my reply?" But wolves don't make that noise so my furry knight has not arrived to save me.
There was a lovely, gaping hole in the floor near the wall where I could spy on the downstairs. It was one of the rare bright spots in this day-to-day-life. Like a hawk in its nest, I could spy on the others below.
Riley was home. He was throwing some of the others against the wall. Everyone looked scared. I searched for Kyle. I breathed a sigh of relief when I found him in the corner, out of reach from Riley's rampage.
"You morons! Killing each other like there is no enemy! All this freeloading has a price! We have an enemy, and they want to end every one of you."
With terror, I realized that I might be seeing Jacob very, very soon.
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