12. ALTITUDE

Another burst of turbulence threatened to wake me.

If I had been the tiniest bit awake, I would have groaned.

But, even in sleep, I felt like I was being watched. Ever since we got the news that the Volturi were now stationed on Isla Didyme, I had been aware of everything, as if someone had poked some kind of nerve and that woke me up even more to the tragedy that lay in wait nearby.

In my dreams, Caius's red, clouded eyes were on me, watching me in particular, as he advanced with his army. I was not alone in my nightmare. Jacob was there, and the Cullens, the Hales. The Denalis were even there, with the Amazonians and the entire pack ready to fight till the end. The two Egyptians and the two nomads were there, waiting in the background, for something that I couldn't see.

But I was human. While my Jacob stood resolutely beside me, towering more than five feet above my eyes, as I lay on the ground, staring in horror at the minions of death that advanced towards us.

I could see every face in the incoming onslaught. None of them did I know. But every one of them wore some kind of frozen, apathetic expression.

Except from one stare, the hell-red haze that emitted from Caius's eyes, longing for death... my death.

A warm hand on my shoulder shook me out of my nightmare.

I almost yelled when my eyes snapped open to a dim light that was shining above me.

"Seth, wake up, bro," Jacob was saying, as he gently shook my right shoulder.

His voice relaxed every muscle and nerve in my body, like it always did. The feeling that clouded red eyes were watching me from somewhere dissipated until it wasn't even a whisper in my subconscious. I flung my arms gently around Jacob, who was sitting in the window seat to the direct right of me.

He let out a husky gasp of surprise before he wrapped his strong arms around me, holding me to him gently.

I closed my eyes and breathed in slowly through my nose, taking in all of the Jacob-smell I could. I could only hope that heaven would smell like Jacob.

"Morning," he said, skipping the "good" part.

"Hi," I said, my throat dry.

I didn't let go of him, but I did look around the plane. It was dark, except for one very dim light that continued to shine above Jacob and I. All of the window blinds were shut tight, and most of the passengers were asleep.

I looked behind us, and saw the rest of the pack, all asleep. The pack took up the whole back end. The vampires were all on a different plane, since we couldn't all fit on just one. I gave up on looking, bored within ten seconds, and nestled my head into Jacob's chest, closing my eyes.

"How close are we to... the next stop?" I said groggily. As if I could be expected to remember the next place we would change planes. Ha. Funny.

"Another hour," he said, heaving a heavy sigh.

"Woopee," I said half-heartedly, trying to stay awake.

Jacob laughed a little at my fake enthusiasm.

"On the plus side," he whispered. "We'll be in the middle of a tropical paradise in just four hours."

"When I imagined us in a tropical paradise," I whispered back, still holding myself together to stay awake. "I didn't figure an army of blood-sucking super-powered vampires into the picture."

He laughed huskily again.

"Neither did I," he said.

"How long have you been awake?" I asked.

"I haven't slept a wink," he said, like it didn't bother him one bit.

"You know, I'm starting to think Bella is right to worry about you," I said. "You don't get enough sleep."

"Says the boy that tried his hardest not to sleep at all to keep his dreams away from me," he teased, and then kissed my forehead.

"Hm, thanks," I said. "Being accused of hypocrisy is definitely what I need first thing in the morning... or is it morning? What time is it?"

"Just about two in the morning," he said.

"Is it even legal to put 'just' in front of 'two in the morning'?" I asked, laughing quietly so as not to wake our fellow passengers.

"Did you sleep okay?" he asked, ignoring my jab.

"I slept... alright," I said, and I could feel Caius's eyes on me once again.

Jacob sensed my discomfort.

"Bad dreams?" he said, concern flooding his voice.

"Very," I said. No need to hide anything from him. "It was weird... really dark. Caius's army was there, and we were there too, and I think we were waiting for something. I couldn't see what though..."

"Hm," he said, and in the dim light, I could see his brow furrow. "Maybe you ate something funny. I'll bet that bacon back at the I.H.O.P. was bad."

"It did taste kinda funny." I chuckled again, before I moved my head from his chest to his left shoulder. "I think I'm gonna pass out again on you again, man."

"Go ahead," he said. "Maybe if you don't let go of me, the bad dreams will stay away."

"Or maybe you just want me for my body," I teased again, my voice as groggy as it could be.

He laughed quietly again.

"You should get some sleep, too, Jake. You're gonna need all the strength you can get, ya know."

"I'll be fine," he said- right before he yawned the biggest yawn in the history of yawns.

"Your yawn doesn't think so, bro," I said, smiling.

I was drifting off before he finished his next sentence.

"...maybe I could catch a few..." Jacob yawned loudly before finishing: "z's..."

I felt his head nudge against mine before I drifted back into sleep.

Jacob and I slept for the rest of that flight. We got off to change planes in city "Whatever", population "I'm-Too-Tired-To-Remember". When we got onto the next plane, Jacob crashed again before we even took off. I followed suit just half a minute later, maybe less.

Jacob was right though. Keeping my arms around him, or his arms around me, did help to keep the dreams away. Caius's eyes no longer followed me wherever I went. Why they were on me in the first place was beyond my imagining.

The next time I woke up, it was dark. If I hadn't heard Jacob's snoring, I would've thought I was still asleep. I was lying on something big and squashy. It was very warm, too, but not like Jacob-warm. And something huge and soft- a blanket, I imagined- was covering me.

I could tell that I was still wearing all of the clothes I had worn on the long plane trip here, except my shoes.

My eyes adjusted to the darkness and I could tell where I was now. I was lying on a large bed, beside which stood a small dresser, with a lamp drilled into it. A hotel room. There was another bed a little ways away, and I could make out a human shape on it, sleeping silently. Jacob's soft snoring was the only sound in the room, but it was a distance away too. I could make out the outline of a humongous recliner, in which Jacob- I could tell because his legs stuck out a foot from the end- was asleep.

I decided within two seconds that the bed wasn't warm enough for me, and silently got up and walked over to the way-oversized recliner and somehow managed to nestle myself into Jacob's side, wrapping my arms around him.

The day on the plane had exhausted both of us, even though I had been asleep nearly the whole time. Regardless, I drifted to sleep for what was probably the tenth time today.

I woke up alone, and the room was much brighter. The curtains on the window had been opened, and let in sunlight brighter than Forks or La Push had seen in a half a century. In this new light, the hotel room had become truly visible to me, rather than being made up of the dark outlines that I had been aware of before. I could tell that this was most likely one of the most expensive hotels in all of Florida, courtesy of Carlisle Cullen, of course.

I was covered in a blanket, again, but I felt weird without Jacob lying next to me. I wasn't near warm enough. I shifted a little, and looked around.

Here we are, I thought. Waiting to go to our dooms.

I wondered suddenly if coming here was just like opening the door for death and greeting it with a kiss. I sighed.

"Hey," an unmistakable husky voice said softly.

Jacob was standing by the wall that separated the chair from the door to the bathroom. His face was content, but not quite happy.

"Jacob!"

I jumped up and threw myself at my other half. My arms were around him with no trouble, but it knocked the wind out of him. The air flew out of his lungs in one sharp huff, and then he wrapped his arms around me too, laughing quietly.

"Happy to see me, I guess?" Jacob teased, squeezing me tightly.

"Freaking yes," I said, a smile jumping onto my face.

He loosened his hold on me slightly. A strange wave of vertigo hit me, and I swayed to the side and staggered backwards.

"Whoa," I said, pressing my palm up to my forehead. "Head rush."

He had me sitting down in the recliner in half a second.

"Crap, how long did I sleep?" I mumbled, shaking my head numbly.

"Just long enough that Sam and Emily finally got married, Leah and Harry Potter had a baby, and we started a third World War," he said, trying to keep his tone serious while the teasing seeped into his words.

I snorted.

"Get real, Jake," I said, shaking my head from left to right.

"You slept all day yesterday, and then all night. It's really just 10:00 in the morning, hun. The others are downstairs in the restaurant eating breakfast."

"Wow," I said, over-exaggerating the word into three syllables.

"You sure you don't need more sleep," he said. "You didn't sleep at all night before last. Which, by the way, was the freaking longest night ever. Do you realize how much happened?"

I nodded as I thought through everything that had happened slowly.

At about 8 PM that night, I learned that Jacob had imprinted on me... then we went for a walk in the woods, where we were attacked by Caius and his minions... at about 10 PM, Marcus showed up at the Cullen's house... for hours, plans were made, and the scout team went to Florida. How hard it was to believe that Jacob and I had only been together for not even two days yet.

"Is the scout team here?" I asked.

"Yeah, but I haven't seen them personally." His eyes were slightly contemplative. "Carlisle and Edward met up with the others a few hours ago, when it was still dark. The scout team was in a totally different city, a good two hour drive away from here, but they're here now."

"Where is here, exactly?"

"Panama City," he said, as if it held no interest for him.

"Wow." I blinked back at the light when I glanced towards the window. Then I had an epiphany. "When you said the others are down eating breakfast..."

"The pack, I meant to say," he clarified. "The vamps are all camped out in the forest." He started smiling like something was funny.

I giggled at his expression. He let a laugh out too.

"What the crap are you laughing at?" I said, still giggling.

"Well, Leah caught a little bit of bad karma, I think," he laughed, his smile growing so wide that I knew it had to hurt a little. His brilliant white teeth caught me off guard.

"Wha... what happened?" I said, staring at the ever-so-perfect Jacob.

"Um, she ordered an omelet while I was still down there, with a lot of stuff in it, like bacon, cheese, green peppers, the works. The lady at the counter- she's kinda old, and I think she's Chinese, but anyway- she looked at Leah funny when she ordered and said-..."

He laughed raucously.

"What?" I said, shaking his shoulder a little. I laughed too, at him. "What did she say?!"

"She..." More laughing. "She said..." He let out one more burst of laughter before he delivered the punch line. "'Not with that butt, you don't!'"

My mouth fell open and I doubled over laughing. I fell off of the chair, and Jacob laughed with me. We both were laughing so hard that I was crying by the time we could get ourselves back under control.

I sighed and sat cross-legged on the carpet by the chair. As I rested my head on his knee.

"It's kinda sad, though," he continued. "The rest of the pack practically died laughing. She ran off crying. She's in her hotel room now."

"Aw," I said. It was kinda sad. Leah was a pain a lot of the time, but she was second-in-command of the pack. She had almost as much authority as Jacob, though I forgot this most of the time. I couldn't really tell between Beta Leah and Annoying Leah. I guess, even though she bugged the life out of me, she was still my sister, and I loved her. What hurt her, hurt me a little. Which was weird beyond compare. "Poor Leah. Our laughter at her expense."

"Well, she did laugh at us, you know," he said, messing up my hair again.

"Yeah, but I guess she has right to laugh at us," I countered. "We're a pretty funny pair."

Jake laughed again before he scooped me up in his arms and carried me towards where my shoes sat. I pulled my shoes on by myself, since we couldn't really walk around barefoot in a trillion dollar hotel without attracting attention. I was wearing black Converses. Add in the dark-dark-blue jeans, the black Green Day t-shirt, and a gray hoodie, and my outfit just screams "punk". Or future rock star, whichever comes first.

Jacob was wearing normal white, silver, and blue shoes, a pair of khaki shorts, and a gray sweater that had the word "Toronto" written in red letters on it. His shirt should have said, "I'm with stupid" with a huge arrow on the front that followed me everywhere. Haha.

"Isla Didyme is quite a long way away," he explained as we rode the clear glass elevator down to the lobby area. "It's almost impossible to find, I don't know how we even found out that the leeches really are on that island."

The other wolves, excluding Leah, were all sitting at a huge rectangular table, which turned out to be three tables moved together.

Paul shot us a funny look when we sat down, not bothering to get food yet. He was seated in front of me and to the left.

I decided to retaliate this time.

"What, Paul? You jealous that Jake's all over me instead of you? Screw off!"

His face went from hatred to revulsion, from revulsion to shock, and then he turned bright red. Collin and Jared, who were sitting to the left and right of him, snickered loudly, and Michael, at the other end of the table, shot orange juice out his nose.

"Oh, good Lord," Sam said, shaking his head.

Jacob was doubled over in laughter.

"Where the hell did that come from, homo?" Paul blurted, his eyes full of hatred.

He stood up, his body starting to tremble.

I stood up in response, suddenly shaking as well. I was starting to see red, but then Jacob stood up with me. When I could see clearly, he was holding my arm tightly and towering over both me and Paul, who was quite a bit taller than me, but not near as tall as Jacob, or as muscled up.

Paul looked like he was going to jump at me any second.

"Go on!" I said through my teeth. "Hit me."

"Seth," Embry chided, trying to calm me down.

"Don't edge him on," Jacob muttered softly in my ear, as people at other tables gave us startled looks.

"I can handle this," I said, loud enough for all of them to hear. Everyone at the table, save for Paul, looked afraid. I had never made an angry outburst to anyone. Shocked, grossed out, or argumentative, maybe, but never angry. "You gonna hit me or what? Or would you rather we duked it out right here, right now? I'm pretty sure it would piss Rachel off if I broke your face."

Playing the imprint card wasn't fair, but he had already played that one on me. Since he was going to marry Jacob's sister, Rachel, in February, we would practically be family. That would be hell.

He didn't reply, but he did tremble violently for a second before his face returned to normal color, and he sat down.

I glared at him balefully before I sat down too, crossing my arms across my midsection.

The entire table was quieter, and the only sound was of heavy breathing and forks scraping across plates and teeth.

Jacob broke the silence.

"So, Sam," he said, leaning towards Sam, who was sitting a few seats away. "When is the wedding going to be?"

"Next month," Sam said, smiling. "Emily didn't want it to be in the summer, so we moved it to fall."

I couldn't help but smile a little. The wedding date had been changed close to four times. It had almost happened in the spring, after the first Volturi threat, but got canceled. Same for the other three times. I was glad to see that they had a new date. I just hoped that we all got through this to see the wedding.

The low ache in my stomach became real for two reasons. The imminent war was part of it, but slight hunger was another.

"I'm hungry," Jacob said, as if I was speaking through him.

"Good, so am I."

Jacob and I got our breakfast from the long buffet, and Jacob even pointed out the woman that had made Leah cry. Jacob got more food than an elephant could eat, and I got nearly as much.

Paul didn't look at us again until we had all finished eating. Jake and I ate fast, so that we wouldn't be left alone, although I wouldn't have minded that.

Jacob explained everything going on today while we were eating. He called it our "agenda". Yeah, I thought. Agenda of doom.

Meeting with Carlisle was first on the agenda. Apparently, the sewers (that's right, the freaking sewers, where the vampires were hidden from the sun) of Panama City were big and dry enough for us to hold a meeting without having to worry much about... about that. At least I had a strong stomach.

Second on our agenda (of doom) was scouting. The vampires were thinking of the pack as their only connection to the world where the sun was shining, so Collin, Brady, Michael, Gary, Ricky, Iliana, Warren, Steven, Chris, Jacob, and myself were going. The younger ones, which excluded Collin, Brady, Jacob, and myself, were to spread out across the shoreline to make sure the coast was clear, no pun intended.

And third was food. Of course. What else could be better to end a day in the life of a werewolf than to pig out on whatever we could find?

The first part of the agenda, the sickening trip to the sewers was planned for three o'clock. We had hours until then. But then again, time with Jacob flew by too quickly.

The entrance to the sewers of Panama City was at our feet. I glanced around the strange, dark alleyway. The darkness didn't come from nighttime, but because the top of the alleyway was covered up. It was still bright with daylight outside the alley. The entire pack stood in a clumped circle, with Sam, Jared, Quil, Jacob, and I at the center. We all stared down at the hole as Quil reached down and yanked off the top, sliding it to the side so we could get through.

"It looks a little too small for us all to get through," Jared said, almost apathetically.

"The biggest of us should go first," Sam said. "Just to test it out."

Every eye went to Jacob, who stood at a whopping 6'9". (Sam was next tallest at 6'7", then Quil and Jared, both being 6'3". Next came me and Embry, both being about 6 feet. Then Leah, at 5'9". The rest were pretty even after that, the median being about 5'7"-5'8".)

"This should be fun," he muttered, letting go of me unwillingly.

As he stepped forward, I muttered, "Be safe" and looked down cautiously into the deep, dark, damp hole that my Jacob was about to travel down into. There were metal bars that were meant to act together as a ladder, like the ones you see in bad horror movies. I couldn't really see the bottom, but I knew it was there... well, I hoped it was there.

Jacob fit, but only by a few inches on each side. I held my breath as he started the descent. He shot me a "you're such a cute dork" look before he vanished into the darkness.

I bit my lip so hard that I could taste iron.

"So, who's next?" Sam said, clapping his hands together.

"Me," Quil said, before he jumped into the hole. His feet slipped a little on the bars, but he caught his balance quickly as we all watched with wary eyes.

When Quil's head disappeared into the dark hole, his voice rang out within microseconds.

"Damn!" he shouted, and my eyes were probably bugging out a bit. "It's stinks down in here!"

I shook my head and rolled my eyes, smirking.

"I'll go next," I said, mostly because I felt a little cold without Jacob next to me, no matter how many living space heaters were standing next to me. It wasn't "Jacob" warm.

Sam nodded once as I took a wary step towards the darkness. I got to the edge and looked down. I could feel a strange, chilly draft coming from out of the hole.

"Man, it really does stink," Iliana and Jared muttered behind me.

Then I put my hands on the side of the hole and slowly lowered myself into the darkness where I knew my Jacob would be waiting for me. My descent into the hole was long. I was sure I had gone sixty feet when I heard Quil's voice from down below me. Way below.

"What the hell?" he said. "Does this tunnel lead down to the center of the earth or something?"

"Can you see the bottom, Seth?" Sam yelled from above as I tried to ignore the wretched smell.

"No," I shouted back. "Quil's not even to the bottom yet!"

I heard uneasy sighing and chatter from high above me.

"Has Jake gotten to the bottom yet?" Jared hollered.

"Hey, Quil," I shouted down, trying not to slip.

"Yeah?" he yelled back. He was farther away than before.

"Has Jacob made it to the end yet?"

"I don't know," he replied. My heart skipped a few beats. "He hasn't said a word since he started down."

Quil sounded a good seventy-five feet down from where I was.

I started climbing down faster. The darkness was making me claustrophobic.

"Did you guys catch that?" I yelled back up to the pack.

"Yeah," Leah's voice came. The voices from above me were much farther away than I remembered. My heart started beating faster.

"Jacob?" I yelled, as loud as I could. My voice broke a bit at the end.

"Jesus, Seth!" Quil said. "I don't think they heard you in Paris!"

"Sorry," I apologized, a little quieter. "Are you at the bottom yet, Jake?"

A faint whisper echoed up through the tunnel. It was indecipherable, but I could have sworn it was Jacob.

"That sounded like a 'yes' to me," Quil shouted to me, sounding a little more optimistic.

"Hey, we think he's gotten to the bottom," I told the pack.

They responded, but it was barely louder than what I had heard from below me. Nevertheless, it sounded like a "good".

"Hey, Seth," a voice from almost directly above me said. It was Leah.

"Hey, sis," I replied starting to get breathless.

"You okay?" she said, her maternal side coming through a little. "Maybe you should've brought you're inhaler."

I scoffed softly, still a little breathless.

"I haven't had an asthma attack since third grade," I replied, and she laughed.

"Okay, I was just making sure you're alright," she said.

"Thanks," I replied. No matter how buggy Leah could be, she was still very protective of me. "How far to the bottom?" I yelled downwards.

"I just got there!" Quil replied.

Then another husky voice answered from close by.

"Just about fifty more feet, guys," Jacob said.

"Grea-"

I never finished that word. The rest came out in a garbled gasp of shock as I lost my footing and plummeted downwards. I bashed my head hard on the crudely-made tunnel wall, and I could feel blood seeping from where it was hit. I was vaguely aware of that odd feeling in your stomach when gravity pulls you downwards, and of Leah's shocked yell when I fell.

A pair of big, warm arms caught me, and another pair held me up. I was so dizzy and dazed that I comprehended absolutely nothing of whatever they were saying, or see anything. Something soft pressed against the gash on the back of my head, and then I could hear a higher, more feminine voice beside me.

It was about twenty seconds before I could really hear them.

"Seth, say something, bro!" That was Quil.

"Crap! Do something, CPR, slap him, something!" My sister.

"Seth, you need to say something, or I'll go nuts, here!"

Then I could speak.

"Ugh... what the hell was that?" I mumbled, all the words coming out slurred and the echo off the walls made my head hurt.

Light flooded my eyes, which I had opened. No wonder it had been so dark. My eyes were shut.

"Thank God," Leah said. "Mom would kill me if you got hurt."

"Leah," I said, sitting up in Jacob's arms. "We're about to go face an army of bloodsucking, super-powered, probably psychotic vampires, and you think that was bad? That was nothing."

Quil and Leah were both looking at me like I was nuts. I kinda hoped they were right. A sane person would never agree to climbing down that damn hole. Or maybe just a teenager would.

My head healed quickly, as the rest of our pack family dropped out of the dark hole into what appeared to be some kind of antechamber. The whole room was damp, and mold plastered every inch of the walls. A big door with a circular crank handle stood ominously at the other end of the chamber.

When all seventeen of us were down in the antechamber, Jacob started to carry me to the door. I shifted uncomfortably in his arms.

"Do you want down?" he said.

"Not really, but I think I need to walk now," I replied. I wasn't sure we could both get through that door if he carried me.

"Kay," he said gently, and set me on my feet. I gave Jacob the cloth that had been pressed to the wound, and realized it was his shirt, now covered in my blood. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye and tried not to smile. Did he have to be so... so muscular?

When we got to the door, Jared and Sam hopped forward and twisted the door twist thing. When it opened, a strange breath-like sound seemed to push itself from the cracks. The two tall boys pulled the door open, and before us stood our vampire comrades.

But they seemed a little off.

Our Cullens were there, flanked by the Denalis, the Amazonians, the two Egyptians, Peter, Charlotte and Marcus, but now there were more.

I recognized a few of the new additions. Mary and Randell, two more friends from the first Volturi threat; Makenna and Charles, both of whom had been witness to the Volturi once upon a time; Carmen and Eleazar, the other members of the Denali family.

But there was a tiny black haired girl, no taller than Alice, but she was definitely of Mexican descent, despite her bleached white skin. I suspected she was Maria, one of Jasper's old companions.

And then there were five others, and I knew them instantly to be the Seattle Coven. Jennie, Barron, Patrick, Erica, and then another, who I suspected was the other newest member to their clan. He was a boy, no younger than any of the younger wolves- physically, anyway- with medium-length black hair, and a sad, almost heartbroken face. The other members of the clan eyed the wolves with thankfulness. The new one didn't even seem to notice our entrance.

Then I noticed what seemed a little off. Many of the vampires were crouched, ready to spring, but not at us, at something in the middle of all of their ranks.

Bella Cullen stood tall in the midst of the crouched vampires. Her hands were outstretched, and I could almost feel her shield being pushed to protect the entering wolves, as well as everyone else in the room. All except one person.

In the middle of the room, being blocked away by Jasper, Marcus, Emmett, Kate, Tanya, Benjamin, and Edward, sat a tiny girl, also no taller than Alice. At first glance I thought she was a beautiful boy, but then I saw her red, clouded eyes. Then I realized.

An enemy was among us.

Jane, as perfect in my memory as she was now, let out an ear-piercing scream.

Carlisle turned towards us slowly.

"Plans have changed."