*A/N: Thank you, my wonderful beta Carrie36. And of course, thanks to the past reviewers, alerters, and comments. You pushed me to 100. Yeah! Thanks to Jake'sLola for being my 100th review. And to mcc3654, 82c10akaLynn, and 2angelwings who keep giving me feedback on my chapters.

Chapter Summary: Upon seeing Jacob after her high school graduation, Bella feels indebted to him for doing more than just saving her life, but giving her something to look forward to. She has been ridded of the nightmares that have haunted her since Edward vanished but a new predator, something far worse than what Bella had encountered before with the Cullens, seeks to claim a new victim, whether she is well protected by her best friend and his pack or not.

*Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight, but I would love to play Taylor and Jacob's 'victim.' I'll even let them win if they want to play the villains too.

Chapter XVIII Title: 'Victim,' by Trapt

At the cliffs…

"You guys really do this? Are you sure you are really going to let me do this?" I fired questions off at Jacob as he continued to smile at me. I stubbornly held onto the fact that I was several hundred feet above the Fork's shattering waves, which made me positive that it would hurt going down. Especially if I missed the water completely. Edward is going to kill you if he finds out, I thought. If he finds out? If he finds out? Who cares!

Edward would have never let me cliff dive. It would have been too dangerous. He would have said that I was too delicate to let the wind blow through my face and hair as I would hurl my body into the crashing water below. I sighed, keeping in most of my breath behind my tongue, lodging it somewhere deep in my throat. I hadn't succeeded in looking down and over the cliff yet. I was too scared that I would remember what had happened, when I wanted to jump off the cliff and never be heard from again.

But that was before I had seen Jacob. It was before I had Jacob and the wolf pack in my life. It was before Jacob had saved me, over and over again. How many times would he save me from falling? How many times could he push his sweet breath into my mouth to feed me the necessary oxygen I needed to survive?

Jacob's fingers pulled on my graduation dress, but he did not do it urgently. "I'll hold you on your first time down. Then you can do it on your own. Deal?"

His grin gave me a little confidence as I smirked back in response. "Deal."

My hands trembled as he made contact with my very skin. He backed up slowly toward the edge, taking me with him, and my eyes widened. I was worried that he might hit his head in an attempt to keep me calm by not letting me look directly down, but he shook his head, seemingly able to read my thoughts. "Relax, honey. I will never let you go."

Jacob.

With no shirt and cut-off basic black jeans, his words were affecting me more than his impressive body. Jacob's fingers moved behind my ears, pushing my hair and more of my apprehension back. I grew bold and fingered his hair some more without thinking, giggling nervously."Your hair is too short for me to push behind your ears, Jake."

He laughed, shaking us both. "You want me to grow it out again?"

I shook my head. His hair felt no differently than it had that night and that was the way I liked it. My pulse raced. I couldn't believe I was touching his hair again. It felt so completely right since we were already standing so close. I repeatedly fingered his scalp, raked through his hair, and allowed his warmth to blaze my raw fingertips, my core, and my emotions. My hand drew back a little and Jacob misunderstood. "Bells, I promise you, you will not get hurt. Have I ever lied to you?"

I swallowed, not answering his question. "There must be other things you'd rather be doing right now. You don't want to be hanging around with me all the time." I looked down, careful to keep my eyes averted from the waiting cliff. "Me being pale-faced and all." I wasn't sure why I had said that, but I didn't feel Jacob stiffen or sigh from annoyance. His heartbeat stayed the same. The pads of his fingertips burned more into my skin and the strength of his gaze somehow made me feel less self conscience of just how foolish I was being.

"There's no one else I'd rather be with, Bella. No one."

I tried hard not to smile. I settled on blushing furiously. "You can't say things like that to me, Jacob. What would the pack say?"

"They need to mind their own business."

"No secrets in the pack," I repeated, remembering what Emily said.

Jacob's eyes suddenly clouded with doubt and sadness. "You're right. No secrets."

My arms went tighter around Jacob's midsection and we took a smaller step closer to the ledge. I had to estimate that we were no more than a few more inches from our own little piece of edge of the world, but it felt like the two of us had already stepped over our boundary lines. Jacob and I had come too far and somehow I could feel exactly what he wanted because it was the same thing I wanted. Why wouldn't Jacob say something? You know why. My own thoughts about myself were harsh as I remembered the last time he had tried to tell me his feelings. The last time he had tried to make me happy by doing things I hadn't even asked him for and I had rewarded him by making him stay a wolf for weeks. No wonder he was doubtful. No wonder he wouldn't will himself to say anything more than he had. I wasn't sure how much longer I could take being in his arms like this.

I opened my mouth to speak, though I couldn't be exact on just what I would say, when Jacob suddenly buried his face in my hair, pressed his hard body even closer to mine, and took the very few remaining steps back. We fell backwards into the ocean water.

I felt the rush as the wind pushed my hair back while my body felt pulled down in a separate direction, into the water's instantaneous cold. It flooded the color back into my skin. My breaths were incomplete, but Jacob's hold on me kept me from going crazy. I felt his lips graze the very top of my shoulder and I felt something in me that had been broken finally being fixed. My wet dress clung to me, but Jacob felt even closer, closer than anything else at the moment. My nose touched the underside of his chin and he sighed as if the greatest pleasure in the world was me not letting go of him, even after we floated closer and closer toward the beach. I wanted to look into his eyes. I wanted to see if he was thinking the same thing I was.

But what if he was? Was I ready for Jacob? Was I ready to be rid of my feelings for Edward?

No. No, I wasn't. I shook my head slightly and I felt Jacob tremble. He shook me in the water and I heard his teeth grind. Had I done something? Could he hear my thoughts?

I started, "Jake—"

"Wait, I smell something."

I looked around. "What? What do you smell?"

Jacob shook his head and held me to him as he continued to swim backwards to the beach. I felt his powerful legs kick the water as he forced it to move around us. I almost sank into the focus of his brown eyes before I felt the sand beneath my feet. He detangled his legs from mine and called over to his pack. Sam threw a large towel at us and Jacob placed his hands gently on my face. "Do not move from this spot, Bella."

"But I want to help—"

"Help me by not moving." Jacob's eyes challenged mine and I briefly nodded. It didn't satisfy him. "Embry," he called over to his packmate, "stay here with Bella. Make sure she doesn't move. She's not even to move to save a crab from a seagull. Got it?"

Embry looked grounded as he sat next to me. Jacob ran off, throwing off his pants, and phased almost immediately.

(APOV)

"They found us." A small blonde vampire hissed at the large animal next to him. "You should have done as you were told. You should have been able to finish the task my master set before you in Seattle. What went wrong?"

The creature growled low at the vampire next to him and crawled along the floor. It continued to let the little parasite talk and rant as if that would make things suddenly better. A wave of shame and regret hit its chest. It had never failed a task before. Not ever. His own master would be very displeased. His master would thing that it couldn't do the job. His master might even look to replace him suddenly with another.

"What do we do?" The young vampire insisted. The beast's eyes went lower as it lifted its nose in the air for a scent. "They" were close. "They" would be on them soon. "Ugh! Wipe your drool!" He shouted, nearly giving away their otherwise quiet position on the beach front.

The animal snapped at the pale little monster and the vampire snarled back. They didn't like each other, but their separate masters had a dual-purpose for them, and they were doomed to each other's company until completed. But there was someone that the beast hated more than his little blonde companion.

That dog. That small, irrelevant, and pointless existence of a wretched dog had gotten in his way.

That mutt had beaten him. He had kept him from his mission long enough for the animal to doubt himself and had made him take his eyes off of the task he had been set out to do. Of course he had decided to attack too early, but what did that matter when you were an animal such as he was? Nonetheless, he had been thrown off his game. He had underestimated the fighting spirit of the little ingrate, but he would no longer. He would see to it that every one of them paid. That everything that had gotten in his way would suffer. That included the little blonde vampire by his side, if he had to.

He hoped he would have to. He anticipated the moment of when he would finally succeed. Maybe now he couldn't get to the human girl, but he would eventually. He couldn't kill her, but she would be just as good as dead by the time he would bring her to his master. Or the blonde's master. Whichever one would have her; he didn't really care. Having two masters was something he never had to deal with before, but he did as he was asked. He could only do what he was commanded. The redhead was his master for a time, but she would never own him. He couldn't be owned by anyone except who he chose.

The vampire stared intently at the girl on the beach. She was next to another boy. Another dog. They were all mutts to him. He was the only thoroughbred, in his eyes.

The girl laughed suddenly, but it sounded awkward. It didn't matter. The vibrating sound that escaped her and floated to his pinned back ears had pissed him off anyway. He was ready to make off with her now. He was ready for the fight now.

"Let's get out of here, Rover. We need to let my master know what's going on with the girl. You should consider my master as your master too."

His legs stiffened under him as he rolled onto his side. He could hear them. They would be on them in mere seconds. He let out a gruff in appreciation for the fact that he had been so focused on the girl's laughter that he had almost missed the sound of the dogs approaching. Perhaps he wasn't ready to take them all on in a fight yet.

"My master is fixing to get them all. She has plans for that one who got away. She wants her all to herself. That was the mate of the one who killed hers." The blonde's voice sounded resentful and for once the monster, Rover, couldn't blame him. It seemed that they both wanted the girl to suffer, if for no other reason than just being intolerable. Everyone seemed to want to protect her. It was disgusting.

(BPOV)

"Why does stuff keep happening to me? For once, I'd like to be normal. I'd like to go out, have fun, not have my life threatened, come home, and go to sleep. Is that too much?" I asked Embry.

Embry shrugged. I sighed and gave up trying to discuss my abnormal affairs with him. He seemed grateful that I had finally quieted down and then a look came across his face. "So, what's going on with you and Jacob?"

I looked at him and he dropped his eyes. Apparently, braveness was a learned trait in the pack. "What did he say?"

"Nothing. He said nothing," Embry insisted. "But his mind is—"

I rolled my eyes. "I know. No secrets in the pack," I groaned. This repetition was getting ridiculous. "We're friends, Embry. And you can replay this memory for him too."

"He really likes you." When I didn't say anything, Embry continued, "He's quiet about a lot of things, you know. And you underestimate yourself."

"Huh?" I stared back at a blushing Embry.

"He was getting ridden really hard by the pack about staying a wolf so long for you, but he didn't care. He said that he had to and that nothing was going to keep him from being that kind of friend to you."

I was taken off guard and pushed my million questions back. It felt weird having Embry tell me things about Jacob that not only was I not aware of, but I suddenly felt strange finding out. "He's a good friend. He really is," I muttered.

"You have to know that he wants and can be so much more—"

"We couldn't find anything. Whatever it was, it must have caught wind of us and hustled out," Jared interrupted, using his wolf speed to approach us almost instantly.

Paul was directly behind him, nodding his head in agreement when he slammed his body down next to Embry, shaking little mounds of sand next to us. He turned his enormous body to me, "Your friend is pissed, Bella," he started in a jeering tone. "I think he wanted to impress you by getting you a big, fat, piece of leech for your graduation present. It's a shame we don't have the resident parasites here anymore. We could have chased them for fun for awhile, let them think they were getting away, and then we would've—"

"Knock it off, Paul. Don't talk to her." Jacob's eyes narrowed and I jumped to my feet, ready to stop either of them if a fight broke out. I wasn't quite sure how I would actually stop them though.

Luckily, Paul's dagger-eyes didn't regard me at all as he stared threateningly at Jacob. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't realize that not only could I not kill a leech with you riding my tail every damn second, but I also can't talk to your precious Bella. You are seriously—"

"Quiet," Sam swiftly spoke and Paul's mouth closed. "Jacob, stay with Bella. The rest of you spread out and pick up the new trail. We have a lot of ground to cover."

My arms covered my stomach as the wind picked up and the guys left. I certainly knew how to clear a beach full of werewolves. I knew how to make anyone leave. I let out a sob and crashed into Jacob, who had his arms waiting for me. "What's wrong? Did Paul upset you? Don't worry, I'll kill him—" I buried my face in his upper chest, cutting him off, and I heard his breath flutter a bit. I almost pulled back, afraid that I overextended myself when he his cheek covered the top of my head. "Please, don't. I want to keep holding you, if that's okay."

I wished that it wasn't okay, but I couldn't imagine feeling anything better than feeling Jacob against me. Friend or not, he was the world I was living in now. "Its fine, Jake." I felt myself waking up in his arms from a dream that we shared, but I didn't remember falling asleep. I felt my blood being revitalized and my heart become complete, but I suddenly couldn't place just how it had become torn apart in the first place. I felt anew. I was silent, but I had so many questions for Jacob. My brain wanted to scream out that there wasn't enough time to get all my inquiries answered, but my heart knew I was just being impatient. And my heart knew that Jacob and I had time to get things sorted out. He would be there for me.

*A/N: My term at the top 'At the Cliffs' in not in relation to JoinTeamJacob's story "At the Cliffs," a fantastic read by the way. It is purely for setting purposes only.

I'm also anxious to start more MA themes between JxB, but I honestly can't do that until you guys let me know how I'm doing so far. This isn't an ego boost; I just think if you enjoy The Burning of a Cold, you should say it. :-D