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Chapter 27

Outside Help

Jake

"That means ..." then Edward asked cautiously, "... if we wanted to renegotiate the treaty ..."

"... you have to deal with Leah ... Have fun with that!" I grinned at Edward and imagined an impulsive Leah standing defiantly in front of the good-natured Carlisle with an unyielding gaze.

So, we had missed biology completely. We waited outside the door until the bell rang so we could apologize to Mr. Moore.

With the liberties he gave us, he deserved a sincere apology. We wanted to tell him that we had not missed class out of boredom - or worse, arrogance.

He showed great kindness and understanding when Leah told him she had had a little nervous breakdown. 'Woman problems,' she put forward as an excuse.

It wasn't even that far-fetched.

As I sat with Edward afterwards in sociology, he asked if he should pick us up after practice.

I said no. Brandon would take us.

But his car stood at our disposal as soon as we got home.

That was good, I thought and thanked him again for it. We would be able to pick up Ben's and Becky's things today and pack them with ours, so that we could leave early tomorrow.

"When are you going to leave?" Edward asked curiously.

'We don't know for sure yet. We will figure it out tonight. But the plan is that we'll be out of here by 10:00 a.m. at the latest,' I explained in my thoughts. 'How did you know what was going on with Leah and where she was,' I asked after a moment.

"Ever since I was reasonably sure Monday morning that Bella was your mother, I've been watching your thoughts," he explained to me.

He had been listening to us? The whole time? ... 'Ever heard of privacy?'

"I watch over you just as I watch over my siblings. I do not listen to every word you say. Perhaps the closest thing one can compare it to is background noise. Or with a movie that one don't pay much attention to," he tried to explain, and I tried to imagine it more clearly.

But why was he doing this?

"I think you already know that!"

I nodded after a moment, remembering Carlisle's words: 'Nothing is more important to him than Bella. And you are a part of her. So, his love and goodwill extends to you as well.'

"But I wasn't really paying attention to Leah today. Otherwise, I would have already noticed what she was worrying about and how much it was burdening her. It wasn't until I saw Leah's face in the mirror that I really concentrated on her," Edward apologized with a lowered gaze.

I was just as guilty. Ben had said that there was something wrong with Leah, but she had waved it off evasively ... 'What excuse do you have?'

"I've been paying attention to Michael's friends. They've been considering how and when best to catch you since this morning."

I gulped.

Great. I had one hour of practice later, which happened to end at the same time as football practice. And with the volleyball practice. Becky and Leah!

Fear slowly rose in me.

Not for me. One of those guys supposedly hit his girlfriend once. He wouldn't hesitate to attack Leah or Becky. I didn't really have to worry about Leah, after all she was almost as strong as I was, even though God knows one couldn't tell by looking at her. But Becky!

"That's not going to happen!" Edward said in no uncertain terms, handing me a few sheets of paper while he was already getting up from his chair -seconds before the bell rang.

Confused, I looked at the sheets for a moment.

A neat and complete transcript of the entire lesson.

Smirking slightly - but also a little embarrassed - I looked at my own notepad.

Title, date, and barely four sentences with which no one could make out anything meaningful ... 'Thank you!'

Not for this!

appeared on my cell phone shortly afterwards.

I immediately called Leah to warn her.

She was with Becky at the other end of the building and most likely were almost at the gym. She understood my warning, but whispered so as not to alarm Becky that they were not alone.

I paused, but was nervous.

Quickly, I packed my things together and left the classroom, stumbling over Emmett. I pulled myself up from the floor by the hand held out to me, and Emmett didn't give the impression that he wanted to leave me alone.

"So, you are our babysitter!" I stated matter-of-factly.

"That's what it looks like!" this half-bear grinned at me in a friendly manner.

"What did Edward do to make you do this?", I asked with a laugh. I could have been really mad for this paternalism. But I wasn't. Because he had unfortunately been right when he had warned me this morning. As a human being I had absolutely no chance against four full-grown football players, even if Brandon would help me, which I didn't doubt.

"Promised me a new pickup truck," he said, beaming with joy.

I laughed.

That was a good one! ...

My laughter grew a little quieter with each stride.

Emmett described his dream truck down to the smallest detail. It sounded awesome. But this was serious!

My jaw dropped.

Emmett got a car for babysitting? A pickup truck? How much dough did they all have to have? ... How much was it worth to Edward that nothing happened to us?

In the meantime, I compared Emmett's fee with what Leah and I had gotten back when we had babysat some kids to supplement our allowance. We must have done something wrong!

I sensed Emmett and I being followed through the hallways and kept looking around, but I didn't see anyone.

Emmett confirmed my suspicions. He even looked like he couldn't wait.

We reached the gym and the locker rooms unharmed.

Leah and Becky were already ready, dressed and ready to go, under the attentive guard of Rosalie.

I also quickly got changed and tied my hair back on the way to the gym.

I paused a bit when I entered the gym. Ben was sitting in the stands. He didn't have that much to do with sports, except that he jogged every once in a while.

When I asked him about it, he explained that he was worried about Leah. She had been somehow so sad and brooding this morning, so he didn't want to leave her alone.

Leah had apparently found her soulmate without imprinting!

Practice dragged on. Becky and I were still playing very poorly and had heard some kind of telling off from our coaches almost every day. So, after practice, we were both once again ordered to clean everything up, with Emmett, Rosalie, and Ben then keeping us company. We goofed around a bit until everything was put away.

When I stepped out of the locker room afterwards - I had forgotten my cell phone and was running back alone - three big muscular and broad-shouldered bodies in full football gear were waiting for me.

Shit!

A little further along the corridor, the fourth could be seen, apparently keeping a lookout. No one else was to be seen or heard.

My muscles tensed as if by themselves.

"Are you lost? The football field is that way!" I pointed the way to them, but I doubted that they really wanted to go there.

They came the few steps towards me and I involuntarily kept backing away so that they could not surround me. But the corridor behind me was not particularly long and a dead end.

I remembered the hallway being longer, as my back hit the wall.

"We have a message for you from Mike!" one of them spoke threateningly, banging his helmet brutally against my stomach.

"So, you've become errand boys now? Or is he just too cowardly to tell me himself?" I asked, breathing deeply to quell the tugging in my stomach.

Slightly confused by my words, but still determined, they continued to glare at me.

In the corner of my eye, I saw a fist coming towards me, which I just barely avoided. There outfits made them cumbersome. His fist hit the wall and the guy to my left suppressed a curse. But the one on the right countered directly with another fist, which I had not seen coming. It hit me with full force and the middle one kicked my legs away. I quickly found myself on the floor, lying on my stomach with three guys on top of me. I tasted blood in my mouth. One of them rudely pulled my face up by my hair.

"You need to stay away from Becky!" I was explained.

"Why should I. She broke up with him!" I cursed.

I was 'very gently' spun around. My head hit the tiles hard.

"But only she believes that!"

A hook to the chin.

"She owes him something!"

A kick to my ribs.

"And he's going to get it!"

A fist in my stomach.

"Then I'm going to kill Mike!", I said angrily and had to concentrate on not freaking out. I couldn't lose my temper. The fire was already surging inside me and made my body tremble. I had to restrain myself so far that my wolf did not really break out.

"Get out of here. There's nothing to see here!" someone was saying a few feet behind us.

I saw nothing, but heard Emmett's voice answer with relief.

"Oh yeah ... Looks quite different to me!" Emmett seemed to grin.

Shortly afterwards, I saw a football uniform abruptly fly into the wall.

"So, what are you guys up to back there?" Rosalie appeared in the narrow hallway and had put on one hell of a seductive voice.

One of the guys walked towards her, light on his feet. He saw no danger in this blonde temptation, which she presented very impressively.

I tried to free myself from the grip of the other two, managed only moderately, and received another hard punch in the face as a reward.

Emmett had come closer right behind Rose, but he didn't really seem to get noticed because of Rose.

"Are you undressing my girlfriend with your eyes right now?" Emmett struggled to get the attention to the guy who was focused entirely on Rose and stood right in front of her.

Emmett grabbed him roughly and headbutted him so hard that he collapsed. With a threatening stride, he moved toward the remaining two, who gave each other a hesitant look. They stood up and let go of me so that I could finally get up.

I tapped one on the shoulder so that when he turned to me, I gave him a well-aimed hook to the chin that sent him staggering. His last buddy obviously wanted to intervene, but Emmett was too quick with him and he also fell to the ground half knocked out.

Vampirically fast, I guessed, but he might not have noticed.

Upset, I went to the leader of the small gang.

Well. Leader, unless Mike was there.

I grabbed him roughly by his jersey and pulled him towards me a little.

Fear was in his eyes. They had absolutely not expected that it could end like this for them.

"If Mike or you attack Becky, Leah, or anyone else, you've got a problem! ... Understand?" I asked angrily and gave him a moment until he finally nodded and I pushed the motherfucker back hard onto the floor.

Rose immediately went back to the others while Emmett followed me into the locker room. I spit out the blood, rinsed with water, and waited, until no cuts or bruises could be seen from the beating but one rib was definitely cracked.

"Are you okay?" Emmett asked from behind me.

I nodded, but looked at him somewhat skeptically in return.

"What is it?"

"How impervious are you to blood, anyway?", I inquired.

"One more, the other less," he grinned at me.

"Thank you for your help," I said honestly, hoping I wouldn't have to keep relying on babysitters like that.

If I had been alone, I would probably be lying in the hallway now.

Who knows exactly, how they would have battered me to illustrate Mike's message. Or I'd be standing on four giant paws. Either way, I really had Edward to be grateful to.

"Not an issue. I had fun," he was still grinning and we went back to the others.

Becky, Leah, and I drove with Ben and Brandon took Rose and Emmett for a stretch at my request.

Becky and I get off at her house. I would run the rest of the way on foot.

I greeted her parents kindly, but I winced inwardly.

I had never really seen Becky's father before, just fleeting encounters where I didn't pay much attention to him.

She got her blue eyes from him, but they appeared cold on him. But maybe that was just because of the way Mr. Young looked at me up and down. He had never seen me as his daughter's boyfriend.

Then he asked me to follow him.

"Dad!" shouted Becky after him, embarrassed, but he ignored her.

He led me into a small office, directed me to a chair in front of a huge desk and took a seat behind it himself. He continued to look at me sternly and suspiciously. Then he took something out of a drawer and placed it provocatively in the middle of the table between us.

A box of condoms. What the ...?

"My wife was convinced yesterday that it wouldn't be a concern if our underage daughter camped overnight with some friends on the weekend but I found this on her assigned shopping list," he explained to me as monotonously as if it were a boring weather report. "What do you have to say about it?" he then asked.

"What would you think I should say about that, sir?" I asked cautiously. It wasn't my idea, after all, and whoever's idea it might have been was hardly thinking about me and Becky.

"How does something like this end up on the list for a camping trip, if it's just a harmless recreational activity. Among minors, I would like to emphasize again."

"Maybe because among the eight people who are going tomorrow, there are two couples who have been together for some time?" I tried to explain.

"As far as I'm informed, you've only been involved with my daughter since Monday. So that's what you call for some time?", he asked upset and I shook my head vehemently and immediately explained the relationships between Bran and Jenny and Leah and Ben.

"Who else is going besides these two couples?" he asked, already significantly calmer, and I told him about siblings Lisa and Jason.

I also let him know that we had been camping together many times, and that on the first few occasions we had been secretly watched by older siblings or fathers, although we had not been told this until later. I wrote down the phone numbers of Jenny's and Lisa's parents for Mr. Young to verify what I said.

He actually did, but they only confirmed my words and in turn tried to make it clear that he need not worry about his daughter.

He was defeated. With his own weapons.

He seemed to let the words of the other two fathers run through his mind.

Then he surprised me and asked how I was doing, since he had heard about my fight with Mike on Monday ... To defending his daughter! He had never been fond of that boy, and he welcomed the fact that Becky was no longer together with the devious guy.

He didn't know how right he was, I thought, holding my tongue.

And then, Mr. Young actually tried to try to give me the talk.

"Sir, please. My mother explained everything me!" I tried to stop him.

"That so. And what did your mother say about it?" he asked.

"First of all, that you should never do it out of curiosity or peer pressure. But only out of the feeling that it is absolutely the right thing to do," I repeated what she had told Leah and me. And after what we had noticed from some others at school, we both wanted to take it to heart. For example, Lisa had come crying to us after her first time because the guy had broken up with her right after.

Mr. Young seemed satisfied with my answer and gave me an affirmative nod.

We went back to the rest of the family and briefly discussed what the schedule was.

Becky's little brother insisted on going along for the ride. He was thirteen. None of us had a problem with taking him along. But his parents were strictly against it.

I had stayed longer than I had intended.

It was already seven o'clock and I had to really hurry, so that I could shower and get dressed to be at the table by eight for dinner.

I decided to run through the forest. I was faster as a wolf.

I had just taken the small way when I recognized an Audi at the end of the road, which stopped right next to me.

I shook my head with a smirk as I opened the door and got in.

"Your mother will resent it if you're not at the table on time!" Edward reminded me with a smile.

How far could this damn vampire actually hear thoughts?

"Thank you," I said honestly, though.

"You're welcome."

"I meant for our bodyguards."

"I know."

When we arrived home, I quickly dashed into the garage.

Billy and Charlie had given us their birthday presents for Mom.

I paused when I saw a small bottle lying by the Spitfire and picked it up off the floor.

A special cleaner for older model motorcycles.

I ran inside, hid the two packages in the hallway, and joined the others.

"Jake ... Finally. How are you?" mom was already coming toward me.

She had probably already heard that I needed babysitters today.

Leah and Edward both nodded in the background.

"Nothing happened, Mom ... Did you bring that cleaning stuff for the Harley?" I reassured her and asked about it to change the subject.

Confused, she looked at me and said no.

Probably not her idea.

After she had extensively checked my face for integrity, she disappeared again in the kitchen. Something in their cooking pots just boiled over there.

Thank God. Mom wouldn't be so quick to let up about the brawl otherwise.

"I brought it for you this morning," Edward now came closer to me. "Rosalie is passionate about tinkering with vintage cars and swears by this stuff."

Had he splattered chocolate on his T-shirt and shirt? And in his hair? I hadn't seen that earlier.

"Um ... yeah. We baked a cake," he replied, smiling embarrassedly at my mental question.

"Actually, the chocolate belongs in the cake and not on the bakers!" I instructed him smirking. One certainly didn't see something like that every day. A vampire with chocolate stains.

"Leah already explained that to us."

"Do you know anything about motorcycles?" I then asked Edward. I had gotten the Simson running again with Bran, but this time I'd rather not have any parts left over. I also knew how busy Alex was with his driving school vehicles and didn't want to get on his nerves in case I needed help.

"Wouldn't you rather do this alone?" Edward asked cautiously after seemingly listening to my thoughts. "I mean, it was your father's."

"I didn't know my father!" I answered simply. It was the truth. The many memories I had in my mind were not mine and that's exactly how they felt. They were intense at times, but I had never gotten to know him personally.

"I'll be happy to help you with it!" Edward promised and soon said goodbye.

And I was already looking forward to tinkering with the Harley with him.

Thanks for reading!