Chapter eight: Anger

June

Jacob and Billy had come by several times in the course of the past two months and Jacobs's eyes and face stayed sheepish and secretive whenever she caught him looking at her. He wouldn't even let her start a conversation at first without bolting away from her, pretending to have to do something for Billy, but as time went by and Bella didn't mention their strange encounter in the woods, he seemed to relax more around her. He had grown even taller than before and he had been the only person not to say anything about Bella's apparent growth spurt, she had been forced to buy new jeans and trousers when she noticed all of her previous ones were suddenly just that little bit too short. She hadn't noticed until she had overheard Jessica and Lauren snickering away in the bathroom.

"So," Jacob started on a chilly evening in June, "how have you been?" They were both sitting on the wooden front porch of Charlie's house. Each of them leaning against one of the sides of the steps Charlie had installed after she had slipped last year on a patch on ice on the first step.

"I'm good." She said.

"Good." She stated with a simple smile, "you didn't seem good for a while."

Bella smiled uncomfortably and looked down at her hands, "Yeah, I know."

She took a deep breath before releasing the words she had so carefully kept in her mind these past two months in a quiet whisper. "I guess those people really did screw me up, huh."

Jacob froze and looked at her with wide eyes, he wasn't shaking this time.

"Don't worry." She said sourly as he looked away from her, he clearly didn't know how to react. "I won't tell anyone, I'm not stupid. I've been keeping this secret for some time now."

He didn't say anything as he clenched his fists on his knees, his shorts digging into his thighs.

"I won't even tell anyone that you used that word in the first place. I won't even say the word, if that makes you feel any better."

He clenched his jaw, but his shoulders didn't shake this time. He placed his hands on his knees as he pushed himself up and stomped inside, the door slammed close behind him with a loud bang. She hadn't really been a person to talk back before, but she hated being left out of things. Her head was leaning against the moist wood behind her as that now almost familiar feeling of uneasiness swept over her again, starting at the side of her exposed neck, her eyes snapped open and she jumped to her feet with a grace she hadn't been able to use before, her fingers were digging into the wood of the porch next to her. There was nothing there.

She sighed and looked down, "Maybe I am going crazy." She mumbled as she followed Jacob's previous footsteps not noticing how the place where her hand had gripped the wood now held five very small, barely there dents that weren't there before.

"I appreciate you not telling anyone." Jacob mumbled quietly after making sure neither Billy or Charlie would be able to overhear them. He was leaning against the countertop in the kitchen, Bella noticed his T-shirt was too short as well and wondered if he wore them like that on purpose.

"So you are speaking to me." Bella joked bitterly as she joined him, leaning against the counter just out of his reach, like something inside of her was telling her to keep her distance from him. She felt like she was going crazy but she could still swear she felt waves of heat coming off him.

"I can't talk about it Bella." He said, scratching the back of his shorter hair.

"Can't or won't." She mumbled without taking her eyes off him. "Can't." He said tensely as he clenched his jaw again as he looked at her, his eyes dark and almost aggressive.

"We can't be friends, Bella." He added sadly after a few moments of silence.

"Why not-" She was about to start arguing when Billy rolled in, eyeing Jacob with intense and slightly darker eyes. Bella crossed her arms across her chest and looked at him. Does he know too? Billy looked at her from head to toe, frowning as he lingered on her face.

"Have you grown Bella?" Jacob tensed next to her and looked at his feet.

She grinned awkwardly at him and bit her lip, "Yeah, I had to buy new pants because they were all too short." Her voice ever so slightly more husky than before, only Jacob noticed and snapped his face up to look at her, his head tilted.

"Really?" Billy said as his eyes narrowed.

Bella frowned at him, looking between both Billy and Jacob. Their faces both different than most when asking something as rudimentary as 'have you grown'.

"Yeah," she said when nobody continued, "I guess my growth spurt was a little late. Kind of like Jacob's, huh." She said, instantly regretting her words when she heard some piece of the kitchen counter crack as she Jacob clenched his hands and jaw.

"Can you come here, Bella?" Billy said when she turned her head towards Jacob.

"Sure." She murmured with slightly tinted cheeks. She stopped in front of him, she wanted to look back at Jacob but looked at Billy with wide eyes when he grabbed her wrist almost roughly and pulled her down towards his eye level, using more strength than she thought possible for him. "What-"

"Your eyes are different too," He said with a clenched jaw, "Darker."

"Are they?" She said with a small voice. He just nodded at her, his eyes also seemed darker from this angle. She tilted her head at him when his grip shifted around her arm, gripping tightly around her scar, it stung when his had made contact. It stung more then it usually did, she didn't want to yell out but couldn't stop the small hiss that left her lips. Billy's face paled drastically as he pulled her even closer and pushed up her sleeve to look at her scar.

"How-" He started with a shaky voice, gone was the stern and slightly darker version of him which had just been glowering at her. "How did you get this?" His eyes not leaving her wrist.

"Dad?" Jacob said in confusion, moving closer until he was looking over Bella's shoulder and froze. But unlike his father, Jacob didn't pale or quiet. Jacob started shaking.

"What the fuck is that?" He growled as he took a big step away from her, but his growl had felt so close, almost like he had growled into her ear.

"It's nothing." Bella said as she tried to swivel around to look at Jacob but Billy wouldn't let go.

"It's cold." He murmured, still looking at the scar.

"Show me." Jacob murmured as she he took her arm in his big and warm one, almost grabbing her from his father's hand like a rag doll.

"Excuse me-" She started with anger in her voice, wondering where her father was.

If Billy's hand had stung on top of her scar, Jacob's hand felt like it was on fire when it touched the cold surface of it. Bella yelped and tried to pull her hand away but Jacob's grip tightened significantly.

"Jacob let me go." She said tensely, gritting her teeth at the burning sensation. Her mind flashing back to last year, when she was writhing on the hard, wooden floor of the ballet studio in Phoenix. The burning going through her wrist similar to the feeling she was experiencing now.

"You're not supposed to have something like this." He hissed in her face.

"It's just a scar, you don't-" She started but he growled at her tone.

"I know perfectly well what that is, Bella. And I know you're not supposed to be alive when you have one of those."

"Well, I am." She said, trying to pull her arm free. "So let me go."

"Are you sure about that?" He growled, almost too quiet for her to hear as he moved his other hand a few inches above her scar.

"Jacob-" Billy warned him, but his voice got lost somewhere between the burning sensation Bella was still experiencing and the growling still coming from his son.

"What are you-" Bella started but before she could finish her sentence he brought his hand down in a weird, slashing motion. His nail every so slightly slicing through the skin of her upper arm making her yelp at the sting.

"What the fuck!" She yelled as she felt something inside of her snap. She puller her hand out of his tight grip with an ease and strength she shouldn't have possessed. Her other hand pushed against his chest without thinking, making Jacob fall back against the kitchen counter several steps behind him. Bella moved back until she was standing next to Billy, against the furthest wall of the kitchen. Her eyes wild, her forehead damp, her hands and body shaking. She felt like couldn't breathe.

"What is wrong with you!" She hissed at him, the anger that filled her started boiling in her chest at a rapid temperature, the sides of her vision turned black as her chest heaved with anger and shock. Jacob had moved halfway across the kitchen when she took a step in his direction making him freeze, her face like he had never seen her before. Her eyes shades darker than they had been just seconds ago, they were almost completely black.

"Bella-"

"What the hell is going on here?" Charlie said with a booming voice as he entered the kitchen, he was still wiping his hands on his jeans after coming downstairs from the bathroom.

"Bella slipped." Billy said with a tense voice, his eyes focused on the arm Jacob had been clutching in his tight grip just moments ago. "Jacob caught her."

Charlie's shoulders dropped as he looked at her, he tapped the top of her head and pulled her into a sideway hug. "Let me get you a Band-Aid for the cut on your arm." He murmured as he kissed the side of her head and went upstairs again.

Bella nodded tensely, afraid of what would come out of her mouth if she unclenched her jaw.

"Bella-" Jacob said whilst looking intensely at the small drops of blood leaking from the cut on her arms.

"Leave me alone."

"I'm s-"

"Don't," she said as her vision clouded again along the edges, rage pulsing through her, "Don't ever touch me again."

Jacob shivered at her tone but looked down and nodded. "Did you really think I would bring my father in danger like that, if I would be one of them." She hissed.

She looked back as Billy whose face had become unreadable. "Don't pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about." She murmured at him, Billy didn't break eye contact when Charlie entered the room again, oblivious to the tension in the room.

It only took him a minute to put the band-aid on her arm and resting his hand on her shoulder as Billy and Jacob made their excuses to leave.

"You really are changing." Billy said tensely as he passed her in the hallway, his eyes moving from her wrist to her face with a knowing look.

"I know right," Charlie laughed, placing his hand on her head, "I swear she's grown at least 2 inches over these past few months."

Bella grinned, the anger still lingered in her darker eyes as she moved them past Billy and Jacob's appearance in front of the open front door. Edward's shadowy figure was standing behind them, staring at her with worried and confused eyes. His see-through hand moving towards his eyes, moving his right pointy finger from eye to eye as he looked at hers.

Bella excused herself as soon as the door closed behind them, almost rushing to the bathroom to look at her eyes. They were close to being pitch black.

"What the hell." She murmured as she moved her line of sight to Edward's shadow. "Do you know what's going on?" But he didn't do anything, her eyes were wide as she stared at herself. She was taller, her hair was thicker and longer, her skin smoother and paler, her balance better and she swore her lips looked fuller.

She thought back to what Billy had said when they were leaving just minutes ago.

"You really are changing." His words kept ringing through her mind as her chest started heaving, her back against the cold tiles of the wall behind her.

"I'm changing?" She breathed as hysteric sobs took over her body.

July

The house was eerily quiet with Charlie being on a week-long hunting trip with Billy and his other friends and Bella felt like she was completely losing her mind.

Her Edward dreams had become fewer and fewer, she still longed for them but most of her dreams these days were either vague nightmares or just total darkness. Shadow Edward never spoke to her, only dream Edward did. But she hadn't seen him in weeks. Even shadow Edward's appearance was becoming a rarity now. She hadn't realised how dependant she had become on them until she noticed she was actively looking for them everywhere she went, like a some sort of second nature. She thought she had been able to keep her emotions under control pretty well, until he finally showed up in her dream again.

"You don't get it!" She yelled as she ran from his bedroom to the bottom of the stairs, "I haven't been able to dream for weeks! I haven't seen you in such a long time." When she reached the bottom of the stairs, the house suddenly turned into a dense forest filled with streaks of light in the distance. Reminding her with a painful pang that she was indeed dreaming again.

"You see me when you're awake." He said gently, stepping over a few nearby flowers as if not to crush them with his shoes.

"That's different. You're different when I'm awake. You always look like you did when you left. Blank and dark. You're different in my dreams."

"It's okay, Bella." He said softly from a distance.

"But," she started, "I don't want you to leave me." He already did, a voice deep inside her head argued.

"You have to go." He said, smiling gently. "You have to start living."

"Please," she said as she noticed the forest around her getting darker and darker. "I don't want to wake up."

His gentle smile turned into a sad and forlorn one, "You have to. That's where you life is."

"Please…" She nearly begged him.

"I'll always be here, waiting." He said as got closer to her, his eyes gold and deep like she had been thinking about all these weeks. "I'll always be here, waiting for you."

She sobbed silently, "What if I can't come back. What if I can't dream this dream anymore?"

"I'll wait for you, even then."

"I love you." She gasped as his face also became blurry.

"I know." His voice sounded far away, like there was a wall between them.

She didn't gasp when she woke up, she just opened her eyes and noticed the first strings of light peeking from underneath the curtains. She didn't need to raise her hand to know her face was wet with hot tears.

"I love you." She whispered, her voice hoarse and thick with emotion as she glanced at the ceiling above her.