Chapter 11: Jacob
"Would you please sit down, Jake," Embry begged. He was stretched across the couch while I paced frantically across the room.
"How can I when you're taking up the whole couch?" I shot back. "Besides, I'm gonna go nuts if I can't do something." Embry and I had been sitting in my living room for the past two hours waiting for Jasper's call. I had no idea what 'talk to the family' entailed but short of the leeches running to wherever they lived now and back, two hours should have been more than plenty.
"What if he was just telling me what I wanted to hear and they're not actually going to work with me on the search," I fretted. Embry shrugged.
"Then we'll still look ourselves. Sure, it won't be as efficient, but Bella will still be found, even if the bloodsuckers don't want to work with us."
"And you do think they'll actually help?"
"For sure," Embry nodded. "Jasper did a pretty good job of hiding what he was thinking, but Emmett sucked at it. They had no idea the redhead was after Bella and when they left they were definitely on a mission."
"Right, that's the most important thing." Finally, I kicked Embry's feet off the couch and went to sit down. I had no sooner relaxed into my seat when the phone rang. We both leaped up and dashed for the phone, but Embry was closer.
"Black's house of angst, Embry speaking." He howled with laughter as I ripped the phone out of his hands.
"This is Jacob. Sorry, my friend is an idiot."
"It's not a problem," Jasper's voice said smoothly on the other end of the line. "Emmett finds those kind of antics amusing as well. Is it safe to talk?"
Safe...? I wondered before it clicked. He wanted to know if there was anyone nearby who wasn't part of the treaty. "Yeah, Embry's part of the pack too. He was the one with grey fur and dark spots."
"Good. First thing, I wanted to thank you for bringing Bella's situation to our attention. I'm sure you know by now, but Bella means a lot to our family."
"If she was that important to you guys, you wouldn't have just left her to be hunted," I snapped.
"It's not my place to say why we left," Jasper said after a long pause. "Rest assured we had our reasons. Edward had been tracking Victoria down south. We didn't expect her to give him the slip and return here."
"You should have," I said bluntly. "She's hella slippery. So did you talk to your family?"
"I did and we've decided to return to Forks temporarily. It will be easier to find Victoria's trail and to work together to find Bella if we're nearby. At least to start."
"Sam won't be happy about that."
"He doesn't particularly want to work with us, does he," Jasper asked.
"Not really," I admitted. "most of the pack is more interested in protecting our land than finding Bella. It's mostly just me and Embry, but we were friends with her before we knew about the wolf thing."
"In that case, would the two of you be interested in joining us tomorrow morning at the border where we spoke earlier? My family will have arrived by then and we need to share information."
"I can't speak for any of the others but I will be there. When you say 'family' do you mean all of them?"
"Most of them," Jasper said. "We've decided to keep this situation from Edward for the time being."
"Why?"
"He promised her he would stay out of her life," he said. "Which brings me to a favor I'd like to ask you."
"I don't usually offer favors to leeches," I pointed out. He chuckled.
"Consider it a favor for Bella then," he said. "You two are close, right?"
"Yeah," I said, wondering where the heck this could be going.
"When we finally figure out where she is, we need you to be the one to retrieve her and explain why she's safer in Forks."
"Yeah, I would have wanted to do that anyway. But why?"
"Edward actually made all of us promise to leave her alone. We will help you find her and deal with Victoria but once she's safe, it would be best if we were to leave her unaware of our involvement." I nodded slowly.
"That makes sense. Sam won't be thrilled but I'll deal with it." Embry raised an eyebrow and I mouthed ' later' at him.
"I'll see you tomorrow morning at 9 then," Jasper said briskly. There was a click and a dial tone. I slowly hung the phone back on the wall and turned to face Embry.
"The Cullens don't want Bella knowing they're involved," I said slowly. "They want me to take all the credit for it." Embry whistled.
"That's good though, isn't it? They certainly won't stick around for longer than they have to and you won't have to worry about Bella falling back into his arms again."
"It's good for me, at least. And I was thinking about it and Sam left a loophole open when he gave the order. He told me I couldn't go looking for Bella. But if the Cullens do the looking and then just tell me where to go, then I should be home free," I couldn't keep the touch of pride out of my voice. Embry gave an incredulous laugh.
"You're amazing Jake. I guess you've got it all worked out then."
Sam appeared to be in a reasonably good mood when I got to their house. He and Emily weren't alone, and although I didn't look forward to trying to explain the phone call to Sam with only Paul there, I was immensely grateful that I hadn't accidentally interrupted his and Emily's 'alone time'. When I arrived, Sam was installing shelves and Emily was cooking – an endless task with this pack. I bit back a laugh when I saw Paul standing at the sink scrubbing dishes under Emily's watchful eye. Apparently a few weeks ago – in an effort to limit the Pack's comings and goings to just mealtimes – Emily had declared that any wolf just lounging around the house would do dishes. It seemed that the decree was still in effect.
"Jasper called the house a few minutes ago," I said by way of greeting. "The rest of them are coming back to Forks temporarily." Sam sighed and put down his drill.
"Bella's not even here," he said wearily.
"No, but this is the last place she was. Plus, the redhead has been here recently too. The Cullens aren't just looking for Bella."
"You gotta be kidding me," grumbled Paul. "The redhead is totally ours."
"She's not if she's left the peninsula," Sam said calmly. "But they don't need to all come back just to pick up a trail."
"Well, that's not exactly all," I admitted. "They also want to meet with us to coordinate the search."
"No way!" Paul burst out. "Five of us and seven of them? That's suicide!"
"We're working together, not waging war." I rolled my eyes.
"I don't like it either," Sam said. "We did technically break the treaty after all."
"If we're getting technical, I broke it over a year ago by telling Bella stories about the Cold Ones," I shot back. "They could have retaliated then, but they didn't." Sam raised his eyebrows.
"Wait, you're the one who told her? I just assumed the Cullens did. Although it doesn't surprise me that they chose not to go after a kid who was just telling ghost stories. But two members of the Pack breaking into their house knowing fully what they're doing is a way different story." I shrugged.
"Either way, if they wanted to get back at us for breaking the treaty they didn't have to call a whole meeting about it."
"They sure did if they wanted to wait for backup to arrive," he shot back. I sighed in frustration.
"Okay, what if I went by myself? I'm the one who broke into their house anyway, so if they really did want payback, it's just on me. Maybe Embry could stay phased in the treeline so if they do attack, you guys can have a heads up to get back to La Push and set up defense."
It was obvious that Sam still didn't love the idea of nearly half the pack within easy access of the Cullens, but he knew it was our best option. So far, ordering me not to help in the search for Bella was a line he seemed to not want to cross. Finally, after several minutes of thought, Sam nodded.
"Fine, go let Embry know the plan and then go get some sleep. You two can take patrol at 10 tonight and then meet the Cullens when you finish in the morning." His decision was made, and he picked up his drill again.
"One more thing." Sam paused to look at me. "The Cullens don't want to be around Bella. They'll help us locate her and they'll help us deal with the redhead, but they want one of us to physically interact with Bella so she doesn't know they're involved." Sam's eyebrows rose in surprise.
"Well that's...big of them," he admitted. "After what they did to Bella, leaving her alone is the right thing to do."
"They do seem to care about her, even if they're bloodsuckers and can't possibly treat her the way she deserves."
"Well that's an uncomfortable thought," Emily said dryly. "It's much easier to just believe that vampires are all bad." The three of us could not agree more.
The A/N that should have been on the previous chapter but I forgot:
Thank you so much to /u/oihdsfx, who has agreed to pre-read for me and is absolutely killing it! Go check out her story and give her some love!
