Caleb and Mercy dropped her off at Charlie’s and she didn’t protest since:
1. She was wiped.
2. She was asleep on her feet
3. She knew that whatever the wolves has planned for tonight, she needed to be wide awake and all her strength with her, puny and miniscule though it might be when compared to theirs.
4. …she was a little nervous on seeing Jacob again since their last..uh, face to face talk.
Oh, all right, yes, she was a wimp.
Anyway, she managed a quick short message to Jacob to say that she was at Charlie’s and that she’s going to catch on some sleep before heading out to meet him, then she flopped onto her bed and went to a deep, deep sleep.
She woke up to the cheerful bebop beat of Christina Aguilera’s CandyMan and stared through one eye at her cellphone. Still dazed from sleep, she eyed the caller ID and wondered whether it was Tina or Misha or Lulu who programmed the song to Jacob’s number.
She decided it was time to sit them down and have a long discussion about privacy. Again. She coughed, cleared her throat and rubbed her face before she answered. “Jake?”
“Nope. Leah. You better be ready when we get there.”
“We?” Bella struggled to sit up and squinted through the window before peering at her alarm clock. It was close to midnight and the house wasn’t the only place that was dark. She couldn’t see a thing outside if not for the streetlamps that lit the roads with a warm yellow glow.
“Rachel and Kim are with me. You’ve got fifteen minutes.”
Bella hurried down the porch wearing old jeans, layers of long-sleeved shirts and her favorite coat in thirteen when Leah skidded in front of her house and pounded on the horn.
“Lay off the horn.” She hissed and slid inside Jacob’s black Impala, her nose detecting the smells of sugar, cinnamon and coffee.
“Someone wakes up cranky.” Rachel commented with an amused grin from the passenger seat beside Leah. Kim however gave her a sympathetic smile and offered her a cup. “Coffee?”
Bella sighed in pleasure. “Yes, please.” Kim waved a cinnamon bun in her face and laughed when she pounced on it. Suddenly starving, she took a big bite. “This is good.”
Kim grinned, pleased. “Lulu gave me a few hints on what I was doing wrong.”
When Lulu came out to Forks with Misha and Tina a month ago, she and Kim traded a few recipes and were thick as thieves after that, exchanging recipes and tips in emails. Kim’s shyness and amiable nature seemed to click with Lulu’s mother hen attitude.
Leah glanced at her from the rear view mirror. “You didn’t bring any blueberry muffins?”
Bella blinked and swallowed. “Um, no. You didn’t order any so I thought you didn’t want anything.”
“I wasn’t there when they made their collective orders. Thoughtless bastards.”
“I’ll bring some next time or, um, why don’t you guys come out to my place?” She felt her stomach hitch at the thought of Leah and Rachel, two girls who intimidate her to no end, sitting around in her café. “You know, check out more selections.”
Rachel pursed her lips in thought and Leah shrugged before making a turn. “Sure.”
Bella blinked, realizing that this was probably the most pleasant conversation she had ever had with Leah. Huh. She eyed the older girl while she munch on her bun and noticed that she cut her hair and was wearing jean cut offs with and an old T-shirt.
The easier to phase and kick your ass in my dear, she muffled a smile and chewed.
But there was something different…something…Bella huffed. She was imagining things. Leah was in a good mood that’s all, doesn’t mean they’ll be best buds and all that.
“So, where are we going?” She asked after she drank the last drop of her coffee, feeling the caffeine kick in.
Rachel placed her feet on the dashboard. “You’ll see.”
She eyed Leah’s smirk and Kim’s impish smile. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
Kim moved her head in something like a yes and a no. “You…might.”
She sounded doubtful though not worried so Bella tried to settle her stomach and took another bite.
Either than to roll with the punches and to love challenges as they come, Bella had also learned to hang on with both hands to silver linings and to make awesome lemonades, both metaphorically and literally.
She sighed, settled back and asked for more coffee, her fingers fiddling with her new charm.
The coffee only made her jittery, the blurry scene outside the car that met her eyes was just too dark, dark, dark. She knew that she was safe, that the pack would never let anything happen to her, and the girls with her seemed excited rather than anxious. Jacob said it was a tradition, so they probably did this many times before.
Whatever this was.
It’s just that, her eyes searched outside the window again, she couldn’t see a thing. “Uh, seriously guys, where are we going?”
“One of our favorite spots.” Leah answered as she slowed down. Expecting her to stop, Bella tried to see where they were heading or just simply see anything but what she saw were only more trees highlighted by the headlights.
“Uh huh.” She swallowed when Leah stopped and parked at the side of the road. “It’s really dark.”
Kim giggled, took out a flashlight and flashed it under her face. “That’s the whole point.”
“What do you mean?” She closed the door and followed them to the tree line.
“Geez, Swan.” Rachel took out her own flash light, turned it on and in the light Bella could see her rolling her eyes. “What part of ‘it’s a surprise’ that you don’t get?”
“I don’t like surprises.” She mumbled to herself before raising her voice. “And no one told me to bring a flashlight.”
She heard Leah snicker. “I didn’t bring one.”
Rachel snorted. “That’s because you don’t need one.”
Bella glued herself to Kim’s side. “You don’t?”
“Uh, werewolf.” Leah used the special tone that was usually reserved for idiot grown ups.
“Right.” She stepped over a thick root that was just waiting to trip her and kept her eyes on the circle of light from Kim’s flashlight. “So, are we going to walk to this secret rendezvous place?”
“Secret rendezvous place.” Leah chortled. “Will you listen to her?”
“Nope, we’re going to use a different method of transportation.”
Bella eyed the darkness around them with rising trepidation. “Uh-huh, which are…?”
“Us.”
Bella barely squelched the highly girlish squeal that trembled on her tongue when Jared stepped into Kim’s circle of light. He squinted against the light.
“Babe, you’re killing my night-vision.”
“Sorry, sweetie.”
“Well, poopie-head, what took you so long?” Leah smacked a hand on Jared’s side. “I thought I’d have to carry the three of them and the back pack to the circle.”
Bella heard Quil’s laugh; loud, infectious and slightly obnoxious from her left. “I’d pay to see that. Rach, you’re with me. Hey, Bella. Thanks for the cookies. You okay? You look pale.”
“I’m always pale.” Bella frowned as the flashlight lights waver over trees and the rocky grounds beneath them. “So, anyone going to tell me what this is all about?”
“Nope.”
She’d recognized that voice anywhere but she still jumped out of her skin. “Dammit. Stop that!” She turned to Jacob’s voice and crashed against his chest.
His naked chest.
Not that Jacob’s state of undress is unusual but in her opinion, especially in these last few weeks, Jacob’s naked chest was always worthy of special notice, even when she couldn’t see it. She could however, almost make out his teeth when he grinned at her. Don’t ask her how she knew that he was grinning down at her, she just did.
She stopped herself from warming her cold hands on his skin. His hands slid down from her shoulders to the curve of her waist in a gesture that was so natural, she took a step forward to snuggle against him before she could stop herself.
He was just so unbelievably warm.
His deep, even chuckle vibrated the skin against her cheek. “Someone woke up cranky.”
Rachel’s voice piped up from somewhere at her right. “That’s what I said.”
“I hate surprises.” She mumbled again but again, everybody ignored her. She struggled against the whine in her voice but didn’t quite manage it. “Can’t you just tell me?”
“You’re about to find out anyway.” She sensed him move in front her but the only sound she could hear was the rustle of night creatures and the whistle of the wind in between the leaves of the tall, straight fir trees around them. He took her hand and pressed it on his shoulder. “Here, climb up my back.”
Kim, who was already on Jared’s, aimed a flashlight on Jacob’s muscled back. It could be because of the dark, but Jacob seemed much larger than usual in her eyes. He hitched her up and stood smoothly, showing that he wasn’t the slightest hindered by her weight. She knew it was small and shallow of her but she couldn’t help the slight thrill that shot up her spine at how strong he was. And she was also pleased that the slight awkwardness that she felt at the thought of seeing him dissipated without it even rearing up its ugly head.
She circled her arms around his neck and smiled when she felt the press of his pony tail on her cheek, his hair soft and fresh smelling like his skin. He smelled like his shampoo, and it melded with the scent of the forest around them. His skin was tight and smooth but for raised scars here and there. She moved her fingers and traced another scar that was longer than the one she touched at first, it ran from his collarbone to his right shoulder, it wasn’t smooth, the scar was ragged and rough.
Something had torn at his shoulder…something or somebody. Her breath hitched and her grip tightened on his shoulder, her fingers pressing hard onto the scar as if she could flatten it, smooth it back into his skin. She saw him without his shirt countless times before this, how did she not see it? Now, she could feel numerous smooth scars under her finger tips, some uncomfortably close to his heart.
Jacob, who was joking around with Jared and Quil while they wait for Leah to finish checking up on the thermos of hot drinks, packs of food, flashlights and a kerosene lamp in the back pack Kim brought, seemed to sense her thoughts or the tension in her body. “It’s old wounds, Bella. I’m fine.”
She closed his eyes when he turned his head and brushed his lips across her forehead. Again, it felt like he’d done it a hundred times before. As if it had always been like this between them.
But it wasn’t.
Sure, this was not-so-unfamiliar territory for them but certainly it was something new, something uncertain and they have to thread very carefully to avoid all those emotional landmines and realizations that were just waiting to blow up in their faces. She took a deep breath and let it go. “All right.”
She felt his eyes on the top of her head but tucked her face against the curve of his neck, savoring the warmth and strength of his body, trying not to dwell on the pictures of pain and blood in her mind that was conjured by the feel of fading scars.
Her body shifted with his every move and his hands were firm on her thighs. “You guys, ready?”
Several voices answered in the affirmative.
“You ready, Bella?”
There was amusement in his tone that didn’t quite go with the situation, her own voice wary as she asked, “Ready for what, exactly?”
Jared’s and Leah’s woop was loud in the darkness and Quil’s laugh sounded further than she expected…she felt Jacob’s muscles bunched and then he moved.
No, he ran.
In the dark.
In a forest made out of tight, dense trees with roots and rocks sticking out of the ground. And stray branches. Branches that could poke and snag and tear.
Did she mention that it was hard for her to even see her hands? Once they’ve reached further inside the forest, it wasn’t even normal dark anymore, the dark was swallowed by a different shade of dark and the wind that slapped at her face and snapped her high pony tail was a wild thing in her ears. “Woah, slow down. Jake!” She ducked when she heard a flap of wings and sense something swoop down her head but Jacob only laughed. His bright, excited laughter mingling seamlessly with other laughs, shouts and exclamations.
She really couldn’t see a thing, it was as if all the light was sucked in by the line of trees. She could smell the damp air, the green trees and moist earth, she could feel the cool bite of wind and the warmth of Jacob’s body moving against her but she couldn’t see.
The darkness was smothering her.
And knowing that he was moving, no, running in the darkness in what was probably the speed of a car set her heart to panicking.
The sensation of nothingness was disconcerting, the expectation of crashing and bouncing off trees sent a burst of fear that tightened her throat.
When Jacob moved sharply aside and she felt something whip beside her head, her heart jumped up her throat and landed inside her stomach where it drop with a dull thud.
“Ooops.” Jacob’s voice was mischievous and unrepentant when she smacked him at the shoulder.
“This is insane!”
She heard Rachel screeched and Kim squeal around her, their voices echoing in the gloom.
“No it isn’t. Yet.” She heard him yell beneath the sound of whistling wind.
She sucked in a breath when a familiar sound rose from a distance. The sound, even when she knew better, made goose bumps broke along her skin and raise the fine hairs on her nape. Her pulse thicken.
The sound was broken only by another and another and another.
The hunting call of wolves.
Bella started when a howl broke near them, very near them and realized that it was only Quil, doing a bang up job of mimicking howls from his human throat.
“Release the hounds!” Jared’s cackle seemed to prod the boys into action and she felt the wind nipped harder and she knew that they were running even faster.
It was amazing really, even while her heart pumped faster with adrenalin and fear, she couldn’t help but admire Jacob’s smooth, even gait. It wasn’t as if he was gliding across the ground, more like he was so balanced, so strong that he could cushion every jerk and sharp movement that he needn’t move his upper body so much.
If he was a motor vehicle, he’s got a bitchin’ suspension as Brian would say.
It didn’t help with the paralyzing fear though.
And, Bella wondered to herself as she clung helplessly to Jacob, were the howls getting nearer?
Then she heard it, the slow, thudding sounds of something heavy and fast…and big, no, huge, moving closer.
Then there were the whispery sounds of breathing, of panting…
She could almost feel their hot, moist breaths behind her neck.
Funny thing was, she knew what they were, she knew who they were but that still didn’t help with the overwhelming urge to scream bloody murder and runaway. She squirmed against Jacob, fighting the urge to drop on her own two feet and move, move, move.
She perched dutifully on Jacob’s back when he tightened his hands on her.
She bit of a frightened yip when something growl behind her. Then something snarled. She heard a sharp snap, the sound of strong jaws with big teeth snapping close.
Bella turned her head, stupid move as it was, to see but she couldn’t see anything but black…she could sense them though, hear them.
Her breath caught in her throat when her brain supplied her with the image of what she should be seeing; six giant wolves running at top speed…towards them.
“Holy…” Again, it didn’t matter that she knew them, the very thought of them triggered the overwhelming response of flight or fight in that part of her brain that didn’t recognize them as friends. Instead it filed them under monsters, predators, big dangerous clawy things, the stuff what nightmares are made off.
Things that not only go bump in the night but bite, snarl and tear you to pieces. Bella opened her mouth to say something, to shout, to demand, to beg for Jacob to run faster, to haul ass or just simply scream but Quil slowed to run beside Jacob and Rachel flicked a flashlight on both their faces, each wearing a wicked grin.
Quil let out an evil cackle before saying in a creepy, high voice, “They’re heeereee…”
A growl; deep and dark and hungry broke through the nights sounds.
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