The Consequences {Jacob Black}

Chapter XCIV

When I had made the decision to testify, I didn't know all the work that went into it. I guess I had just assumed that it would be like Law & Order or one of those shows. I don't know why. I mean, I guess I thought that it would just be that I would show up at the hearing and tell them what happened. But I was one of the few girls that were pressing charges. There was one that was actually charging him with rape. I could be cross-examined, asked questions about my life, my behavior in class, the clothing that I wore. Every little piece of my life would be microscopically searched.

One of the girls, Jessica Myers, had been raped. Her parents had hired a lawyer as well as having an ADA in their corner. And the woman that was representing her had agreed to have us all represented under her name. It was a week before the trial and Jake, my dad, Billy, and I were packing up our things to head to Seattle. Dad had taken the week off of work. Billy was wringing his hands nervously, uneasy about being in the car for longer than twenty minutes. Jake was on edge, the memory of the Seattle killings too fresh.

And my mom? She had left after our little blow out. My dad had told her that she was being completely out of line, that she didn't know what had gone on between me and Bella. She, in turn, had accused him of being a poor role model for. My mother told my father that he had taught me to fight to hard instead of doing what was proper. And then she brought the conversation around to my MMA fighting and how ridiculously improper it was. The whole thing had exploded when my father told my mother that she had raised my sister terribly. I was glad that my father had stood up for me, but it had caused a riff in my family that seemed to be impossible to mend. But none of that hurt as bad as knowing that she had walked away from me when I had to go and fight the biggest monster of them all.

Let the vampires come; let the wolves phase. They could fight each other and tear each other to part. Well, the wolves could tear the vampires apart. My Pack could not get hurt; I couldn't allow that. But this man was supposed to be a normal human, and he had raped one girl and attacked five others. That made him worse than any supernatural being that I had ever encountered.

Dad and Billy were driving up in Dad's cruiser. Jake and I were taking the truck. Since the newborn war, the bike was off limits. It was the only excuse we had to give my father about the injuries that we had both sustained that day. Jake tossed our duffels in the bed of the truck, throwing the weighted tarp over them to keep them down. He wasn't taking this very well, any of this. His anger was mounting with every passing hour.

I didn't talk during the drive, just rested my head against the cool window pane. The trees were flying by me in green blurs. Jake's hands were tight around the steering wheel. I didn't know that skin as russet toned as his could turn so white. He was growling and muttering under his breath, his nose twitching as he was angry. I just sat there, thinking about this night that we were going to have in just a little.

The girls, all of us, had decided that we were going to meet up before the meeting with the lawyers. Technically, we weren't allowed to talk about the trial, the hearings, the testimony. But Jessica's mom though that it might be a good idea for the six of us to get together, to have a group around us that had been through the same thing with the same man, so we were meeting up.

I wasn't sure how I felt about this. I was grateful to know that there were other people that were going to understand how I felt, but at the same time, I felt sorry for them. Especially Jessica; we had all been assaulted. Those girls didn't have someone to save them like I did. Especially Jessica.

"You've been quiet," Jake said after a while. It must've been a good long while in order for Jake to say something. He was still clutching the wheel with anger.