Defective - Jacob Black {1}

Chapter 59: Seattle

The freezing rain had made the roads dark and slippery, so I gripped the steering wheel a little tighter in both my hands. I wasn't scared we were going to crash, my reflexes and abilities allowed me to not even have to pay attention to the road, but conditions like this still made me a little wary, especially when I had Nessie in the car with us earlier.

Bella and I had finally made it out of the house alone without our chaperone other halves. Uncle Charlie had requested to see Nessie, and of course he couldn't come to the house, so we were able to mangle our way out of there to take Ness to him, though only Bella and I knew we wouldn't be staying for long. Seth was accompanying us to Charlie's but we would leave him there as his mom was cooking lunch.

We needed to be quick, we had a day to find this J. Jenks and that was all. We only had just under two weeks left before the Volturi were set to arrive and we were still striving to get all the help we could find. We had two addresses, the one that Alice had given us, and then there was a Jason Jenks at another address we had researched online, we'd try that one if the first was unsuccessful.

As we drove through the city and towards the first inconspicuous address the streets were becoming rougher and rougher, I knew for a fact that if I was still human I would've locked the doors. I felt like we stuck out like a saw thumb, my car certainly was too extravagant for this area and I really didn't want to draw out any unwanted attention.

The streets were mostly filled with old, three storey townhouses, leaning and crumbling slightly in their old age. They were greying as well, the paint peeling off of the outer walls seemed to resemble a cream colour but I wasn't entirely sure. A few buildings had stores on their street level floors, but most looked out of business; some windows were boarded up with wooden panels and others covered in black paint. The only ones that seemed to be open were a very risky looking tattoo parlour, a liquor store and a questionably safe day care centre.

"What a..." I struggled for words. "...friendly neighbourhood."

"Let's just find the place and be as quick as we can." Bella said, settling uneasily back into her chair.

"Why would Alice send us here, though?" I tried not to be snobby, I really did, but I was failing. I couldn't even imagine Alice wandering through these streets, sorting out what would be her clue for us.

It was strangely quiet on the street, no cars moving, no lights on inside the houses though I could hear people in them. With the darkness looming from the rain I'd assumed people would have their lights on. There were a handful of people wandering outside in the icy rain and I internally shivered, remembering what the icy rain felt like on my human skin.

One man was sat on a shallow porch of another old greying building, though this one turned out to be an old law office, the exact same office that we were looking for as per Alice's instructions. I frowned as I looked at it's abandoned appearance, this couldn't be right.

The man looked up as we approached, his eyes lifting away from the wet broadsheet newspaper he was reading, and his much too cheerful whistling tune stopped.

I pulled up to the curb and we sat for a second, unsure on how to go about our next move. "No matter who this guy is, either way we have to get in there to look around." Bella muttered, eyeing the man and the building.

"Relax, we'll find out what he has to say and then I'll know if he's telling the truth or not." I watched him too as the smirk pulled over his lips. I grimaced as indecent thoughts entered his mind concerning Bella and I. "He's going to call to us." I informed her quickly.

"Hey, ladies," the whistler called on cue.

I rolled the passenger window down as if I couldn't hear him, being human was essential here.