Twilight: What She Doesn't See...

The Threat of the Volturi

January 30th, 2005 

       Jacob studied the pictures on the wall, keeping Bella in his peripheral vision. Bella's finger followed the droplet of rain down the window. She shivered. He got the sense Bella didn't really like Forks. It was always cold, wet, and raining. The other day she'd told him how she missed her mom and the scorching Arizona sun; the polar opposite of Forks. He shuddered. The paleness of her skin made her appear as if she'd belonged with those Cullen vamp-freaks all along instead.

Strands of her hair shifted as she turned his way, her mouth parting and closing as if she didn't have the mental capacity to form her inquiry. He could sense her question bubbling up inside her chest, scalding her internal organs. Then, she burst.

"Jake?"

He hummed in response. 

A shaky breath left Bella's pink lips.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"About Edward Cullen?"

Jacob tried to suppress the agitation from showing on his face. A nasty feeling crept up inside him. His mind flashed back to days ago when Edward Cullen had chased him down like he was sweet, smelling prey. It was weird because the wolves were known for their "awful stench" among vampires. As if they don't smell like decayed teeth to us, he thought sarcastically.

"What about him," he said in a low voice.

Her dark eyes flickered to the floor as she ran her fingers through her brunette hair. "Um, do you-do you know..." she sighed and tried again. "Have you noticed something weird about him-well, all of the Cullens as a matter of fact."

He smirked, but then it dropped.

Wait. What did she mean, exactly? She's not supposed to know anything about their world.

"What I mean is...they don't eat, sometimes it looks as if they don't breathe, and they never come to school when there is even a chance of sunlight. And the day when..."

His heart rate sped up.

"Well, I told him I wouldn't tell anyone," she all but whispered.

"It's about that car accident, isn't it?"

She nodded. "Edward...H-he was so impossibly fast. He was literally on the other side of the parking lot and the next... he was stopping a whole van with one hand-"

"I don't know if I can believe you, Bel," he said, the words constricting in his throat. "You're probably just remembering things wrong after you hit-"

"I didn't hit my head," she snapped. "I know what I saw!"

 Frustrated, she shot clumsily towards the door. Jacob followed after her as she stomped down the stairs and slammed the front door open.

The rain had slowly receded to a steady drizzle, the wind slightly blowing. Charlie's car wasn't parked in the driveway or outside the curb. The Forks police force were hunting tracks deep into the forests. But Jacob knew the pack was only leading them in tiring loops to exhaust their search. Sam needed a diversion to keep the police from following the true leads. The persistence of Charlie and his team to follow the 'bread crumbs' would only endanger them. They were equipped for a lot of things....but not rogue wolves and bloodthirsty vampire clans.

Bella slipped on the wet concrete below the porch steps, but she quickly recovered, wiping the mud from the back of her jeans.
Jacob watched with unsteady eyes as she knelt beside her rusted truck. "Look at this," she demanded. She pulled a strand of her hair behind her ear, wiping away the rain from her face, her fingers leaving streaks of mud in their wake.

Jacob stuffed his hands in his pockets before walking towards her. He had the feeling that he wasn't going to like what he saw. It had taken him years to master the ability to school his expressions and know every crevice of his facial features. After the unleashing of his wolf and its blatant rage, he couldn't chance himself hurting another person. He could still barely forgive himself for making the same mistake as Sam had made with Emily Young.

Bella's finger pointed to the dent underneath the driver's side of the door handle. "Jacob, if you or I had hit our heads hard enough to make a dent in a '63 chevy, do you think we'd still be talking to each other at this moment?"

At that moment, his heart fluttered in his chest. He shrugged his shoulders, intent on putting up a front.
"I...okay-" he was truly at loss for words. "The truck is really old. The door is probably malleable-especially with the weather." He knelt down and pressed his hands alongside the door, feeling for places that could dent easily. The lump in his throat was hard to swallow. There was none. It was pure, rusted metal.

Using an inhuman strength, he innocuously pushed his fist into the metal until it slightly caved in. "See." He raised his brow at her.
If Bella caught on to anything suspicious about his or Edward's true kind, all three of their worlds could come to an end with the snap of a finger.

Bella chewed on her thumbnail, her face crumbling into disbelief. "How...?"

She harshly shoved her hands against the rusted red door with a thwack. He flinched. Her hands were sure to be the same tint as the exterior of the door. After scratching the irritated palms of her hands, she huffed and pushed back her soaked hair.
He gently smiled. "You're just weak, Bel." Jacob wrapped his fist around the entirety of her tricep. She glared at him, yanking her arm away.

"Still!" Bella threw her hands in the air. "He's abnormally fast, and each time I see him, his eye color changes-" she saw Jacob's rebuttal forming on his tongue, "-and no they're not contacts!"

Silence ensued.

"Jake? I don't think Edward's..."

"Human," he finished for her.

"Yeah, like we are, Jake. Right?"

He didn't answer.

~《 ◇》~

"I assure you that we are taking the best efforts to prevent any further exposure on our part," Carlisle answered swiftly and calmly.  Jacob knew he'd try to de-escalate the situation.
A vein throbbed in the pack leader's neck as he barked out his orders.

"Well, you should try harder Carlisle and get your Cullen boy in check. We don't want the Volturi anywhere near us!" Sam Uley, the packs alpha, stepped forward to the edge of the cliff. They were separated by the borders of Quileute land. "Consider yourself lucky that Jacob is not taking action against your family after the stunt he pulled. "

Jacob's eyes settled on Edward Cullen, camouflaging himself among the thicket of forestation. The boy's pale skin, illuminated by the sunset, radiated greatly compared to his vampire counterparts, his bronze hair fierier than the giant ball of fire on the horizon behind him.

It unnerved him.

The way the vampire's posture was so open, so defenseless, uneased him. It was an act of submission on his part. It didn't help the way Cullen's body involuntarily moved with Jacob's every time he shifted restlessly as he waited on the verdict, exhibiting the vampire's unyielding attraction to the wolf.

Dark eyes that he knew for a fact were supposed to be golden, hungrily ate his skin up, in secret, claiming him, undressing him.

Jacob had a strange desire to run. Runaway as far as possible from him.

"Sam, please be logical about this," Carlisle said. Clearly, his resolve was thinning. "The longer they stay away from each other, the more chaos it will cause. And you know that it is only a matter of time before Jacob will have the urge to imprint on Edward.  Alice had a vision. The Volturi will be coming sooner than we'd expected. They will very well kill Jacob and Edward if we do not act fast."

Jacob's jaw dropped. What was going on?

I know...not quality writing...I'm sorry...please don't punish me...