Discover Twilight

chapter xii

The next few nights Bella hasn't woken up screaming in the middle of the night which is good. She still sits at the Cullen's lunch table alone everyday but she's coming around. Being around me and Jake has been good for her. Until is wasn't.

Bella screams in her sleep waking me up from my dreamless sleep. I sprinted across the hall coming into the room half a beat before Charlie does, turning on the lights and hurrying to her side, gently shaking her awake. Charlie has darker circles around his eyes than me, "You're alright, Bells. You're okay." 

Her eyes slowly fluttered open, tears streaming down her flushed face. He looks at me still not knowing quite know what to do with this, so Charlie gives her a glass of water from her bedside table. She sits up and slowly sips the water as I soothingly stroke her hair. He pulls the dreamcatcher from her bedpost, "This thing's not working very well." 

"It's... not as bad as it was," Bella defends her birthday gift from Jake.

I nod murmuring that she was right, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. Charlie watches me do this, sadly smiling at us, "Yeah you're right. I know what it's like, you know. When your mom left me. I had a hell of a time. Imagined doing all kinds of crazy things, just to stop the pain. But hanging out with Jacob and Kota seems to help get your mind off... things."

She pulls me closer to her, hugging me, "They've been keeping me afloat." 

After school I drive Bella and Jake along the La Push cliffs, Jacob sitting in the seat between Bella and I. He studies the grease-blackened motorcycle crankshaft I had just found at the dump, saving us hundreds if not thousands of dollars. He nudges my shoulder and Bella's knee, "We got lucky at the dump. You know how much a new crankshaft goes for?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Bella roll her eyes as she snorts at the question, "Sure, I spend all my free time on crankshaft.com." 

"I think that's a porn site," I laugh making my passengers laugh with me. 

Jake collects himself, wiping tears from his eyes that my joke brought, "These bikes are gonna be rolling soon. Where should we ride first?" 

"Someplace sunny," Bella instantly adds, earning a nod from me as I concentrate on the road ahead.

Jacob chortles at our request, feeling the need to remind us where we currently live, "Like there's any place sunny around here." 

I quietly grumble to myself that finding someplace sunny wouldn't be a problem if we were in Florida, making Jake laugh in response as Bella thinks for a second, gasping, "I know a place above the cloud line-" then she suddenly stops talking. I didn't ask why she stopped, realizing that it probably was someplace she and Cullen used to go to. 

Jake, however, doesn't catch the signs I did, asking, "Where is it?" 

She exhales very slowly, deciding to lie rather than reveal the source of her sudden unhappiness to Jake, "Actually, it's... too hard to get to."

There's an awkward silence that hangs in the air after that so I try and bring the mood up slightly with some out of character Optimism, accelerating down the empty winding roads of La Push, "So we'll find our sunny spot, right?" 

She smiles at me gratefully and when I look away and out of my window towards the cliffs, I see four muscular men at the very top ledge of the cliff, pushing each other around, rough-housing. Bella sees this too, asking me, "Isn't that... Sam Uley?"

I set my jaw, instantly recognizing the taller one watching the three rough-house as my big brother. Jacob follows in suit, sounding extremely bitter in answering Bella's question, "And his cult." 

Suddenly, two of the guys,  most likely Paul and Jared, throw a struggling third over the cliff! Bella orders me to hit the brakes and when I do, she jumps out of the truck, "Oh my God! Stop them!"

Bella runs toward them but mine and Jacob's laughter slows her. "They're not really fighting, Bella," Jake explains to her and I finish for him, "They're cliff diving." 

Her jaw drops frantically looking back and forth between us and the cliffs, "What, on purpose?"

I nod and Jacob laughs at her again, "Scary as hell, but a total rush." 

I look back over at the group congregating around my brother, recognizing Paul of course. Paul takes a running start and flings himself into the air, twisting and cartwheeling down until he hits the water laughing. Jacob sees the interest in Bella's eyes and informs her that the rest of us who are sane jump from lower down. She never takes her eyes of the cliff when asking, "Think I could?" 

"Man, first motorcycles, now cliff diving?" I ask curious on why Bella the Klutz is suddenly an adrenaline junkie. 

She shrugs, looking at me innocently, "You said it was a rush." 

Jacob wraps his arm around Bella's shoulders leading her back to my truck, "Maybe on a warmer day. And not from the top. We'll leave the showing off to Sam and his disciples." 

I follow back to the truck watching them mess around when Bella questions Jacob on why he hates my brother so much. I take my eyes of my brother and his friends to finally hear the explanation as is why Jake hates Sam, "They think they run this place. Acting all bad ass, calling themselves "protectors"."

Bella asks what they're protecting and Jacob answers annoyed like he's heard it one million times before, "The tribe, the land, their right to be jerks. Embry used to call them hall monitors on steroids; now look at him."

Bella and I both look back to Sam and his friends and recognizes the other guy standing with Sam as Embry but now his chin-length hair is short and close to his head and his previously thin frame has filled out. 

"That's Embry? I didn't recognize him. What happened to him?" I ask, watching as Embry runs straight off the cliff and braces himself for the impact of the water about a hundred feet below him.

Jacob looks at his friend with such pain in his eyes, "He missed some school - then, out of nowhere, he's following Sam around. Same thing happened with Paul and Jared. They weren't even friends, now Sam owns them. Sam keeps giving me this look, like he's waiting for me or something; it's kinda freaking me out."

Bella tells Jake to ignore them but all I wanna do is go confront my brother for how he's been treating me. He said he was going to protect me but if I had known he meant with his little buddies and not have me in his life at all, I would have listened to Jake and stayed away from him.