Twilight 2 - New Moon (26 page)

It was strange, for I'd feared that myself, but after the last thing Jacob had said this afternoon, I didn't believe it anymore. There was much more to this than an unrequited crush, and it surprised me that Billy would stoop to claiming that. It made me think that whatever secret they were keeping was bigger than I'd been imagining. At least Charlie was on my side now.

I put my pajamas on and crawled into bed. Life seemed dark enough at the moment chat I let myself cheat. The hole–holes now–were already aching, so why not? I pulled out the memory–nor a real memory that would hurt
too
much, but the false memory of Edward's voice in my mind this afternoon–and played it over and over in my head until I fell asleep with the tears still streaming calmly down my empty face.

It was a new dream tonight. Rain was falling and Jacob was walking soundlessly beside me, though beneath
my
feet the ground crunched like dry gravel. But he wasn't my Jacob; he was the new, bitter, graceful Jacob. The smooth suppleness of his walk reminded me of someone else, and, as I watched, his features started to change. The russet color of his skin leached away, leaving his face pale white like bone. His eyes turned gold, and then crimson, and then back to gold again. His shorn hair twisted in the breeze, turning bronze where the wind touched it. And his face became so beautiful that it shattered my heart. I reached for him, but he took a step away, raising his hands like a shield. And then Edward vanished.

I wasn't sure, when I woke in the dark, if I'd just begun crying, or if my tears had run while I slept and simply continued now. I stared at my dark ceiling. I could feel that it was the middle of the night–I was still half-asleep, maybe more than half. I closed my eyes wearily and prayed for a dreamless sleep.

That's when I heard the noise that must have wakened me in the first place. Something sharp scraped along the length of my window with a high-pitched squeal, like fingernails against the glass.

12. INTRUDER
MY EYES FLEW WIDE OPEN WITH FRIGHT, THOUGH I WAS so exhausted and muddled that I was not yet positive whether I was awake or asleep.
Something scratched against my window again with the same thin, high-pitched sound. Confused and clumsy with sleep, I stumbled out of my bed and to the window, blinking the lingering tears from my eyes on the way.

A huge, dark shape wobbled erratically on the other side of the glass, lurching toward me like it was going to smash right through. I staggered back, terrified, my throat closing around a scream.

Victoria.
She'd come for me.
I was dead.
Not Charlie, too!

I choked back the building scream. I would have to keep quiet through this. Somehow. I had to keep Charlie from coming to investigate…

And then a familiar, husky voice called from the dark shape.
"Bella!" it hissed. "Ouch! Damn it, open the window! OUCH!"

I needed two seconds to shake off the horror before I could move, but then I hurried to the window and shoved the glass out of the way. The clouds were dimly lit from behind, enough for me to make sense of the shapes.

"What are you
doing
?" I gasped.

Jacob was clinging precariously to the top of the spruce that grew in the middle of Charlie's little front yard. His weight had bowed the tree toward the house and he now swung–his legs dangling twenty
feet
above the ground–not a yard away from me. The thin branches at the tip of the tree scraped against the side of the house again with a grating squeal.

"I'm trying to keep"–he huffed, shifting his weight as the treetop bounced him–"my promise!" I blinked my wet blurry eyes, suddenly sure that I was dreaming.
"When did you ever promise to kill yourself falling out of Charlie's tree?"

He snorted, unamused, swinging his legs to improve his balance. "Get out of the way," he ordered.
"What?" He swung his legs again, backwards and forward, increasing his momentum. I realized what he was ttying to do.
"No, Jake!" But I ducked to the side, aecause it was too late. With a grunt, he launched himself toward my open window.

Another scream built in my throat as I waited for him to fall to his death–or at least maim himself against the wooden siding. To my shock, he swung agilely into my room, landing on the balls of his feet with a low thud.

We both looked to the door automatically, holding our breath, waiting to see if the noise had woken Charlie. A short moment of silence passed, and then we heard the muffled sound of Charlie's snore.

A wide grin spread slowly across Jacob's face; he seemed extremely pleased with himself. It wasn't the grin that I knew and loved–it was a new grin, one that was a bitter mockery of his old sincerity, on the new face that belonged to Sam.

That was a bit much for me.

I'd cried myself to sleep over this boy. His harsh rejection had punched a painful new hole in what was left of my chest. He'd left a new nightmare behind him, like an infection in a sore–the insult after the injury. And now he was here in my room, smirking at me as if none of that had passed. Worse than that, even though his arrival had been noisy and awkward, it reminded me of when Edward used to sneak in through my window at night, and the reminder picked viciously at the unhealed wounds.

All of this, coupled with the fact that I was dog-tired, did not put me in a friendly mood. "Get out!" I hissed, putting as much venom into the whisper as I could.
He blinked, his face going blank with surprise.
"No," he protested. "I came to apologize."
"I don't
accept
!"

I tried to shove him back out the window–after all, if this was a dream, it wouldn't really hurt him. It was useless, though. I didn't budge him an inch. I dropped my hands quickly, and stepped away from him.

He wasn't wearing a shirt, though the air blowing in the window was cold enough to make me shiver, and it made me uncomfortable to have my hands on his bare chest. His skin was burning hot, like his head had been the last time I'd touched him. Like he was still sick with the fever.

He didn't look sick. He looked
huge
. He leaned over me, so big that he blacked out the window, tongue-tied by my furious reaction.

Suddenly, it was just more than I could handle–it felt as if all of my sleepless nights were crashing down on me en masse. I was so brutally tired that I thought I might collapse right there on the floor. I swayed unsteadily, and struggled to keep my eyes open.

"Bella?" Jacob whispered anxiously. He caught my elbow as I swayed again, and steered me back to the bed. My legs gave out when I reached the edge, and I plopped into a limp heap on the mattress.

"Hey, are you okay?" Jacob asked, worry creasing his forehead.
I looked up at him, the tears not yet dried on my cheeks. "Why in the world would I be okay, Jacob?"

Anguish replaced some of the bitterness in his face. "Right," he agreed, and took a deep breath. "Crap. Well… I–I'm so sorry, Bella." The apology was sincere, no doubt about it, though there was still an angry twist to his features.

"Why did you come here? I don't want apologies from you, Jake."
"I know," he whispered. "But I couldn't leave things the way I did this afternoon. Thar was horrible. I'm sorry."
I shook my head wearily. "I don't understand anything."

"I know. I want to explain–" He broke off suddenly, his mouth open, almost like something had cut off his air. Then he sucked in a deep breath. "But I can't explain," he said, still angry. "I wish I could."

I let my head fall into my hands. My question came out muffled by my arm. "Why?"

He was quiet for a moment. I twisted my head to the side–too tired to hold it up–to see his expression. It surprised me. His eyes were squinted, his teeth clenched, his forehead wrinkled in effort.

"What's wrong?" I asked.
He exhaled heavily, and I realized he'd been holding his breath, too. "I can't do it," he muttered, frustrated.
"Do what?"

He ignored my question. "Look, Bella, haven't you ever had a secret that you couldn't tell anyone?"

He looked at me with knowing eyes, and my thoughts jumped immediately to the Cullens. I hoped my expression didn't look guilty.
"Something you felt like you had to keep from Charlie, from your mom… ?" he pressed. "Something you won't even talk about with me? Not even now?"
I felt my eyes tighten. I didn't answer his question, though I knew he would take that as a confirmation.

"Can you understand that I might have the same kind of… situation?" He was struggling again, seeming to fight for the right words. "Sometimes, loyalty gets in the way of what you want to do. Sometimes, it's not your secret to tell."

So, I couldn't argue with that. He was exactly right–I had a secret that wasn't mine to tell, yet a secret I felt bound to protect. A secret that, suddenly, he seemed to know all about. I still didn't see how it applied to him, or Sam, or Billy. What was it to them, now that the Cullens were gone?
"I don't know why you came here, Jacob, if you were just going to give me riddles instead of answers."

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "This is so frustrating." We looked at each other for a long moment in the dark room, both our faces hopeless.

"The part that kills me," he said abruptly, "is that you already
know
. I already
told yon
everything!"
"What are you talking about?"

He sucked in a startled breath, and then leaned toward me, his face shifting from hopelessness to blazing intensity in a second. He stared fiercely into my eyes, and his voice was fast and eager. He spoke the words right into my face; his breath was as hot as his skin.

"I think I see a way to make this work out–because you know this, Bella! I can't tell you, but if you
guessed
it! That would let me right off the hook!"

"You want me to guess? Guess
what
?"
"
My
secret! You can do it–you know the answer!"
I blinked twice, trying to clear my head. I was so tired. Nothing he said made sense.

He took in my blank expression, and then his face tensed with effort again. "Hole on, let me see if I give you some help," he said. Whatever he was trying to do, it was so hard he was panting.

"Help?" I asked, trying to keep up. My lids wanted to slip closed, but I forced them open. "Yeah," he said, breathing hard. "Like clues."

He took my face in his enormous, too-warm hands and held it just a few inches from his. He stared into my eyes while he whispered, as if to communicate something besides the words he spoke.

"Remember the first day we met–on the beach in La Push?"
"Of course I do."
"Tell me about it."
I took a deep breath and tried to concentrate. "You asked about my truck…" He nodded, urging me on.
"We talked about the Rabbit…"
"Keep going."

"We went for a walk down the beach…" My cheeks were growing warm under his palms as I remembered, but he wouldn't notice, hot as his skin was. I'd asked him to walk with me, flirting ineptly but successfully, in order to pump him for information.

He was nodding, anxious for more.
My voice was nearly soundless. "You told me scary stories… Quileute legends."

He closed his eyes and opened them again. "Yes." The word was tense, fervent, like he was on the edge of something vital. He spoke slowly, making each word distinct. "Do you remember what I said?"

Even in the dark, he must be able to see the change in the color of my face. How could I ever forget that? Without realizing what he was doing, Jacob had told me exactly what I needed to know that day–that Edward was a vampire.

He looked at me with eyes that knew too much. "Think hard," he told me.
"Yes, I remember," I breathed.

He inhaled deeply, struggling. "Do you remember
all
the stor–" He couldn't finish the question. His mouth popped open like something had stuck in his throat.

"All the stories?" I asked.
He nodded mutely.

My head churned. Only one story really mattered. I knew he'd begun with others, but I couldn't remember the inconsequential prelude, especially not while my brain was so clouded with exhaustion. I started to shake my head.

Jacob groaned and jumped off the bed. He pressed his fists against his forehead and breathed fast and angry. "You know this, you know this," he muttered to himself.
"Jake? Jake, please, I'm
exhausted
. I'm no good at this right now. Maybe in the morning…"

He took a steadying breath and nodded. "Maybe it will come back to you. I guess I understand why you only remember the one story," he added in a sarcastic, bitter tone. He plunked back onto the mattress beside me. "Do you mind if I ask you a question about that?" he asked, still sarcastic. "I've been dying ro know."

"A question about what?" I asked warily.
"About the vampire story I told you."
I stared at him with guarded eyes, unable to answer. He asked his question anyway.

"Did you honestly not know?" he asked me, his voice turning husky. "Was I the one who told you what he was?"
How did he know this
? Why did he decide to believe, why
now
? My teeth clenched together. I stared back at him, no intention of speaking. He could see that.
"See what I mean about loyalty?" he murmured, even huskier now. "It's the same for me, only worse. You can't imagine how tight I'm bound…"

I didn't like that–didn't like the way his eyes closed as if he were in pain when he spoke of being bound. More than dislike–I realized I
hated
it, hated anything that caused him pain. Hated it fiercely.

Sam's face filled my mind.
For me, this was all essentially voluntary. I protected the Cullens' secret out of love; unrequited, but true. For Jacob, it didn't seem to be that way.
"Isn't there any way for you to get free?" I whispered, touching the rough edge at the back of his shorn hair.
His hands began to tremble, but he didn't open his eyes. "No. I'm in this for life. A life sentence." A bleak laugh. "Longer, maybe."

"No, Jake," I moaned. "What if we ran away? Just you and me. What if we left home, and left Sam behind?"

"It's not something I can run away from, Bella," he whispered. "I would run with you, though, if I could." His shoulders were shaking now, too. He took a deep breath. "Look, I've got to leave."