A F T E R D A R K | PAUL LAHOTE - 1

21

"What did she say?" Emily asked me, "Your sister?"

I shrugged, "Basically that he's not ill and he's cut his hair, got a tattoo and she's almost positive that Sam's controlling him now as well."

"Well she's not wrong."

I nodded once, "How'd you mean?"

"Sam is Jacobs Alpha now. Jacob has no choice but to follow Sam's orders.. and that probably includes cutting ties with your sister."

I dropped the fork into the bowl and sat back in my chair. With a loud groan I pulled my hands over my face before pushing them up into the messy bun I'd shoved my hair into, "I can't do this again." I told Emily, "I can't watch her fall back into that giant hole."

"Maybe it won't be like last time." Emily suggested.

I pulled the sleeves of Paul's jumper over my hands, "No she's just gonna do more dangerous things to try and see Edward again."

"What?"

I dropped my head back, folding my arms across my chest, "Bella's got it in her head that whenever she does something adrenaline-like she sees Edward but what she doesn't understand is the things she's doing are borderline dangerous."

Thunder clapped outside and Emily had nothing to say about what I'd told her. She was kind of speechless.

"This is all one big, huge mess." I sighed deeply, leaning forwards and dropping my head into my hands.

The front door to the household opened and the loud voices of boys barrelled in. It was hard to pinpoint who was here but I heard every voice except one— their newcomer. Jacob was absent and although I didn't lift my head from my hands I knew he wasn't among them.

The noise they were making decreased significantly until all I could hear was hushed whispers and their footsteps.

I felt someone's hand on my shoulder as the chairs around me were pulled out. I peered up to see Paul frowning down at me, "Hey." He said lowly, crouching down, "You okay?"

I shook my head, "No."

Paul tugged my wrist gently and brought me to my feet, guiding me over to the sofa and sitting me down so we were away from Quil, Jared and Embry, "Is this about Bella?"

"Yes." I pouted, collapsing into the sofa.

Paul rested his hand on my thigh, "Jacob did what he had to Soph, he had to push her away. She didn't turn out to be Jacobs imprint so she can't know about us."

I frowned at the prospect of Bella being Jacobs imprint. It could explain their attraction towards each other but maybe now he had phased and he knew she wasn't it was another factor going towards why he didn't want to see her. Besides, Bella was supposedly Edwards mate.

I looked up to Paul, "Does he know.. about.."

Paul nodded apprehensively, "Yeah. He's pretty pissed about it."

Jacob didn't even like Edward in the first place. I could only imagine now he knew he was a vampire it only made his hatred grow.