*** IMPORTANT A/N AT THE END PLEASE!!! READ. ALSO THIS GORGEOUS BANNER WAS MADE BY THE LOVELY USER @chelseablake and my latest cover by ThatWonderfulThing***
Jane's POV
"I've found a loophole," no sooner had the words left her mouth, then Jane was suddenly set back on her feet by Levi. She looked up at her mate and couldn't help but notice how worn and tired he was, it was time for this curse to end and she knew just how to do it, or at least she thought she did.
She watched as Levi looked over her shoulder at the people milling about behind them. Jane had almost forgotten that she and her mate weren't the only two people in the room.
Levi leaned down to whisper in her ear as he said, "Let's talk upstairs."
She followed him through the familiar halls of the pack house, although this time she was escorted to a much less crowded area of the house an area dedicated just for the Alpha and his family. She didn't know that house could ever be this quiet, but she was glad for the silence she didn't want anyone else hearing what she was about to say.
She followed Levi into a well-furnished study and she could detect his scent very strongly within the room. The smell of him comforted her and she ran her hand over the polished, mahogany desk as she heard his voice from behind her say, "You know the story behind it all – don't you?"
She nodded, not yet quite able to look at him as she was still so engrossed analysing the room. It was anciently gorgeous and it reminded her of all the little things she knew about Levi, straightened papers, dusted shelves, little colour – it was very him.
"And I'm guessing you found out through Cassie?" She asked him turning around so she could face him.
He nodded in response to her question, and she wasn't sure whether she felt relieved or worried that he knew. It was either going to make explaining it all to him all the more easier or all the more difficult.
"I guess, that means Cassie told you there was nothing to be done that could fix it."
He took a step closer to where she stood, but still kept a respectable distance between them. He observed her like she was some type of unsolvable Rubik's cube as he questioned, "Why do I get the feeling I don't like where you're going with this?"
She smiled, "I'm ending this once and for all, no more generations are going to suffer because of something we did a long time ago."
He stayed silent and she continued, "There is in fact a way to break the curse, If Anouchka, Luke and you can kill me then-"
"Not happening."
"But if you would just listen-"
"No." He shook his head, a dry laugh leaving his lips as he began pacing the floor in front of her, "I'm not killing you. How could you ask me to do that?"
Jane stood straighter as she gave him a pointed look, "Levi. You don't have a choice."
He stopped moving as he looked her, "But that's where you're wrong Jane I do have a choice and I'm not killing you. This curse that's hanging over all of us, its time to become someone else's problem not ours."
"It is our problem. It's always been our problem."
What she said was true it was their fault their problem, no matter how innocent it had all seemed and now Jane had come to a conclusion on must happen. She may have figure out a way to keep from dying, but still allowing the other three to kill her, it was risky and she knew it could still kill her but it was a risk she was willing to take.
"My birth mother, Clare," She continued although his eyes were fixed to a spot in the distance, "She came back to life because of my blood, it has a special property within it that can make you stronger and reverse the effects of death."
"You don't know that, that's true."
"And you don't know that, that's false." She shot back at him becoming frustrated that he wouldn't even see to reason, that he wouldn't even try. She tried to keep her voice monotone and push aside the fear and stress that she was sure could be heard as undercurrent in her voice as she said, "Either way I'm going to die. The only difference being the cause."
Wrong thing to say.
Suddenly the room that she had been standing in was suddenly destroyed. Levi picked up whatever was light enough in his way and threw it against any wall in any direction breaking things into billions of tiny little pieces that would never be able to come back together.
Glass. Wood. Plastic. All of splintered in pieces all around her as Levi leaned against the window breathing heavily. His eyes were looking down through the window at whatever was holding his attention outside the pack house as he muttered, "You should leave."
She couldn't leave the room fast enough.
She didn't realize until she was halfway down the stairs but tears were streaming from her eyes at a rapid pace that she couldn't stop. There was so much pent up emotions within her that the hopelessness of her situation was starting to beat down on her. No matter how many steps ahead she thought she was, she'd always truly be too many steps back.
Maybe Levi was right, maybe her blood wouldn't work to revive her after she'd been killed – and then what? It was obvious that he cared about her if she were to die she'd be taking half of his soul with her, could she really do that to him? But then, the curse would be broken.
Luke and Anouchka would get their happily ever after as would all the other descendants of the Jackson family. Everyone would be happy but Levi, and as selfish as the thought was he was the only person she truly wanted to be happy above everyone else.
And dying so soon, she wasn't ready for that.
She had no idea where her feet were taking her. She wasn't thinking straight, could barely even see straight, so when the sleek black car turned the corner she didn't have a chance.
***
Her lungs burned and as she dragged in a long, deep breath she felt herself sitting up. Frantically, Jane looked around her surroundings at where she was trying to connect the dots together. She was outside, on the ground, how did she get here?
She saw Anouchka to her right, her face a mask of surprise reddened and covered in tears. Jane continued to heave in heavy breaths as she asked the startled girl crouched beside her, "What just happened?"
Anouchka's mouth trembled in shock as she explained, "I-I... Janie I hit you. With the car. I'm sorry, I didn't..." Anouchka smothered a sob, "I didn't even see you and then you just went flying and when I... you were cold. Your heart had stopped you weren't breathing..."
Jane frowned and looking forward she could see a sleek, black car a good distance away. She suddenly remembered walking out upset and disoriented from the pack house and then having a car turn the corner just a moment later.
"So you're telling me that I was..." Jane looked at Anouchka, as both girls were trying to connect the dots together.
Dead.
Jane didn't have to know the word to realize that's what had happened. She'd been hit by a car that Anouchka had been driving and was killed on impact. But she came back, how, she's not sure. But she came back which means if both Luke and Levi manage to kill her she has a chance at breaking this curse.
Jane stood to her feet and Anouchka followed as she asked, "Jane, what're you thinking?"
"I'm thinking I need to find Luke," she wheezed still a little out breath from returning to the land of the living so suddenly, "I just spoke with Levi about killing me, I don't think he'll be ready for me to talk about it to him again so quickly."
Anouchka rubbed her arm nervously, "Well, if you find him, tell him I said hi. He already left the grounds before we arrived and no one will tell me where I can find him."
The look on Anouchka's face was so heartbreaking that Jane couldn't help but hug her. She wanted this pain that Anouchka harboured to go away and now, Jane knew a way she could make that happy, "Don't worry Anouchka, everything will be okay soon – you'll see."
It took her sometime, but she found a kitchen maid who'd known where Luke was. A Cabin just a mile or so out from the pack lands. Finding Luke was easy, convincing him to poison her was a little harder.
Sitting across from him, Jane eyed the vial of liquidated wolfs bane that Luke balanced on the counter as she said, "I don't see what's the difference Luke. You were prepared to drink all that and kill yourself, what's the difference between me drinking it?"
"Jane stop asking me to kill you! I'm not going to do it."
"That's a lethal dose there Luke, and since we're both feeling pretty suicidal today how about we make a game out of it."
It was a horrible idea, but she couldn't think of much else.
Luke didn't say anything to her request, he just shifted a little from how he stood giving her a look that encouraged her to go on.
The only time she'd ever witnessed this so-called "game" had been in the Princess Bride. Standing across from Luke, the small counter the only thing separating them she wagged the tiny vial that was held in her fingers as she said, "Here's the way it's going to work."
She gestured the stack of empty cups just over to her left as she asked, "What've you got to drink besides water?"
Luke frowned, "Milk, orange juice – you're too young be drinking any of the other drinks that I have."
Jane resisted the urge to roll her eyes at Luke's over protectiveness, it's not like there was any age gap between them, "Orange juice should be fine."
When the two drinks were set in front of her, she made a point of waggling the vile in her hand as she said, "I'll pour it one you choose which one I drink."
Luke went to protest and she held up the vile towards her lips, "Or I drink it now, your choice."
Luke's eyes flittered from Jane to the vile and back again. She watched the emotions flicker across his face like a movie, he was angry and terrified and... relieved. Whether the relief was coming from her willing to sacrifice herself, or her willingness to save him she wasn't sure why. But finally he sighed, and she stopped think about it.
"Alright, fine."
Jane unscrewed the vile and watched as the sour smelling concoction disappeared into the vibrant juice the smell and the colour blending in with the thick pulp. She swirled the glass around and both she and Luke could clearly see there was no difference between the two drinks, except for of course, one contained the poisonous wolfs bane and the other was just orange juice.
Luke turned his back to her and Jane held both glasses in her hand, she eyed them both very carefully before placing the juice with the wolf's bane in front of Luke, and the plain OJ in front of herself. She leaned back, analysing her decision but before she could change her mind, Luke spun around surveying the two glasses.
Her heart hammered in her chest as she crossed her fingers hoping he'd reach for the glass that was in front of her, but as look deliberated both options, he ultimately reached for the glass before him with a firm grip. Her heart shattered within her chest and she lifted her own glass in return.
She tried not to let it show on her face, but she couldn't let Luke drink that. She'd knock it out of his hands and duct tape his mouth shut before she let him kill himself like that.
She kept a small smile on her lips as she raised to him in a toast, and just as the rim of the cup hit her lips. She was relieved when Luke suddenly yanked her glass out of her hand and offered her a trade. Before she had time to understand what was happening, the glass of wolfs bane and orange juice was suddenly in her hands and she quickly knocked it back before Luke could change his mind.
She set down the now empty glass and watched him.
Black spots began dotting her vision as she saw his eyes widened in horrified shock as he screamed at her, "Janie, no! God, what have I done... why did you make me do that Jane?"
She went to say something, but her body suddenly shivered and she fell forward onto the bench as her limbs struggled to hold her up. She felt like she had just filled her body with gasoline and a lighted match, she was shutting down and falling apart, this would be quick and painless... she hoped.
Luke quickly ran to her side, and supporting her now lax frame he moved her over to the couch where she sat feeling dizzy and disorientated her stomach convulsing wanting badly to reject the poison that Jane had just filled herself with.
"... get the pack doctor..."
Was all she heard Luke say, before he hurdled out from his home and the world around her grew deathly quiet. She fell on her back and looking up at the ceiling. Her vision was dotted with splotches of darkness as the room spun, and she thought the image it made was quite pretty. The darkening dots against the moving ceiling. The dots growing larger until there was nothing to see but darkness.
***
As consciousness became her, she felt her stomach convulsing tightly and painfully until the contents she'd consumed came back up again.
Wiping away the drool and bile hanging from her lip, Jane frowned at the mess she made remembering suddenly where she was and what it was exactly that she had just done. Even now, after both dying and vomiting up the juice she could still the wolf's bane thrumming through her.
The constant presence of her wolf in the back of her mind was completely quiet.
It was almost like breaking an ankle, she never realized how much she had come to just accept that her wolf was there until it wasn't.
Running a hand over her face, Jane staggered to her feet knowing that she'd have to leave before Luke came back with the pack doctor. She needed to be far, far away by the time that happened, and her mate found her to be gone.
Jane pulled out her phone and exiting Luke's dwelling, she walked forth towards the woods as she dialled a number that should've been disconnected but wasn't.
"Hello? Jane? Sugar is that you?"
Clare sounded toxic even through the phone, Jane bristled as she gritted her jaw wanting to keep the conversation straight to the point.
"I got your message."
"Oh yes," Clare seemed pleased, "I did tell Ronan that the way to get to you was through the killing of innocence. It's like flies and honey."
Jane refrained from snapping at the psycho on the other end of the phone. She wanted to scream at Clare to either kill herself or lock herself in an asylum any other alternative would mean a bad ending for everyone. But Jane knew that would not only lead her to more trouble, but Clare wouldn't listen to her.
"Well, I'm here in the woods," Jane ignored the early statement made by her mother, "I'm handing myself over to you, surrendering."
"I knew you would sugar, but it's still nice to hear you say those words. I'll come find you Janie, hold tight baby girl."
Jane hung up the phone.
And then she hurled it so hard into a pine tree it cracked and splintered both the phone and the tree. Jane ran a hand through her hair, trying to take deep breaths and remember the plan she'd formulated after Anouchka had hit her with the car. It was a good plan, not entirely full proof but what other choice did she have.
She would surrender for now, because it was the only way for everyone she cared about to be spared and the curse to end.
~*~
Authors Note
Hey, so a couple of things to say this A/N
First being, again sorry for the delay in updating and the lack of editing I just wrote this as quickly as I could for you all and the editing was really really rushed.
But the most important thing I wanted to say was this...
There's only 4 more chapters to go, and I have decided to not create a sequel so these last chapters will be the end of our story for RR... :(
Which is very sad I know, but don't be disheartened I have another werewolf story that will be uploading the first few parts this Monday. So, if you like my writing style and my crazy plottwists be sure to keep an eye out for that one.
Sorry this A/N was so long you guys, hope you all have an awesome leapday this Monday!!
Any questions just ask me :D
Jasmine XO