"It's not me!" I screamed. "It's the imprint magic."
I didn't see him move, didn't see anything at all. His arm wrapped around my waist and hauled me from the ground. He pressed his lips to mine, warm and soft and insistent. My eyes fluttered closed, nothing but fireworks behind the lids. I wrapped my arms around his neck, heat flooding my veins. His cropped hair tickled the tips of my fingers, prompting me to wind them through his locks.
My feet, which had been stretching to keep my toes on the ground, were suddenly in the air. His arms constricted around me, his mouth still on mine. I had dreamed of kissing this boy for years now. And as I felt the tip of his tongue brush against my lower lip, my head spun and I moaned.
Jake smiled against the kiss, slowly leaning down until my feet were flat against the hard soil and he had his forehead against mine. I was struggling to catch my breath while hiding my shaky state.
"Did that feel like imprint magic?" he asked, eyes still closed.
"Some kind of magic," I whispered, embarrassed at my state. Jake laughed and pulled back to kiss me again.
"Do you have any idea how long I've wanted to do that?" he asked quietly. Probably not as long as I have.
What was I doing? Jake loved my sister. "I have to get home," I whispered.
"I won't take you until you tell me you know I love you," he insisted, his hands gripping my shoulders. I didn't answer. "Okay, listen to me," he begged, bending so he was eye level with me.
"I love you, Ryanne Lee Swan. I was stupid enough to look at someone else, but I've know for weeks now, Rye."
"You didn't say anything," I whispered.
"You said you just wanted to be friends, Annie. I didn't want to take your choice away from you," he said.
I choked out a laugh at the irony. I had said the words, sure that the imprint had taken away any semblance of a normal life Jake could've had.
"You think I'm joking? What do I have to do? What's it going to take to convince you?"
What would it take? I needed to know that I wasn't the rebound; that he didn't pick me because Bella had gone back to Edward. I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to organize my thoughts enough to verbalize them.
"I need to know that this isn't because of Bella or Italy or the imprint. I need to be sure that this, me, is what you want."
"So, slow?" he asked. I nodded, carefully gauging his reaction. "I can do slow." He smiled down at me like I had given him the winning numbers to the lottery. "We should get you home," he added.
He was right about that. I would be lucky if I had any privileges after the past couple of days. "Let me grab my bag," I said. I had packed everything of mine, the intention of taking all my things. Jake beat me to the porch, taking the bag and quickly setting it down again.
"What do you have in their?" he laughed.
"Everything; I-uh, I wasn't sure if I'd still be welcome," I admitted.
Jake opened the front door and tossed the bag inside the house. "No need to take that back with you then," he said simply.
"Jake, I'm in a lot of trouble," I whispered. We both knew my dad wouldn't keep me from La Push; I went to school here, my friends were here. But, as much as I wanted to believe that Jake loved me, I was still waiting for him to come to his senses.
"Rye, nothing you can do will ever make me hate you," he promised. "Now let's get you home."
As I sat in the small cab next to Jake, I only want to kiss him again. And I wasn't sure what to say to him; how to act around him. Was I his best friend? Yes; that would be the one thing I would always be. Was I more than that? No...Yes... I don't know. I wanted to take it slow, to make sure I wasn't going to cause myself more heartache. I turned ready to talk to Jake about it. I couldn't let everything about us change. I couldn't lose him and what we'd always been because he might be in love with me.
Jake pulled the car into park and opened the door before I had even opened my mouth. So I smiled and said, "I'll see you tomorrow morning for school."
"I'm not letting you go," Jake said, snaking his hand down my arm and capturing my hand.
"I'm not going anywhere," I said.
"Last time you said that, you ended up in Italy," he reminded me softly.
"On accident!" I protested.
I don't know what he saw or heard or felt or thought, but Jake's face softened. He took me into his arms. "We're not finished talking, Annie. Something happened that you're not telling me about."
He was right, of course. There were so many things I wanted to tell him about. I wanted to tell him about my talk with Bella and Italy and the cars Alice had stolen and the leech who had been able to torture me just by looking at me, but every time I thought back to the events, I felt nothing but fear. What would they do to me if they found out I wasn't dead like Alice said?
"No today, Annie," Jake said quietly. "We can talk about it in a few days." I just nodded and stepped out of his arms.
Dad was sitting at the kitchen table, his hands folded before him. "Jacob can leave," he called rudely. Great; I was going to die.
Jake's hold on my hand tightened. "You have to go, Jake," I whispered. My father wasn't going to just allow Jake to stay.
"I smell leech," he growled.
"It's probably just Edward; I have to go get yelled at," I said, pushing him towards the door. I probably would've made more progress shoving against the house walls. Jake just looked down at me, a half smirk on his face and one eyebrow cocked. "Go wait in my room or something," I begged. He nodded.
Jake walked out and started the car, driving away and parking down the road before coming in through my window. I finally joined my dad in the kitchen.
"So, L.A. huh?" he asked. I just looked at him in confusion. "Your sister, who's upstairs still asleep, explained that Edward thought she killed herself. Alice called to say they told you they were going to Seattle and asked you to go along. She swears you didn't know."
"I didn't, Dad," I swore.
He stared at me. "Half grounding for a month," he said. "You are here or in La Push, no friends, no parties. You do school, homework, and chores." I nodded. "I'm going to Sue's. You stay at this house until I get back. Clear?" I nodded. "Your sister is grounded until further notice. Lock down." I just nodded...again.
My dad had always threatened me with lock down, but I had never been bad enough for the actual punishment. Bella was going to be stuck at home, work, or school. No going out; no visitors after dinner. Was it wrong that I wanted to jump with glee?
"Be safe, Beans," he said. As I walked with him to the door, he pulled me in. "And do me a favor and be here when I get back?" I smiled and nodded again.
I couldn't help myself as I walked up the stairs. I opened Bella's door to peek in, but a warm arm pulled me away.
"You're not going in there," the husky voice growled. I shivered against him.
"I was just going to check on my sister," I replied.
"Bella chose the parasite, Annie; he can take care of her," Jake replied. Before I even realized what he was doing, my feet were off the ground and I was being carried back to my room. "Your sister is not our concern." I rolled my eyes as he tossed me on my bed. Sarah tingled lightly from the window.
"You don't mean that," I told him, rolling from my back to my stomach.
"Why don't I mean that?" he asked, intrigue and laughter seeping into his voice.
"Because Bella's a human; even if you do love me as much as you say you do, you'll still protect her," I said. Jake just shrugged and settled beside me on the bed, still wearing his basketball shorts.
"Okay, so I'll protect her because that's my job, but I don't care about her," Jake said. His two fingers came to rest under my chin and pull my face towards him. "I don't care about her." I curled my feet under me and tried to turn away, but he held me firm in his grip.
"I care about you, Annie; I love you." I just nodded, not willing to argue with him anymore. He just shook his head. "Someday you're going to believe me."
Yeah and the day I do, I'll regret it more than anything in the world. Because the day that I do will be the day that he realizes he doesn't love me; the day he realizes that I'm just the rebound.
"Your dad sounds like he's pretty pissed," Jake commented. I laid down, shoulder to shoulder with him like we always had. I just nodded, my head turned to watch the wind blow across the feathers on my dream catcher.
"You want to talk about?" Jake asked after a little while.
I could have said no. I could have told him that I was ready to talk about what had happened and Jake probably would've just waited until I told him that I was ready. But one look at him told me that he was dying to know what had happened in Italy. So I placed my hands over my belly button, still staring out the window and began.
"Alice told me that she could hurt you if I didn't go. She said that the Cullens had friends and when I looked at her, Jake, I knew she was serious. I was so afraid of losing you or one of the guys. So I told her that I would go. She made it sound so simple: go to Italy, show Bella to Edward, and leave. But he had provoked them and it became anything but simple.
I tried to talk to Bella, about why she hates me. She told me she didn't hate me, that she just didn't understand me. I kept pushing, probably because I had her cornered and she needed my help. If I left, I could go home and tell Dad what was going on. I could ruin everything; so she was honest with me. She told me that she never wanted my help, that I had been pushing where I wasn't wanted. I don't think she understood that all I wanted was for her to be happy. And I didn't even want it for her; I wanted it for Dad. He deserved to have his two girls in his house with him without the world exploding. But the real reason that Bella hates me is because I was never nice enough to Edward." Jake growled beside me. "Yeah, I know. Me? Nice? I don't think that's ever been a description of me.
We got to Italy. I guess the Volturi, that's the royals, had told Edward that they wouldn't kill him. Alice said they have a kind of fetish for gifts and Edward's would be so helpful. They were hoping that he would join them. His plan was to expose himself, let the rest of the people in Volterra see that he was a vampire. The Volturi would have to kill him then. We got there and stopped him. But the leader, he wanted to talk to us. Edward had almost exposed them." I paused then, knowing he wasn't going to like what I had to say next.
"We followed them through these sewers and into this room. Jake, I had never seen so many vampires in one room. There was one human in the entire place and she wanted to be a vampire. And they weren't like the Cullens; they were like the one in the forest. All of them had red eyes. The three that were in charge sat on these thrones. The one that I talked to he could read minds by touch, remember?" Jake nodded. "He asked me to touch him, but I refused. So, he had this little leech torture me."
Jake growled and jumped off my bed. He began pacing the small confines of my room. "She could torture me with her mind. All she did was look at me. I had never felt anything like it, Jake. I thought I might die. He asked me if I wanted to show him my thoughts now, but I still refused. Then he told Edward and Alice that, well, you know." Jake hadn't stopped pacing. He was staring at the ground, which I was glad for as I quickly swiped at the moisture clinging to my lashes.
"Alice let them think that I was going to die; that's the only reason that I got away. And on the way out, there was a crowd of people being led into the room. They killed them, Jake. They killed old women and children and people on vacation. And they didn't think twice."
I don't know what I sounded like, but Jake's eyes suddenly flashed to mine. He sat beside me and pulled me into his arms. "That isn't what you're afraid of, Annie. What's wrong?'
"What if they come after me?" Jake snarled. "What if they figure out that I'm not dead? I saw them kill people because they were hungry? What would they do to me?"
"Nothing," Jake barked, pulling me closer to his chest. I was sitting in his lap now, my head lying in the crook of his neck. My hands sat limp in my lap while he rubbed up and down my arm in comfort. "They won't do anything to you because I will never let them near you again."
I heard Bella's mumbling get louder through the thin walls.
"I should go check on her," I said with a sigh. Why did I even bother?
"Don't," Jake said. I looked up at him. "I already told you, Bella is Edward's problem. You're not responsible for everyone, Annie. Bella has nightmares because she made her own decisions. She ran into the arms of a vampire, even after she'd figured out what he was. She chased one to Phoenix, even when she could've said something. She chose to break down after he left. Let him look after her."
"You don't care?" I said as Bella's panting increased. Normally, I'd be waking her up now, trying to silence her before the scream. The blood curdling scream hit the air. I jumped, even though I knew that it was coming. She quieted after a few moments and I turned to look at Jake. He had never heard her cry out before. He'd probably care now.
But he looked just as passive as he had before, as if he didn't actually care about the fact that my sister had just screamed bloody murder.
"You don't care?" I repeated, but there was more awe in my voice this time.
"I told you, I care about you." It was like Jake had forgotten our whole conversation about taking it slow. He pressed his lips against mine with fervor, hungrier and greedier this time. My brain told me that this isn't what I wanted, it tried to get me not to kiss him back. But my lips were possessed, my heart pounded in my chest. So sitting in his lap, I kissed him back with everything that I had. Finally, he broke away, his panting just as loud as mine.
"I don't care about Bella, Ryanne," he stated firmly.
My head was spinning as I gasped to catch my breath. The sun streamed in through the windows, as if the Heavens were just as happy as I was about what had just happened. I could still taste him on my lips, feel his arms wrapped around me.
"You don't care about me?" a quiet voice asked from the door way.