Defective - Jacob Black {1}

Chapter 47: Bloodthirsty

Jacob's POV

Carlisle and Rosalie were off in a flash, darting upstairs. I could hear them debating whether they should warm it up for her. Ugh. I wondered what all house-of-horrors stuff they kept around here. Fridge full of blood, check. What else? Torture chamber? Coffin room?

"Jacob." Aria breathed, lightly scolding me.

"What?" Bella asked curiously.

"Nothing. He's just making rude assumptions inside his head." Aria said, waving her off.

Edward stayed put, holding Bella's hand. His face was dead again. He didn't seem to have the energy to keep up even that little hint of hope he'd had before. They stared into each other's eyes, but not in a gooey way. It was like they were having a conversation.

Rosalie darted downstairs after a second, flying through the room like a sharp breeze, stirring up the burning smell of their scents, I stuck my nose in Aria's hair to get rid of it. She stopped inside the kitchen, and I heard the creak of a cupboard door.

"Not here, Rosalie," Edward murmured. He rolled his eyes.

Bella looked curious, but Edward just shook his head at her. Rosalie blew back through the room and disappeared again.

"This was your idea?" Bella whispered, her voice rough as she strained to make it loud enough for me to hear. Forgetting that I could hear just fine. 

"Don't blame me for this one. Your vampire was just picking snide comments out of my head."

She smiled a little. "I didn't expect to see you again."

"Yeah, me, either," I said. "I've been back for a while, you've just been asleep."

"Edward and Aria told me what you had to do. I'm sorry. I haven't spoken to Seth yet but I've had the chance to thank Jesse, he's asleep in Carlisle and Esme's room at the moment... You don't have to stay and watch this," she said, barely mouthing the words.

"She's right Jake, if you can't handle it—" Aria began.

"I don't mind, really," I told them, trying to keep the emotion out of my voice. "The wolf thing is a lot less appealing since Leah joined up."

"Leah?" she gasped.

"You didn't tell her?" I asked Edward. I would've thought Jesse's rushed explanation would've left Bella with questions.

He just shrugged without moving his eyes from her face. I could see it wasn't very exciting news to him, not something worth sharing with the more important events that were going down.

Bella didn't take it so lightly. It looked like it was bad news to her. "Why?" she breathed.

I didn't want to get into the whole novel-length version. "To keep an eye on Seth."

"But Leah hates us," she whispered.

"Leah's not going to bug anyone." But me. "She's in my pack" - I grimaced at the words - "so she follows my lead." Ugh.

Bella didn't look convinced.

"You're scared of Leah, but you're best buds with the psychopath blonde?" There was a low hiss from the second floor. Cool, she'd heard me. Aria laughed again.

Bella frowned at me. "Don't. Rose... understands."

"Yeah," I grunted. "She understands that you're gonna die and she doesn't care, s'long as she gets her mutant spawn out of the deal."

"Stop being a jerk, Jacob," Aria whispered, jabbing me in the ribs with her elbow.

And then Carlisle and the psycho in question were there. Carlisle had a white plastic cup in his hand  - the kind with a lid and a bendy straw. Oh - not clear, now I got it. Edward didn't want Bella to have to think about what she was doing any more than necessary. You couldn't see what was in the cup at all. But I could smell it.