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CHAPTER TEN ᴊᴀᴄᴏʙ
After hunting one day, I returned to a phone call from Bella. It was rare that she would call me. Usually, if she needed me, I would be there within enough time to hold it off. But it was obvious, as she spoke through the phone, that she was panicked, her voice frantic and wavering.
"Bella? Calm down."
"Could you come over, please?" she asked, her voice timid.
"What happened, are you alright?"
"Please," she stumbled out. "Just come over."
Once, I'd thought Bella was a nervous girl. But she was anything but. Her bravery easily scared me, just as her wavering voice did then. If the fact that her ex-boyfriend was a vampire, didn't set her teeth chattering in fear, I dreaded to think what actually would.
"I'll be two minutes."
When I arrived at her house, Charlie was gone. There were fresh tyre tracks sunken into the sandy driveway and the burnt scent of petrol was fresh in the bitter air. I found Bella in her room, clothes littered across her floor and bed as she ruffled around her wardrobe and drawers. She stopped when she realised I'd already entered, and pulled me to sit on the edge of her bed.
I expected her to say that something had happened with Jacob or a wolf. Or both. I was beginning to suspect that those terms were mutually interchangeable. But what she said next worried me more than any boy from the reservation could.
"I saw Laurent," she said, followed by a gulp of air.
"What? You're sure?"
There wasn't a single scratch on her that wasn't caused by her own haste or clumsiness. I don't know why I expected her to be harmed- Laurent had gone to live in Alaska with another civilised family like the Cullens. His new coven was smaller, and so Bella was protected. Even if the Cullens had left.
But I knew vampires. I was one, after all, and I'd been turned by one and learned to get along well with a whole family of them. They were fickle creatures- as erratic as winter weather- and as cold as it too. They couldn't be trusted.
Bella nodded. "He talked to me."
I'd already checked, but I lifted her chin, moving it so my eyes could skim over her face a second time. "Are you alright? Are you hurt?"
"No, I'm physically fine."
"What happened?"
She swallowed. "He was in the woods. He was talking to me- about Victoria. She wants to kill me," Bella said, her voice heightening as the realisation of her situation truly sunk in. "He was going to finish me off for her. But then a wolf came and scared him off. It sounds bizarre, I know..."
I stopped her. "You're telling a vampire something sounds bizarre?"
She looked away, her shoulders still locked into the same squared shape.
