"How fast can you... ?"
"Run?" he finished my question. "Fast enough. What can I measure it by? We caught... what was his name? Laurent? I imagine that means more to you than it would to someone else."
It did mean something to me. I couldn't imagine that - the wolves running faster than a vampire. When the Cullens ran, they all but turned invisible with speed.
"So, tell me something I don't know," he said. "Something about vampires. How did you stand it, being around them? Didn't it creep you out?"
"No," I said curtly.
My tone made him thoughtful for a moment.
"Say, why'd your bloodsucker kill that James, anyway?" he asked suddenly.
"James was trying to kill me - it was like a game for him. He lost. Do you remember last spring when I was in the hospital down in Phoenix?"
Jacob sucked in a breath. "He got that close?"
"He got very, very close." I stroked my scar. Jacob noticed, because he held the hand I moved.
"What's that?" He traded hands, examining my right. "This is your funny scar, the cold one." He looked at it closer, with new eyes, and gasped.
"Yes, it's what you think it is," I said. "James bit me."
His eyes bulged, and his face turned a strange, sallow color under the russet surface. He looked like he was about to be sick.
"But if he bit you... ? Shouldn't you be... ?" He choked.
"Edward saved me twice," I whispered. "He sucked the venom out - you know, like with a rattlesnake." I twitched as the pain lashed around the edges of the hole.
But I wasn't the only one twitching. I could feel Jacob's whole body trembling next to mine. Even the car shook.
"Careful, Jake. Easy. Ca in down."
"Yeah," he panted. "Calm." He shook his head back and forth quickly. After a moment, only his hands were shaking.
"You okay?"
"Yeah, almost. Tell me something else. Give me something else to think about."
"What do you want to know?"
"I don't know." He had his eyes closed, concentrating. "The extra stuff I guess. Did any of the other Cullens have... extra talents? Like the mind reading?"
I hesitated a second. This felt like a question he would ask of his spy, not his friend. But what was the point of hiding what I knew? It didn't matter now, and it would help him control himself.
So I spoke quickly, the image of Emily's ruined face in my mind, and the hair rising on my arms. I couldn't imagine how the russet wolf would fit inside the Rabbit - Jacob would tear the whole garage apart if he changed now.
"Jasper could... sort of control the emotions of the people around him. Not in a bad way, just to calm someone down, that kind of thing. It would probably help Paul a lot," I added, teasing weakly. "And then Alice could see things that were going to happen. The future, you know, but not absolutely. The things she saw would change when someone changed the path they were on..."
Like how she'd seen me dying... and she'd seen me becoming one of them. Two things that had not happened. And one that never would. My head started to spin - I couldn't seem to pull in enough oxygen from the air. No lungs.
Jacob was entirely in control now, very still beside me.
"Why do you do that?" he asked. He tugged lightly at one of my arms, which was bound around my chest, and then gave up when it wouldn't come loose easily. I hadn't even realized I'd moved them. "You do that when you're upset. Why?"
"It hurts to think about them," I whispered. "It's like I can't breathe... like I'm breaking into pieces..."It was bizarre how much I could tell Jacob now. We had no more secrets.
He smoothed my hair. "It's okay, Bella, it's okay. I won't bring it up again. I'm sorry."
"I'm fine." I gasped. "Happens all the time. Not your fault."
"We're a pretty messed-up pair, aren't we?" Jacob said. "Neither one of us can hold our shape together right."
"Pathetic," I agreed, still breathless.
"At least we have each other," he said, clearly comforted by the thought.
I was comforted, too. "At least there's that," I agreed.
And when we were together, it was fine. But Jacob had a horrible, dangerous job he felt compelled to do, and so I was often alone, stuck in La Push for safety, with nothing to do to keep my mind off any of my worries.
I felt awkward, always taking up space at Billy's. I did some studying for another Calculus test that was coming up next week, but I could only look at math for so long. When I didn't have something obvious to do in my hands,
I felt like I ought to be making conversation with Billy - the pressure of normal societal rules. But Billy wasn't one for filling up the long silences, and so the awkwardness continued.
I tried hanging out at Emily's place Wednesday afternoon, for a change. At first it was kind of nice. Emily was a cheerful person who never sat still. I drifted behind her while she flitted around her little house and yard, scrubbing at the spotless floor, pulling a tiny weed, fixing a broken hinge, tugging a string of wool through an ancient loom, and always cooking, too. She complained lightly about the increase in the boys' appetites from all their extra running, but it was easy to see she didn't mind taking care of them. It wasn't hard to be with her - after all, we were both wolf girls now.
But Sam checked in after I'd been there for a few hours. I only stayed long enough to ascertain that Jacob was fine and there was no news, and then I had to escape. The aura of love and contentment that surrounded them was harder to take in concentrated doses, with no one else around to dilute it.