Midnight Sun (Twilight #1.5)(60)

"Don't be like that, sugar."

He watched her flinch to a rowdy laugh that came from another direction. He was irritated with the noise - Shut up, Jeff! He thought - but he enjoyed the way she cringed.

It excited him. He began to imagine her pleas, the way she would beg...

Bella was reading this in a voice that seemed to be distant. She was terrified... she didn't like this one bit... she knew her book self would feel hopeless and wouldn't have any way out of this... However she herself, knew that Edward was going to save her. It gave her the courage to keep reading.

Jacob on the other hand just kept on getting angrier and more anxious the longer this guy was mentioned and Edward still hadn't shown up. Stupid freaking bloodsucker, he kept thinking in his head, get there already.

I hadn't realized that there were others with him until I'd heard the loud laughter.

I scanned out from him, desperate for something that I could use. He was taking the first step in her direction, flexing his hands.

The minds around him were not the cesspool that his was. They were all slightly intoxicated, not one of them realizing how far the man they called Lonnie planned to go with this. They were following Lonnie's lead blindly. He'd promised them a little fun...

"And that makes it okay!" Jacob shouted and Bella flinched. Jacob started taking deep breaths... it would be easier for him just to shout out, but he noticed how tense Bella was and knew that he had to try and control his anger. But really... harassing a girl like that! How is that freakin' fun?

One of them glanced down the street, nervous - he didn't want to get caught harassing the girl - and gave me what I needed. I recognized the cross street he stared toward.

"Good," Jacob said gritting his teeth. "Hurry."

I flew under a red light, sliding through a space just wide enough between two cars in the moving traffic. Horns blared behind me.

"Don't crash," Bella was able to mumble her voice was weak compared to when she was reading. It seem like she was able to detach her emotions as she read.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. I ignored it.

Lonnie moved slowly toward the girl, drawing out the suspense - the moment of terror that aroused him.

Sick perverted bastard, Jacob thought to himself, anger welling up in him.

He waited for her scream, preparing to savor it.

But Bella locked her jaw and braced herself. He was surprised - he'd expected her to try to run.

Bella let out a groan there, showing a bit of the terror she was trying to keep under control... which was made easier with her belief that Edward would save her. However, knowing that the fact that she couldn't run without falling made her curse her own clumsiness.

Surprised and slightly disappointed. He liked to chase his prey down, the adrenaline of the hunt.

Brave, this one. Maybe better, I guess...more fight in her.

Jacob growled at that.

I was a block away. The monster could hear the roar of my engine now, but he paid it no attention, too intent on his victim.

I would see how he enjoyed the hunt when he was the prey. I would see what he thought of my style of hunting.

Jacob didn't think about that comment at all... he didn't care what Edward had just thought because at the moment he was thinking something similar (though perhaps not how Edward had meant it).

In another compartment of my head, I was already sorting through the range of tortures I'd born witness to in my vigilante days, searching for the most painful of them.

He would suffer for this. He would writhe in agony. The others would merely die for their part, but the monster named Lonnie would beg for death long before I would give him that gift.

Bella frowned at that... she didn't want that. Jail, a life time imprisonment, something along those lines... but she didn't want Edward to kill them... because of her.

He was in the road, crossing toward her.

I spun sharply around the corner, my headlights washing across the scene and freezing the rest of them in place. I could have run down the leader, who leapt out of the way, but that was too easy a death for him.

I let the car spin out, swinging all the way around so that I was facing back the way I'd come and the passenger door was closest to Bella. I threw that open, and she was already running toward the car.

"Get in," I snarled.

What the hell?

Knew this was a bad idea! She's not alone.

Should I run?

Think I'm going to throw up...

Bella grimaced at these thoughts, wondering if Edward was really going to kill them. They had seemed so normal... and yet what they would have done to her... She shivered at that thought.

"Are you okay?" Jacob asked, his face was stony at the moment, but it was clear that he was relieved that Bella, book Bella that is, was safe now.

"It's hard reading this," Bella said.

"Do you wa...?" Jacob started to ask.

Bella shook her head, "I'll read... anyway, it's thinking about it..."

"Yeah," Jacob agreed as the both shuddered.

Bella jumped through the open door without hesitating, pulling the door shut behind her.

And then she looked up at me with the most trustful expression I had ever seen on a human face, and all my violent plans crumbled.

Bella was a little relieved by that.

It took much, much less than a second for me to see that I could not leave her in the car in order to deal with the four men in the street.