New Moon (Twilight #2)(64)

"Oh, hey, Bella," he greeted me dully.

"Hi, Quil... Are you okay?"

He stared at me morosely. "Fine."

"Can I give you a ride somewhere?" I offered.

"Sure, I guess," he mumbled. He shuffled around the front of the truck and opened the passenger door to climbin.

"Where to?"

"My house is on the north side, back behind the store," he told me.

"Have you seen Jacob today." The question burst from me almost before he'd finished speaking.

I looked at Quil eagerly, waiting for his answer. He stared out the windshield for a second before he spoke. "From a distance," he finally said.

"A distance?" I echoed.

"I tried to follow them - he was with Embry." His voice was low, hard to hear over the engine. I leaned closer. "I know they saw me. But they turned and just disappeared into the trees. I don't think they were alone - I think Sam and his crew might have been with them.

"I've been stumbling around in the forest for an hour, yelling for them. I just barely found the road again when you drove up."

"So Sam did get to him." The words were a little distorted - my teeth were gritted together.

Quil stared at me. "You know about that.?"

I nodded. "Jake told me... before."

"Before," Quil repeated, and sighed.

"Jacob's just as bad as the others now?"

"Never leaves Sam's side." Quil turned his head and spit out the open window.

"And before that - did he avoid everyone? Was he acting upset?"

His voice was low and rough. "Not for as long as the others. Maybe one day. Then Sam caught up with him."

"What do you think it is? Drugs or something?"

"I can't see Jacob or Embry getting into anything like that... but what do I know? What else could it be? And why aren't the old people worried?" He shook his head, and the fear showed in his eyes now. "Jacob didn't want to be a part of this... cult. I don't understand what could change him." He stared at me, his face frightened. "I don't want to be next."

My eyes mirrored his fear. That was the second time I'd heard it described as a cult. I shivered. "Are your parents any help?"

He grimaced. "Right. My grandfather's on the council with Jacob's dad. Sam Uley is the best thing that ever happened to this place, as far as he's concerned."

We stared at each other for a prolonged moment. We were in La Push now, and my truck was barely crawling along the empty road. I could see the village's only store not too far ahead.

"I'll get out now," Quil said. "My house is right over there." He gestured toward the small wooden rectangle behind the store. I pulled over to the shoulder, and he jumped out.

"I'm going to go wait for Jacob," I told him in a hard voice.

"Good luck." He slammed the door and shuffled forward along the road, his head bent forward, his shoulders slumped.

Quil's face haunted me as I made a wide U-turn and headed back toward the Blacks'. He was terrified of being next. What was happening here?

I stopped in front of Jacob's house, killing the motor and rolling down the windows. It was stuffy today, no breeze. I put my feet up on the dashboard and settled in to wait.

A movement flashed in my peripheral vision - I turned and spotted Billy looking at me through the front window with a confused expression. I waved once and smiled a tight smile, but stayed where I was.

His eyes narrowed; he let the curtain fall across the glass.

I was prepared to stay as long as it took, but I wished I had something to do. I dug up a pen out of the bottom of my backpack, and an old test. I started to doodle on the back of the scrap.

I'd only had time to scrawl one row of diamonds when there was a sharp tap against my door.

I jumped, looking up, expecting Billy.

"What are you doing here, Bella.'" Jacob growled.

I stared at him in blank astonishment.

Jacob had changed radically in the last weeks since I'd seen him. The first thing I noticed was his hair - his beautiful hair was all gone, cropped quite short, covering his head with an inky gloss like black satin. The planes of his face seemed to have hardened subtly, tightened... aged. His neck and his shoulders were different, too, thicker somehow. His hands, where they gripped the window frame, looked enormous, with the tendons and veins more prominent under the russet skin. But the physical changes were insignificant.

It was his expression that made him almost completely unrecognizable. The open, friendly smile was gone like the hair, the warmth in his dark eyes altered to a brooding resentment that was instantly disturbing. There was a darkness in Jacob now. Like my sun had imploded.

"Jacob?" I whispered.

He just stared at me, his eyes tense and angry.

I realized we weren't alone. Behind him stood four others; all tall and russet-skinned, black hair chopped short just like Jacob's. They could have been brothers - I couldn't even pick Embry out of the group. The resemblance was only intensified by the strikingly similar hostility in every pair of eyes.

Every pair but one. The oldest by several years, Sam stood in the very back, his face serene and sure. I had to swallow back the bile that rose in my throat. I wanted to take a swing at him. No, I wanted to do more than that. More than anything, I wanted to be fierce and deadly, someone no one would dare mess with. Someone who would scare Sam Uley silly.