Blinded

I woke up when I felt something running down my neck. It was extremely hot and I figured I was sweating. I wiped my brow and my hand felt the slight perspiration forming on my forehead. I sat up and heard the soft sound of feet shuffling, and tried to recall what happened before I fainted.

“Quando ha inizio lo svenimento? Questa era una cosa ridicola da fare quando ci sono i lupi . . . E quelli freddi. . . .” I was really mumbling to myself, but I knew there were other people there and for some reason I thought they would understand me when I spoke in Italian. I tend to speak Italian when I’m really frustrated, like when I fall or when I’m chastising Jacob about not having a shirt.

I waited for someone to respond, but no one did. “Perché è così tranquillo?”

“She speaks Italian?” Embry asked someone. “That‘s kind of sexy.”

I heard a punching sound. “Enough,” Sam ordered, and all punching stopped. “Mariabella, you okay?”

“Sì, voglio dire - yes, I am,” I answered. My brain was set to Italian mode, not English. That could be the result of fainting for the first time in my sixteen years of life. I opened my eyes, though I still saw black. “What‘s going on? Did Jacob really . . . ?”

“Yes, I did,” Jacob answered. “I‘m reaching my hand out to you.” I smiled and I heard him chuckle. “And don’t bite me either.”

When we first met, after I bit him for thinking his hand was the hand of a creep ready to kidnap me, he told me the same thing, only he told me not to bite him first.

“And Victoria, the redheaded girl, she‘s a vampire?” I asked. Jacob didn’t let go of my hand. It was already getting sweaty.

“How did you know she was redheaded?” Quil asked.

“I‘ve actually dreamt about all this,” I admit, and I was ready to feel the “She‘s crazy” vibe coming off of them. But I didn’t.

“Edward said something about you being able to do that,” Jacob said to me. “He said that Victoria wanted you because you were blind, but she never knew what you could really do. She just knew you had . . . potential.” My muscles tensed and my heart skipped a beat. “What?”

“I‘ve dreamt about that too,” I whispered.

“You‘d be one super powered bloodsucker,” Paul, I think, said. I’ve only talked to him about twice, but I was glad I recognized it either way.

“Mariabella, there is something I need to tell you,” Jacob said seriously.

“Other than the wolf and bloodsucker thing?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he answered. “Basically there is this thing that we werewolves do when we find the one. Love at first sight. It‘s not gravity that‘s holding you down anymore, it‘s her. Like you two were made for each other. We call it imprinting, and I‘ve imprinted on you. It affects both of us, not just me.”

Translated: A werewolf is in love with me and apparently that is what was going on with me this whole time as well.

“You thought I loved Bella, that I didn‘t see you for you,” Jacob continued. “Mariabella, truth is that since I saw you it‘s only been you. Kind of. Bella . . .”

“Was your first love,” I finished for him. “And you can‘t let her go.”

His silence nearly broke my heart because I was right. Not even some wolfy love spell was enough to get him to let go of Bella.

“Jacob, I‘m sorry to interrupt,” Edward said. Whoa, where the heck did he come from? I didn’t even hear him come. “Bella says she needs to talk to you.”

“I can‘t right now,” Jacob snapped. Bella was a sensitive subject for him. Claro que si.

“We have to go,” Sam said. “The battle is about to begin. I‘ll take her to Emily‘s. She‘ll be safe there until this is all over.”

Seconds later I heard whimpers and howls, and being so close to those howls I had to cover my ears. Then it clicked: Jacob’s friends were werewolves too. That’s why they seemed like a pack when I met them for the first time - because they were a pack. And Sam was probably the alpha. Lo sapevo. Sorry, but my brain was still wired on Italian mode.

“Jacob, please, I can‘t stand to see her so upset,” Edward pleads. “You have to go talk to her.”

“Jacob, I want you to stay with me,” I whispered. “I love you.”

“I know you do,” he admitted. “I‘ll get you from Emily‘s soon. Sam was right when he said you‘ll be safe.”

He knows that I love him and he loves me, and he is still going to her. That anger flared up in me once more. I hated it. “Why do you have to go see her?” I asked sternly.

“Because I love her,” Jacob admitted sadly, hopelessly.

“Fine, go then,” I shouted. “Go!”

“Come on, Mariabella,” Sam says and grabs my arm. “Jacob, don‘t take too long. They‘re coming, and they‘re coming fast.”

“I know,” Jacob answered angrily. “I can smell them.”

I heard him run off and I heard a soft sorry from Edward before he too disappeared. I followed Sam as fast as I could, but he end up carrying me when I kept on tripping. He explained to me that I was going to stay with Emily, his fiancée, the woman he imprinted on. I figured he was hinting that things would turn out okay for me and Jacob, however I couldn’t shake the feeling that Bella was still going to be the thing in between us - until Jacob could let her go.

“Sam, what are you - ?” a woman asked, but Sam interrupted her.

“This is Mariabella,” Sam said. “She was attacked by Victoria, but she didn‘t get hurt. Jacob chased her away. She knows, and she‘s a bit shaken up right now. She will stay here until the fight’s over.”

“Okay, be safe out there Samuel Uley,” the woman ordered. “I want you back home.”

“I promise,” he said sincerely and I heard them kiss. It made my stomach do flips and I wanted to throw up. I couldn’t deal with love right now. My heart ached, I was nauseated, and I was fighting tears. Was this what heartbreak felt like?

I heard Sam walk out the door and I heard Emily shuffling around in the kitchen over to my right - I figured it was a kitchen when I heard pans banging against one another. I was standing there near the door completely unsure of my surroundings, unsure of this woman who was suddenly left in charge of me, and wondering what in the world Bella and Jacob were doing. Edward said she needed to talk to him, but what did she need to talk to him about? Some part of me thought they were kissing, that Jacob convinced her that she wanted him to kiss her, and I tried to tell myself that I was stressing myself out too much. Jacob said he imprinted on me and that it was something strong, something that affected both of us, so he wouldn’t do that . . . right?

Since Emily was the one who Sam imprinted on, I would ask her to explain all this to me. “Um, Emily?” I asked quietly and ignored the tears that were beginning to form. “Can you explain everything that is happening? I‘m completely lost.”

“Sure, Mariabella,” she answered. I heard her putting something in the oven, metal touching metal, and something beeped. I was guessing she was baking something. “What do you want to know?”

“Imprinting,” I answered. “Where can I sit?”

I heard her footsteps coming towards me and she gently grabbed my hand as she led me to a chair. I tapped the chair with my foot and I sat down. I almost fell off because I nearly missed it. My cheeks burning, I let my hair fall in my face to hide my embarrassment.

“Jacob said it was like finding the one, that it was like we were made for each other,” I explained. “It not only affects him, but it affects me too. Apparently I‘ve been in love with him this whole time and I didn‘t realize it until now.”

“Yeah, he pretty much covered it,” Emily replied, and I could tell she was smiling. “But what do you need me to explain about it? Jacob told you already.”

“He still loves Bella,” I admitted sadly. “Can you still have feelings for someone else when you‘ve imprinted?”

“Oh, I see,” she sighed. “Well, my cousin Leah - she‘s a werewolf too - and Sam were together before he and I were. When I came along he imprinted on me and he couldn‘t be with Leah because of it. It‘s something we can‘t help. He still cares for Leah and feels terrible, but I know he‘s not having second thoughts about me. We are getting married, after all.”

“Congratulations, by the way,” I said softly. “But what about Jacob? Do you think he‘s so in love with Bella that he might, I don‘t know, break through the imprinting thing? Is it breakable?”

“No, it‘s not like a curse at all,” Emily answered. “The genetics behind it is that the werewolf will imprint on someone who is best able to pass on the werewolf gene - according to Sam. He‘s told me all of this.”

I blushed. The thought of kids with Jacob brought on a different thought, something that made children, and the immature, childish part of me was silent and embarrassed about that kind of thing.

“And you can‘t technically love someone else like you love the person you‘ve imprinted on,” she continued. “Jacob really loves you, but in my opinion, he is having a hard time letting go of Bella. I think he‘s scared of losing her this way. Before you came, he was so sure he was going to get Bella to leave Edward for him soon - very soon too. Then when he saw you for the first time he imprinted. We all knew it, but for the longest time he denied it. Constantly.”

“He didn‘t want to imprint on me,” I concluded. “He didn‘t want me.”

“Mariabella don‘t get upset about that,” she said sincerely. “He and Bella are just very close. He helped her through a hard time and they were almost together. I think in the back of his mind he still has that thought, like they are almost going to be together, that he still wants her. But he has you now. You should hear how much his brothers complain about how much he thinks of you.”

“How would they know he thinks of me?” I asked her. “Can they read each others’ minds or something?” She was silent for a few seconds. “Are you nodding? If you‘re doing something like that you kinda have to tell me.”

“Oh, sorry, I was nodding,” she said sweetly. “They can read each others‘ minds but only when they are wolves. It‘s how they communicate.” I nodded and thought of how that would suck if someone could read my mind. “Anything else you want to know? We have time. Unless you want Jacob to tell you about all of this.”

I thought about Jacob telling me but the angry part of me told me that he was just going to go see Bella after the war, so I shook my head left to right rapidly. Thinking of the war, mentioned plenty of times since the bonfire night with Jacob, made me want to know more about it, though I felt like I already knew everything there was to know about it.

“I‘ve heard about this war, or a battle,” I said. “Is it what I think it is: a vampire-werewolf war?”

“Yes,” Emily answered sadly. “The werewolves were born for this, so they had to go join the Cullens.”

“The Cullens are werewolves too?!” I shouted. I covered my mouth and apologized for my sudden outburst.

“No, they‘re vampires,” Emily answered. “Vampires are the natural enemy to werewolves.”

Alice and Edward were vampires? That explained why they had similar features - like the cold touch and the sweet scent - to Victoria. “Then why are they joining them?”

“Victoria apparently has a grudge against Bella because Edward killed her mate about a year ago, I think. Victoria created a vampire army to take Bella down, and the pack agreed to help the Cullens defeat this army to protect the rest of us. Jacob agreed to protect Bella more than the rest of us.” Naturalmente ha fatto. (That was “Of course he did” in Italian. I‘m done with Spanish). “Apparently Victoria was after you for a little while because you were blind, and she figured that you would have some amazing power when she turned you into a vampire.”

“How do you know that?” I asked. My heart was beating faster because some part of me knew that as well. I dreamt about that before as well.

“Edward reads minds, and he picked it up when Alice saw Victoria making the decision to get you,” Emily explained. “A slip on her part because Alice supposedly couldn‘t see her making decisions for a while.”

And I was just thinking of how it would suck if someone could read my mind. It turns out someone could, and it was Edward. That explains a couple of things. I felt violated. My mind was always a safe place for me and someone had accessed it. So not fantasmical.

“So, to sum all of this up: Jacob has imprinted on me and we‘re madly in love; Victoria created an army to get Bella and she is now fighting the Cullens and the werewolf pack; and Jacob has a hard time letting the thought of being with Bella go despite the fact that he‘s imprinted.” Emily told me she nodded. “How is this even possible?!”

She just laughed. “We have no idea, but most of the myths you hear aren‘t myths.”

“And those dreams I‘ve been having since I moved here were not just dreams, they were reality - sort of,” I said. When she was silent, I decided to explain. “I‘ve dreamt about all of it: Jacob being a reddish brown wolf, Victoria wanting me, the war, and the Cullens being vampires.”

“If you were a vampire, you would probably have a power similar to Alice Cullen‘s,” Emily told me. “She can see the future.”

Her reply just made me ask more questions: What other Cullens had powers? Did Victoria have one? Did werewolves gain any special powers? In order the answers were: just Jasper; no, she didn’t, but if she did it would be major grudge holding abilities; and other than the mind reading they just had heightened senses and had higher body temperatures. That explained why they were so hot - tempter wise. I wouldn’t be able to say if they were hot in the shallow use of the word describing someone’s looks for obvious reasons. I also learned that Emily was a great cook. She made me deliciously delicious food.

Emily also told me about how dangerous the werewolves were, how she actually had a large scar on her face because Sam turned wolf too closely to her. He was angry at something, she was there, and poof! Out came the wolfy Sam who scratched the left side of her face up. That is when I learned that the werewolves change when they get angry. I was surprised Jacob wasn’t wolf most of the time, then, especially when he was with me.

Jacob being a werewolf explained so much, like why he was always gone, and I completely forgave him for all of that. But I was still sad and upset about the whole Bella thing. I loved him, and he running off to Bella was breaking my heart.

I eventually called Cara, Steve, Yvonne and Tyler to explain that I was all right and made up a story about Jacob saving me or something like that. I blocked it out of my mind because it had to do with Jacob, and thinking of him was heartbreaking at this point.

I was about to ask Emily why Jacob denied imprinting on me (aside from the Bella thing), why he would act so weird around me, when someone barged in. It was Sam.

“It‘s Jacob,” he said in a panicked voice. “He‘s hurt badly.”