The Outcome

One of the most awkward feelings in the world is sitting in a room right next to someone and not saying a word. I can slightly hear the boys having a conversation downstairs with Donovan and I can hear my own heart beating in my chest. I can hear Erick breathing as well.

He’s sitting right next to me, trying to keep calm, but not saying a word. I don’t know what to say. I scared that saying anything other than, “Take me Erick, I’m all yours!” will set him off. But the situation is so damn awkward, I’m ready to explode myself.

“I’m trying not to be mad at you, but I don’t like what’s starting between you and this guy.” His voice was low and strained. I appreciated the thought of acting like I had a choice in the matter.

“There’s nothing going on between Jacob and I. He just felt bad for what happened in the lunch room.” That was kind of the truth, so I hoped he wouldn’t see through it.

“So he has a name now?” Erick mumbled like a scolded eight year old.

“Seriously? I know you could smell the wolf in him Erick. We’re gonna have to learn their names eventually.”

“Yeah, I know. How well will you have to know them, Mace?” I didn’t like what he was hinting to with his words. It only made me mad because my thoughts were racing with the same thing.

“I’ll know them well enough to get the job done right. Cause I’m goddamn bait right? Whatever, let’s just go get debriefed with everything from Donovan alright?”

“Okay, but I wasn’t trying to make you mad. I’ll always feel like you belong to—“

“Well, I don’t!” I didn’t yell at my alpha often, so Erick knew to back off when I really raised my voice.

“No, you don’t...”

It had gone all silent downstairs, everyone obviously hearing my little outburst. Without another word, we went downstairs to find out the details to out mission here.

~~~

Everyone had on the pity Macie face when we got downstairs. They knew how things were and knew there was nothing they could do to stop us. I’d long suspected they’d wish I’d just give in to him and spare them the melodrama, but no dared say anything to me about it. I didn’t mind keeping it that way either.

I found my place next to Brayden and left Erick to lean against the wall next to where Donovan was standing in front of the fire place. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about or appointed baby sitter. Something didn’t really sit right with me about him, but it was almost for no reason.

In the week that we had been here, he was everything a proper host was supposed to be. He kept us well fed, showed us around town, and gave us a good amount of privacy in this big old house. I had my own room in the attic and I could sense he wanted to know more about the dynamitic between Erick and I, but was polite enough not to ask.

The wolf inside of him was golden bronze, so hauntingly different from the landscape of La Push. Then again, all the boys stuck sorely out in the woods with their city schemed coats, but I wondered if Donovan had spent his childhood ridding vampires from corn fields down south.

Brayden nudged me out of my thoughts just as Donovan turned the conversation on me.

“Alrighty, Macie. It’s finally your turn to get your assignment.”

“Let me guess, when we get the information we need. I’m gonna be the bait?” I rolled my eyes at him. I didn’t want to be a bitch, but what else would I do other than cooking and cleaning? They trained me, yes, and I could fight a human twice my size, but I was shit when it came to the supernatural. “I’m always the bait, Donovan.”

“Well, you wouldn’t be wrong this time either. But this time you’d be doing more than half ass running though alleyways…” Donovan replied back to me with a smirk of his face. My eyebrows lifted halfway up my forehead at his brazen words, but I wasn’t offended.

Brayden let out a whooping laugh, “Wow, Mr. D, I didn’t know you had it in you. Maybe you will survive running with us.”

But Donovan was already back to business; smile replaced by a hard line and apologetic eyes. “I need you to get close to a specific wolf in their pack, Macie. He’s the only one with personal contact with the vampires we think they’re working with in Forks. They’ll be suspicious of the boys because of their wolves, but we have a separate cover story to explain how you’re connected to them, or not connected to them I should say.”

I didn’t see Erick move uncomfortably close to where Donovan was standing. “You want her to date someone from another pack? Are you crazy?” That one vein in the side of Erick’s neck was showing whenever he got annoyed. I bit back my laughter.

“I know what you’re thinking, but he hasn’t imprinted yet, therefore this is the best way to not only get to the vampires, but his entire pack as well. The only way for this to work if to get the information all the way on the inside, any missing piece will blow our cover.”

Graison and Max, who had been quiet for a while now, spoke up at the same time. It was the question that everyone had been thinking, but too afraid to.

“Who’s the wolf?”

Donovan looked up, confusion flushed over his features. “Oh, I didn’t already say? Jacob Black.”

“FUCK NO, absolutely fucking not. I won’t allow it!” Erick shouted out. I couldn’t even blame him despite the eruption of butterflies that burst in my stomach. It was too perfect, matched up to well. The one boy I had ever shown romantic interest in outside of Erick was the one I had to seduce to kill a group of vampires.

“I’m sorry Erick, I have my orders from The Elders, and their word overrides even the Alpha in these situations.” Donovan did sound sorry, but also worried for future interference with the plans.

Erick didn’t reply, just ripped the shirt off his body and stormed out of the house. Soon after that, the sound of paws could be heard taking off into the forest. One by one the boys followed after him, but Graison paused before passing through the doorframe.

“Try not to look so damn happy about breaking you’re Alpha’s heart. What the hell’s gotten into you?” He left then, leaving me to deal with his words, while they got freedom in a run.

I sighed aloud as Donovan took a seat on the couch next to me. “I’m not happy about this, I swear.” I told him, voice clenched and monotone. At least I thought I wasn’t happy about it.

I didn’t want to break Erick’s heart; I didn’t want it at all, in fact. There was just something about that dark haired boy I met in the lunch room today. I had this desire to be near him that I’d never felt before. But everything about this was wrong. I was starting this off with a lie. My feelings may have been true, but my intentions were for deceit. He was in another pack and Erick was a crazy person.

And more than any of this, the touch of his skin sent me to an end as unclear as never seeing it to begin with.

“There’s something else I have to tell you, Macie. Erick may have no say in this, if you don’t want to go through with this, you don’t have to.” Donovan quietly explained.

I rose up from the couch and walked to the mirror that hung over the mantle piece. I rarely did this, I preferred to pretend that I had control over my fate, but this felt like a turning point in my existence. I could see Donovan’s reflection, looking at me with a deep interest, just as curious to see what I could do as the next person. I zoned him out on him and looked into my own eyes.

The world shifted and tilted into a tunnel of Technicolor moments in time. At this point nothing ever lasted long enough for me to make sense of what I was seeing, the flashes too quick, just defining moments that led to the current ending. I saw the woods, heat, the meeting of skin, the tearing of skin apart, and then I was there. The episode from the lunch room was back again and I saw falling pieces of rock. I saw the figures of men, the heat of fire, and then endless reflections. This was the end.

I was pulled backwards to the present again, looking back into my own distraught eyes and this shitty situation I was in.

I had a decision to make. I didn’t have the slightest grasp on what my ending meant, but I knew that it wasn’t good. There was fire in my ending, but no light. That couldn’t mean anything good. So here was my first chance to save him, save everyone, but the memory of his face looking down on me when he asked me to call him Jake, tugged on my heartstrings.

I honestly don’t think people realize how selfish they are in the act of being selfish. It is the afterthought, the aftermath, when one realizes the type of person they’ve become. But when I turned to Donovan and told him to explain the rest of the mission to me, I knew actually what I was giving up.

I felt like I needed this boy, I needed this chance to develop a relationship with a wolf from the La Push Beach Reservation. No one was going to talk it from me either, not Erick, not my conscious, not even fate.