Preventive • Paul Lahote •

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten:

Maddison and Quil waited until midnight for Jacob to return from his date to tell them how it went... but when there was no sign of him by the late hours, they both gave up and fell asleep.

Thinking things had not gone well, the duo gave Jacob the space they thought he would need, and planned to meet back up with him at school.

One day passed without a sign of Jacob.

Then two.

By the third day that Jacob had missed school, the duo became worried. Gathering up the work Jacob had missed over the last three days, they decided that it was best that they stopped by his house to make sure that everything was okay. Quil, however, did not think that Jacob would tell everything with him there and decided to let Maddison check up on the boy by himself.

That is how Maddison found herself trudging through the muddy dirt road, arms weighed down by pointless work, as she headed to the Black household. Every step of her once white converse caused mud to splash up onto the rolled cuffs of her jeans, and a slight curse to escape her lips. Maddison was agitated, as she had been quite often, but the weather was not helping.

"Damn, Jacob better dying or I just ruined these shoes."

Maddison cursed and let out a frustrated groan as a particularly large chunk of mud was kicked up from her shoes onto the bottom of the stack of papers that she was carrying.

Readjusting the papers in her grip, she set her sights on the Black's wooden porch that was quickly approaching. It was obvious that someone was home, due to the lights' yellow glow that brightened the darkened area due to the gloomy overcast weather, but also because of yelling that could be heard as she continued to approach. She recognized the voice of her uncle, as well as Jacob, when they yelled, but there was a cacophony of other voices that responded all at once that she could not distinguish.

Not wanting to interrupt some type of argument, Maddison made her presence known by intentionally causing her footfalls to be heavy thuds on the wooden platform. The voices inside dwindled to nothingness, now aware of her presence, so Maddison took that as a sign that she was safe to knock.

Her heavy rasps echoed through the air, and a heavy silence followed.

She was not completely naïve, she knew that there were people at the Black household, and an abundance of them, so when no one came to answer the door or respond she found herself growing more irritated. She waited a few more moments, just to see if someone was going to acknowledge her. However, when there was no sound she felt all the irritation from the day and Jake ignoring her that she exploded.

"JAKE, I KNOW YOU'RE THERE I COULD HEAR YOU YELLING OUTSIDE. ANSWER THE DAMN DOOR BECAUSE I'M WET, AND TIRED, AND PISSED AS HELL!"

Her yell was accompanied by her fist beating on the door to emphasize every word.

On the other side of the door, Paul was looking around the room with wide eyes. Sam, Jared, Embry, Jacob, and Billy were all trying to be quiet, hoping the girl would go away. Paul could feel his heart beating in his chest, the sound so loud he swore that he would give them all away. Harry looked back at the men before releasing a tired sigh and looking straight at Paul. Paul knew, without words, that Harry wanted him to open the door and let the girl into their world so that moments like this would stop happening, and he was silently asking for permission to do that at the moment. However, the panicked look on Paul's face was answer enough, as Billy rolled over to the door and opened it only a sliver.