Chapter 40

B: "Because Isaac, it is you. Your anger would have gotten the best of you like it always does with me." She said coldly. "Yes, I do. I believe it with all my heart." She said as she looked him in the eyes. She believed what she was saying. She truly did. She felt it in her heart.

"Isaac, one thing you should know about me. I don't trust people fully. Only Seth and Blane. They are the only two who I trust with my life. I can't with anyone else. I have been hurt to many times. Even more two years ago. You know I almost died because of a team I was on?" She said looking at her hands. "We were attacking a pack of werewolves and my team told me that the house was empty, so I went in to find the missing little girl. There was a werewolf and he attacked me. Just like they did my parents." She said with her eyes closed. "I was so bad they had to air lift me to the institute we were close to. I was there for four months." She said looking back at him. "So, in a long story short, no I cannot trust you more than I do." She sighed.

"No Isaac, she is not the one doing this to us. Sure, she put us in this hole, but she is not the one that causes all the problems between us. It is US. Face it Isaac, we are not good for each other. You won't get help. you pushed me to leave everyone and get help which almost cost me my life several times, yes SEVERAL." She said looking at him.

When he kissed her and pushed her to the ground, she did not kiss back at first but then she did. She kissed him softly. Not like his hungry needing kiss. When he started to message her thighs, she pushed him off her. "Isaac, I cannot. No. Will not let myself say I love you. I have lost faith in you. Yes, she kissed you. Yes, it meant nothing. But you still kissed her and did not tell me about it. She did. She told me about it. Sure, she twisted everything to go badly but in truth Isaac she did not really twist it all that much. She just made it raw." She said coolly. "Now get sleep. We will start moving again once you wake up. I want to get the hell out of here. This stupid place is going to be hard to get out of, but I may be able to think of a rune to make a map of this damned place." She said and moved away from him.

I: Isaac stood and grabbed his head in frustration. "Go to sleep!? Seriously Jess? How can I possibly go to sleep!" Isaac held onto the wall and felt as if he would punch a hole through it if he was strong enough to punch solid rock. "You never get it. You just never, ever get it. You cannot live your entire life saying that the only people you can trust is your brother and your uncle! I have earned the right to be trusted yet you always consider me as lower or inferior to your brother and uncle simply because you get angry with me. Have they never made a mistake? Of course, they have! You wanted to be my wife, yet you never considered me trustworthy? How could you stand there and say something so cruel to me without any remorse!"

Isaac sighed hard and rubbed his temples. "I never told you to get help in Paris. YOU went to Paris all by yourself. All on your own. Remember? Or should I refresh your memory. You came to me telling me what Alexander and you had decided. You never gave me the option to stop you! You left for four years even when I chased you and tried to bring you back! You never called, you never wrote a letter. You did not care about me Jess, and you have the audacity to trick yourself into believing that I MADE you leave? Are you kidding!? I wanted you to get help from me! From someone who loves you just as deeply as your brother and uncle! Think about your Mom and Dad. Did your Mom not trust her husband? Did your Dad not trust his wife? Why would they have you and your brother out of love and raise you to be hunters if they did not care about you or care about each other? Were they throwing into each other's face that all they had was their own family? No! Your parents stuck together! They stood by each other. They died together."

Isaac put his back to the wall and slid down to the floor to sit. "You are so full of yourself, so selfish, that you don't even see love when it is right in front of your own face Jess. The only reason we are not right for each other, is because you keep saying it rather than spend that same energy on making it work. You always run. Run to Paris. Run to your family. Run to Alex. You never, not once have you ever ran to me, Jess. You do not trust me because you do not give me the chance to prove that I can protect you. That I can love you. That I would give my life for you just as quickly as Blane and Seth. Every time we come together, every time we are happy, you find a way to ruin it as if you Don't want to be happy! You don't want to stop these dramatic fights between us, you want them to continue! She kissed me, and I told you I felt nothing. I didn't waste four years of my life being a depressed hermit because of her. I did not give up hunting and left the Institute, my friends, my family, my life behind because of a vampire. I did everything, all of it for you. I have to constantly, constantly prove my love for you and you just throw it back in my face!"

Isaac wiped a stray tear from his eyes roughly in anger. "We will get out of here. When we do, I want you to think about your future. Think about your life. You were attacked by a werewolf, left in a hospital for four months Jess. Four months." Isaac shook his head slowly as his emotions began to pull the anger out of him. "And you never told me. You never came to me for help. You never let me see you Jess. I would never have left your bedside. Hearing this now, that you went through it without me...I feel as if you are incapable of loving anyone other than yourself Jess. One day you will look up, and Seth will be in love. Married, and with someone else. Blane too. He will devote himself to hunting, to a woman, to something. It always happens. You will be alone. Not because of me and my anger issues. But because you are too afraid to let someone love you. You are even more afraid, of being happy. Because you know somehow that happiness will end. So, you end the happiness yourself before it can damage you too deeply. It may be a great method for you Jess. But it is a terrible method for me. If what you say is true, that after all these years, and everything we have been together, that the only people you can trust is Seth and Blane...then yes, we have nowhere to go from here. Once we get out, I will go my way, and you can go your own."

As Isaac went silent, there was suddenly a rumbling in the cave, and the sound of voices in the darkness.

"Isaac! Jess! Can you hear us?" Someone was calling to them, runes ahead in the dark that dimly lit the cave. Isaac covered his eyes to see better, and he began to wave his arms. "There they are! Tell Alex we found them!" The hunters ran inside of the long cave and began to help Isaac and Jess back to the Institute.

B: "YOU KISSED SOMEONE ELSE! I trust them because they have NEVER given me a reason not to. They did not force me to get 'help'. They accepted me as I was. You are the one who pushed me away." She yelled. "I did consider you trustworthy. I wanted to marry you. I wanted to start a life with you, but I was SCARED! Scared that once I gave you myself fully you would get hurt or die. Okay is that what you wanted to hear?" she said crying. "Damn it, Isaac. I fucking love you but I am terrified that I will lose you. Yes, my brother and Blane have screwed up, but they accepted me for all my faults. You did not. You pushed me away because I have problems." She said moving away from him.

She stood there crying. Her body was shaking but she did not care. "I went to Paris because there is a hunter there who has helped hundreds of people like me! I went there because he said he would help me. He did. He helped me through so much. He showed me why we do what we do. He showed me what the world would be like without us. He should me new runes and new ways to handle stuff. YOU DID! YOU SAID I NEEDED HELP! SO, I FOUND IT IN SOMEONE ELSE! YOU NEVER WOULD HAVE HELPED ME! DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE TALK ABOUT MY PARENTS YOU DID NOT KNOW THEM!" She walked over to him and slapped him. "NEVER TALK ABOUT MY PARENTS LIKE YOU KNEW THEM! YOU DIDN'T!" She screamed.

"You know what Isaac, I'm done with us. After this is over our partnership is to. Our relationship ended long before it began." She said. "Your right, I don't want to be happy. I don't deserve it. I never have and never will. So, STOP trying to force it." she looked at him as he talked about her life. "I know what happened in my life. You only know bits. Don't act like you know every god damned thing about me. Seth has a girlfriend, they are in love. Blane is married to the Institute. I can handle being alone. I was perfectly fine living in the mundane world ALONE!" She cried.

As the hunters took them back, she would not look or even talk to Isaac. She was done with his constant bagging on her. All he had ever done was push her down. Alex meet them at the front with Seth and Blane. She ran to them and hugged them. They wanted to be with her, but she had said she wanted to be alone. She walked to her room and sat on the bed. Maybe it's time to return to Paris, for good. She had made friends. She had been content there. Seth and Blane would do fine without her. Maybe she had found the place she belonged.

I: Why should he even bother to stop her from hitting him? The slap came so quickly from her anger that Isaac felt it pain his face but far more it pained his soul. He stood there, slightly still save for the shiver of anger in his body and the firm rigidity of his frustrated jawline. "Fine." Was all he could say. She found a way this time to avoid it, she found a way this time to ignore the parts of herself that were selfish and self-centered. Isaac had done so too, telling her that she needed help and not explaining to her that he wanted to be the man to help her. How could he fix this now? What could he say to her that would take the pain from her that he kissed a woman who had forced it on him despite his on desires not to be touched by a vampiress? He wanted to tell her that he loved her. He wanted to tell her that he was sorry, that he needed her, that he wanted their relationship to work.

So many times, had they fought one another, battled one another, stressed and butted heads. But now, she told him it truly was over because he expressed to her that her parents loved one another in a way that he wanted to love her, and in a way, he wanted her to love him. How could she believe he was speaking falsely about her parents? He was only expressing his hearts true desire to have a love such as her parents had. Should he tell her that he knew her parents? That he knew of them before they were murdered? No. It would not change anything.

Isaac went along with the rescue team that came for them. After being in that cave for so long, he was starving, bloody and dirty, and in a desperate need of a shower. After he took care of himself and was back in his room at the Institute, he decided that he would no longer do field work. Being a veteran in the community of hunters was a great accomplishment, and he needed to pass a series of tests before he was given the higher rank.

The next few days he focused on it, and when given the test he passed it in record time. The accomplishment he made, he carried with him. Though nothing could fill the part of his heart that was empty because of Jess not being in it. When he heard the rumors that Jess may possibly leave again, that she just might go back to Paris forever, Isaac decided he had to tell her goodbye. It was only the right thing to do.

"Jess?" Isaac knocked softly on her door, and he waited for her to answer. "I heard...that you were leaving. I'm...happy for you." He tried to get the words out. "I made captain, it was a hard bar to raise but I managed. Not that its relevant to you but ha-ha." He chuckled but the laugh died away. His voice lowered as he spoke through her bedroom door. "Jess? Please answer. I just, want to say goodbye. And that, I'm sorry. You were right." He sighed deeply and turned around, putting his back to the door. "I pushed you away. I should have helped you, not fought you. I should have been there when you needed me. I could only see the wrong in you, and never acknowledge the wrong in myself. I know none of this means anything, and none of it may be even remotely helpful, but...I do love you Jess. I am so sorry that I hurt you. Paris is perfect for you, I just wish it wasn't so far away."