These are Stephenie Meyer's original characters. They are just acting out my plot. No copyright infringement intended.

This portion of the story takes place after Bella convinces Jacob to give Nessie's unique, short childhood to her and Edward. Agreeing was a side effect of imprinting. Jacob would do whatever was best for Nessie, even if it meant staying behind.

Chapter 1

Left Behind

When they left to wherever it was they were going, Jacob never imagined how difficult it was really going to be to get along without Nessie in his life.

He might have even been dying a slow death for all he knew, because nobody knew for sure what would happen if a wolf was separated from their imprint. He couldn't eat, he couldn't sleep, and he couldn't figure out how he was supposed to survive without being able to be around her anymore.

Magnifying his problem, he realized he'd become addicted to all the dangers he'd faced over the past year, but now he found himself totally bored, and whenever he wanted to do something, Quil said he was too busy, and Embry was always grounded.

Even Billy had plans that didn't include his own son.

Serves me right, he thought, as he headed to Charlie's place to check on him, visit, and see if he could possibly get a phone number out of him to call Nessie and Bella. He didn't get one before hand and didn't even ask them where they were going, because he honestly wanted to give them their space and their time with Nessie.

She was growing so fast, and he knew she deserved to spend those few childhood years, bonding with her mom and dad, without him hovering over her and interfering.

But not at the expense of his sanity, so now, being forced to face the facts, he changed his mind. He wasn't doing well, by any means, and Bella and Edward were just going to have to understand that.

His heart sank when he got to Charlie's place to find that he wasn't home, but he told himself something he'd been telling himself practically every day now, which was to hang in there until tomorrow.

As he walked passed Charlie's house, working to convince himself everything was going to be alright, the twanging sound of a box guitar caught his attention, coming from somewhere around there.

Perking his ears, the music registered loud and clear and wasn't half bad for country music, or so he'd thought. Listening close, he made out a girl's voice, singing along with the strumming guitar, and it actually sounded kind of nice.

Jacob paid attention to her while she plucked away, singing a song he didn't know.

It took a moment to realize, he was trailing in the direction of the sound with hopes of getting to see the voice. As he turned the corner of Charlie's block, a gust of wind blew a blend of vanilla and lavender up his nose.

A couple of houses down the street, he spotted its source.

The girl handling the guitar was sitting on the porch of a split-level house, but before he could get any closer to her, a gruff voice shouted, "Raven, get in here … now!"

An image of the owner's voice as being a middle aged, overweight guy with tattoos on his fat covered muscles popped into his mind.

"Ugh, why can't he ever just leave me alone?" Jacob heard her gripe. She stood up and entered the house, taking the nice aroma with her, answering, "Yeah, Dad?"

When he passed, he couldn't help but stare. On the lower floor of the split-level home, he could see inside a bedroom. A dark haired girl was standing by the window, and though it was evening, he had a clear view of her.

Due to the tanned tone of her skin, he thought she was Native American but wasn't quite sure, because she could have been Mexican, or maybe not. She looked really sad, though, and he wondered who she was. He'd never seen her around Forks before; not that he knew everyone in Forks, but he was good with faces.

She seemed to be gazing at him, so he waved, but she just shut the window and closed the curtains.

Probably thought I was some kind of peeping Tom.

Then the door to the house flung open and the girl's dad stomped out looking almost exactly the way Jacob pictured him, only with dirty blond hair.

Jacob decided the girl was neither Native nor Mexican.

Catching Jacob staring, the man glared at him as if he was up to no good, so Jacob turned away. Only, he couldn't turn away from the gross sent wafting toward him from the guy. He got vibe that the man was a terrible person with a scent that matched.

Going back to Charlie's the next day, he was exited to see Charlie home, but that feeling died when Charlie said, "Bells hasn't called yet, but it's only been a few weeks, Jacob, and I know they're halfway around the world somewhere. When she does, I'll be sure to let you know."

He figured Edward probably told him not to give him the number, and feeling bitter, wondered if Nessie and Bella would be terribly angry with him if he gave Edward a good-sized crack in the nose because of it.

Overcome with a urge to smash something with his fist or morph, and destroy anything he could rip apart with his teeth, he forced himself to take a calming breath, because allowing himself to go berserk and sprint through the woods like a rabid wolf never helped him before, and he had no reason to believe it would help him this time.

He needed to see Nessie; she was his only sanity.

Rounding the corner, someone smacked into him, ricocheting off. His arms shot out, and he caught her before she hit the ground. "I'm sorry," he said.

"No. It was my fault," the girl muttered. "I wasn't paying attention to where I was running."

She lifted her head, casting her eyes away from him. Jacob noticed a bruise just below her eye, and it appeared that she had been crying. "Are you okay?"

The girl saw him gawking at her bruise and pulled away. "Yes, I'm fine, don't worry about it," she said, and she took off down the street.

Jacob knew that the bruised girl was the same girl that he'd heard playing guitar and singing, and he heard the same rough voice from the other night, bellowing, "If she thinks she can disobey me and get away with it, she's got another thing coming to her!"

A female voice responded. "She just wanted to go running, Mike. I know what Raven did was wrong, but she's already been hit, I mean, punished for that. She never goes anywhere else. And what's wrong with running?"

"That's not the point, Abby. Raven disobeyed, and she should be grounded. She's probably got a boyfriend somewhere around here. I bet that's where she's always running off to!" the man grumbled.

Jacob's temperature rose. "Jeez," he mumbled, feeling a fair amount of aggression toward the dirt bag. He hated bullies.

Crossing the street, he was about to enter the woods when he whiffed the sickly sweet smell that burned his nostrils, turned his stomach, and made him want to kill. A smell that he could ever only tolerate when Nessie was nearby.

All the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and a wave of adrenaline shot through him, making him feel as if he'd awaken from a dormant state, like he was suddenly alive when he'd never even known he'd been dead.

Exploding, he was on a sprint, attempting to follow the sickening odor, leaping over boulders, and crashing through trees, but the stench vanished so quick, Jacob wasn't sure he'd even whiffed it at all.

Confused and disappointed, he slowed to a trot and headed back to La Push.

A couple of mores days dragged on, and Jacob was about to lose his mind.

Every day seemed harder to get through, harder to focus, no matter how much he tried to convince himself he was strong enough handle life without Nessi for a little while. Five years ... ten years ...twenty years, was nothing compared to forever, but he honestly didn't know how much longer he could last before his mind cracked apart.

Topping everything off, his car broke down, so he was going to have to go to Hoquiam to find parts. Frustrated, he decided to skip school in an act of rebellion.

When he drove out of La Push on his motorcycle, he thought about stopping by Sam's to let the guys know what he thought he whiffed, but decided not to jump the gun just yet, concluding that maybe it was only wishful thinking, since he was bored beyond belief and lonely to the point of craziness.

The drive to Hoquiam wasn't all that bad. The weather was pretty decent, and he lucked out getting the car parts at a fairly cheap price so, all in all, the day was turning out to be better than he'd expected.

On his way back through Forks, he passed by the high school just for the hell of it. He sometimes got a kick out of the intimidated and dubious glares he got from some of students around there. And a small part of him was hoping that maybe, another vampire had infiltrated the school and was there to make trouble.

No such luck!

Though, he was happy to spot the guitar-playing girl, strolling home from school. It was his chance to get a better look at the voice.

He sped up on his motorcycle until he was right behind her, stopped the bike, and climbed off to walk, wheeling his bike along. "Hi," he said.

"Hello," the girl replied, turning away from him, looking uneasy about talking to him.

"My name is Jacob, Jacob Black," he offered in a straightforward way. He'd never been too shy to meet someone new.

"Name ... " then she cleared her throat and glanced down in obvious, blushing discomfort, "Raven Myles."

"Aren't you the girl with the guitar?"

"Aren't you the guy that pushed me down?" she returned, using a very serious tone and a look that matched.

"Oh. Yeah, sorry about that," Jacob said flustered, having been caught off guard.

Still looking down but only partially, Raven laughed. "Just teasing. I know it was all my fault."

She had a sense of humor. Jacob grinned. "Are you new here?" He was trying to ignore the red-yellow bruise below her eye.

He suspected that the bruise was the reason for her unwillingness to look directly at him.

"Uh huh, about six months," Raven replied.

"Really, where from?"

"Texas. San Antonio, Texas"

Pushing the conversation forward, he asked. " So ... you go to Forks High School. What grade are you in?"

"The eleventh, and you?" She almost had her head all the way up, but she was still trying to hide her bruise with her hair.

"Me too, missed way too much school last year. Anyway, I go to school in La Push," Jacob explained, and curious, he asked, "Are you Native American? I can't tell."

Raven giggled, lifting her head and gazing up. She fingered a lock of her hair, tucking it behind her ear. "Actually, I'm part Native, part Mexican, and part White. My mom is Mexican and White and my father was Native." She smiled, finally allowing him to make eye contact with her.

His eyes popped wide open at her cuteness.

He noticed her eyes were really dark, liquid black, even darker than his own. They were large almond shaped with a trace of narrowness to them. She had long, thick hair, the same nearly black color as her eyes. Her skin was fair with a sun-kissed glow, which caused the difficulty he'd had in determining her ethnicity. She was also very petite, maybe just a little smaller than Bella. She was curvaceous, not as thin as Bella but slight just the same.

Jacob wondered if he looked like a giant walking beside her. They were almost behind Raven's house when Jacob heard the voice he was already sickened of, roaring, "Raven!"

Raven jumped, saying, "I have to go."

Hopping back on his bike, Jacob heard the man swearing at Raven, something about friends, and who the hell was that guy?

He tensed, getting more heated by the second, fighting the trembling triggered by just the sound of the jerk. Pushing himself to hurry up and get away just so that he didn't have to listen anymore, he started up his bike and sped off.

That night, Jacob dwelled on Raven a lot more than he thought he should have. He remembered a conversation that he'd once had with Quil, in which Quil told him he didn't see girls anymore. He thought about how he must have misunderstood the entire discussion. Seeing as his perception of Raven was clear. In fact, he was stunned by how attractive she was when she lifted her chin up and freed her eyes of her hair.

Raven ran into her house answering her dad. Actually, he was her stepdad. But since he married Raven's mother way before Raven could ever remember, Mike was the only dad she'd ever known.

Her biological father, Reed, had passed away before she was a year old. Her older brother, River, was nine at the time. This left her young mom in a vulnerable position. Well, at least that's what Raven told herself to explain why Abby even married the terrible guy.

Raven did some homework then she tried to watch some television. Mike told her to go read a book. That's just the way Mike was, and he had been that way ever since she was a little girl. If she asked for water, he would make her drink milk. If she wanted milk, he would make her drink water. If she asked to play, he would make her take a nap. If she wanted to nap, he made her do chores.

She knew that Mike's behavior was a cruel power trip that he freakishly enjoyed and couldn't wait for the day when she would at last be free of him.

"Who was that man you were talking to?" her mother asked when Mike was out of hearing range.

"Just some guy from the La Push Reservation," Raven replied. "It was the first time he'd seen me here, so I guess he was curious."

"You're lucky your father didn't flip out. You know how he gets."

Raven rolled her eyes, stomping down the stairs to her bedroom. She had just turned seventeen, yet Mike refused to let her have any boyfriends or friends that were boys. Abby said it was to be protective, but Raven knew Mike was just a controlling asshole, and she had guy friends, regardless. As long as she kept them away from her home, it wasn't a problem.

She recalled how a boy once called her house.

Mike picked up the other line cussing, telling him not to ever call the house again, along with some choice names. Word must have gotten around school because no boys called Raven again, and she never gave out her phone number either. That was just as well, because Raven didn't want to give Mike any excuse to hit her.

Mike had been hitting her and her brother for as long as she could remember, not all the time, but enough times for her to know to fear him. Abby and Mike both came from families that believed in good old-fashioned spanking. But in Raven's opinion, Mike took it to the extreme when he lost his temper.

Just like the other night, Mike had given Raven permission to stay overnight with her friend Kristy. Raven was told to go straight to Kristy's and nowhere else. She didn't tell him that she and Kristy had already planned on going to a movie because she knew he wouldn't allow her to go. Raven was unaware that one of Mike's co-workers was somewhere in the theater that night. Kristy's brother and a few of his friends showed up and sat with her and Kristy. The entire time, Raven couldn't even enjoy herself, because she was so afraid that Mike was going to find out that she didn't listen to him, perhaps call Kristy's house and find out she wasn't there.

The next day when Mike returned home from work, he sneered, "Clarissa wanted to know if you enjoyed the movie this weekend."

Raven knew she was busted.

Mike was so upset he smacked her in the face, which left an ugly bruise below Raven's eye. Abby comforted Raven as usual, but added that Raven should have known better. Raven loved her mom, and in spite of Mike, Raven and Abby were actually very close. Raven never understood what Abby saw in the guy because she was such a loving person.

Abby later explained that Mike was in a bad mood because he had just been notified that his work hours were going to be cut. Raven was furious that Abby was always making up some excuse for Mike's behavior.

"I guess I'll pick up more home healthcare patients, maybe out at La Push," Abby was thinking out loud. She was just a part-time certified Home Healthcare Nurse, but Abby loved it. She'd always said she wanted to be a Registered Nurse and a Certified Healthcare Nurse was the next best thing.

Staring out into the woods, like she did each night before going to bed, she thought about the guy with the motorcycle. He seemed really nice and friendly with the way he made a point of introducing himself to her, which was awesome of him. Too bad she had a bruise though. She never covered them up because it always made her feel like she was only doing it to protect Mike.

He had pretty eyes and a beautiful smile, was built nice and was very good looking, one of those guys that she definitely wouldn't mind seeing again sometime.

Sensing probing eyes on her, Raven's mind drifted back to earth, and there was a man sitting in a parked car across the street from her house, staring at her.

Was he watching me all this time?

The thought gave her the willies, she jerked herself away from the window, took a quick breath, and yanked the curtains closed.