The lone wolf stood up and stretched before shaking the morning dew from his coat. He sniffed the air for a moment before doing a complete one eighty and racing back towards the house in the distance.
Leah?
What Seth?
Oh I was just wondering where you were because I couldn't hear you.
I wasn't thinking anything, that's why.
Why weren't you thinking anything?
Because I don't need you reading my thoughts.
Oh.
A letter came while you were sleeping.
Why didn't you wake me? Seth was now pacing the ground in front of the Cullen's house while he waited for his sister to respond. He hadn't been asleep for that long. Just a few hours of rest before he started patrolling again, not that there was anything left to guard. Or even any threat for that matter.
Since when am I your alarm clock. I knew you'd wake up in good time. Now go inside and leave me alone.
Whatever Leah. Seth was irritated with his sister as usual and ducked behind some trees as he phased back into human form. As he quickly dressed, he had a pile of clothes waiting for him under the tree, he stretched and sighed. Lately he'd taken a liking to his human form. There were no whispers in his head which he and Lead assumed were coming from Jacob.
He jogged up the front steps and walked into the house. The smell he'd gotten use too as well as the eerie silence. The once busy Cullen house now only had three occupants. Sometimes there were only two, but Jasper had returned.
No one ever knew if Jasper was going to stay or go, but whenever he was in the house he was locked in Alice's room and when he was gone he was gone weeks on end without word. It was tearing Esme and Carlisle apart. Esme and Carlisle were the only two who continued to stay in the house waiting for everyone, someone, to return.
Seth walked up the stairs to the first floor. Emmett and Rosalie had only left two months ago for Sweden and Seth knew that they wrote occasionally. They finally decided to move out though. They didn't want to, but the depressing setting and Jasper were just too much for them to handle.
No one knew anything about Alice's whereabouts. Seth and Leah knew he searched for her, but it was pointless. He always came back empty handed.
And then there was Edward and Bella. He had dragged her far away as she fed on humans. They were somewhere in South America and he vowed to stay by her side until she came to her sense. She was on 317 people in about nine months. Edward sent us various postcards with the new count on it. He assumed that that was the letter that came.
"Esme?" he asked as he approached the statuesque figure sitting at the enormous oak dining room table. She didn't move. She rarely did anymore. He almost always found her sitting at the table. Sometimes with wedding pictures from Edward and Bella's wedding that almost seemed like a lifetime ago. Other times she had two pictures in front of her, pictures of Rensemee. That was the only proof that she'd been alive. That she had existed.
Seth shuddered at the memory of the day that the Volturi arrived. He pushed the memory away and walked towards Esme.
"Esme?" he asked again. He saw the white backing of a postcard in her hand. All that was on it was an address and a number: 339. The last postcard had arrived three days ago. That was twenty-two people in three days. Seth felt his stomach twist in disgust at the thought of the dark side of vampires. "Esme?" he asked again but still got no response. He sighed and sat down across from her. "It will be okay. Jacob and Rensemee will be back soon and Bella and Edward will return soon." He paused but she didn't move or speak. "And Alice will come back and when she does Emmett and Rosalie will too." He tried to sound cheerful when he talked to her, but after having this conversation with her for three months it was getting tiring and boring fast. Seth waited for her to say something. He waited for twenty whole minutes, but then he couldn't take it anymore. He started to get restless. "I'll be back later," he said quietly and excused himself from the table.
Once outside, Seth tried to shake the depressed feeling, but it hung over the house like a wet blanket. He and Leah would leave, but Jacob was counting on them to watch the house. Also, Seth didn't know if Esme could bare to see anyone else leave.
"Stop!" Leah barked at Seth once he was down the steps.
"What?" he asked. It was rare to see his sister this close to the house.
"I smelled vampire back there so I came to warn you. It smelled like Jasper though."
"Why'd you change forms?"
"Because I couldn't tell you this if you were in human form and I doubted you'd change back, since you rarely do anymore, so I decided to come like this. Is that okay with you?" she snapped.
"Whatever Leah," he grunted "What direction?"
"South like usual. He'll be here soon," she said, turning back to the trees.
"Where are you going?"
"To run patrols. Just because it's Jasper doesn't mean we should take any risks," she said as she disappeared. Seth knew she was right, but he had no desire to listen to the whispers in his head.