Just a heads up, I will be changing a few things every now and then. Set in Linger, after Cole shows up and Grace and Isabel are friends.

Prologue:

James:

Pain. That was all I felt nowadays. I was only 12, but already I felt like life hated me more than anybody else. My parents were both dead. They'd died when I was really young, and I'd been handed over to my godparents, who both hated each other and fought. It amazed me how I'd managed to stay in the same household my whole life. My grandmother died of cancer about five months ago. My best friend in the whole world who was suicidal killed himself two weeks ago and left me alone in this whole damn world. Nobody honestly cared about me. My godparents were to busy fighting and bickering to care. I was always alone. Always. I had no friends that were alive anymore.

So I found myself sitting on a low branch in a tree early one late spring day. It was warmer than normal, but not warm enough to where I didn't have to wear jeans and a hoodie to feel comfortable. I had a pair of royal blue Skullcandy headphones on over my head, blaring Simple Plan in to my brain. I hadn't bothered to brush my raven black hair away from my ears, so the headphones sat over both my ears and hair. My brilliant crystal blue eyes where staring at the screen of my IPod, wondering just what song to listen to next.

Then, something caught my attention from the nearby woods. I blinked and looked up, to find nothing moving. I narrowed my eyes and pressed pause on my IPod, so I could now hear what was going on. My eyes scanned across the forest that neighbored my backyard, but I saw nothing. I blinked and looked down at my IPod again, about to press play before I saw the movement out of the corner of my eye again. My head shot up, and I growled in annoyance as nothing happened, as if I were imagining things.

I dropped down from the branch, the crystalline snow crunching under my weight as I suddenly landed on top of it. I put my IPod in my pocket and took off my headphones, hanging them in the branch before approaching the forest line. Nothing happened until I was less than a yard away. Suddenly a low growl rumbled from behind a bush, and I only looked through because said bush was right in front of me. I spotted two bright, yellow eyes looking back at me, before suddenly the thing lunged at me.

Somehow, I'd managed to fall back in to the snow and avoid its initial attack. As the animal landed in the sunlight, I found it to be a wolf. It was about normal size I guess, with a stormy gray coat and bright yellow eyes. I gulped as its snout was less than a foot from my face, its eyes calm. My heart was pounding in my ears and my breath came in short gasps. I looked up, and our eyes locked before I heard more growling. A black wolf then came padding out of the forest, hackles risen and baring its teeth at me. The wolf in front of me growled again, and I looked back at the gray wolf, right before it lunged at me again. I brought my arm up in front of my face, and felt the heat of pain as the wolf's teeth snapped down over my arm.

Nobody was home yet besides me. I'd just gotten home from school, second week of seventh grade. The black wolf barked and lunged at me after the gray wolf dragged me back a bit, so that I was on my stomach. The black wolf bit down on my left thigh, and I heard the snarling and growling of more wolves as the black and gray wolves dragged me in to the forest. I was screaming, but nobody was close enough to hear. I stopped screaming after another wolf bit down on my side, knowing I was going to die, so why bother screaming? Maybe it was best that I died, I didn't have anything to live for anyway.

I then heard a loud, angry shout come from somewhere off to my left. The wolves released me, and I heard their receding paw steps as they ran. I opened my eyes and glanced over, to find a man running towards me. I couldn't make any details out, other than that it was a man... my vision had gone blurry as hell from loss of blood. The man bent down over me, and touched my shoulder. His palm was HOT. Hotter than normal anyway.

I was then painfully aware of the cold. My stomach twisted in pain, and I groaned and curled in to a ball. What was happening? Did those wolves give me some fast acting disease or something? Suddenly, my skin felt like it was being pulled off of me, and my spine was being transformed. I had no clue what was going on, other than that I was in a huge amount of pain. I was screaming again. I groaned before it slowly stopped.

I blinked my eyes open, and found that my vision wasn't so blurry anymore. I stood up, but it was a lot easier to stand up than before. And quicker. I blinked in confusion, before realizing I was WAY shorter than before. But then, that didn't seem so important anymore. I heard a twig snap from somewhere behind me, and found the wolves again. However, I no longer feared them. I looked at the man again, before turning and running off after the wolves, all of them leaving except the yellow-eyed one who'd attacked me. I stopped by him, and looked back to find him staring at the man, who stared back at him. I nudged him lightly with my shoulder, before both of us turned and left.

That had been the night I'd been changed. My guardians came home and found the blood, and followed the smeared trail. They called the cops, who called the paramedics and said that I'd lost way to much blood to be alive. That, wherever I was, I was dead. They pronounced me dead that day, announcing it on the news and in newspapers. Nobody cared, and nobody looked for me.

So that's how I came to live with the pack. Beck, Ulrik, Paul, Shelby, and Sam... I'd hated Sam since I saw his yellow eyes as a human, knowing he was the one who changed me. Beck told me repeatedly that as wolves we didn't have control over ourselves, but I still resented Sam. After about a year, my shifting slowly became normal, like the other guys' shifting cycles.

And apparently as a wolf, I was a troublemaker. I ran around in the middle of the day in big shopping places, in school parking lots before and after school when a bunch of kids where around, and somehow I'd managed to live. The wolves were protected, so people weren't allowed to shoot at the wolves unless they attacked them first. This explained why I was alive. However, the cops and authorities apparently saw that I was too comfortable around humans, that eventually I'd attack one if they didn't give me food.

So one night, I was a wolf in early fall. I'd been stupid enough to stay out in a T-shirt and shorts with the slightest chill in the air, and so I'd been the first to shift out of all of us. I was walking down a neighborhood sidewalk, when I heard heavy footfalls. I'd turned and looked, finding a man with a large rod in his hand. Something was at the end, and I didn't know what was going on so I darted across the street, towards other houses, too young to remember to retreat towards the forest. I darted down the sidewalk, the man still chasing me, before another man with another rod leaped out from behind a tree.

I yelped in surprise and went to turn, but tripped and fell on to my side. The man behind me was catching up, and as I leaped to my paws the man from behind the tree shoved the rod at me. The thing at the end turned out to be a loop of some sort of wire or something. It wrapped around my neck, and kept me away from the man, but I likewise couldn't run. The man then started trying to drag me further up the street. I didn't see the car or anything, but my wolf senses told me to fight back.

I snarled and yanked back, trying to get away, but the other man caught up and grabbed the pole the other man had, both now pulling on it. I growled and fought back, but slowly they were pulling me up the road. That's when I saw the car, and some remote part of me knew it was bad news if they put me in there like they wanted to. I fought back even more now, but one of the men let go of the pole when they reached the back of the car.

They opened up the back, and the man went around behind me to lift me in the car. He grabbed underneath my stomach, and lifted me up. I kicked back, kicking him in the chest and forcing him to drop me. The man grunted, before they both began working on putting me in the car. It was awkward positions to grab and hold me in, but they were working on it. I was growling and writhing, trying desperately to get away. Somehow, they were holding me in the air and I was on my back, and I saw something on the edge of the woods. A man.

Recognition from some long ago life washed over me. Beck. I barked and howled in desperation, hoping beyond hope that he'd help me. If it were Same or Paul he would have in a heartbeat. However now, he just stared at me. Then, tearing my heart in two he turned and walked back in to the forest. My fighting back stopped then and there, and the men heaved me in to the truck, and let go of the rod before shutting the doors.

I was in instantaneous darkness. That was the night that I began to hate Beck. I've hated him ever since. They began transporting me away from Mercy Falls, I didn't know where I was going. The back of the car was metal, so the cold from outside was sucked in to the metal I laid on, keeping me a wolf.

When they finally released me, we were in some remote wilderness. I knew we were nowhere near human life, so I was alone. There were wolves in these parts, but I was forced to hunt and work alone. They didn't accept me in to their pack. I was alone. Every time it was warm enough for me to shift back in to a human, I wandered around, desperately hoping to find somewhere to stay warm. A store for clothes. Anywhere really. But I never found anything except for more forest.

So it was like this that I lived for two years. Staying human not even for a full day before I would change back in to a wolf. I didn't wear away my set amount of times to be able to shift back in to a human. I was a wolf for so long that if I ever did turn back in to a human I wasn't sure how long it would take for me to become able to remember how to be a human.

Blaaaah, crappy prologue, but oh well! Next chapter to be up hopefully soon!