Prologue: The Little Cabin

Standing at the edge of the woods she stared at the little, brown cabin. She could feel the small amount of energy she had left draining quickly and she knew she needed help, and fast. She started stumbling toward the cabin, hoping someone was home. She was ten feet away from the door when it burst open, light spilling onto the lawn and momentarily blinding her eyes that had become so accustomed to the darkness of the forest. A large figure stood there, the light outlining his frame as he took her in, every bloody and bruised inch of her.

Her clothes were muddy and bloody, not a single piece of the cloth hinting at the original color. Scratches littered her arms and her face had one large bruise on the left cheek. The cuts in her clothes were the only indicator that the injuries responsible for the blood were covered. She swayed and took a step forward, "Please, help me," she heard voices in the background laughing and a shout to the man in the door, asking who was there. "He's coming."

"Who's coming?" The man asked, "Emily!"

She swayed again, taking more steps until she was close enough to look up into his face, "H-help. He will find me. I just know-" She fell forward, his arms coming around her immediately as a short woman with dark hair appeared at his elbow.

"Who's that? What happened to her?" She asked, following him to the couch, concern washing over her for the strange girl.

"I don't know," He said while the woman fluttered around the cabin getting towels and medical supplies. The other two men in the cabin were silent as they watched the scene. "All she said was that she needed help and a man is coming for her. She looked terrified and she's covered in blood. She came from the forest."

"None of you smelled her during your patrols? How could you not?" The woman asked, wiping the blood from the girl.

"I don't know," He answered, almost to himself, "None of us smelled anything, so she must have ran into our patrol circle just today, you know it's the only day we've had off."

The woman nodded, her eyes widening as she uncovered various bruises and cuts. She couldn't understand how this girl could have survived in the woods with all the blood loss she must have gone through. The animals must have hounded her while the rain froze her, since her clothes were nothing more than tatters hanging loosely on her body. She didn't look like a victim of malnutrition so she had to have found something to eat, which was good or she would have probably died out there.

"How does she look, Emily? Does she need Sue?" The man asked, kneeling at her side.

"No, she lost some blood, which paired with exhaustion and a drop in adrenaline, made her pass out. She has cuts and bruises but she'll be fine. She just needs some food and water when she wakes up." Emily said, standing and going into the bedroom off the living room.

The phone rang loudly throughout the now silent cabin. One of the other men answered, "Hello?"

A pause followed by, "Damn, we have a situation here. Okay, give us one minute," He hung up and turned to the man by the couch, "Quil just phased, Sam. Billy said he's running around outside, wild. Jake's with him, trying to calm him down, but you know how pissed he is these days."

"Shit. Okay, Jared, you and me will go, Paul you stay here. I don't need you pissing him off. But phase if anyone shows up here, she did say a man was coming for her," Sam said, already halfway through the door. Paul rolled his eyes and plopped down in the chair next to the couch.

"Fine. I don't want to deal with the little brat," He heaved a long sigh. "I'll just eat your food."

He was ignored and they were gone a second later. Emily was back with clothes in her arms, "Help me get her in these clothes. I don't think she'll mind so much that you see her in her underwear, considering."

He nodded and helped sit the girl up, Emily slipping her shirt off and shock registering on his face when he saw all the bruises and cuts-completely ignoring the fact that she was bra-less. How was this girl still walking until twenty minutes ago? She had a deep gash trailing from the bottom of her right breast to her hip and a huge bruise along the ribs on the same side. She had several smaller, though still relatively deep, cuts on her left shoulder, and small but dark bruises covered her left side, as though fingers were pressed into her again and again.

"Hold her while I-oh, my God!" He quickly looked at the girls back and nausea plagued his stomach. Her back was full of whip marks, not over two weeks old. "I have to clean and sterilize this or she's going to get infected." She thanked the gods that the girl was pretty knocked out while she took another towel and antiseptic to her injuries.

"Is she gonna need stitches?" Paul asked, trying to hold her arms, the least injured part of her besides her face, firmly but softly. He had noticed she wasn't wearing a bra now and tried to keep his eyes off her by looking at the wall behind her.

"It doesn't look like it," Emily said, "Whoever did this made sure they weren't deep enough for her to bleed out while also making them as painful and deep as possible."

Emily finished and put the flannel on her, her cheeks turning red when she realized her charge wasn't wearing under garments. She glanced at Paul and smiled when she saw he was carefully avoiding looking at the girl. Maybe he wasn't a total loss. "Okay, you can look now. I'm quite proud of you for that."

"Emily, she's covered in cuts and bruises. I don't think now is the time for that," He said, laying her back on the couch. "Her complexion is darker than a pale face. Do you think she's mixed? We know she couldn't have been allowed to tan or whatever."

"Maybe," Emily said, checking for underwear before she pulled down the girl tattered sweatpants and exposed her to Paul. She had none. "Paul, I can get her pants, can you go get some tea going? I think I need some. There's some whiskey for you, you know where,"

"Thanks, Em," He said, getting up and retreating to the kitchen quickly. She made quick work of the girls pants and cleaned her legs, thankful that there was only bruises around her hips and small scratches from, most likely, foliage in the woods. She put the pair of clean sweatpants on her and sat in the chair, accepting the cup of tea from Paul minutes later. "Now all we do is wait," He said, pulling a wooden chair under one of the two windows in the small room.

"Now all we do is wait." She repeated, sipping at her tea and thinking about the mystery girl on her couch.

Four hours later Sam and Jared came through the door looking tired and irritated. Sam went straight to the kitchen and poured a glass of whiskey, one for Jared and one for himself. Jared was sitting on the floor by the chair and Sam picked Emily up, setting her on his lap as he sat back down, "How is our stranger? I told Billy and he wants me to call when she wakes up with any information-such as her name. I told him she looks half native and he knows most of the names from the surrounding reservations."

"She's clean and in clean clothes. She has multiple wounds that will take a few weeks to heal but her back is the worst. It looks like someone shredded it, it's so full of whip marks. She has bruises around her hips that bother me, too," Emily said, her worried expression not leaving the girl on her couch. "How old do you think she is?"

"Around 18, I'd say. Not over 20 I'm sure. I just want to know her story. She should have died in that forest. It's dark and deep and full of animals that would have smelled all the blood on her. Were there any animals wounds?" Sam asked, kissing the top of Emily's head and rubbing up and down her arm.

"No," Emily said, leaning into Sam's embrace. "I'm hoping she'll wake soon."

"It's late, Em. You should go in and sleep. I can stay and watch over her. Jared and Paul, can-"

"No, I'll watch her. You haven't slept in two days and you're going to need it with Quil now phased, how did that go?" Emily said, getting up and putting a blanket over the girl before sitting back down.

"Paul and Jared, can you patrol until 8? That's six hours. I'll relieve you so I can show Quil the reins," Paul saluted him as they left and Sam turned to Emily, "It was fine for the most part. Quil is happy to finally be in the loop and Jake is...Jake. He doesn't want this because of how close he was getting to Bella."

"Why-"

"I forbade him to see her right now," Sam explained. "He's pissed about phasing and he doesn't have any control. He doesn't need to see her and make things worse."

"Oh, Sam," Emily sighed, "He's going to be even harder to control now. You know how much he loves her."

"I know," Sam said, setting the cup on the floor, "But he shouldn't. She has nothing to give him, nothing she even wants to give him. She's so hung up on that leech that she's letting herself die. She's killing herself over a bastard that left her in the middle of the woods. She's being such an idiotic girl. She even knew he was a bloodsucker from the beginning! It's not right."

"I know," Emily said, "But you've said yourself that the Cullen's are different. Maybe he was nice to her and normal enough."

"He treated her like a child. Always dictating what she did, wore, who she saw," Sam spat, "Billy told me what Charlie said. Charlie always knew something was wrong with him. Never understood how Bella could let someone make choices for her like that. He said she used to be so full of life and fire, so independent. He doesn't understand where it all went." He ran a hand over his eyes, exhausted from the day.

"Go in to bed, I'll wake you up at eight or if she wakes," Emily said, shooing Sam toward the bedroom.

"Go or you'll regret it." She pointed to the room, a stern expression and hand on the hip in place. Sam laughed and leaned forward to kiss her before heading to the bedroom and falling asleep soon after laying down. Emily smiled at the closed door before making her way to the kitchen to wash the few cups and then grabbed her novel and settled into the chair to wait, falling asleep minutes later with her phone alarm set for 7:30 AM just in case she fell asleep-knowing she would fall asleep.