Angelo O' Connor pushed her forehead against the icy window of her fathers' shiny white Bentley. It was smooth and creamy and fast and had leather seats soft as butter. The car purred like a kitten and slid across the roads like an ice-skater across the rink. If the circumstances had been different, Angelo would have loved this car.
She would have begged her father to let her have a spin but, now the very sight of it repulsed her. The white paint job looked like the throw up of a new born baby and the seats seemed slimy in their smoothness. If Angelo was being completely honest with herself she would have to admit that it wasn't the car she hated. It wasn't her fathers' new dye-job or his new wardrobe that bothered her. Sure she thought it all ridiculous but what really ticked her off, what made her see fire-engine red, was her fathers' shiny new girlfriend Julia.
God, how she hated Julia. She hated her pretentious southern accent, her floppy bottle-blond hair, her stupid nasally laugh but, most of all, she hated what Julia had done to her family.
Julia, in simple terms, was a home wreaker. She had swooped in wearing a pair of plastic Barbie-pink kitten heels, fluttered her fake eyelashes and her father, the great Brian O' Conner had fallen hook line and sinker.
Their affair had lasted for two whole months before Angelo's mother, Anna, had found out. It was the first time she had ever seen her mother cry and for the first time in years, she cried as well.
Anna had filed for a divorce that very same day and Brian had apologised. His words fell on deaf ears though, so he did what the fabulously rich did best, he threw money at the problem and hoped for the best.
It didn't matter, Anna refused all offers. Even the house she had raised her children in. He had made a mockery of their time spent together and she didn't want anything he had to offer.
After the papers were signed Angelo and her mother moved into a tiny studio apartment in New York. Angelo's older brother Vincent was studying aboard at Oxford University and was rarely ever home besides Christmas and other festive holidays.
Vincent had been just as upset as Angelo over the divorce. He called nearly every day after they had moved to New York and had requested some time off from the University. The week they had spent together had been bliss.
Vincent made lame, cringe worthy jokes, Anna made pancakes for supper and Angelo played the piano while they all sang horribly off-key.
It didn't last though. While on their way to the airport to see Vincent off they'd had an accident. When Angelo thought back the word 'accident' felt too mild a word to accurately describe what had happened. A head-on collision with a drunken truck driver had left Angelo both motherless and an only child.
The truck had crushed the entire front of the car, killing Vincent instantly and leaving her mother with major brain hemorrhaging. After a few hours in the emergency room the angels had taken her mother as well. Angelo had spent a week recuperating from minor injuries. The collision had barely hurt her. She had been in the back seat. It wasn't fair, why her brother and mother, both so brilliant and kind, died while she lived. There wasn't anything special about her. She didn't have any particular talents. She wasn't half the person they had been.
Yet here she was, alive and well. Her doctor, a bulky man with a mutton chop mustache, had recommended she seek some professional help to deal with the loss but Angelo had violently disagreed.
Her father had picked her up from the hospital and before she knew it she was stuck back in San Francisco, watching Julia prance around her house with all the spunk of a newly hatched chick.
Vincent and Anna's funerals had passed by in a hazy blur and Angelo never cried. Not once. She couldn't make the tears come so she remained dry eyed. Brian had cried, he'd cried like a little baby and the sight of his grief made Angelo hate him even more.
And now, here they were. Driving down the streets of some wet, dreary town in Washington DC. Forks or something like that. It was raining too. Hard clumps of water splattered against the windscreen only to be beaten away by the swift hands of the wipers.
It was supposed to be a road trip. A way to reconnect as a family. Only problem was that Angelo's family was dead. Brian no longer counted and Julia had never been anything to her. The endless line of forest raced passed her with the intensity of a great green lizard. All hard angles and shiny eyes.
A large sign informed Angelo that they had just entered La Push. In the past she would have chuckled at the odd name but nothing seemed funny anymore. Brian mentioned something about camping here for the night.
Angelo pushed a button on her iPod and the hard rock of Metallica swarmed in her ears. Anything to get rid of Julia's annoying voice. Angelo closed her eyes and leaned into the seats.
She didn't see the figure as it stepped out from the shadows of the forest and she didn't hear Brian shout from the front seat. She certainly could never have imagined what would happen next.
Sam Uley ran through the trees in at an anger induced pace. Behind him the thunder of his pack echoed against the muddy earth. From the moment he had first phased, the very instant he had become a werewolf, he had known that this was his land, these were his people and it was his duty to protect them from the leaches that lurked in the shadows of the world.
Those who lived on the blood of humans and animals to survive and were as cold as death.
They were here. In his territory. He could smell them all over the forest. That sickly sweet scent lay heavy against the trees. Sam pushed his legs into the earth and turned towards where the scent hung the strongest.
His pack followed him through the forest until they'd reached the road. A mangled heap of white metal lay in the middle of the road like a discarded soda can. It had once been a very pretty, very expensive car. Wasn't worth much now.
They were quite near the entrance of the reserve. Just a few miles away. As the pack fanned out, Sam noticed something strange. The scent of blood, rain and vampires hung heavy in the air but that wasn't it. It was the wet thumping sound that slipped through the air that bothered him.
"You hear that Sam" Jacob asked as he came up from the rear. Sam nodded. It was a heartbeat. Sam looked at the car, lying beside it, sprawled and broken was a middle-aged man. He'd been drained clean.
"Sam, you're gonna' wanna come see this" Embry said. Sam tore his eyes away from the dead man.
Scattered like unwanted sweet wrappers were two bodies. One of them clearly vampire the other, a girl. The vampire lay face down in a pool of thick black blood. It didn't move.
"Ya think it's dead" Quil asked nervously. None of them had ever seen a dead vampire before.
"It is, but she isn't" Sam replied wordlessly.
It was strange, the feeling that washed over him in that moment. He felt a pull from deep within his soul and on instinct, he took a step forward. The pull increased, becoming stronger until the pressure in his chest became unbearable. It ripped his entire being from his body. His soul, his mind no longer belonged to him. He didn't own himself anymore, she did. The girl laying broken in the road.
Sam couldn't understand it. This simply wasn't possible. He gasped and fell to the ground as the bond solidified, tying him to the girl forever. It took a few moments before he was able to breathe again. His mind cleared and a single face flashed before his eyes. Emily, his mate.
It was then that Sam realised that the emotions he had felt hadn't been his own. Sam slowly picked himself off of the ground. Around him the other pack members did the same. They had all felt it.
Sam turned his gaze towards the bodies. Standing beside the girl was a large russet wolf.
Jacob had imprinted.