All characters except for Annabelle Causley and Frederick Randal Laskaris and a few others belong to Stephenie Meyer…and, of course, the writer is not receiving any profit for this story whatsoever.

This story starts three years after Jacob heads to Italy to rescue Annabelle in the Good As Gone AU. Technically, this is not a sequel to Good As Gone but it does take place in that alternate storyline.

Prologue

A sob welled up inside her and lodged in her throat as she fought back the tears, but the pain she carried was stronger than her will. She stared out at the crashing waves and setting sun as silent tears rolled down her cheeks, blurring her vision and leaving her feeling raw and exposed.

It was getting harder and harder to live each day when she was always around him, always near enough to smell him, and always able to hear his thoughts and feel his feelings and experience his joys.

Normally, she would have been fine with that mental connection if he was still hers…but he didn't belong to her anymore. Fate had chosen someone else better suited for him than she was, completely disregarding her all consuming love and devotion.

Stuffing her fist into her mouth to keep a sob from escaping, she closed her eyes in an effort to concentrate enough to push the pain away…but she couldn't.

Not when she couldn't get away from him…from her…from all the pitying glances and self-righteous suffering that she read in all their minds in response to her inability to let go of her pain.

They couldn't hide anything from each other, they couldn't keep their secrets, their pains, their fears and doubts to themselves…no, her wounded soul was constantly exposed to them all and she couldn't heal because the one she wished she could hide from the most, the one that she wished she could fool into believing that she was surviving and had moved on was the only one that understood her pain, that felt responsible for having caused it himself.

And even though she loved him with everything in her, she couldn't help but hurt him again and again, reminding him of all his broken promises, all those dreams and plans they had talked of…showing him what his betrayal had done to her.

She couldn't handle it anymore…

Not when he was in love…not when the joy of becoming a father for the first time completely overshadowed his self-inflicted guilt for what he had done to her.

She used to be able to handle her pain because she knew he was hurting along with her…it made it easier to deal with her pain when she wasn't alone…that they still shared something, even if it wasn't as beautiful and precious as the love they had once shared…

But now…now, he couldn't regret what he had done because it had led to what he now had…

It led to the wife he loved with his very soul and the child that was yet to be born…

She was alone, once again, with nothing but her pain to keep her company…

And everyone else knew it.

Pulling her shoes off and stripping down to her underwear, she ran into the ocean, wanting to swim as fast and as far as possible, outrun all her pain and emotions.

She wanted to get away, to be alone, to never have to share her thoughts and feelings with others who couldn't understand.

But she was afraid of the unknown, of separating herself from this co-dependent group that had banded together for the purpose of protecting their home, their people…their very heritage.

She had never left the reservation, had never been far from her mother and brother, had always stayed close to home...loving her roots, her culture, her heritage, her people…loving the very dirt under her feet.

But all that love she had paled in comparison to the aching, gaping hole in her chest. A black hole that was under a constant spotlight for all to see.

But she couldn't take it anymore and yet, she didn't know if she would survive away from the pack…

There was only one person who had left and never returned…maybe he could help her…maybe he would know if it was possible to survive as a lone wolf when she was deeply woven into the tight fabric that was the pack.

She would leave…she would find him…and maybe, just maybe, she would discover freedom from her pain.