None of the recognizable elements belong to me.

CHAPTER 1

It was kind of ridiculous the lengths my parents went to in order to keep me hidden from the people of Wolf Lake. We never stayed in one place more than a year or two. Although, technically, I guess my mom didn't exactly want to be found either for her own safety. She hadn't exactly left on the best terms: something to do with an ex-husband and not wanting to be a pawn in all the pack politicking just because of the color she was when she flipped. The story goes that she ran away with my dad right after filing for divorce and having the papers served to his house by a third party. The ex hadn't been happy and they'd been on the run ever since. When I'd come along three years later it had just given them further incentive to keep their distance.

Even when Uncle Luke had taken over leadership of the pack, my parents still didn't dare return, though they had relaxed some, living longer in each town we visited. When I started going through the change when I was fifteen, Luke and his wife, my aunt Sophia, came to help me through it. Sophia was the only half-wolf before me to have survived flipping, so understandably my parents wanted her there as a resource.

I'll not go into the details of that horrible seventeen and a half hours. Save to say that it was horrible. Super stupidly painful and horrible. I still get aches in my long bones just thinking about it. And in my short bones, flat bones, irregular bones and sesamoid bones too. Yeah, I learned those terms in anatomy class in high school. Obviously though, I survived. The same can't be said for my mom.

Her stupid-ass ex-husband had followed my uncle and aunt to Truckee where we had been living at the time (mom had liked being able to run in the forests right outside our back door) and had killed her while she tried to protect my dad and me. Uncle Luke had killed him right back but he had been too late to save my mom.

I was a mess for a while after that. I blamed myself; if I hadn't needed extra help with flipping then Tyler never could have followed Luke and Sophia down from Washington. Add to that the fact that I had basically just lay there completely helpless in the beginnings of the change while they fought tooth and claw right in front of me and you got one morose, moody teenager. With the new found ability to become a wild animal. Not a good combination. I had sprinted on all fours out of our cabin and somehow made it the near thirty miles to the Desolation Wilderness where we used to all go hiking as a family before I finally stopped running. In retrospect, I'm pretty sure my uncle had followed me the entire way while Sophia consoled my dad. Luke had, after all, just suddenly seemed to appear once I'd run myself to exhaustion and had collapsed in a sobbing heap back into my human form right in a slushy puddle of melting snow. Naked. Not my most manly moment. Except for the naked in the snow bit. Only real men can pull that off. But hey, my mom had just been murdered in front of me. A good cry was completely understandable.

Luke and I stayed out in the forest for nearly a week before he convinced me to head back home. Or so he thinks. In truth, I just got tired of eating raw bunny rabbits and squirrels. The things I would have done for an In-n-Out (double-double with grilled onions, hold the lettuce, keep the tomato, extra spread on the side...) at that point make me ashamed to even think about now.

Anyway, I went back home. Dad had already put the house on the market and he and Sophia had packed all the essentials. With her and Luke's help we left Truckee within two weeks of Mom's passing and headed to Lone Pine; a town eight-times smaller than Truckee located further south in the Sierra Nevada. Dad had already arranged a new job for himself and enrolled me in the town's only high school.

That was nearly five years ago now. I'd finished out high school in the little frontier town and then left for college up in Palo Alto. Dad had applied for a job in San Francisco to stay close to me (he'd always been a bit overprotective, especially after Mom) and had moved up after the first quarter of my freshman year, just in time for the holidays. The fall quarter of my sophomore year the shit hit the fan again. My cousin Linnea, Luke and Sophia's kid, didn't survive the change. She was their third one not to make it. Luke and Sophia were understandably devastated and somehow this incited a "kill all the halfbreeds" riot. Something about not wanting to dirty the bloodlines any further if it was going to increase the risks of future children not surviving the change. It all sounded a little Death Eater-y to me. I was perfectly happy with my Mudblood heritage, thank you very much.

Dad had gotten the heads-up from Mr. Blackstone that one of the crazies had tracked down our whereabouts. So once again I found myself with my life uprooted and traveling in the passenger seat of a cheery orange rental truck while my dad drove us out of town. I'd already squared it away with the university that I was taking a gap year for "health" reasons and would still be able to enroll in classes the following year if things had settled down without having to reapply. I wasn't hopeful.

My legs were cramping up. The seat had been pushed as far forward as possible to make room for a few last minute odds and ends to fit behind it. My knees were crammed into the dash board where the glove compartment stuck out and it may have been wishful thinking but I was pretty sure I was starting to lose feeling in my left butt cheek. The right one I could feel all too well and it hurt from having been sitting for so long.

"Remind me, why are we going to Washington again?" I asked, rubbing at my calves and trying to increase blood circulation to my feet. "Isn't that the state where the lunatics who might want me dead are living?"

"We've been over this. They'd expect us to go the other way. Remember when you'd always get mad at that Chris kid in Montana when you played hide-and-go-seek-tag? It'll be like that."

Chris had been a sneaky son-of-a-bitch for a third grader. And one of the only people I'd kept in touch with over the years. He'd hide right behind where the seeker was counting so as soon as they left to go find the others he could just waltz right over to the "base" and be safe for the rest of the round. I still wasn't convinced it was a viable real-life strategy. Particularly since it was MY life on the line.

I told him as much. "Dad, I'm almost twenty. I'm old enough to know life isn't like hide-and-seek. This is by far the stupidest move we've ever made."

"Look, Logan. Can you just trust me? I have some extra safety measures in place. You know how I tracked down my biological family a while back? They got back to me and my half-brother invited us to visit to get to know them. We'll be staying on the reservation outside of Forks in..." I snorted at the name of the town. Dad glared at me. "in La Push. It's pretty isolated. He booked the hotel under his name so we won't be traced there. It will be perfectly safe until Luke gets things back in hand."

"Yeah, if I don't go crazy from getting stuck in yet another Podunk town in the middle of BFE and 'La Push' someone off a cliff and get arrested for murder first."

He spared me a glare out of the corner of his eye. "Cute. Real funny. I bet no one has ever come up with that one before. I thought you liked being in places with lots of space for you to run."

"No, Dad. That was Mom. I haven't flipped since I started university. It's just something I can do; not an integral part of who I am. Not like how it was for Mom. And I'd get rid of it in a second if I could in exchange for even a chance at a normal life."

Dad sighed. "I know, Logan. I know. You didn't ask for this. But Mr. Blackstone vouched for the safety of La Push; his second cousin's husband is one of the Quileute elders. From what my brother has told me, it's a pretty tight knit community; we shouldn't have to worry about anyone selling out our location to Luke's old pack."

"That's all well and good, but I don't know how effective bows and arrows will be against a pack of angry werewolves if we are found."

"Don't be racist. You're belittling your own heritage. They use shotguns like everyone else." Dad was joking with me and I felt my lips reluctantly twitch up a bit at the corners. "What do you say we stop in the next town to get a bite to eat and stretch our legs?"

"Oh God, yes!"

Dad pulled off of I-12 (or was it 101 now? At some point the two roads merged. I'd stopped paying attention...) and parked the truck across two parking spaces along a side road due to Dad's old jeep which was hooked up behind the rental. We walked across the street to a little café called "Anne Marie's." A cheery woman with short cropped hair was going over some paperwork at a front table and when she saw my dad and I looking around listlessly at the not-so-inconspicuously religious décor, she smiled warmly and told us to just take a seat anywhere. She came by shortly after we'd seated ourselves by a window and handed us each a menu, introducing herself as the one and only Anne Marie.

She chatted us up for a while, happy to talk to new faces passing through town and we ended up not only ordering what she suggested, but two sandwiches to take with us for later as well. Anne Marie hugged my dad as if they were old friends and reached up to ruffle my hair as we left her restaurant and we promised to stop back by if we ever came through Aberdeen again.

From Aberdeen, it was a short two and a half hour drive to the Rez. Or it would have been if we hadn't blown a tire forty-five minutes after leaving the café. It took two hours for the AAA tow-truck guy to reach us and another hour for him to switch out the flat. In the meantime, I ate my entire to-go sandwich and four bites out of Dad's before he caught me and snatched it out of my mouth and swatted me upside the head. It was worth it. Luckily, though it was overcast, the rain stayed at bay while we waited. The coast line reminded me a bit of Northern California's, greener if anything. More plants I guess from the constant rain.

Tim "The Tow Man" Taylor finished up the paperwork and sent us on our way with a helpful "Watch out for nails!" and thankfully, the rest of our trip was uneventful. Soon enough Dad was driving the rental truck down the pothole littered roads of La Push to the hotel where we'd be staying. From the looks we were getting, new people weren't all that common on the Rez. Especially newcomers who appeared to have their entire lives packed up in a rental truck. I waved at all the nosy busy bodies with a stupid grin on my face when we stopped at a stop sign. I stared back at them until they looked away.

"Stop that." Dad admonished me.

"I'm just being friendly."

"Well don't. You're scaring the locals. You're not twelve. Act your age." He turned left at the stop-sign and I slumped as far into my cramped seat as I could. Which wasn't very far. My knees pressed against my chest and I rested my forehead against them. I was so ready for this trip to be over.

He turned again into a parking lot with a smattering of RVs and a sign that read "Quileute Oceanside Resort." I don't know about the 'resort' part, but it was certainly next to the ocean. Besides the RV hookups, there were several little cabins that they appeared to rent out and a larger central building which my dad pulled up in front of. It was probably where check-in was located.

I stayed with the truck while Dad handled the paperwork inside. He came back out after a few minutes, shuffling some papers and glancing at the little property map he had been given. We followed the yellow highlighted line to the circled cabin and dad brought the truck to a final stop. Dad tossed me the keys to the cabin and while he unhooked the Jeep from the back of the rental truck I made my way in to our temporary home.

It was rustic, both inside and out, with knotted pine walls all throughout the interior. The walls reminded me a bit of our house in Truckee which had been built with the same type of wood. Sometimes when I couldn't sleep, I'd count the knots in the pine planks of the ceiling of my room there (somewhere between 562 and 589, I never counted the same number twice.) There where two bedrooms and a small shared bath as well as a kitchenette and a wood burning stove. A stack of logs lay on the hearth. The decorations were all Native American themed; the place probably catered to curious tourists most of the time who would be disappointed if there weren't the large dream catchers in the windows and beads and feathers hanging from the rawhide-shaded lamp pull cords.

I grabbed my duffel from the truck and chucked it onto the bed in the room I picked. In a spur of the moment childish decision, I threw myself onto the bed after it back first, high jump style, and bounced twice before the mattress settled beneath me. The bed had some pretty damn good springs. Above me, a stylized painting of a wolf in front of a full moon was hanging above the bed frame. Well, isn't that appropriate? Maybe I would flip later and explore the forest surrounding the Rez. University had given me other things to focus on, hence the lack of flipping, but with nothing better to do out here I might as well stretch my legs. All four of them.

"I just called Billy to let him know we made it." My dad said as he came in a moment later with his own bag and dumped it in the other bedroom across the little hall. "You up for meeting new relatives? He invited us over for dinner with him and his son."

"Do I have time for a shower first?" I asked, turning my head and giving my pits a whiff. Nothing scares away new family members quite like the smell of an un-washed quasi-college student whose been stuck in a vehicle all day.

"Please do. Be quick though; I need one too."

"No problem." I clambered off the bed and dug through my bag for my least rumpled shirt and a pair of pants that could pass the sniff test. My choices were few; I really needed to do laundry soon. In fact, I probably should have listened to my dad and washed my clothes before we left the house in the Bay Area. Oh well. Hind sight is 20/20 and all that.

Five minutes later, I was out of the shower and Dad stepped into the bathroom for his turn. It felt good to be clean. The warm water had also helped to soothe my cramped muscles from being stuck in the truck for the past two days. It hadn't been able to do anything about the bruises on my knees from where they had been crammed against the dashboard, however. Those would be gone within a few hours though. Thank God for accelerated healing.

When he got out, Dad looked disapprovingly at my obviously-been-shoved-into-a-bag-unfolded shirt and khaki pants that may or may not have had a minor coffee stain (or something else brown, maybe coke?) on one knee, but when I'd just shrugged unapologetically he rolled his eyes and gestured me into the passenger seat of the Jeep. "Your mother would be horrified that I let you out in public like that."

"We're in a one-stoplight town, not exactly anyplace fancy Dad. I think I'll be okay." He was probably right though. Before she was killed, Mom had had this horrible habit of laying my clothes out for me every day. Even when I was in high school. It was as if she didn't trust me to dress myself. Then again, I was kind of rejecting the null-hypothesis right now with my attire.

Billy's place was just five minutes from the hotel, even though we took the long way 'round after misreading the local map Dad had picked up from the check-in desk. I wasn't sure what I was expecting my uncle (half-uncle?) to be like, but the wheelchair was definitely a surprise. He must have heard the Jeep pull up the gravel driveway because he was wheeling himself out the front door when Dad and I got out of the car.

"Hello! Welcome. You must be John. And Logan." He looked me over with a bit more scrutiny than was comfortable and sounded the slightest bit uneasy when he continued: "You're younger than I pictured. I thought you said your boy was in college? No matter, no matter. Come on in. Jacob should be back any second now. He was out running around with some friends this afternoon." The slight smile on his face told me there was an inside joke somewhere in his statement, but Hell if I could figure it out. I was still slightly confused as to why my apparent youthfulness was cause for concern.

"He is. Logan's a sophomore at Stanford." And boy wasn't Dad proud of that. I'd written a kick-ass admissions essay to get in.

"Taking a bit of a mid-year break?" Billy asked as we followed him into the house.

"Just until we get things squared away with my mom's crazy old cultist friends."

"Yes. John mentioned that there was a bit trouble from that direction. You're both welcome to stay in La Push while things work themselves out. It's a quiet, safe community here. For the most part. Can I get either of you anything to drink?"

Dad and Billy got to talking over a couple of beers while I listened in, nursing a Dr. Pepper, and answering any questions Billy threw my way. Mostly about school and inconsequential things like that. He offered condolences on the passing of my mother and shared that he'd lost his wife some time back too. He seemed like a pretty cool guy and he and Dad got on like they were old friends catching up instead of half-brothers meeting for the first time.

I was just starting to let my mind wander (they'd started discussing fishing reels...) when the front door slammed open and a shirtless Fezzik skidded into the room. "Dad, hey... And we have company. Uh... Right. I forgot they were coming. Be right back." And he disappeared up the stairs in two bounds.

"That's Jacob." Billy introduced as we heard a door slam from up above.

I couldn't help it. "Who put the hGH in the water?" I blurted. Seriously, I wasn't short. Six foot one was quite respectable in most circles. But damn! Was Billy secretly a giant when he stood up from the wheelchair? Or maybe the kid got it from his mom's side.

"It's a recessive gene that crops up every now and again amongst the local boys. How old did you say you were again?"

What was with his obsession with my age? "Dad says I'm twelve."

"He'll be twenty in a few weeks. He only acts like he's twelve."

"You should be in the clear then. It normally surfaces around sixteen if it's going to manifest. Never in anyone older than eighteen."

"You mean there was a chance I could have become like Gigantor?"

My dad rested his head in his hands. "I am so sorry about his behavior. I swear I didn't raise him to be like this."

Billy just laughed. "Don't bother yourself over it. Jacob can be quite the handful too. Boys will be boys."

"I can hear you talking about me!" Jacob called out as he came back down the stairs. Fully clothed this time. Not that I could really judge him. The number of times I'd ended up naked (not just shirtless) somewhere in the forest was quite high; it had taken me a while to learn to hide my clothing before flipping and more times than I can count some 'Good Samaritan' had picked them up and thrown them away thinking that they were trash left behind by hippie-nudists. Or maybe they just kept them and right this very second some kid was running around in my old boxers. Hell, if they needed them that bad they could keep them.

My cousin (half-cousin? Seriously, could you have half-uncles and cousins? I'd have to look that up later) collapsed into an armchair to my right and I swear the poor thing almost gave out under him. "Sorry I'm late. I completely forgot. Sam had us out going through formations... for JROTC. Yeah. That." He didn't sound too convincing and looked like he wanted to bash his head into a wall. Poor guy. His dad was sure to figure out that he was lying if even I could tell.

"Sounds like you boys were having fun." Or Billy could be completely oblivious. Dad shared a look with me and I knew he'd caught it too.

"Yep, super fun. In fact, it was so fun that I'd almost forgotten about the fact that you'd forbidden me from talking to Bella. Oh wait. No it wasn't." Ah. There was the teenaged moodiness I couldn't wait to leave behind me in a few weeks when I turned twenty. Sounds like somebody was having girl problems.

"You know my reasons and we'll discuss this later. See," he turned to my dad, "mine can misbehave too. Now that we're all here, why don't we head to the table? Sue brought over some fried fish."

"Sue Clearwater?" Dad asked

"Yes. You know her?"

"She related to an old friend of mine: Sherman Blackstone. He's the one who finally convinced me to visit."

"She's mentioned him. I'm glad he talked you into coming. It's the fried fish, however, that will ensure you never leave."

"I'll take that bet. It smells delicious."

We all helped set the table (Mr. Grumpy-pants included) while Billy wheeled the side dishes and the pièce-de-résistance (a towering plate filled with beautiful, steaming, golden, flaky fish) to the dining room. The woman had certainly outdone herself; there was no way four people could eat all that. Three people and a werewolf, however, may just have a shot at it. Add in the fact that one of those people is the size of André the Giant and its game on.

Dad and Billy talked through the meal while Jacob and I sat quietly. The overgrown kid matched me fish-for-fish and from the way he was smirking at me I figured he thought I must be reaching my limit. Fat chance. We both reached for more and continued our silent contest. Eventually Billy and Dad started to take notice and Billy was getting that strange gleam in his eye again; I swear he was about to ask me to produce my birth certificate to verify my age. Dad gave me a meaningful look and I gracelessly bowed out. I guess it would be stupid to raise suspicious vibes and start whispers of the supernatural from people just because I wanted to out-eat my newfound cousin. Because that's the first thing everyone thinks when they see a young man eat too much: they can't be human. Sometimes (all-the-times) Dad was too protective. Jacob triumphantly ate two more of the fish and a third heaping spoonful of slaw before he too laid his fork to rest.

"So, are both of your legs hollow? Or just the one?" I asked him conspiratorially while we were busing the table as our dads moved back to the living room with fresh beers.

"I have a fast metabolism. How about you? Your stomach must be about to explode; you almost kept up with me."

"Nah, I'm good. I must have the same fast metabolism you do. Genetics, I guess."

"I highly doubt it." His tone was only 110% condescending.

"Riiiight then. No more talk of being related I guess. I didn't mean to offend you." Sheesh. Someone was touchy.

"Sorry." He was quick to apologize. "I didn't mean for it to come out like that. It's cool that we're family. I've just had a seriously messed up week and half."

"Something to do with that Bella chick?" Oh God, I'd just initiated a touchy-feely conversation. About girls. Kill me now.

"Kind of. She's part of it. But there's other stuff going on too that I can't talk about. Especially to her, which is what's frustrating me the most. She think's I've abandoned her. But really, that's not it at all. See, she's not part of the tribe, so there's like, things I can't tell her, even though I want to. And Dad thinks I'll tell her anyway, despite the elder's orders not to, which is why he's forbid me from talking to her at all. And she needs me! I'm the only thing keeping her together right now. She had this horrible break up, and Doucheward left her in the middle of the forest, and I've just recently gotten her to smile again. All I want is for her to be happy. And if she thinks I abandoned her likehe did, then she'll never forgive me."

Poor kid was in deep. And this girl sounded like a piece of work. Good old teen angst. I nodded sagely. "Don't sweat it, dude." Gah! Who says 'dude' anymore? Me, apparently. That's who. "It will all work out eventually. Just give it some time. Be smart. Think your way through this. You say you can't tell her what the elders don't want you to. Can you hint at it? Like, sneak her a note or something in code so she can figure it out on her own?" And there I went, suggesting delinquency and rebellion. I was the best cousin ever.

"You know? That just might work. Thanks."

"Anytime. That's what family is for, right?"

"So I've been told. Want to check out the bikes I've been working on with her? It looks like our dads have forgotten we exist."

"Sure. Lead the way."

I'd assumed he meant mountain bikes, but apparently my cousin was a mechanics genius and had actually fixed up a pair of motorcycles. I couldn't even change the oil on a car. I 'uh huh-ed' and nodded at the appropriate times while Jacob, who apparently preferred to be called Jake, listed off all the repairs he'd done and parts he'd replaced. He also showed me the VW Rabbit that, if I understood him correctly, he'd built from the ground up with his own two hands with metal he'd smelted himself from ore he'd personally mined and a flat-head screwdriver made from one of his baby-teeth as his only tool. I was duly impressed.

It was full dark when Dad and I headed out. I was glad that he and his brother hit it off so well, but I was beyond ready to hit the sack. Billy and Jake said goodbye from the glow of their front door and I waved back at them as Dad backed the Jeep out onto the road.

I took a moment when we got back to the rental cabin to admire the night sky after my dad had gone on in. The clouds from earlier had cleared and stars were twinkling as far as I could see in all directions. This was one thing that small towns had over Palo Alto and San Francisco; less light pollution. I breathed the crisp night air in deeply and closed my eyes. "Yeah." I said to myself. "I'm long overdue for a run." Another time, though. It had been a long day and right now what I needed more than anything was sleep.