Little twigs drifted aimlessly in the night's whistling wind until they landed in one of the puddles scattered around the forest. The afternoon storm in La Push, Washington left everything in the woods more muddled than usual. Nonetheless, the owls continued their hooting in the trees and the deer slept away in the safety of their evergreen homes. The only animals still prowling about were the wolves—the La Push wolves.

Most of the animals knew about them. They weren't like normal wolves. The size of horses, they towered over other woodland animals and their howls made every creature grow silent in fear. All the animals respected them, but would never, ever approach them.

Sam and Paul were the only two wolves out, one black wolf and one grey wolf. They only trotted, luckily not smelling any leeches. In the darkness, they roamed looking for potential vampires or even late-night hikers. Their paws were coated in thick mud, a few strands of wet grass sticking out of it. The sound of their paws passing through the murky flooded water filled the night air, and the only light was that of the large moon hovering above the reservation.

Paul whined, wanting to head back home. It was a Saturday night. The last thing Paul wanted to do was run around the woods with Sam, his alpha. The only threat he came into that night was a large white rabbit sitting in the middle of the wolves' path. Paul replayed the memory of the harmless rabbit in his mind, remembering how the only threatening feature about it was its red glowing eyes. That was the closest thing he saw to a vampire that night.

Sam shut up his thoughts up immediately, snapping his sharp teeth at the smaller wolf's grey ear.

Can we head back now? Please? Paul couldn't believe he had to beg.

Sam could hear himself sigh in his thoughts. We will in a few minutes. Everything's relatively quiet tonight…for once.

Paul shook his wolf head in disappointment. His paws ached. His stomach growled. Why couldn't Embry just take his shift like he'd promised? Ah, but no. The idiot just had to go to his girlfriend's birthday party. Paul snorted. It's not like Embry had anything to prove to the girl. He obviously was head over heels for her since he was still seeing her even after he joined the pack. Even after we told him to break up with her. But no, he was too stubborn–too in love with the girl. He was almost convinced the girl was his imprint. But everyone in the pack knew that it wasn't meant to be. It was still puppy love, as Jared liked to call it. Embry and her together were almost as obnoxious as Bella and Jacob once were.

As Paul ranted, he felt Sam mentally nudge him.

I know, I know, Sam! I'll shut up now. Jeez. I can't help that I hate it when that kid bails out on me like that.

Would you listen to me for one second? I'm telling you to look down, you idiot. Sam growled.

They both bent their heads down and saw a yellow shade. It was a muddy yellow backpack on the back of what looked like a body. Paul squinted his eyes as Sam moved forward to turn the body over. It was a girl. Her black hair looked brown in the thick mud, the waves and curls sticky and drenched from the cold rain. Her white shirt was stained with dark blood and mud, and her sweatpants were tattered, almost completely shredded. Bruises and cuts littered over her skin. Sam's eyes stopped at one practically cut, but he'd hardly call it a cut. What he saw was a large gash on her neck. At first he thought he was healed, but he saw the bright red blood near it mixing with the brown mud. Meanwhile, Paul noticed three large claw marks near her collarbone.

Paul shuddered, feeling his heart freeze. It looked like the dark, grainy photographs he saw in his Word War II textbook in high school.

Did a leech do this?

But most importantly, was the girl even alive?

What the hell, Paul thought in horror. I thought this was gonna be a normal night, for once.

Suck it up and get changed. We're taking her back to Em's.

To Emily's? What the fuck, Sam? Shouldn't we just take her to a hospital like normal people would? Emily's not a doctor.

In case you haven't learned, we're not exactly normal. Just do as I say. Plus, Emily knows what she's doing. She treats our wounds all the time.

Paul and Sam reached up to a nearby tree and pulled down a pair of clothes. In a matter of a few seconds. The two wore loose brown shirts and basketball shorts, and tried to not groan in disgust at the mud still clinging to their bare feet. When they both headed back to the girl's body, Sam noticed white hanging from the yellow backpack. An ID card was attached to the yellow backpack's smallest zipper. Silently, as Paul watched in annoyance, Sam slid the bag off the girl's shoulders, leaving her body limp on the ground. Out of curiosity, he looked at the ID card.

Name: Lilia E. Almas

Cell: 432-1549

Home: 319-5037

Not even an area code?

Sam sighed. He stared down at the girl's body and swallowed hard. Her eyes were closed shut but her blue lips were still gaping ajar, as if a scream was still leaving them as she fell unconscious. The flooding water pooling on the ground threatened to submerge her body laying below the tree. The image of her lifeless body being enveloped by dirty rainwater in the woods made him nauseous. He crouched down and placed two fingers against her cold neck, feeling the faintest pulse. Getting back up, he looked back to Paul. "Carry her for me, will you?"

"Are you kidding me? She's almost d-"

Sam shot a burning glare at Paul that shut him up. The sneer on Paul's face fell as he gaped at his alpha in fear. "No, I'm not kidding. Now do as I say or you'll have patrol at 6AM every day for a week.

With a sigh, Paul picked up the girl—apparently her name was Lilia—with ease. Sam held onto the girl's backpack and two started to make their way out of the forest. The air had grown thick and smelled of the girl's metallic blood. Her dangling arm swung to and fro as Paul walked with her. She was completely unconscious. Paul thought she could've been already dead from how hard and cold the skin on her face looked, as if it were made of stone. Only the quiet beat of her heart reminded him that he wasn't carrying a cold corpse. It sure felt like it though. He held her a little closer to his chest, hoping some of his warmth would help her body thaw. The worst would be for her to die in his arms.

"What do you think happened?" Paul asked carefully.

Sam blinked, deep in thought. "I don't know. There are claw marks, but it doesn't look like a normal animal attack." His eyes darkened. The marks on her chest sent chills down his spine. All he could think of was what happened to Emily, and a shudder ran down his back. The only other option was a werewolf or a vampire, but the chance of a vampire torturing and leaving a girl with blood still crawling feebly through her veins seemed unlikely.

"It couldn't have been one of us though," Sam continued in a grave voice. "Maybe she can tell us when she wakes up."

Paul nodded and sighed blissfully when he saw the distant light coming from Sam's place. Patrol was over. Finally.

"What happened to her?!" Emily cried out when she saw the wilted body in Paul's arms. A bead of sweat began to form at her brow as she hauled the heavy first-aid kit out of the kitchen cabinet.

"We found her in the forest. Something must've attacked her," Sam answered.

As Emily placed the kit on the coffee table, Paul laid the girl on the couch. Her eyes were still shut, but he could see her face more clearly now. Her eyebrows were relaxed, as though she were in a peaceful slumber. But the gases covering her limbs said otherwise. Her bare feet were ghostly pale and her lips were still a deathly blue, but the hint of color in her cheeks face gave him the smallest hint of hope for her. Nonetheless, seeing the girl's blood dripping from her ankles and down from her nose rendered his nerves into static.

Emily's eyes widened. "You don't think the Cullens…"

"No, they're not stupid enough to just leave the girl there. Plus, there were no vampire scents in the woods." Sam sat down in a chair on the other side of the coffee table, intently watching Emily clean the wounds. "All we know is that she's not from here. I don't know where she's from or how she ended up in La Push of all places."

Brows knitted and hands trembling, Emily had to grab extra gauze, her first ones already drenched in scarlet. She grimaced at the sight of the gash under her jaw just below her right ear. "Oh, goodness," she hissed, imagining how a wound like that could have formed. She heard a pained groan fall from the girl's swollen lips. At least she was making noises now.

Sam stood there beside Paul watching, feeling useless even as an alpha. How could he help out? He glanced at the ID card he still clutched tightly inside his hands. Silently, he picked up the phone and pushed the number into it. Paul watched inquisitively as he did so. When he brought the phone to his ear he cursed. The number you have reached has been—

"It doesn't work," Sam muttered.

The two wolves looked up at the sound of another groan, much louder and lucid this time.

The wounded girl started to blink and squirm in place, the bandage on her neck brushing against the couch's cushion. Her toes began to curl up, and she was breathing in as much air as her lungs would let her. No one dared to say anything until Emily grabbed the girl's hand.

"Do you know where you are?" she whispered.

The girl gasped in air sharply as she tried to sit up. She felt a dozen hot white knives carve her up from inside her chest, and her muscles twist in agony. She shook her head, her eyes closed tightly in pain and closing her hand tightly around Emily's.

"You're in La Push, Washington." Emily told her in a low voice, realizing how severe the situation was. The girl must not even know how she ended up here. At the moment, she was only a lost, injured body in the woods. No recollection of the hours before her loss of consciousness.

The room was silent now, the only sound being the fan above all of them and the girl's groans.

Emily gulped and noticed the dry blood still staining her chin. "I'm going to take you to the bathroom so you can wash yourself up, okay? You can take a nice warm shower if you'd like."

The girl gave Emily a pained look, but in the girl's bloodshot eyes she saw gratitude. With a weak smile and words of encouragement from Emily, she stood up slowly from the sofa. Her feet ached as they weakly landed on the ground. She couldn't stand up straight—her back burning in sharp pain—, but she was lucky enough to be able to move her legs with Emily guiding her delicately.

"This… isn't… a h-hospital," the girl murmured.

Emily nodded. "You're not. You're in my house. But don't worry. I'll help you. You won't have to go to the hospital unless you really feel you need to, okay?"

In awe, Paul and Sam watched as Emily and the stranger entered the bathroom. They heard the shower start. How was it possible she could stand up? In that condition, it would be impossible for any human being to stand up. Her legs were covered in blood that they knew came from the deep gashes marred into her thin skin. Paul even swore he thought one her legs were broken when he picked her up before. They were deformed and swollen once, but now she was walking fine with only Em's help. It was almost like it wasn't the same icy body he had carried from the forest.

Paul looked at his alpha, unsure of what to think.

"We'll find out soon," Sam said, as though he could still read his pack mate's thoughts.

When Lilia came out the bathroom with Emily after about an hour, Paul and Sam were both asleep on the couch. Emily looked at the girl with a smile, as Lilia still hissed in pain. The girl looked completely different now. Her eyes were a deep shade of brown and her skin was the color of caramel. She wore a pair of Emily's old pajamas: a loose baby blue tee and some old grey sweatpants. Emily had braided the girl's long wave into a thick braid that ran down to her chest. The cuts on her skin still remained, but Emily swore that they were fewer and that the bleeding slowed down.

"Are you feeling better?"

Lilia nodded.

"You want something to eat?"

The girl's face paled at the question. She felt her heart want to skip a nervous beat. She glanced around the room, her eyes falling on the kitchen that Emily walked through. There were cabinets full of cereal boxes, cookies, and even candy, and on the countertop, there must've been at least eight plastic containers of different foods covered with red lids.

"You must not have had something to eat in a long time! You should eat up a little bit, just get some strength for your recovery." Emily rummaged through the cabinets, pushing her hands past food cans and bags of potato chips. "You in the mood for something sweet or salty?" She looked back at her new houseguest.

Lilia wanted to say no thanks to the food, but her stomach was signaling her otherwise, while the static trembling of her hands begged her for food. She needed food. But she couldn't eat in front of these people like she normally would. She'd die of shame before starvation. She licked her lips nervously and looked at Emily with wide eyes.

Emily smiled patiently. "How about some spaghetti?"

Her jaw began to ache from clenching it so hard. She rubbed the side of it with her hand while sighing in defeat.

"Sure."

Emily raised her eyebrows, but smiled nonetheless. "Alright. Do you want cheese with it?"

Lilia shook her head.

While Emily turned to prepare the food, Lilia looked back at the couch and saw the two men sitting there. Her brows furrowed. Although they were in their human forms, she knew that they were more than that. She'd somehow ended up their completely unknown territory. But despite knowing how sudden her stay in their home was, she was grateful for the warm clothes and bath. It had been months since she was able to walk around so freely in the human public. She examined her fingers and hands, unaccustomed to seeing her nails so long and no grime staining her hands. Breathing out, she rubbed her head and was surprised at how neat her hair was tied into the braid Emily had made.

"Don't worry, dear." Emily said. "Take a seat. Nothing's going to happen. You're safe now." She slid the bowl of pasta onto the wooden table. "Come on, now, relax! Sit down."

She blinked as she sat, doing as she was told.

Inside the white, ceramic bowl were thick, shining noodles coated with rich dark meat sauce. The pasta filled the bowl up to its brim and she licked her lips at the sight of it. But then she her gaze reached the fork beside the bowl. Her heart wanted to freeze. Nonetheless, she slowly grabbed it, her hands shaking violently. Emily watched from across the table, noticing the anxiety in the girl's eyes. Lilia brought the fork to the bowl, almost touching the pasta with it, before she dropped it. The fork clattered as it hit the tiled floor and Lilia's hands flew to her face in shame. Emily jumped at the sudden sound, and rushed to the girl's side as she heard the muffled cries coming from behind Lilia's hands.

"I can't."

Once Paul and Sam woke up from their nap, they'd stood around Lilia with their arms crossed in front of their chests. Ever since he awoke to the sound of the girl sobbing over a bowl of untouched pasta, he knew something was wrong with her. It left him feeling uncomfortable seeing his imprint fretting over the hysterical girl in the kitchen. As they towered over her, Lilia sat on the dark brown recliner her face expressionless, but her eyes red from the feverish tears. Her eyes refused to meet the two men's. Instead they rested on their shoulders, as if she were afraid to see the contempt or bewilderment their faces might've shown. Sam studied the girl, while Paul merely waited for any orders from his alpha. While at first he pitied the girl for her violent injuries, he was now alarmed at her abnormal activity. Although she looked completely human, her behavior was tainted by an inhuman air that she carried with her.

"Do you know who we are?" Sam asked, breaking the heavy silence.

Lilia tilted her head to the side. "What do you mean?"

"Are you human, is what we what to know," Sam clarified sternly. "It's like you've never used a fork before. It's obvious there's something you're not telling us. And if you're going to be staying in our home for the night to recuperate, it's important you tell us everything important."

Lilia blushed and narrowed her eyes as she glared at a nearby lamp. She wanted to yell and snap at Sam for the blatant disdain coating his words, but she was afraid. "I know how to use a fork…"

"Then what's the problem?" Sam snapped at her, growing more exasperated by the girl's short replies. Emily shot him a scolding look.

"Well… I haven't been eating food for a while… cooked food, I mean."

Paul narrowed his eyes at the girl's face, puzzled. "What do you mean?" he asked her.

"Uh, well, I've sort of been eating more… raw food." She sighed, shaking her head in frustration. "I've been living in the woods ever since I left my hometown in Florida… so, cooking meat isn't exactly an option when you're off in the middle of nowhere."

Paul scrunched up his nose in disgust. He could only picture her eating a raw deer in the middle of the forest. He wanted to gag, imagining her with blood and guts hanging from her mouth like a wild animal. She looked human, but now for a second he remembered how the Cullens in Forks did the same. He and Sam looked at each other, suspicion pooling in their narrowed eyes. The same thought appeared in both their minds. However, she could not be a vampire, they both silently acknowledged. She bled like a human and her scent wasn't like the Cullen's unmistakable stench

"How did you not get sick?" Paul asked her.

Lilia shot him a confused look and crossed her arms over her chest. She wasn't used to interacting with others of her kind, but she thought they'd recognize her unique scent at least. She supposed that in her fragile state from a few minutes ago she might've looked weaker than she truly was. Nonetheless, she huffed and rose her eyebrow at the incredulous man. "I'm like you, of course. I've just spend all my days in my wolf form."

Emily and Sam's eyes widened at the sudden realization of the meaning her words held. After all this time, Sam thought his pack was the only one in the country, maybe even in the world. He lived in isolation in Washington, so it would have been hard to find others like him. But he was more than sure that his pack was one of a kind, and that their inhuman abilities were unique to only their tribe.

"Where's your pack?" Sam asked.

Lilia's eyes darkened and she felt muscles tensed hard. Standing beneath her heavy scowl, Sam almost regretted asking her such a blunt question, but he needed to know, for the sake of his pack's safety. Was her pack following her here? Was this all just a trap in order to sneak an attack onto his own pack? Realizing the lives of his friends and family were now at stake, he met her glower with his own hardened eyes, and refused to waver under her eye. The girl's jaw was clenched, but it suddenly relaxed and she looked at Sam with an expressionless, hard face.

"They're dead."