Chapter 1

Enter the Hero

Apparently the fact that I'm almost sixty years old has yet to register with any of the Cullens, despite the three months I've spent with them. I get Carlisle and Esme's thing with treating everyone like children, and I can deal with that. Rosalie is a jerk to me anyway, so I get that. But Edward and Bella shouldn't be able to look at me as if I'm a child, especially when Bella's been a vampire for a whopping three years. And Jacob, who's the only person able to put up with my antics for long periods of time, should not have been lecturing me while I was forced to sit in the back seat just because he wanted to sit next to his girlfriend.

I know I can get on people's nerves sometimes, but come on! Did he honestly think that I would piss off his little werewolf buddies so much that I would be in danger? I could handle an overgrown wolf; I had proved that to Jake enough times while play wrestling. Sure, there might have been a little cheating on my part, but it counted all the same.

"Are you even listening to me?" Jake demanded, taking his eyes off the road to glare back at me.

"Yes, I've been listening to every fascinating word of your lecture for the past hour. I'm actually taking notes."

"Ignore him, he just wants to annoy you," Renesmee said gently, squeezing Jake's hand.

"Aw, Nessie, you know you love me," I said, flashing her a smile. "And I still love you, even if you did take my seat."

"It's not your seat," Jake sighed.

"Oh yeah? Then why is their leftover blood from my snacks on the leather?"

"If you stained my car, I will kill you," Jake growled through gritted teeth.

"I like to think of it more as 'our car.'"

"It is not 'our car' because you're not allowed to have a car after last time."

"Oh, come on! You crash one car…"

"Three. Three cars."

"The second one wasn't so much a crash as a failed flying attempt," I protested. "Besides, no one got hurt."

"The Cullens had to pay over two million dollars worth of damage fees."

"Oh, I'm so sorry if I depleted their money stash by almost two percent. You know, back in my day-"

"Please don't," Nessie interrupted.

"Why not? I thought you liked my stories."

"Not the stories where you act like an old man."

"I am an old man, Nessie darling. It'll be my sixtieth birthday soon. I'm expecting lavish presents, just so you know. And that level of old requires respect from you youngsters, so watch your mouth."

"You're a toddler with sharp teeth," Jacob snapped. "And you're going to lose them if you're not careful."

"While your concern is touching, I think I'll be okay."

"Just try not to start any fights in the first hour or so," Jake sighed.

"I get it; I get it! You're all worried because you left your second in command, Layla, or whatever her name is, in charge while you went on romantic adventures with your imprint. It's been three years, Jake; if things were going to go wrong I think you would have heard about it by now."

"Just don't screw this up for me," Jake muttered under his breath, pressing down on the gas and speeding up to a rate that was definitely not responsible when he had children in the car.

-The Art of Running-

I guess Jake's not as big of a loser to his pack as he is to the rest of the world, because they were all waiting in the driveway as soon as we arrived. It looked like someone had photocopied Jake about a dozen times and then added varying heights. There were two girls in the crowd, who I was assuming were his second in command and Sam's wife. They were pretty much the same as all the others, except way more attractive.

The minute Jake stepped out of the car he was surrounded by about a million pounds of sweaty werewolf bodies, and Nessie received the same treatment, even if there were a few wrinkled noses. I was all geared up to jump into the fray and receive my own welcome hug, but Jacob must have known what I was thinking because he glared at me and shook his hand.

"This is Bryce," he said as soon as things settled down. "He's visiting with us too."

"You added another bloodsucker to the mix?" demanded one of the angrier looking shifters.

"He keeps me around for my looks and excellent puns. I'll try not to stink too badly."

"Good luck," snorted the girl with choppy black hair and flashing eyes.

"You could always help me shower, if you think that would make it any better."

"Leah!" Jake shouted, grabbing onto her arm before she could lunge at me.

"So, you're Leah!" I exclaimed. "Jake talks about you all the time. You're hotter than I imagined."

"Can I rip his head off?" Leah demanded.

"Not yet," Jake sighed. He glared over at me. "You promised you would behave."

"I say a lot of things when I'm trying to get out of being lectured, Jakey, I can't be held accountable for all of them."

"He's not always this annoying," Jake said apologetically.

"Nah, I'm usually at about this level of annoying."

"Bryce has powers of persuasion," Jake said, ignoring me. "He can convince people to do just about anything, but he's definitely not going to do that here; right, Bryce?"

"Scout's honor," I promised, holding up my right hand.

"And why should we trust him?" Leah demanded.

"I'm not asking for your trust," I said before Jake could respond. "And if you feel like I'm working my vampire mojo on you, just rip my head off. That'll send the message pretty quick. I don't have any hidden agenda; I'm just here for the food, and the chance to laugh at Jake."

"Why can't he stay with the Cullens?" asked yet another angry wolf.

The Cullens were staying at the house that they had owned back when they lived in Washington, hoping to avoid the notice of the locals. Nessie could pass off as Jake's new girlfriend, and no one knew me, so we were free to roam the town to our heart's content.

"Look, it's not up for debate," Jake snapped. "You don't even have to acknowledge him if you don't want to. Now are we going to stand out here all day, or do I get to put these bags down anytime in the next century?"

The next half hour was a blur of moving bags and giant werewolf bodies that didn't seem to stop. I had thought abs like that only existed in photo-shopped magazines and movie stars, but apparently all werewolves got the insanely attractive gene. Except for Jake; I still maintained that I was better looking than him.

I ended up getting a small room in Jake's house that was probably meant to be a closet instead of a bedroom. It didn't matter much anyway; I didn't sleep, but I still liked having somewhere to stay in the dead of night when no one else was awake. It was probably a good thing I didn't sleep, because the old bed looked like it would collapse from an ounce of weight.

Jacob's pack was having a bonfire in honor of his return, so as soon as we were finished unpacking everyone went down to the beach. All of the werewolves seemed to have a problem with walking near me, or looking at me, or even thinking about me, so I immediately attached myself to Nessie's side.

"So," I began as I watched her load a single hotdog onto her plate. "In a fight, who do you think would win? Shifters or suckers?"

"I'd rather not think about it."

"See, that's your problem: no imagination."

"I think your problem is too much imagination."

"Aw, you can never have too much imagination!" I laughed as I bounded over to join her as she moved to on one of the logs surrounding the fire. "How else would I entertain myself whenever one of the Cullens or your boyfriend lectures me?"

"You could always listen."

"At least you have a sense of humor."

Nessie smirked, looking down at her food to hide her laughter. "Jake's just trying to make sure everything goes well. He has a lot to worry about what with the po- what with everything going on."

"Speaking of our beloved Jake, where is he?"

I hadn't seen Jake since the bonfire first started, and now that I was truly looking I could tell that a few of the other shifters were missing too. "It's a bit classless to ditch your own party."

"He probably just wants to catch up with Sam."

"And he can't do that here?"

"I thought you didn't need him?" Nessie smirked. "Aren't you supposed to be entertaining all on your own?"

"Just so you know, I can see what you're doing; distracting me with an insult to my honor to stop me from asking about Jake. But, I'm totally taking the bait. I'm amazingly entertaining."

"I'm going to take your word for it before you break into song right here and now."

One of the other shifters, Seth, I think his name was, came over to greet Nessie, and then our conversation was over. It had gotten late without me noticing; the stars were beginning to peak through the misty sky, their reflections twinkling on the almost black ocean. If I were human, I would probably be cold, but as it was it was pleasant. The girl from before, Leah, sat a little ways away from everyone else, curled up in the sand and staring at the water.

She was almost exotically beautiful, especially with the moonlight casting her face into sharp planes of light and shadow. There was an undeniable strength in the way she held herself, a quiet assuredness that promised pain to anyone who was stupid enough to mess with her. I might have stared at her for a bit too long, because after a while she turned to glare straight at me, her eyebrows raised in a challenge.

Nessie elbowed me in the side before anything else could happen. "Bryce! Did you hear a word I just said?"

"Not really, no."

"It's getting pretty late. Do you want to go back to the house with me?"

Now that I looked around, I could see that almost everyone else had already left the beach, and only Leah, Nessie, and I remained.

"Yeah, sure." I stood up gingerly, kicking the sand off of my feet and glancing at Leah one last time before following Nessie away. She was still staring.

-The Art of Running-

It turned out the old bed could support my weight, despite the fact that I felt like I was going to fall at any moment. The room didn't have any actual lights, just an old lamp in the corner that worked perfectly for reading when everyone else was asleep or otherwise occupied.

I probably wouldn't have been that big of a reader if it weren't for the whole 'no sleep' thing, but as it was I needed something to keep the boredom at bay. I made it through about five chapters of Dune before the words started to blur on the page. It turned out I wasn't suddenly regaining my ability to get sleepy; the light bulb in the lamp was dying. There wasn't much point in waking Jake up and risking walking in on him and Nessie just for a new bulb, so I put the book away and rolled over in the bed.

Back when I was still human, I could fall asleep within seconds, no matter where I was. Sleep was hard to come by when every hour of the day was spent either looking after my little sister or finding a way to bring some money home, so I had quickly learned to appreciate every second of it. Now, I was glad that I didn't sleep. It wouldn't be worth the nightmares.

These were the times that I hated the most: the hours just after midnight when the whole world was too quiet. Humans, and vampires, for that matter, weren't meant to exist in absolute silence. Silence begged to be filled, and all sorts of thoughts could seep into the emptiness that it left behind.

In the years after I first changed, I hadn't stopped moving for a moment. At first it was all running, trying to escape what I had done when I first woke up with that insatiable thirst, and then it was just a constant cycle of finding a goal and fulfilling it. Then came Freda, a vampire who knew everything there was to know and showed me how to fill the silence.

Freda loved to talk, and I loved to listen, and for a while I thought we could live like that forever. Maybe she didn't truly care about me, but she cared about my powers, and that was almost the same thing. I would have been content to follow her forever.

Now, I was left on my own to fend off the silence. Sometimes, when I listened hard enough to the sounds of breathing that filled the house, the quiet roars of engines on the highway, the far off sounds of the ocean, those sounds could be enough. But in the end, the silence always won.

Thanks so much to everyone who followed, favorited, and especially reviewed. I hope you like the first real chapter, and I will continue to update each Friday. Reviews are always welcome!