Hooray this took forever to get out! I think that this story has really taken off on it's own. I don't like the Twilight books that much anymore, especially since it's been blown out of proportion, but vampires are still okay. :)

Life returned to me after I'd taken a shower. I'd washed all the sweat and grime off my body, and I'd made peace with my heart. But, the wolf lingered in my mind. I needed to see him again. I wanted to find out where he was from, and why they hated the vampires. Although, I mainly just wanted to ride on his back and speak to him about his journeys. Where had he been, what had he seen, what was it like to be a wolf, and how I could understand him?

Nathaniel was gone most of the time. Xavier had him and David running circles around the state of Alaska, finding out all they could about the wolves. Nathaniel, like Sicilia, had a gift. His was to see the past, though it was ironic that he knew everyone's except his own.

I hardly saw him, and when I did, he was too thirsty or too angry to come near me. We slowly grew further apart, and I felt extremely lonesome. Sicilia was always reading with Danielle, and Xavier never talked. I spent my time experimenting with different recipes for cakes or casseroles, but with no one there besides me to eat them, they wasted away. My free spirit wasted away.

Danielle tried to show me how to make flan, but I kept doing something wrong, and the mixture never hardened. Hers turned out to be the best thing I'd ever tasted.

Of course I wasn't allowed outside anymore. I could only fantasize about what the world looked like now. I was lucky if I found a window to look out. Xavier had all the curtains drawn. He claimed he didn't want me to be seen—it was a valid reason, but that didn't mean I was pleased.

I thought about trying to make another escape, but if it was snowing again, I'd be doomed. It was okay to make one mistake, but just plain idiotic to make it again.

Still, whenever a chance to leave presented itself, I was tempted. Maybe I could find the wolf…but how would I explain to him why I smelled like vampires again?

Vampires. They were still crazy and rude. My opinion of them had not changed.

I felt the need to rebel. Stupid half-dead creatures! Did they think that just because I was human I couldn't take care of myself? I'd survived this long, so why couldn't I do it again?

I knew the intuitive part of me would kick in and tell my stupid half to shut up, so I had to act quickly. Of course Sicilia and Danielle were in the library, but where was Xavier?

I heard a distant clank.

He's in garage then, working on his new car. It seemed perfect, like I was destined to be rid of this mansion.

I snatched the peach cobbler I was making out of the oven. If it started burning while I was out, Sicilia would smell it, come to check on me, and when she saw I was gone, the search would begin.

I ran as quietly as I could out the glass doors of the kitchen. This time, I had jeans, a black denim jacket over a yellow v-neck shirt, and some good old white converses. It was worse attire for snow than I'd worn before. However, this time I had a plan.

There was a narrow path from the house to the lake. I would use it so there was no way I could get lost. (I couldn't promise myself that my shoes would be soaked with melted snow.) Also, there wasn't a blizzard outside, so it was warmer. My chance of survival was at least 70 percent. Of course it wasn't the smartest thing I to do, but I was completely addicted to adrenaline now.

The snow, so deep and hardly packed, didn't crunch much under my weight. There were no waves to be heard from the lake because it had frozen over. So, except for my heavy breathing, it was dead silent. I took it as an omen and my heart pounded with fear. What the hell was I doing?

"Are you lost?" A strained voice called from the bottom of the steep hill I was slipping down.

I squinted to see who it was. Definitely a human—I could tell by the voice—and a boy. He wore rubber boots and jeans with a plaid jacket. A black cotton cap covered his blonde hair. He looked familiar in a very odd way.

By now he was ten feet from me and smiling at my attire. "You're from the city, aren't you?"

"Kind of…" I laughed nervously. I didn't want to explain my escape.

"Kind of?" He was going to make me lie.

"I moved here a little while ago, with my parents. I guess I just walked outside without thinking about getting dressed properly."

"Did you not want to move here? Not a big nature girl?" He was one of those people who assumed a lot.

"Are you kidding? I love it out here."

"I do too." He smiled again, and suddenly I noticed how young he was. "I'll walk you to the lake…so you won't get eaten."

"By what?" He'd had a mischievous gleam in his eye, and I was now suspicious if he knew about vampires.

"Wolves; there's loads of them around here. You'd be easy prey for them."

"And you wouldn't?" I snickered.

He pulled out a handgun. I flinched because he'd pulled it out quickly and I hadn't expected it. It was the first time someone had held a loaded gun in front of me, and my heart raced. That thing was powerful.

He laughed at my shocked expression. "Do you want to hold it?"

I hesitated. This was beginning to get a little creepy: a strange boy was in the middle of nowhere with a gun and talking to a young girl who he assumed to be stupid. It sounded exactly like a horror movie!

But one look at his innocent face reassured me that he couldn't be that bad. Finally, I smiled and he held the shiny black metal before me. I grasped it gently and examined the smooth, elegant weapon. A new wave of adrenaline made me almost high.

"Point it towards the ground; never at anyone else." His voice was strained.

"That wouldn't have been good." I remarked after I realized I'd pointed it right at him.

"You want to shoot it?"

I glanced at him hopefully, and then dropped my eyes. "No one can fire so close to the lake."

"That's nothing. It's just technically I'm only supposed to use it in an emergency. But a teaching lesson would probably be okay."

I longed to spend the day with this handsome, human stranger. But, I couldn't. My conscience told me I shouldn't be here at all.

"I can't, my dad would find out and I'd be toast for sure… maybe later when he doesn't hate me so much." I handed the gun to him and he slid it back in his jacket.

"What's your name?"

"Amelia."

"I'm Cadel."

"Okay, well it was nice to meet you, but I have to go." Cadel… how unique.

"Where do you live?" He persisted. "I'll come by whenever you feel like practicing."

I half turned to point out the huge mansion that could be seen from a few hundred feet above us. It was almost hidden in the thick woods, but I realized I shouldn't tell him where his death would be. There was no way he would survive a house full of vampires who had no tolerance for humans. What would Nathaniel do? Suck him dry for attempting to get to know me? If he was here, I wouldn't be out here. Why couldn't he just tell Xavier no for once, and stay home, with me?

"That wouldn't be a very good idea…how about you show me where you live?" I bit my lip. I was supposed to be trying to end this conversation, not prolong it!

"Yeah, you're right." He smiled and began back down the hill. I stared after him for a few seconds before resolving that I might as well go along with what I'd came up with.

Once I'd caught up with him, he asked, "Where are you from?"

"Oregon."

"I could have guessed." He commented on my skin tone, which was definitely not tan like it usually was.

At that point, my feet and fingers were freezing, so I became clumsy. This was proven when I slipped and slid the rest of the way down the slope.

Cadel ran after me. "Are you okay?"

I was laughing hysterically on a wet butt when I reached the bottom. "Yes."

He chuckled after I got up. I had melted snow all down the back of my legs. "You're something else, girl."

"Yeah?" I was still laughing, but mostly because I was embarrassed.

We talked about his life on the rest of the way to the lake. Cadel loved to mountain climb and sketch. He was obviously very smart, and that was something that attracted me to him. He said he read sometimes, but because he had such a short attention span, he could never finish a book. Instead, he would be inspired by the characters he read about and would draw them. He frequently created random chapters of books into comics that were much more appealing to him. His favorite sport was baseball, which also happened to be mine. His favorite band was the Decemberists. He had a German Shepard named Ted. His father was dead because of a plane crash, and he was nineteen.

What caught my attention more than anything else were his eyes. I loved his eyes even more than Nathaniel's—at least for the moment. Cadel had an orange ring surrounding his pupil, and the ring turned into another tiny ring of yellowish brown before becoming totally brown and then green and blue. The colors blended perfectly. Anyone would have mistaken his eyes for brown, because the brown ring was the thickest. However, if you stood next to him, the other colors could be seen clearly.

We came to the lake and began to walk around it. Occasionally, he skipped a few rocks and told me about the people who lived in the houses we passed. He was awfully interesting; being so much more complex and exciting than the vampires. But, shouldn't it be the other way around?

Then, the houses became more and more familiar until I caught sight of the house the wolf had brought me to weeks ago. It was the last house on this side of the lake, and we were heading straight towards it. Could Cadel be the son of the woman who let me spend the night?

Apparently, I was right because he stopped in front of it. That explained why he looked so familiar.

"This is it." He took a deep breath—he looked tired. "I wish you would have shown me your house because I don't want you walking here by yourself. It's really dangerous out there."

"You look tired," I changed the subject.

"I was up all night."

"Why?"

"I was just thinking."

I didn't push it farther. "I'll talk to you sometime later then?"

"Yeah—where are you going now?" He looked a little worried about how I was going to get home.

"I'll probably just wander around the lake and then go home."

"Well, take this." He took out his gun again.

"I couldn't shoot that. It would just blow up in my pocket, if anything." I joked.

"Just, do it. I have a feeling you could." He smiled, and showed me how to cock it and load the bullets. He put it on some kind of "safety" lock so I wouldn't accidentally put a bullet through my leg, and loaded the revolver with five shiny bullets. The rest I slid in my left jacket pocket. I placed the gun in my right jean pocket.

"See you," Cadel called as he ran up the steps and into his house.

"'Bye." I answered nervously, but Cadel hadn't noticed my apprehensive tone. "Alright, where are you?" I grumbled at the invisible wolf.

I looked around to find where he'd dropped me off before. I soon spotted the place and jogged toward and past it, heading into the forest of snow and firs.

My teeth chattered nervously and I shivered. What was I doing? Looking for a werewolf? It was ridiculous now that I'd thought about it.

"Amelia, this is getting to be quite absurd." I heard Nathaniel's disappointed voice from behind me. I didn't bother to turn around because I was pretending to be extremely angry at him. Maybe that would persuade him to be at home more often.

"I hate you," I muttered.

He placed a cold hand on my waist. I stepped forward immediately and closed my eyes. Nathaniel had ruined my adventure! All he was going to do was force me back home! However, there was no way that was going to happen.

Nathaniel hissed. "I'm only trying to protect you."

"'I'm only trying to protect you!'" I mocked poorly. "Could you get anymore useless?"

"You should be thankful that I'm here to take you home."

"Don't you understand?" I whirled to face him and marched forward. "I want to be outside—not stuck inside reading and wasting my time because, unlike you, I am mortal! I want to make my life worth something! Every second that goes by I get closer to death, and I don't like knowing that each breath I take is in vain."

Nathaniel looked hurt, but I remained furious. "Perhaps I should have considered-,"

"Yes, yes you should have considered that while you're gone I'm alone with my thoughts just like I was before. That house," I glanced to the white mansion nestled in the mountain side to the east, "is no better than the asylum." Then, the tears that had been with me forever, the ones I thought I would never see again, returned. They streamed down my frostbitten cheeks and took with them some of my grief.

Nathan's jaw clenched and his eyebrows pulled together. "You're with your family though."

My chest heaved with pain, an all too familiar emotion. I choked, my throat was dry and I was too tired to be angry with him, or myself. "Leave me alone." I muttered.

"I will not, at least not until someone I trust has an eye on you." He was resolute.

"Leave me be!" I screamed, desperately trying to compose myself. I held my head between my hands and my body responded by shivering. I was livid, and terrified by the idea that Nathaniel would actually leave and I would have to find my own way home.

"Amelia," I shook my head as he pleaded. "You must come home." Nathaniel took my hot hand and embraced it coolly. I yanked it back where it belonged.

"You!" A deep voice growled and I looked up to see the three wolves I'd met before glaring at Nathaniel. "This time I've caught you seducing a human." It was the white wolf speaking.

"I do not seduce," Nathaniel almost spat the word.

"Of course," the wolf snarled, "you are not intelligent enough. The art of climbing trees is your theory of relativity, and ironically your hobby is homicide. You are a retarded race."

"Don't be a hypocrite, dog." Nathaniel's solid voice pounded forcefully through my body. It seemed to me he had a commanding presence that ordered obedience from everyone, and everything. The wolf was not bothered. "My kind consumes considerably less that yours."

"I am not concerned with the amount, only the source." The wolf snapped.

"Then you have no right to denounce me."

The brown wolf howled. "You are a vampire! That's all we need to know!"

"But that is not how justice is done." The white wolf reconciled. "We will cause him no harm—so long as he keeps his promise. Patience my brother, he will not be long if he is like the others."

"So we raise justice for a vampire above the life of a human?" The other wolf growled.

"Justice has always been out of the reach of humans, therefore it is more important than her life." The white one answered.

I stared impassively at the snow beneath me. My eyes were wide open and they felt strained, like my eyebrows were too heavy to keep up. Strangely, I now found no interest in the wolves voices, the only words that caught my attention were Nathaniel's.

"I don't think so. Let's ask her." He wanted my opinion.

"The human is disorientated. She is sure of nothing and so can not answer our questions to the best of her ability." The white wolf observed, and then I laughed at his accuracy.

"He's right, Nathaniel." I sighed.

"Yes, so accordingly she doesn't have enough sanity to be able to discern that for herself." Nathaniel mocked with eyes beholding flat sarcasm. Apparently, I was sane enough to answer his question because I knew I was crazy. That was ridiculous reasoning, but the white wolf agreed.

"Very well then," When he sighed his fur vibrated "Amelia do you believe that justice has always been out of the reach of your kind?"

I tried to think. "You can't make a statement like that about a whole race. So no I don't think justice has been out of certain people's reaches. There are some humans who are honest." I grumbled, bored with their stupidity.

"How about you?"

I was in the middle of a yawn. "I guess I am, but I'm not sure because I haven't had any experience with dishonesty yet… I think."

The white wolf made multiple barking noises that sounded like a laugh. "You're still young, and so is your pet." He glanced at Nathaniel and snickered again. "I trust Xavier keeps you in line. Give my best to him, will you?"

"Of course," Nathaniel watched the wolf laugh with enmity; his voice became a freezing tremor that resembled the biting temperature, "Now leave, Bran, before Xavier catches up to me." He clearly did not want to tolerate this dog's sardonic humor.

"You best hope you are not alone again next time. We may not kill you, but a good fight would liven up our lives a bit." Bran turned his back to us and growled, "Filth."

Nathaniel's fists clenched in one swift and powerful motion as the wolves retreated into the darkness of the enormous northern forests. "They could have killed you."

"I don't think so," I stared at him steadily, while his eyes still followed the wolves.

"It's entirely possible. You have no idea what they are capable of doing. I would have stood no chance had I tried to protect you." He looked down and shook his head slowly.

"But he wouldn't have."

Nathaniel glared at me. "Bran may seem kind, but he is just as ruthless as the others."

"He might have-," Nathaniel put up his palm to silence me.

"Let's get you home." He began to trudge north, but when he heard that I was not budging, he stared at me with one raised eyebrow. "Amelia, let's go."