Oh my brother

you've fallen from grace

you took her love

and it hit her face

Now you're grown

to walk alone

you can't come home

Oh my tester

you've lost your song

you used his pain

to make your love

Won't you see

all alone

and you can't come home

"Home" – Tj & Cait

Do you know what you should do if you encounter a bear? Your first instinct, of course would be to run. People always want to run away from their problems; particularly when their problem is a massive bear.

But running is the last thing you should do. It makes you appear weak, an easy target. Start running and the bear will start running too – a damn sight faster than you.

Paul steps around the meat, inspecting it from every angle. A sliver of fat falls of the hunk of meat, and the fire groans and hisses. He sticks his knife into one side of the beef, and pulls it out again.

Still bloody.

He wipes the knife on his pants leg, once on each side, and sits down on the other side of the fire.

"It'll take a while yet," he says.

The man looks at me, I am still unsure as what to call him. He is not my brother. He is not Paul. 'The man' seemed to suffice for a while, but then I became unsure of even that. He…it…must be something different, surely. How else can I be here, sharing the smell of roasting meat with a dead man?

We're on one of the dirt pathways that mark the borders between different farms, just far enough from the safety of the city to make this interaction uncomfortable.

We've been here for about an hour, just playing this game. His game. Where I try to keep my voice steady, and he stalks. We talk about recent hunts and the price of decent brew and how the cold won't be good for the crops and a hundred other things that are of little consequence whatsoever.

"So, Sam…" he says, and by the way he shifts and the tenor of his voice, I know that this is the moment. We are no longer wasting time, walking towards a location that I hoped we would never reach. We have arrived, and I felt like I was about to die.

Every muscle in me tenses. A rush of blood flooding my face, leaving me red and hot. My breath turns heavy, joining in with the chorus of soft winds that makes the fire between us dance.

He senses my reaction.

"You're a killer," he says.

He lacks emotion, conviction, and anything else that would have been an appropriate human reaction.

Because he, after all, is not human.

I don't know what to say. What can I say to a statement like that? Deny it? Oh no, that would truly be a pointless venture. So I just stay still, clenching both of my fists and trying to focus on something, anything, that doesn't make me feel like throwing up.

"Meet me by that place," he says "you know the one with the trap, where your brother died."

I don't say anything.

The man screams, and turns away running into the forest.

I sit there for a long while. Where else did I have to go?

It seems like no time at all until someone stumbles across the campfire light. It's Jared, and he looks worried. "Sam, what happened? I heard a scream?"

I know that it's time for me to start acting, and well, I'd done it once before when Paul went missing, hadn't I? I could do it again.

AN: Hello everyone, I am so sorry for not updating in what has been over a month! I have had a lot of coursework to get through, plus my nieces christening among other things, so it has been a little bit hectic over on my end. I thank those of you that are still reading and following my story, even though the updates have been inconsistent. Make no mistake the next chapter will be posted within the next couple of days, as half-term is coming up, which gives me a whole week to write and post a couple of chapters.

I am also planning on posting a new story either today or tomorrow. Yes I know I probably shouldn't, considering I have The Blood Of Brothers and The Wolves of Paris to update, but I can't help it. My muse is screaming at me, and I must do as she commands.

Once again thank you all for following and taking the time to read my story an also I'm sorry for the really long authors note, I didn't expect it to be this long.

Tah tah for now.

Fenrir Vanagandr ~