Hello everybody! Thank you all of my beautiful reviewers, for reviewing on my story and for wanting more chapters! I smile insanely with each and every one of them! So, I'm going to answer/respond to all of my recent anonymous reviewers and then get on with the chapter! I am apologizing in advance for whatever I do wrong; because I'm sure I'm gonna jack something up in here.

JJ: I'm glad you thought so! Thanks for reviewing! I have Renity's picture on my profile (the celeb that I think fits her most appropriately), but she has auburn hair, brown eyes, and tan-ish skin. Her hair goes mid-back, but it's gonna change. Why? You'll see. *wink, wink*

That's it for the anonymous reviewers on my eighth chapter, so read on!

From the moment Austin White stepped through the front door of his two-story house, he automatically knew something was wrong. It was quiet; too quiet. Normally his sister would be playing her guitar and singing, or playing her music from her iPod with the volume all the way up, but right now, there was nothing but silence in the house.

"Serenity? Baby girl, are you home?" he called up the stairs. No answer. He climbed up the stairs and went into his sister's bedroom; only to find it vacant and cold, with his sister nowhere to be found. Austin kept repeating her name while searching the whole house for her, but hard as he tried, he couldn't find her.

He fell back on the sofa, anxious and tense until he found a note on the coffee table with both his name and dad written on it with his sister's familiar neat scrawl. Dear Austin and Dad, he read.

I needed to get away for a while. Don't worry, I won't be gone forever. I don't know how long I'll be gone, but no matter how long I'm gone, I'll be coming back. I promise you that I will. My leaving has nothing to do with the two of you. I love you guys very much and it hurts me to leave you, but like I said, I won't be gone forever. Please, don't look for me.

Love, Serenity.

Austin was both relieved and sad that she had to go and that he didn't know exactly where she was, but at the same time, he understood. There had been times when he himself had wanted to go away and just disappear for a while. He just had to trust his sister's word and pray that she knew what she was doing. And in a way, he knew that while she didn't know what she was doing or where she was going, she would. And then she would be right back here, wiser and stronger and able to take down anything that came her way. Because that's just who she was; a strong, independent young woman with the heart and will of a fighter. Just like their mother.

Renity, Austin thought to his sister wherever she was, if mom could see you right now... she'd be so proud of you, baby girl. No matter what you think of yourself, you are a star in the eyes of many. Be careful.

Their father's reaction hadn't been as pleasant. He was frantic, screaming about how they needed to find his baby, that she might be in trouble, and that it was probably all Jacob Black's fault. Austin knew that Jacob had something to do with it, but he kept it to himself. He could deal with him later. Right now, he had to work on getting his father to understand that she needed time on her own.

"Why the hell are you not doing anything? Your sister is out there somewhere, cold and probably lost, not knowing at all what she's doing, and you're just sitting there like you don't care!" His father shouted. Andrew wasn't mad at his son; he was mad because he was scared, and he was using anger to cover it up.

"She knows what she's doing, dad. You read the letter; she wants time to herself. She doesn't want us to look for her. We just have to give her time! She's been through hell in the past couple of months. She deserves to have time to herself, where we don't have to be a few rooms away, worrying. She's fine, and she'll be back. We just have to wait. She'll be back," He told his father soothingly.

Andrew calmed down somewhat, but he was still anxious. His daughter was out there somewhere, whether she was safe or not, he didn't know. All he could do was have faith; faith in his daughter, faith that she would came back in one piece safe and sound.

And they prepared, as father and son, for the wait of their beloved one's return.

0000000

And that is what brought me to where I am now. Running back and forth all over in the forest of both La Push and Forks. I don't go into more populated areas, only the more secluded and hidden underbrush. It's been over a month now—almost two months—, since I ran away. More than once, I wonder how their reactions were like. Did they start looking for me even though I asked them not to?

There isn't a day that I don't question my decision. Was it the right thing to do? Did I overreact? Should I go back? I also wondered if Jacob missed me. Did he even notice that I was missing? Did anyone notice? Dad and Austin probably have. Especially a month after I left.

Lately, I've had to watch out for a coven of cold ones that had found me in my Nocturnal form. They were extremely thirsty; thirsty enough to go after an animal when it clearly wasn't their diet style. I had to run away from them to a safer spot to Shift so I could fight them off. Once they saw what I was, they ran away, but the look on the leader's face told me it wasn't over—not even slightly. So now I was on the lookout for three vamps, all blonde, kind of Siamese looking—meaning they looked the same, kind of—red eyes, and two girls, one boy. The boy was the leader and I could tell from first glance that he was aggressive. The other girl, the taller one, was controlling; she liked being boss whenever she could. The last one, the little girl, was small and confused, like she didn't know what she was doing with them. I could tell that she was probably roped into this with them—meaning they probably forced her, or tricked her into thinking they took her in out the kindness of their hearts.

Yeah, right. I had nothing against the little one—unless it was her that was really the master mind behind all of this and she was just faking the whole 'weak and defenseless' act. Well, I just have to wait and see. I wonder what Austin is doing right now. I wonder if he—

A rustle about a mile away from where I stood behind me caught my attention. I tensed, ready to run out of there or fight the attacker if necessary. Another rustle sounded; closer this time. Then I figured it out. They were taunting me, making me think they were behind me, when they were really in front of me. I knew this because I could feel it. Call it intuition, if you will, or sheer gut-feeling/instinct.

If they're going to play games, then I'll play too. I kept my cool, just walking forward, feigning caution. In the distance, a little off to my left about half a mile, I heard a soft tinkling laugh; the older blond girl. I mentally smirked. They thought they were at the head of the game; but they were way wrong. The ball's rolling in my court now, vamps. I'm in control.

I kept walking, looking around for them and feigning caution still, when I tensed again, anticipating their next move. They were now moving towards me, coming at me from all sides—except my right. I sped off in that direction, hearing them chase after me. I heard the blond scream in frustration. Looks like the blondie doesn't like losing her own game; too bad for her!

Then the little one caught up to me. She stopped in front of me, attempting to stop me by just standing there or catching me off guard, but I was expecting that. I veered to the left in a futile attempt to get away, but the blond boy was there. And flanking my other side was the older girl with a smirk on her overly-angelic face. I was boxed in. They would catch me if I went backwards. My only option was to fight my way out if they made me.

The boy cocked his head and said, "Dear sister, I believe your research has proved to be correct. The reservation must be infested with these fascinating creatures. Shall we have a look later, after we take care of this one?"

I had a pretty good idea of what he meant about, 'take care of'. And I wasn't going to stick around to see if I was right. I tried to get away, but the boy grabbed me, his arms wrapping around my neck. And then I was seeing red. Every instinct in my body was screaming for me to get him off of me, that he was a predator. So I did what my instincts told me: I threw him off of me and crouched, ready to spring if I had to. The girls hissed and I growled in return.

They all came at me in a blur of motion, but I saw it. I bit the boy, ripping his left leg off and went for the older girl, tearing out only her forearm before the little one pulled me back. I was so far gone in my red haze that I bit her too, and then went after the other two again. I destroyed the boy first, but not before he bit me.

I howled in pain as I felt the venom creeping into my system, burning the whole way. But I had to finish the job of killing these things before they could kill me. So, ignoring the pain the best I could, I tore the vamp apart. The blonde girl was screaming in shock, I think.

"You were supposed to be dead! Our venom is supposed to be instant poison to you vile creatures!" She shrieked. Well, I guess not, I thought at her. Get your facts straight!

I lunged at her, tearing her entire arm off this time. To her credit, she put up a good fight. It took me a little longer to destroy her, especially when she was clawing and biting and punching me while I tried to rip her to shreds. And when I finally did, the little one started trying to kill me, too.

She was pretty strong, but not strong enough. Her older and deceased siblings taught her nothing in fighting, probably telling her that her strength would be enough. I was actually sorry that I had to kill her. She had also gotten quite a few bites in there too, and I could feel the venom starting to spread even more inside me. Maybe if I run some more, my body will burn it off.

So, I ran for a few hours. Around the third hour, I noticed two things. First, I had run all the way to Canada. Second, I wasn't healing and my body was shutting down. As far as I could tell, I wasn't dying; just falling asleep, I think. I crashed in the woods, near someone's cabin. I lay there, breathing hard and fast. I decided to Shift back into my human form, and was thankful that I had some clothes on. Granted, they were shredded, but I had a bra and panties covering the essentials, so I didn't care.

My shirt was shredded and hung onto my torso in taters; my shorts were the same. I lay there, blackness closing in until I heard footsteps coming my way. But I couldn't bring myself to care. The scent of my blood was thick in the air I was breathing and all of my wounds from battling the vampires were stinging. My thoughts were muddled and I could feel the thick venom creeping even further into my veins.

I couldn't form a single coherent thought as the darkness swept me away, and Jacob's face faded from the insides of my eyelids.

~0o0~

Naomi Gonzales thought of herself as your average person. Red hair, green eyes, not too tall, not too short. Normal figure, not especially curvy or doughy around the middle. She jogged in the woods behind her cabin house that she lived in with her husband and goddaughter. She went to parties with her friends, or met up with them to have coffee or lunch. She even went dancing with her husband when they both felt they wanted to. She definitely wasn't an out-of-the-ordinary kind of woman.

So you can imagine how surprised she was to find a bloody and beaten girl in the back of her cabin house just beyond the fence that separated her house from the woods. She had just been about to go for her usual morning jog, dressed in sweats and a tee shirt with a light sweater over it. Before she had gone out though, she had seen a giant red smudge on the forest floor just beyond her backyard fence.

She had gone out to check what it was, but never expected it to be an injured girl, looking to be about seventeen years old, her clothes ripped and hanging off of her in tatters. Naomi rushed toward her, grabbing the girl's wrist to check for a pulse. It was faint, but still there. She dragged the girl's limp body all the way into her house, thanking her lucky stars that her husband was out on a business trip with his friends.

She left her on the deck of the back yard in front of the sliding glass backdoor. Naomi ran to the closet in the hall to grab a blanket to wrap around the girl so her blood wouldn't stain anything. Returning to the girl's body, she proceeded to wrap the blanket around her and carry her body the best she could into her house and on the black couch.

Grunting, she went to the kitchen and grabbed the first aid kit from under the sink, all the while debating her options. Should she call the police? Well, there was the possibility that she wasn't from here. She could be a runaway, or have abusive parents. Or she might have been thrown out of her home and left to defend herself. Well, one thing for sure was that she wasn't calling the police until she had the girl's story straight.

Now, all she had to do was wait for said girl to wake up.

Little did Naomi know it was going to take a lot longer than she thought.

~0o0~

The first thing I did when I woke up was groan. My entire body hurt so badly. I opened my eyes and looked at my surroundings. I was on a couch in someone's living room. I sat up and searched for said someone, and my eyes rested on a woman sitting on the loveseat to the right of the couch I was laying down on.

"So, you finally decided to wake up, eh? Who are you?" the woman asked upon seeing me awake.

"I could ask you the same thing. Where am I? And who are you?" I shot back.

The woman smirked. I liked her already. "Naomi Gonzales and you're in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. My turn: Who are you and what are you doing here? It's obvious you're not Canadian, at least not directly. So spill."

"My name's Serenity White, I don't really know what I'm doing in your living room, or in Canada, and I think I might have some Canadian blood in there somewhere." It wasn't entirely a lie; my mom's blood line was all over the world. I was Asian, Canadian, Mexican, Native American… the list goes on and on.

"Did you run away from home?" Naomi asked me, raising a thin eyebrow.

"Boy, this is starting to feel like Twenty Questions, Naomi." If she caught my hint at all, she ignored it, or she wasn't fazed by it.

I sighed. "Yes, but not because of what you think. I chose to run away for a while because I wanted time to myself. They didn't do this to me," I gestured to my bloody person, a grimace on my face as I took it all in. I wasn't as bad as before, the only things different were the bandages covering different parts of my body. Even without looking, I knew they were already healed.

I guess the vampires' poison didn't work. I must have burned it off when I was running. And then, like a strike of lightning, I was jolted to awareness of the fact that I was human for the first time in over a month. It felt almost weird now to have fingers and toes when all I had for almost two months were paws and hind legs.

Naomi got up and headed to the kitchen, asking, "Are you hungry?" I considered it for a moment. I was, in fact, very hungry; absolutely ravenous.

"Yes," I said uncertainly. I got up and followed her, sitting on one of the stools around the island at the entrance of the kitchen.

While she was gathering pans and ingredients, she made small talk with me. "So, does everyone call you Serenity? Or do you have a nickname?"

"I have a nickname; Renity," I replied to her.

"Renity? Why don't they just call you Serena or something like that?" Naomi inquired curiously. I swallowed discreetly before replying.

"Because that was my mother's name." I didn't elaborate any further than that until she asked me.

"Was? As in…?" She trailed off uncertainly.

"Yeah, she died in a car accident when I was eight. Eleven years ago, it's hard to believe it's been so long," I said, staring into space. For some weird reason, Jacob's face popped into my mind. His chocolate brown eyes made me feel like I was drowning in them. His sharp features, his russet tan skin… his entire being drove me crazy. And right now, I wanted to be with him more than ever.

Naomi tsked knowingly. "I know that look; you like someone, don't you?" she said.

I flushed and tried to use irritation to cover it up. "Are you serious? We were just talking about my mother's death and now you're accusing me of being in love?"

"I never accused you of being in love," she smirked evilly. She had me and she knew it.

I flushed even more and ducked my head, laughing a bit. She laughed too.

"I knew it! So what's his name? Is he cute? A friend, boyfriend, acquaintance?" Her questions kept flying at me, so I began to tell her the whole story.

"Well, his name's Jacob…" and the story began. I told her everything, blocking out the parts about my powers of course, but still telling her all that happened.

"Wow, I think you handled that well, except for running away from them," Naomi said once I'd finished.

I hung my head in shame. I knew it was probably immature and selfish to run away from my problems, and I regretted the decision and hated myself for it, but hard as I might try, I can't take it back no matter what I do. The best I could do was make up for it in any way possible.

"Well, I won't scold you since it seems you already know the consequences of your actions. But I'm not going to let you eat in my kitchen all dirty like that!" She gestured to my torn clothes and bloody skin. "Go take a shower. The bathroom is down the hall, second door to your right." I nodded and went to go do as I was told.

Stepping out of the tub, twenty minutes later, I dried myself up and grabbed some clothes that I had in my 'air pocket'. Dressed in a tee shirt and jeans, I walked out and sat at the counter where Naomi was currently helping herself to a bowl of cereal. A plate of pancakes was cooling off beside her, steam rising and fluttering away from the plate.

She pushed it to me wordlessly and I ate it silently and hungrily without any syrup. I didn't ask for any because I felt it would be rude. When we both finished, I asked her a question that had been gnawing at the edge of my mind.

"Naomi, how long was I asleep?" she looked up and didn't answer for a moment.

Then she said, "Almost two days. If you hadn't woken up when you did, it would've been two days exactly. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that you've been asleep for over a day."

Wow, I guess it took a little longer that I thought for the venom to go away.

"So, anyway, now that I've seen you clean and more or less groomed, how did you grow your hair so long?" Naomi asked me. My eyebrows knitted together in confusion. What?

"What do you mean 'so long'? It's only up to my mid-back," I told her.

"Well, I hate to break it to you, but I'm pretty sure you're sitting on it right now," she said, looking pointedly at my bottom. I followed her gaze and stared open-mouthed at the sight of my hair being long enough for me to sit on and still have enough to move my head in any direction and not tug on it.

I was pretty sure it had grown more than six inches in about two months.

"Holy crabbit," I said, tugging my hair out from under me and staring at it. It looked even redder than it had before, looking like a light shade of brown in brighter lighting, and darker in normal lighting. I bet if I stood in direct sunlight, it would look absolutely red.

"I didn't even notice! Wow…" I trailed off, not knowing where to go from there. Naomi smiled and shook her head.

"So, where're you from?" she asked me. She asked me quite a lot of questions.

"La Push, Washington," I mumbled half-heartedly.

"What's your dad's name?" And so, the questions went on.

The rest of the day came and went, and I was going to sleep on the couch again, but my hair kept getting tugged from being underneath me. So, I put into a long braid to keep it out of the way. Satisfied at last, I told Naomi goodnight and went to sleep.

Only to have Jacob's face come into my dreams several times, in my week long stay in Naomi's house.

On my last day, I couldn't take it anymore. The ache inside my chest was unbearable, and I had to be with Jacob if I wanted to stay sane. So, I told Naomi I was leaving.

"Really? Leaving already?" she had asked me. I nodded and she sighed as if she had expected me to say I was leaving.

"Well, I'm not holding you here, so I give you my blessings and my goodbye, so you can go safely," She smiled at me and I smiled back. With a small twinge of surprise, I realized that I was going to miss her. I came over and hugged her. She hugged me back too, squeezing me tightly before letting go.

"So is this the part where I get to see what you really are in a Kodak moment?" She smirked.

I cracked a half smile. "Yep, and you don't tell a soul, you hear me?"

Naomi nodded gravely. I had already packed up all of the few things I had, so I just went outside into the woods a little more farther than the spot where Naomi had found me a week ago. I slipped off my tank top with my back towards her, and then Shifted, not caring about my already torn sweats.

I shook my fur as if I had dirt on it, and looked at Naomi. She was gaping at my huge and pure white form. I grinned an eerie wolf-y grin and then turned to go. Naomi pet my fur and smiled. I trotted away about twenty feet from her and turned to look back. She was softly smiling, still. On impulse, I threw my head back and howled a thank you to her. She waved at me and I could've sworn I saw a tear slid down her cheek, but I couldn't be sure.

Then, I turned and ran to go home for the first time in two months.

Naomi shook her head, still smiling. How did I get so lucky? She thought to herself. Chuckling, she walked back into her house to wait for her husband, who was already walking through the front door with a smile on his face upon seeing her.

It was dawn when I got home. I wasn't about to barge in there after not being home for two months, so I waited in the woods impatiently until about nine o'clock before finally Shifting back into human form. I dressed into a pair of clean jeans and a tee shirt with sneakers. Smoothing my long hair back, I knocked on the front door and waited for someone to open the door.

Austin opened up, looking surprised, happy, and relieved to see me. "Serenity! Your home, baby girl!"

Dad came racing up next to him, looking much the same as Austin and they both enveloped me into a hug that I gladly returned with just as much enthusiasm, if not more. "Yes I am and it's going to stay that way! It feels good to be back," I told them, a grin threatening to split my face.

They ushered me into the house and I was suddenly even happier to be back home than before. I apologized to them over and over for leaving, but to my utter surprise, they said they understood why I left. I was thankful that I wouldn't have to explain, so I let it slide.

"We have to have a welcome back party for you! We're inviting everyone; nobody's turning us down no matter what!" Dad said, already walking towards the phone. I laughed and started planning with them.

It was going to be a surprise; Dad and Austin were going to invite everyone—meaning the pack, pretty much—but they wouldn't know who they were coming to see. That way, I could surprise everyone there and we could enjoy ourselves.

An hour of planning later and we were all ready to go to sleep. We said goodnight to each other and went to our rooms. My room was exactly like I had left it. I put some pajamas on, braided my hair, and crawled under the covers, falling asleep the second my head touched my pillow.

Review! I want to know what you think! :) Man, chapter nine already! My baby's growing up so fast!

~Alee B.