"I don't want to be second best
Don't want to stand in line
Don't want to fall behind
Don't want to get caught out
Don't want to do without
And the lesson I must learn
Is that I've got to wait my turn" – 'Miniature Disasters' KT Tunstall

An inhuman growl erupted from Embry's chest as the vampire crept closer to the campground. Leah could tell that he was in full protection mode by the arch of his back and the sneer across his face; only one thing could cause such a fierce reaction. Leah glanced back at the girl, who was now on the ground cowering and shaking. 'Poor thing' was Leah's first reaction, 'she has no idea what kind of world she just stepped into.'

"Oooo," the vampire chided Embry, continuing to inch closer to the very angry werewolf. "Looks like the puppy has a bit of a temper, we're going to fix that now aren't we?"

"Where are the rest of your people?!" Embry barked, his voice echoing off of the surrounding trees. His body was beginning to shake and Leah knew she had to keep calm for the sake of getting the human girl out alive.

"Now, now, they will all come in due time. But for now, my dear puppy, you and the bitch are mine," the vampire grinned maliciously. Leah could see Embry beginning to shift and turned to face the young human girl. She knew she had to get her out of here but couldn't afford the vampire knowing the rest of the humans were evacuating.

Leah assessed the situation and saw the vampire was completely absorbed with teasing and pushing Embry over the edge. She quickly slinked to the girl and knelt down beside her.

"We're going to get you out of here," She whispered, laying a hand on top of her shaking head. "It's okay, we're the good guys." The girl looked up at Leah, her face was red and stained with tears. "What's your name?"

"Charlotte," she said in a quavering voice, "Charlotte Altera."

"Altera?" Leah paused for a moment. "As in Quil Altera?"

"I'm his cousin," Charlotte began but was quickly cut off by a loud barking noise behind Leah and looked behind her. Embry had changed, his clothes ripped to shreds on the ground around him. Before Leah could take in the scene, Embry launched at the vampire and latched onto his shoulder with his mouth. The vampire let out a high-pitched, metallic scream that made Charlotte return to her cowering position. Leah knew she had to get the young girl out of the area as quickly as possible now that the vampire was completely distracted.

"OK, listen to me carefully, Charlotte. I'm going to pick you up and take you somewhere safe and-"

"No! W-we can't, what about Damon? He's going to back any second and he'll be looking for me … " Leah bit her tongue in response to this, the urge to put the blatant but harsh truth out there grew in her stomach but she knew the last thing she needed was for this girl to have a complete meltdown.

"I know, we'll look for him later but right now we have to get you out of here before that thing comes over to finish the job, kay?" Leah said intensely, trying to convey the reality of the situation and how much danger she really was in. Charlotte's eyes were full of tears as she looked from Leah to the situation behind her, she could hear the continued sounds of shredding body parts and screams from both fighters. Charlotte nodded solemnly before being scooped into Leah's arms.

"Will he be okay? Your friend, I mean?" Charlotte asked in a small whisper. Leah paused for a moment before she answered.

"Yeah, Embry can handle himself pretty well," Leah said before she began her jog into the woods and towards Forks.

--

The run was relatively uneventful but Leah could already sense the disturbance that was happening in the rest of the woods. The sounds of animals and wildlife usually present in the Olympic rainforest but today, everything seemed still and frozen in time. There was hardly a twitch of a leaf or the scurry of some small rodent. It was as if the animals that typically resided in the forest got the memo of something coming before everybody else and packed up and left a long time ago.

It was obvious Sam had gotten the word out of the evacuation. The line to leave on North 101 was long. Cars were piled up at the single stop light in the small town as families crammed every single person they could into their cars. They were all heading to Port Angeles, the closest and safest city. The talk of a Tsunami could be heard in various conversations. Charlotte had remained relatively calm and collected during the whole time Leah was searching for someone to take her to Port Angeles. She stayed close to Leah's side, almost annoyingly so but Leah had to remember that all the events she had seen in the forest were completely alien to her. A man being there one moment and then becoming a wolf in the next and a strange, creepy stranger smeared in her friend's blood. Leah spotted a somewhat familiar head full of sandy blonde hair and quickly approached him.

"Hey!" she called and he turned around, looking panicked at the chaos that was unfolding before him. "Your name is Mike, right? Mike Newton?"

"Yeah, yes I am. You're that Jacob kid's friend, right? From La Push?" He said, his eyes obviously taking her current state of dress. Leah was sure her clothes were stretched and ripped, showing a lot more skin than she was accustomed to. She probably looked like some Amazonian woman who had just crawled out of the forest.

"Leah, right. Listen, I need a favor. Can you take this girl to Port Angeles? I found her in the woods and she has no way to evacuate." Leah said, gesturing to the much shorter girl next to her. Mike's eyes moved from Leah's body to Charlotte's and immediately looked crest fallen. Leah breathed a small sigh of relief, knowing Embry wouldn't have to rip Mike's face off from flirting with his imprintee.

"Er, yeah, sure. Do you need a ride too, Leah, right?" he said but Leah ignored his last comment and turned to Charlotte. She looked at her wide eyes and fearful expression and Leah felt pity again for the unknowing human girl.

"Listen, I know this is a lot to handle in such a short of amount of time and I promise, I will explain more to you later. Well, at least Embry will. But I need you to promise not to speak to anyone about what you saw in the woods today." Leah said, making eye contact with the other girl and holding her gaze to emphasis the importance of this promise.

"But, Damon? What about him, we need to tell the police …" her voice trailed off, tears brimming her eyes once again and her whole body began to shake.

"I know, I know" Leah hushed her; she didn't need any crying girls on her hands right now. She had no time to deal with so many emotions and heartbreak. "I promise you, we will look for Damon but I need you to be strong and go with Mike. He's a … he's a good guy," Leah said, having troubling finishing the last part of the sentence. "I will find you and bring you back and we'll talk, alright? Just for now, stay with Mike, okay?"

Charlotte nodded and without speaking, stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Leah's tall frame. Leah was taken back from the gesture, so unfamiliar with this kind of emotional bond with a stranger. She never really had saved a human's life with her special abilities; it was the first time being a shifter was somewhat useful in helping another life. Reluctantly, she hugged her back. In a way, Leah was glad for this girl's existence and her newly found place in Embry's world. She had taken the place Leah wish she could fulfill. It would make breaking up with Embry later a little bit easier and less heart breaking.

Charlotte soon disappeared into the crowd with Mike to go search for his car. Leah stood in the moment, watching people pack all their belongings and supplies into their vehicles as they headed north and away from all the danger. Than she remembered Embry and the type of danger he was in. She was stripping off her clothes as soon as the shrubbery concealed her as she shifted into her wolf form. An avalanche of voices met her before all four feet hit the ground.

We're meeting in the clearing

People are evacuating, slowly but surely

Meet in the clearing like before

I'm okay, bloodsucker took a chunk of me but I'll survive

The vampires are on their way

Heading to the clearing, be there soon

The bloodsuckers will be here soon, gotta get ready

I imprinted on some random girl in the forest

Meet in the clearing as soon as possible

Cullens are here, there aren't many but they'll do

Wait, Embry imprinted?

Leah quickly changed the course she was running on and began to make her way to the familiar clearing where the rest of her brothers and the Cullens were waiting for the battle to begin.

Leah didn't have to run for long until she was approaching the field. Already she could catch her brothers' scents in the air mingling with the cold iciness of the Cullens. She stopped suddenly, a new smell had wafted in front of her. It was a fresh smell, strong like it was just freshly created. Leah turned around and out drifted a young girl from behind a tree.

Leah didn't need the sun to tell her this girl was a freshly made vampire. Her blonde hair was tangled with leaves as a disheveled plastic tiara sat lopsided on the top of her head. The prom dress she wore could've possibly been periwinkle blue at some point but was now covered with earth and grime. A mangled corsage hung limply from her wrist by a thread, looking like it had seen better days.

"She told me I would find stragglers," the girl hissed as she took a step forward, Leah could see the flash of silver, strappy heal on one foot while the other remained naked. She wobbled as she made her way forward. Leah quickly glanced out at the field, hoping that someone would sense the danger she was in or hear her panicked thoughts. Sadly, none of her brothers were in their wolf forms standing in a circle. They seemed too absorbed in the excitement of battle to notice their lone sister being cornered by the enemy.

"She told me the night she changed me. That night was full of surprises," she continued without pausing, seemingly talking to herself now. "The doctor said I could use a night out of the asylum, that a bit of fresh air and fun would be good for me. My friends decided to dress me up and take me to the dance. 'Karen, you look lovely,' they told me. 'No one would ever think your crazy,' they would say. Little did I know I would never make it to the school, like you're never gonna make it back to your friends," she said the last bit with a sneer, like the label could hurt Leah.

She snorted in return. 'I am reaching the end of my rope with these blood suckers and their need to rip my throat out,' she thought to herself. As the girl took another step forward, Leah crouched down and let out a deep, rumbling growl. The girl paused and, to Leah's surprise, smiled.

"Well," she said with a small giggle, "This should be enter-" Leah didn't wait for her to finish her sentence and lunged at the young, vampire girl.

Karen's body thudded loudly against a nearby tree. She laughed at the gesture but Leah took no notice and lunged for her throat. Karen gasped in surprise as she took Leah by the shoulders and threw her off of her. However, Leah took a piece of her throat with her.

'You bitch,' the girl spat as she reached up to her newly torn throat. 'You're going to destroy the entire outfit.' Leah was already back on her feet and spat out the piece of the vampire's throat. It tasted exactly how it smelled, an ice-y cold that burned Leah's mouth and nose hairs. It was like chewing on wasabi. Leah let out another growling warning as she slinked towards her prey. She wanted this fight more than anything. Ever since these creatures had entered her life, it had been nothing but torture and turmoil for Leah. These leeches were responsible for everything that had happened to her home and she wasn't going to stand for one of them barraging in and threatening to hurt her family and her loved ones. She was going to win back some revenge.

Leah leapt again but Karen was ready for this round. It all happened so fast, the vampire had spun around and Leah hit her the wrong way. Karen latched onto her, holding her in a headlock while the rest of Leah's body scratched and pushed against the vampire's grasp. Leah could immediately feel her windpipe beginning to crush and her oxygen supply slowly depleting. 'No,' Leah begged mentally, 'It wasn't suppose to happen like this.' She tried to grasp for air, tried to find some way to make her presence known to her brothers who stood merely feet away but it was useless.

Her vision began to blur, everything around her began to have a soft edge to it. It was like a painting dripping away in front of her eyes as blackness began to consume her surroundings. 'This is it,' Leah thought and a vision of a smiling Jacob appeared before her as her consciousness slowly began to slip away through her fingers.

Then it was like someone had pulled the shutters open. Leah hit the ground gasping for air, the sweetness filled her lungs and she felt alive once again. She looked up and saw a pair of feet she wasn't expecting, a pair of legs that she had once considered her enemy, a torso she had imagined ripping apart on more than one occasion and the face she had partially blamed to have started this entire mess.

Edward Cullen stood before her, holding back the struggling young vampire and looking down at Leah.

A/N: My goal is to have this story done by October 31st. I'm going to be participating in NaNoWriMo (nanowrimo[dot]org) for the month of November and definitely want this story to be finished so I won't be distracted while I write a 50,000 novel. /gulp

Thanks for the love! You guys are amazing and drive me to finish this story. The next chapter is going to be a doosey, let the war begin! - Nicole

PS, follow me on twitter! melovecoffee