Wow I'm such a freaking nerd. another chapter. I think I have no life. I know I have no life. but thank you to all the people who read, favorite, follow, and review my work. it's so weird, there's like three or four really loyal reviewers I have. (you know who you are! :D) thank you all so much for your continued support.

Happy reading!

The drive passed quickly, and before I knew it, I was stalking up to Billy's house, ready to punch him out of his wheelchair if I needed to. I never thought myself as someone willing to hurt the injured but if Billy kept up acting the way he was… I threw open the door and saw Billy in the hallway.

"Meda?" he asked, almost angrily.

"I need to see Jacob, Billy, and no lies, please," I said coldly. He seemed surprised.

"I don't know," he said.

"Well, I'm sure that you know that Charlie's hunting wolves in the forest." My words had the desired effect, his eyes widened and his jaw dropped, although he shut it quickly.

"Jake's sleeping," he amended, nodding to Jacob's closed bedroom door.

I darted around him and opened the door quickly. Jacob was there, and he was sleeping. He was too big for the bed, even diagonally, his feet hung off the side. He looked nicer when he was asleep. Calmer, more predictable looking. I closed the door silently and went back around Billy. "I'll be on the beach. Tell him I'll be waiting, please," I said. Billy nodded and I left.

I drove down to the beach, letting the strong sea air blow into the truck, and parked on the last bits of asphalt I saw. I walked down to a piece of driftwood, and sat down on it, sighing heavily. On an impulse, I brought a small wave, no more than two inches high up to my feet, and let it back into the ocean. My feet and shoes stayed dry, something I still thought was so cool, even after all the times I'd done it. I spent the better part of forty five minutes like that, staring out into the water and making small waves. It was so calming, I almost fell asleep.

I had to pull myself out of my daze when I heard the quiet crunching of the rocks.

"Hey Meda," Jacob said. I expected him to sound angry, but there was no malice in his voice. "It didn't take you very long," he commented.

"No, it didn't," I said. I didn't know how to proceed from there.

"Why did you come, why didn't you call?" he asked harshly, a big change in tone from the sentence before.

"I think this talk is better face to face, wouldn't you agree?" I asked.

"Oh yeah, this is much better," he laughed once and ran his hand through his hair.

"I came here to talk to you about…" I started.

"The rangers and hunters? Don't worry, we've got that covered," Jake said.

"My dad's out there, looking for you!" I said, standing up and facing him.

"They're just making it more difficult," Jake said. "But they'll start disappearing soon too."

"How can you say something like that?" I practically shouted at him. "You know these people! How can you be such a monster?"

"You know what makes me mad?" he asked. "You stand here, calling me a freak! I'm sorry I'm not the right monster for you, then! We're not as great as bloodsuckers, are we?"

"It's not what you are, I don't care about that!" I shouted. I took a deep breath, to calm myself. If I got too out of hand I'd probably cause an earthquake or tsunami or something like that. "It's what you're doing. Can't you find a way to stop it? Even the Cullens didn't act the way you do. They tried, Jacob! They knew that they could be better…people, I guess, and they put effort into it!"

"Stop what? Put effort into what?" he asked. He seemed more confused than anything else.

"Killing those hikers!" I said loudly. "That's what I'm talking about!"

"That's what this is about?" he asked, looking confused.

"Yes, of course it is!" I said. "These people are innocent; I can't and won't look the other way if you're hurting them."

Suddenly he grinned. "So you're angry because I'm killing people? That's it?"

"Isn't that enough?" I hissed at him. "And quit smiling or I swear I'm smacking it off your face!"

"You don't care I morph into a giant dog?" he asked.

"No, not really, I have bigger problems," I said. Before I could get another word in, he suddenly gripped me in a tight bear hug, like the one he gave me the night before.

"What are you doing?" I asked stiffly as I locked my arms as Jacob laughed and hugged me.

"I'm not a killer, Meda," he said as he released me.

"You're not?" I asked. Then who is, I wondered. "What about Sam?" I asked instead.

"Remember how I told you Sam calls us protectors?" he asked. "That's what we do, we protect people. Sometimes we get there too late."

"Who?" I asked. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach, but he needed to say it.

"The cold ones, our enemy. You of all people should know," he said.

"Laurent's still out there!" I said.

"Who?" Jacob asked.

"You were there, in the meadow. He wanted to kill me," I said. "You stopped him. He ran from you."

"The leech with the black hair? He wasn't too hard. Easy, in fact," Jacob said.

"You killed Laurent?" I asked in amazement.

"It was more of a group effort, but yeah," Jake said sheepishly.

"He's not coming back for me?" I said, more to myself than Jacob. I didn't have to worry so much about Charlie anymore; I didn't have to live in fear!

"He wasn't a friend, right?" he asked. "It didn't look like it. But we had to make sure that he wasn't going to do anything in the future."

"No, he wasn't a friend." I said.

"Why did you crouch down like that, like you were going to fight him?" Jacob asked me curiously. "Why didn't you run or something?"

I paused, wondering what to say. "Isn't it better to go down fighting?" I asked eventually.

"Yeah," he said, agreeing with me but still giving me a weird look. "But don't worry," he continued. "We're taking care of this, you'll be alright. It's just his mate has been giving us some trouble is all…"

Taking care of this? Present tense. And his mate? It wasn't over. Because it had been time since Laurent was dead, and people have died. Laurent even mentioned her. 'Victoria wanted you to suffer, but I'm not so cruel.' He told me.

"Victoria!" I said. She was here, in the woods. The woods where my dad was searching. I focused on taking deep breaths.

"Are you alright? Do you need a glass of water?" Jacob asked me.

"Victoria wasn't his mate, they were just friends," I said in a rush, the words jumbling together. "James was her mate. Remember last spring break, I had to leave for a couple days? They were chasing me and Percy," I explained.

"Why is she here then?" Jacob asked me.

"She wants me," I said. "She thinks Edward killed James, and Laurent said that she thinks this way it'll be fair. Mate for a mate kind of thing."

"This is important," Jacob said. "We have to tell the others right now. I'll be right back," he said and started running into the forest gracefully.

I walked back to my truck, happy that at least I had my pencils and watch on me in case I needed to defend myself against yet another homicidal vampire. This was just crazy, I thought as I locked the doors, like that'd help me, and waited. So Victoria was hunting me. I guess I needed to kill her too, then. It would be nice though, to have a complete set of kills, I mused.

The sound of Jacob coming up to the truck made me look up, and he motioned for me to come out. I did so cautiously, and he looked at me with an unreadable expression.

"You're not reacting to this the way I expected," he said. I thought he looked worried.

"I didn't expect you to morph into a wolf, but then again, here you are," I shot back. He smiled that easy, happy smile I missed so much.

"Just a warning, we can…hear each other," Jacob said.

"Really?" I asked.

"Well, it's mostly when we're in wolf form, but it also kind of sucks. We don't have secrets," he said.

I shrugged. "You're not the first I've known who can do that."

He motioned for me to get back in the car. "We're going to meet them where we rode our bikes. Are you talking about those bloodsuckers?"

"Don't use slurs in my truck, thank you." I said, pursing my lips. "But yes. And it was only Edward Cullen. He could read minds."

Jacob didn't look happy at that. "I thought those were just stories. I've heard legends of vampires who could do extra stuff, but I didn't think it was real."

I paused and sighed. "A lot of stuff you think isn't real is real, it seems."

He laughed once. "I guess so."

"Did you turn into a wolf just now to talk to Sam?" I wondered.

"Yeah, I did. I had to keep it short, though. Or else he would've known you were with me." he said.

"They wouldn't like that, would they?" I asked bitterly.

"No they wouldn't." Jacob said.

"But I do have a question. Why couldn't you say this before, why did I have to guess?" I asked.

"Sam's the alpha of the pack. What he says goes," Jacob explained. "So if we get an order, we have to follow it, even if we don't want to. And he told us not to tell anyone. So I couldn't."

I know what that feels like, always having to follow orders. I stayed silent, hoping I hadn't given too much away.

"I don't know what it was like for Sam," Jacob went on. "He was all alone. When I changed, I had the other voices, telling me what happened and what to do. But he had nobody."

When he said it like that, it was hard to feel angry at Sam. "Will they be angry I'm with you?" I asked.

"Probably," he said with a grin.

"Should I not come?" I asked.

"No, you should definitely come," Jake stressed. "You know a ton of things that can help us. You're not some ignorant human. Like the mind reading bloodsucker, sorry, Cullen," he amended after being at the receiving end of my glare. "Do you know if Victoria can do anything special?" he asked.

"I doubt it," I said. "But while James was in phoenix, she was here distracting the other Cullens, so I didn't get a good look at her." I pulled over to the side of the road and cut the engine, because we arrived to where we practiced the bikes.

"Here should be fine," Jacob said.

"Are you sure I should be here?" I asked again. I needed to be 100% sure I was doing the right thing.

"Are you afraid of the big bad wolf?" Jacob joked.

"Not particularly," I said dryly as I climbed out of the car. Instinctively, I gathered the mist around me. I didn't do anything with it; I just kept it close in case somebody drove on the road and saw giant wolves.

"Well," Jacob said. "Here we go."

I expected them to come as wolves. Instead, all I saw were four, really big shirtless boys. That's what they were, boys, with the exception of Sam. He didn't look old physically, it was mostly in the way he carried himself. Together, they look like four pieces of the same person. They move the same way, and even have their emotions painted across their face at the same time. At first, they are curious. But when they see me, standing beside Jacob, they turn furious.

I expected as much, so I do something that probably isn't smart. I acted like a demigod instead of a human. A human would cower against Jacob, be weak and need protection. I stared at the boys, my face smooth, standing straight up and having my shoulders back. I make eye contact with them, saying 'fight me, I dare you' through my gaze.

Sam stalked up to Jacob. "What have you done?" he demanded.

Another boy, Jared or Paul, I forgot their name, pushed past Sam before Jacob could talk.

"Why can't you follow the rules, Jacob?" he yelled loudly. "What are you thinking? What is wrong with you?"

"She can help," Jacob said quietly.

"Help?" the boy said, his body quivering. "I'm sure the leech lover's dying to help us out!"

"Watch your tone," I said in a bored voice, staring at the angry boy with a bland expression on my face. That took everybody back, and Sam and the other two looked at me in blatant shock.

"Who do you think you are, talking to me like that, you wannabe bloodsucker?" Paul said.

"I said, watch your tone," I repeated myself stronger that time, taking a step to him. He towered over me, but I knew I could take him, wolf or human down if I needed to. We were so close to the ocean. He looked shocked and angry that I'd talk to him like that.

The boy shuddered once, almost like it was ripping through his body.

"Get a grip, Paul," a boy, Jared, said.

Paul swung his head toward Jared, his lips curling over his teeth in a snarl that seemed wolf like. I was a few feet from him. He swung his head back toward me. "You should be careful, I've got a temper," he warned in a growl.

"That's funny," I said with a smirk. "I've got a temper too. We're practically best friends already." Then I smiled.

Jacob pulled me back at the last second.

"Paul, relax!" Sam and the fourth boy said, but Paul was too far gone. Another shudder ripped through him, and then he exploded. Dark silver fur flew out of him, and instead of a boy, there was only a wolf, the size of a horse, growling and ready to spring. His eyes, practically burning with fury, focused on me.