I had difficulty editing this chapter. It feels a bit jumpy and awkward to me. I tried to make it smoother and think I succeeded.

Comments

twihard104: I burst out laughing when I read your review lololol

Guest: Thanks for the review!

ThisIsHope: Aw, I'm sorry. I've been through something similar too which is why I know all those details. Kumquats do make everything better, don't they?

Ghostwriter71: Thanks! Everything is revealed in this chapter~

Maxsmomma- Thanks, I always hope I convey things the way I thought them out in my head.

Paul's POV

Life has been hell.

I can't think anymore. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I can't even hold a conversation. There's a long list of things I can no longer do.

I watch Lizzy a lot, watching her as she watches Claire. Lizzy wrings her hands often, some kind of nervous quirk is my guess, and her face is always tense. I've grown accustomed to it.

When the doctors announced that there is nothing they can do to keep Claire alive anymore it stabbed at any hope we held. We didn't know what to do, and at the same time we did.

Now I think it's best Lizzy is a ghost. Now I won't have to watch her die. Sure, I can't touch her. I can't hold her or be with her in any way possible. But she is alive. At least in her way.

We have more pack members. They feel the empty, foreboding hole in the pack. We can't bring ourselves to do anything to fix it, because that means forgetting Claire and we could never do that. When we found out Bella Swam was pregnant with some kind of parasite we could barely bring ourselves to care. Sam felt like he should, and after a talk with the blood suckers they told Sam that if the thing is violent they would put it down themselves. Sam didn't care after that, we all feel dead. Sam was happy enough to just send a few of us to sit outside the house and listen to Bella's screams as she birthed the creature, and learned that it wasn't as much of a monster as we all anticipated. We gave the leeches a threat for good measure about controlling her, and then raced back to the hospital. Patrols are minimal, and most of us work to get any penny we can for Claire. Our pack has had a melt down with one of the imprints deteriorating.

Watching Claire die is horrible. Every bone is visible in her body, and her once round, rosy cheeks that were full of life are sunken and look like death. I don't know how Quil does it. He's stronger than all of us.

Claire hasn't opened her eyes for thirty-six hours now. We're expected to go to war like this? It's our duty, we know this. But it's hard to think of anything with Claire dying inside that sterile bleech-ridden hospital. Quil actually came for the fight. His thoughts are too awry to read but I think he intends to kill himself. None of us can bring ourselves to stop him, and our mournful cries will forever echo into my mind as we run together as a pack today for the first time realizing that our brother was walking to his death. After today we will be one werewolf less.

Quil isn't himself anymore. There's a glint to his eyes, one that shows he is a second from losing it. He's going crazy, literally insane. He will know as soon as she dies, because somehow he knows she will die today. The desolate voice that said it makes my tongue feel thick and my stomach sick. That wasn't Quil's voice that spoke; that was the voice of a man that has lost everything he's ever had and everything he would have been.

We all wish for blood today, just something to distract us from how shitty our lives are right now. But we weren't desperate enough to start a war that could hurt Jacob's imprint. One dead imprint is enough. So when the war only ended in words, we all turned around. Quil slumped, his stomach almost touching the ground. But even in the state he's in he knows not to endanger another imprint. It's so engrained into our minds, into our very being, that even when all is lost we do not waiver from that pillar.

Quil has shown us that.

As we mope back to the hospital, Quil suddenly yelps from where he sits in the back. It's a high, grating sound. I flinch, my shoulders hunching over because that could have meant only one thing: Claire's death. But pain doesn't overwhelm me like I expect from being in the pack mind with him. Suddenly I feel…

Hope?

Quil sits breathing hard, his face staring down at the ground in some attempt to understand what is going on. He bolts, knocking into one of the new recruits, Daniel. Daniel stares after him in surprise, we all do.

My instincts tell me to follow him so I do, rushing after him like I did my first vamp: with abandonment and without a care. I tear my clothes on when I get there and hurry into the hospital barefoot and shirtless, uncaring of what the hospital policy has to say about it. At first it takes me a moment to comprehend what I'm see in that tiny, white, four-by-four room that smelled too much of death.

Claire is sitting up. Claire is drinking. Claire is smiling.

My breath stops and my feet move to the bed on their own accord. "Claire?" That voice doesn't even sound like mine. Claire's parents are hugging each other on the other side of the bed, tears of joy racing down their faces.

"Hi Paul." Her voice is very weak, but there's something in it I haven't heard in a long time. Energy and spirit.

I drop down to my knees and stare at her, carefully rubbing one of the protruding bones in her face. Something cold is under my hand that lays on the bed and I move to see. It's odd at first, green and brittle with age. I drop it in my hand before I notice one horrible and gut wrenching thing.

It's the Quileute symbol of life.

Immediately my head shoots up to the corner of the room in a panic, but she's not there. I can no longer control my breathing, and it comes out in hysterical gasps. Claire's weak voice cuts through my fog.

"Paul, it's okay. Grandma told me that Lizzy is going to be happy, and she's going to see her family real soon."

Two things register to me as she says that:

One, that the only grandmother Claire ever knew died a little more than a year ago.

And two, Lizzy's family is dead.

Something breaks in me that moment. I don't feel the pack as they pull me out, I don't notice when my fist burn and blood drips from wounds I can't remember for the life of me how I got. I understand when I look around. Every tree in the nearest vicinity is now mulch.

"She left me," I gasp out, ripping at the strands of my hair. Most of them come out and I fling them to the ground before falling there myself.

"Paul, calm down. Claire is okay," Embry whispers, placing a comforting palm on my back.

"Lizzy," I moan out in a strangled voice. Whispers break out around me, but I can't bring myself to care enough to listen.

I was both right and wrong. She was meant to be here, but not like I thought. She was meant to save Claire, and she did. But she didn't get her life back the way I envisioned.

She's gone.

I shiver. If I had any food in my stomach I would thrown it up. The emptiness resonates through my whole entire being. Who am I supposed to talk to at night when I have my doubts? Who will give me tips on cooking when I'm messing everything up? Who is supposed to listen as I rant to them about how much I fucking hate patrols? Who will I laugh with and tell stupid jokes that make no sense to? Who in their fucking right will sit with me for hours on end as I repeat every tidbit of Quileute facts I learn every day?

Who will wait for me no matter how long I take?

I hope she will wait for me.

I could totally end this story here. Because, you know, I'm evil. I should be evil, right?

Btw I've already started a new story. It will be about Seth and an OC named Amara. Here's the summary.

I used to be relatively normal. At least until the "secret" happened. The secret that no one believes is true. The secret that killed my mother before my very eyes and left me metally scarred beyond my ability to cope. Now numbers are my friends. They are what will continue to get me through. So why does Seth Clearwater keep bothering me?