Disclaimer: I do not own the Twilight Saga.

Oh snap. I cannot believe it's been so long. Please forgive! Here we go!


Chapter Twelve: Heartfelt Bullshit

...

My eyelids were heavy.

It felt like something was pinning them down, which was seriously annoying.

My body was completely locked. Limbs stiff and rigid, I tried to flex my fingers but I couldn't. My heart leapt into panic, pumping harder than it had been before. It was painful, thudding against my ribcage as if it was trying to break through the skin. Even in the blackness I could feel the terrifying sensation, almost like gravity was sucking me into the earth, like my bones were filled with lead.

My eyelids broke apart, and everything was out of focus.

Everything was too fast and too loud and too bright. I felt like I couldn't keep still, while at the same time I couldn't move at all without the lead-filled heaviness making me queasy.

And I was tired. Impossibly exhausted, and I was about to shut my eyes into peaceful oblivion again when the noise grew louder and I felt one of my limbs snatched from its resting place and being vigorously shook to the point where I had to glare at whoever the hell was disturbing my much-needed sleep.

"Leah?" the voice sounded so far away. "Lee? God, please don't close your eyes! Wake up!"

The stubborn part of me wanted to defy them just for the fun of it.

But I couldn't bring myself to speak. My body was sore and hot and cold all at once. It was disorienting, the happy feeling was gone so quick it might as well not have been there at all, and it was replaced with my organs squirming inside me and my pulse jumping around like hummingbirds wings.

I was being held close, enclosed in a foreign heat, and I no longer felt the harsh asphalt beneath me.

"Don't worry, baby," the voice said. "It'll be alright. I've got you, you're safe with me. I've got you…"

I closed my eyes, and the blackness reclaimed me.

...

I woke up feeling as if I'd just had the best night's sleep of my life, but that was all that was working for me. Aside from my well-rested brain, it was as if someone had chewed me up and spit me out into a bed full of blunt knives. My resting place was lumpy and firm in a very uncomfortable way, and the sickening, horrible, rigid feelings I could somewhat recall were amplified beyond recognition.

A groan escaped my lips, and my eyes fluttered to adjust to the sudden light.

"Leah, honey?" someone called softly. "Sweetie?"

My mother sat helplessly beside me, looking worn and shattered, gripping my hand.

I winced. "Mum?" I croaked out.

She threw her arms around me and sobbed. "Oh my baby!" she cried. "Oh my baby Leah, I thought–I–I thought I… I didn't think I'd ever see… I thought I was going to lose you too!" she babbled, embracing me tightly, and I felt confused and shocked enough to pat her awkwardly on the back in a soothing gesture. From the movement I felt a prickling tug on my arm―transparent wires curled up them on their way up to the drip dangling from an IV.

I'm in the hospital? "I… I'm in the hospital?" I repeated out loud, dazed. "What the hell am I doing here?"

Sue released me and leant back to glare at me through narrowed slits.

"Pills, Leah?" she snapped, her voice like a cracking whip. "Honestly? You just decide to disappear and I get a call at four in the morning telling me my daughter… that my daughter…" Sue shook her head, seething. "How could you do this Leah? I taught you better. You know better. You're father―" her voice broke and her eyes brimmed with unshed tears and anger. "You're father would be ashamed of you," she hissed.

If she expected me to hang my head in shame, I didn't. She didn't continue her scolding at once, as if awaiting the routine response of 'I'm sorry, it was stupid, it won't happen again' that any other teenager would blurt out in this kind of situation.

Sue stared at me a long time, studying and cynical, before she wrapped me slowly in her arms again.

"I'm just so relieved you're safe," she murmured, brushing my hair with her fingertips. "I'm so thankful."

I was kind of afraid to ask, but the words fell from my mouth.

"What… what happened?" I muttered, leaning into her touch.

My mother's face fell grimly. "They said you were going to die," she spoke matter-of-factly. It wasn't like Sue to recite any important information with emotion. "They said it was too much, that it was impossible for your system to get rid of it all―and once you did that, they said it was unlikely you'll ever wake up. But you did."

I paused in thought.

It was then clear what had occurred.

"The wolf gene," I mumbled.

Sue nodded gravely. "It healed you. Be grateful child, the council had to pull a lot of special strings to convince everyone of this particular miracle. You're fever may have helped burn it up and help everything pass through your system abnormally fast, but you're incessant stubbornness did the rest."

My lips twitched as I pictured Old Quil slipping the doctors a twenty in hush-hush money. Mulling quietly in amusement at the notion, I gazed around the room that was abundant in well-wishing gifts, as my fathers had been, but otherwise empty.

I frowned. "Where's Se―?"

The curtain that separated my room slowly slid open.

"Aunt Sue?" Emily said timorously, holding a bunch of flowers in front of her like a twisted peace offering. "The nurse said it was alright... I just came by to―oh, Leah!" she exclaimed in shock, the flowers tumbled to the floor as she broke out a smile. "They didn't say–they didn't mention―oh, thank god! I–I didn't know what I was going to do if I… if you…!" Emily bent to the floor and gathered the scattered flowers before dumping them on a table.

"My brother," I said coldly. "Where's my brother?"

"Oh, Seth?" Emily inquired, and I rolled my eyes. As if I had another brother besides Seth. "Um, he… he's sort of stuck at the moment…" her hesitance drained away as she began chatting quickly. "But almost everyone else is outside," she gestured towards the door. "Is there anyone you want to see?"

"Paul," I said immediately. "I want to see Paul."

Emily blinked. "Um… Paul? Are you sure?"

I looked at her blankly, eyes narrowed. "Yes. Fetch."

"Well, at least she still has her sense of humour," I heard Sue state dryly to Emily as they withdrew from the room.

The fact that they left without saying anymore confirmed that the poor bastard was indeed stuck out there, probably bored out of his pathetic little mind.

A minute dragged by and Paul stood alone in the curtain doorway, looking unwilling and confused.

"You… er, wanted to see me?" he said suspiciously, as if the words alone were likely to punch him. When I only glared at him, he walked slowly to my side and dug his hands into the pockets of his pants, his beady eyes wandering everywhere but directly at me. Since he was in a public building, the guy had seemed to have been forced into a shirt. "Uh, so… how're you feeling?"

His lack of enthusiasm made me grin. "You don't have to be nice to me just because I almost died," I told him.

"Thank fucking god," he snapped, slumping considerably. "So what do you want, Clearwater?"

I kept my gaze calm, cold and constant. "I want to know what the fucks going on."

Paul folded his arms lazily across his chest.

"And why do you need me?"

"Because you and I both know that you're the only one that will tell me what's happening without sparing details because of my precious feelings," I put as much power as I could behind my words, I still felt as if a slight breeze might knock me over, and my aggressive tone made me feel in control.

"Oh yeah?" he drawled. "And what do I get out of this interrogation?"

My attitude didn't take well to his arrogance. Slowly, with a lot of control to make it seem effortless and simple, I rose from my semi-propped-up position on the frumpy hospital mattress and bared my teeth at him. "How does your testicles still attached to you in the morning sound?" I offered callously, fingernails gripping the sheet.

He flashed me his teeth in an impish grin that clearly portrayed his crude, testosterone-filled thoughts.

"Sam would be pissed," I pointed out at his implication. The thought of Sam thoroughly disapproving of anything indecent between myself and a pack member was the only reason I had the slightest urge consider anything in the first place.

"He's forbidden it," Paul scoffed darkly. "Shit, let's just get this over with. What do you want to know?"

"Start from the beginning."

He rubbed the stubble on his chin in aggravation and claimed my mother's bedside chair. "You've been out of it for almost two days," he answered, smirking. "Sam found you. He was on his way to talk to you, and there you were, lying in the middle of the road. I've seen it in his mind. He was scared shitless, thinking you were dead, or worse. He didn't stop to think of all the trouble he would cause by bringing you to the hospital. But of course, the guy is never able to think things through when it comes to you."

I scowled. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

Why did it always have to be him rushing to my fucking rescue?

I frowned, chewing rhythmically on my tongue to mull in my anger. I didn't want to speak, or in this case swearing fluently, and risk ruining Paul's rare, reluctant generosity.

Paul took my murderous expression as a sign to continue.

"You know, we're staying in shifts, watching you when he's not here," he said, and I envisioned the rest of the pack squished inside the little waiting room, shoulder to shoulder like a cramped can of tuna. "Well, I'm being forced. The others are jumping at the chance to get out of running perimeter, and Embry… well, the kids a lost cause. We leave at night. It's when Sam sits with you, staring into space for hours―"

"And where's Seth?" I interrupted.

I didn't want to listen for another second about Sam actually having the nerve to pretend to give a shit about me. I tried to make my question sound indifferent, like I didn't care where my brother was while I was in hospital, on my deathbed for all he knew, since he clearly hadn't been to visit me.

If Paul saw through my act, he didn't show it. "You gave him a scare," his mouth twitched, as if the subject entertained him. "He freaked when the hospital called. He was lucky enough to make it outside before he phased, and he still isn't calm enough to change back. He's been stuck out in the woods for days. Sam and Jacob are with him now, trying to coax him to turn back. He isn't too great at the whole instinct thing." He shook his head almost like he was ashamed of my brother's lack of control of his wolf-self.

My stomach churned as my heart dropped and weighed it down.

It was at this instant I could feel the clawing, empty need to talk to my father.

He had left this world at the moment when we had needed him the most. I needed him to look me in the eye and tell me that there was nothing horribly wrong with me. That I was nothing more than an uncommon outcome, something that could easily adjust, or even better, be cured.

That I was normal, that I would be okay.

Even if it wasn't true.

...

The hours ticked by and I grew increasingly impatient.

I sent my mother home. She looked as exhausted as I felt, and I managed to convince her to at least leave to take a shower or a nap on a real bed or something. When Embry and Jared came in to visit me in the late afternoon I pretended to be asleep. It was a lot easier than all the energy it would've took to persuade them I was feeling okay.

That night I was still in my dazed, not-asleep-but-not-awake stage. I heard the curtain to my room drawn back and then closed again. I stirred, confused. The nurses had checked my vitals not long ago, and I knew vaguely it was too late for visitors.

I opened my eyes and stared at the figure illuminated only by the florescent light shining through the opaque curtains. The recent dose of pain medication had mellowed me, and since it hadn't been in my system long enough for my wolf-self to reject the prescription, I was temporarily stress-free and loosely wound.

But I couldn't say the same about my visitor, who looked like someone had just shot him out of the sky.

He approached, staring back with dark, simmering emotions as the silent minutes passed.

"I thought you were…" his words were thick and raw, broken as if they were smashed just before they had the chance to form correctly and leave his throat. His expression mixed in complicated conflicts. Relief. Pain. Anger. Adoration. Confusion. Other bits of emotion scared me, as if I had been hurtled back to a time and place when he looked at me like he was looking at me now. Like I was his whole world. "I… thought I'd lost you."

When I didn't respond, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

"Are you going to speak?" Sam finally asked me, standing within touching distance from my bedside.

"I don't know what to say," I admitted.

"How are you feeling?" he suggested.

"Not too bad," I said, surprisingly willing. "I'm not about to drop dead like everyone seems to think, anyway. Mum has been fussing over me a lot. You know, shoving healthy crap and guilt-rants down my throat to keep my fur all nice and glossy," I pursed my lips. "The last thing I need is anyone else breathing down my neck."

I hope he took my oh-so-subtle hint.

He looked down at me with soft eyes. "Is that all?" he murmured.

"Yeah, that's it," I confirmed, shifting my gaze to the wall directly behind him. "I don't have anything else to say to you, Sam. I don't even know why you're here, unless the bribe they gave to the hospital to shut-out my abnormality also gives you special visiting-hour privileges."

Sam's expression took hold of a twisted sadness. "How about an 'I'm sorry'?"

I stiffened. "Excuse me?"

"You thought you were pregnant, Lee," he whispered. "And you didn't say anything to me! I had to find out through your kid brother's mind that you thought that… that you… and everyone else knew before me…" his voice slowly drifted into the tone of a wandering memory. "It's… it's how it happened, you know," he concluded quietly.

"How what happened?" I snapped.

He sunk into the bedside chair, looking so utterly crushed that I didn't protest.

"How I gave Emily her scars," he confessed, his gaze lowered to the creases in my bedspread. His face was darkly shadowed. It was a funny appearance that didn't suit him at all. Not the Sam I had known anyway. "I… convinced her to take a walk with me in the forest that day, and she was so angry with me that she wouldn't speak. I was getting frustrated, and I asked her what was wrong…" he clenched the railing of the bed and I watched his knuckles turn white. "She told me you were sick, and throwing up and―"

Sam buried his face in his hands, his breathing turned heavy.

I could tell the haunting memory was being relived.

"She said she thought you were pregnant," he said blankly, his expression had fallen into an unreadable mask. "She was yelling and accusing me, and saying how she would never be with someone like that―someone like me who could just do something so terrible to a girl and walk away. Because how could she know I wouldn't do the same thing to her? She said she hated me and… and I just lost it."

I was quiet and still.

I had always been curious as to what had made Sam snap, but now that I knew, I wished I didn't.

"I… lost it for one second," he continued in monotone. "For one second, and I'll never be able to take it back."

I should say that he deserves the guilt, the shame, the burden. But I didn't. I didn't know what willed me to stay silent and let him speak―I like to blame the pain medication―but then again, I knew what it was like to not want to be judged by your fault, to feel smothering remorse and not have it mean a thing.

I was in hospital for another three days.

Sam came to see me each night after visiting hours. We didn't speak a word, and most of the time I upheld my newly found skill of sleep-faking. He wouldn't touch me, or speak, and sometimes he wouldn't even look at me. He would just sit by my side and stare; with each passing second of silence I could hear our past laughter, knowing well that those days were now far behind us.

...

The day I arrived home from the hospital, I was worn. Seth was barely speaking to me; he just carried some of my stuff into the house and left me alone to feel miserable about hurting him in his own little silent-guilt way. That day he was even more vacant than ever, and with my things put away he sat on the couch and stared at me until I snapped.

"Would you stop it already?" I hissed at him. "I get it, alright? No more puppy-dog eyes."

"I…" Seth seemed lost, his mouth parted slightly and he spoke as if in a trance. "You can't do that to me, Leah. You… you're my big sister. You're the one who stands up for me and taught me naughty words with I was three―" he blinked, and now that he began it was like he couldn't stop the babbling. "―you gave me my first Playboy magazine, and taught me how to punch and how to forge Mum's signature, and you would make me pancakes when Mum use to work on Sundays because Dad could never get it right, they would turn out all lumpy and gross―"

He shook his head and his eyes were wide and pleading, staring up at me like he did when we were young.

"Promise me you'll never do anything so stupid again, Lee," he begged, and I just about burst with shame when I saw he had tears running down his face, that was until recently still chubby with his boyish qualities. "Promise you'll never do that to me again, ever. You can't―"

"I promise," I said quietly. "I won't leave you alone either, bro. We're in this together, remember?"

He sniffled, scrubbing away the tears. "Y-y-yeah. O-okay, I know."

I sighed away the tension and ruffled his hair. "You're such a pansy," I told him.

Seth didn't react with anything but a smile, and I knew I was forgiven.

...

Lying on my bed were several letters addressed to a Miss Leah Clearwater. I stared at them, not feeling like I knew that name, that girl, anymore. The presence of the thick, chunky envelopes made my heart sink. Obviously someone had put them there. Sue, most likely, or even Seth. The fact that they hadn't been mentioned stung, but I knew it was necessary. I mean, why make this harder for myself?

At school I'd always been smart, though undoubtedly rowdy. I was always in the nerdy classes, which were graded accordingly since first arrival. They had Seth placed in the top groups as well when he started, just because I was his brainy older sister. It annoyed him that being related to me landed him extra work.

I'd always wanted to make something of myself―small town upbringing be damned.

Sam and I never wanted to stay in La Push. We planned a life together, to escape it. When he told me about the gene, I began preparing myself that I had to settle―Sam needed to remain here, and to be with him, so did I. But since he got with Emily, I knew it was my chance. I could leave.

I could get my life back on track.

The acceptance letters to every good college out of the state stared back up at me, and I felt the sobs start choking and constricting my chest. I snatched the papers and shredded them without even opening the seal to see the contents and class schedules of a life I knew now I would never get a chance to have.

I'll never escape the rez now. I couldn't bring myself to abandon my family, not since my Harry's death. I couldn't bring myself to leave the pack, the responsibility I now held, the burden and duty it brought that I knew my father would have wanted me to accept with good grace.

I was stuck here, forever, with them.

...

Emily called a few days later to check up on me. I claimed to be too fragile to speak to her and had Seth take the calls whilst I played violent video games with surround sound. He retold me the conversations later, stating that she mentioned "Sam had been taking quite a few night shifts the other week" and had been coming home exhausted. I felt a little smug that Sam had the urge to lie to her, since I knew he had been sitting by my side at the hospital when he was suppose to be at these exhausting night shifts.

Seth began taking on group patrols with the pack. I was left at home, still considered too frail to take up any pack duties, I spent the time desperately trying to steer clear of over-thinking things by upholding any distraction I could find. It barely worked, because I had to go to bed sometime, and I would glare up at my ceiling as the thoughts I'd try and avoid all day swarmed my head, keeping me from any sleep whatsoever and ultimately leaving me too exhausted to repeat the same routine the next day.

The scrutiny I was placed under made me think it would be less obvious if they crammed me between two slides and shoved me under a microscope. It didn't help that the pack held such a diverse regard for me. Sam didn't like it. He didn't like that anyone else besides him could treat me any different from any other pack member.

He could hide his jealousy from Emily, but he couldn't hide it from me―and he couldn't hide it from the pack.

One night he stood before us all, phased human and glaring furiously at us.

"Phase back," he ordered bluntly.

The wolves all turned their large bodies in my direction, uncomfortable. He can't be serious, Embry blurted out at the implication, a low whine escaping his muzzle. The others were equally confused and we're muttering to each other through their thoughts.

Jared stood nearby, also human, with uncertainty scrawled across his face.

"Sam," he said quietly, though we had no trouble hearing. "Don't you think that―?"

"I said phase back," Sam snapped at the rest of us, ignoring him. "Now!"

We had no choice. There was no time for me to wander away as I would have done, concealed by greenery and distance. This time I was immediately aware of my naked body standing bare in the middle of an open meadow, surrounded by equally naked men that we're trying hard not to be aware of me, but show attention to their leader. I felt my skin flush in shame as I tried to untangle my dirty clothes, my hair an unruly mess above my head.

"It's something we're all going to have to get use to," Sam said coldly. "We can't afford to have this constantly disturbing our aim. She is no different from the rest of you. If I say phase back, you phase back. Leah…" he walked towards me, his eyes scrapped once over my body before stopping at my face. It was twisted in a rage that beat his, because his anger had turned into a hunger. He reached out and gave me a pair of scissors.

I stared at the blades in my hand, frozen. "No…" I mouthed, no sound escaped.

"I am your Alpha," Sam stated. "I say phase back, you phase back. I say cut your hair, you cut your hair." His gaze had fallen to the floor. "You are no different from the others. You are a member of this pack. You're hair is too long―it slows you down, which slows us down. I gave you an order, now do it." I knew he didn't want to order me anything. The pack knew he didn't want to treat me the same. He knew I was different from the rest of them.

And this was all a game to try and prove to himself that I wasn't.

"Sam―" Jacob began to protest.

"Quiet!" he snapped. "Now Leah!"

They were watching me because tears had begun to stream down my face. Sam's hand twitched, as if wanting to wipe them away, but they stayed firmly against his side. His expression was set in stone, and I stood there staring firmly at him. Waiting for him to cave and back the fuck down.

He of all people knew how much my hair meant to me. My whole life, and I'd only cut it once. And it had been for him―a piece of me he could carry around so he wouldn't feel alone, back when he first phased. When we were together, Sam had always told me how much he loved my hair―like the finest satin, he'd say―and he'd run his fingers through it when he thought I was asleep.

My tears ceased. I swallowed the lump in my throat and squared my shoulders, my breasts uncovered as my rigid fingers wound around my hair, my eyes locked dead with Sam. I brought the scissors to my tangled curls, and sliced cleanly through the strands until they detached and fell to the forest floor.

It had only taken a moment, Sam winced and turned away.

There was no longer the familiar feeling of my hair resting against my lower back; it barely even brushed against my shoulders. Its absence was eerie. I felt even more exposed amongst these unclothed men that were really nothing but overdeveloped boys, yet they all watched me with sympathy that most wouldn't understand.

No one spoke, and I didn't bother covering myself. I began a slow decent out of the clearing and didn't get dressed until my mind caught up with my body, in the middle of the woods, fifteen minutes later.

When I got home, I lost it. Whatever hair I had left was clenched into my fist and hacked off with the kitchen shears until I could no longer grip at it. My breathing was short and laboured, hands shaking even once I'd slammed the shears to the bathroom counter so hard it cracked, and sunk down to the floor. I hugged my legs into my torso, afraid of what I might find when I met something reflective.

That's how Sue found me. On the ground, my eyes glazed over and my lips parted in shock.

At the sight of me she pressed her hand against her mouth the turned her back, so I wouldn't see her tears. Billy Black was with her, as he'd been a lot lately. They both knew what Sam had ordered, but I guess they hadn't expected someone like me to fall off the deep end about something as insignificant as a haircut. And I suppose two council members like them thought the idea was more practical anyway. For the good of the pack, right?

My first glare into a mirror, and I could taste my bitterness on my tongue.

...

Even though Sam had made such a spectacle of it, he still didn't treat me as a wolf. I got away with a lot of things that the guys would never have. The next day, a few of the others tried to comfort me. I didn't want them to care, and so I discovered that thinking of other things―anything―was so much better than thinking of my own problems. And so the thoughts began.

Embry Call wasn't suppose to be a wolf, and yet no one dared say it aloud.

In their heads I could see their doubt, but they all knew better than to lay it all out on the table. His mother was single and has been living on the rez for almost eighteen years now. Everyone knew she was from obvious Makah ancestry, and everyone assumed that the baby she was pregnant with when she arrived here was too. Why would they question it? Even if the baby was Quileute, there was no way of determining the father.

That is, until the gene kicked in. And now…

"So who do you think it is?" I interrupted at the end of a pack meeting. They had all been tiptoeing around me since they all obviously knew I'd gone over the edge. I wanted to see who would be the first to bite my bait. Most of them eyed me warily.

"What do you mean, Lee?" Embry questioned gently.

Of course it was him who would respond first, as I suspected. He was always prepared to acknowledge me.

I couldn't stop that trickle of guilt―that little voice telling me to stop―but something overruled it. Pushing pain onto others almost made my own pain bearable, at least for a little while. How sick is that?

"Do you think it's Jacob?" I chose him first, because he'd annoyed me during the meeting with Bella Swan this and Bella Swan that. If I have to hear that fuckwits name one more time I'll gnaw my fucking arm off. "Or maybe it's Sam?" I said next, shooting a fleeting look at the Alpha. I let out an unpleasant laugh. "I mean you both kinda have the same big ugly nose if you tilt your head to the side and squint―"

"Leah," Jared spoke up. He knew Sam didn't have the guts. "There is no need to be cruel to him."

I shrugged. "Pfft, fine then. What about you, Jared? Do you ever think of that really expensive law school that was waiting for you before all this shit happened? That must have been a bitch―giving up your life's dream to chase your own fucking furry ass in a circle. Ha, you sure know how to trade up, don't you?"

Since I first phased the pack had nothing but concern for my physical and mental wellbeing. They pitied me. I couldn't have them pity me. I was smaller―weaker, different―compared to them. I had to prove myself. I had to prove that I was strong enough to stand among them as an equal, instead of as something useless that needs to be protected.

They were silent and chose not to react to me. I knew it bugged them. I could practically hear Paul grinding his teeth together, and that satisfied me to an extent. I was glad they responded with emotion besides pity. And I couldn't help but laugh with spite.

Anger and hate I'd accept before I'd let them pity me.

What the hell is wrong with you, Clearwater? The question stuck in my brain.

I really didn't know anymore.

...

It's what I would do. I would mention the likelihood of Embry's father. I would mock Jared for having to give up college. I would sneer at Paul for being a dick and at Jake for obsessing over a leech-loving idiot. And I would make Sam feel guilty without doing anything much else, because he knew it was his fault I'd act like this. I tried to make them all hate me. I mean, maybe they'd finally have enough and kick me out of the pack?

It was almost my graduation, and I dropped out of school. I'd been so close, but I couldn't do it anymore. The day I walked out was the day I found myself in yet another unwanted fight. But it was still there, you know? The urge to fight. I was shaking, shaking so badly I thought I might phase then and there and expose us all. It took all the strength and will I had left in me to turn my back. To bite back my tongue and to walk away.

I noticed the pack amongst the mass of on-looking students―they clearly stood out in the crowd. They were the only ones watching and not speaking. Their eyes followed me with weary uncertainty. I knew they thought I was unstable, that I was reckless.

A danger to the secret they worked so hard to hide.

Seth shook his head sadly at me. It hurt me that I knew he was disappointed.

So I walked out.

No one had tried to stop me.

Not an old friend, not a teacher, not a pack mate.

When I reached home, I groaned and just about turned around to bolt out of the state―Sam sat waiting on my front porch. "Leah…" it was as if he sensed my approach, or heard my angry huffing, because his hands were pressed against his face, covering his eyes and resting against his knees. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

His question held the weight of his exhaustion.

He sounded like a parent and their fed up attitude towards a child that kept doing something wrong.

"Let me guess," I spat. "A little wolf told you."

He looked up at me. That rare, frustrated anger I'd become to see more and more of flashed through him. "Go back to school right now," he said slowly. "Tell them you've changed your mind. Go back and graduate."

"I can't do that, Sam," I said stiffly. "And we both know you don't have the balls to make me."

He shook his head. "You're going to regret this, Leah. You're better than this, your making a huge mistake―"

"Then let me make a fucking mistake!" I snapped. "Do you think you own me, Sam Uley? Do you think it's fucking okay to have people tailing me, or in some twisted way it shows deep down somewhere that you still care? What is wrong with you? You lost the right to having a say in my life the day you―you―" left me alone, lost in the dark. Shattered that last shred of me. Broke me.

"I'm sorry Leah," Sam interrupted. "You have no idea how sorry I am about everything―"

"Fuck you!" I exclaimed. "I don't want to hear your shitty-ass apologies!"

Especially when I know you mean them. Especially when I know you still care.

"You think you can just show up here and scold me like some naughty little kid?" I laughed humourlessly. "I've got news for you, buddy―you and I both know you don't want to treat me like a child." I looked up at him through my lashes. The air suddenly became thick. I've known Sam a long time, and I know exactly how to push his buttons. He knew this too, and the guy managed to look both anxious and sternly disapproving towards my attitude.

"Leah―" he voice broke away as I chewed on my bottom lip. He watched me with a heavy expression.

"Yeah, Uley?" I was teasing him. I was shameless enough to. "Tell me again why you do it. Why do you have them follow me? Why can't you treat me like the others in the pack? Why can't you bring yourself to leave me alone? Why don't you just say it?"

We both knew why he did it.

"I―I just want to… keep the peace―" he swallowed the lump in his throat. "Uh, f-f-for Emily."

We both knew why he did it, just as we both knew that was a lie.

I opened the front door and glared at him. "You wanna keep the peace, Sam?" I asked, leaning non-too-coyly against the frame. "Then piss off!"

Slamming a door in his face wasn't quite as gratifying as I thought it would be.

...

A week or so later, Jacob was trying to recruit some pack members for a mission to relay a reminder to the vampires that had moved back into town earlier that month of the treaty, of how they can't go around biting people and all that crap. The guy had been bitching about Bella Swan's constant phone calls―and so to shut him up, Sam had given him the task. No one else wanted to go anywhere near a Cullen with a peaceful reminder being the objective, so Jacob was stuck going at it alone.

I mentioned in passing to him that he should take the Bella-twits motorcycle with him to land her in some major trouble with the Police Chief, since the guy was so depressed over all the time she must be spending with her bloodsucking boyfriend back from his Italian holiday or some shit.

Not too many days later, Quil Ateara joined the pack.

The guy was so happy about it I thought the first-phase-pain had scrambled his brain.

There were eight of us now. Eight wolves.

Nothing like it had ever been seen or heard of before. And yet when it comes to abnormality within the pack―I take the fucking cake.

Though I guess I had to admit being a wolf wasn't all bad. I loved knowing I was the fastest in the pack. I had discovered this when running patrol―I had pissed off Paul―surprise, surprise. He made an angry lunge for me and I took off through the forest. I could tell from the linked minds that he was following me; all the others thought he'd catch up immediately and they trailed after us to break up any bloodshed.

Paul was the fastest out of them, if you didn't count Jacob.

But they couldn't catch me. They weren't even nearly as fast as me. My stealth and agility shat all over their gigantic male egos, so I couldn't help but be a little arrogant. Not only did it give me an advantage that they didn't have in a fight―making me equal to the bastards―but it gave me the slightest taste of freedom.

Just knowing I could run away if I wanted to―and they wouldn't be able to catch me.

Yeah, it made me feel a little better.


Sorry this took so long. I've had this chapter sitting there for a while now. I got a few reviews and that gave me the good boot up the ass I needed to get this posted! So thanks for that, guys! I hope you liked it; the next chapter should be uploaded as soon as I can. Anyway, please let me know what you think. I've had to go through all the past chapters and fix them up since fanfiction has this new thing where it wouldn't show my line-thingys. Have another read through if you can. I've changed things, but it's very minor.

Please read and review!

Hazel-Buttafly