Hello all! My deepest and most sincere apologies for the time between this update and the last. School is out, but I am still ridiculously busy with crap. The good news, however, is that this story is now my go-to-procrastination-story whenever I don't want to do my real work! I've been thinking about how long I want this story to be, which means more characters and story lines...but always with a Paily focus. Please let me know what you think and I'm sorry I didn't get to your individual reviews, but I wanted to go ahead and get this chapter out. As always, thanks for your reviews! -ASE

Point of No Return

Chapter 11

It had only been minutes after Paige disappeared when from behind her, Emily felt arms wrapping around her torso.

"Emily, are you ok?" Spencer asked softly as she rested her chin on the girl's shoulder. To Emily's left, Hanna appeared and was holding her hand. On Emily's other side, Aria had enveloped her arm in hers. The girls had felt Emily's pain like it was their own; one of the benefits of being "sisters", sharing the same blood—the same maker. Emily was still staring helplessly at the spot where Paige had disappeared from her sight completely. The night was completely still, even the bird that had been chirping earlier had left her to herself.

"Em, what happened?" Hanna asked. She tried to see what Emily was staring at, but couldn't figure out what it was. Along with the pain was guilt and she could sense that Emily wanted to correct whatever misunderstanding had taken place. Emily was always thinking of others before herself.

"Paige…" was all she managed to say, feeling Spencer tighten her grip slightly.

"I will destroy her," Spencer growled. Gritting her teeth, Emily shrugged the girls off and crossed her arms.

"She didn't do anything. It was me." Emily said as she backed away from them, scowling at Spencer. "I hurt her. Is it so hard to believe that I could be the bad guy here?"

"Em, if you don't want to talk about it, it's ok," Aria said, looking from her to Spencer. At least Spencer had the decency to look admonished. "But we're here for you."

"We always will be," Hanna added. "Are you going to go after her?"

Emily gave Hanna an appreciative look before answering. "I think she needs some space. She doesn't know a lot about this place and I only made her feel worse."

"Well where did she go? Should we be worried that there is an emotionally compromised werewolf running loose?" Spencer asked abruptly, to the astonishment of both Hanna and Aria. At times, Spencer rivaled Hanna with her lack of subtlety.

"Could you at least pretend to be a good friend here?" Hanna hissed. "Or are you bound and determined to hate Paige, at the expense of your friends?" Quite frankly, Hanna was tired of Spencer's attitude towards Paige, mostly because of the way it affected Emily, but also because there didn't seem to be any need for it.

"She probably went to find Shana," Emily said, without thinking.

"You mean Paige is shacking up with Shana?" Hanna asked, confused by this turn of events. And Emily's tone. "Damn that girl works fast."

"Who, Shana or Paige?" Aria said.

"Guys," Emily said with a deadly calm, signaling to the other two that they should stop their conversation from heading where it was heading. "I didn't say she was shacking up with her. All I know is that Shana has talked to Paige. She's been explaining some things about our world to her." Emily didn't even want to think about Paige being with Shana, in that way. In any way, really.

"Her prejudices, you mean?" Spencer said. "Probably filling McCuller's head with anti-vampire propaganda. What does it matter? It's not like we need her. Sooner or later she will be found by other Weres and she will have to choose what pack to align with. Even if she found a neutral pack, they still don't consider themselves as friends to vampires." Spencer was pissed. The looks Paige had been giving Emily were enough to convince her that Emily would have no problem getting some answers from her, answers they desperately needed. Paige may or may not be an essential piece to the puzzle, but Spencer knew there was more to the story of how she was able to come here. Emily wasn't supposed to run her off.

Aria nodded, agreeing with Spencer's statement. She walked up to Emily and reached out to touch her arm. "It's done, Em. She never could have been on our side anyway," Aria said. "Allison wouldn't even let us look at her brother when he got himself bitten, remember?"

"Alison may have made us, but we are not hers!" Hanna interjected. "Paige was willing to help us, at the expense of pissing off Jenna. That should mean something. It's about time these old prejudices died off anyway. And we know that Allison didn't need a reason to be awful." As the girls bickered, Emily remembered something.

"Paige has been marked," she informed them.

"That's impossible," Spencer denounced. "In what way? Shifters are such primitive beasts. Who marked her, Shana?" she said mockingly.

"No," Emily said in a strained voice, "I did."

Paige didn't know where she was or where she was going. Snippets of Emily's words were playing through her head, even if her brain did not want to reconcile the pain that she was feeling with Emily's voice—that it was because of Emily, that she was hurting. She didn't have a place she felt like going to or someone who could comfort her. The only place she could think of was the lake she had first encountered Emily; and so she ran the furthest away from it that she could.

She knew that if she kept going straight, she would cut through town. Sticking to the forest was a good idea for both her and anyone she might come across and she made the conscious decision to continue her run through the thickest parts of trees and foliage that she could find. She could feel herself descending back to that place of despair, her thoughts turning against her, making her sluggish and miserable.

Suddenly she felt inexplicably relaxed, as if someone had plucked the entirety of her desolation from her brain, roots and all. As the waves of comfort washed over her, she almost missed the rustling of foliage around her which gave way to a number of glowing eyes around her, making her stop quickly. She tried to remain alert, but it was hard to clear the warm, soothing fuzziness that seemed to be cushioning her brain. There were about five wolves, surrounding her, it appeared, with a sixth one walking towards her. All of the wolves fur seemed to be a different color, from jet black, to brown and even white. She tried to raise her hackles and growl at whoever was approaching her, but it seemed to go against how light and peaceful she was feeling and as a compromise, she remained standing on all fours instead of sitting down like the others had done around her. The wolf that was approaching her had shorter fur than her, and was a lighter color, light brown and blondish. It lowered its head slightly, looking at Paige from the side rather than directly. Paige was still feeling oddly content, though she registered that whoever was approaching her was not a threat. The wolf sniffed cautiously at her, its tail wagging slightly when Paige remained still, only growling slightly, and continued looking down at the other wolf in her refusal of submitting to how peaceful she was being forced to feel. She still couldn't pinpoint where it was coming from, but she could tell it wasn't from the wolf in front of her. The wolf gave a small yip over its shoulder and sat down in front of Paige, still avoiding direct eye contact, but wagging its tail nonetheless.

"We're sorry about all of this. It may seem like a little too much, but we've had to deal with a lot of upset wolves and that can be some dangerous work."

Paige had barely registered the movement behind the wolf, where a young man had appeared from behind some trees. He was dressed simply, in a plain t shirt and pants, which looked to be worn and faded. He had dirty blond hair that was pushed back behind his ears and his dark green eyes looked at Paige warmly as he walked up towards her.

"I'm going to ease up a little on the influence being exerted over you. We promise that we are not here to harm you," the man said as he gestured towards the other wolves, who dipped their muzzles in agreement.

Influence, huh? Guess he's where the warm and fuzzies are coming from, Paige thought. True to his word, she could feel the tingle of the trespassing emotions fade away freeing the despair that had been kept at bay, which made her feel worse than she originally felt. Clamping her jaw shut, so as not to let a sound escape her mouth, Paige forced her eyes to remain on the man in front of her. Beside him, the wolf that had walked up to her originally whined towards her, but the man held up a hand and he stopped.

"We would ask you to change, but we don't think you would feel comfortable doing that in front of us. We have some spare clothes, though, and we can give you some privacy," the man said to Paige. She watched as he retrieved something from behind the tree, a small knapsack it looked like, and he set it down in front of her. She sniffed at it curiously then looked around at the other wolves, who were watching her just as curiously. She gave a small snort, to which the man correctively assumed was derision on his offering of privacy. He turned to the wolves and spoke in a firm, but not unkindly, tone.

"Please, let us give this wolf some privacy," was all he said, and in one uniform motion, all of the wolves that were surrounding them turned away from her. With a nod, the man turned around as well, leaving Paige surrounded by the backs of the wolves. She remained suspicious of this man and his pack, as it would seem, but she was tired of running and felt drained from the range of emotions she had experienced in less than an hour. Shifting quickly, she rifled through the bag to find a man's shirt and shorts, which she threw on hastily. The shirt was big on her and she folded the waist of the shorts over a couple times so that they would fit her a little better, or at least so they wouldn't slide off. She crossed her arms and cleared her throat.

"Finished," she said gruffly and she crossed her arms. The man was the first to turn around and he gave Paige that same friendly smile as before.

"It's ok everyone," he said, and the wolves turned around as well. Paige had noted that none of the wolves had moved the entire time she dressed herself. "We're the Were Welcome Wagon, if you'll excuse the alliteration," he started, bowing slightly while keeping eye contact with her. He was very polite and Paige suspected from his manners that he was well-bred, from a family that had some money, except that he seemed genuinely polite without the snarkiness she was used to from other "polite" trust-fund babies. Not entirely sure how to react, Paige just nodded, and the man seemed to take this as a cue to continue.

"I'm sure we surprised you a bit, the way we introduced ourselves, but we were concerned about you. We could feel how hurt you were and we wanted to help. We thought maybe you were a newly bitten-wolf, but we can see that we were wrong," the man said. There's that word again, Paige thought upon hearing "bitten".

"Why do you speak like that?" Paige asked sharply. The man looked at her quizzically and the wolf beside him cocked his head to the side in confusion.

"Speak like what?" the man said carefully.

"You say 'we' a lot. Do you speak for all of them too?" Paige asked, waving her hand to the others. The wolves around her started to fidget, as if they were agitated. Paige started to bristle, their agitated states making her tense. She bared her teeth at them and immediately they began to quiet down, with a few of them even lying flat on their bellies with their tails tucked beneath them and their ears flattened.

"Do you not belong to a pack?" the man asked with some concern, flicking his eyes towards the other wolves briefly.

"No," Paige said simply.

"You are not a bitten-wolf and you do not belong to a pack," the man repeated slowly, more for himself it seemed.

"Right. How do you know I wasn't bitten?" Paige asked, emphasizing "wasn't" in direct challenge to the man's statement. She was tired of dealing with all of this "bitten" business. Between all the flack she had gotten from the marks on her neck, the Jenna-Noel thing, the girls and her time with Emily, Paige was ready for a fight, as it was the one of the only ways she could deal with her pent-up emotions.

"You were not bitten by a Were, which does not make you a bitten-wolf," the man clarified. Paige deflated a bit, her willingness to fight not only bordered on recklessness, but she was also being very rude. Apparently, one could become a wolf by being bitten by another Were which was obviously what the man was referring to when he said "bitten-wolf", and not to the mark on Paige's neck. She flushed and looked away, embarrassed at her assumption, and when she finally looked at the man, she saw that his eyes were downcast, once again giving her privacy.

"I'm sorry," Paige said. The man nodded in acceptance.

"We are not so quick to judge and we're sorry if we made you think that we were. If you would like to follow us, we can take you back to our home and explain ourselves a bit more. It's not too far away and we promise that we will take good care of you. Our word means everything to us and we would never break it," the man explained. "If you would like to phase back, we will escort you there."

Paige was still unsure as to whether or not she should agree, but if the wolves had wanted to do her any harm they could have, as she was heavily outnumbered. True, she could see that these wolves were smaller than herself, but the most she could have done if they attacked her was to try and get away. She didn't really want to go anywhere else, vaguely recalling that she was in fact staying over at Shana's, something that she hadn't thought of since leaving Emily. Emily…she needed more information about this place and she figured she'd be getting at least that if she followed these wolves.

"Ok, I'll go with you guys. By the way, what is your name?"

The man smiled, pleased that Paige agreed to go with them. "My name is Jason DiLaurentis," he said before phasing back to his wolf form. Feeling like that name should have more of an impact on her than it did, Paige shrugged it away and phased as well, bounding quickly after Jason's retreating form.