I feel horrible. Just thought I'd tell you. Yes, I am fully aware that it has been, what, four weeks? since I've posted. I feel like I've let you guys down. But with school and extraciriccular(sp?) stuff, I haven't had much time to write, and when I did, I had MAJOR writer's block. I really hadn't planned farther than chapter 13.

But, on a brighter side, I suppose, I've started a HP fanfic, and a one-shot from Jasper-love's POV.

So, greatest apologies. But now I actually know where I'm going, so I will be posting more often. That, and, school's almost over. No more term papers due.

Enjoy my labors,

Grey-chan.

Chapter 14

CRACK.

I slammed the back of my head into the tree again and again.

CRUNCH. CRACK.

Why did I still sob whenever I thought of him? Him. Laughing at me, actually listening to me, the dreamy look he got on his face when he began to read…

CRACK.

Gone.

CRACK.

My heart was on fire, consuming the cold empty void within me.

CRACK.

The void was back.

I slammed my head back harder, and the tree shuddered. Damp pine needles fell around me, adding to the rain coursing down at an angle just big enough to get me wet.

I couldn't get the thoughts out of my head. I had tried for how many days, weeks even?

—Jasper was next to the blonde woman. They embrace, and her eyes flash. Both of their eyes are deep burgundy. Jasper looks ragged and unclean, and grateful to have company. Before I could stop the vision, I see them turn to each other and kiss passionately. My heart— I lurched forward, suddenly on my feet, clutching my chest.

So was he moving on?

If he is, it's all your fault. All your fault. All your fault. The mantra went on in my head, I felt like dying. You had him, and you were both happy. All your fault.

I stumbled forward; attempting to coordinate my legs enough to walk after my long sit. Time to pick a direction, get to a road, and find Denver, I planned. Yes, it was probably weakest plan in the world, but that was just about as much as my brain could handle at that moment.

I turned towards a muddy deer-path that led out of my clearing, and resignedly walked out of my miserable haven into the dark twilight of the forest.

Before I knew it, I was running.

---FG---(time skip)

I stepped out onto the carefully paved highway, looking left and right for cars. It wasn't that I couldn't, oh, you know, run out of the way of any car that came my way in less than one hundreth of a second. It was just so that I didn't seriously freak out some poor person; I looked pretty scary, or at least I felt like it. My hair had become plastered to my head the moment I had stepped out of the forest; it was still pouring. My mascara had dried enough during my run through the forest, hawever, to become stuck firmly to my cheeks in two long black streaks. My dress had lost its poof, and I counted myself lucky that it hadn't slipped off.

I followed the highway until I came to a flourescent green sign that glowed in the light of the crescent moon that peeked out through the clouds. "Denver: 20."

I sprinted, as fast as I could, those twenty miles. At about mile fifteen I began to see a few scattered houses, and by the time I had come all twenty I was "in Denver." That is to say, in the worst slums of Denver.

I supposed I should start looking… but where? Bars and whore-houses seemed perfect; but I didn't particularly want to go to a whore-house… ever. So, I began to look for a bar. It was these bars, in the slums of cities, where the vampires and werewolves lurked. Who is to say a drunkard didn't drown in their own vomit? No one would know that they had really been rended limb from limb and eaten, or better yet, been drained of all their blood, as an after-midnight snack.

If Jasper's eyes were red, like they had been in my vision, and he had decided to stay nearby, he would be around.

When I saw the gritty neon nign that proclaimed: "The Rambling Duck Tavern" I knew I had found a starting point. I decided to first walk in, check out the customers, look in the rooms upstairs, and then head out to the alleyway on the side. Worst came to worst, I could just lurk in the alley until a vampire came along, as one inevitably would.

Just before I walked into the bar, I hesitated. The 'good people of Denver' would surely flinch at the sight of my ghastly apparrel. But wait, I convinced myself, this is a bar.

So I turned the handle and walked in. As soon as I was on the coarsely woven rug that served as a doormat, I had a feeling that I was in trouble. More than that, I smelled it. Care to know what trouble smells like?

Wet werewolf.