A day late. A buck short.

Happy birthday, Aubree. Thank you, Jess, for the nudge, and to all those who still send her happy thoughts on FB. Makes me smile.

This is unbetaed - sorry if there's errors.

Part 14

Witness

"No!" I struggled against the grip that held me, only to earn a few bruises in the process. "You have to let me through. Please. Please." I was aware of my tears the same way one is aware of wearing a hat. The weight, the feel of them. Not really something you actually think about.

"Shh." Trip's head tilted towards mine. He held fast. Let go. Let go. Let go. "It's not safe. Not now."

If not now, when?

"It's alright." Dr. Cullen spoke in calm, soothing tones to the sweaty man. Jeremy. The infamous. "Like I said, we only want to talk…"

Let GO.

Trip lowered his voice to a whisper. "Aubree, stop it. You're not helping anything."

He was just too strong. Damn werewolves.

Seth lay so still. Between my struggle and the distance between us, I couldn't even tell if he was breathing. Please, God, let him be breathing at least. Hurt, yes. But alive. I needed to stop moving. I needed to look harder. I needed to see, and if they wouldn't let me go to him…

"Ethan?" Jeremy's head snapped over to the space behind me. "Is that you? Ethan?"

"Yeah, it's me." Ethan had caught up. He stepped forward, and Trip pulled me back to allow him room to pass. Why him? Why him and not me?

In the background, Ethan and Jeremy kept up a conversation. I froze, studying Seth, hoping to catch a glimmer of movement.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Jeremy asked.

Ethan laughed. "That is a very good question. I really don't belong here, do I?"

"Do you know what you've gotten yourself wrapped up in?"

"Truthfully? No. Not really," Ethan replied.

I stared until I swear I could see spots dancing in between us. My eyes burned. A wind blew past, dragging gravel over Seth's hands, tossing his hair. Empty syringes rolled across the ground. I still couldn't tell if—

"Aubree. Breathe," Trip whispered. He shook me.

Wasn't I doing that? I let out a rush of air and gasped.

"Listen to me," Trip said. "He'll be okay. He's alive, just unconscious. You need to be still. Please. If you run, he'll do something to Jake and none of us want that. Please just stay still and be quiet. Seth is okay."

"How do you know?" I hissed back.

"The Cullens said they can hear his heart. It's beating. He's breathing."

Thank God.

My attention flickered over to the scene between Ethan and Jeremy, now that I had attention to spare. Jeremy was being a little loud.

"Shut up!" he shouted, his face red. He raised a needless syringe to Jake's throat.

Ethan's hands reached out, fingers splayed wide. "Jeremy! Wait! Just wait…I don't understand. Please. We're friends, right?"

Friends? How could anyone be friends with this madman?

Then again, how could anyone be in love with a werewolf?

Jeremy ordered the Cullens back and they slowly retreated a couple yards, their eyes never wavering. Dr. Cullen held the center spot between Bella and Edward. Edward's cousin squeezed Bella's hand. Emmett and Rosalie held the far end of the line, Mrs. Cullen, Jasper and Alice the end nearest to me. Beyond the inhuman beauty that seemed too obvious now, they all had the same eyes. The exact same eyes.

Adopted?

Vampires.

Adopted vampires?

Sounded like a band Will would listen to.

Maybe I was going a little crazy after all.

Seth was bound with thick climber's rope. Probably chafed his skin raw. That is, if he had moved at all, struggled. I couldn't see any red around his wrists. His clothes were dusty, but not horribly so. A pair of cargo shorts I recognized and a green shirt. Something about that tugged at the fringe of my mind.

Jake, on the other hand, looked rougher around the edges. He had been there longer, I guess, and it showed. In the blood spattered across his bare chest. In the cut-off sweatpants that were worn and ragged around the knees and covered in mud.

"Jeremy," Ethan said. "Just tell me. Help me understand all this. Please?"

Me too. Help me understand. Please?

Everyone stared as Jeremy relaxed the tiniest bit, looking at the ground, his brow furrowed. And then…

"Do you have any idea what it's like to get so mad at someone that you feel like there's fire in your veins?" Jeremy kept his eyes glued to the ground. "Like you're going to explode? Like really, truly explode? Do you have any idea what that does to a person?"

No one offered any answers.

"I do," Jeremy said.

"I was visiting my parents," he continued. "They were living just outside Olympia at the time. My dad had gone to pick up Tasha from her friend's house. So it was just Mom and I, sitting around, waiting for them to get back so we could go out for dinner. Mom wanted to talk about my future. She always wanted to talk about my future. I wasn't as interested in grad school as she hoped I would be, and I had to admit to her that I hadn't applied anywhere. We had a shouting match about it, as if that would solve anything. The deadlines had long passed."

So what?

"I can remember so clearly the moment it tipped over. I hadn't been feeling well most of the day, and when the fight got to its peak, I could feel my skin just…burning. I swear it felt like I was going to burst into flames. I screamed at her, and the scream turned into something else. I turned into something else."

And only then, I realized what he was saying – it was the story of how he turned into a wolf. The first time.

Jeremy kept on, talking to no one in particular. He tilted the syringe back and forth in his hand. "I don't know how long it lasted. I don't even know how I managed to change back, but when I did, I was standing over my mother's battered and torn body. I was naked and shivering with blood on my hands. She was dead, Ethan. I killed her."

Is that how it happened for Seth, too? Do you have to be angry to become a wolf?

No.

I just couldn't picture it. Seth so mad that he would explode into a monster. It was hard to imagine Seth that angry. And Seth seemed the exact opposite of a monster.

Thinking back to my surprise visit that afternoon, Logan had been angry, sure, but not fire-in-the-veins angry. Only miffed. I was just a nuisance in his quest to find Seth. And Trip certainly wasn't mad at me. He was just in a hurry; so much that he destroyed a shirt in his rush to change.

The flip of gray.

So they had to have some sort of control over it. Anger couldn't be the only trigger.

They didn't have to be wolves if they didn't want to, did they?

"…I wandered through forests and cities. Hid in shadows and ran at night, just trying to find out why it was happening to me. Me. Why me?" Jeremy asked.

Ethan inched forward.

Jeremy didn't notice. "When I finally got to the point where I could control the change better…" Yes. "I was just outside a little town called Shine."

The thought that had been needling the edge of my brain finally broke through.

Why didn't Seth put up a fight?

He had been kidnapped. And I had to think of all the moments in life when you might actually like the ability to change into some kind of ferocious mythical beast – that was one of them. It has to be a lot harder to catch a wolf. And a preternaturally strong wolf at that…

But his clothes weren't shredded to bits. He was very well clothed, in fact.

Maybe he was drugged. Maybe Jeremy came up behind Seth and he didn't even get a chance to know what was going on. But he didn't even look like he struggled. And how exactly do you sneak up on someone like him?

Was it all a lie?

I turned back to Jeremy, listening intently again, as he talked about the tribe, his family. "I knew then that I wasn't really to blame for my mother's death. It was because of those…these…I wouldn't have killed her if I weren't the way I was. And I wouldn't be the way I was if it weren't for them." He coated the word in hate, glaring at the Cullen family.

Right. Vampires. Werewolves. Enemies. Simple. Easy as pie, really.

Yes. I was definitely going crazy.

"But…" Ethan grasped at words. "Why do you have to take it out on—"

Jeremy let out the laughter that I kept hidden inside, wild and loud. "That's the BEST PART!" The syringe found its way back to Jake's head. "After months – I don't know, felt more like years – here I thought I was alone. I thought I was the last freakish twist in the family gene pool. I was even planning a trip out here. I was going to come down and meet the tribe and see…just see if I could fit in somewhere. I just needed to save up a little money…

"So one day I'm just opening up shop, and who waltzes into my bar? This guy." He shook Jake enough to make his head loll to one side. "This guy."

The grin on Jeremy's face hid a twist ending to his story. I could feel it. I watched the way he stood up straighter as he explained his relationship to Jake, how they were related through the generations—which didn't make any sense. There was no way Jake was near old enough to be a great-great-whatever to him. But Jeremy was convinced they were family, and still he held Jake. And still he held the syringe.

Ethan played the reasonable head, and Jeremy lost his smile. "Don't let them brainwash you into thinking they are anything but a scourge on the planet. And it is our duty, our duty to kill them all. And he thinks he's in love with one of them." Jeremy's hand pushed the syringe into Jake's temple. "I said stay back."

Ethan went back to work, trying to calm Jeremy down, and I realized: someone was going to die. It was inevitable. There were too many people with too much strength, and too much emotion that could not be resolved. I held the short stick. As well as Ethan. We were few, and we were human. In this little circle campground, a dusty spot amidst a ring of trees, we were far too fragile to survive.

And I was okay with that. But I was just selfish enough to hope, to wish, that others would die before Seth. That perhaps his unconsciousness might save him. His inability to help in the fight might be the reason he made it out alive.

Ethan's voice turned pleading, and I watched my friend—yes, my friend—try not to cry. "Jeremy, how can you win here? You kill them and there's no way the Cullens are going to let you leave. How can you do all the things you want to do if you're dead?"

Jeremy growled. "I don't care."

Ethan nodded. He wiped his eyes. His hands withdrew from his face, and he stared blankly at the ground. He nodded again. And again.

When he finally looked back up at Jeremy, a new resolve had settled in his eyes.

"Jeremy," Ethan said, taking a step forward. "You realize you're crazy, right?"

What the hell was he doing? I opened my mouth to call out, to say something, anything, to distract the new rage directed at Ethan, but Edward said, "Shh…"

Jeremy continued to stare Ethan down. "No. I just…"

"You're trying to kill us all. That's insane," Ethan said. "And you won't survive this. There's just no way. And then your mother's death will have meant nothing. You killed her, Jeremy. Why? Because she didn't like how you were spending your time? Gee, what a bitch—"

No. Ethan. Don't do this.

"Stop it!" Jeremy shouted. "Don't talk about her like—"

"I will talk about her any way I damn please," Ethan laid the irritation on thick. "She's just a woman too stupid to realize what she raised."

Jeremy's hands shook. "Stop it."

"She was just too stupid to realize she should have gotten rid of you when she still could. Freak."

Jeremy's skin began to move, like little ants running under the surface. The hair on his arm stood on end. He clenched his teeth, breathing deep, slow, hissing breaths.

Ethan took another step. "It's her own fault really. Stupid as she was, she didn't deserve to live."

Jeremy broke.

He screamed. His head snapped back. The sound coming out of his mouth morphed into something deeper, darker. In a moment too fast to comprehend, his tall, lean-muscled frame erupted into a creature far more frightening than a wolf. Jake fell to a heap like a puppet with it's strings cut.

Jeremy-wolf's fur was brown-black. He towered over Ethan, taller even now in his new form. His razor teeth dripped with saliva. He leaned back on his haunches, preparing to leap.

He was real. A real werewolf. He was real and he was right there in front of me.

Yes, someone was going to die.

That someone was Ethan.

...

The game was simple: find someone hotter than any of the Cullen kids. Will claimed it was "easy peasy," but Ava and I were not convinced. He pulled a magazine off the rack and flipped it open to a random page.

"How about him?" Will asked. He landed on an ad for a fancy men's watch. The guy in the picture was attractive, sure, as he moved to pose in his suit, looking down at the timepiece on his wrist. But he was blonde, too blonde, and I had never gone for the sun-bleached type. Call me a hometown girl.

"No way," Ava and I said in unison.

Will flipped again, this time landing on a much tanner fellow laying on a beach. Visit Mexi-Cali!

Ava laughed. "Nope. Not hotter. You're not going to be able to find anyone, Will. It's just not possible."

I sighed. How could so much beauty be wasted on such unaware, isolation-craving weirdos? "Yeah. It's a tragedy. A Greek tragedy."

Will chuckled. "Yeah, well. I don't agree."

"You wouldn't." Ava smiled conspiratorially. "But if we asked about the girls? Find someone hotter than they are, I dare you."

"I could," Will said, running a hand through the haired side of his head. "If I wanted to. I just don't care. Why should any of us care anyhow? It's completely pointless."

I probably was about to take it too far. Oh well. I smiled. "Not even the French cousin? What was her name again? Starts with an 'R.' You know you like her, Will. Admit it."

Ava gasped. "Ew, Will! She's way old. Gross."

"I do not," Will said, blushing. "Shut up, Aubree."

Someone beside us coughed, loud enough to make us all turn our heads. There stood a boy, about our age, thumbing through a gardening magazine. I didn't recognize him, and by the blank stares the other two were giving him, I guessed they didn't have a clue either.

Ava nudged me. "Hey, someone new. There's never anyone new."

"I heard Mrs. Marshall's sister was coming into town with her kid," Will whispered, frowning. "I didn't know it would be so soon."

Ava took a step closer to the boy. "You Mrs. Marshall's nephew?"

He looked up at us, a deer in the headlights. I wanted to laugh. He was still holding the stupid magazine, open to an article about the proper care of petunias.

"Um…yeah." He shifted his weight and looked off towards the registers for a second. "That's me. Ethan. Ethan Powell."

Ava smiled. "Nice to meet you, Ethan. I'm Ava Parson. This is my sister, Aubree. And this freak is Will Yorkie." She gestured abstractly to us.

Not even a little bit obvious, Ave.

"Nice to meet you guys." Ethan fidgeted his way forward.

"Where you from, Ethan?" Will asked. He ran a hand through his hair again. He needed to get it cut; it was almost down to his chin. But if I nudged him to the barber, he would come back with a lightning bolt tattoo on the other side or something.

"Polson," Ethan replied. We waited for the explanation. I was personally hoping he was from the east coast. Maybe he could tell me what it was like to live somewhere so far away. Somewhere populated. "It's in Montana."

No such luck.

"Oh," Will said.

Ava continued to chat with Ethan as Will and I went back to our magazine. Will lowered his voice. "I wonder who he'll fall for first. Alice, maybe? He looks like an Alice boy." I laughed. "Your sister's got her work cut out for her."

A woman called out, "Ethan?" He said his goodbyes. He ran off to find her and Ava watched him go.

Kid from Big Sky country moves to the rainiest place in the United States?

"Poor guy," I mumbled. "He's going to hate this place."

...

"Ethan!" I shouted, but it did no good.

Jeremy sprung forward, claws outstretched. I held my breath and waited for the blood. But before he could make contact, the Cullens went to work. They also became real. A blurred motion of color pushed Ethan back, and the wolf was only able to scrape his leg. Edward reached the wolf first, shoving him as he snapped and growled. Rosalie and Renesmee ran to attend to Jake, Bella dragged Ethan to a safer flat surface, and the other men surrounded Jeremy. He rushed them one at a time, always too late, teeth biting air. They herded him off to the trees.

All the while, the Quileute boys wandered forward, but kept out of the fight. Trip abandoned me, forgetting I was even there. They came to stand at the forest line, listening. The wolf roared and leaves rustled.

There was a loud crack. A sickening whine.

Bella hung her head. For a moment I thought it was Ethan she mourned. But then she lifted her head again and spoke to the trees. "Carlisle, he could use your help here when you can."

So he had to be alright. He had to.

The forest stilled. My heart and breath became evident in the quiet. As did Seth.

Seth!

I ran to him, stumbling over litter and camping gear. I fell to my knees by his head. His mouth hung open, jaw slack. I brushed the hair out of his eyes. The tears fell freely now, and as shameful as it is, I forgot about everything and everyone else. It was so good to hear the short raspy breaths, my crying turned to ragged, choking sobs.

"Wake up," I said. "Please, just wake up and be okay. I promise I don't care about the wolf thing. I know you're not crazy. I was the crazy one. I should have listened. You trusted me with all of this and I just-"

His eyelids fluttered.

Siiighhhh. 3