My laptop is back from its selfish vaca. No more LONGHAND CHAPTERS :)

REVIEW***What do you all think of the POV changes? I'm using them because Bella can't see the action in the forest, and I use Sam for the most part because he has full pack access. Do you think POV changes are effective?

CHP 21 – ABSOLUTE CHAOS

*Bella's POV*

My eyelids fluttered as Jake crawled into bed next to me.

"Sorry," he whispered, taking his normal position on his side against the wall, leaving as much space between he and I as he could manage. "I didn't mean to wake you."

Awake and aware, I was suddenly cold. I scooted towards him on the bed, curling up against him and burying my face into his bare shoulder. He wrapped his warm arms around me and pressed his cheek against the top of my head. Our breathing was deep and even. "It's okay," I said. I was glad to know he was there.

"So you're not worried? About me imprinting, I mean," he asked.

"No," I responded into the curve of his neck. "I'm not worried."

"Are you sure?"

I nodded. "I'm not worried," I repeated, yawning. "I'm just tired. I want to sleep." All the emotional turmoil I'd gone through in his absence had worn me out.

He squeezed me in a hug and kissed the top of my head, pulling the blanket I was sleeping with tighter around me. "Okay," he said. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," I whispered, and I was out.

Tiny, barely audible clinking noises brought me back to the conscious world. Jake was still sleeping, his arms still around me. Pressed against him, I listened closely for the sound. After a few moments, I heard it again - a tiny fragile-sounding thump against the window. Clink.

Irritated, I opened my eyes, but I could see nothing but Jake's shoulder. Did anyone in Forks ever get to sleep? I could've sworn I hadn't slept a full night since I got here.

I poked Jake in the ribs. He didn't move. Annoyed, I poked harder. "Jake. Wake up."

No response. Of course.

I jabbed him in the ribs as hard as I could. "Jacob!" I said as loudly as I could without waking Charlie.

He stirred. "What, Bella?"

"Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" he mumbled grumpily, reaching up to rub his eyes.

"That-"

A huge crash reverberated through my room. Tiny shards of glass scattered themselves about the floor, and a sizeable rock smashed into my bedside lamp and sent it crashing to the ground. I tried to let out a scream, but Jacob was between me and the window before the sound had left my lips. He picked the rock up off the floor and held it like a baseball, ready to throw.

Squinting past Jake outside into the darkness, I saw something I never expected to see. Embry Call sat perched in the tree outside my window, looking slightly unsteady and very put out.

"It's Embry!" I whispered, clambering past Jacob to open the window. As soon as my foot hit the floor, a long shard of glass pierced my skin and jammed its way an inch deep into my foot. I stumbled, cursing my own clumsiness. Blood pooled around the glass splinter.

For a moment I panicked, remembering what trouble blood had caused me in the past, but immediately relaxed as soon as Jake kneeled down and pulled the glass out in a painless, fluid motion, flicking it effortlessly into the trash. With one hand, he grabbed a tissue, with the other arm he scooped me and carried me to the window, setting me down gently in a glass-free spot. Handing me the tissue for the mess, he opened the window and leaned out into the darkness, clearly miffed.

"What do youwant, Embry?" he asked, too calmly in my opinion.

I leaned around Jake to assert myself. "More like what the heck, Embry? You broke my window!"

"We need Jacob!"

"He's right here!" I whispered angrily. "Why didn't you just call him like you always do? You didn't have to break everything!"

"We have been calling! But you two are too busy playing in your bed to notice anything, apparently!" he called back, wobbling a bit on the limb he straddled.

"What? We were just-"

"Look," he said, holding up his hands in surrender. "We really don't have time for all this." He switched his gaze from me to Jacob. "Victoria is here. And others."

A gust of air escaped my lungs and I teetered on the spot. Victoria.

Jacob immediately snapped into wolf mode. "What others?"

"Unidentifiable. An unknown enemy." Embry responded, now equally focused.

More than one vampire here for the kill. My knees felt week. Jake steadied me with his arm.

"I'll be there as fast as I can."

"Sure, Jake. As long as "as fast as you can" means now. Come on." Embry skillfully jumped out of the tree, easily an eighteen foot drop, and sprinted off into the forest.

Jake looked at me with determined eyes. "I can't leave you here." His eyes swept the room, seeing the glass, the blood from my foot, and me nearing hyperventilation. "Can you walk?"

I tried and winced in pain. He cursed and pulled at his hair.

"Alright, well, I'm gonna have to carry you."

"What? Carry me? You can't -"

"To Emily's," he responded, ignoring my blighted objection. He grabbed a coat from the back of my desk chair and threw it to me. "Put it on." I didn't argue.

He grabbed a notebook off my desk and swept all the glass pieces into a pile at an inhuman speed. "There's not much I can do about the blood," he mumbled to himself. He set the lamp back up on the table and turned to face me. His spine was shivering and I worried about him exploding in my bedroom. He'd do much more damage than Embry had.

"What about Charlie?" I asked, worried, still holding the now red tissue to my foot.

"They're not here for him," he answered briskly, brow furrowed in concentration. Reaching down, he swiped my legs out from under me and caught my shoulders with his arm, cradling me against him. "Just trust me, okay? Don't object to anything I'm gonna do in the next 5 minutes."

I looked up at him, bundled up in a jacket, bleeding and confused. It didn't take me long to figure out what he was planning.

"Jake," I said, "You are not jumping out of that window while holding me."

"I told you not to object."

I started to squirm when he took a step towards the window. "Jake-"

"BELLA." He said firming. "Look, we don't have time for this. Victoria is here. In Forks. Right now. You squirm and I drop you." I went still.

"Right," he said. "Here we go." I closed my eyes.

There was a quick whooshing sound and a two second period where my stomach was flying, and then I heard the comforting thud that let me knew we were on the ground again.

Well, sort of. If you could count Jacob sprinting being "on the ground". He was going so fast I couldn't be sure that his feet were even making contact with the pavement. I looked up at him briefly, for as long as I could bear to keep my eyes open, to see if he was struggling with my weight or the ridiculous pace he was keeping. He showed no signs of weakness. Every step was purposeful. His face was hard and determined, his eyes set straight ahead and never wavering.

It was too dark for me to tell where we were. I buried my face into him. My foot was throbbing. I was terrified for the pack. Terrified for Charlie.

It wasn't long and we were at Emily's. He set me down just over the threshold and pounded on the doorframe.

"Emily!" he called loudly. "Emily! Emergency!"

Her footsteps sounded as she raced across the second floor. She tripped over her feet at the top of the stairs, her long hair flying. Grabbing the banister, eyes wide, she stammered, "What's wrong, Jake? Is it Sam? What brother is hurt?"

"Victoria is here," he said, bypassing the stairs and heading towards the back door. Emily ran down the stairs after him.

"Right now?" she asked, horrified.

"Yeah," he said over his shoulder. "Bella's foot is bleeding. She needs it wrapped up."

Just before he reached the back porch, he stripped off all of his clothes and tossed them to Emily. I dropped my eyes to the floor, embarrassed, but Emily wasn't phased. She caught his clothes and called after him. "Be careful." And he was gone.

Emily turned to me and tilted her head, "How is it that you're always getting hurt? Do you ever just have an easy day?"

I shrugged, blushing. She walked into the kitchen, folding up Jake's shorts and boxers as she went, and laid them on the counter in a neat pile. I hobbled pathetically to the table to sit.

"I've got plenty of Band-Aids." she said, more to herself than to me. Her long, straight black hair fell neatly down her back and I envied it. "Is it a bad cut?"

I held up my foot. After examining it for a moment, she decided differently. "Better get the gauze."

I tried to convince her I could do it myself – I'd bandaged my own wounds on plenty of occasions – but she insisted. "I like taking care of things like this." She said. "And I never get to anymore. You know how fast those wolves heal. It's ridiculous." Humming, she cleaned my foot with a towel, wrapping it gently in cloth.

"What time is it?" I asked as she put away the medical supplies.

"4:30am."

No wonder I was so tired. Emily glanced at me from over her shoulder. "Why don't you go take a nap? Jared's hogging the couch, of course, but there's a nice chair in there, too…"

I couldn't pass the offer up.

*Sam POV*

The woods were eerily still. No leaves rustled, the wind was silent, the air still. The wolves stood in a circle, deep within the forest, edgy and tense.

"What happened earlier can never happen again. We allowed Victoria to have the upper hand. Someone's gonna get killed if we don't step it up." I growled. The pack nodded.

"We have to hold better ranks, run faster, concentrate harder. Be more dedicated. Being a part of this pack means putting it first. You're protecting people that can't protect themselves, and our ancestors have passed down to us the ability to hold our ground – we have to take advantage of that."

There was solemn agreement among the rest of wolves.

"Paul, Quil and I will take the defensive edge on the far right, closer to Forks. Jacob, you'll take Leah and Embry southwest, closer to La Push. We'll stay in ranks until we figure out a schedule. The only problem is that we don't know how soon she…or they…will be back. We could be in for a long wait."

I saw a flash of Jacob's disgruntled thoughts of being stuck with Leah, but he controlled it enough so I was the only one to catch it. For good measure, I threw out an extra warning. "We're in the middle of a serious situation. Now is not the time to argue among ourselves. United front. Untied pack."

Again, they nodded in response. The pack was stiff. I could feel the growing tension.

"Keep your senses ready for unknown trails. We don't know what we're dealing with yet."

Paul, Quil and I took off and Jake's group followed suit. The stress of everything was getting to me. I was still rattled by the slip up, but I knew how to hide it. Alpha mind lock down. My thoughts were private when I wanted them to be.

It hadn't been long, much shorter than I had expected, before the adrenaline picked up again. A spike of horrible scent hit my nose, but it wasn't from my end, and I staggered. I knew what was coming before anything was said.

They're coming back, Jake said. His group split in thirds, neatly, quickly, without hesitation. Like a machine. Their gaps were precise. 2 miles apart exactly. Jake knew how to lead. Naturally.

There's two, he communicated, throwing as much information my way as he could. His mind was racing. Direction. Speed calculations. Tracking strategy. Second-in-command instructions to his team.

I dove into my instinct and Alpha nature, planting my feet firmly on the ground and blocking out all other distractions. I could sense what he could, feel what he could. I could all but see straight out of his eyes.

Leah had taken a trail on the left. She was hot on it. Jake tore up the middle. Embry had taken right. His trail smelled like Victoria's. I wished Jake or Leah had taken it instead. They were faster. Had better judgment.

I'm watching him, Jake assured me. I knew he would.

They sprinted, tearing through the forest, teeth snarling. My team stood guard, back towards La Push, protecting out tribe and family. We were ready in case the enemy turned our way.

Leah's left trail had run dry quickly. The unknown had taken to the trees. Victoria had cut northwest and taken to water. A frustrating, cowardly retreat.

Paul, I commanded. Run north. Do a quick sweep –one hundred and fifty mile radius. Go.

He took off. Quil adjusted to fix the gaps. Jake's team reset, positioning themselves to protect Forks, sprinting along the forest's jagged edges.

Everyone was tense and aggravated. Victoria and her friend were playing games and testing the waters. There wasn't much we could do with that. It was obvious she didn't want a real confrontation. She just wanted to run us out.

Paul reported back. Two more trails. Here. Leading west to La Push.

How far out are you, Jake asked.

Eighty-nine.

Wait, towards La Push? Jake interjected. His footing stumbled and he slowed a bit.

Focus, Jake. Handle your own team.

He ran faster.

Quil and I still stood in front of Forks. If Paul was right, they were running straight towards us.

These trails are new, Paul said, sprinting along them. They're being left now.

Live trails.

It's not Victoria. Or her friend. Paul huffed. Their trails aren't straight. They're wandering a bit. They remind me of… but it wouldn't be. I racked my brain. Four vampires. Six wolves. We still had the numbers.

Embry's senses were pricked. Victoria. Circling back.

He set off at a racing pace, dodging trees. Everything was a surreal, green blur. Nothing mattered but the scent and the hunt and the capture. Complete animalistic instinct. But I couldn't stay tapped into his senses for long. I had two bloodsuckers sprinting at me. They should be here any second.

Jake hit the ground running full out seconds after Embry took off. Her friend is back. Leah, go with Embry.

You just want this all to yourself so you can look like a hero! She whined.

LEAH, I roared. I'd had enough. Are you KIDDING me? Take this seriously for once! Go with Embry, I she had no choice.

My head was filled with the thuds of twenty-four paws slapping the earth at top speed. The noise was deafening and exhilarating. We were all running. All ready.

Two heading southwest, straight for you, Sam.

I braced myself as if for impact. Quil followed my lead.

They're picking up speed, he reported. Running side by side. Their trails are hard to separate, but I know there's two. I smell both.

The wind picked up and carried there scent to where I stood, mercilessly slapping me in the face with it. Quil staggered backwards and his eyes watered.

Stand your ground, I ordered, though I knew the burning sensation he was now feeling quite well.

They was close. I could feel the vibrations of their feet through the ground though they were barely touching it. I did as best as I could to block out the other team's chase. I had to focus here now. Jake could handle his team fine without me.

Alice and Emmett Cullen were crouched before me, white skin glistening and golden eyes shining through the darkness.

They're back.

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