Jacob's Point of View

It's early and I should be inside lying next to Emma now. I feel this incredible pull on my heartstrings and I want to be back there by her side so she's not alone, I really do, but I can't myself to look at her. Sometimes she's fine. Sometimes, I wouldn't even know she was… hurt? Is that the right word for it? Thinking it makes my stomach clench but what else is there to say? She isn't sick. Sue and Emily are sure it happened with all the hits to her head, so I guess she is hurt.

I feel like a failure. I wasn't there to protect her and I did nothing to stop it. But what's worse is that I can't even get myself to be in the same room with her. She's my imprint and I can't even be around her! It hurts too much when I see her fall into herself. Her eyes become unfocused and it's like she's gone until something triggers and pulls her back. I don't know where she goes, if she's thinking about anything or just sitting there in emptiness. It's like she's a woman possessed. It only upsets her when we ask. All I know is that she's not completely aware of what's happening. Yet she cried when I told her I would be there for her anyway. It's as if she's trapped within herself.

I want to punch myself. I told her I'd be there for her and yet here I am, outside as the sun is rising, avoiding my imprint. She didn't deserve this and she certainly doesn't deserve to be stuck with someone like me who can't handle being by her side through the worst. But it just scares me so damn much. Through the other things, injuries and sickness, it was easy. I always knew she would get better and so I could be her side and root for the process to speed up. This time though… she's not coming back. Wherever she goes has some claim on her life and I'm not going to be able to pull her back. It makes me want to cry and it makes me want to kill every last one of the Cullens. I don't care what kind of pain and suffering they think they are going. I don't care which of them is dead. They did this to her. They had the power to stop all of this long before it started and if they had…

I press the heels of my hands into my eyes, try to blot away the images that come to mind. Collin was just a fucking kid and now he's dead. And Sam's down and won't be getting up for a long time. And Emma is never going to come back to me. Some days she'll be there, she'll be my Emma. Other days she's going to be lost and I'll spend the rest of my life hoping and praying she'll snap out of it but I already know she won't. It kills me; it physically eats me up inside to the point where I think anything else would hurt less.

The door creaks open. I don't bother to look who it is; I know it isn't her.

Seth sits on the porch steps next to me, not saying anything but just staring out at the pink sky. He reminds me of Emma when she's hurting, when she's lost. Only he doesn't have the vacant look in his eyes.

He sighs and I can feel his eyes burning a hole on the side of my face. "We're going to get them" he says. There's a new kind of malice in his voice. I'd never thought I'd hear Seth sound like Sam or even Paul but he has the same threat in the tone of his voice. It plunges the knife in my gut just a bit deeper. I wish they wouldn't have gotten to him and at least one of us could have walked away unaffected.

"I know" I say blindly. I can feel it in my bones. I will end them, no matter what it takes. We are all in now; there's not much left for us to lose.

He doesn't say any more and I don't give him the chance too. Before the sun has really risen, I pull the other guys from the house. It kills me when I have to step into Emma's room and take Jared away from Kim. I wish I could be like that with Emma. Thankfully though she's still sleeping and I don't have to see the look of betrayal that I'm sure will be on her face. There's not much to say. We're all ready for this and we know what we are doing. We are going to end this today; we can all feel it. As horribly ironic as it is, we've never been closer as a pack. All of us have the same burning desire: to see the Cullens pulled down to the depths of hell. We are brothers and sister in our hatred more than in our bloodlines.

We phase as one and move with incredible speed towards the Cullen's land. We're a lot less careful about not being seen. It matters less to us than seeing the end of them. Quill almost takes out a car when we are crossing the street in his haste. I don't bother scolding him. I want to be there soon as well.

The Cullen's scents are all around now but we can still smell exactly where they are. They are a lot closer to our land than any of us would like. We meet them exactly on the border line.

They look weary and haggard and it makes me so incredibly thrilled. I bask in their pain because it will never surmount to the pain they've caused all of us and will continue to cause us even after they are dead. It will be easy too. There's only the doctor and his wife, the two girls, and Edward. The boys were really the problem and we took them out easily.

Edward looks the worst and I'd lie if I said I didn't grin when his eyes met mine. His eyes are as black as night and he looks even more dead than usual. He doesn't glare at me or even seem to realize what is going on. He regards me like a ghost and this battle like an obligation. But I don't dwell on that.

There is no talk of peace although I somewhat expected one. It wouldn't have mattered anyway though. We are out to end them, not the war. I would personally see to ending their filthy clan and I know my brothers and sister feel the same.

It's Leah who attacks first. I don't think any of the Cullens expected it to be her and so she easily gets a grip on the blonde's neck. The leech shrieks but there's nothing any of the others can do. Each of us is paired up against one of them and the others back up each other to be sure they won't slip away. I'm there beside Leah, snapping my jaws and trying to get a bite at her. I know she was one of them that supported that demon being grown in Bella and I want nothing more to get my teeth in her. I manage to get one of her ankles between my teeth and lock them. She screams but it's cut off so quickly I would have thought it was the wind. Leah pulls one way and I the other and soon enough her blonde head isn't connected to a body anymore.

For a moment, I stepped back and let my pack continue their hunt for vengeance for our own people. I had a very little bit of pity for the doctor when Paul, Jared, and Brady hunted him down and tore him to pieces. Of all of them, I could almost tolerate him. But it doesn't matter; he still let this happen when he, as their so called leader, had the ability to end it with a word.

Despite stepping away from the slaughter for a moment, it didn't escape me that Edward had been left alone. I knew why from the rushing thoughts of my pack and felt my heart beating rapidly with desire. There's nothing I've ever wanted more.

He stands there looking glum as his "sister" is slashed open and torn apart by our knife like teeth and claws. He almost regards me as an afterthought, glancing over with his head tilted down towards his shoes. Good, let him give in to this. I stalk towards him, still careful in case he has anything stupid planned. He shakes his head reading my thoughts. I growl at him with all the fiber in my body. The throaty sound is so low and so full of my desire to kill him that his skin grows a shade paler. I nearly have my nose to his head now and I pull back my lips so he can see the teeth I'm going to use to tear him apart.

You, I growl in my mind. I can't even come up with any words. I can't express how much I hate the damn bastard.

He looks up glumly, like he's been told it's going to rain today. It makes my hackles rise. "I am sorry" he says, looking right at me.

I shake my head so hard I'm surprised I don't snap my own neck. He's sorry! He tortured Emma with that spawn of him and he nearly killed her. And now he's doomed her to whatever hell she's going to go through for the rest of her life. No… sorry doesn't even come close to cutting it. If anything, it makes it worse.

I wish I would have waited one more second before pouncing on him. I wish I would have really digested him last words before I sunk my claws right through his sternum and through that cold, dead heart. "Do it" he said. I wish I wouldn't have. I should have let him live his pathetic life just a little bit longer and suffered the agony of being all alone and knowing he was the cause of his family's death. But I was blinding by all the rage I had pent up and tore him down. Even after I knew he was gone and he could never hurt Emma again, it wasn't enough. I separated fingers from hands and his ears from his head. It was never going to be enough. It terrified me that he'd somehow find a way to be there still. My heart was beating so hard and I just kept destroying him. I didn't stop until I could see in the pack's mind that he was nothing more than shards of stony flesh.

I found that I couldn't phase back. While the others did and were breathing heavily, I was stuck in the body of a wolf. I paced around anxiously as they burned the pieces, trying and trying to be me again. My head was pounding with an ache behind my eyes and I grew desperate. They all noticed but Jared was the one to nod his head and assure me he would finish this.

I bolted through the forest. I felt like I was flying.

She was sitting on the porch and a small part of my brain wanted to scold her. She had her hair pulled back but it was still a mess. She was a complete mess and had her head resting against the stair railing, her chin tucked into her chest. But she looked up when I broke through the tree line.

It was almost instantaneous. As soon as her soft brown eyes meet mine I find my bones shifting mid sprint. I end up tumbling to the ground as I return to my body but I don't stop moving. I sloppily pull myself up and crash right into her. It was a dumb thing to do and I could have hurt her but I needed her in my arms. I pulled her into my naked chest, not caring in the least, and squeezed her so tight it hurt me. "It's done. It's done." I breathed rapidly into her hair. Then before she could even speak or I could get my brain to start working like a man's brain instead of a wolf's, I was kissing her everywhere I could: her shoulder, her cheek, her ear, her lips. I couldn't get myself to stop and I never wanted too. She was too breathless to follow any of my movements but I didn't care. I squeezed her again and felt myself cry into her shoulder. It was done. None of it felt real.

She pulled back just the slightest. Our chests were still touching and there was just barely an inch between our noses but it was enough space for her to be able to put her hands on either side of my face and look so intently into my eyes I thought she'd seen my soul. She could have said anything then. I was scared and nervous even having her in my arms that she wasn't real. But she was staring me down and then her lips moved. I didn't hear anything; I had to read the words from her lips and tongue. "Never again?"

I shook my head fervidly, placing a chaste kiss on her lips. "Never, ever again."