A/N: I'm back again! I hope everyone had a restful New Years'. I certainly did; me and my family were very excited to get out of the Hellmouth that was 2020. (On a side note, I'm pretty sure I saw something that said Billy Joel was writing a new version of We Didn't Start the Fire for 2020... Don't quote me on that, though.)

And New Moon: Scripted and this have been slowly fighting for control over who's farther in the storyline... Although that's just my fault.

Chapter Eight
When a Teenage Girl Gets Pissed

When I got home, my mom was waiting for me in the kitchen.

"You're home early," she noticed.

"Yeah. The other person we went with got sick."

"That's too bad. How was the movie?"

I took my coat off and draped it over the couch, dropping my keys down next to it. "Terrible. The CGI was obviously faked, and the blood looked even worse."

"Are you all right, Julie?" She tilted her head to the side, looking at me with her eyes slightly squinted.

I sighed. "Yeah, why?"

My mom shrugged. "You just look kind of…weird."

The back of my neck warmed suddenly—almost violently—and my hands started shaking. My breath started coming faster without me being aware I was even controlling it. My eyes widened as I glanced at my vibrating hands. A light sheen of sweat covered my forehead. What the hell was happening to me? Was this a new virus?

My mom wheeled herself back, her eyes widening in fear.

The heat enveloped my entire body, and I crouched down. It felt as though the bone structure in my body was changing, but I still didn't know what the fuck was happening.

And then I heard them.

…left. That will help you.

Thanks, Call.

Sure thing.

What the fuck? I thought. I stumbled back on fours, and I seemed to take up more space in the room than previously.

Jules? one of the voices said.

Was that Ember?

Yeah, she said, it's me.

Don't worry, the second voice said. You're going to be okay.

Was I going insane? Did I need to be committed?

Second girl spoke up. No, you don't need to be committed. This was supposed to happen. It's like destiny.

Destiny's for people who don't want to control their own lives, Paula, Ember said.

Yeah, yeah. Whatever. We'll be right over to help you, Paula said.

I tried to take a deep breath. Okay. I'll be here, I thought.

Through their eyes, I could see the flashing of trees as they ran, faster than I thought was possible.

For the minute it took Paula and Ember to get to me, I stood still. I was terrified to move, in case I broke something or hurt my mom. But I still stood in front of the door, so I stepped to the side, tripping over my own feet before fumbling upright. Well, as upright as was possible in the body of a monster.

You're not a monster. You're just like us, Ember said. Well, thought would probably be a more accurate word. It seemed as though we could read each other's minds.

We can, Paula thought. When we phase, we have a…hive mind. No more secrets, Black.

Fantastic. Just one more thing to get used to. Unless I had accidentally ingested a hallucinogen. Was I high? Was it Princess? Did Princess get me high?

No, you're not high. This is real life, Jules. And what did I tell you about giving people rude nicknames?

Ember was coming to a stop before my house, and I could see a flash of red-brown fur inside the window. Was that me?

Probably, Ember thought. Her vision shimmered for a moment before her thoughts disappeared from my head.

A knock on the door made me jump and hit my head on the ceiling. Small involuntary whimpers escaped from my jaws.

"Come in," my mom whispered.

Ember opened the door and slipped inside, human. She wasn't wearing her glasses, which I was still getting used to, but she was dressed for winter. She wore black tights under a floral dress, a thick green sweater, and the cream scarf her mom had knitted for her when she was ten. What surprised me, though, was that she was still Ember. Her cheekbones were sharper, the childish roundness of her cheeks had dissipated. She was taller, slightly more womanly, all as I had noticed before. But she was still the same. She was still my best friend.

Well of course she is, Paula thought. She just has a giant wolf in her now.

Ember walked over to me and smiled slightly. "Hey, Jules. Miss me?"

I nodded, feeling a tear slide down my furry face.

"Aw, Jules. It's okay." Ember slid her arms around my neck and squeezed me tightly. I nuzzled my head against her neck, scared to do anything else. "It's okay," she murmured again and again.

I felt my heart slow, and the heat began to slowly retract back into my neck, each side of me warring for control like sovereign states over unclaimed land.

Slowly and surely, the human in me won; I was on two feet again, shivering as tears slid down my face. I was clothed, luckily, but I felt as though I was completely exposed. Ember squeezed me again, then let me go slightly.

"Are you all right?" she asked sweetly.

I hiccupped. "I think so."

Another knock on the door made me jump. "It's okay," Ember whispered. She reached over and twisted the knob on the door, keeping an arm around my waist.

Paula walked inside, sliding the door closed behind her. She adjusted the fuzzy beanie that sat over her cropped hair and brushed a few pieces of grey fur off her puffy vest.

"Come on," Ember whispered. "Let's go to your room to talk."

I nodded and allowed Ember and Paula to lead me into my own room.

Ember flipped the light on and sat on my bed, crossing her legs. I sat next to her, and she pulled a blanket around my shoulders. Paula sat on my other side, putting her feet on the ground.

"What happened?" I asked them.

"Do you remember those old stories that the elders would tell us about the wolf-girls?" Paula asked.

"Of course. They're just stupid legends, though," I responded.

"They're not, though. They're real." Ember rubbed my arm, pulling me into her side.

"What do you mean?" I couldn't understand. What did Ember mean by "real"?

Paula patted my knee. "We're the wolves, Julie. We're the pack."

Ember stayed with me all night, and I slept against her side. I woke up several times, gasping and sweaty from a nightmare. She shushed me calmly and pulled me back to her side, stroking my hair lightly. I only fell into a dreamless sleep for roughly two hours.

She left in the morning when I went to take a shower, saying that she needed to talk to Samantha.

According to Ember, Samantha was the alpha. The leader. The one to make all final decisions about planning and tactics. That's why they all loved her so much; she was the one who guided them.

As I stood in front of the shower, waiting for the water to heat up, I slid a brush through my hair. Dark strands fell onto the tile, snaking around each other ominously.

I stared at them, my head tilting to the side. A tear slid down my cheek, dropping onto the floor and soaking the strands of hair.

The last time I had cut my hair, I was twelve. I had gotten caramel syrup in it, and my mom had to cut it into a pixie-cut.

Running to the kitchen before the water had heated fully, I grabbed a pair of scissors from a drawer and ran back into the bathroom.

I shut the water off, and the bathroom started to cool down. The mirror was covered in steam, and I wiped it off with a towel, making streaks of water down the glass.

The scissors were dull, and I started to cut off chunks of my thick hair. I had to saw, my muscles already aching.

Tears slid down my face as my hair shortened from my waist to my shoulders.

I knew my life was never going to be the same. But what would I not want to give up?

A few hours later, after I had taken a shower and gotten ready for the day, Janie came to collect me.

Her car was rickety, unsettling pops and hisses coming from under the hood. Mentally, I went through all the possibilities of what could be wrong with it, but I knew she wouldn't let me touch it.

"Where are we going?" I wondered out loud.

"To Sam and Elliot's house," Janie responded, keeping her eyes on the empty road.

Elliot Young was someone I had never met before. I knew vaguely who he was, and that he was Leo and Selene's cousin from the Makah rez, but nothing more than that.

"Why do they live together?" I asked.

"They're boyfriend girlfriend. Don't stare at him, Sam will deck you if you do."

"Protective, isn't she," I muttered under my breath.

"It's not that. You'll know when you see him."

Great. How much more ominous could Janie have been?

At that moment, we pulled up to a small grey house with a colorful, handkerchief-sized flower bed at the front. We got out of the car and walked into the house.

The room inside was small, and similar to my house, with the kitchen and living room attached. Samantha sat at a round table in the kitchen, a large map of Washington in front of her. Several areas were circled in red, and newspapers scattered the other chairs around the table.

"Sam?" Janie said quietly, with a tinge of angst in her voice.

Samantha jumped up and turned around. Deep bags were under her bloodshot eyes, and her skin was paler than normal. Her black hair hung in greasy strands to her chin, and her clothes her heavily wrinkled.

"Elliot!" Janie scolded, shouting into a different room. "Did you let Sam stay up all night again?"

A young man with black hair that was tied in a low bun walked into the room from what appeared to be an office. Three thick, claw-like scars were indented in the right side of his copper face from forehead to jaw, distorting his otherwise handsome face. "I didn't even realize she was up." Elliot walked over to Samantha and took her shoulders in his hands. "Come on, baby, let's go."

"No!" Samantha whined, trying to release herself from his grasp and go back to the map.

"She isn't normally like this," Janie whispered to me. "There have been bloodsucker attacks all over the state, and it's our job to stop them."

"Chupacabra? Cannibals on juice cleanses? Are we in a war with mosquitos? Because you know there's bug spray, right?" I joked, trying to somehow lighten the mood.

Janie snorted. "Vampires. Cold Ones. Let's just say, that legend is also real." She flung herself down into a chair at the table, patting the chair next to her.

I sat down and watched as Elliot tried to convince Samantha to sleep. She looked exhausted, it was true.

"Please, Sammy?" he begged quietly.

"N-no," she stuttered, "I have to make sure that no one else gets hurt." Samantha turned out of Elliot's hands, back to the map. She touched the red circles. "Fifteen people have already gone missing. This is them, I know it. I know it!"

"Paula and Ember are running patrol right now, Sam," Janie said calmly. "We're trying as hard as we can to stop them. But you can't run yourself into the ground in the process."

"Listen to Janie," Elliot said, putting a hand on Samantha's waist. "Seriously."

Samantha nodded and nearly collapsed before Elliot caught her. He helped her sit down, then sat in the chair next to her. She leaned against his shoulder, eyelids fluttering before closing completely. Her breathing evened out as Elliot lifted her from the chair and placed her on the nearby couch. He draped a blanket over her and kissed her forehead lovingly before turning back to us.

"Sorry," Elliot said to me. "I know this must be weird."

"Yeah, kinda," I responded, laughing shakily. "What was she talking about? The whole 'fifteen people are missing' thing."

"We've been keeping watch on two vampires for a couple weeks now. We haven't seen either of them, but they're there. They're the reason why you and Ember phased," Janie said.

"Girls of the Quileute bloodline will phase—turn into giant wolves—when vampires are near." Elliot sat down on the other side of me.

"But Ember isn't Quileute. She's Makah." Was she a genetic anomaly? Was Ember different than all the rest?

Elliot and Janie looked down awkwardly.

"We theorize that her dad was Quileute," Elliot said slowly.

Ember never knew her dad. She was raised by a single mom who had come here from the Makah reservation when she was pregnant. Everyone had assumed that Ember's dad was Makah also. But what if he wasn't? "What do you mean?"

Janie touched my shoulder. "The two possible options for Ember's father are Saul Clearwater or…George Black."

George Black was my dad. He and my mom were the ones who raised me until I was nine and he died in a car accident. He was the one who taught me every mechanical thing I knew, who showed me horror movies when my mom wasn't home. I had idolized him. He was the person I looked up to, who I used as a base for a good person. But what if he hadn't been so good? What if he had cheated on my mom?

"Ember could be my half-sister," I realized.

"Yeah. We're sorry you had to find out this way," Elliot responded gently.

The front door opened, the hinges squeaking slightly. Ember and Paula stepped inside.

"Hi. Sorry we're late," Ember said, brushing leaves off her white blouse and lavender skirt.

Ember had been my best friend since kindergarten. When we went to the park together, people used to ask if we were twins. At the time, I had thought it was them being weird or having bad eyesight. As I got older, I just thought they were being racist and thinking that all Native Americans looked the same. But now? Maybe they weren't so far off.

As Ember walked over to me, I found that her cheekbones had the same exact slope as mine, our eyes were both set the same. Maybe she was my half-sister, or maybe I was just seeing things, but no one could deny there was some resemblance.

"Hey, Jules," Ember said to me, and I jumped. "Oh, sorry. Didn't mean to scare you."

"It's okay. You didn't," I responded.

Janie placed her hand over mine. "We told her, Ember."

"Oh," she whispered, then walked toward me slowly. "I'm really sorry, Jules. I…I didn't know until I phased, and…I'm sorry," she sputtered.

"It's not your fault." I set my hand on her arm gently. "You don't choose the family you're born into."

Ember hugged my shoulders tightly, and I suddenly realized that I didn't care if we were or weren't sisters. I would always think of her that way—to the end of time.

A/N: I love me some Julie and Ember friendship cuteness. There's going to be a lot more of it, believe me.

Next chapter has been titled: "Heads Will Roll" (Fun times, right?)