I flinch awake with a gasp erupting from my lungs, only to moan in agony as my headache and chest wound both fight to see what hurts most. It feels like I've been beaten upside the head and my stitches are definitely ripped. I squeeze my eyes shut and heave myself up, grinding my teeth as I do. When I can tolerate the pain I pop open my eyes and scan over the room, realizing that Liz is gone. So much for me helping me. I quickly look over my exposed skin, ensuring there's no bite.

I loosen a breath when the only blood is see is from my stomach, but then not even a second later I feel the warm drip of wetness run down my neck. My fingers slowly make there way up to assess it. Sure enough, there's a bite on my neck. A nice hunk of a bite too. Shit.

I really liked Liz too, dammit.

I look to the left and right of me but I don't see my car keys anywhere. There's no way she would have taken my car, would she? I cry out as I make my way to my feet, managing to leave the room and walk through the house. It's dark out now, I wonder how long I've been knocked out. I throw open the front door and sure enough, my beloved car and Beth are not to be found.

I stay put on the porch for a moment, taking in today's events. I'm starting to think this is a sick joke. Everything is a sick joke, isn't it. I almost want to laugh at this, because this is horrendous. I pat my sweatpants for my phone, but of course I left it in the car. That's just great.

I run over my options and I realize the best I can do is walk in the direction of Jared's house. He's not far down the road and I'm pretty sure he'll be home with mating season and all. I pull the door shut behind me, because I'm not an asshole, and clutch and my neck and chest, trying to apply pressure on my wounds. It hurts, it hurts really bad. Still my legs manage to walk just find, though I feel pretty weak. I'm curious how much blood I may have lost today alone.

Man, Carlisle is going to really go hard on the "no work, no nothing" rule after all this. Just when I was starting to do a little better, boom, the weak little human is a mess again. I snort at myself, shaking my head. I really must have lost some blood if I'm smiling at a time like this.

All of the wolves are busy with their imprints..or their hand as Quil would say. Yet here I am, fighting for my life. Taha Aki should consider this next mating season, maybe only a handful of wolves get so horny they can't patrol. Maybe that way there's not a newborn or two running around. Take my notes Taha Aki, and while you're working on that maybe let Seth imprint on me. I need something good right now. Okay? Glad we had this talk.

I snort to myself again, feeling nearly drunk at this point. I stumble a bit, but I focus hard enough on walking that I manage to keep going. I walk and walk and walk until I recognize the little blue house. There's Jared's car parked right out front, so maybe my luck is turning up. I stumble up the driveway and I make it to the front door, banging twice and then I pause.

When nearly a whole minute passes I knock three times, but still I get nothing. I bang twice again, same as last time, I get nothing.

Whining I slide down until I'm seated with my head resting on the door. "Jared you're a real dick for this." I mumble, hardly having the strength to talk. "I mean a real dick, like the worst dick ever. Speaking of dick, get your dick out of Kim long enough to..oh I don't know Jared, save my fucking life. I'm bleeding out. Oh everyone's gonna be so pissed if you let me die Jared. I'll come back and haunt you-"

My rant is interrupted when the door goes flying open and I yelp, crashing backwards onto the ground. Luckily I don't hit my head, but I remain flattened, staring up at Kim.

She looks breathless and tussled. Her face is sweaty and her body is naked beneath a thin blue bed sheet that she holds tightly against herself. "Oh my god!" She screeches at the sight of me. "Jared! Jared!" She yells loudly, like she's seen a murderer. "Gwen! What happened?" She cries out, running out the door so she can face me. She crouches down so she's at my side looking me over.

"What the fuck were you guys doing in there?" I whine, groaning as I sit myself back up. "Jared you useless piece of shit." I mumble low enough that I know he can still hear me. He comes running outside a second later, dressed, but disheveled none the less.

His eyes are wide as he takes me in. "Gwen, jesus christ!" He cries out, scooping me up and hauling me inside. I wince as he does, but I have no energy to push him off of me. It's probably best I let him do what he thinks is best. I'm clearly not in a good state of mind any longer. "What happened? Who did this?" He panics, placing me down on a nearby chair.

"Well first and foremost, your Alpha did this number." I stick a finger out, pointing at my bloodied to hell abdomen. "I ripped my stitches trying to save Beth's life, because her sister is a vampire who did this number." I point to my neck. "Then I passed out, she took my car with Beth inside of it, and so I walked here, thinking my dear friend would stop fucking my other dear friend long enough-"

He bares his teeth at me, "Gwen shut up or you're going to waste all your energy! Did you call anyone?" I shake my head. "Fuck, okay we should take her to the Cullen's, let Carlisle fix her up-"

"I'm literally covered in blood." I point out lazily, shaking my head with minimal effort. "Let's brain storm again, Jare." I can't help but grin a bit, thinking I'm pretty funny right now. Wow, I really do feel drunk. "Let's start with this. Kim go get me some water, I'm parched. Jared go get me literally anything to put on these wounds so I maybe stop bleeding everywhere. Then someone can inform the pack and the Cullen's that there are at least two newborns in the Forks/La Push area." I stare blankly at them, then shoo them away.

Funny enough they just rush away, doing exactly as I told them to do. I guess I'm not so useless, because Jared's a wolf and still dumber than I am. I do wish I had some of his healing powers though because this shit really sucks. Like really sucks. Kim brings me a tall glass of cool water and helps me to drink most of it while Jared's found some wash clothes, pressing one to my neck and he lifts my shirt, placing the other over where my stitches were. I wince as he does but I allow him to push into me until I can manage to do it for myself.

The next couple minutes Kim and Jared lose their minds trying to devise a plan while the pack is slow to reply, them all being..busy. The Cullen's are quick with a plan though. One team will head to Liz's place to hopefully pick up a scent on her, some will stay behind in case she returns and others will follow the scent. Team two will look around the outskirts of Forks and La Push, searching for my car. Team three will concern themselves with me.

Jared hustles me and Kim into his car and he takes off, leading the two of us to the safe point they decided on. I feel steady hands on my wounds, mostly not wanting to ruin Jared's car. I keep my head rested on the back of my seat, trying to keep myself awake. I feel woozy again, but I'm hoping it's more from the car and less from me having blood loss.

Jared eventually stops and scouts the area before urging me and Kim to follow. I groan as Kim helps me out of the car and when I look up I realize where we are, the Clearwater's. Oh boy..

I don't protest as Kim helps me up the driveway and to the door. Jared begins knocking and ringing the doorbell like a crazy person while Kim and I frown at him. "What? Everyone else is going to be patrolling and Seth didn't respond, so he's going to be left with you two. He just doesn't know it yet."

Kim snorts at that, shaking her head as Jared continues trying to entice Seth to get to the door. Clearly, he's a bit busy at the moment. When there's still no response I sigh, gently pushing on Jared's arm. "I got this." I assure him. I reach into their mailbox and find the spare key, opening up the door. Then I beeline towards the stairs, heading up to Seth's room.

I'm careful not to lose my footing as I do but I manage just fine. I make it down the hallway and I pause outside of Seth's door, giving up on applying pressure to my chest wound. I give his door two small knocks and wait. "M-Mom?" I hear him shout in question. He's probably terrified his mom's about to catch him touching himself.

It's hard not to laugh, but I chew on my lip. Blood loss has me feeling even more drunk and confident than I did on Embry's birthday.

Bravely I push open his door, his only warning that I'm entering. "Do I look like your mom?" I enter the room, looking to my right to find him on his bed.

I watch his face go tomato red as he forces a pillow over his lap before I can see anything. He's naked, completely naked, and there's a layer or shiny sweat on his skin. His hair is dampened, a few pieces hanging in his face. His chest looks like it's oiled up and I have the urge to drop on my knees and lick at it. I'm a bit disappointed I didn't get to finally see what Seth has down there, but that would have been invasive of me. Maybe if I wasn't suffering from blood loss it would have ended differently.

His face goes from shocked to horrified as his eyes drop from my face to the rest of me. Normally I would find that a bit offensive. "Gwen?" He cries out, heaving himself from the bed. He keeps the pillow on his lap as he struggles to find his shorts, which he eventually does. I watch as he trips, trying to put them on while covering his junk. He's skittish and breathless.

My arm that applies pressure to my neck begins to ache and I slowly drop it down as well, rolling my shoulder with a sigh of relief. "Sorry to barge in. Jared says you weren't answering so you got stuck on babysitting duty." I frown at him, shrugging my shoulders like it's a bummer.

He gets his shorts to his hips properly and then runs across the room to me, carefully placing his warm hands on my shoulders, his eyes on my neck. "What happened? Who did this to you?" He sounds horrified. His fingers graze nearby the wound, which feels absolutely amazing. It's like he's stroking the pain away. I lean into the touch, but he stops quickly, dropping his hand back to my shoulder.

"It's a long story. Were you busy." I manage to grin at him, feeling playful.

He's not impressed. "Jared brought you here? Let's go, come on. You need medical attention." He grabs at my hand, leading me down the stairs and to the living room where Kim lies on the couch lazily, eating a bag of chips.

Her eyes lift to us and she frowns, showing Seth what she took. "Sorry, I eat when I'm stressed out and also when I'm hungry, it was a long night already." She heaves herself up, making more room on the couch. "Jared just left to head to Liz's." She informs us. "Carlisle won't be long, you'll be all patched up soon Gwen." She tries to smile at me, but it's all laced with concern and pity. Clearly, I freaked her out.

"All good, I'm fine." I assure her, wincing as I take a seat on the couch. I lift my washcloth back to my neck, clutching it there.

Seth moves to stand before us, wide eyed and disheveled. "Okay, can someone tell me what's going on because I'm freaking out." He motions to himself. My eyes drop back to that delicious chest of his.

Kim and I both nod at the same time, I take a breath to answer but Kim cuts me off. "Gwen let me do it this time." She pats my knee, trying to stop my long rant in it's tracks. I grin at her, motioning for her to take over. Kim does a much faster version than I would have done but she gets all the hard information out to Seth, so he's properly informed. Seth looks shocked to hear Beth's sister is behind all this, poor Liz. She's probably so scared right now, I really hope she's not hurting Beth. She'll be so guilty when she gets a hold on herself.

Seth drops down onto the love seat across from us, a deep frown creasing his features. His eyes are zoned into my blood soaked shirt, taking it all in. "It's not half as bad as it looks." I assure him coolly. He doesn't look even a little bit convinced.

We sit in a tense silent, the only noise being Kim's crinkling chip bag as she digs into her snack. Time passes slowly and eventually there's a sharp knock on the door, followed by Carlisle's voice. "Gwen are you hear?" He calls, walking right into the living room. "Oh good, alright kiddo let me check out the damage." He gives me a gentle, fatherly smile as he sets his briefcase on the couch beside me. He takes a look at my neck wound first, cleaning it up, which hurts horribly and then bandaging it. "It's a clean bite, no infection at this point." He explains, before moving onto my stomach.

"Should I take it off?" I offer, playing with the hem.

He nods, "Yeah it's best you take it off so I can give the cuts a good clean and then we can get a fresh shirt on you." He steps back. "Let me help, I just don't want you tugging at the stitches more than you have to." He explains. I nod, giving him permission, and then he helps me to take it off. My skin is smeared in blood, mostly old blood, but it's a mess. I hear Seth suck in a breath at the site and I look up, trying to read his face.

A part of me wanted him to be dazzled by the way my breasts sit in my bra, but it's clear he's looking at me with pity and concern. Fair enough I guess, but still a bit disappointed. In those fantasies I thought of earlier today they didn't go like this. It was a lot sexier and a lot less bloody. Kim is sent off to get some wet paper towels while Seth slips away to get me a clean shirt.

Carlisle takes his time cleaning me up, making sure the wounds are disinfected and stitched up yet again. "Are you light headed?" Carlisle asks, carefully using the needle and thread.

I nod, sucking in a breath. "Definitely a bit light headed and woozy." I pause, looking away as he begins to wrap up. "Helps with the pain though." I offer, like it makes it all okay. I'd rather feel this way than feel the pain all set in right now, though.

Carlisle finishes up and puts on clean gauze just as Seth returns with a loose shirt for me to wear. "I'm going to leave you this for your neck and this for the pain." He hands me another paper bag. "You need to stay hydrated, get some food in you, and take it very easy." He goes on to list all the things I can't do, which is a really long and frustrating list. I smother a sigh as I agree to it all and just like that Carlisle is gone, leaving to help out everyone else in the hunt to find the newborns.

Kim helps me to put on Seth's new top. It scent of Seth is laced into the fabric and it takes a lot out of me not to lift it to my nose and inhale deeply. "How are you feeling now Gwen? You really gave us a scare." Kim frowns at me, her eyes dancing over to my neck.

I have her off, already feeling more present. "Much better, really. I'm sorry I scared you guys. I didn't handle the situation well." I shake my head, running my hand over my face.

"You handled it better than anyone would have! If I were in your shoes I wouldn't have even thought to walk to Jared and you were so calm, I would have been screaming and crying." She shakes her head, squeezing my shoulder. "Gwen you're so much braver than most of us, if not all." She sounds genuine as she gives me another squeeze.

One side of my face pulls up into a smile as I give her arm a squeeze. "Thank you."

She nods, running a hand through my hair. "You should rest, I'm gonna go do the same. I'll be in Leah's room if you need me." She says to Seth because walking up the stairs, a yawn falling out of her mouth.

"I can hangout down here." I suggest, looking at Seth as he stares at me from the corner of the room. Slowly he walks over to me, shaking his head. "Sorry you got stuck on babysitting duty." I manage to grin at him, but he seems so far from happy it almost makes me sad. I'm not sure what's going on in his mind right now, but I wish I did. I wish I had the courage to ask him.

He reaches out a warm hand and I take it. He slowly helps me rise to my feet and then he starts helping me towards the stairs. "You're going to sleep in my bed tonight." He says calmly, like it's obvious that's the plan.

I let him lead me there, not having the protest in me. The pain is starting to soak back into my body and today's events have me tired out. His bedroom door creaks open as he leads me to the bed, carefully pulling back the covers so I can get under them. His room is nice and cool, the only lighting comes from a lowly lit lamp on his desk. His bed smells distinctly like him, it's intoxicating as he pulls the covers over my body. "Do you want anything to eat or drink?" He asks gently, running a hand over some hair that fell into my face.

I shiver at the touch, it feels so intimate and gentle. I chew on my lip, shaking my head. He turns to leave, but I speak up before he can. "Seth?" He turns on his heel. "Can you stay with me, even just for a few minutes?" I gaze up at him threw my lashes. "If not it's-"

"Of course." He breaths out, like he's just surprised that I asked. He carefully moves to the other side of the bed, sinking in beside me. His bed's a queen but he's so large it feels like there's no space left between us, good.

It's silent for a few passing moments, though it doesn't feel awkward. The world feels heavy and I know sleep threatens to overtake me any moment. Still, I can't help but scoot myself back into him, needing that little extra bit of comfort. He seems to get the idea as his arm snakes around me, resting on my lower stomach where there is no wounds. His chest is flush against my back and his knees bend into mine, conforming to my body. I feel his face snuggle into the back of my neck until he's breathing in my hair, though he seems fine with it.

I feel my shoulders loosen as my hand trails down, finding his warmer one. I give his thumb a squeeze but he shakes it off. Feeling rejected a pause, but only a second later he placing his hand on top of my hand, lacing his fingers with mine. I fall asleep to his thumb stroking my wrist.