| THE HUMAN CONDITION |

Chapter XVIII: The End

"It was a pleasure to burn."

Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury


ROMAN DIDN'T REACT to me saying his name. His amber eyes, still something I was unused to and finding it difficult to know, stared at the killer beside me. The killer returned his stare. I took my limited time observing them both, trying desperately to see what each of their motives was, failing, finding myself unable to move as if their staring contest destroyed the time frame and their steadfast gazes kept me rooted to the grass.

Looking at Dakota was different from looking at what was once his lover. They were as comparable to each other as snow was to rain, really; both had a magic of their own, but one could cause the other's destruction. I knew which was which.

Roman's first words staggered me. I originally hadn't known where they came from and before I saw him, I went crazy wondering who could possibly have known that much about Dakota. The memories I stole from Dakota didn't include anything about Roman's own hopes and dreams, Dakota's past thoughts not mentioning from where he drew inspiration for his ambitions. I just assumed he found out about the Volturi from Roman telling him everything there was to know about the supernatural world over their course of being lovers. That was only half-true. Roman, red-eyed, charismatic, and a deceiver all of his own, wanted the same before he turned Dakota. After, he filled Dakota's head with the same delusions.

Dakota's memories circulated in me.

I imagined the power. I imagined the control. I imagined the beauty.

I did not imagine him there with me.

Horror struck through me when in rapid fashion I realized—Roman was the one he imagined with power, control, and beauty. Dakota thought he would be left behind.

I was free.

He was free of the "control" of Roman only to fall into another's grasp.

Was Dakota really the villain I painted, or was Roman? Or were they both entirely misguided and had each other as the villain in their respective stories?

I stepped away from Dakota, getting further from Roman in the process. Both of them were technically monsters, but only one had truly broken free from the death and destruction a supernatural lifestyle offered. Roman was powerful and selfish in Dakota's memories and maybe he remembered him as that now. Dakota's face looked fucking lethal. Roman's was apologetic, of all things to be. Didn't that mean something?

Dakota was right. I waswriting a false narrative for him this entire time, not asking myself if his intensions were at the fault of who came into his life to manipulate him or if they were coming from his own head and heart. I didn't think about it at all until I learned from his memories that he had the capacity to feel human emotions. I spent a long time thinking he was like any other immortal creature. Heartless, self-seeking, and inscrutable. I involuntarily let my fear manifest so that it made him an indestructible figment in my head.

You never once questioned the truth. Your father spun a tale for you, and you just allowed it to happen

I couldn't possibly know for sure whether Dakota was the outcome of Roman's thoughts or he came into his position of power through personal ambitions. Roman wanted power; Dakota, as he said goodbye to him, thought about the same, wanted the same. Roman turned Dakota for selfish reasons. Dakota wanted to turn for his own gain, or so it appeared. Neither cared about the other the way I cared about Paul or my Dad cared about my Mom. This was a transaction.

We could be together for eternity, Dakota.

He was upset when Dakota left him, but the reason could not have been because he loved him. Love—was it even possible for vampires? Were they not conditioned to be inherently selfish, unforgiving creatures?

Why are you running away?

I stupidly went along thinking that Roman was better than Dakota and that he'd play hero if we asked him here to foil Dakota's plans. Roman: inhuman and a recovering human blood addict, but good. He had to be if he changed his diet, if he worked in a business that involved being kind to humans. He acted like he didn't agree with Dakota's actions over the phone, but knowing he was the original one determined to join the Volturi changed my perception of him in one sweep.

Perhaps monsters weren't so different from each other after all. All their own form of mercury.

I thought about a lot during their venomous, unending stare-down. Part of me wondered whether Roman himself was lying. Dakota left to be "free," and I could only assume it was Roman's control he was trying to escape. Roman lethim, presumably because he knew Dakota was too powerful for him to fight. Dakota never used his vampire gift in the memories I had from him, but I knew it was there, lurking in the shadows of his brain just waiting for a purpose.

This was all too much for an idiot teenage girl to figure out on her own. Thankfully, Roman and Dakota didn't stay silent for much longer.

He's not free anymore.

A snarl left Dakota after we three spent an eternity in brewing silence. I looked over and saw his unwrinkled features drawing up at the lips to flash his fangs, two incisors that looked like they could tear through wood if it came down to it.

"Watch your tongue, Rome," he said maliciously, having to spit out the words. "I never chased your dream. I left because you were a fucking tyrant and I couldn't bear the thought of spending an eternity with you."

I watched Roman as Dakota aimed his harsh string of words at him, and I got to see him flinch back like Dakota's words had physically stung him.

"Going to the Volturi was your own idea?" Roman asked, responding to himself by giving his head a shake. "Ideas don't just conjure themselves out of the air; I told you about them. I told you everything you needed to know about the world you were going to be a part of. I tried and did all I could for you, yet it was useless, wasn't it? You've resented me since you left that day."

"Are you that daft to your own intrusions?" Dakota's eyes glinted when he asked the question. "Your teachings involved me staying indoors for months. You were trying to convert to animal blood. Animal blood. Your own attempts at conversion turned into coercing me to follow in your stead, you bastard. You starved me if I relapsed—"

"Until the day you made me swallow human blood to prove surviving without it was a pointless existence," Roman growled at him. "You forget yourself. Any of your past blunders have turned into grievances. This is one of your many oversights. You are not right to resent me."

"I was only returning the favor," Dakota hissed through sharp teeth. I could almost hear his body vibrating from here.

"I hope you lamented over everything you ever said or did when Jane tortured you for your mistakes," Roman said mirthlessly, but his eyes were shining brightly. "You will never be free under the Volturi's thumbs, Dakota; there's no other reason for you to be here. They have you like a whipped dog."

I felt captivated listening to him speak about things that I never would have known from Dakota's memories I swiped. Why hadn't I taken any of his memories from living and recruiting for the Volturi? Wouldn't they be memories that haunt him more than childhood? Fresh memories were always the most recent salted wounds.

Unless there's something I'm missing.

Roman was better than me at insulting Dakota. His insults hinted at an experience in Dakota's orbit, whereas anything I said came out clumsily because there was no knowing the truth because I hadn't lived it. Roman knew the truth. And though preying on Dakota's faults and insecurities were good ways to provoke him, saying things that were truewas an even worse pain. Saying his doubts, making it perfectly clear that hesaw Dakota's faults all on his own, cementing as truth that everything Dakota hated himself for was seen by the one person he ever trusted, maybe even loved—

Roman's last words unanimously decreed him the winner in a battle of slights.

"Whippeddog?" I nervously backed away after seeing the look in Dakota's eyes. It was completely animalistic and any remaining calm he had in him was replaced by complete hatred. "The only mongrels in this world are the beasts that chase us. I am not one of those creatures."

"Yet you bend over backwards like a mutt would for its owner," Roman said, chuckling to himself. "Don't fret, dear. We all have our inner beasts. Mine is just less… subservient."

"You have no hint as to what my existence has been like since I left you," Dakota said in a tortured tone. "The only reason I joined was because I was afraid to die. Even now I fear it. You coaxed me, begged me to take your offer, and I obliged out of my own dread. Youwere the one who assumed I wanted to spend an eternity with you. I neverdid."

"You never once tried clarifying your aspirations," Roman said, crossing his bulging arms across his chest.

"I made my bed. I chose to lie in it opposed to finding a new one," Dakota said stiffly.

"You could have had a lifewith me. You cannot deny that you enjoyed our time together." Roman's voice had turned completely unrecognizable. I hadn't ever seen an emotional vampire. If he wasn't physically incapable of it, I suspected tears would have fallen by now. "You knewthe pain I went through before meeting you. I told you everything. Do not pin the reasons for your self-loathing on me. As you said, you made your bed. You chose to lie in it. With me, with those fucking bastards you kill for, with everyone."

What pain?

As if sensing my questions, Dakota snarled, "It's been two centuries since you lost your wife, Roman. I pitied you once; I don't dare to repeat. I felt your aura when I first met you. The longer we stayed together the more I noticed the deception of your feelings. Elated one moment and in despair the next. I fear you were taught to be a deceiver. It was how you tricked me into this Hell in the first place."

"You wanted this, Dakota," Roman reminded him. "Don't forget your place."

I was beginning to think they'd forgotten I was even there. I wondered, too, why none of the pack had appeared. Leaving me to fight a battle I was barely qualified enough to participate in felt a little like bullying, truth be told. Getting my ass kicked was something anyone would find funny.

Roman glanced over at me, giving me the idea through this conversation I was meant to have run off and hid. Ha! Why would anyone in their right mind leave when Dakota could easily catch up and rip their head off? Or maybe he didn't exactly enjoy me hearing his deep secrets and watching Dakota snap. Ah, I'd seen enough to know enough. Everything now was secondary after last week's premiere of "Dakota and Roman: Star-Crossed Lovers."

I gave him a shake of my head and his jaw clenched, sharp amber eyes turning back to Dakota.

Dakota whipped his head around to glare at me. "It's wrong to eavesdrop, girl," he said with a sneer.

I returned his sneer.

"And it's wrong to be a bastard but here you are," I snapped before I could remember my place. It was the wrong thing to say to the face of a vampire whose pride was like a broken off shard of mirror.

Dakota walked towards me, not using any of his vampiric pace. He didn't say anything, choosing to just circle me with a predatory look on his face. I stayed still. Breathing slipped my mind and every few seconds I felt like choking because my throat had closed to compensate for my distress. I was having great fun listening to them speak about the failures and tribulations of their past, yet Dakota seemed to remember exactly why all three of us were here in the first place. I was a would-be recruit for the Volturi and Roman was called here to trip him up so he could hunt us no longer; he'd been angry, very angry, at first and after Roman had provoked him, there was a look of pure rage on his face.

Dakota stopped when he was directly in front of me. He glared down his nose.

"Killing you wouldn't make me feel any better," he growled animalistically, mirroring a dog.

I froze in fear.

Roman piped up behind him, seeming to also have come closer at Dakota's own venture, "She's just a kid. Remember when you were her age? You lost your father. Imagine how she's felt not having a mother since she was six." I was bemused at how he knew so much. Not many people knew how long it'd been since losing her. Roman was a complete stranger; how could he know anything about me? "You were part of it."

Everything violently clicked.

There was something about that, what he said, that made my brain explode.

Explode with things I'd been repressing. Memories I never wanted to remember. An entire saga of Dakota and I in rooms that shifted and turned to what he or I made them.

Rooms inside my head and his.

I remembered it allnow. It was barely a puzzle waiting to be solved now, as Dakota was no longer the unbeatable nightmare I once thought he was, but remembering made things no longer feel hazy. I'd been interrogated for what went through my head, for what happened, before Dakota pulled the plug on my dreamer life. After running to the Archives in search of help I fell into another illusion right in front of the entire Council. I didn't know what happened in it after I woke, events blurry and everything fuddled, but now I did.

He poisoned me. I was in a prison cell, and he enacted the part of my abductor. He mocked and taunted me. I was sluggish and as the poison soaked through me, I became more and more deadened. I knew I was set to die. What I didn't know was the game he was playing. Dakota wanted me to stay afraid and to lose any will I had so that submission would be as easy to gain from me as a lollipop from a baby, and instead of getting what he wanted from me the pain of dying in his mental projection sent into instant slumber.

The slumber gave me a moment with my mother. I pushed her through Death's Doors, unable to be composed when she was saying things I always wanted to hear but knew she never would have told me. The bitter truth was that while alive my mother was distant from me. I did not think about her often. I was only six when I lost her. But in the years I didhave her, she wasn't the perfect mother I saw in the lives of other kids I knew. She didn't take Jared and me to the park to spend time together. She wasn't the one making dinner and tucking us in; it was our father, Dad. I liked to insert different in my head. I liked to think it was Mom who did all of those things, who did as mothers should, who loved her children with all her heart.

But that wasn't the reality. The reality was the one Dakota gave me and I rejected. When she was on her sickbed, she truly didn't want to see me and I was beginning to realize, if she was sick with anything she was just sick in the had to be why my father refused to let us near her. Why Dad got a tortured, pinched look on his face anytime I tried bringing her up. It wasn't pneumonia that took her life but there was still an illness in her that did the job just as efficiently.

I wish the memories would go away.

Remembering your mother as perfect was not burdensome. Knowing her as a walking, broken travesty was.

Dad had succeeded in distracting me from the truth, giving me the illusion that I had the perfect family before she passed.

Something beautiful to hold onto. A fabricated memory that left butterflies and not maggots in my stomach.

"What did she have?" I asked Dakota, knowing if anyone knew it'd be him. He probably went into her head at one point, before she could no longer live with herself.

Dakota's eyes flickered around on my face. I couldn't read him; I never was able to, effectively at least. He had this way of looking entirely invulnerable, but everyonehad a weakness. Monsters too.

You blame me? Me? I offered her life, Alissa.

Dakota's features stayed the same, even as mine crumbled and shifted.

He saw the now haunted look on my face and transferred his searching gaze to Roman who was now by his side, in front of me with sympathy etched into his every feature. Dakota said quietly, "What does any woman have when she can't bear to live anymore? She was depressed, horrifically so. Your father never gave the truth behind who he was until you and your brother were older. When he did, she reacted terribly—or so I hear. She told me when I entered the kitchen that she was unable to live with knowing her children would be deviants of what's considered normal."

So she had killed herself.

I felt like vomiting. It was the only plausible reaction to knowing I killed my mother by growing up to be this, an emissary. Without even being inhuman I was considered the worst possible scenario for someone normal like my mother.

Roman looked entirely caught off guard by Dakota's words. He gave me a look of compassion that was wholly unsettling on the face of someone so perfect, so otherworldly. I returned his stare, unshed tears shining in my eyes.

He truly felt sorry for me.

Dakota's face remained the same. And I wondered how he could possibly tell me this and not clarify any of the bullshit he gave me, the garbage that made no sense and I was going crazy trying to decode.

You don't make any sense, Dakota.

I opened and closed my mouth. "You said she wanted to be immortal," I accused him tearfully, tongue dry and sticking to the roof of my mouth. "But being like you means being a vampire. Why are you still lying?"

"I lied to you then," Dakota said, an admittance I hadn't expected him to give me. "She never wanted immortality. When I appeared to her in your kitchen she thought she was seeing an older version of your brother. She told me she wished she could take away whatever burden your father bestowed onto her children. She begged for me to take my own life so I wouldn't see myself become a monster and she held a knife to her own risks. You may find it surprising to know I tried persuading her not to take her own life for something so trivial."

My eyes went wide and I became stationary. It did surprise me.

"I lost my father while young," he continued and I could see he had an inkling I previously had learned that because of the way he looked at me, like he knew exactly what I did and didn't see from the memories I stole. "I wouldn't wish the same on a child."

My gaze sharpened. "You killed my grandfather," I said lowly. "You said you killed him when my Dad was young."

Dakota returned my gaze evenly. "I did kill him when he was young," he said. "I killed him in front of your father as a warning. My superiors demanded that I do a demonstration to indicate how serious I was—amabout destroying anything in my path to recruiting someone in my descendants' line. Your grandfather was disposal, old and mad as he was. Your father is strong and formidable. I won't lie when I say it was never you they intended to recruit. Targeting you was a strategy for gaining Richard's compliance."

It was always implied my father was exceptionally gifted. Maybe that's why it pained me so much when he refused to train me and acted like I was a child and not someone he needed to guide. If I never forced Jared to shift, I imagined that Dad wouldn't be so resistant; unfortunately I broke our trust before he could ever develop any sort of semblance to it for me.

I didn't trust him at all knowing what I knew. Hell, I trusted Dakota more and he was a fucking villain hellbent on ruining everything for me. Dads were supposed to be the good guys, the heroes, the leaders. The more I was pulled into the supernatural world the more I lost my admiration for him, bit by bit.

It was a sad thought to stop loving your father. I still loved him, to some extent. I just didn't idolize him anymore and talking to friends about how nerdy and funny my Dad was seemed like an idiotic habit from eons ago.

"You acted as though I was the one you were after, and I believed you," I whispered, feeling my walls break down.

"You believe too easily, sweetheart," Dakota said in a light tone, looking over at Roman. Roman was silent and stoic, his face still unreadable. But I caught a glimpse of pain underneath the in-placed stillness. "It's what has taken you so long to know the truth."

I didn't know the truth. I didn't know the half of it. I knew the shit-shot explanations I was given by those I barely trusted. It was up to me in seeing what was true and what was false. I had to uncover cryptic bullshit and pretend I knew what I was doing, knowing I didn't have a clue.

Dakota had won his game with me. And I didn't trust him in the slightest. This strange moment where we talked outside of his mental and things were calm, it wouldn't last. It was never made to. Dakota was playing me and playing Roman, too. I saw that look on Roman's face. He thought the old Dakota he knew was showing his roots again.

I knew differently.

Fuck this.

"You can say all your pretty words and be the monster from storybooks and think you've sold the remorseful prisoner, but it doesn't change that I know, Dakota," I said irately. I didn't hide any of my repulsion. "You said that you had chosen your bed once and couldn't just find a new one. Seems you've picked up a habit of that. You're lyingin your first choice now."

If he had nerves, they would have ticked in his face.

A charming, hideous smile curved up his lips. He stayed silent for several moments. "You were always right about one thing when it came to me, Roman," he whispered at last. "I am subservient."

I watched with undying terror as he pushed his hand out, sending Roman sailing past the trees. He hit one of them so hard that it made a sinister crack before falling. The tree came straight our way, crashing faster than any tree I'd ever seen. I panickily dived, Dakota following me gracefully. I felt him grab my arms in a fierce lock and things became a terrifying blur. What the fuck is happening—

Dakota stopped and released me onto the ground. A sickening crash sounded behind me. The tree had fallen and taken up the entire road we were just on. We were in the trees now.

He wrenched me up by the hair and he groped my face until he had his hands in a position that felt just like in the dream. Roman was nowhere to be seen.

Where was anyone?

I frantically glanced around, searching for anything that would mean I wasn't doomed. Unfortunately, it was just Dakota and I. Things seemed to be darkening, mirroring the storm in my head.

Where was Brandon and Kallie? Why didn't I hear their screams?

I thought they were in the house but facing the house now I saw no one in the windows.

Where was Paul? Where was Sam? Jared, Embry, Dad—why wasn't anyone showing up? What happened to keep them clueless? Why were they not here?

It hit me, hard as bricks, that something had been fishy about everything since I first went outside of Kallie's house to confront Dakota. I was sure there was a forgotten memory where I went out into the woods to confront him and he changed my perception of reality to where I thought I was still there, near the road confronting the real him. Ignoring the lack of cars coming down the road and not questioning where everyone was, why no one came to my rescue. He made me think that I was still in my own reality, and it showed just how talented he was to give me self-delusion and for me never to notice any difference—

I'm not in my own head.

I wasn't in my own head.

Dakota saw the horror as it overcame me, but he didn't care. He never did. He was too far gone in his own delusions of grandeur.

"Don't worry, Alissa," he hissed at me, a cruel smile tweaking his lips. His fangs poked out, taunting me. "Some of it was real."

I tried to protest but he wouldn't relent his grip, getting close enough that looking at him was all I could do.

Those fangs elongated, becoming like the long, talon-like incisors from nightmares.

When his mouth crashed down on my shoulder to incinerate me whole with venom, I could do nothing but convulse and scream.


I came conscious on the floor of the woods, a scream still stuck in my throat.

Things were completely, utterly hazy for a few moments, my shoulder still searing with unimaginable pain and my jaw on fire, and I stayed on the floor in a fight I couldn't see. My eyes were shut tightly. There was this irrational fear I'd see Dakota when I opened my eyes. The flitting touches all over my body told me it wasn't irrational at all, not far from the truth. I thrashed out at the unforeseen monster that had its hands on me, begging it to leave me be, but my mouth would not open and the words stayed in my head. Thoughts I tried projecting to a force that would never know them.

Get away from me, go away, leave me alone—

"Alissa, Alissa, it's me," someone said soothingly, not a monster at all. Maybe friendly—maybe not deadly. I could not know. I wasn't in the right state of mind to. "He cannot hurt you anymore. I'm here, I'll keep you save."

I cracked open my eyelids to see Roman, beautiful and stone-like, crouching above me. A monster wrapped in silk.

"You—you can't be real," I said, knowing that Dakota had conjured him up in the illusion. Whatever false shock he'd displayed—the anger, fear, and resentment, too—was all just a way to deceive me more into thinking anything he said or did wasn't fucking bullshit. "I'm still trapped."

"Alissa, you know my powers, do you not?" Roman pushed my hair down and gave me earnest eyes. I tried not shaking. "I am like Dakota, I suppose. I can enter your mind. I came upon you in the woods near the treaty line and I knew what was happening by the way you acted blindly. When I touched your head and entered your world myself, I forgot exactly how I came there. Dakota's always been extraordinary in making you forget your time and place, but I'd forgotten how so. I was meant to have met your father by the treaty line but I dragged you over and brought you to safety so we could talk when you snapped out of it."

I didn't respond to his explanation. All I focused my attention and energy on was the absolute throbbing that came from my shoulder, where I remembered clearly Dakota clamping his fangs down with the intention to changeme.

I can't become like him.

"Ro-Roman, I think he bit me," I said through gritted teeth, moving the arm that felt like it was on fire. "I don't know- I don't want- I'm, I'm scared."

Roman looked alarmed. I flinched and tried scuttling away when he hauled me upward. I watched blearily as he removed my flannel. He ripped off the sleeve of the long-sleeved shirt I had underneath in one fluid motion.

I moved my head to the side trying to see what exactly the pain was coming from, why it hurt so badly. The pain seemed to intensify when I saw the bite, shaped like teeth in the skin, a bloody, disgusting looking wound that would not heal with prayers.

Roman met my gaze. "You'll turn if I don't remove the venom," he said in a stern tone. No, no. I yanked my arm away futilely, Roman pulling me back in a grip that left no more room to wriggle away. "Alissa. If we leave it, you could die in this form and awaken into someone like me. You would lose everything. Do you want that?"

I shook my head, unable to speak. The pain kept getting worse and I wanted to scream again, I wanted to cry, I wanted to stay here to wither and die. Dakota had obviously done this and run because he assumed there'd be no way anyone could save me in time. Maybe he assumed Roman was not a savior and came only to see Dakota, not to fix what was targeting us.

He knew Roman was there, infiltrating the very illusion he put in place, yet he never questioned it. I remembered the look of shock on his face when he saw it; I assumed it was because he had not seen him in over a century. Really he hadn't anticipated Roman being there.

I'd been able to use my powers in his projection. I was usually so powerless, unable to do anything that could save me from what was undeniably going to end in my demise, always reacting like a child who could suddenly no longer move her arms—and Dakota delighted in it, I was sure. There had to be a reason I wasn't so powerless in this illusion—

I writhed, the fire in my bloodstream spreading. A sob locked in my throat and then, abruptly, I was sobbing.

"Ro-Roman, please!" I howled, clawing with the hand of my safe arm at the arm that was burning. In a moment of mindless weakness I wished I could cut it off and remove the source of what was tormenting me. "P-Please, make it stop… it hurts, it hurts so much…"

I had never been in so much pain. This pain was different than all the physically uncomfortable situations I ever put myself in; it was one that spread through my entire body, not staying in one certain spot. Like the venom. A wound that had enough power that I was utterly weak in the face of fixing it, leaving myself to beg for mercy from anyone and anything that could make the pain stop.

The venom.

Not the poison.

He poisoned me long ago, before things fell apart. It was why things fell apart. That, the poison, felt soft compared to now; it was a pain that made me woozy. This pain…

This pain was like a wildfire that couldn't be extinguished, and I was a helpless rabbit caught in the fray, unable to saved.

"Please hold still," Roman murmured, brushing my hair back again. I only cried more, unable to hold my eyes open any longer.

Cold hands pressed me onto my back. Even colder, even softer-feeling lips pressed to the skin of my shoulder, where skin went from normal-looking to bumpy. I knew he could see the scabs peeking out of my shirt, at the base of my throat. I hoped he didn't think much about them, if at all.

I felt pressure never before experienced where the bite was.

Pain could not even describe the feeling that zipped through me. I was aflame.

Burning,

roasting,

aflame.

"S-top, stop, stop," I screamed, continuing to writhe underneath his strong hands. I didn't move at all but at least twitching at the legs deluded me into thinking I was saving myself. I wasn't saving myself, not a little bit, not even at all. I was at a standstill in space. Time was moving and so was I, so was every part on me. But it didn't feel like anything was happening. All that I felt was fire as it scorched through me, as it transformed me into an organism hellbent on survival, nothing else. Save me, I begged the universe but only one person truly had that power. No God was looking down on me that day.

I was worsening in headspace as the seconds progressed. Roman kept his mouth pressed tight over my wound, invisible venom sucked through my bloodstream and out of the open skin. Into his mouth. Away from me, away from my body, away from where it hurt.

Please, I can't take this—

Then the pain stopped. It didn't stop completely at once. The pain had once been searing and had taken my memories and replaced them with sensations of agony. It gradually lowered from intolerable to indifferent to unnoticeable, until I could open my eyes again and Roman's concerned amber gaze was all I saw—I involuntarily moaned upon seeing the world was clear again. The bite on my shoulder was completely numb.

"You're okay," Roman said in a voice he seemed to think was comforting, and he helped me sit up. I didn't remember falling. Maybe he'd laid me down during my episode of screaming fits, as he readied to extract the cause of agony.

"T-Tell me something… about you," I said breathily. My hand went up to grip his wrist. I looked at him pleadingly. "Please."

I was grasping for thresholds. I needed something to cling to that would ground me to this reality. I was not soothed, regardless of Roman saving me and him giving me human bedside care. It didn't matter. I still felt unsafe. The impression Dakota was somewhere initiating another illusion wasn't impossible, and I found myself thinking it wasn't far off from the truth.

Roman glanced down before looking back up into my eyes. "Before I was turned, I was a wealthy, happy man," he said in a soft tone, looking down at my hand gripping his wrist. "I lived at home with my pregnant wife and three dogs. Then smallpox came. It had taken the lives of two of my sisters and my father. My wife came next. We never got to see our precious girl."

Fuck.

"That… I'm so sorry." I gave his wrist a comforting squeeze he probably didn't notice. I still could not move my left arm but at least the arm completely unharmed could move, touch, and feel without consequences. "You- you've been through a lot."

Roman jerked his head once. I could see the thoughts still pained him. He must have loved Dakota the same way he loved his wife, and losing him made him remember his entire life falling apart. He did not want a repeat, I was sure.

"Thank you… Roman," I told him. "You're good. I'm sorry you went through that. I'm sorry Dakota didn't turn out to be what you wanted."

"He's still in there, Alissa," Roman said desperately. We stared at each other and I could see he truly meant that. He believed that Dakota wasn't just a spawn of the Volturi. I wasn't so sure. "I do not expect you to believe that, but please, if you have the chance, do not kill him. Leave him… with me. I will take him somewhere and teach him to be human again. He won't hurt anyone anymore—"

"He bitme," I said, watching his eyes flicker down at my shoulder. The adrenaline had wore off and left a bitch of an aching in place. "He's put me through Hell. I've been through so many phases, you don't even know. I've tried humanizing him and it just doesn't work. He chases away what I think he is and becomes the monster the Volturi made him. He can't be both anymore, not after what he's done."

Roman gave me tortured puppy-dog eyes that made it hard to be angry and fixed on killing someone he used to love.

"Let's just find my Dad," I said, feeling tired. So tired. I was drained from everything, most of all the torture I'd just been put through. I wouldn't forgive Dakota for that. If he lived I wouldn't tolerate him ever returning; I'd ask him to leave and stay away forever.

"You can sleep, if you need to," Roman said nicely, helping me to my feet. I wobbled and nearly tripped over my own feet. The fatigue setting in was hard to ignore.

"No," I said abruptly. "Let's just… go before he gets here."

"Where to?" he asked.

I thought about it. "I think—Sam's. Maybe, Sam's. Somewhere around there… They'll, they'll smell you."

Roman put an arm around my waist, letting my good arm drop around his shoulder for support. Without any sort of warning he swept me off my feet and into his arms, giving great thought to where I was positioned so that it wasn't my bad arm pressed into his chest.

The world became a blur as Roman's inhumanly powerful legs pounded forward.

I clenched my eyes shut, avoiding the variations of color that flashed by my eyes. The wind came flying at me at speeds I never even thought possible and I felt my hair flap back into my face. That would have hurt if I hadn't kept my eyes closed. Roman was efficient, speeding through the trails and avoiding anything that could hinder him. I knew that vampires were fast, I knew they were strong, I knew they were intelligent, but both Roman and Dakota showed me different definitions than the make-believe ones I came up with in my head.

Dakota was dangerous, in ways you imagined the boogeyman when you were just a scared little kid. He carried himself like a living nightmare and he wore it well. He wore it so well, in fact, that sometimes I wondered if he was just as human as the rest of us and felt myself more scared than I would have been at just your average undefeatable monster. Roman, who had sounded too good to be true at first and then like a kinder, more empathetic Dakota, truly wasn't what my first or second impressions told me. He was kind and he was empathetic, but he was nothing like Dakota. Nothing.

I owed him more than a single favor, and I knew what one of them would have to be.

The trip to Sam's would be fast and short. We had already been going for thirty or forty seconds.

I felt Roman readjust his grip on me.

"I know where Sam's house is," he yelled over the fast winds. "I came here once before for the tribe's permission."

"I know," I said just as loudly. "But wouldn't you have met them at the treaty lines?"

Roman didn't speak for a moment. "Well, I—"

An ominous sound of something shooting through the trees, closer than I felt comfortable with.

What was-

Roman was harshly knocked in the side and I was dropped and sailing to the ground before he could say another word.

Fuck— I thought, feeling like I just got the wind knocked out of me. When Roman lost his grip he was still running very quickly, and that made the fall even more painful because I was airborne for more seconds than if it was just a vertical fall. I ignored the pain and shielded my face with both my arms, covered in the thick flannel that was all I had to wear.

Rocks and solid dirt hit me everything on my front, and for several seconds I slid, gritting my teeth at the unbearable pain that echoed the time I hit the side of Bella's truck. It felt like lifetimes ago when that happened, but I knew it hadn't even been a month. This pain, coupled with the reopened wound from Dakota kicking my head (which should have imaginary, but I now knew he could make wounds real if he wanted to) and the bite, made every minuscule task now feel more another time of torture. I struggled getting up, shifting my arms from my face and digging my elbows into the ground. I could heard voices shouting behind me, but they were muffled—unrecognizable. I put all of my energy into pushing myself off the ground.

Failed attempt after failed attempt, I decided to try another tactic. I let my elbows rest on the ground until I felt my energy return, then I flipped myself over. It hurt for a long second, searing down my spine until everything was tingling like TV static, but I didn't stop there. I dug my elbows behind me and propelled myself forward.

I clumsily fell into an acute angle. Bearings came to me within the minutes I sat and breathed, and finally I put myself back at ninety degrees.

My gaze was bleary with stars of black and white flitting around the green and brown hues of the woods. I blinked, blinked until it was painful, blinked until my lower jaw—where my right ear was—began throbbing. I stopped, letting the stars disappear on their own, but I was already beginning to understand what had caused Roman to drop me-

I saw Dakota in front of me, this time real, he had to be real. He had to be real. Every single fucking time had been a fluke, so now had to be his final episode, right? This had to be it. It was like a game where you faced doppelgangers of the bad guy in every chapter until the climatic showdown where he came and you could finally end everything right there. When it ended, it ended and he wouldn't come back except for trashy sequels or reboots. Dakota was real, so if he was ended, he wouldn't return.

Unfortunately, I knew killing him was now a final resort.

Dakota was feet away when I saw a blur of a person rocket towards him and knock him off his feet. I flinched, digging my elbows back into the dirt, pulling my legs up so my knees were high, feeling like there had to be an option for me that didn't involve sitting ducks in the mud. I was covered in muck actually, from my neck down to my shoes, but that didn't matter at all. I didn't know if I had it in me to stand. Even though the venom was gone out of my bloodstream and the pain of hitting the ground was slowly leaving also, I still felt awful. My energy was at an all time low. That feeling where you get all the air walloped out of you, that had happened and it was still making my heart beat a mile a minute—

"You can't take this from me, Roman," Dakota shouted. I watched as he hit Roman in the chest, pushing him so hard that he knocked into a tree with a sickening crack. Just like the illusion, just like the illusion, just like the illusion, I kept thinking. Unable to stop or quit. Roman made no sound, instead getting up without recovering and throwing himself back at Dakota again. I watched them fight, hits and kicks going everywhere. There was no way to watch it knowing what was going on because of how unbelievably fast their reflexes were, their hands and feet going at speeds that their consciences couldn't counter, I was sure. "You rejected this lifestyle, but this is the only one I've known—you can't take this!"

"Killing and fighting? Hurting innocent people and ruining their lives?" Roman snarled in return, and I heard another crack as one of them hit the mark on the other. Another, more vicious snarl came from Dakota. "That isn't a life, even for someone who lives forever. It's miserable! I know you don't like doing this, Dakota; I know you—"

"You don't know anything about me!" Dakota said so loudly it sounded like a scream had ripped from him. I flinched back, horrified, as he grabbed Roman by the neck. He took him to the ground, and Roman wriggled and fought underneath him, hissing to be freed. Dakota's back was turned to me, arched, his jacket flying behind him because of the winds. "They respect me—"

"Respect is not love, Dakota," Roman yelled. "Respect is cold and callous. It is work-place favor, and it will never give you anything more than new missions and praises. You want to be loved, Kota."

His voice got softer in the end.

After new attempts to stand, I finally crunched my knees in and used both arms to get to my feet. I stumbled back into a tree and held my place there, in a trance. My eyes couldn't move from the train-wreck in front of me.

I was scared for Roman more than I had been for myself when that killer stalked toward me.

Dakota seemed tense, and I saw that he still had a hand around Roman's throat. But Roman wasn't struggling. I knew he had probably accepted whatever Dakota decided to do, and that's when it finally, finally set in for me. He loves him.

Even a bastard like Dakota had to know, see the signs.

"You do not know what you're saying," Dakota said in a low, tense voice. I opened my mouth, putting out my hand hoping desperately powers would come without my prompting; I know what is coming. He's going to kill him. Please, please, if you're out there, ancestors—don't let this happen. He's not a bad guy. I thought he was when Dakota was saying whatever popped into his head, but I didn't now; resentment could make anyone into a villain. "You should know by now, Roman, that I don't love you. I will neverlove you."

I saw Roman close his eyes and Dakota put both hands around his throat, preparing to tear his head off.

I pushed off the tree and started forward. "No, don't—" I shouted.

Something else came to the rescue in my place.

A loud growl came from the tree lines, and I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I turned. There, looking at Dakota predatorily, was a large, black wolf with golden eyes. It moved with grace, tall as a horse and muscular—more muscular than any average-looking wolf I saw on television. I was already perfectly aware what creatures stalked these woods, and they were anything but average. I knew instantly that this was one of the pack.

When it opened its mouth to howl, dagger-like teeth tauntingly gleaming at me, I knew it was Sam.

Only an Alpha would look and carry himself like that.

Dakota did not notice anything except the intention he had to kill Roman until Sam howled, but already it was too late. He launched out of the trees, a mass of black that was more graceful than anything I'd ever seen, and attached himself to Dakota, tearing him away from Roman. Roman got off the ground and blurred over to my side before falling to the ground again in a heartbroken heap.

I heard more howls and more pounding footsteps, and I looked behind me. Dakota's screams and furious struggling in Sam's teeth became secondary. Coming from behind me and out of the trees were more massive shapes, all taller than me and as huge as bears. All three of them had gray in their coats. One was a sleek brown with gray that surrounded his dark eyes. Another was completely gray with a nose that was dark, almost black. The last one—most recognizable to me—was a dark silver with brown eyes I'd know anywhere.

Jared, Embry, and Paul.

Behind them, following in a long black shirt and worn jeans, was my father.

"Get the fuck off me," Dakota screamed, and I looked back over. I saw Sam viciously tearing at his clothes, exposing the skin underneath that had grown pale from the russet it was before he turned. Dakota seemed to be fighting ineptly. But why? He was efficient and knew it, too; there was no reason for him to flail and act like a complete fool. He wasn't even hitting Sam; his arms and legs were "missing" the mark, any mark, a mistake I couldn't tell whether was calculated. There had to be something causing him to be as incompetent as a child.

Sam grabbed hold of the exposed skin on Dakota's arm and I knew he was going to rip it off. That's what they did—they killed vampires. They ripped them apart and enjoyed doing it.

I quickly looked down at Roman. He was staring back at me desperately, with eyes that outshone the moon. They were glassy, like he'd cry if he could.

I owe him more than a single favor.

Roman's eyes, blinded by love. That same desperation. He's still in there, Alissa... if you have the chance, do not kill him.

Roman had saved my life; I didn't want to condemn him to never-ending suffering. He had already lost his wife and child. This would re-open a wound.

I took a deep breath and screamed, "STOP!"

Everything lost motion. I saw Sam stop what he was doing, Dakota's arm still firmly in place. The wolves behind me and my father all looked shocked, staring at me confusedly. Roman underneath me was staring up with a look that said he, too, was confused—but there was gratitude there as well. He was probably thinking I hadn't forgotten that favor he asked of me.

I nudged my head in Dakota's direction. The confusion wore off from Roman's face and he gave me a grateful smile. I didn't move my gaze as he stood from the ground at a human pace and walked over to Sam and Dakota.

Upon his approach, Sam lowered his head further and his haunches rose, a warning growl escaping him. Roman must have murmured his intentions to the wolf and had the look of someone who was non-threatening because Sam lost the hostile aura. Roman crouched beside Dakota, who had stopped struggling and was now haughtily eying the world around him. I craned my head different ways to see what was exactly happening.

Dakota said angrily, "Release me, mutt, or you will see what sort of pain I'm capable of-"

Sam huffed in response. I watched Roman bring his hand down on Dakota's head, running his fingers through the other vampire's dark, tousled hair.

Dakota sneered up at him. Roman didn't lose the tender look, continuing to pat down his hair and stare at him fondly; I wondered if he was half-crazy, to not see the contempt on the other man's face. Then I realized just what love did to a person. It made you into a fool.

"There is no reason to fight, Kota," Roman said softly. "You can leave it all behind and run away, with me."

A broken laugh came from Dakota where he laid vulnerably, caught in the teeth of a wolf who could easily rip him limb from limb, and the man he hated for over a century still declaring his own love with action. I watched hate fester in his blood-red eyes.

"I never loved you," he hissed meanly, and Roman's motions faltered. "I always wanted a purpose. After I ran from home I searched all over for it and unfortunately I came upon a bar. I felt useless. When you took me into your bed it made the pain disappear, but only temporarily. You were always a temporary fix. I wanted a purpose and becoming immortal still did not give me one. Staying with you did not give me one. The Volturi gave me one.

"That is why," he continued, his hateful, loathsome glare never leaving Roman's, "you will never matter to me, Roman."

Roman took his hand away from Dakota's hair. There was an unreadable look on his face.

Not all of that was true, I thought, frowning, hoping Roman knew himself so that things would hurt less. Dakota isn't emotionless. He's just programmed to be a bastard.

I watched Roman stand up and turn his back on Dakota, his face crumbling until it showed him to be as internally tortured as I predicted. "I know," he said.

Roman gave me a nod when I met his gaze, and I took that for him accepting defeat. Dakota was too far gone to save. He wouldn't back down, either.

I opened my mouth to confirm this. But then…

The scariest moment in my life occurred.

Dakota let out a hiss and before I could yell at Sam to take cover, Dakota was moving fast and hitting Sam in the face so hard he had no choice but to yelp and remove his teeth from Dakota's arm. Dakota picked Sam up—a feat that left me utterly terrified—and threw him into a tree, a loud yelp coming from the wolf as he made contact. No sickening crack this time, just a thump as Sam's body fell in a pile to the ground. The monster turned his frightening, deadly gaze on the next nearest target.

He just so happened to make eye contact with me.

"You don't have to do this," I shouted, moving back. Roman moved himself in front of me, his arm coming back as though to protect me. It gave me no sense of comfort; I was wary, scared for Roman and what would happen if he were injured beyond repair by the man he loved. Dakota, if anything, looked even more determined, switching his gaze between me and the stone wall protecting me.

I let the fear accumulate inside me, remembering what he said. Anger and fear. Anger and fear. Control. I would use them both as a weapon, to save myself and everyone here—but the only one I had in abundance was fear.

I looked down and saw my hand glowing. But deep inside I knew I wouldn't be able to do anything heroic.

"Once you are under their control, nothing stops them from destroying you if you fail," Dakota said coldly. He walked to us at human speed, regarding Roman and me with cool intensity. "I will not fail. I said once I was afraid of death."

What went unsaid wasn't hard to figure out: I am still afraid now.

Roman stepped forward to meet Dakota. "Right in front of her father?"

Dakota made a face that looked like a sneer. "It's not as if I haven't done it before," he said.

Vague horror ran through me as he grabbed Roman by the throat for a second time and threw him where Sam was struggling to stand up. Paul, Embry, and Jared behind me jumped forward, growling menacingly. They knew what Dakota intended to do. Unfortunately for them, Dakota was experienced—and lethal. He'd failed for over a century in obtaining someone from my bloodline for a fresh recruit. Failing again was not an option anymore.

I met Dakota's eyes one final time, the wolves behind us background noise. "Maybe you are truly dead, after all," I said, rubbing my sore shoulder.

Dakota smiled a smile that didn't reach his crimson eyes. "Immortals do not get happy endings," he said.

I curled my fist, knowing I would have to fight my way through this. My body wouldn't be able to handle another bite.

Anger and fear.

Control.

Dakota sprinted at me and I closed my eyes. There would be no time to concentrate all my power into my palm, then let it unleash as he was feet away; he was already close, closer than I was comfortable with. I had heard the wolves behind me jolt forward, knowing with his last words he would pounce and I would potentially die—

I snapped open my eyes a second after they closed, to see what fate awaited me.

But I was not the one in his line of sight anymore.

My father had jumped in front of me after Dakota's final words, and he had been ready for a fight.

What happened instead led me to cry out in anguish, the clock now going in slow motion.

Dakota had stopped in front of my father, and they both unleashed what they were capable of at the same time. My father had his hand raised and out from it came a lethal, beautiful chestnut brown wolf that was translucent. It howled as it got bigger and brighter at the cup of my father's hand.

Dakota reached his hands forward and grabbed Dad's chest in his hands, crushing it, at the same time that my father's wolf shot into Dakota's head, turning it a searing white for several seconds.

Dakota screamed and fell to his knees; I fell to my knees and grabbed at my Dad's fallen form; Dad screamed himself and clutched helplessly at where his chest had been crushed. Then he fell too.

I heard the pack shift one by one, Sam—Sam—shouting for Embry to run and get Sue. Sue. I heard Paul shouting, saying that we should kill Dakota. They were already restraining him, Embry ran off to find help, but the only one—the only one—who stumbled over and fell to his knees beside me was Jared.

Jared.

I looked over at him, tears shining in my eyes at the despairing events that just happened. Jared was at the movies with Kim and must have come as soon as Sam smelled Dakota and Roman in the area and linked him to say so. He knew I was in danger, and I knew he probably kicked himself for not forcing me to get a ride. I hated myself for it too. I was relieved that he was here, but also broken—broken, because I had no hope; broken, because we had already lost our mother and couldn't lose our Dad, too; broken, because we'd only become family again and Dad was not part of that in my head until now. Now, I didn't care of how he wronged me. Looking down at his broken chest, I was praying to any divine being to miraculously fix him and save Jared and I from being orphans.

Magic was not real.

Miracles were not real.

Jared was naked, but neither of us cared; he put his arm around me and I leaned into his shoulder with my good one. He had tears in his eyes too.

Dad was choking on his own blood, looking up at us with glazed eyes. I quickly put my hand on his, interlacing our fingers.

"D-Dad, you're not—" I cut myself off. He was dying. No one could survive this without immediate medical assistance and Embry would not be back with Sue for several minutes. I had no hope. This was hopeless. Everything about this screamed, Nothing good will come. If our bloodline allowed healing, I would be desperately attempting resuscitating him with all my might, but he was nearly unresponsive. He wasn't saying anything to us, choking and barely breathing. "You can't die, you can't; I love you. I love you, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for everything I've done, or said, and I'd take it all back if you could just—"

Roman appeared on my father's other side and dropped down beside him. He glanced over his broken chest cavity with an entire face that dripped of sympathy. I knew this was serious. I knew by the way he looked helplessly over at me that I needed to say my goodbyes and hope he found peace. But this couldn't be it.

It couldn't end like this.

I was readying myself to burst into another set of tears when I heard Dakota scream again. I looked over to see him clutching at the strands and pulling. His head was shining, fucking shining. He hunched down and screamed again before the same golden-shone wolf seeped from his head. I glanced away then back over through blurry eyes to see the wolf change, shifting into Taha Aki.

Taha Aki.

I watched as his spirit hovered for a moment, looking around before coming to us. I watched him crouch, his furs hanging off him like a second skin, beside Roman.

Taha Aki was flickering like a light. His golden hues were fading with every second, and the more I stared at him the more translucent he became. It scared me.

I gasped out, "Are you- are you dying, too, Taha Aki?"

He smiled grimly at me. "A warrior only dies once," he said. He looked down at Dad, frail and bruised. "And your father will not die today."

My father's eyes had closed and he was only breathing softly now, the pace getting slower with every breath. He was close now; I had no time.

I blinked, saying, "He—he has no chance. Dakota, he blew out his chest. How can you…"

"I am a powerful spirit, Alissa," Taha Aki informed me. "I am capable of many things. I would explain everything, but I am afraid we do not have much time before you lose your father and I am called to the other side."

The other side.

That's why he's flickering—he's going to disappear forever now.

Taha Aki put his hand on my father's chest, and I watched him glow the same gold. Taha Aki's hand then began slowly transcending through my father, leaving the skin and entering the body itself. I watched, transfixed and horrified and my face a snot-covered mess, as the light disappeared from Taha Aki as his spirit entered.

Dad's chest seemed to be shifting, regaining its shape. His breathing was still sharp and splintered, but as Taha Aki entered, I heard ribs crack and return to normal, bones growing back—assumedly all destroyed organs retaining their own shapes and returning to their places. Taha Aki was healing him.

What had he done to Dakota, to make him scream like that? To lose his shape?

I felt horror return to me as I realized what this meant, actually meant. Taha Aki was losing his power by using it here, using too much of it.

Jared beside me sputtered out, "I can see the light, o-on his chest."

A reaction come too late. But Jared was not like me; even in his worst times he calculated risks and observed instead of falling apart like I did. We were both messes now, but his was a head mess-not a blubbery mess. Me, however; thinking was secondhand. My head was a mess and everything was all in the moment. I barely remember what happened here. Things started and ended fast. It hurts to think about now as it did then.

Taha Aki smiled softly at Jared, who could not see him but only his glow. His entire arm was now gone and his head was about to go through too. He then looked at me. "I lost much of my power going into that abyss of a head Dakota had," he told me. "You can ask more from your father about what was done. I will tell you all I can before I leave. Dakota does not remember his time with the Volturi. Your father and I found an entry from Arcus that told of how to discard the dark parts of one's memories. You've extracted some yourself, but he still had the bits and pieces. You know his darkness. I have done a full extraction. For Dakota here, he only remembers his time with Roman and before. Everything else… is no longer concrete.

"I will have to leave the physical world now, Alissa," Taha Aki told me, the golden light now up to the corner of his mouth. "You are a fast learner. I have faith."

I couldn't bring myself to say, Goodbye.

I watched his face disappear into my father's chest, and as his head fell in, the rest of his body completely disappeared. The afterparts of his form seeped into Dad like morphine. I stared at his chest, startled to see it was completely intact under his ripped and destroyed shirt. Dad coughed and I hurried to wipe at the corner of his mouth with my flannel. Some of the blood came off, but there was still a sticky stain that went all around his lips.

I watched his chest for a while, unable to think about much. I was frazzled and could not comprehend what just happened. Dad was breathing steadily, no signs of distress. Even, deep breaths. Safe breaths.

He's going to be okay, I thought, and gave Jared a squeeze when he looked over at me, thinking the same thing.

Roman got up and went over to Dakota, reassuring him that things were fine. Dakota was lucid now and repeatedly asking Roman where he was and what had happened, as though this was not his fault. Indeed Taha Aki had taken his memories. All he remembered was his childhood and Roman.

The dark parts of his conscience were gone.

This left the enemy we'd faced for years gone. Gone. We were safe now. It was all over.

I heard pounding steps and turned my head, watching Embry fly forward with Sue on his back. Once he was close, she dropped off from his back and stumbled over her own two feet. She cried out upon seeing Dad on the ground and she ran and dropped by his head.

She looked utterly perplexed at the sight of no injury, just faded hints at what once was there.

She looked over at me in confusion. But I had no more words.

I looked over where Paul had been restraining Dakota, to see Roman was holding him instead and talking to him hushedly. Paul was standing in his wolf form and staring at me. I saw his concern easily, those deep brown eyes always having been readable. I saw something else too. I knew whatever it was, it was warm and beautiful—and something I liked.

He was safe and we'd finally get to go on stupid picnics and watch horror movies and listen to shitty rock music together—and neither of us would be afraid the lose the other because of it.

The relief of all of us being alive and getting to enjoy life again was apparent and the one thing I held onto. The only thing I could hold onto, in that moment.

It's all over.


A/N: I keep thinking about how one of my friends got to go to this camp I applied for in high school for creative writing and I got rejected from it and it makes me want to fucking kill myself :D if I ever disappear off the web it's because depression finally capped my ass

Anywho, how was this? This was long asf and idek why, but hopefully it was… decent. Pretty sure it's mediocre but hey, that's my trademark-being bad at everything

Up next (if I don't delete this book first :D): flashbacks of what happened after this chapter, Paul/Alissa, learning about imprints FINALLY, pack bonding, and… Jacob shifting (!)

Sorry for being a disappointment I hate myself goodbye