I sat on a piece of driftwood, looking out at the rolling waves. There was very little light left in the sky, but I couldn't find the strength to head back yet. I was completely numb by what Jacob had told me. It was so much, but the longer I let it sit in my head and simmer, the more the pieces slowly fell into place.

Not that it made sense logically, young boys morphing into huge wolves, but with the legends and lore we had all heard growing up, it wasn't completely out of the blue for me. It was still just so much to grasp though, to wrap my head around.

I knew he was worried when he told me, worried I would want to stay away from him, and I know it didn't help when I asked for some time alone, but really, what did he think I would say?

Oh, you're a werewolf? No problem!

I mean, what exactly did that mean for us? He still seemed like the same person, but I had only been around him for a couple hours. From the little bit that I had seen though, he did still seem like my Jacob.

So what are you afraid of?

"Seriously? The boy turns into a werewolf on command, and you're asking me what I'm afraid of?"

Yeah, yeah, ok. But I'm talking about him. You're afraid he's different.

"Well, yeah. I mean what if he decides I'm not good enough for him anymore?"

You are the queen of excuses.

"What? I think that's a pretty legit concern."

He didn't seem any different today, do you think he's acting or something? He told you he's sorry, he told you he loves you, what else could he

possibly do to prove himself?

"I just ...I can't deal with what Leah had to deal with."

Jake is not Sam. I know this is a lot to think about, but part of loving someone is putting your faith in them. That's what you need to do here.

You have got to put your faith in Jacob, otherwise, how will he ever believe that you love him?

My little imaginary friend was right, and I felt horrible. I had doubted Jake, and by doing that, I had failed him. I had to have faith in him. In us. Besides, as hard as this was on me, I couldn't even imagine how hard it was on him.

He had said he was completely blindsided with it, which infuriated me. Why wouldn't Sam warn them? Why wouldn't anyone warn them? He needed someone to be there for him, he needed support for this insane crazy thing that he was going through now. I know if it was me, I would need him more than ever.

I stood up, resolved in my decision to stand by him, no matter what.

I pulled my hood up against the freezing rain that had started, and stumbled in the dark, back up the path that lead to the road, cursing myself for waiting too long to head back. As soon as I reached the road though, I was greeted with the sight of Jake propped up against his dad's truck. He smiled at me tentatively.

"I know you said you needed some alone time, but it's dark and sleeting, and-"

I cut him off with a kiss. I wrapped my arms around his neck, and he wrapped his around my waist. When we broke apart he looked at me.

"So…..you're ok?"

"I think so. I mean, it's a lot, and I know you know that. But all I really know is that I love you, and I trust you. Everything else, I think we can figure out later, right?" He grinned big and picked me up in a hug, spinning me around.

"You are so much more than I deserve!" He said smiling. I couldn't help but laugh at him. He set me back down, the same big grin on his face.

"Come on, let's get you home."

Jake stayed the night with me that night, we had missed each other so much, and we weren't about to start spending any time apart now. We didn't talk about his situation anymore, I'm not sure what his reasoning was, but I just needed some 'us' time without anything else weighing us down, and we ended up just holding each other the whole night, falling asleep in each other's arms. I still couldn't forget what I had been through with him being gone, but now that I knew the whole story, I knew he wasn't the one to blame, so it was one of those things that I was just going to have to let go.

I woke up the next morning with faded gray light coming through my window. I immediately wrapped an arm around Jake and snuggled up to his side. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me tighter.

"Morning babe." He mumbled sleepily. "Man it feels good to wake up next to you again."

I giggled at him, also extremely happy to wake up with him once again.

"I know. Are you hungry?"

His eyes actually opened when I mentioned food.

"Always." He said with a grin. I smiled and sat up to get out of bed, but he grabbed my arm and held me.

"Bella." His voice was much clearer and had lost all lightness, and his smile was gone from his face. "What the hell happened to your arms?" I gasped. I had forgotten all about the ugly bruises Cullen had left on me from the other day, and it was too dark last night for them to be noticed. I looked down at them trying to think of an excuse, but they were very clearly handprints. I looked up at Jake, and his face was filled with the same rage I remembered from the previous afternoon.

"Jake, please, calm down."

"Don't tell me to calm down! What the hell happened? Wait ...did Paul do this?" He jumped out of bed, grabbing his clothes. "I will kill that son of a bitch."

"Jake, stop!" I yelled. "It...it wasn't Paul!" He froze and looked at me. "If I tell you, you have to promise to not go off after him."

"Bella…" He said in a warning, taking a step toward me.

"I'm serious Jake, I already went to the cops about this, they're handling it, and he's gone and won't be back."

"Who." He simply stated. I closed my eyes and breathed out a shaky breath. I wasn't afraid for Cullen, I was more afraid of Jake doing something to get himself in trouble, but I also knew Jake

wasn't gonna let this go.

"It was Cullen." I said quietly.

And he was gone.

I heard him rip down the stairs and through the back door. I turned to the window just in time to see him running through the backyard into the forest, regardless of me screaming at him to stop.

I hurried and threw on my clothes and boots from the previous day, and took off after him. I knew he was faster than me, but I had to try. I just got him back, I couldn't have him going to jail now.

I ran for nearly 15 minutes, winding up through the wooded hills, when I broke through to a small clearing. I decided he was probably long gone, so I stopped to sit on a fallen tree to catch my breath.

"Good afternoon Mrs Swan."

I jumped up and backed away immediately. The man was calmly standing just a few feet away from me. He wasn't dressed for hiking at all. In fact, he wasn't really dressed for cold weather. Something was extremely off about him, and I could hear the voice in my head, screaming at me to run, but I couldn't seem to get my legs moving. I had run too far and too fast, and they were too weak to take off this soon. I settled for stumbling backward, away from him.

"I was told you were tempting, but I had no idea how much. I obviously underestimated your allure."

What…..

The…..

Hell…..

"Who are you and how do you know who I am."

"That is no matter to you. I was charged with your collection, and I don't plan on disappointing."

He started moving toward me, but much too smooth to be normal. I stumbled back trying to keep space between us, but he was too fast, too fluid, and had me backed into a tree within seconds, his face much too close to mine, and now I could see his eyes weren't right either, they were blood red. His hand reached up and gently touched my throat, and I cringed away from it.

"I didn't plan on disappointing my employer, but sometimes things don't go exactly as we plan them, now do they, Mrs Swan."

I whimpered and shut my eyes against whatever was going to happen, but instead I heard a low but menacing growl close behind me.

Hmm, let's see, death by bear, or torture by this deranged psychopath.

I felt the guy's hand move away and I opened my eyes and saw him looking behind me in complete terror. Out of my peripheral I saw two walls of fur on either side of me stalk out of the woods. I pushed myself even further back against the tree.

Wolves.

Massive wolves. My head barely came up to their backs. Five of them came out from behind me stalking towards my predator, now their prey. But he was stopped by a much more fearsome growl from behind him. He whipped around to face a wolf that looked borderline rabid. He had a crazed look in his eyes, and I was surprised he hadn't already ripped into the man. Then the gears started slowly turning in my head, and I realized what, or more like who, these wolves were.

"No…..it can't be…...you were supposed to be extinct!" The man yelled, before blurring away, followed closely by the wolves. I slid down the tree slowly, trying to get my breathing and heart rate to slow to a normal pace. I closed my eyes for several minutes trying to calm myself, and was nearly there, when I heard rustling from the other side of the meadow. I opened my eyes and froze. That wolf, the one who had looked so hell bent on killing, had come back. He wasn't growling, or even baring his teeth, and his face seemed much more relaxed. His head was dropped, but his eyes stayed on me.

His eyes.

I knew those eyes. I had known those eyes for years. He may be some kind of mutant werewolf now, but no matter what, he would always be my Jacob. I stood up slowly, keeping my eyes on him. I still wasn't sure how to act around him, but he seemed extremely docile right now. He walked over to me and lightly nudged my hand with his nose. I gave him a half smile, not really knowing what to do. He took a few steps back, and then turned and disappeared into the wall of trees behind us. I stood there for a minute before turning to head back.

"Wait." I heard his voice come from behind me. I turned to see him standing in the treeline. He walked out to me, stopping a couple feet from me. "What were you doing out here by yourself?"

"I...I came looking for you." I was still pretty shaken up.

"You have no idea how dangerous that…...that thing was." He said, with disgust and contempt dripping from his words. "From now on, please don't ever, ever come out here by yourself."

"Who was that? And how did he know me?" I hated how scared I sounded. He blew out a breath, and looked away angrily.

"I don't know how he knows you." And then he turned and looked at me with a dark smile. "But he won't be bothering you anymore."

"What do you mean?" I narrowed my eyes.

"We killed him." My eyes went wide at this statement, so he continued. "He was evil, and it is up to the wolves to protect everyone from his kind."

"His kind? I don't…...Jake I'm not following. I mean, you kill people?"

"No, not people. They are…something else entirely."

I closed my eyes.

"So wait, he wasn't…..human? So does that mean you aren't human?"

"What? No! Of course I'm human, I just have some abnormal genes that cause me to shift into a different form."

"Jake, I…..I don't get what you're telling me." I shook my head in frustration.

"I know." He huffed. "Right now, all you need to know is that our pack, the werewolves, what we hunt is evil. More evil than anything you've ever seen. It's our job to eradicate that evil, and we're the only ones who can. But that's the only thing we hunt."

All I could do was nod in understanding. From what it sounded like, he didn't hurt anyone, just helped get rid of….demons?

"Let's just get you back home right now, there's still a lot we haven't talked about." He resigned.

I was too shaken to argue. I just nodded and let him take my hand and he started walking us down from the way I came. My mind was bouncing around everywhere, trying to take in everything I had seen and been told in the past twelve hours. We seemed to get back to my house a lot faster than I thought we should have, but then again, I hadn't really been paying attention to where I was going. I felt Jake squeeze my hand as we broke through the treeline.

"You ok?"

"That's a pretty loaded question, don't you think?" I smirked.

"Well, I guess what I was trying to ask was, are you ok enough to make some food?" We both laughed, and I shoved him playfully. "What? I'm starving!"