Chapter Sixteen

It was two days before Emily regained consciousness.

Two days in which Jared rarely left her side, staying with her because someone needed to make sure she was safe and his pack brother couldn't get enough control of his emotions to phase back even for a few minutes to see his injured imprint. Sam was a complete mess and Jared really hoped Emily would wake up soon and snap him out of it.

And on the third day she did just that. Well, wake up, that is.

The entire right side of Emily's face was covered in bandages, so when she finally did regain consciousness she could only see through her left eye. Luckily, Jared happened to be sitting on her left side (also luckily, Emily's family already went home for the night, so hopefully Jared would be able to easily feed her the cover story).

"Sam?" Emily's voice was garbled due to a combination of the stitches, bandages, numbing gel, and pain medication, but Jared easily made out what she was attempting to say. However, she obviously also wasn't seeing clearly because she looked directly at Jared when she spoke.

"Sorry, Em, it's Jared," He told her, gently covering her left hand with his own. "How are you feeling?"

"Numb…I can't feel…" He saw Emily's right hand twitch as she spoke. She must have tried to lift it, but hadn't been able to feel it.

"The doctors drugged you up pretty good," Jared said with the barest hint of a smile. "It's probably better this way, though. Now you won't feel any pain."

Emily was silent for a moment but then her one good eye finally focused on Jared's face.

"Where is Sam?"

Jared was saved from having to answer, though, by the appearance of a nurse in the room. Ostensibly she was there to give Emily another dose of pain killers, but when she saw that the patient was finally awake she immediately paged the doctor on duty. Soon enough, the room was bustling with people doing all sorts of medical things that Jared couldn't even begin to understand. What he could pick up on, though, was that Emily was definitely out of the danger zone now that she was awake. She was going to be okay.

Once the room cleared out again more than an hour later, Jared stepped back up beside Emily's bed, which had been adjusted so that she could sit up. She turned her head to face him as soon as he was beside her.

"Where is Sam?" She repeated. Although the bandages on her face had been changed, which improved her ability to move her mouth, her speech still wasn't one-hundred percent clear due to her face still being numb.

Jared sighed; there was no getting out of answering this time.

"Sam is here," He began slowly.

"One of the nurses said that you've been by my side the whole time I've been here," Emily interrupted immediately, "And that you were the one who brought me in. It's just been you, my parents, and my aunt."

The unspoken No Sam hung accusingly in the air between them.

"Sam is…" Jared trailed off with another deep sigh. "Sam is completely wrecked about this whole situation. He's really upset and he can't phase back because of it. He has been here the whole time you have, just…outside in the woods."

"I need to see him, Jared," Emily said firmly. "The doctor said it was a bear attack, but I know it wasn't. Ineed to see Sam."

Jared would have smiled if it wasn't for the seriousness of the situation. Emily felt the pull of the imprint and she clearly wasn't trying to fight it any longer.

And then he realized: the imprint.

He had been with Emily for three days now, meaning he had completely vanished from his own imprint's life. Oh no! Kim! He promised he would see her and explain everything to her and instead he completely disappeared. After doing his best to make sure everything went as perfectly as possible between them and that he didn't do anything stupid that would scare her away, he'd gone off and messed things up anyway. He had to go find her! He needed to explain what was happening and beg her forgiveness for breaking his promise. He needed to go do that right now!

"Jared?"

As much as it pained Jared to admit it, finding his imprint couldn't be his number one priority right now. Because right now Kim was probably the one pack member who had nothing to worry about (though he did hope she at least noticed his absence, let alone become slightly worried about it). And so, as he realized he had unconsciously started moving towards the room's only exit, Jared forced himself to turn back towards Emily.

"I'll talk to him," he finally told her, "Convince him to phase back."

"Please hurry," She replied.

Jared didn't have the heart to tell her that convincing Sam he wasn't a monster long enough to become human again so that he could be in the same, small room as the victim of his anger, who also happened to be his soul mate, wasn't going to be a swift or easy task.

Sure enough, after quickly locating Sam in the woods, it was more than fourteen hours before Jared was finally able to get Sam to phase back for longer than a few seconds. Unfortunately, by the time they were able to leave the shelter of the trees, the next day's visiting hours had begun and they happened to spot Emily's parents entering the hospital. Confronted with the sight of the clearly distraught couple, Sam's tenuous control snapped and Jared had to spend the next several hours calming his Alpha down once again.

Once the coast was finally clear again, though, Jared practically dragged Sam through the hospital to Emily's room. Jared was of course sympathetic to Sam's plight—how could he not be?—but he was also of the firm belief that the older man needed to get his act together so that Jared could be free to go find his own imprint (and potentially beg for her forgiveness).

Indeed, once he got Sam into Emily's room and was sure the pair was having their much-need heart-to-heart Jared was out of the hospital faster than you could blink.

He needed to get back to La Push to see Kim.

He faced a minor setback, however, when he did reach Kim's house: she wasn't home.

Now, there were two distinct possibilities Jared could see once faced with this situation.

The first, naturally, was the worst case scenario: Kim was mad at him for standing her up and left town to avoid running into him ever again. Thankfully, though, Jared liked to think he possessed at least some common sense, and rationalized that she wouldn't have left all of her belongings behind if she really did leave town forever. Therefore, she was bound to come back at some point…hopefully soon.

The second possibility was that she was simply out for the day.

Personally, Jared was pretty sure the first scenario had a lot more merit than the second. And logic really was on his side for this one. Because he knew Kim, and he had spent more than enough time with her to know that her all-time favorite activity was curling up on the couch with any book (preferably of the comic variety, though that wasn't completely necessary) she could find, followed closely by her second favorite activity: curling up on the couch to watch whatever TV show was on the channel she randomly selected. If there was no one there to suggest it, Kim wasn't about to choose to leave her house of her own free will. Thus, with her mom always working, Kylie at their grandma's, and Jared essentially MIA, there was no reason at all for Kim to leave the house. So, clearly, she was angry at him and ran away to avoid him. Bam. Logic.

Except for the slight problem that he actually highly doubted Kim ran away; she really wasn't the type to do that. There was no doubt in his mind that she was upset with him, though; how could she not be, after all?

And that brought Jared right back to his original problem: where was Kim?

After discovering she wasn't home—and the brief resulting panic—Jared did his best to re-trace Kim's possible steps. The only problem, though, was that her scent stopped in the middle of her driveway. Oh there were faint traces around town, most notably at the grocery store and diner, but they were all days old and had mostly been washed away by the near-constant rain. She wasn't in her house, and yet she hadn't gone anywhere in town anytime recently. And with the way her scent disappeared so abruptly, it was clear she must have gotten in a car.

So where did she go?

The only way left to find out was to wait for her to return and then ask her himself.

And so Jared phased back into his wolf—having phased out to not cause mass panic while he searched for Kim's scent in town—and settled in under the cover of the trees across the street from Kim's home to wait for her to return, head resting on his paws as he stared resolutely at her house.

So, you've made the official transition to full-time stalker, I see.

Well apparently Paul was phased in, too.

Yeah, for the past four days now, try to keep up, Paul replied to Jared's observation, though there wasn't any real hostility or even bitterness on his part. He had been just as worried about their Alpha's imprint. And if covering all of the patrols so no leaches got onto their land while the pack was distracted was all he could do to help out, then that's what he was going to do.

A stalker wouldn't forget to even think about Kim for nearly four days, Jared couldn't help but reply.

It's not like it wasn't for a good reason, Paul pointed out.

It's not like she knows that, Jared shot back.

You should probably explain it to her, then, Paul replied as if this was the obvious solution.

I don't have much of a choice, now, do I? Jared stated.

Jared immediately felt Paul's frown.

Were you planning on keeping the truth a secret from your imprint? Paul demanded and Jared could easily feel Paul's outrage on Kim's behalf.

No. I was going to finally do it the other day, actually. But then…Emily… Jared sighed heavily, before letting loose all of the thoughts that had been running through his head recently, I was already worried about how Kim was going to react. Now she's going to be angry with me right off the bat, then I'm going to have to convince her the supernatural world is real and she's living in the middle of it and somehow keep her from being scared to death of what I'm capable of doing to her.

She won't be scared of you, Paul said after a moment's pause, but Jared could hear the uncertainty in his pack brother's thoughts.

Hopefully, Jared said noncommittally. Then, deciding to change the subject, You should go home and rest, man; maybe eat something cooked for a change. I'm gonna be out here for a while, so I'll keep an eye on things.

No arguments here, Paul said swiftly, immediately setting course for his house. My bed is definitely calling my name right now.

Within a matter of minutes, Jared was alone in his head once more. For the next three hours, Jared didn't move so much as an inch from his vantage point watching Kim's house. She was going to have to come home eventually. And he was going to be waiting for her when she did.