Bella hasn't been around lately. Actually, not since Jake came in the day pissed about the Cullens. The wolves are all kinds of tense lately, and Maisie grew restless as well. She hadn't trained in months. The boys seemed to think she should stay inside at all times while they run off and around.

After a particularly long night, Paul limps through the door followed by Sam. He grits his teeth and stretches out on the couch, wordlessly.

"What happened?" Maisie's eyes snapped to Sam's. Sam glowered. He was always more of a silent authority than one to give a detailed explanation. Well, Maisie was shit at respecting silent authorities. It had something to do with the gods shitty parenting and her own mistakes.

"What the hell happened?" She repeated, louder this time.

"Got in a fight with a bloodsucker." Paul replied, grumpily.

"A Cullen crossed the stream." Sam added. Maisie reassessed both Sam's and Paul's health before replying, "You're not dead."

"It was an accident." Sam replied tersely, "It is forgiven."

"Why were you both near the stream anyways?" Maisie asked flippantly, settling back into her chair.

The two exchanged knowing looks, oblivious to their own transparency under Maisie's watchful eyes. She narrowed her eyes as neither of them answered.

"So much for letting me help, then." She muttered, standing back up. "I'm leaving."

"Hey, don't be mad." Jared called after her, "Paul just doesn't want you to get hurt."

"Oh, so it was Paul who made the decision that I couldn't help then. As if I️ were a child who couldn't decide myself." She rolled her eyes, closing the door behind her slightly louder than necessary.

The night air cooled against her skin, breath escaping in puffs of visible vapor. She found herself wishing she had stopped to grab her coat from Emily's spare room. She wasn't going to go back and get it now. Instead, she wrapped her bare arms around herself and wandered closer to the beach. She never liked the ocean much, too afraid of the water. Neptune was finicky and that made her even more adverse to it.

However, on frustrating nights like this one, she liked to go bury her toes in the sand and listen to the waves crash against the shore, drowning out the sounds of her own thoughts. She wondered if Neptune would know if she went into the water. Maybe. He might not care. She was still just a demigod, an insect compared to the likes of the gods, even if she was part of a rebel faction who tried to kill them. Tried and failed.

Maisie doodled vines in the sand, a symbol of her father who didn't want her. Didn't need her or care for her or acknowledge her in the slightest. It all came down to him, for her. The outline of his Hawaiian shirt glowing neon as he told her to go away. When she met him again, this time as a frat boy, red solo cup in hand as he told her not to speak to him. Not to touch him or pray to him or ask him for anything because he didn't ask for her to be born. Well, neither did Maisie. And it wasn't her fault she existed, it was his.

And Luke had erased all of that. All of that fear that she'd never amount to anything like her mother had, the idea that she's forever chase her own potential, all of the pain she felt at having no one and no home. Only he didn't erase it, not really. He only sharpened it into a fine edge of anger and redirected it at the gods. And now she was stuck with this fury buried inside her and she couldn't do anything about it. Because she was just a demigod. An insect compared to the likes of the gods. And gods, the anger burned inside her. It made her want to throttle someone.

She heard the sound of footsteps behind her. A quick peek over her shoulder showed Paul making his way towards her. When he reached her, he flopped down onto the sand next to her.

"Hey."

Maisie stared back at him silently.

"You're mad at me." He muses swirling his fingers into patterns in the sand.

"Just mad." She sighed, "Yes, at you, but not just at you."

"I just want to keep you safe." His fingers drifted closer to hers. She peered over at him.

"I can take care of myself." She replied. "I keep myself safe better than you ever could. It's all I've ever done."

"But you're just human." He started, "Just one girl."

She laid back into the sand, feeling the tiny grains against her exposed shoulders. She was so, so small, fighting against larger than life fears.

"I'm more than that. I have to be." She replied. "The world I was born into is not kind. Not to people like me."

"People like you?" He asked, leaning over to peer at her. "Monster hunters?"

She doesn't answer him, only peers up to meet his eyes. It's all the confirmation he needs. This is all she's willing to share at the moment, so she turns onto her side, facing him.

"So, monster, tell me more about the pack." She refers to him teasingly. The wind off the beach sweeps through her hair, sending it in playful waves behind her.

"I don't know, monster hunter, are you going to use this knowledge to kill us all?" He smiles at her, a chuckle accompanying his words.

"In your sleep tonight. You won't know what hit you." She replied easily.

"I doubt that."

"You shouldn't." Her expression took a dark turn. Maisie knew what was waiting for her. What was going to happen when Diana and her hunters found her. She'll be lucky if it happens in her sleep.

"Hey, whatever is bothering you, you know you can tell me. Nothing will turn me away." His eyes are sincere, brows knitted together forming a worried frown. She's silent for a moment.

"They'll come for me, eventually, and when they do, no one will be able to stop them." She admits, a tremble in her voice. Paul looks like he wants to say something but she doesn't stop talking. "I don't want to die, but part of me... part me knows I deserve to. When the bad guys have good reasons, it's hard to make the right choice, and I'm not sure there even was one, only I know I made a bad one. One that put me on the losing side."

Paul takes in a ragged breath, tucking a stray strand of hair behind Maisie's ear, hand cradling her cheek. Firmly, he said, "Maisie, You don't deserve to die. Don't ever say that."

Maisie's wide eyes meet with his, searching his face. Lips trembling she replied, "It was a lesser of two evils situation, and I stupidly chose the greater evil. I just wanted things to change."

"You're safe here. Whoever tries to hurt you, they'll have to go through me. And Sam and Jared and everyone else." His hand falls from her face only to clutch her hands. It's a promise she knows he couldn't possibly follow through on. He and his pack wouldn't stand a chance. She tells him that.

"You wouldn't stand a chance."

She's pulling away. And gods, maybe it is her that's the problem. Here she is running away, wondering why no one ever stays. Paul is standing stock still, almost as if in shock. He doesn't seem to be, but she tosses him a warning. "Don't follow me."

She's running now, dashing through the woods frantically. Her heart pounds and tears fall down her face. Why is she crying? She's better than this. In her wake, bones crawl up trees, blossoming into plump grapes. It only serves to make her run farther. She's the last two years pushing away bacchus and his powers, she was not about to stop and embrace them now.

A flash of pale skin in her peripherals leads to a pale hand stretched to her wrist. At the other end a pained looking blonde peers down at her. Quizzically, he tilts his head, golden eyes sending her into an irrational panic as she scrambled back. The hand holds tight, despite this, and a false sense of calm sweeps over her as her struggling fades into compliance. It's not real calm, the panic, the rage is still bubbling inside her stomach but her mind reacts as if it were real.

A blur of motion stills into a bronze haired man beside the other. He tentatively brushes his knuckles across Maisie's forehead in a way that was more creepy than anything. Finally, he speaks.

"So this is the secret the wolves are hiding." His voice is smooth, soft. It's made of the same stuff the fake-calm.

The mention of the wolves break her out of the fake-calm enough to snarl, "I'll rip your hand off if it stays where it's at."

Her teeth are bared in a feral snarl. The power of Bacchus, her power, swells. She feels it, and if she weren't already terrified past her limits, it would scare her witless.

The vampire holding her turns to his companion. "I like this one."

Maisie makes good on her threat with a quick sweep of his legs and an arm bar she takes a little too far. The curly blonde fronts in pain, and the fingers wiggle in a deliberate way, though the hand is completely detached. This is enough to make Maisie yelp and drop the thing. It scuttles back to it's owner in a sickening way. Maisie might throw up.

The bronze haired one laughs. "Still like her, now?"