One more chapter after this!

The liquid running from the wolf's nose was beginning to be tinged with the light, coppery color of blood. The small vessels in his heaving lungs has finally burst under the exertion and were leaking. But he was there, sprinting along the edge of the riverside, thirty feet up from the water, paws pounding the turf.

But suddenly, one leg refused to move forward. The wolf yelped as he realized his forepaw had fallen into a small depression in the ground, and he tumbled forward like a great black snowball, head over heels, limbs flying this way and that. Behind him, the lead hound, one of the huge white ones that had killed Daniel, shrieked in delight upon seeing its quarry fall. But the wolf was close enough to the edge now, and he knew what do to. He couldn't hesistate a second. As soon as he felt his pursuer's jaws clamp onto his back legs, he shoved his body over the edge with one last colossal effort.

Down and down the two interlocked animals fell, like a hellish, bloody ying and yang, black and white, twisting in mid air. The rest of the pack didn't even hesitate, leaping after their prey. They had no sense of reason, no sense of hesitation – they were so close to their prey they could smell the fear, and they were in a frenzy. The wolf hit the river, and it felt like hitting concrete. Dimly he felt a crack of bone as his left ribcage hit the water first and he went completely underwater. It was freezing from the evening air, and he only barely managed to avoid taking in a breath of surprise. But the coldness was only short-lived. A wave of intense heat came through the water, and what little vision he had became completely obscured with thrashing foam and a curtain of miniscule air bubbles. The waves came over and over. He couldn't hear the yowls of pain, but he knew that it was working. It was working! He tried to orient himself, find the surface. For all he knew, he could be swimming down to the bottom of the lake instead of the top. His weak limbs floundered, unused to the sudden change between earth and liquid. It was right before he began to panic from lack of oxygen that he felt his nose break the surface, and he thrust upwards mightily, jaws snapping the air as if to bite an unseen enemy.

But there was none. Nothing. The churning water and the steam rising from it was all he saw. A small yelp came from his mouth, half triumph and half terror, as he both realized that his enemy was gone, but that he was being swept downstream far more quickly than his limbs could prevent. His jaws continued snapping, trying to grab a hold of anything sticking out into the water – an old tree root, a log caught between one of the many rocks – and paws scrabbling against any slab of stone he could fine. There was to be something to hold one. There had to be. If he couldn't find something to hang on to, his strength was going to give out within a matter of seconds.

His muscles were completely spent, and it was if the nerves in them had ceased firing, like a circuit overload. He pushed himself off a rock in the middle of the river and was swept towards the left bank. There was a long piece of wood, the remnant of a fallen tree, sticking only about four feet into the water. He gnashed his teeth and forced his legs to move, to swim, to do anything to get close enough to grab it. He snapped his jaws, missing the wood by under eight inches. In another half second he would have passed it by completely. The speed of the water was unrelenting. She had tasted death and wanted more, unwilling to let this last victim go. His ribcage throbbed with pain, he was sure he had broken some bones, but again thrust his front paws forward and snapped.

Nothing. It was then that there was a sharp tug at his neck, so abrupt that he almost choked. The silver chain around his neck was digging into the loose skin of his throat fiercely. It had gotten caught on something. His paws felt a small tangle of roots underwater, just under his chin, and took advantage of the slight reprieve of movement down the river (Just for luck, Ade. It looks good on you). He snapped again. This time, the very tips of his incisors caught some of the bark of the wood. He flailed with his paws and the right one hit, and he dugs his claws in desperately.

They slipped.

He flailed again with the left, and this time he got a firm hold. It was then that his muscles locked up completely. His claws were in far enough to hold him in place, and he weakly used his teeth to bite on to the wood and drag his broken body upwards, half out of the water. The root holding the chain snapped, allowing him to continue in a half-jerking, half-slithering movement. Draping himself over the log, he was only barely aware of his surroundings. He wanted to sleep so badly. Just sleep. Just a little bit. Secure for the moment, the wolf's eyes closed, and he slipped into an exhausted but content unconciousness.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

"Cate?"

The voice was so quiet. She wasn't even sure she had heard it. If she knew where her body was, she could have opened her eyes…but right now, she could no more do that than start to fly. Everything was black and soupy, thick, and smelling of blood. There wasn't much else she could recognize.

"Cate, get up."

The swirling of vertigo in her head settled as she felt a slight pressure on what she guessed was her neck. Heaving itself into orientation, her brain finally connected with her eyes and they opened slightly. At first, she could see nothing but a crusty brown color. It took her a while to realize that it was blood caked to her eyelashes. Struggling to open her eyes wider, she slowly became aware of her body parts. Her arms were in front of her, her legs behind, and she felt something hard against her stomach. I'm on the ground. Her fingers twitches faintly in a spasm, trying to get a hold in the dirt to push herself upwards.

"Easy, easy."

The voice was too soft to be David's. Cate finally managed to turn her head and saw a pair of curious blue eyes staring at her, framed by a mussed and dirt-caked head of curls. It was Marko. "Hey, Cate, can you move?"

"I –" she coughed, the words scratching her throat. "I don't know."

She didn't know. She still wasn't sure what had happened. The last thing she remembered was going headfirst into the fray with David. She had struck first at the vampire closest to her, and everything had gone black. She couldn't remember a thing. She managed to roll over onto her back and stared upwards, sucking in a breath as the movement caused something somewhere in her limbs to hurt.

"You…" Marko hesitated, as if he was unsure of how to phrase what was coming next. "You just….."

"Just? What?"

The earth vibrated beside her as she felt Dwayne step over and sit down, pulling her up into a sitting position. "You don't remember?"

"I don't remember anything." She looked around in utter confusion. There was nothing. The entire field was bare. There was the occasional knife or gun littered about, and patches of burnt grass, but nothing else. "Where are they?"

"It's probably best you don't remember." Dwayne replied, his voice soothing and firm at the same time.

At any other time she would have pressed him for answers, but she was still only halfways in the land of the living. "Where's David?"

"He's gone out to find Adrian."

Cate slowly began to piece together what had happened. She remembered Adrian running off, with the hounds in pursuit, yes. She remembered being dragged out of the bedroom and outside, yes. She remembered the feral look in David's eyes, feeling the surge of fury within her own body, and….again, her mind stopped point blank.

"Don't try to remember Cate. It happens sometimes. It's happened to me. Sometimes you just don't remember."

She looked over at Marko again. From the slightly fearful look in his eyes, she could tell she had done something bad. Very bad. Or maybe, not so much bad, as just frightening.

"Is she okay?" Paul squawked from somewhere behind her.

"She's fine."

"Christ, good. You're one helluva crazy one, there, woman."

"What…what did I do?" And at that point, she realized what she had done. Or at least, had some faint idea. When Dwayne said that sometimes people didn't remembered, he meant losing themselves in the fury of bloodlust. It was like waking up from a night of drinking and having no idea how the whole house got trashed around you. "And Lath?"

"David took him down. It was….over quickly."

Cate leaned against Dwayne's shoulder and took a huge breath. In a strange way, now that she was waking back up, she almost wished she remembered. Everything had been leading up to this, she had been so eager, so furiously eager to rip apart every single one of them… Dwayne stood and gently picked her up by the armpits. She obliged and balanced on her feet shakily, holding on to his shoulder while Marko threw his arm around her waist to keep her up. Paul brought up the rear, and as Cate looked over he shoulder, she could see that he looked almost as wary of her as Marko.

"We're going back inside now." Dwayne stated quietly, as if there was no way anyone could possibly argue with him.

There wasn't.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Just as daylight was beginning to break, David came back, lugging the alive but badly battered body of the black wolf behind him using his trenchcoat. The wolf made small whining noises at being dragged over the rough ground, and yelped weakly as Dwayne and David both heaved to lift him off the ground. Bones were broken somewhere, but it wasn't life-threatening. Once inside and in bed, Adrian finally was able to make the effort to turn back to human form. A few ribs were cracked and muscles strained, but other than that he seemed to be all right. The wound in his stomach had amazingly stayed closed despite the exertion of his run. As soon as he had presence of mind to speak, he had asked for Cate. David had grudgingly given them a few moments, muttering something about fleas again, to which Cate had replied with a silent glare. She closed the door behind her and, after sensing him holding true to his promise of leaving her be, walked across the room and settled down on the side of Adrian's bed. He smiled weakly. "Hey. Tell David he can have my bike."

"Why?"

"After dragging me a few miles on his coat, I think he deserves it."

Cate cocked her head, watching him blush slightly as he averted her gaze after a few seconds. He was always a blusher, and she used to think it was one of the most charming things about him. The rosy color seemed to soften the sharpness of his cheekbones. His features seemed sometimes almost feminine when he blushed, only offset by the intensity of his eyes.

"Hey."

"Hmm?" he glanced up at her shyly.

"You're wearing the chain I gave you."

"For luck, right?"

"Guess it worked."

"Yeah."

The next silence bordered on awkwardness. Adrian cleared his throat slightly. "I don't want to stay here."

"Neither do I. Not after all this."

"Are you going to go with them?"

"Who?"

"You know…them."

"I don't know." Cate had been playing with the though in her mind. Her grief had been overcome by a sense of…purpose? She wasn't sure. Rita was gone, Daniel was gone, and Tobias was certainly gone. Everyone was gone. It had been a frightening feeling at first, but now it was slowly becoming accepted. She needed a family, that much she knew. Underneath the cold shell, she had always needed family. Family was the one thing you could count on, the one thing that would remain stable no matter what happened. In a way, she was beginning to think of the Boys as family. Crazy? Perhaps. David was certainly the closest to her. The thought of going back to Santa Carla with him, staying with him…it definitely brought a nice butterfly feeling into her stomach, but her ever-present logical side was doubtful. Adrian interrupted her thoughts, his voice soft and awkward.

"Do you love him?"

"David?"

"Yes."

"I do." The words came out without hesitation. Explaining exactly why was impossible, and Adrian saw the frustrated look in her eyes as she bit her lower lip, trying to follow up her answer with cogent reasoning.

"Don't feel stupid. It's not something you can really talk about, is it?"

"Not really."

"Yeah…I know the feeling. Cate?"

"What?"

"What did I do to make you fall out of love with me?"

Ohhhhhhh booooyyy…And there it was, the million dollar question. Finally articulated, it hung heavily in the air over both of them. Almost as soon as he said it, Adrian's brain caught up with his mouth and he regretted it. Not exactly the most appropriate question regarding the circumstances. His pool-blue eyes stared hard at the dull white of the sheets, brow furrowed, hoping in some odd way that she would forget the question. But she didn't.

"You didn't do anything. I just got…I don't know, scared?"

"Scared? Of me? Cate, you're never scared of anything, cut the bullshit, allright? Give me some credit." he tried a lopsided smile, but his facial muscles were quivering, with nervousness or exhaustion, she didn't know

"Ade, please stop."

"No…right now, we're both about to go in opposite directions for the rest of our lives and I want to know why."

"I don't know why. I'm sorry." Her voice took on an edge of frustration. "I wasn't right for you at the time, I didn't deserve you at the time. I didn't deserve anyone."

Adrian sat up slightly in the bed and scooted forward, wrapping his arms slowly around his knees and bringing his face closer to hers. Despite the decreased distance and the graceful confidence of the move, his words were still forced and bashful. "At the time…."

"Yes, at the time."

"What about this time?"

"Please stop. I hate these conversations. I'm no good at them." Cate moaned and reached over, putting one hand gently behind his neck, as if to soften her words with a conciliatory gesture. "I don't love you. Not like that. Now please, stop."

Adrian swallowed hard and his head dropped slightly. He had pushed too far. Stupid, stupid. "I'm sorry."

"It's ok."

Silence again.

"Do you want to come back to Santa Carla with us?"

"I don't think so."

"Why not?"

"I don't like being the extra wheel. I guess I was thinking of just heading back east over the pond."

"By yourself."

"I can handle myself."

"I know, it's just….I don't want to never heard from you again."

Adrian looked up and smiled halfheartedly. "I'll always be easy to get a hold of. For you, anyways. If you ever need anything. But I think those guys will take pretty good care of you. Not like you need much taking care of, anyway. You were always pretty self-sufficient. You wouldn't even let me open doors for you."

"Are you pretty set on it, then?"

"Yeah. We both need to get out of here. But right now….you're happy, and it isn't my business to go messing around with that…as much as I would want to at least try."

"I do love him."

"I know. It makes sense. You're very like each other. And I can tell he loves you too. Not that he'd ever admit it…"

"Yeah, that sounds like David."

"True. But he does." It pained him to say it a little, and he hoped she hadn't heard the tiny crack in his voice, but it was true. He could tell just from the way David looked at her, the way he moved when she was nearby. His scent even changed…it became more protective, more intense, more thick with emotion.

Cate gave the back of Adrian's neck and gentle but brief rub and slid off the edge of the bed to her feet. "Are you going to be ok tomorrow?"

"I just need some sleep. I'm going to head out tomorrow, see if I can catch a flight."

"Do you need money? Anything?"

"Naw, I'll manage." His small features cruved into a smile. "But thanks for the offer….I'll see you tomorrow…or wait….tonight, I guess. Since it's pushing seven a.m."

"Yeah. Tonight, I think we're heading off."

Cate's hand was touching the doorknob when one last attempt issued from Adrian's mouth, even quieter than before. "You know I still love you."

She didn't respond immediately, letting the wave of pain find its was from her throat to her chest and down, down, out of her body. "I know. Goodnight, Ade."

She opened the door and closed it softly but swiftly behind her. Adrian slowly lay back down in the bed, not sure what to think. He hadn't been sure what to think for the last few years. "Night Cate…." he whispered to no one in particular, and tried to let all of the confusion in his brain settle down and give way to dreams.