Disclaimer: I'm not Stephenie Meyer. I don't own any vampires or werewolves.

Chapter 2: Scars

Emily POV

The agony blinded me. I must have been lying on the ground for at least an hour. The pain was diminishing excruciatingly slowly, but diminishing nonetheless. Periodically I would hear a pain-racked howl. By this time I knew it was Sam. Werewolf. He was a werewolf. I knew it was true but I still had a hard time believing it. Not only did I just find out that werewolves were real, but I knew one. And he was in love with me. Was he really? Could he be? But what about Leah? He said something about an "imprinting". My common sense told me he was using me, like he used Leah. But my heart told me that wasn't true. My heart told me he really did love me, like he really was a werewolf. Eventually I decided that at least he didn't have an ulterior motive, he wasn't using me. I wasn't sure about the whole "love" thing yet.

Through all these contemplations, I realized I had to get back to Leah's house. I tried to stand but collapsed. I tried again, successful this time. I looked down and was surprised by the amount of blood on the forest floor. Was that all mine? I looked back up to stare straight ahead and took one step forward. Wait. I turned around to face the opposite way, then took one step forward. No. That's not right either. I did a 360, slowly. It all looked the same. Great. Now how will I get back? I didn't think that I was that far into the forest, how far could you get in half-an-hour.

Pretty far. I thought to myself. Especially going at Sam's pace I was practically jogging to keep up, I remembered. So how far is that? 2, 3 miles? So, I could go in a random direction, for about 2 miles hoping I was going the right way. But what if I'm not? What if I go the opposite way? Then I'd be at least 4 miles away! Injured!

Or I could just stay here. Wait until someone finds me

Look around you, you're in the middle of the forest with no trails! But Sam seemed to know the area pretty well, he couldn't be the only one.

Or maybe he is the only one because he didn't mean what he said. This was his plan. I scoffed at my own thought. No. Sam wouldn't have a motive for doing that. Plus, if he wanted to kill me, he would have just done it, not injure me and wait for death to come eventually.

Maybe…

So what do I do? Walk in a random direction and hope it's the right one, or stay here and hope someone will find me. Which one would make the most sense to do?

So far, staying was winning in my mind.

What really made me decide was I was getting dizzy again. No way I could hike 2 miles like this, not yet at least. I took off my jeans and, using a sharp rock I found, cut strips off of them, turning them into shorts that cut off just below the knee and put them back on. I tied one of these strips as high on my arm as possible and tightened it, turning it into a tourniquet, trying to slow the blood flow to my arm wounds. Using another strip, I tied it to my head diagonally, like a wide eye patch covering all the facial wounds, tight, putting as much pressure on it as possible.

Now, with my injuries taken care of as much as I could do, I had to start a fire.

I decided I would walk up to 100 yards away to look for dry fire wood.

And being on the coast of Washington, of course it has started raining. Drizzling at this point, but I've lived here long enough to know that it can turn into a downpour any minute. Okay, that means shelter first, then fire.

I'd stick to the 100 yard distance limit to search for large pieces of wood I could use for shelter.

I walked for about 10 minutes. That's when I found a cliff wall with a rock overhang. I ran under it where it was dry and sat down. That's when I heard something. Sobbing? I walked around to the corner of the cliff wall where I was out of sight.

Sam?

He looked up once I saw him. We just stared at each other for a very long, awkward yet strangely comfortable 10 minutes.

"Are you okay?" I asked him.

"AAARG!" He stood up, angry but not shaking.

"What?" I asked. Was he mad at me?

"I'm sorry," He said quietly. "I'm mad at myself, not you."

"Why are you mad at yourself?" C'mon Emily, out of all the questions you have, you had to ask that one?

He looked at me incredulously. "Because I did that to you." He motioned to my left side.

"Sam, it was an accident…wasn't it?" I hesitated. He immediately ran over to me and pulled me into a tight bear hug. I only winced slightly at the pain.

"Yes, of course it was an accident! I would never hurt you on purpose! I'll never hurt you again! I'll kill myself before I let any harm come to you again!" He squeezed me tighter after each sentence.

"…S-…Sam…b-…breathing…" I wheezed out. He immediately released me.

"Oh. I just broke me promise, didn't I?" He turned to the ground, depressed.

"No, no, Sam, I'm fine." He didn't seem any better. I laid my palm on his check and stroked it with my thumb. He closed his eyes and sighed. "Really, Sam, I'm fine. All of me." He gave me a pained smile but seemed a little better.

"Thank you." He whispered.

"Would you like to…explain things? Our conversation was sort of…interrupted…"

He looked up at me and held my gaze.

"Yes. An explanation is called for at this point, I think. Let's sit." He grabbed my hand and pulled me into his lap, leaning my head on his shoulder. "So, you know I'm a werewolf. Well, there's this rare thing called imprinting…"