Sorry it's been so long… Anyways, enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or its related concepts, etc., etc., it's all from Stephenie Meyer's beautiful head… mind… whatever.

Hope you like it!

Chapter 8 – Holy Mother of Pearl…

I restrain myself from talking to Collin all day. I want to save every word for after school. Collin (smart boy) takes the hint and offers no conversation, other than a warm "Hey Adrienne!" in the morning. He is so hot. And he's desperate for my forgiveness. Who thought that would happen?!

Finally the last bell rings. My waiting is over. I slowly gather my belongings, stealing glances out of the corner of my eye at Collin from time to time. He's lingering as well, and as I start to exit the classroom, he's there. "Hi," he says hesitantly.

"Hi. Meet me outside in five." And with that, I walk away.

And then he's there. I stand by my bike, watch him as he descends the steps to meet me. "I-"

"Let me talk."

He accepts the interruption and I pray that he accepts my forgiveness as well. (Huh. Accepting forgiveness instead of an apology. I just hope he's glad to know that I'm glad to be with him again.)

"Thank you. What you did yesterday was so sweet. So so so so so sweet. No one's ever done something like that for me. Ever. And I don't think I've ever felt as happy as I did last night. And I just want you to know that I accept your apology. I'm sure that wherever you went was important, and I believe that you had to go. I believe you were telling the truth when you said that you didn't and don't want to lie to or hurt me. But," I take a breath before continuing. "I need you to know that if you ever, ever, do something like that again, just leave me, with no explanation or idea of where you're off to, leave me feeling abandoned and destroyed, I don't know if I could forgive you again. I need you to promise."

He looks at me, taking in everything I just said. "I promise."

I smile, and lean in to give him a kiss on the cheek.

"How did you know they were my favourite, anyways?"

His cheeks redden. "They're my mom's favourite, too, so I just hoped you would like them."

Aww! He is so adorable! I give him a kiss on the other cheek, to be fair, and then he pulls me in close and I'm mentally freaking out and then fireworks are shooting off in my head. It's an amazing kiss. It's absolutely perfect. I imagine a camera doing a 360 around us, and I know it's meant to be.

And all of a sudden, it ends.

Collin's head whips around, and he squints at the forest. "Come on, we need to go," he says.

"What? What's wrong?"

Collin's POV

Everything. That's what I want to tell her.

My imprint finally forgives me, and what happens? I smell a vampire. A bloody vampire. (No, not literally, I'm just pissed off.) Now what am I supposed to do? I had planned to take her to Sam's, and maybe I will, to keep her safe, but I don't want to lose this scent. I can't lose this scent.

I whip my phone out. "Seth! Where are you? I need you to take Adrienne to Sam's. Bring Penny along so she's not lonely, will you?"

"What's happening? Who's Sam? What's wrong?" Adrienne frantically asks me.

I grab her shoulders roughly and shake her. "Listen to me. Listen to me. I need you to do whatever I say, go where I tell you to, okay? I need you to stay safe, and that's the only way."

Her confusion hurts, and I wish she knew everything. But there's no time right now. I realize that Seth is screaming at me through the phone, so I put it back to my ear.

"I'M GONNA KILL YOU, YOU MOTHER – Oh, you're back. What happened? Where'd you go?"

I mumble as quietly as I can. "I schmeelled e vanmire."

"OH MY GOSH! ARE YOU GUYS STILL AT SCHOOL? WHERE IS IT? I'LL SEND PENNY TO TAKE ADRIENNE, GO GET IT YOU IDIOT!"

"Yes, we're at school, and hurry up, I can't leave her alone again."

I hang up the phone just as Penny rushes out of the front doors. "Seth told me what happened. Adrienne, we're leaving. Come on, you can meet the … family."

It wasn't supposed to happen like this.

The look she's giving me kills, and in the back of her mind I bet she's thinking that she shouldn't have trusted me. "I'm sorry!" I scream as I run to the woods.

I'm sorry, I think as I phase.

Adrienne's POV

I cannot believe he did that. AGAIN. Just after he promised not to! I mean – I – gah. At least Penny's back. I need to talk to her about all of this, but it's hard because I know that she's in the loop while I'm not. Seth's not here either – he's probably with Collin. And I hate this, I hate that I don't know where the hell he is, and I hate that I don't know anything, and as I bike to this Sam's house, Penny running beside and slightly ahead of me to lead the way, I just want to fall off and sit on the ground and fall back on the grass and curl into a ball and cry. And be comforted by Puddles. And figure out what the hell is going on. Because I don't know!

After about twenty minutes, Penny directs me down a path through some trees, and we reach a small clearing and a cabin-like house. "This is Sam's," she tells me after she's caught her breath. "Time to meet everyone."

Collin's POV

Seth runs beside me. We both desperately try to find the scent, smelling the trees we pass by when finally, I fling my head left.

That way!

Dude, you've got to be more specific, Seth thinks at me.

We race, and soon Embry enters our heads. Where's the vamp? I'm gonna get that thing before it realizes that a super awesome buff hunk is ripping off its neck!

Oh, shut up, Embry, Seth thinks before running ahead.

Soon we're joined by Sam, Leah, Jared, Jake and Quil. Paul must have been delegated to stay back with the girls. I hope Adrienne's okay…

*Snap.*

Our heads move quickly from side to side, trying to find the source of the noise…

UP!

Jared is screaming wildly, but refrains from letting out a growl. Sam snarls, however, and the game is on. Seven bloodsuckers are jumping from tree to tree. I hate it when they do that. If they ever come down, though, it'll be easy. One on one. A male gives us a smirk and jumps down. His pale skin sparkles in the sunlight. (Lame.) We run faster and Jared leaps on his back. There's a look of surprise on the leech's face, so he must have thought he would be showing off. We're too good for that, I think as his head falls a few feet from where his limbs are.

More of his kind rush down, and one particularly mad looking girl decides to take out her feelings on me. That must have been her mate. I attack before she can bite me, and we roll around the ground clawing at each other before I get a grip of her arm and rip it out of her socket. She screams, and I take the moment of distraction to finish her off.

I look to see how the others are doing. Body parts sprinkle the forest floor. I do a quick head count (ha, ha, ha) and realize that two are missing. I-

COLLIN, BEHIND YOU!

I turn around and see another head bounce to the ground. Seth is tearing away at the thing. Thank God for him. That just leaves one more…

I hear it before I see it.

More branches snapping. These vampires clearly are not very skilled in the whole light-on-your-feet department. I look up just in time to see a female jumping down…

On me.

Adrienne's POV

I still don't get any explanation of what's going on, but I do meet people. "We've heard so much about you, Adrienne!" A lady with three scars running down her face greets me. She's beautiful, but I find it kind of creepy that she knows me. She must see it on my face, because she quickly adds, "Collin talks about you all the time," and winks. She leads me into the family room, where several girls are sitting on a couch watching Spongebob. I love Spongebob, so I plop right down beside them.

"Adrienne, say hi to Rachael, Kim, and Claire," Penny says before sitting in a chair close to me. "And you just met Emily. Oh, and here comes Paul – I think you took his spot…"

A tall, shirtless guy walks over to the couch and halts. "You're in my spot."

"Get another one. What are you, five?"

"Yeah!" Exclaims Claire, the little girl sitting in between Rachael and Kim. "I'm five, and I am much more mature than you." She smiles matter-of-factly, then goes back to watching the screen. Paul blushes and takes a seat in a chair by the window. I chuckle, but remember that Collin is off again, and I don't know where.

"So when is someone going to tell me what's going on?"

"Trust me, we were all in the same boat once. Give it a day or two," Emily says.

I am going to give Collin a piece of my mind when he gets back.

And it's not going to be pretty.

Collin's POV

I try to think, but the only thoughts that come to my mind are I should have stayed with Adrienne and I'm about to die. She lands with her mouth open wide, trying to sink her teeth into my skin. No way am I letting that happen, though. This means war. I do my best do hurt her, tearing at her skin, but she's tough. We fight for a seemingly long time, though it could only be minutes. Finally, she lets go and tries to escape, but the six other wolves are on her instantly. And then she's dead.

Stupid vamps.

We make a small clearing and start a fire. "We got them all?" I question as I throw in an arm. Nods and yeses are directed at me. Good. I'm less worried about Adrienne now.

My girlfriend? Hopefully. Now that I think of it, though, I did just leave her… again…

I'm so dead.

Adrienne's POV

A group of boys walk into the house smelling like smoke. One of them puts away a lighter – do they all smoke? I cannot date a boy who smokes. Or does other illegal stuff.

I get up, ignoring how badly I want to sing along to the Spongebob theme song that just started playing, and walk over to Collin. "Where." I poke his chest. "Were." Poke. "YOU?!" Pokepokepokepokepokepokepoke pokepokepokepokepokepokepoke pokepokepokepokepokepokepoke pokepokepokepokepokepokepoke pokepokepokepokepokepokepoke pokepokepokepoke.

"Ow!" He cringes, trying to get away from me by standing behind another muscular shirtless guy. (Do they not own shirts? Not that I'm complaining.)

"Hey, she's your girlfriend, you deal with her," Collin's bodyguard says.

"Thanks Quil," he says with a glare.

"Wait – you told people I'm your girlfriend?" I ask, surprised.

"Well… yeah. We're all really close."

I smile. "Aw. Well, we'll see if that's still true in a couple of minutes."

Panic washes over his face. "What? W- What did I do? Wait – no – I'm sorry! I didn't want to leave you! I-"

I continue to drag him outside, despite the "oooh!"s coming from the other guys. (I turn around, give them a death stare and say "Shut. Up," to which they happily oblige. One says, "She's got a temper, Collin! Better be careful…" – he gets another glare.) Once outside, I drop my hand (it's hard to drag a guy who's 6'2", weighs three times as much as you do, and unwilling to move with just one hand) and turn to face him. "Where did you go? Why did you go there? Why did you leave me? Do you smoke? Are you doing something illegal? I can't believe I trusted you after what you did to me. And now you've done it again!"

"I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry. But I need to tell you something."

I stare at him expectantly, tapping my foot. "Well?"

"Okay, maybe I should show you… Wait. Um. How should I do this? Man, I didn't think it would be this hard… I- okay. Okay."

"Okay what?"

"Adrienne." He's staring deep into my eyes. I think my knees might give out. Gah. "Have you heard the Quileute legends?"

"Of course, I know all of them by heart!"

"Well… what would you say if I told you they were true?"

I gulp. What would I say? What would I say? I… I…

"I don't know." I state plainly.

"Well, time to find out," he mutters. "They're all true. Every bit of them. And I know that's crazy, and you probably don't believe me, but then again maybe you do because you love them so much… So – do you have a reply?"

"I… I…"

Do I?

Yes. I do. I know that I do.

Hesitantly, I say, "Sh- … Show me. Please. I need to know if you're telling the truth. Because if you're not, then I am never talking to you again. I will hate you. Eternally. When I'm sitting and thinking in the Underworld or heaven, I will still hate you. If you're making fun of me right now…" And I think he is. And I'm on the verge of tears. Because there is no way, no way, no way that what he's saying could be true.

Is there?

… Only one way to find out.

Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh he's standing up, and he's – taking his clothes off? What?

"Dude! Holy flipping – keep your clothes on! What are you doing?"

He holds his hands up in defense, one clutching his shirt. "Hold your fire – phasing rips my clothes. And I don't exactly want to be left naked after it happens – all the guys will laugh at me," he whimpers. I would be completely fine with such a thing happening, but I withhold my comment and try not to picture him in my head. It's quite hard though. He's so hot.

Anyways, he turns around, and I do the same. Then I feel something wet nudging the back of my hand, so I turn back, and…

It's Puddles.

Holy Mother of Pearl.

My boyfriend is a werewolf.

SO! Did you guys like it? I really really REALLY hope so. I enjoyed writing it. It's been way too long, and I'm really sorry, and my excuses won't even begin to cover it, but here goes. How long has it been anyways? September? … Oh my gosh, September 30. You guys must hate me. Anyways, like I was saying, excuses. I decided to attempt NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this past November, and… it was a fail. But at least I wrote something, right? I tried. And then there was Christmas and my English essay, and then there were exams, and now… here we are. So please don't hate me! Continue reading! I'll love you all forever!

And shout out to Adrienne (ardeeneethesardeenee), whose birthday was this week! Woo! Love ya! Go read her stuff – it's amazing! And she's actually posting more now! I love it. :)

Anyways. That was long. Please please please PLEASE review! Thanks!

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(And just for the record, that was 39 pokes in a row. )