I watched my Jacob walk out the front door with Paul, and Sam followed Jared shortly after, leaving me and Emily alone in the kitchen. I turned to her, trying to distract myself from the look on Jacob's face when he had left.

"What do we need to do?" I asked, knowing that if wolf teeth were the only things that could hurt or kill the cold ones, then we certainly would be pretty useless, not to mention possibly unsafe. "Do we need like, garlic or something?"

She laughed weakly, but I saw the worry and fear in her dark eyes, and wondered how many times she had had to suffer through this. I glanced out the window above the sink, searching for a sign of someone, and sure enough, a huge dark gray wolf was sauntering around the Rabbit toward the thick trees. A big, red-brown, extremely shaggy wolf followed, and they separated, each watching a different set of trees with the hairs on their backs standing up.

"Emily," I whimpered, panicking. "What do we do?"

"We can't do anything," she said, and I could tell how much she hated it. "We're human."

After a few more seconds of anxious waiting, the wolves pacing in front of the house, I saw a flash in the shadow of the trees. The wolves appeared blind to it, and I wanted to scream out, to tell Jacob that someone was behind him. But I couldn't endanger Emily like that, calling attention to us inside the house; that is, if the vampires didn't already know we were in it.

In a blur of color, a woman leapt out of the trees, and I was sure she was going to land right on Jacob's back. He had somehow been expecting her, though, and just as quickly as she had moved, he was out of the way. He snarled and snapped at her, and she danced away, more graceful than any person I had ever seen.

Her hair was unwisely down, flying around her; it was wavy and brown, almost like mine, except much smoother and tidier despite her trek through the forest. Her clothes were normal, no cloak, but her skin was as white as the blond woman's had been. I wondered if it was a vampire thing, and as a man emerged from the trees to attack the silver wolf, his skin white as paper, I decided it was.

They were both extremely graceful, and extremely fast. They moved so quickly it was hard to follow them, and keep track of everything they were doing. I just watched the big russet wolf, and his female attacker, wondering when the heck Sam and Jared were going to come to the rescue.

As I wondered it, the male vampire threw Paul against a tree, which shuddered. The sound was loud enough that Emily and I heard it, and I covered my ears but didn't look away. This vampire had blond hair, too, short and cropped close, and as he paused to gauge Paul's reaction, I saw that he was also incredibly beautiful. Maybe the vampires, while all pale and graceful and strong and fast, were also beautiful.

I'm sure it had something to do with their prey.

Paul stayed lying on the ground, the male vampire crouching to leap at him, and then there was a huge black blob soaring through the air. The man didn't see him coming quick enough and an earsplitting noise like nails on a chalkboard prefaced a piece of white flying into the trees, drool dripping from the black wolf's mouth. He was easily the biggest, and I knew it had to be Sam.

Jared, then, came to Jacob's aid, and I noticed that while most of his fur was brown, he had a grayish tint to the fur around his eyes that looked almost like a mask. Or maybe binoculars.

The fights didn't last very long on either side. Apparently two wolves per one vampire was too easy, and I realized a few seconds before it happened that the way the wolves were trying to hurt the vampires was to literally bite off pieces of them. The white chunk I'd seen fly into the forest hadn't been a wolf tooth.

They took down the man first. Sam and Paul circled him, and he looked ready to turn and run, walking strangely on one side of his body; Paul feinted to the left and the man bolted right into where Sam was waiting, ready to attack. I didn't know Emily very well, but I turned and buried my face in her shoulder so I didn't look.

There were many metallic shrieks like the first one as the wolves ripped off pieces of the man, and I kept my eyes trained at the pink fabric against Emily's copper-colored shoulder. She put one arm around me, but I could tell that she wasn't looking away from the fight.

The shrieking stopped, and then a brief silence was broken by a real shriek, this time from a voice. I looked up to see the woman, virtually unharmed, staring in the direction where her companion had been killed. She made a split second decision and then soared into the trees where she had come out, fleeing how her blond friend had.

Jared immediately raced after her, as did Paul, and Jacob turned and whimpered at the house, looking where Emily and I stood transfixed. Sam growled threateningly, and Jacob's ears flattened as he whimpered again and chased after the other wolves. Sam followed close behind.

I stared after them and looked at Emily, at her marred face, trying to figure out what she was feeling. I didn't even know what I was feeling, what my face looked like.

"They'll be okay," she murmured, seemingly more for herself than for me. "If Sam and Paul killed the first one by themselves, and Jacob has killed one on his own, then I'm sure one woman is no match for them. They're going to be fine."

"You're right. Thank you." Did she want my input? I didn't know, but I figured trying was better than nothing, and I walked to the front door, pushing it open. The air outside was cold, the cloudy sky blocking out even the smallest patch of the sun, but I knew I would feel better out here anyway. Trekking across the muddy ground to the Rabbit, I slid into the front seat, kicked off my boots, and curled into a ball where I had sat with Jacob so many times.

I didn't know that I had fallen asleep until warm arms circling around me woke me up, and even then I wasn't wholly awake, simply able to feel and hear and mildly comprehend. I heard a mumbled voice above me, recognizing it immediately as my Jacob's.

"She went out there on her own, she wanted to feel safe, I think," a small woman's voice whispered from at most a yard away.

"I figured," Jacob said, and I felt a soft surface underneath me as he lay me down. It sounded like he sat next to me on the ground, so I thought I might have been on a couch. I knew that I wanted to see him, to make sure that he was unharmed, but I was so drowsy, exhausted and terrified. I couldn't open my eyes.

"Funny how she feels safest in the most dangerous places," Jared joked from somewhere around my feet. "The Rabbit while there's a vampire running around, Jake's arms after he turned into a wolf in front of her."

I heard a sound like a fist colliding with someone, thinking it was likely Jacob had hit Jared for his remark.

"It might be the imprint thing. Em, did you imprint on Sam too?" Jared asked, and there was a brief silence before Emily's tiny voice sounded.

"I can't imprint, obviously. Bella can't either. But when Sam imprinted on me, I could see a difference. I could see his eyes on me all the time, I knew almost without a doubt that he was utterly devoted to me. I could just tell."

"Did being around Sam make you feel safe, even after—" Jared cut off, and I wondered if he was referencing her scars.

"Even after that, yes." She paused. "It's likely that if imprinting really is something genetic and not necessarily magical, that Bella has the same makeup that made Jacob imprint on her. She could be just as attached to him as he is to her, except weaker due to the fact that she's not a wolf, of course."

"Is that the only reason she cares about me?" Jacob asked, his voice weak and scared. "Because of some stupid genetic thing?"

"Absolutely not," Emily said, sounding motherly. "Just like your imprinting didn't make you care about her. You were each other's before you joined the pack."

Nobody said anything else, and I struggled to stay conscious, feeling like I was going to fall back asleep soon but desperate not to. What was "imprinting"? Emily and Sam had done it, but it was apparently a wolf thing. What did it mean?

The next time I woke up I heard snoring, and I was able to open my eyes this time. I wondered if everything I had heard about imprinting had been a dream, but when I saw that I was on Emily's couch and Jacob was sitting on the floor beside me, I doubted it. Weird stuff was just going to keep happening to me; it was better if I started believing all of it.

Jake's was the snoring I had heard, and it made me smile despite the noise. I sat up, seeing we were in Emily's empty living room. Jacob was leaning his head against the couch near where my head had been, and I ran my fingers through his hair. It was knotted, and I gently pulled through some of the tangles, wondering if it would wake him up.

He didn't wake through the whole process, and I debated braiding his hair but knew that the others would make fun of us. I slid off the couch onto the ground next to him, lifting one of his arms and sliding into his side. Jared had had one thing right, at least. Jacob made me feel safe. I had somehow always known it, and it hadn't changed. My dream surfaced briefly in the back of my mind to contradict what I felt so sure of – Jacob as a wolf crouching to kill me – but I smushed it back down.

Someone came in the front door and slammed it behind them, and the noise made Jacob jump, his eyes fluttering open. He realized who I was and tightened his arm around me, leaning down and kissing the top of my head.

"You okay, Bella?"

"As okay as you are, Jake."

He grinned, stretching his free arm over his head. I monitored all of his movements, checking for any sign of cuts or bruises or blood. He was completely free from harm, and I wondered how on earth that was possible.

I moved away from him and he immediately responded by moving away, as if he didn't want me to be uncomfortable, and I reached out and held him still. "I just want to make sure you're okay."

He laughed, standing easily. He held out his hand to help me up and I took it, wobbling for a second. "Okay, stand still. Hold your arms out," I ordered.

His barking laugh made ironic sense to me now, and I resisted a smile, trying to keep a doctor-ish expression while looking him over. His russet chest and stomach were smooth and untouched, and I motioned for him to turn, making sure that all of his movements were pain-free. I ran my fingers along his arms and checked that they were okay, too, and when he passed the test, I hugged him tightly.

"You're good, for now," I said, and he kissed the top of my head again. A blush colored my cheeks, and I was glad my face was hidden.

"Thanks, Bells. You going to medical school?"

I laughed. "Nope. I have no idea what I want to do with my life." Looking up at him with my cheeks tinged pink, I tightened my arms around him. "Except this."

He grinned and blushed, too, and I slowly loosened my hold, smiling up at him. The front door slammed again, and this time I was the one who jumped, quickly looking behind me at the entrance to the kitchen.

"What's going on?" I asked him, and he concentrated for a moment, wrinkling his nose.

"They're arguing."

"About what?"

He looked worried, like he didn't want to tell me. "The woman we chased after. She got away, and Paul just went to find her scent but the rain has mostly washed it away. Sam is trying to convince them to come up with a plan to find her, but Jared and Paul want to play the blame game."

My stomach sunk when I realized what he must mean. "They blame you?"

"For hesitating, I guess."

"They chased after her! If anything, it's their fault, they were right behind her. They were the ones that should have caught up to her." I guess my voice had risen in my anger, and he held his index finger to my lips, tapping his ear with the other.

"We can hear very, very well from very far away, Bella."

"Then my volume won't make a difference either way, will it?" I was being stubborn, but I was also mad. How could they blame Jacob?

"They think if more of us had been closer to her, that we could have come up with a plan and circled her. Since me and Sam were behind because he had to tell me to go, that couldn't happen."

"They still shouldn't blame you."

He shrugged. "I don't regret it. I wanted to stay with you. How could we know there weren't more waiting until we were gone to get to you?" I realized that he could have said "you girls" or something that included Emily, but he hadn't. He had wanted to stay behind for me.

That reminded me. "Jake, what is 'imprint'?"

He froze, more color in his cheeks. I reached up to touch one of them, still surprised that someone's skin could literally feel like a warm stove. I almost felt like if I left my hand on him for too long, that I would get burned. "I want to tell you, Bella. But it might freak you out."

"Tell me. While we finally have 'alone' time." I put air quotes around "alone," showing that I understood the apparent werewolf super-hearing in the other room would mean that we weren't truly alone.

He smiled slightly, sitting down on the couch and pulling me with him. I fell halfway onto his lap, turning so I was facing him with my knees on either side of his thighs, how we had been in the Rabbit.

"Well…" He bit his lip in thought, and I noted that I did the same thing sometimes, reaching forward and touching the corner of his lips. Why did I like touching him so much? He noticed, snatching my hand from the air and lacing our fingers together. "Imprinting is… Let me start from the beginning, I guess.

"When we were in that alley. Do you remember?" he asked, and I nodded vigorously. How could I forget? "No, I mean, do you remember everything? When did I first look at you, really look at you?"

I tried to think, my memory hazier than I would have preferred. I would have thought that such a terrifying night would be burned into my mind. "Well, I think you looked at me when she froze me. Like, when she looked from you to me and I couldn't move anymore."

"I – I did, you're right. I mean…" He looked at a loss for words, and before he could speak, the phone rang.

Jacob glanced toward the kitchen, but then brought his eyes back to me, watching our linked fingers with apparent fascination. I glanced down at them too, the color contrast almost funny, but couldn't keep my eyes from searching his face.

"It's Charlie," he said all of a sudden, looking up at me and then toward the door again. "He is very mad."

"Crap, Charlie!" I exclaimed, leaping off of Jacob's lap and starting toward the kitchen. I had told him that I would call him a million times, and hadn't even called once!

Emily had answered the phone, and she was holding it away from her ear looking a little scared when I made it into the kitchen. "So sorry," I breathed, taking it from her. "Hi, Dad, it's Bella and I'm fine and I am so, so sorry. So much has happened."

Suddenly, five pairs of brown eyes were boring into me, and I wrinkled my brow, shaking my head. Did they think I was going to tell Police Chief Swan that there was a pack of werewolves running around La Push? "Isabella Marie Swan, I have called I don't know how many people looking for you! You're lucky Billy told me last night that you had gotten there safe! I called Billy's house this morning trying to reach you and he said you weren't there, that you had gone with Sam to visit Jacob. So I call the hospital asking for Jake, he's not been admitted. I call Sam's house, no answer. I call Billy again and he says he hasn't heard from any of you, but that he would have if you guys weren't okay – imagine that!" He was screaming, and I wondered if he was at the station or at home yelling into the phone.

"Imagine – what?"

"Don't get smart with me, Bella. Imagine Billy's crazy brain expecting only to hear from his sick son and his friends if something bad happens!" He made an angry noise like a groan mixed with a grunt. "I don't know what they're smoking down on that reservation, but I'm going to investigate it!"

I looked nervously around at the eyes still watching me, and Jacob was grinning. He caught my eye and immediately moved to my side, putting one arm around my waist. Paul stuck his fingers down his throat and gagged mockingly at Jared, who laughed with his hand over his mouth.

"Dad, there's no need. We're all fine, Jacob and Sam and me." I leaned my head into Jacob's side without even thinking about it, somehow always needing to be closer to him. "Jacob had food poisoning or something, I think. An ambulance picked him up in Port Angeles and he was in the hospital there for a little while before Sam came and got him because Billy couldn't. They went back to La Push and Jacob went to stay with Sam's – wait, Dad, how did you get this number?"

He laughed, sounding hysterical. I checked the clock, seeing that it was nearly noon and Charlie hadn't heard directly from me since I had driven dazed through the rain the night before. He had probably been worrying the whole time, I realized guiltily. "Dad, I'm so sorry. I really was just thinking so much about everything that I forgot to call you."

"You're in a lot of trouble when you get home, kid," he growled, and I felt a low grumble in Jacob's side as he chuckled at the idea of Charlie punishing me. "But finally I called enough for Billy to tell me that you guys were at Sam's fiancée's house. Tell him congrats for me, I guess." He sounded dejected now, like he had burned through all his energy being angry.

I glanced at Sam, and he simply nodded. "Sam says thanks," I said quietly, leaning my head into Jacob again. I was so tired of all the worrying. "I'm seriously really sorry, Dad."

"I know you are. I know you wouldn't purposely give me a heart attack. It must have been pretty stressful for you." He paused. "But you're still in trouble."

Jake chuckled again, and his rumbling was a comfort. I closed my eyes. "I don't blame you."

"Okay, well how is Jake feeling, then?"

"He's doing well. Do you want to talk to him?" I looked up at Jacob, and he shrugged.

"No, I'm sure he's not really up for much. Can't be easy being sick with all those people around you."

"You're probably right."

"Okay, I'll let you go now, Bells. Get home safe, and actually keep me updated this time, okay?"

"You got it, Dad. Love you."

"Love you too, kid." He hung up the phone, and I sighed into the receiver when he was gone, feeling like I needed a hundred more naps.

Jacob took the phone from me and put it back on its hook, tipping my chin up so I was looking at him. "Your dad is kind of insane."

"He's just looking out for me. He worries."

Jacob pursed his lips, and I fought the urge to reach up and touch them. I didn't want his friends to make fun of him even more. "You know, I'd probably be the same way."

I grinned and laughed, taking his hand from its spot on my chin. "I was the same way, when you disappeared."

"She was." Paul said, nodding and looking wary, and I looked back at Jacob to see he was grinning.

"Jeez, Bella, why are you so obsessed with me? It's creepy," Jake said, and I rolled my eyes.

"You're the one with some weird wolfy imprint thing that has yet to be explained to me."

"Oh, yeah." Jacob stopped looking playful and almost looked embarrassed, and I shook my head quickly, figuring it was something he and I could talk about alone.

"Actually, I have a more important question." My nightmare hadn't been the first thing on my mind, but it had been bugging me enough for me to ask about it. "When you – out there, after everything. And when you first changed. You guys can talk in your minds, right?"

Jake nodded, and I glanced at the others, seeing they were agreeing as well. "So does that mean that you're still…yourselves?" I couldn't find a better way to put it, and Jacob standing so close to me pursing his stupid perfect lips wasn't helping my concentration. "Like, when you're wolves, are you still the same?"

"We have the same thought processes and everything, yes. We aren't dangerous, generally." Sam had a very textbook way of talking about things. "We're more prone to instincts, though. Which is why it's dangerous for us to be angry around those who can't protect themselves as well as other wolves can. When we turn while we're angry, we become big angry wolves, who are likely to attack."

I shivered, and Jacob returned to my side, his arm moving around my waist again. "What about in the alley? Or outside, just now? If me or Emily had gone out there…" Sam's eyes flashed, and I knew I shouldn't have brought Emily into it. "If I had gone out there. Would one of you have hurt me?"

"Absolutely not," Jacob's voice said from above me, and I glanced up to see his jaw set. Was he angry or just resolute? "We're the same people, just in different bodies. What Sam is talking about doesn't happen often. And even when it does, our instincts don't necessarily rule us. Or so I've heard, at least." Jacob wanted to reassure me, but he knew he couldn't for sure. He hadn't been a wolf any longer than I had known about them.

"Jacob's right. We have the same human emotions, the same connections with people, the same thoughts. It would be an anomaly for a human to wander into our path, and even less likely for us to accidentally hurt them. Vampires smell like something that we need to attack. Humans don't. You really don't have anything to worry about when we're in our wolf forms, Bella. If anything, we're safer that way." Sam looked confident, and that helped to reassure me. I nodded, for some reason fighting the urge to cry.

One less thing to worry about, Bella, I encouraged mentally. "Thank you for clearing it up. I was very worried, honestly. I didn't know how safe it was."

"Never stopped you before," Jared said, and I had to smile. No, safety, or lack thereof, never seemed to stop me.

The rest of the day was spent in sort of faux peace. We all knew there was a vampire woman out there, and every once in a while a boy or two would go out and "run patrol," but it was never my Jacob. I had a feeling that it wouldn't be this way forever, that he and I would have to stop being attached at the hip and I would have to let him leave and be a wolf eventually, but I was glad to have this day. Where he and I were close, and together, and both well.

Around four, I knew I needed to get home and be with Charlie. A home-cooked meal would not only probably ease his mind, but would also get me back in his good graces. I murmured to Jacob my thoughts, and he nodded, saying he'd need to talk to Sam. Despite his earlier explanation, that upset me, but I tried to hide it as best as I could.

After much thought, Sam agreed to let Jacob come with me back to Forks. I had a feeling that had Jared or Paul been the "Alpha" – as Jacob had put it in one of our many conversations – they wouldn't have understood Jake's imprint, which I had gathered meant he felt almost like he needed to be with me. But since Sam knew how Jacob was feeling, he had let him go.

We rode in the Rabbit back to Jake's, where he checked in on Billy and let his father see that he was in one piece, and then took my truck on the rainy roads back to Forks. I drove, and it was hard not to stare at him the whole way, but I had a feeling it would have been harder for Jacob. So I settled for feeling his warm body at my side, as close as we could manage on my truck's bench seat.

"You know, Jacob," I said, breaking what had been a comfortable silence. I didn't want to talk about the imprint thing until I could watch him speaking, so we were going to wait until we were alone at my house. "This is actually – I mean, it's not bad."

He laughed. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, it could be worse. You could have so many other problems. You could be a secret drug addict, or a murderer, or I dunno, in a gang even. You kind of are in a gang now, but that's not the gang I'm talking about." He was laughing again, and I elbowed him. He had informed me earlier that it was unlikely I could ever really cause him physical pain no matter how much effort I used, due to his new and ever-increasing werewolf strength, but I figured it would have the same meaning if not the same effect. "But your only problem is that you turn into a wolf sometimes. And that's not even a problem."

He didn't speak, and I was glad I wasn't looking at him; his thoughtful lip-biting made me dizzy and unfocused every time I witnessed it. "I'm glad you feel that way."

I laughed. "You sound so formal. I'm serious, Jacob. This is great. So you turn into a wolf. That's like – really cool. And if that's the worst thing about you, then you're more than perfect. I feel very lucky." I had told him that I felt lucky before, but I meant it, and wanted him to know it.

"You're crazy, Bella." He leaned down and kissed my forehead, not my hair this time. "Believe me. No matter how many vampires I have to chase around or how kind of crappy it is to be a wolf, I feel super lucky that I have you." And I glanced at him, and saw his brown eyes looking so intense and sure and happy as they gazed down at me, and I didn't want this moment to end.