Disclaimer: I obviously do not own Twilight or any of its characters, however, I do own this storyline…and Myra.

AN: I know I'm writing a Bella/Jasper story and probably shouldn't spend so much time on Jake, but I really wanted to write something with the wolves. I actually love that part of Breaking Dawn. But they won't really be a part of the story from now on so try not to get attached. =)

To ease things over with you all, I promise that Jasper will in fact show up in the next chapter.

Chapter 3 - Deafening Silence


Jacob's POV:

Just as my big, heavy paws hit the ground, I heard Bella's whispered pleading from the bedroom. "Be careful."

I would try my hardest to focus my thoughts on that, on the love I knew she felt for me, and not on the despairing thought that it would never be enough. The image of her hopeful expression earlier, her big brown eyes entirely mesmerized by something outside the window, made me wince as it invaded my mind.

"Aw, Jake, sorry bro. That's gotta suck." Oh crap. Seth's thoughts were utterly sincere, meant to console, but I still wished he'd kept his shabby ass out of my business.

"And of my girlfriend's naked body!" Seth, embarrassed at being caught, ceased his dissection of another image of Bella he'd snagged from my head.

"Self-absorbed much?" His sister pitched in with a mocking sneer. "You think we want to see her naked, covered in sweat, moaning your name? -- Stop thinking about it then, you perv!" The irony of it all were that I was still running all alone here.

"Nice to see you too, Leah."

However impossible, she didn't respond, and the absence of her mental jabs made me notice how disturbingly silent my mind was. It felt almost deafening as I searched for the absent thoughts. Sam wasn't here? How was that even possible? I'd heard him howl no more than a minute ago.

"I don't know, and neither are Quil, Embry or Jared." Seth answered flatly, though the kid seemed seriously freaked out. To be honest, I didn't exactly blame him. The growing trepidation made my troubling evening with Bella recede to the back of my consciousness. Dread sharpened my senses, and I finally registered the blistering sting in my nostrils. A sickly, too-sweet, burning scent clung to the forest floor, the trees and plants along the trail, just a few paces to my left.

Vampire.

I felt cold all over. One stride was out of rhythm before I adjusted my line to follow it closely.

"Guys, do you smell that?" The sudden alarm made me significantly increase my pace.

"Only through your nose, there's not trail over here". Leah was too focused to even bother adding a vicious edge to her tone. Vampire in the woods while Sam mysteriously out of reach made her fear the absolute worst.

The trail seemed to go in a straight line from Bella's house to where Sam had called to us. How had I not realized this right away? I must have run on the bastards trail all along, too occupied with Bella's crazy blast from the past to pay any attention. What a crappy werewolf I'd become, couldn't even smell a god-damned vamp…!

And then it hit me.

Bella. Our bed. Her face. The window. Had she really seen…? Was it actually…? Maybe someone random, or had he...? I braced myself.

Were the Cullen's back? I didn't especially want that thought to surface, the implications were to many. When I last met the filthy blood-sucker, I hadn't been a werewolf; so I couldn't tell if the stench I now voluntarily rubbed my nose in belonged to that bastard. It wasn't familiar to me.

"I'm here, what's going on guys?" Jared had finally phased. "I got a bit delayed at Kim's." A collective sigh of relief could be heard. I for one didn't lose focus.

"You're not the only one who was occupied, you know!" I knew I took my growing fear out on him, but it's not like he didn't deserve it. At least a little.

"Do you recognize the smell anyway, is it them?" I almost roared at Paul and Jared. They HAD been wolves before the Cullens left Forks.

"I'm not sure, it's possible" Jared answered in an off-handed and irritated voice, clearly he thought I'd lost it. "I never got a chance to run patrol before they left, only traces of their scent lingered. Sorry man." I didn't especially enjoy hearing the pity, painfully apparent in his voice.

"Who cares!" Paul was getting seriously worked up. "A leech is a leech. We'll kill it no matter what, who cares if it's THE CULLENS!" He overly emphasized the last part with a mocking sneered. "If they're on our land – I'll…"

"Technically, I'm on their land." I couldn't believe I was arguing with him. Had Bella's crazy love for them and persistence on how they were 'good' vampires – as is if there was such a thing – gotten to me somehow?

"YOU IDIOTS!" Leah finally had enough. "Remember Sam, Embry, Quil? Doesn't bother you at all that we can't hear them, huh?" I couldn't believe I'd gotten derailed - again. Bella, the Cullens - it all apparently made me slightly delirious. I realized how dispersed we all were without strong leadership, and suddenly appreciated how much Sam had to deal with on a daily basis. As his second in command, I guess it was now my job to keep us focused. Something else I clearly sucked at today.

"You're right Leah." I didn't particularly like to admit that fact. "Mind in the game, guys!"

I could feel everyone tense for action and was not surprised that no one argued with me; at this point we were all seriously worried. Five minutes since I left Bella's house, and still nothing from any of them, not a whisper. The track I was following was pretty fresh, at most the vampire passed no more than fifteen minutes ago, and I was slowly gaining on it. As I approached the location where Sam had last been heard, the vampire's trace was diluted with others.

Sam, Embry and Quil's familiar scents were the first thing I noticed, but intertwined with it, almost covering it, was the unmistakable rusty tang of blood.

A lot of blood.

The fragrance of it embraced me as I broke through the trees into a small clearing in the woods. The hair stood up at the back of my neck and every defensive instinct I had was triggered by the view in front of me.

In the middle of the clearing lay a young girl, maybe around 16 years old. Her legs and arms were spread out from her in strange distorted angles, as if she spent the last few minutes trashing around uncontrollably before she suddenly froze mid-movement. Her green eyes were wide open, fear written all over their glazed stare. A small drop of blood, pooled from a wound over her left eye, threatened to fall from her eyelashes. The girl was unmistakably dead.

The only other mark on her body was a teeth-shaped bloody crescent visible on the left side of her neck. The rare parts of her skin actually discernible were pale and almost transparent, as if she'd been entirely deprived of color. Her long-sleeved shirt and jeans were covered in a thick layer of blood. Even her long hair was drenched in a dark red, making her true hair color almost undetectable. It created an eerie contrast to her chalky pale features.

Unfortunately, she was not the source of the massive amount of blood spread all around the clearing as if a sprinkler from hell had been at work. In fact, other than the blood on her face and in her hair, I couldn't smell any blood from her in the clearing. It was consumed, almost nothing spilled.

No, the blood wasn't hers – It was Embry's.

I recognized his fur at once. Parts of him were spread all around the small clearing. The leech had ripped him to pieces; an arm here, a leg there, parts of his torso and his tail lay next to the girl. I closed my eyes, nausea threatening at the back of my throat, when my gaze located his head; tilted on the side with dead eyes staring into nothingness, his tongue slightly out. I stumbled to the ground, the most unbearable grief I'd ever felt overtaking me; mirrored and intensified by the others who'd witnessed the same thing through my eyes.

The suspended silence broke as Leah suddenly burst into the clearing and went straight for Sam's still form, phasing back to human as she got there. I had been too consumed by the mayhem in front of me to notice much else, but there were three more bodies in the clearing.

Leah's naked form hovered over Sam. "Come on, wake up! You can't leave me, you can't! I won't let you – SAM!" Her pleading seemed to have some effect, and I felt a shudder of relief pass through me as his eyelids twitched and I could see a flicker of consciousness start to take over.

"Ahh…where am? …oh no, Embry!... I was too late, couldn't save him…he got away." I winced as more and more of his coherent thoughts poured into me, showing me the culprit, clear and deadly. The hate flowing through me as I recognized him, felt as if my blood had caught on fire - it incinerated me. I would hunt that bastard down and destroy him myself! I rose from the ground, tensed to spring when Sam's commanding voice, the only thing able to, halted me.

"NO Jacob, you'll be too reckless. See what happened here. Jared, Paul, pick up his trail – you're closer anyway. Seth, go fetch help. Jake, stay here!" I was shocked and furious with his decision. My whole frame shook and a low growl caught in my throat. My defiance faded slightly when I noticed that Sam had passed out again. Leah frantically searched his body for bite marks, and sighed with relief as she couldn't find any. At least he wasn't poisoned.

"Jake, check on Quil." Leah sounded amazingly calm, which somehow unfroze me and sent me into practical mode. Quil had to be ok. He just had to be; I couldn't lose anyone else today. I leaped swiftly to his heaped form, still too furious to phase back to human. Instead, I puffed on him gently with my nose, again and again, desperately begging him to wake up. His chocolate-brown fur was stained with blood, but the only wound I could find was a blow to his head, already healed over. No bites. Thank god. I could hear his heartbeat but the pace was too slow, scaring me half to death. I whined towards Leah.

"Oh, what the hell Jake, why won't you phase back already?" Between the two of us, we managed to shake him into an awakened state and got him to understand that he had to phase. It looked like both he and Sam would make it – they just needed to sleep and heal.

Jared's thoughts invaded my mind, regretful and furious. "Jake, we lost him. He got into the water."

The bastard got away - he went unpunished for this. I leaned back, my neck arched, and howled into the still night; releasing some of the anger and sorrow I couldn't contain within me anymore. As the sound ebbed to nothingness I was left feeling empty; a hollow void inside of me instead of organs working together in unison.

"Oh my god…" Someone whimpered to my left.

Although I knew she'd been there all along, the sound almost made me jump. The girl sat huddled up, her arms cradling her knees as she rocked back and forth. She was rather tall with a lean, fit build, and long disarrayed chestnut-colored hair curled around her tensed face. Her vibrant green eyes flickered between us, clearly trying to fully grasp the situation. It appeared like I freaked her out the most. The way she stared at me reminded me of Bella that first time in the meadow. She'd looked at me as if she thought I was scarier than the leech about to kill her, just like this girl did right now. It was almost amusing, if I'd been able to entertain that emotion anymore.

I huffed at Leah, indicating with a tilt of my head that she should see to the girl. Leah pulled on the clothes she had attached in the string on her ankle and walked over and sat down beside her. The girl winced slightly as Leah put one hand on her arm.

"Hey, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm Leah, what's your name?" I've never heard her sound so gentle before. I didn't know she had it in her.

"Myra" The girl seemed to pull it together at the sound of her own voice. "My name is Myra."

"OK, Myra, can you tell us what happened?" Leah spoke slowly, as if she were addressing a child. The girl obviously noticed and did not appreciate the tone. She glared at Leah, stretching out her back slightly as she sat up against the tree, poise and strength radiating out from her. She looked kind of beautiful, even covered in blood.

"You were a wolf, just now – I didn't imagine that did I?" Her eyes flicked briefly to me before returning to Leah's. "What are you?"

"I'm a werewolf, and so are they." She nodded her head at the rest of us. "And we aren't dangerous to you, we protect humans."

"Oh, I know." Leah seemed stunned, and so was I. "I was here, wasn't I?" As if that cleared everything up.

"Can you please tell us everything, from the beginning?" Leah's voice was demanding. The gloves had apparently come off rather quickly. This was the Leah I knew and loved.

"My little sister Sarah and I were camping here, just a little up the hill. We thought we'd explore the surroundings a bit before hitting the sack. Sarah ran ahead when she noticed this clearing, and when I caught up with her…" She looked visibly paler. "She wasn't alone."

Most of Myra's story had already been pretty clear to Leah and me; a man had gotten her sister and bit her and when Myra tried to stop him he had thrown her into a tree.

"…Without his lips leaving her throat, he said 'I told you - you have to wait your turn'. It seemed like he was drinking her blood…like some kind of vampire…" She looked like she finally realized something.

"That's it, isn't it? That guy was a vampire? Vampires, werewolves…what kind of place is this?!"

"Yes, yes he was." Leah's patience was deteriorating by the second. "What happened with the wolves?" Myra glared at her, but continued.

"Before I could get up, a giant wolf came charging in to the clearing, going straight for the…vampire, and Sarah dropped to the ground. When the vampire noticed what attacked him, he looked furious, almost insane - I've never seen anything scarier in my life" She flicked her eyes at me again as if re-evaluating that notion.

"He screamed 'YOU! You don't deserve her, you're no better than me' and begun tearing at the wolf. Blood was everywhere, and Sarah just screamed and screamed…" A tear escaped her eyes and she wiped it off quickly, clearly not wanting to show weakness.

"When he was - done...he took a deep breath and seemed to realize something. 'It's not him' he muttered and that's when those guys" she indicated Sam and Quil "attacked him with a vengeance. I was afraid he would kill them too, but he just threw them like he did me, and vanished."

I finally understood. Everything that had happened this evening came together with perfect clarity. My heart iced over, still keeping a steady pace; only every beat felt like a sharp blade carving through the frosty surface.

Embry had been a stand-in for me - I was the reason he was dead.

Anguish, unbearably guilt and even resentment towards Bella burned through me, slowly consuming the raging anger. Without it pushing adrenaline through my veins, I was finally able to phase. The familiar shudder rippled along my spine, and my human heart broke as the sorrow became almost too much to bear in this form.

"It's over now. Everything will be ok." Leah reassured the girl and got up, her mind already wandering.

"Hmpf!" The girl actually scoffed, her eyes gazing down on her bloody hands.

Leah and I exchanged startled looks as Myra's mouth pulled up into a sarcastic smile.

"Oh really - It'll be ok? I've just lost my baby sister, found out that vampires and giant werewolves or something exists and you say everything will be ok?" She finally looked up from her hands and her big, angry eyes locked on mine. "Really?"

The world swirled around me, yet time seemed frozen. I felt as if I was pushed through a black hole, the pressure of its gravity reshaping me and her eyes the only thing holding me in this dimension. Everything had a new purpose, a new meaning - even the grief over Embry's death came into a different perspective. She was everything.

Myra.

"And WHY is this idiot staring at me like I'm the freaking Holy Grail?"

Please review – good or bad! This chapter just seemed to run away from me, somehow I couldn't get it to go where I wanted. Maybe the fact that I wrote this with a raging flu going on could have something to do with it.

I'm sorry I had to kill off Embry, it was a needed causality.