The wind howled through the forest, whipping my hair around my shoulders and face, fighting against me as I ran between the trees. The sky sizzled, crackled, popped with light, and an irritated growl followed, vibrating the earth under my feet. Rained tumbled down on me from the canopy above, wildly, viciously flung free from the leaves that were helpless against the wind. It tapped against my skin loudly, ferociously before being flung once again, lost to the forest in my haste.

For the first time since the fire, the forest felt wild, untamed, free, like it and I had become one in the same. The fury, the power, felt familiar, raging for once on the outside instead of in, and it was a strange feeling of joy that fueled my crazed race through the forest.

I crested the hill and stopped, carefully examining the trees around me. The choice was easy and I didn't think long before I leaped and climbed the tallest in sight. Without the canopy dispersing the rain, its tap on my skin was stronger, more savage, and I could feel its sting when it landed. I raised my arms to the sky, letting it bite at my hands, my torso, my breasts, and relished in the feeling of the rain beating down on my skin. Tilting my head back, face to the sky, I laughed, letting loose a sound that was half music, half shriek. I'd not felt so alive, so at home, since I escaped the fire, and the joy of kinship was nearly overwhelming.

I lingered in the tree top well after the storm had passed, watching watery rays of sun poke through the clouds, letting the faint breeze try to dry my hair. Eventually, predictably, my mind wandered back to Charlie.

In the three days since my phone call to Jacob, I'd been restless, uncomfortable, and had not been able to get Charlie out of my mind. He consumed my thoughts as I ran, as I bathed, as I hunted, as I fed. It seemed like no matter what I was doing thoughts of Charlie were always with me, always there, at the forefront. Who was he? What was he? Where was he? And why the hell could I not get him out of my mind?

I only had the answer to one of those questions. I couldn't free myself of thoughts of him because he was alive, he knew me. He wasn't a dream, wasn't someone I'd met in another time, another era. He was somewhere now, he knew me now, and he was looking for me, if Jacob was to be believed. If I was ever going to learn more about myself, learn what happened to me before the fire, I had to find him.

Tired of the tree tops and thoughts of the man with the mustache, I shifted forward and slid from the branches, sending myself plummeting toward the earth. I landed heavily on bent legs, the force of my fall displacing the soil under my feet, and I rose from my crouch smoothly, breathing deeply and using a practiced eye to scan the forest. Everything smelled heavy and dense, rich and fertile, and I couldn't resist blowing my first breath out and sucking another one in just to savour the scent. My second breath hitched, though, well before my lungs were full, and I coughed out the air, repulsed at the stench. The whisper of wind from the north carried with it a foul scent, something dirty, yeasty, unkempt, and something totally unfamiliar. I pointed my feet to the north and took off at a run.

The source of the scent was a man, tall and broad, russet coloured with short black hair. I stopped a dozen yards away to watch him, to observe, and found myself puzzled at his behaviour. He was simply walking. He was shirtless, shoeless, with no gear and no backpack. I had never encountered a camper or a hiker with no shoes and no backpack. I could hear his heart thumping away, could hear the rhythmic whoosh of blood through veins, but had no desire to put something so distasteful in my mouth. This man wasn't like the others. He was different, special, and for a wild second I thought he might be like me. Maybe he was strong, and fast, answered the call of blood, and sparkled in the sunlight. I watched, so still I didn't even bat an eyelash, as his long strides ate up the distance to the next weak patch of light. My stomach felt hollow when I didn't see him sparkle on the way through.

Suddenly the man stopped, stood straighter, and inhaled deeply, swiveling his head to look in my general direction. "Bella?" he called quietly, in a deep, pleasant voice, while I cowered deeper in the shadows. His eyes studied the trees, the shadows around me for just a moment before he looked back the way he'd been walking. He stood, seemingly torn, before turning and pacing toward me.

Startled, I ran.

"Dammit," the man spat, before setting off after me. He was fast but I was faster, and I could hear the sounds of him crashing through the underbrush getting softer and more distant the further I'd gone. After I'd gone a few miles and couldn't hear him behind me at all, I stopped running and settled myself on a big rock near a lake. For the first time in days, my mind wasn't on Charlie – it was on the man in the woods.

There was something strange about the man, something I felt I should know, should remember, but I was clueless. He'd looked normal. He'd sounded normal. But he hadn't been prepared for a hike in the woods. Where had he come from? What was he doing? And why had he called me Bella?

My forehead wrinkled as I thought, and I reclined on my rock, staring up at the bright leaves, wishing the sun would come back out. I'd been called Bella before, by Jacob on the phone, both times I had spoken with him. Was that Jacob I'd encountered in the forest? The idea was startling, unsettling and I hopped off my rock immediately and ran back the way I'd come.

I didn't know who Jacob was past the voice on the phone, but he seemed to know me, he claimed to know Charlie, he told me he'd come for me. What if he had come for me and I'd missed my chance by running? What if he'd been searching for me, to tell me where Charlie was, and I'd run off before he could?

I picked up his scent a few miles from the lake, and followed the path that went to the west since I knew that hadn't been the way we'd come. The terrible odor was easy to follow and I did so mindlessly, thoughts of Charlie clouding my mind so thoroughly I didn't notice the giant brown wolf until I was upon him.

I usually didn't encounter animals in the woods. Most of them smelled me, heard me, and ran the other way, rightfully recognizing who in the forest was at the top of the food chain. Occasionally, though, a mountain lion, a bear, would wander into my path, would want to fight, would want to challenge me for the position of dominant predator. My natural prey was weak and didn't fight, but that didn't mean I wasn't a warrior. There were very few feelings more satisfying than using my strength, my skill, my cunning to take out a challenger, and I was always up for a good fight.

I was on the wolf in a second, my teeth tearing into his shoulder, my nails scratching at him through his fur. He was big, bigger than any other wolf I'd encountered, but I figured that taking him out would be the same. Just disable his legs than go for the throat. But the wolf was strong and faster than I'd expected. He bucked against me, dislodging my teeth, and used his own teeth to bite into my arm and throw me into a tree. The tree cracked on impact and started to fall but I barely noticed through my rage. His teeth had done some damage, the skin on my arm was broken, and I was seeing red.

I launched myself at the wolf blindly, biting viciously into his leg. Foul tasting blood filled my mouth as my teeth cut through tendon, and the wolf howled in pain, wheeling around to take a snap at me. He managed to get my ankle and held onto it, biting into it viciously, and jerking his head to toss me clear. A scream tore from my throat in equal parts pain and fury as my body knocked into, knocked down the second tree. I wasn't giving up though. The fucking wolf was going down.

I lurched to my feet and screamed again, this time in pure rage when I realized my leg was all but useless. Thinking quickly, being clever, I scaled the closest tree, using my arms to climb while the wolf stood staring at me, breathing heavily, watching me with his dark eyes while blood flowed steadily from his injured leg. He realized my plan just a half a second before I put it into action, but didn't have enough time to scramble out of my path before I jumped.

I landed on his back, clamping my thighs down over his ribs, and felt a grim pleasure when he howled in pain as they snapped. He whipped his head around, trying to grab me, but I was too quick, scooting up his body and clamping down on his neck with my teeth before he could reach. His legs buckled beneath him and he fell to the ground, howling, whimpering with pain. I stayed with him and held on tight as we fell, my body landing on top of his damaging his ribs further.

He wiggled and rolled, trying to buck me off, trying to pin me under his body, but I held on tight, staying right with him. I used strong legs and arms to tighten up on him when he'd try to toss me, working my way up his body in the seconds it was safe to let go. He tried to snap at me once, twice, as I shimmied my way up and managed clamped my legs around his neck. I used what little strength I still possessed to tighten them, then tightened them some more. The bones in his neck crunched between my thighs with a sound that made me feel both disgusted and triumphant, and he finally stilled. Silence descended on our section of the forest, and I released my grip and rolled off of him.

I considered biting him, ripping his throat out to ensure he was dead and to punish him for injuring me so badly. I lay supine, ignoring the pain in my arm and leg, staring at him blankly, really considering it. In the end I decided against it, remembering the sickening taste I'd gotten when I'd bitten him, really not wanting to experience that again.

It started raining then, the soft, leisurely rain that I was used to in the forest, and I hauled myself as best I could up to my feet. I couldn't run, I couldn't walk, so I settled for hobbling away from his corpse, deeper into the forest.