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They gave me presents, actual presents. I had been here only just two weeks, I hadn't expected a thing but I had woken up to a pile of presents all for me. I had a few from Sam and Emily and then others from various guys of the pack but it was obvious Emily had chosen them all, still, it was the thought that counts. I had been given a lot of candy, fluffy socks and pyjama's, various chick flicks, make up sets, nail polishes and from Kim I had what looked like a hand carved picture frame, the wood was twisted and shaped into perfect swirls that looked like thick tree branches and trunks, leaves were detailed in here and there and a short word carved in at the bottom, I couldn't read it because it wasn't English but it was the most beautiful frame I had ever seen.

I hadn't got Sam or Emily anything but neither one asked nor seemed to look for one, I had come here with little money to hand. My inheritance although not much was put into savings for when I decided to go to college, not that I was looking at attending college, I was never very academic. I had applied for a summer dance programme but not for actual college, it had never been high on my priorities and after mom died I completely gave up on any thoughts for my future, dance was now out of the question too.

That thought killed me, today was killing me. It wasn't even that I felt like I was intruding it just felt wrong, this time last year I was huddled around a small tree in the front room/my moms bedroom in Chicago opening presents that more often than not revolved around dance or my favourite bands with my mom filming every second of it as if I were still a child. This year she was gone and the dancing was gone, as I helped Emily prepare lunch the Christmas music was on but my mom wasn't there doing her god awful booty shakes or high notes that could crack glass. I missed the sight of her embarrassing Santa sweater and her cheeks that blushed red with the more wine she drank. My mom and I never had much but our house was never lacking in laughs or smiles, she made sure of that. This place was full of happiness too, but it wasn't the same. I wanted my mom here. I knew Christmas would be hard but this was worse than I thought, each time I smile or laughed with my brother and Emily I felt like I had forgotten her, like I had cheated on how it should be.

"Hey" I jumped as Sam's voice cut through the silence of my bedroom; I turned to look at him dropping the picture frame Kim had got for me to my desk.

"Hey" I sounded sad, I probably looked it too. I wanted to cry, I wanted to curl up in a ball and kick myself for going along with this morning as if the most important person in my life wasn't missing. For an hour or two I had forgotten the gaping hole in my life where my mother should be and now I felt like shit.

"You ok?" He edged himself in more and leant against the wooden door frame. I nodded at him but he raised his eyebrows telling me he could see through my lie. "It's ok to miss her Savannah, it's also ok to be happy" His voice dropped to a whisper, as if scared that he was over stepping the line. He wasn't, his words cut at my chest but he hadn't overstepped his mark. He was right, but it still didn't feel right. It wouldn't for a long time, that hole couldn't be filled.

I didn't want to talk about it, the lump in my throat would only grow more and the tears wouldn't be able to stay in and so I simply gulped and picked the frame from Kim up. "I was just wondering what this meant, I can't read it" I held it out for him and he strode across to me taking the frame as he came to a stop.

"You wouldn't be able to, it's Quileute" His thick finger ran over the carved words and never ending branches and leaves. "It means friend, it's from Kim?" He looked up at me and I nodded back, a smile playing my sad lips as he told me the meaning of the word.

Friend, that was nice. I liked Kim a lot, she was very sweet and very caring, she was a good friend to have.

"That's nice, she didn't have to. None of you did, I've only been here two weeks" I took the frame back and my eyes fell on the pile of presents now lying on my bed.

"You're my sister, buying you presents has nothing to do with the time period you've been at my house" Sam was smiling as he spoke and I blushed a little, I liked hearing him refer to me as sister. Although we had known each other all my life practically and we had been comfortable and at ease with one another, we had never been that close. He had never played a protective big brother role or openly talked about me being his family. Lately he had done it a lot and I liked hearing it, when my mom died I felt like I had no one left but Sam was slowly letting me see that I did.

"Well thank you" I put the frame back down, my eye scanning the word again. "I didn't realise you had your own language, I mean you don't speak it normally"

"No I guess like with a lot of old tribal languages it died out, the council went through a period when I was at school of trying to re-introduce it and so they taught it more and encouraged families to use simple phrases such as when saying good night. A lot of people don't speak it, I mean Quil wouldn't have a clue if you asked him to read something as simple as one, two, three, four" He started chuckling and I smiled with him, Quil wasn't stupid by any means but he was very laid back and I can imagine at school he got the grades he got and that was fine with him, the sort of guy that if he graduated then he graduated if he didn't then he didn't.

"What about the others?"

"Ummm yeah, I suppose they all speak it but not fluently, well Jacob is a wiz, his parents used it a lot when he was younger. Kim is practically fluent but its Kim so I wouldn't expect anything less, the others are the same I suppose, they get taught it at school and so they know what sticks with them, same with me" I nodded along with him, I would suck at learning the language. I hardly knew their tribal histories let alone be able to pronounce their words.

"I'm about to go pick my mom up, did you want to come with me?" Sam turned and looked down at me as he backed away from where I leant against my dressing table. My hand flew to the locket around my neck, I knew his mom but I only saw her when my mom was there too. It was the main part of today I wasn't necessarily looking forward too, no doubt his mom would mention mine or ask questions, things I wasn't quite ready for.

"No thank you" I squeaked a little and he continued toward the door, a thought him me before he left and I called out stopping him. "Actually, would you mind if I went for a walk? I feel like I have eaten a horse and I could really do with some air" I looked out of my window toward the trees, I liked it out there. It was peaceful and I could be alone, it was a freezing cold day, a few snow flakes had fallen this morning but nothing a jacket couldn't protect me from. Sam said nothing for a minute but I heard the floor boards creak under his weight.

"Uhh yeah, just don't go too far and don't be too long. It's cold and it will be dark soon" He sounded off, somewhat hesitant but when I turned to look he had gone fully from my view.

I didn't wait around for anybody to halt me; I simply grabbed a few extra layers, a jacket, a thick woolly scarf and my ankle boots before running downstairs. Emily was on the phone to her mom and so simply waved at me as I walked out, Sam had already left and so I hurried my way to the tree line. The sky was a thick dirty white colour, full of snow as my mom used to say. The air even amongst these thick trees was crisp and wintery, each intake of breath brought me a sharp sting, winter was well and truly here. I loved the crisp air of winter, I always had. I loved seeing my breath hitting the air around me when I breathed and how the twigs and leaves crunched beneath my feet.

I concentrated so hard on the sounds of the ground and the wintery woodland that I hadn't realised how far in I had become, it was darkening fast but I wasn't afraid. Even out here in isolation this place seemed safe, protected. It was so beautiful how could anything harmful live here?

I stopped as I reached a small opening, there was a stream running through the middle of it, only a tiny stream. It was frozen over and I dunked my foot onto the layer of ice that cracked instantly, cold water soaked onto my leather shoe but my foot got no colder. It was only then when I stopped to watch the ice layer cracking that I heard a snap behind me, the crunching of leaves I had listened to hard to earlier was now following me and I span myself around. My heart plummeted when I saw the person hurrying from behind the thick trees, my cold body flushed with an annoyed heat and the equally annoyed stare I knew so well looked right back at me.

"What the hell are you doing out here?" Paul snapped at me, he was in jeans and a skimpy white t-shirt, yet he wasn't shivering. I was in several layers and I still stood here turning blue.

"Walking, Sam said I could" I squeaked a little as I talked and Paul gave a harsh eye roll as he watched me.

"Well that makes it all better then doesn't it" His words snapped at me loudly and a flutter of birds flew out of the trees above us, he was loud when he was annoyed. But this was hardly my fault, he was following me not the other way around. "You shouldn't be out here"

"So why are you?" I snapped back instantly and the big man in front of me stopped in his movements and eyed me up. I didn't quiver under his stare I simply held it, he was fine to snap at me and make me feel stupid but he didn't expect me to dish it out.

"Not that it's your business but I'm working, it's my job to be out here to make sure stupid little girls don't get hurt" He spat as he talked and my heart jolted in my chest, he thought I was stupid. I had only come for a walk to get out of my negative and aching thoughts but now I wish I hadn't.

"I'm not stupid" I sounded pathetic; I just needed to shut up.

"Coming this far out alone is stupid Savannah, it's not safe out here and Sam should know better. Anything can happen out here and nobody would know, so yes it is a stupid thing to do" I would have answered back but my mind lingered too long on the fact he had said my name, I don't think I had heard him say my name since I got here but now he did it sounded so melodic, it rolled from his tongue like a lullaby and all I could do was replay it in my head. "Come on, I'll take you home" He huffed as I said nothing back to him and held out his hand, not to take mine but to guide me in the right direction.

My own defence came springing up now though and I stood defiantly where I was. "I'm sure you have better things to do than take a stupid little girl home" I wanted to sound confident and snappy, like he did but I failed miserably. I could hear the sadness in my voice and so could he.

"I do but unlike your brother I know it's safer that I take you myself, so come on" He held his hand out still and still I didn't take his guiding. I would go home, not because he was telling me to but because I was cold.

"It's fine I can take myself, I'm good with directions" I snapped a little better this time and went to walk past him, his hand dropped and he simply watched me go as I walked through the trees, I wasn't sure it was the right direction but I kept going anyway.

"Didn't realise you lived in Forks" Paul's voice called out and I turned to look at him, his eyebrow was raised in a cocky sort of smirk. Obviously it wasn't the right direction, I turned on the spot and marched away to my right, I could hear him following me still.

I tried ignoring him but his footsteps were too hard to block out, he was a loud walker. As my mom would say, he sounded like a herd of elephants. My eyes scanned the surroundings, it looked familiar but I was in a place full of trees, it all looked the same. I looked around trying to find the funny shaped tree I had paid attention to on my walk out here, it had looked like the tree from Pocahontas, the curves in it looked somewhat like a face but as I looked around now not Pocahontas tree could be seen.

"You're going the wrong way" His voice offered up behind me and I sighed in agitation. I didn't want him to follow me; he had done enough of that today.

"Don't you have more stupid little girls to go and annoy?" I mumbled under my breath as I continued on my way and he barked a laugh out behind me.

"Nope just you, all the other stupid little girls are sat playing with their princess make up sets and dolls, shouldn't you be doing the same?" His heavy footing began again and I stopped, he shouldn't have heard me say that I had whispered it. But that wasn't what annoyed me, his words did.

"Well, I haven't played with dollies since I was seven so it's your lucky day, obviously" I tried not to look at him, I wanted to, I wanted to look at his beautiful coloured skin and his defined jaw line but I didn't. I just looked at the trees towering over me and tried to remember the way I had come.

"Obviously" He remarked sarcastically and I huffed before walking off through a set of trees that looked familiar but the further through them I walked the more annoyed I got, even more so when I came to a halt beside the stream I had seen earlier, the same piece of ice cracked on top of it. I had gone in a loop.

"I thought you said you were good with directions?" Paul's voice became closer than I expected and I jumped as his arm brushed against my jacket, I hadn't heard him come that close. I let out a long sigh as I realised he was never going to leave me alone out here.

"You aren't going to leave me alone are you?" I asked for confirmation and he shook his head.

"No, I've never had a death on my watch and I'm not about to start now. This way, little girl" He had his smirk on as he began walking away into the woods, it annoyed me the way he said little girl. It's like he thought of me as a child when I was anything but. I didn't want to follow him but I had too, I had got myself lost.

"Why would anyone have a death of their watch? What's the worst that can happen out here? Someone trips and drowns in that tiny stream?" I asked sounding as snappy as I could master, Paul stopped walking and turned to me, his face in a full grin as he looked down at me. I was rather short compared to him.

"You're in wolf territory, the worst that could happen is you piss off a volatile wolf and bye bye goes you're pretty face, scared yet?" He lowered his voice as he spoke, his eyes not leaving mine however I found myself scanning the woods around us. Wolves, Sam had never mentioned a wolf pack running wild here. I should be scared, wolves were notoriously packs of animals to be scared of, the big bad wolf appeared in many fairytales but as I stood staring back at Paul I couldn't find my fear.

"No"

He looked impressed for a minute as I spoke defiantly back at him but as quickly as the impressed look came he made another comment. "Well you should be, there's more than angry wolves in these trees, little girl" With that he turned around and began walking again, I followed in a stumble but my mouth fumbled for words.

"Like what?" I hurried into a stride alongside him but he looked straight ahead, a look crossed his face even worse than the ones he had given me, true hatred flashed in his eyes and for a second he looked as if he were ready to kill someone but still, I wasn't scared.

"Nothing, old tribal stories that's all"

"Which stories?" I had heard Billy tell a story but I had been distracted, I hadn't listened all that well and I couldn't really remember what it was about. Paul seemed to think about it for a minute but then shook his head.

" Come on, I don't have all day to spend running around the woods with you playing story time"

"I'm not a child, Paul" I snapped before he got all of his words out and I stopped, he turned to look at me somewhat taken aback but I stood my ground. "You keep calling me little girl or insinuating that I'm a child when I'm not, so don't treat me like one" I wasn't sure where the confidence to have a go at him came from but it came and he seemed speechless as I said them.

"Ok, I'm sorry" Maybe all he needed was me to tell him not to do something, maybe he just needed to know I wouldn't be treated badly. "Little girl" He added in tauntingly and my body flew back into defence mode making me storm off in the completely wrong direction but away from him.

He was such an ass.

"Wait" He called out and his heavy footsteps pounded after me again, a tight grip tugged at my arm and I was swung back around causing me to nearly trip as my feet didn't register the pull. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry I won't do it again" He whined as he pulled me back to where he was standing, I couldn't tell if he was genuine but a couple seconds passed and no little girl comment came so I nodded at him. He let go of my arm and began walking again, slower this time so I could keep up.

"I mean there was no need to throw a tantrum, you only had to say" He shrugged at me, his voice layered with a smile and I started walking faster in an attempt to escape. He was laughing now as he followed me, even my hurried walk wasn't enough to escape him and within seconds he was striding alongside me. I didn't care if he thought he was funny it annoyed me that he seemed to constantly think of me as a child.

"No no, I'm actually sorry, I won't do it again" I looked at him unsure of whether to believe him, he wasn't looking at me horribly but I still didn't trust him. "I promise, I promise" He held his hands up in surrender and I sighed not having another choice but I accept his words.

"It wouldn't hurt for you to try to not hate me so much, the comments and glares get boring after a while" I mumbled again as we started walking and for a minute he said nothing, I had sounded hurt when I spoke so I guess he felt awkward but he could have said something back.

"I don't hate you" I stopped but he carried on, his words caused my heart to lift and do a thousand somersaults in my chest. He didn't hate me that was something. "Hating you, stems from caring for you and that's also something I don't do"

My heart fell back down with an almighty crash and my knees were ready to fall from beneath me but I stayed upright somehow, I felt like I was falling, as if my gravity was fading and I had nothing holding me up which was stupid because it was only Paul and his words shouldn't hurt like that but they did and I hated him for how ignorant and cruel he could be. I stared at him as he continued to walk, each step he took gave me a kick of anger, annoyance and soon enough the aching feeling he had thrown at me turned to anger and I stormed back toward him.

"You know what, I have no idea what your problem is but you don't even know me, you haven't given me a chance to know you let alone enough time for you to be able to stand there and make judgments on me. I have never met such an arrogant dick. I can find my way from here I would hate to inconvenience you anymore, little boy" I continued to storm past him, my body pumping harshly as I went. I never called anyone anything remotely mean to their faces, I had never argued like that with someone. I was thumping with adrenaline and anger as I stormed further and further through the trees, I couldn't hear him behind me and I didn't look back.

How dare he think he can treat me like shit when he doesn't know me? How dare he think he can stand there and be all fine with me when he wants to be and cruel when it suits him, who the hell does he think he is? He's an asshole, I know that much. An asshole that gets his highs off upsetting other people, he stood there and called me a child when it is him that acts like one. Sam will go mad when he knows I called his friend that, but I wasn't sure I cared. He deserved it. He was acting like a little boy and an arrogant dick.

I slowed my pace as I continued in the direction Paul had led me, I could hear a voice, a girl. I slowed to a halt and listened, when the wind was quiet enough I could hear her words, they were soft and childlike. A giggle travelled through the trees and I found myself edging closer toward it, steering from my path I lingered in a dense pack of tall thick trees and peered around, there was an opening larger than the one I had been in earlier and the giggling filled it, my eyes looked up at the frost covered floor, snowflakes were falling. It was a beautiful opening, the trees cleared it just enough for the sky to shine down, it would be nice if the sun was beating down right now.

I went to turn not able to see the source of the voice when it came again.

"Silly Jake, look I can catch it" The voice giggled and my body froze as on the other side of the opening someone, or something stepped out, not a someone a something, a dog. No, not a dog, a wolf. A huge wolf. My breath caught in my throat as I watched it step out into the glistening frost covered clearing, its long nose looked up into the sky and its eyes narrowed with the sheer brightness of the snow clouds. Snow was falling now, soft and light but it fell. I couldn't see the girl who was giggling but I didn't need to. I needed to get out of here; Paul said this was wolf territory. An angry wolf was all it would take to rip my face to shreds is what Paul said and so I turned and sprinted back to the path where I had left Paul, he was gone. Of course he was gone, he didn't care about me so why would he stay?

A wolf, I saw a wolf and it was freaking huge. A wolf, this close to people's houses, but who was the girl? Whose voice was that and who was Jake?

I didn't want to stay and find out; if they were people out for a walk they would be eaten by now. Angry wolves travelled in packs, I needed to get to Sam's. I should have taken the insult and stayed with Paul. No, I shouldn't have, I would rather see a scary wolf than spend another second with that asshole.

I ran harder and eventually I found the dirt road that I knew led to Sam's and so I sprinted just as hard down that, Sam's truck was there when I reached the yard but I didn't stop, I ran harder until I got to the porch and threw myself in through the front door.

"Savannah, we were getting worried" Emily's voice found me first and she was just as quick in getting to my side. "What's wrong you look pale? You are freezing" She tugged at my arms pulling me in so the door behind me shut, what was wrong was that I just saw a wolf that was abnormal in size and some little girl had probably been eaten and Paul had caused the already aching hole in my chest to hurt even more.

"Wolf" I breathed out trying to find my breath as the warm air hit my cold body. Emily froze beside me, her grip on my arm tightening as she stood deadly still.

"What?" She breathed out and I looked up now, she looked terrified. Sam too, he was stood in the kitchen holding the kettle and he just stared at me as if he had seen a ghost.

"Wolf, I saw a wolf" I tried again, I was so cold still that I was chattering as I spoke. Emily gave a nervous laugh and pulled me closer to her small body before saying something about getting me a cup of tea.

"I see Sam's been telling you the old stories again, wolves and third wives, wolves and cold ones, he always was a sucker for those stories" A new voice joined the mix and my eyes darted to the sofa where an older lady sat, I recognised her in an instant, Sam's mom. "Those stories get into people's heads dear, there haven't been wild wolves here for hundreds of years, they were either killed by white settlers or moved on to higher ground" Her glistening smile shone at me while her eyes locked on mine, kind and gentle as always but her kind look didn't fool me, she was a strict woman when she wanted to be, kind but strict.

I heard her words but I knew what I saw, no stories had got into my head. I looked at Sam for an explanation but all I got was his back and nervous shakes of his hands as he poured a cup of tea, but it was Emily that confirmed to me something was up with the wolf, she had gone deathly silent and her grip on my arm was so tight it began to hurt through my layers, but it was her fake smile that gave her away. She looked petrified.