5. Schism

(Seth)

"Ana! I'm done with your phone!" I yelled from the bedroom door. I had already learned better than to travel down the hall and closer to their room.

She came quickly to retrieve it. "Did she answer?"

"Yeah. She knew it was me, though." I think.

"She doing alright?"

I shrugged. "She's doing her thing. Getting fucked up and saving teenagers in alleyways and such." She looked at me questioningly but I didn't explain. She'd see it at some point, anyway.

I didn't want to talk. I was bored and lonely and sexually frustrated. What I wanted was for my girl to be here with me instead of sleeping in some shit motel with a dude in the bathroom. Unfortunately, more than than that, I wanted Liz to be happy... and she didn't want to be here. I wasn't sure she wanted to be around me at all.

Almost a month to the day after she'd lost our baby, she snapped out of the haze she'd been living in. It was weird now how surprised I was just to see her putting on clothes that weren't lounge wear and applying makeup. She left the house without a word, but she carried a backpack and one of her guitars and disappeared for a day. She came home and told me she was going to record an album with a band, and it didn't take long from there to get a tour deal.

And off they went. That was back in June. This was supposed to be a summer thing, and then everything was supposed to go back to normal - or as close to normal as they'd been before. They didn't. It was now December and she kept putting off coming home.

Even when I was with her, she felt a world away.

I laid there awake in the dark, tossing and turning. I needed my imprint. I couldn't stop thinking about her and the emotional rollercoaster that being with her could be. I gave up on sleeping and started through the kitchen.

"What's up, man?" Josh asked when I entered the room.

"Going for a run, I guess." I got an apple out of the fruit bowl between us and glanced at the screen of his tablet. "2016 Viper? Sweet."

"Check this Audi," he said as he swiped right a few times. "I'd ask you which performs better but I know you don't encounter beauties like these at work," he smirked.

He was right about that. No one in La Push drove a car like that or anything that was created in the past decade. "Where's Belle?"

"She's in there on the phone," he said, his voice a bit on edge. "An inmate of Southern Regional Jail is attempting to contact you. Will you accept this call?" he mimicked.

"Darrell." We both hated him.

"I don't know why she still talks to him." Liz had written him off, but Ana still spoke to him about once every month.

"It's so fucking boring around here lately," I said to change the subject. I was already aggravated enough without thinking about that guy.

"Why don't you go visit for a few days?"

I sighed. "She doesn't want me to."

"Remember back before Liz came to Forks and you couldn't wait to imprint on someone?"

"Remember when Ana got here and wouldn't have you because you were a giant asshole?"

He laughed. "Touche. Got her in the end, though." He leaned closer to me and motioned for me to do the same. "I'm going to propose."

"When?"

His expression changed. "I'm not sure yet. Every idea I have is too cheesy. She'll say no if I don't do it right."

I chuckled. "No, she won't. She'll say yes and give you shit about it for the rest of your life. She loves you."

He smiled. "Yeah she does. Want to be in the wedding?"

"Sure," I said. "So... how long do you think it'd take me to run across the country?"

"How long did it take last time?" he snorted.

I grumbled and sighed, and then I left. I wasn't going to run all the way to her after she explicitly told me she didn't want me there, but I was going to cover most of the state tonight. Being a wolf felt simpler.

I stripped in the backyard and jumped, phasing before my front paws hit the ground. I needed this, needed to be an animal for awhile. Push down the hurt. Focus on the sounds, the smells, the feel of the forest beneath my feet.

I'd been running for maybe an hour when the familiar ice cold stench of vampire burned up my nostrils. Brady and Chris were present in my head, but they were all the way back in La Push. They started thundering my way but I knew they wouldn't make it in time, so I knew I was going to have to take care of this on my own.

What I came upon was a scene straight out of my worst nightmares; a male vampire stood near hidden in the cover of the trees, grasping a woman to him as he fed from her throat. I launched myself at him and went straight for his neck as he dropped the woman in surprise.

He flung me backwards and my back cracked an ancient vine maple completely in half. I hit the ground on all four paws and we both readied ourselves to attack. He was coming head on, so at the very last second before his arms flung around me I grabbed his right arm and spun, disconnecting the arm at the shoulder as his body hit another tree like a boulder.

He was surprised and that gave me an advantage. I went for his neck again before he had a chance to recover and it hit the ground a few feet from me with a sickening thunk.

The girl, Seth. Brady thought to me as he hurried to get to where I was. What are you going to do?

You know what he has to do, Chris thought. You can't kill one and let the other remain.

He was right but I hated that he was. I'd never been alone when this had happened before, never been forced to take the life of a human being. I cursed the vampire and cursed my own timing... if I'd arrived moments later, she still would have lost her life but she would have lost it to the vampire instead of me. I could almost accept the death but I could not accept being the one to have to pull the trigger.

I stepped closer to the twitching form of the woman; she was young and had long blonde hair that was sticking to the blood and dirt on her face. She'd been roughed up during her time with the vampire and I cursed him again for that.

She started to moan and then scream.

She's changing, Chris thought. Put her out of her misery.

We're almost there, bro. You don't have to do anything you don't want to.

It was tempting - I could walk away now and let them clean up this mess. But I couldn't put that on my pack, my brothers. As if it would somehow hurt one of them less to have to do this. I wouldn't be so selfish.

The others appeared then. Dig, I told them.

I took a final look at the writhing woman and though she couldn't hear me, I apologized for what I was about to do. I closed my eyes, braced myself... and bit.