Chapter 13: intruder
I heard the sound again, like the screech of nails on a chalkboard, followed by a loud thud. I turned to stare at the window, then froze.
Something was moving just outside, a large, dark shape, perched with unnaturally perfect balance on the almost nonexistent windowsill, gripping the eaves above for support.
My stomach dropped, and fear seized my vocal cords. I knew immediately who it was—for an instant a wild face flashed across my mind, fire-orange hair that stood up in spikes, mouth spread in a grin as he anticipated what he would do to me. Victor.
I staggered from my bed, instinctively looking around for a weapon, even though I knew it was useless. However, I stopped. No, I had to let this happen. If I fought back and made a ruckus, then Charlie might come to investigate.
My heart hammered in my throat as I slowly turned back to the window, to face my fate, not sure if I was ready. Then—
"Quit standing there like a moron and open the window!"
The husky voice spoke in a low, rushed whisper, but it was still familiar. The figure outside the window gave a slight wobble.
I ran to the window. The figure obligingly took her feet off the sill, hanging only by the eaves, and I slid back the glass, by now sure I must still be asleep.
Jules vaulted through the opening and landed with almost perfect silence on the carpet, then straightened.
I stared at her for a moment, then turned to look at the window slider she had her feet on a second before. It wasn't more than an inch wide, if that. I looked slowly around the window, for a nearby tree she might have used to get up here, but saw nothing besides a small spruce. I saw no way up here, short of a grappling hook.
I turned back to stare at her, incredulous and mystified. "How did you get up here?"
Instead of answering, she waved a hand dismissively. "It was nothing. Piece of cake."
"It was dangerous, wasn't it," I accused. "Were you trying to kill yourself?" I turned, folding my arms across my chest. "And what are you doing here anyway?"
"Isn't it obvious?" she said, planting her feet, and she suddenly grinned fiercely. "I'm here to keep my promise."
For the first time I really studied her, and I noticed she was dressed in what looked like a pair of black biking shorts, the spandex kind that clung tightly to her frame, and a white sleeveless undershirt that looked at least a size too small for her. She was completely barefoot. A cool breeze curled into the room, rustling the uneven locks of her black hair, and I shivered, but she didn't react.
The grin she had on her face now wasn't the happy, carefree grin I was used to seeing when we were in the garage together, or out riding our motorcycles. This one had a wild recklessness about it, a recklessness born of the bitterness of disappointment. The first grin was mine; the grin she had on now was all Samantha Uley's.
I felt the shock on my face slowly morph into a scowl. I stalked forward, then, stopping right beside her, pointed back at the window.
"Out," I ordered.
Jules blinked, her grin disappearing with surprise. "No way. I just ran all the way over here, climbed up a tree and swung over to your window because I came to apologize. About today. I'm not going to just turn around and leave."
I grabbed her arm and jabbed my finger again at the window, feeling like a bouncer at a bar. As before, I noticed how hot her skin was, like she was burning from fever.
Jules frowned, looking perplexed at my reaction, and she didn't budge. I pulled harder, but I couldn't seem to move her a muscle.
Suddenly, for some reason I couldn't explain, I felt exhausted. Letting go of her arm, I stumbled back to the bed and sank down on the edge, my head bowed.
"Beau?" she said with concern. She approached, coming to hover uncertainly beside me. "You okay?"
I sighed deeply, and my head ached, and I was sure the dark patches beneath my eyes were more pronounced than ever. I slowly raised my gaze to hers. "Do I look okay to you?" I asked in a low, hoarse voice.
Jules hesitated, eyes dropping to the floor. She backed up a step, fingers fidgeting nervously in front of her.
"Right," she said. "Crud. Well...it's like this, Beau. I'm sorry. I can't even say how sorry I am."
The pain in her face was too genuine to doubt her sincerity, and though the bitterness was still there, there was a different tone to it now. Depressed, rather than angry.
What little remained of my fight was gone, and my shoulders sagged. I shook my head. "Look, Jules, just forget it. I'm not...looking for apologies from you."
She nodded, eyes on the floor. "I know," she said quietly. "I just couldn't leave things like that. It was just too horrible. I'm sorry for acting like a jerk. I just—didn't know what else to do."
I sighed. "I don't get it, Jules. I don't get what's going on. You just keep going back and forth, pulling me in and pushing me away, but you haven't really told me anything."
I thought she might get annoyed, like she'd been in the forest, but at this, she only nodded, looking miserable. "I know. Believe me, Beau, I'd tell you everything if I could, but—"
She suddenly broke off, as though an invisible hand had seized her around the throat. Her mouth moved silently for a moment, then she let out a long, angry breath. "But I can't. I can't explain anything. If only I could."
My head was still bent, resting against my hand, and I stared at the floor. "Why can't you?" I asked in a mutter.
The room was silent for a long moment, and I looked up to see Jules's face contorted with some kind of effort, her brow furrowed in hard concentration, teeth gritted. Then abruptly she relaxed, blowing out a long breath.
"I can't," she said, clenching her fists and looking as though she'd like to punch something. "I just can't seem to do it."
"Do what?"
Jules shook her head, then turned to me. "Listen to me, Beau. Have you ever had a secret before, a secret you couldn't tell anyone? Not Charlie, not your mom...not even me, right here, right now?"
I hesitated as my thoughts flashed to the one and only secret that mattered.
I didn't reply, but I knew Jules took that as confirmation.
"Could you understand, Beau, that maybe I...maybe I'm stuck in a situation a bit...a bit like that?" She was fighting to get the words out, as though the invisible hand was hovering again just in front of her throat, ready to clamp down again if she tried to say the wrong thing. "Sometimes loyalty gets in the way of what you want to do. Sometimes, it's not your secret to tell. You can understand that, right?"
I stared back at her. I did understand, of course. I had been protecting a secret, one that wasn't mine. There were things Jules had said earlier today that made me think that she already knew all about it, or parts of it. Still, what she was saying wasn't enough. I still couldn't figure out what she was driving at.
Jules stared at my bemused features, then she suddenly gave a low growl and threw back her head, pressing her palms to her face. "Argh, this is so frustrating. And what kills me the most is that I already told you everything—you already know, if only you could just remember."
I stared at her blankly.
Jules suddenly dropped her hands, and she stared at me for a long moment, her expression speculative. "Maybe," she muttered. "Maybe—even if I can't say anything, maybe if you actually guessed it...maybe..."
"What?" I said, brow furrowing. "What is it?"
"Guess," she said, and her eyes were suddenly bright with excitement, eager. "If you can guess what my secret is, then I can't do anything about that, right? That's how we get around it, see?"
I was trying to follow her train of thought, but I wasn't having much success. "Sure," I muttered sarcastically. "Why didn't I think of that?"
Jules studied my irritated, clueless expression again, then closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against either side of her temple, concentrating. "Let me see. Maybe I can give you a hint or two."
She opened her eyes, and they were suddenly intense. She moved with that odd liquid grace, coming to sit beside me on the bed. She looked straight into my eyes. "Okay," she said. "Okay. Think—do you remember that day we first met, on the beach at La Push?"
I nodded slowly.
"Do you remember our conversation?"
I nodded again. "You asked me about my truck. And you said you were building a car...asked if I knew where to find a master cylinder..."
"Yes," Jules said urgently. "Yeah, that's it. Keep going."
I could feel red splotches creeping up my neck as I remembered. That conversation that had been the beginning of everything.
"You told me some old stories...Quileute legends."
"Yes," Jules whispered, an undercurrent of excitement in her voice. "Now, what did I say? Remember, Beau. You're so close."
I looked away as the memories flooded back. Jules, without knowing it at the time, had been the one to tell me—the story that had made me realize what Edythe really was. Now, oddly enough, Jules seemed to be in on the secret too—or at least, she now believed the legends she had scoffed at before—and her once warm, carefree eyes had a measure of hardness that I was afraid would never disappear.
"I remember," I said slowly.
"Do you remember all of—all of the—" She tried to finish the question, but again she cut off, as though she couldn't get enough air.
"The legends?" I finished for her. She nodded mutely, mouth closed.
I put a hand to my forehead, kneading it hard with my fingers. I remembered only one story, the one that mattered. I had hazy memories of Jules talking about other legends before that, leading up to the stories of the cold ones, but when I tried to close my mind around them, they seemed to slip away like smoke. At last I sighed and slumped. I shook my head.
Jules growled low in her throat and suddenly stood up from the bed. She began to pace, tapping a fist against her forehead. "Come on, you know this," she muttered furiously. "You know this!"
I watched her blearily for a minute, then shook my head. "Jules, I'm...I'm exhausted right now. Maybe my brain would work better in the morning."
Jules stopped pacing and turned to face me. She took a slow, steadying breath, then nodded once. "Okay, yeah. Maybe it will still come back to you, if we just give it some time."
Her mouth suddenly twisted in a hard smile as she added, "I guess it shouldn't surprise me that you only remember the one story." Her eyes seemed to bore into mine. "Can I ask you something about that?" she said suddenly, mouth still curled in a bitter sneer. "I've been dying to know."
I eyed her warily.
"I mean about the vampire story I told you," she said. Her sarcastic expression turned a touch incredulous. "Did you honestly not know? Was it really me who helped you figure it out?"
I stared back at her mutely, though my thoughts spun wildly in my head. Despite what she had said yesterday, what she was saying now, I couldn't get it out of my mind that Jules was supposed to be a part of the real world, separate from that one. Now suddenly the lines were blurring together, and I didn't know what to think.
Jules gave a quiet, harsh laugh and looked away. "Yeah, I know, you won't come out and say it. Even now that they're gone...like I said, loyalty above everything, right? Only for me, it's worse. You can't imagine how deep it goes—how unbreakable the shackles are..."
I stared at her, and I saw beneath the anger flickers of pain. Her bitter eyes were filled with torment, and I suddenly remembered that day out in the forest with our motorcycles, the fear on her then-still happy, carefree features. "What if I don't have a choice?"
My loyalty to the Cullens was my choice. But what about Jules? I didn't get exactly what was going on, but whatever it was, it didn't seem to be her decision.
I thought of Sam, her calm, even features. What was she doing to Jules? Was this something supernatural? Obviously Jules still had her own mind, but she also seemed to be under Sam's control somehow. Like a soul contract, or a curse.
Before I knew what I was doing, I was on my feet, and I had an arm around her shoulders. "There has to be something we can do," I said desperately. "Anything. What if—we just left? You and me. If we just got enough distance between you and Sam..."
Jules laughed hollowly, and shook her head. "I can't. It's not something I can escape from, Beau. Ever. This is my life now."
I wanted to argue, but the words got stuck in my throat. I didn't know what the rules of Sam's powers were, or what was going on.
Jules pulled away from me, with great reluctance, and turned toward the window. "I should go," she said in a low voice. "I'm really not supposed to be here. They're probably wondering where I am. I guess—I better go let them know."
"You don't have to tell them anything," I said severely.
She stared back at me, her expression bleak. "Yes, I do."
I took in her face, and I felt a sudden flash of anger.
"Don't go," I said in a rush. "Don't go back to them, Jules. Stay here. I don't care what I have to do, I'll help you get away from them."
Jules blinked, startled at my sudden intensity. She put up a hand, shaking her head.
"No, Beau, don't think that. That's not it, this isn't their fault. Samantha and the rest—they're all stuck in the same boat I am." She smiled a little ruefully. "Honestly, I feel bad for all that stuff I thought about Sam before. This situation would be a whole lot suckier if it wasn't for her. And the others—they're the one good thing about all this. I've got Em back as my friend, too. I really should be grateful. Things could be so much worse."
I gazed back at her, brow furrowed. I wondered if Jules really believed that.
I folded my arms, wondering if there was something I could do or say to make her see. "Okay," I said. "But if Sam's such a great person, why is she forbidding you from seeing me?"
Jules's half smile disappeared, and she looked uncomfortable. Her eyes dropped to the floor. "Because it's...not safe," she mumbled.
I stared at her, and my eyes widened slightly. My gaze suddenly flickered again to the window, and I remembered what I'd first thought when I saw her out there. If Jules and the others knew about the Cullens, then of course, it only made sense that they also knew about Victor. Maybe Sam wasn't a complete bad guy after all. Maybe she was just trying to keep her people from getting hurt.
Jules continued earnestly, "But I swear, Beau, if I really thought it was too risky, I wouldn't have come. But I knew I had to do something—back at the theater, I made you a promise. After I completely smashed it and broke your trust, I...just had to come make things right."
I stared back at her, at the guilt in her face. I didn't want her to feel that way. "I know it's not really you," I said with a sigh. "I know there's something more going on that you can't help. I get it."
She shook her head. "I'm not deserting you," she insisted. "I'm still going to try to do what I can to be here whenever you need me."
She suddenly grinned. It wasn't the carefree grin I knew so well, or the new, reckless grin that was Samantha's, but an odd mix between the two. "But seriously, Beau. It would go a long way if you could just figure it out. This talking in circles is driving me crazy."
I felt myself grin back weakly. "You and me both."
"Try," she insisted again. "Put in an honest effort. And—I'll try to see you again soon, even though they'll try to talk me out of it."
"Don't pay attention to them," I said fervently, though I didn't feel much hope—Sam was in control.
Jules gave me a half-smile, with just a touch of hopelessness. But then her expression brightened a little as she added, "Come and tell me as soon as you figure it out. That will make things a lot easier."
However, the smile slipped again, and her brow clouded. "Unless..." she added, almost to herself. Her head was bent, and she gazed up at me, her eyes suddenly guarded. "Of course, only if you want to."
"Yeah, I'll come," I said, surprised. "Once I have it figured out, of course I will."
"Don't make promises," Jules warned me, backing toward the window, her eyes suddenly hard. "Not until you know. You might change your mind."
I tried to read the expression in her eyes, to decipher the meaning there, but I couldn't.
Jules glanced back at the window, eyes not meeting mine. "Look, I've got to go. Just—promise me something."
I nodded slowly. "Anything."
Jules still wasn't looking at me. "If you figure it out, and you decide...you decide not to come. Call me. At least let me know if it's like that."
"Of course I won't—"
She put up a finger to silence me. "No promises," she said again. "Just let me know, okay?"
She turned her back on me, placing both hands on the open window.
I scrambled forward, seizing her by the shoulder. "No way. You are absolutely not going out that way. Just use the front door, Charlie won't catch you."
Jules shook me off and gave a hard laugh. She turned back a moment to grin at me, and the expression was once again that strange hybrid, part my old Jules, part the new bitter, sarcastic Jules. "Don't worry about me. I'm a freak of nature, remember?"
She turned her back on me, then once again planted both hands on the sides of the windows as though to vault herself out. I was contemplating seizing her around the waist and dragging her forcibly back into the room, but then she paused. Her grin faded into a more serious expression, and she turned to look back at me over her shoulder. Her eyes seemed to burn with a look I didn't understand. It was almost gentle, but churning with an undercurrent of sudden desperation.
Her hands dropped from the window, and she turned back to face me for a moment.
Then, before I could react, her arms were suddenly around me. They held me fiercely—she was stronger than I remembered, so strong for a moment I felt like my lungs were being crushed. She buried her face in my neck, breathing in deeply.
Then she abruptly pulled away from me, and her eyes were a little red.
"Get some sleep," she said in a low, husky voice. "You need to get your head in the game and figure this out. You've got to know. You've got to understand."
She turned away from me again, and I begged feebly, "The door?"
She laughed a little, then sighed. Reluctantly she turned from the window and crossed to my door without a sound, disappearing through it. I listened, waiting for her to hit the squeaky step on the stairs, but there was no sound.
I sank back down onto my bed, falling over onto my back, my head spinning. So much to think about. So much that didn't make any sense. But before I could get my mind to work much further, the exhaustion hit me once again like a physical force, overtaking me, and before I knew it, I had slipped into unconsciousness.
I dreamed as I usually did. The forest once again surrounded me, eery and mysterious, thick greenery on every side. But I quickly realized this wasn't the same dream I'd had a thousand times. This was different, yet still familiar.
Unlike my usual dream, I didn't seem to be searching for anything, and the usual earthy smell of the forest was flavored with the smell of ocean brine. Even though the forest was still dark, it wasn't the darkness of a new moon, but rather the thick leaves and branches seemed simply to block the bright light of the sky above.
This was not the dark forest behind my house, but the forest of La Push, near the beach. I knew then if I found the beach, I'd be able to see the sun, and I found myself hurrying forward, toward the faint splash of waves in the distance.
Jules was suddenly there, right beside me. She grabbed my hand, trying to draw me back, back toward the blackest part of the forest.
"What's wrong?" I called back, alarmed. As I turned to look right at her, I saw she was no longer the bitter, angry Jules I'd come to know in the last day, but the Jules back from when we had first met at the beach, young, girlish, her satin black hair pulled back into the familiar ponytail at the back of her neck. Her eyes were wide with terror. She yanked hard on my hand, but I didn't want to go—I didn't want to go away from the light.
"Run, Beau," she whispered. "You have to run!"
I froze where I was as a sharp stab of déjà vu seemed to cut through the haze of the dream. I nearly woke up then, but I held on. I knew suddenly what the rest of the dream would bring, because I had had this dream before. Long ago, in another life. This was the dream I'd had the night following that talk with Jules, when I first knew in my gut what Edythe and the Cullens really were.
I watched the dream unfold, waiting for the events of that time to replay again. A light was coming toward me from the direction of the beach. In a moment, Edythe would step through the trees, glorious, beautiful, in the black dress with the plunging neckline, her skin faintly glowing, her eyes black and dangerous. She would smile softly, reassuringly, to reveal rows of pointed teeth as she beckoned me toward her...
But that was later. Something else happened first.
Jules let go of my hand and she whimpered. Her entire body was trembling, going into convulsions, and she fell to her knees, writhing.
"Jules!" I shouted, my face going white. But before I could reach for her, she had vanished.
In her place was an enormous, red-brown wolf with dark, intelligent eyes. Only now the dream changed from what it had been so long ago—this was not the same wolf from that other dream, but the rust-colored wolf from the meadow, just a week ago. This wolf was enormous, as big as a bear, and it looked at me intently, trying to tell me something with its dark eyes. I knew those eyes, so filled with human emotion—as well as I knew any.
I awoke with a jolt, drenched from head to toe in cold sweat.
I sat up, then let my head fall into my hands as Jules's words from that day an age ago replayed themselves in my mind.
"Well, there are lots of legends...One claims that we descended from the wolves, and that the wolves are our sisters still..."
My head dropped a centimeter, my fingers tightening around fistfuls of my hair.
"You see, the cold ones are the natural enemies of the wolf—not the wolf, but the wolves that turn into people, like our ancestors. You would call them werewolves."
My breathing was erratic. The thoughts in my head were spinning out of control. I suddenly raised my eyes, staring straight ahead into the pale darkness.
"Werewolf," I whispered.
I wanted to laugh aloud. Not a happy laugh, but the hysterical kind, the kind you laughed when you suddenly realize that nothing in the world was what you thought it was, and there wasn't a shred of sanity or truth anywhere to stand on.
What's the big deal? said a voice in the back of my mind. You know vampires are real, don't you? You accepted that easily enough. So why all the drama now?
I had accepted the existence of vampires. But that—that was different. Because I'd always known there was something different about Edythe. Something above and beyond the ordinary and mundane. I would have been more surprised to find out she was a regular human.
But Jules—Jules was my best friend. She was supposed to be a part of my world. The anchor, the spot of light in what was otherwise a grim, dull world of no color. And all along—she had never been a part of my world at all.
In my head, I felt everything suddenly change, shifting around and rearranging itself to fit with this new reality, everything that had meant one thing before, transforming itself to mean something else. There was no cult, no secret society of Amazon warriors, or even black magic. They were mythical creatures of the same ilk as vampires—werewolves.
I leaped out of bed, pulling on some clothes as fast as I could, then raced down the stairs. I had to get to La Push, right now. I had to see Jules, and—and make sure I hadn't completely lost my mind.
I nearly barreled into Charlie on the way to the front door.
"Where are you going?" he asked, nearly as surprised to see me as I was to see him. "Do you know what time it is?"
"Yeah," I said shortly, "I'm going to see Jules."
Charlie's brow furrowed into a frown. "I thought you two were—"
"Yeah, we had a fight," I said quickly. "But I've got to see her, right now."
Charlie still didn't look entirely convinced. "Listen, kid...At this time of day, I don't know if Bonnie would appreciate that." He said Bonnie's name with a bit of stiffness. "Julie is probably still asleep. You have to think about what's appropriate."
"I really have to go, Dad," I said desperately.
He studied my face, and I knew he was still thinking about my dead expression from last night. He sighed.
"Go, then," he muttered, looking away and turning toward the kitchen. "Do what you have to do, kid."
I sagged with relief and snagged my coat from the rack by the door. "Thanks, Dad."
However, before I had the door open, Charlie turned back to me, frowning with sudden concern. For a minute I was worried he'd changed his mind, but he only said, "Don't make any stops along the way over. All right, Beau? No last-minute hikes."
I paused, bewildered enough by this seemingly random bit of advice to be distracted for a moment. "Why not?"
He shook his head. "It's those wolves again. There was another attack, close to the resort by the hot springs. We had a witness this time. A middle-aged couple were on their way up, and the man just stepped a few dozen yards from the road, out of sight for just a minute—when his wife went to see where he was, she saw the monster, a big gray one."
My stomach plunged and I had to grip the frame of the door to stay on my feet.
"A wolf...attacked him?" I said in a low, stunned voice.
"He's gone," said Charlie, mouth set in a solemn line. "All that was left was a little blood, just like the other incidents. This is too much—The rangers have gathered up some volunteers, and they're heading out with shotguns. Someone's scraped together some reward money, if they can take down any of them. Something has to be done."
"They're hunting the wolves?" I said, my voice low and hoarse.
Charlie nodded. "Yeah, there's not a lot else we can do. Though I do worry about that much firepower in the forest, sometimes when people get overexcited, accidents happen..."
I couldn't speak. My throat had closed. A realization was beginning to seep through me like a poison, sinking into every crevice of my brain. The missing hikers. The blood and the paw prints. I had forgotten that—I had realized part of the truth, but that detail had slipped by me.
"I've got to go now," said Charlie. "I'll see you later. Tell me how it goes down at La Push."
I blinked and suddenly noticed that Charlie had his gun strapped to his waist and was wearing his hiking boots.
I felt my palms break out in a cold sweat.
"Dad..." I began, my voice coming out as little more than a croak. "You're not going out with the rangers, are you? To track down the wolves?"
"I've got to help, kid. People are disappearing."
I felt my hand shoot out, seizing him by the shoulder of his jacket.
I had never grabbed my dad this way, like I was physically trying to force him to do something, and he turned to give me a startled look.
"Beau?" he said cautiously.
"Don't go, Dad," I said, my voice shaking in spite of my best efforts to sound calm and reasonable. "There are plenty of people out there already, aren't there? Stay in today."
He looked at me for a second with wary concern, then shook his head. "This is part of my job, Beau. I've got to go."
"It sounds dangerous out there," I said, again trying to keep my voice steady, but it cracked on the last word.
"I'll be fine," he said, slapping my shoulder lightly. "We'll be in groups—those hikers we've lost so far were picked off in ones and twos. And if you're going to La Push to get things ironed out, then you've got bigger things to worry about than your old man."
I hesitated. And I knew there was absolutely nothing I could say to stop him from going, short of having some kind of seizure and getting myself landed in the hospital. And even then, Chief Swan's sense of duty would probably have him out there eventually.
Charlie went to the door, and held it open for me. "You going?" he asked.
My eyes dropped to the floor as my powerlessness crashed down on me. "Maybe...Maybe it is too early. Maybe I'll just wait a little while."
"That sounds like a good idea," Charlie said, though he continued to eye me with some concern before he stepped out into the rain, shutting the door behind him.
As soon as he was gone, I staggered slightly, falling against the nearest wall and sliding to the floor.
Charlie was going out to help hunt down the wolves. And among those wolves was my best friend. My thoughts spun in incoherent circles. I had to warn her, and her friends, before they got killed.
Or...should I?
Jules's words from the day before murmured at the back of my mind. "I'm not what I was before...I'm no good to be your friend, or anything else."
This was what she had meant. When she and Sam and the others had become werewolves, they'd abandoned their humanity. They hunted humans like vampires did, any innocent hiker they could pick off the trail.
What about Charlie? I wondered. What if the pack ran into him while they were out on one of their hunts? Would they kill him just the same?
I bent my head, covering my mouth as I felt bile rise in my throat. I couldn't take it. Not my dad. Not him. And who else was out there hunting right now? Allen's dad? McKayla's? So far, Jules and the others had only been picking off strangers, but it was only a matter of time. And what did it matter, if they'd only killed people we didn't know? It didn't change the fact that innocent people were dead.
My mind flashed back then, to a place I usually avoided letting it go. Memories of the Cullens, and their chosen way of life. Vegetarians, they'd called themselves. Denying themselves, fighting their natural instincts. They had chosen something different for themselves.
But Jules and the rest had chosen something different. Samantha was no Carine, and she had led the rest down this path. They were monsters, true monsters—Jules included.
Maybe it wouldn't be right for me to warn them of anything. Maybe it was my responsibility to sit back, and let things take their course.
The Cullens had made their choice, and so had the wolves. Now, it was my turn.
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