I clutched my head in my hands, trying to keep it from exploding.

A small, dry voice in the back of my mind asked me what the big deal was. Hadn't I already accepted the existence of vampires long ago – and without all the hysterics that time?

Exactly, I wanted to scream back at the voice. Wasn't one myth enough for anyone, enough for a lifetime?

"Oh good, now she's arguing with herself," Emmett laughed.

Besides, there'd never been one moment that I wasn't completely aware that Edward Cullen was above and beyond the ordinary. It wasn't such a surprise to find out what he was – because he so obviously was something.

But Jacob? Jacob, who was just Jacob, and nothing more than that? Jacob, my friend? Jacob, the only human I'd ever been able to relate to…

Several people laughed at that.

And he wasn't even human.

I fought the urge to scream again.

What did this say about me?

"That she belongs in our world," Alice said. There was an edge to her voice that suggested the one thing that she swore she would never do.

"No..." Edward snapped.

"I know," Alice sighed, "but you at least have to admit that she belongs in your life."

"Yes, you're right about that," Edward smiled.

I knew the answer to that one. It said that there was something deeply wrong with me. Why else would my life be filled with characters from horror movies? Why else would I care so much about them that it would tear big chunks right out of my chest when they went off along their mythical ways?

Emmett chuckled again.

In my head, everything spun and shifted, rearranging so that things that had meant one thing before, now meant something else.

There was no cult. There had never been a cult, never been a gang. No, it was much worse than that. It was a pack.

"Yep, that's what they'll call themselves," Emmett smiled.

A pack of five mind-blowingly gigantic, multihued werewolves that had stalked right past me in Edward's meadow…

Suddenly, I was in a frantic hurry. I glanced at the clock – it was way too early and I didn't care. I had to go to La Push now. I had to see Jacob so he could tell me that I hadn't lost my mind altogether.

I pulled on the first clean clothes I could find, not bothering to be sure they matched, and took the stairs two at a time. I almost ran into Charlie as I skidded into the hallway, headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" he asked, as surprised to see me as I was to see him. "Do you know what time it is?"

"Yeah. I have to go see Jacob."

"I thought the thing with Sam –"

"That doesn't matter, I have to talk to him right now."

"It's pretty early." He frowned when my expression didn't change. "Don't you want breakfast?"

"Not hungry." The words flew through my lips. He was blocking my path to the exit. I considered ducking around him and making a run for it, but I knew I would have to explain that to him later.

"And don't forget about the fact that you probably couldn't get away from him anyways," Emmett laughed.

"I'll be back soon, okay?"

Charlie frowned. "Straight to Jacob's house, right? No stops on the way?"

"Of course not, where would I stop?" My words were running together in my hurry.

"I don't know," he admitted. "It's just…well, there's been another attack – the wolves again.

It was real close to the resort by the hot springs – there's a witness this time. The victim was only a dozen yards from the road when he disappeared. His wife saw a huge gray wolf just a few minutes later, while she was searching for him, and ran for help."

My stomach dropped like I'd hit a corkscrew on a roller coaster. "A wolf attacked him?"

"She's going to think that the wolves are attacking the hikers," Emmett said, his mouth twitching.

"That should be funny," Edward said, his mouth press into a thin line.

"There's no sign of him – just a little blood again." Charlie's face was pained. "The rangers are going out armed, taking armed volunteers. There're a lot of hunters who are eager to be involved – there's a reward being offered for wolf carcasses. That's going to mean a lot of firepower out there in the forest, and it worries me." He shook his head. "When people get too excited, accidents happen…"

"They're going to shoot the wolves?" My voice shot through three octaves.

"Obviously she doesn't want them to get hurt," Edward said. That was so Bella.

"What else can we do? What's wrong?" he asked, his tense eyes studying my face. I felt faint; I must be whiter than usual. "You aren't turning into a tree-hugger on me, are you?"

I couldn't answer. If he hadn't been watching me, I would have put my head between my knees. I'd forgotten about the missing hikers, the bloody paw prints… I hadn't connected those facts to my first realization.

"Look, honey, don't let this scare you. Just stay in town or on the highway – no stops –okay?"

"Okay," I repeated in a weak voice.

"I've got to go."

I looked at him closely for the first time, and saw that he had his gun strapped to his waist and hiking boots on.

"You aren't going out there after the wolves, are you, Dad?"

"I've got to help, Bells. People are disappearing."

My voice shot up again, almost hysterical now. "No! No, don't go. It's too dangerous!"

"I've got to do my job, kid. Don't be such a pessimist – I'll be fine." He turned for the door, and held it open. "You leaving?"

I hesitated, my stomach still spinning in uncomfortable loops. What could I say to stop him? I was too dizzy to think of a solution.

"Bells?"

"Maybe it's too early to go to La Push," I whispered.

"I agree," he said, and he stepped out into the rain, shutting the door behind him.

As soon as he was out of sight, I dropped to the floor and put my head between my knees.

Should I go after Charlie? What would I say?

"There's nothing to say, and the wolves aren't going to hurt him," Emmett said. "Now get down to La Push so you can tell the werewolf he's a murder."

"The wolves won't hurt him, but the vampire they're obviously tracking might," Edward growled; knowing exactly who it was that they were tracking.

And what about Jacob? Jacob was my best friend; I needed to warn him. If he really was a – I cringed and forced myself to think the word – werewolf (and I knew it was true, I could feel it), then people would be shooting at him! I needed to tell him and his friends that people would try to kill them if they went running around like gigantic wolves. I needed to tell them to stop.

They had to stop! Charlie was out there in the woods. Would they care about that? I wondered…Up until now, only strangers had disappeared. Did that mean anything, or was it just chance?

I needed to believe that Jacob, at least, would care about that.

Either way, I had to warn him.

Or… did I?

Jacob was my best friend, but was he a monster, too? A real one? A bad one? Should I warn him, if he and his friends were… were murderers! If they were out slaughtering innocent hikers in cold blood? If they were truly creatures from a horror movie in every sense, would it be wrong to protect them?

It was inevitable that I would have to compare Jacob and his friends to the Cullens. I wrapped my arms around my chest, fighting the hole, while I thought of them.

"In a sense she has us backwards," Carlisle said. "We will always pose more of a threat to the humans than the wolves ever would."

"True – but Bella always seems to get things like this a little backwards," Edward smiled.

I didn't know anything about werewolves, clearly. I would have expected something closer to the movies – big hairy half-men creatures or something – if I'd expected anything at all. So I didn't know what made them hunt, whether hunger or thirst or just a desire to kill. It was hard to judge, not knowing that.

But it couldn't be worse than what the Cullens endured in their quest to be good. I thought of Esme – the tears started when I pictured her kind, lovely face – and how, as motherly and loving as she was, she'd had to hold her nose, all ashamed, and run from me when I was bleeding.

Esme sighed at that.

It couldn't be harder than that. I thought of Carlisle, the centuries upon centuries that he had struggled to teach himself to ignore blood, so that he could save lives as a doctor.

Nothing could be harder than that.

"Agreed," Edward said.

The werewolves had chosen a different path.

Now, what should I choose?

"That's it," Edward said handing the book to Emmett.

"I think I'm going to enjoy this chapter," he said, grinning.

Chapter Thirteen

Killer

"Killer," Emmett read. "It looks like she's not going to think too kindly of the pup in this chapter."

If it was anyone but Jacob, I thought to myself, shaking my head as I drove down the forest-lined highway to La Push.

"She wouldn't be going down there at all," Emmett said.

"I think she would do it for Edward too," Alice smiled.

I still wasn't sure if I was doing the right thing, but I'd made a compromise with myself.

I couldn't condone what Jacob and his friends, his pack, were doing. I understood now what he'd said last night – that I might not want to see him again –

"He said that because he's a werewolf, not because he's a killer," Edward said. "Which, unlike me, the pup isn't."

and I could have called him as he'd suggested, but that felt cowardly. I owed him a face-to-face conversation, at least. I would tell him to his face that I couldn't just overlook what was going on. I couldn't be friends with a killer and say nothing, let the killing continue… That would make me a monster, too.

"And she really is anything but a monster," Edward said.

But I couldn't not warn him, either. I had to do what I could to protect him.

I pulled up to the Blacks' house with my lips pressed together into a hard line. It was bad enough that my best friend was a werewolf. Did he have to be a monster, too?

"She really does have an interesting way of thinking about things," Carlisle chuckled.

"Yeah, most people would say you were a monster if you were a werewolf," Edward chuckled, "but not my Bella."

The house was dark, no lights in the windows, but I didn't care if I woke them. My fist thudded against the front door with angry energy; the sound reverberated through the walls.

"Come in," I heard Billy call after a minute, and a light flicked on.

I twisted the knob; it was unlocked. Billy was leaning around an open doorway just off the little kitchen, a bathrobe around his shoulders, not in his chair yet. When he saw who it was, his eyes widened briefly, and then his face turned stoic.

"Well, good morning, Bella. What are you doing up so early?"

"Hey, Billy. I need to talk to Jake – where is he?"

"Um… I don't really know," he lied, straight-faced.

"Do you know what Charlie is doing this morning?" I demanded, sick of the stalling.

"Should I?"

"He and half the other men in town are all out in the woods with guns, hunting giant wolves."

Billy's expression flickered, and then went blank.

"I wonder if he was surprised by that information or by the fact that she seems to know that it would mean something to him," Carlisle mused.

"So I'd like to talk to Jake about that, if you don't mind," I continued.

"Well, if it was the latter, that just seems to confirm that she knows," Edward said, his mouth going thin.

Billy pursed his thick lips for a long moment. "I'd bet he's still asleep," he finally said, nodding toward the tiny hallway off the front room. "He's out late a lot these days. Kid needs his rest – probably you shouldn't wake him."

"It's my turn," I muttered under my breath as I stalked to the hallway. Billy sighed.

Jacob's tiny closet of a room was the only door in the yard-long hallway. I didn't bother to knock. I threw the door open; it slammed against the wall with a bang.

Jacob – still wearing just the same black cut-off sweats he'd worn last night – was stretched diagonally across the double bed that took up all of his room but a few inches around the edges.

"Seriously...how could they live like that?" Rosalie scoffed.

Even on a slant, it wasn't long enough; his feet hung off the one end and his head off the other. He was fast asleep, snoring lightly with his mouth hanging open. The sound of the door hadn't even made him twitch.

"I would think that with his heightened senses, he would have noticed that," Carlisle said.

"I guess they don't work when he's sleeping," Emmett chuckled.

His face was peaceful with (deep sleep, all the angry lines smoothed out). There were circles under his eyes that I hadn't noticed before. Despite his ridiculous size, he looked very young now, and very weary. Pity shook me.

"Of course," Edward said. "She has quite a temper, but her kind nature is significantly more powerful."