Waxing Gibbous

All ready to go (A)

I took off early, long before sunrise was due. I'd gotten just a little bit of uneasy sleep leaning against the side of the sofa. Edward woke me when Bella's face was flushed, and he took my spot to cool her back down. I stretched and decided I was rested enough to get some work done.

"Thank you," Edward said quietly, seeing my plans. "If the route is clear, they'll go today."

"I'll let you know." I nodded, I decided to see Rosalie before I left. She was sitting on her bed reading some sort of book, it looked like one of the ones from Hector.

I closed the door before walking over towards her, kneeling on the ground looking up at her.

"hey"

She looked up and smiled "hello, you're going to patrol aren't you?"

"yeah, I'm going to try and clear a path so you guys can hunt." I saw her start to protest "you need it Rose; I can see it in your eyes. It's been too long since you fed, all of you"

"I'm sorry everything is so hard on you"

"it's not your fault" I placed my hand on her stomach the electrical signal was still there and thrumming, letting me know he was okay. "no matter the circumstances I am happy, i did things a little out of order, but I always said I would give you everything you wanted. I didn't know how to do it then, but I guess instincts have a funny way of doing things"

Rosalie leaned down and kissed me. I let it go further than it probably should have but I couldn't resist, and she didn't seem to be complaining.

"thank you for helping Bella" Rose said finally, her nose rubbing against mine. "I know we haven't always gotten along but I don't want her to go... it would kill Edward and I don't think I could bear that; I don't think any of us could. Besides Bella's not so bad"

I gave her one more kiss before leaving the house, disrobing before phasing. I extended my strides and began my run.

'Morning Al. How's Rosalie?' Leah asked concern lacing her voice.

'doing well, but she needs to hunt... they all do. How long's Seth been out?'

'Not out yet,' Seth thought sleepily. 'Almost there. What do you need?'

'You think you got another hour in you?'

'Sure thing. No problem.' Seth got to his feet right away, shaking out his fur.

'Let's make the deep run,' I told Leah. 'Seth, take the perimeter.'

'Gotcha.' Seth broke into an easy jog.

'Leah, let's see how fast we can run'

'I'm definitely up for that!'

Leah was on the far western rim of the perimeter. Rather than cut close to the Cullens' house, she stuck to the circle as she raced around to meet me. I sprinted off straight east, knowing that even with the head start, she'd be meeting me soon enough. I was pretty close to the same speed as her, it's what I was built for, speed.

'nose to the ground. I want to know how far they've come and how far we can go'

'you got it boss' She laughed.

We took a winding path through the eastern mountains. It was a familiar route. We'd run these mountains when the vampires had left a year ago, making it part of our patrol route to better protect the people here. Then we'd pulled back the lines when the Cullens returned. This was their treaty land.

But that fact would probably mean nothing to Sam now. The treaty was dead. The question today was how thin he was willing to spread his force. Was he looking for stray Cullens to poach on their land or not? Had Jared spoken the truth or taken advantage of the silence between us? Would Jacob go rogue? Did he take over as Alpha? I couldn't see it he would have attacked already. So what were they waiting for?