The One

Chapter Fifteen: Sam

I sighed as Miley ate her dinner quietly on the porch. Maybe it was a bad idea to hand Jare over to the Volturi. I mean, yeah, they can do much more for her than we ever could...but Paul and Miley don't talk much anymore. The fact that JJ isn't his shattered Paul. He loved that girl, she was his life. She was supposed to be his blood...the Lahote to carry on his family's blood.

Then he had the door slammed shut in his face and he found out that Jared's last name should really be Biers.

Embry, out of all of us, was the worst. He drank more than he should and he was being the easy and sleazy prick he'd once slapped Paul for being. If one of us bought him a corsage or whatever prostitutes wear, we'd complete the picture Embry seemed to be drawing.

No one was the same with JJ gone, and with Emily saying she was pregnant just after JJ left, it felt as if we were replacing what was ours but had been lost.

Like in The Giver, when they had that Ceremony of Replacement for the little Four Caleb that had drowned in the river.

The thing that really bothers me is that Paul is like Jonas in this situation. He knows the truth and he can't change it, he saw bad things and now he sees things differently. Hell, we all do. Miley had been raped and impregnated against her will. Her daughter was half leech and half wolf.

Emily and Leah wouldn't stop sulking over the fact that JJ was gone, but they acted normal whenever the boys were around. Seth didn't laugh anymore. Jared and Kim never said a word to each other. Colin and Brady even cry multiple times a week for JJ. Quil and Claire didn't do all the fun things they usually did.

And me? I was a wreck for days until I realized I was setting a bad example for the pack.

How did Claire even grasp the seriousness we all felt? How could a four year old girl feel like this, missing someone she'd never known? I didn't understand it, but it probably had to do with how much Jare meant to Quil. Both girls were like sisters to him, but I know that, in about thirteen or fourteen years, Claire would be Quil's girlfriend and JJ would be nothing more than a distant memory for him.

"You're thinking hard again, Sam," Emily's worried voice said.

"I'm sorry, I just-"

"Sam!" I was cut off by Leah calling my name. "Sam, come here!"

I ran onto the porch to see a girl about sixteen walking toward the house. "Who is she?" I asked.

Leah gagged. "God, she stinks worse than all eight of the Cullens. Sam, you deal with her." She dryheaved.

"Who are you?" I yelled out to the girl.

"Wow, forget me already, Uncle Sam?" The girl cocked her head to the side.

"Jared?" I stood up straighter. "But...you're supposed to be in Italy!"

"Aro asked me to give you this note," she said. "I'm going to leave before Embry or Paul see me. Goodbye, Uncle Sammy."

She gave me the note and she seemed to disappear into thin air. I wanted to scream for her to come back, for her to stay here. But she was gone. I'd lost her again...

I told Miley I'd keep everyone safe, that I'd make her proud to be my beta. But how could I keep everyone safe if I didn't see one of them at least six times a week?

What if I failed Miley? What if I couldn't even protect my own child when he or she came along?

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Yeah, yeah, kill me later. I'm breaking Sam and Quil down, just like I did Paul and Miley, Seth and Leah, and Emily. Don't worry. I may or may not pick up their broken pieces...you'll just have to keep reading to find out.