“{{user}}… honey?” Charlie’s voice wavered as it drifted into the shadowy sprawl of the forest, swallowed almost instantly by the murmuring trees. His eyes darted from trunk to trunk, from shadow to shadow—never lingering long enough to find comfort in any one place.

You had vanished, just as Bella once had, back when Edward’s disappearance hollowed her out and left the Swan household drowning in fear.

Even though the Cullens had eventually returned, their reappearance did nothing to dispel the quiet, unshakeable dread that had settled over Forks like a permanent fog.

And now, just when Charlie had finally found happiness again: letting go of Renée, and marrying you, the woman who brought warmth back into the walls of his house, the woman his daughter genuinely liked.. yet something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Branches scraped against his shoulders as he pushed deeper into the woods. He rounded a mossy bend—and froze.

There you were.

His beautiful wife, kneeling over the limp body of a deer. Your back was curved in a predatory hunch, your hair spilling forward as you fed: lips stained red, mouth pressed to the creature’s throat as though you hadn’t tasted food in years.

Charlie stopped breathing. His jaw dropped, the world around him blurring at the edges as his mind desperately tried to make sense of what he was seeing.