The Dark Hour
Takes place roughly two months after Twilight ends.
Summary: Edward grapples with his decision to remain in Bella's life and the danger it brings. But when it is Edward who is hunted by the darkest of all demons, will he regret not changing Bella? Roles will be reversed as human Bella goes against the odds to keep her love alive.
The thundering fall of water, plummeting from the green mountain was enough to wash away all other sound in creation, but it was no match to the bubbling thoughts slamming around the mind of Bella Swan. She was hiking with her friends – not exactly by her own accord – already two miles away from her beastly truck. She was an unknown distance from Edward Cullen, her vampire boyfriend who had been finding ways to detach himself from her at an alarming rate.
Her slight back cradled a backpack and a rolled sleeping bag. She didn't struggle under the weight but coupled with her natural clumsiness, the added bulk made her awkwardly more unbalanced on her feet. Jessica, Mike, Angela, and Eric hopped along the trail in front of her.
Edward had left to hunt yesterday, encouraging her to spend time in a normal world while he was gone. Normal was his new favorite word, it seemed. All summer long, if Edward wasn't staring off into his thoughts, he was pushing Bella away to the movies with Angela and Jessica. He insisted she spend evenings with her father. Edward even told her to join her friends at Mike Newton's birthday party.
"Smile!" Angela called loudly, ripping Bella from the remembered events of the past two months. She stopped biting her lower lip enough to spread a thin smile across her ivory face as her friend snapped a picture. "Isn't this beautiful?" Angela screamed in order to be heard over the thousands of gallons of water that fell over the boulders nearby. Falls Creek Falls was beautiful. Even a preoccupied Bella admitted that, but she had no room in her thoughts to relish the current scenery. She was beginning to understand – with panic simmering in her veins – that Edward was getting ready to leave her.
The ground steepened ahead. Her sneaker touched a wet rock, and when she placed her weight down, she slipped forward onto her knees. Bella quickly picked herself up before the others ahead of her noticed. Evening was almost upon them, the gray clouds growing darker as night set in. She wondered momentarily if it was such a safe idea to be so close to the falls at night's approach, but she was quickly sidetracked back into thoughts of Edward.
He thinks I'm at Angela's house for the night, Bella remembered. Or maybe he's watching me right now. A swell of hope raced into her chest, but she quickly beat it down. He had spent the two months after school let out trying to escape intimacy with her; why would he even dwell secretly when keeping distance from her? She sighed but the booming falls swallowed the sound as soon as it escaped her lips. No, Edward was not there with her. Edward was hunting to fill his bloody needs. Edward would continue to do the things and live his life the way he had for the last eighty years before she ever showed up in it.
Bella bit her bottom lip again, hard. She was unable to shake the realization that she had become too big of a complication for Edward to handle. He had promised to stay with her when she was in the hospital after James' attack. But things change. Edward had always told her. Things change.
And so, she forged on behind her friends, awkwardly making her way up the rocky ground, darkened by the fine mist that had begun to sprinkle down.
"Hurry, Bella!" Mike shouted from the lead. The last fragments of light from the day trickled around them and showed the foggy clouds that hid the grand bowl of water twenty-five feet below them, where the cascades pooled together. She didn't like being in the woods without him, and as she struggled even more so with the wet terrain, she guessed Edward wouldn't have been thrilled about it either.
*****
Jasper kissed the thin skin on the back of Alice's hand as they sat together on third level deck at the Cullen home, relishing another day spent. They had used the time to scale the trees, tumble down mountains, and simply delight in the company of each other. Even if every day had been the same, it would always feel glorious to him. He grinned again at the purity radiating off of his pixie's face.
Alice's eyes lost focus just then, and Jasper erected his senses. "What is it?" He felt her petite frame tighten in his grip.
"We have to go back to the forest!" she breathed and lunged from the house. "Bella needs us." Jasper leaped up and off the deck after her, knowing it was time to worry when Alice didn't even stop to alert Esme of this newest development.
*****
Emmett approached his brother, who had been scowling at seemingly nothing but the air in front of him for close to two hours. Night had just fallen. Emmett clasped branch after branch, hurling himself up almost a hundred feet in seconds. He landed on a massive branch beside Edward as hundreds of pine needles descended toward the forest floor beneath them. "So what has Bella been doing in your absence?" he asked casually, but knowing there was nothing casual when it came to Edwards thoughts concerning the small human girl.
Edward shrugged.
"She hasn't been at the house in weeks, Edward. Not to complain, because Rosalie's mood has certainly been much improved. But you mope more than before she ever showed up. What gives?"
Emmett did not overlook the pain that traced the corners of his brother's eyes. He glanced away, respectfully.
"Bella is seventeen. She will get over the novelty of our kind sooner or later."
"I thought she was part of the family now. After all that you two went through over James. I know you love her, brother."
"Can we not talk about this right now, Emmett? Please?" Edward gritted his teeth as he asked. Emmett was about to object when Edward's head snapped up to the sky intently. No moon and no stars lit the forest that night. The brothers didn't need them, though. They saw each other and the conifers towering around them as clearly as if flood lights filled the woods. Edward seemed panicked. And Emmett had only ever seen Edward panic over one thing. One person.
"Alice is coming. She's nearby with Jasper," Edward spoke quietly. Emmett waited patiently for the flow of information to continue. He brushed tree sap away from his finger and crouched onto his toes, ready to jump. Edward seemed to choke on his own breath as his eyes widened. Without another word, he dropped himself out of the tree, leaving Emmett no choice but to follow.
******
Bella was cold and dripping wet. Mike was encouraging them all to get to the highest part of the three-tier water fall. He promised a small, grassy clearing where they could camp. Why anyone would want to camp in the rain went beyond Bella. She grunted a little as she tried taking the black stones two at a time to bridge the gap between her and the others. Not such a good idea, she soon realized. She found herself thrusting her arms out every other second to hold on to her last shreds of balance. The moon suddenly showed itself; it had been absent since nightfall. The blue light bounced off the fog and reflected a dim glow into the air. She could at least see in front of her now. She was over twenty paces behind Angela.
Not wanting to be left further behind, she pushed herself up, using her hands to hoist her body up over a boulder. As she straightened back up, her right foot ever-so-slightly slipped off the edge of the wet rock and sent her body collapsing back down. She landed with a small thud on her left ankle before tipping off the rock completely. Her arms flailed. Her fingernails frantically scratched at the blackness, but the rock was perfectly smooth, and so she slid. Nothing but small, quivering yelp flew from her lips before she fell backwards into the night air.
Moonlight spilled over the wild scene now. Jessica turned around in time to see Bella fall backwards. She screamed louder than Bella ever could. The entire group looked on as shock washed over them. The water fall pounded down and bounced echoing booms against the surrounding mountains. Bella disappeared through the thin clouds and out of her peers' frightened sight like a stone dropped from the cliffs above.
******
Edward's pace left Emmett over a mile behind him by the time Alice and Jasper collided into him in one of the denser parts of the forest.
"Where?" Edward shouted. "You saw her fall. Where did you see her fall?" He demanded, grabbing Alice by her frail shoulders.
"Falls Creek Falls." Alice complied. "Be discreet, Edward!" she shouted after him, for he had already left his siblings the very instant the location left her lips. "The humans are with her!"
Falls Creek was five miles away. Edward became a pale purple haze, blurring through the trees in the darkness. He obscured his thoughts to keep the distorting fear from surfacing.
Get to her, he repeated to himself. Just get to her.
He heard the waterfalls before he had even neared its base. In a steady string of minutes that felt like an entire night had already passed, he finally felt the wet rocks beneath them as he practically flew over them. Freesia scents burst through the rain. He smelled her. She had climbed these rocks.
Edward scrambled to the top of the cliff like a bolt of electricity. He ran now, emerging from a cluster of trees only to fling himself into the air. He landed several yards onto the extreme edge of the cliff and bounced off like he was on a spring. Large rocks broke away from under the pressure of his liftoff. And then he was flying. Diving down the length of the cascading water. Swifter than a free-fall itself, he sped down until he broke the surface of the water.
"What the hell was that?" Mike shouted. The anxious group was frantically climbing back down when they saw the blur come from the sky.
"It looked like a meteor or something." Eric called out in awe.
"I don't care. We just need to get down from here," Jessica shrieked.
"We need to get to Bella," Angela cried. The four friends scrambled as fast as they safely could down the mountain, unaware of the vampire, Edward, retrieving a thoroughly soaked, motionless Bella from the depths of the icy mountain water.