Reality is a cold dead thing….
BPOV:
"Edward please…"
The darkness was closing in making it hard to think as the burning searing pain coursed it's way through my body. My sobs turned to screams of agony, the tears freezing on their path down my chilly frozen cheeks. Nothing was as it should be.
I trusted you! I shouted in my mind over and over as it all blurred together the life I was so sure I would have. The perfect frozen life forever young, and beautiful, forever in love. Lies..
It was all lies..
Pain, that was the world I had made for myself. As the agony again tore through me. Pain for the choices I had made. Pain for the hurt I caused those around me. Stubborn oh I was so stubborn and sure I was right in my choice. Regret filled my mouth with it's acidic bitter taste.
Now I lived in the pain, in the frozen scorching pain that was my reality. As the veil of confusion was lifted the shroud removed from my eyes and the light of my new dawn sank in I could see it for what it was. Lies.. Foolish stupid girl am I.
"This is what you wanted." His dark voice broke through to me.
Yes. It is had been what I wanted. And for that choice I was being punished.
"Hate you.." I spat out before I was lost again to the screams of torment.
My pain was solace to me now, the one thing I had to remind me that I was alive. The one thing that forced me to admit I was wrong. I picked wrong..
As the darkness lapped at me flicks of its cat like tongue stroking my numbed flesh lick, lap, flick after sandpapery stroke. Teasing me with the dimming edges of my vision oh so deliciously close to oblivion and yet so far from my reach.
Let me die I begged that darkness take me away from this nothingness this lie that I foolishly placed all my dreams, and hopes in.
Days, weeks, months, years? Time traveled in this wicked place unseen the burning the red deep silky death that was now my forever. The dark my true home, the light forever extinguished as the faded silhouette of my one ray of sunshine dimmed for me with the reality of what I had allowed myself to become.
"Jacob.." I felt the sting of sharp hurt as my skin now hardened cracked and shattered with the blows that fell.
"Never again!" He shouted his words jumbled in my mind. Nothing made sense, when I grasped the world I once new by the edges it was soundly taken away replaced by the burning searing pain of my reality with Edward.
"You belong to me!" His hard cold voice rang clear as the burning in my throat tore me from the world again as his fist fell over, and over and I lost the will to count the blows.
Huddled in the corner my face buried in my hair as it matted around my shoulders in long dirty tangles I listened. The pain of my hunger soaring to a new high. How long? I tried to relate time the passing of minutes, hours? I had no sense of it or of myself I knew only Edward. He owned me, fed me, kept me and I hated him. He was the devil in my never ending hell.
"You can't keep doing this Edward!"
"Get the fuck out!" "She is mine."
"She's wasting away to nothing. She has to feed!"
The pain of my hunger grew stronger at those words. My cracked dry tongue scraped over my stone lips but no moisture could be found no reprieve. Just my empty painful nothingness.
The cramps came crashing in, as my hunger now heightened. Would I never die ever when starved? Oh.. How I wished I would wither away to the join the floating dust particles flickering in the light that peaked through the crack in the heavy drapes.
The creak of the door brought me back from the void. The light spilled in stinging my eyes causing me to hiss. Mad.. I was going mad from starvation. Growling low as the scent of blood hit my senses. More pain would come as he would kneel just out of reach. He would place the animal before me, and drink that hot wet life watching as I died a little more inside.
"Isabella."
The name registered faintly in my fogged brain before it slipped away as the red clouded my vision. Feed.
When I next opened my eyes I was not surprised to find the red haze that clouded my vision this time it was more than ever before, yet somehow I was less. Less confused, less hungry. Flashes of cognition skipped across my brain. The blood that splashed the wall, as it slid slowly down my bare skin. The scent of copper and musk as I got my first real taste of my own horror.
Monster. Vampire. The things of scary nightmares, what made small children afraid to look in their closets at night. I was that thing.
Placing my hands on the ground I rose slowly weakly to my feet. The sun was shining all around me the grass green littered with hundreds of colorful flowers all laughing at me. Those scattered colors made things seem normal in their bright beauty in this fake reality where I was free of him.
I wandered unsure sticking to the woods, afraid of each noise. Jumping and startling at any sound. The longer I walked the more sure I became that somehow I was free of him. For this moment in time I was free.
With that wonderful thought came the reality of my situation crashing in with the weight of the world. He would come, he would be angry, and I would pay.
I walked faster stumbling in my weakened state.
Safety, I needed to hide to get away.
The sun laid itself to rest, as did the moon. Falling and rising in succession over and over and still I walked. One thing kept my feet moving. One word held hope for me, Jacob.
JPOV:
I woke to the light streaming through my window. Instantly alert to danger. My skin crawling with the need to phase. Something was wrong. Springing to my feet I pushed open the window and jumped over the sill.
Lifting my head I listened searching my senses for some sign.
Yes, something was wrong it was much to quiet no sounds of birds in the early morning light. Phasing I took to the trees seeking my brothers one by one.
Our minds linked at once, each of us feeling the same sense of dread. We came together in the meadows clearing all of us tuned in to one another.
"What is it Jacob?" Paul sent the question to me his hackles raised ready for action.
"I am not sure. I would say vampire, but I don't smell anything. We patrol, Seth, Quill your with me. Paul take Leah, and Embry and go south. Call if you find anything."
We parted moving in unison one fluid massive hunting party. If a vampire was here I would take great pleasure in ripping the bastard to bits. Maybe I would even get so lucky as to come across one of them…
We patrolled the Quileute land for hours finding nothing. Searched the boundaries and still nothing yet. I couldn't erase the unease I felt. When the moon was high above us and the fog snaked it way through the trees I stopped running.
"Lets head home Jacob, whatever is out there can wait until morning." Embry said.
"He's right man, lets head home. We will pick up at first light." Paul echoed with his own desire to rest.
"Fine," I started to agree when a snap sounded like gunfire through the night. The crack of a twig as I whipped around to face the enemy only to stop as I was jolted into the past.
Long dark hair cascading down slim perfect shoulders as she smiled over her fathers shoulder. Tears in her eyes tears of happiness. Hugging Charlie goodbye those deep brown eyes meeting mine in sorrow and perhaps regret as she mouthed her goodbye to me before stepping into the car and forever out of my life.
"Holy fuck man is that?" Seth whined in shock.
Jolted back to the here and now, I came face to face with the nightmare I had always feared. Bella, but not my Bell's no this thing was the hollowed out version of what he had made her. She stood pale, and weak supporting her weight on the tree. Her eyes hidden from me by tangled masses of knotted hair.
The fog parted slightly as the air shifted and carried the bloody scent of her sickly vampire stench to me.
I stepped to the side moving away from the smell as the shell of my dream girl crashed to her knees hissing low. Her head snapping up to reveal… big brown eyes.
"Jake man what do we do here?" Paul growled as she hissed. I was the leader the alpha who would protect the pack. I had sworn to protect the tribe with my very life. Would I do that? Protect them now, even against her?
"Wait, we don't know anything yet, her eyes are brown Jacob. Maybe they didn't turn her." Seth said hopefully even as his mind betrayed his doubt to us all.
"We kill it Jacob!" Leah hissed as she advanced.
I watched as if in slow motion as Leah moved in her massive form crouched low looking to strike.
Looming over her as she knelt her eyes glistening with unshed tears those brown bottomless pits staring past her death to seek me out. Her hiss and cry of anger sounding more like pain as she shivered and dug her fingers into the wet earth.
The power behind the strike was undeniable as Leah shot forward for the kill. One word broke the night in that moment.. "Jake". Her soft whisper torn past my hard exterior. Just as she fell under the weight of the giant wolf it's teeth finding their mark in her stone flesh.
