What to say. Hm. As I told my girl Erica, this one is all about imagery and sex. Anything else? Not really.

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or its characters, though Jacob Black has taken possession of my soul.

Crossroads

My mama was a very superstitious woman, and she did her all to instill the same beliefs right down within me as I grew up. I knew that the faint red I saw on the moon every time I looked up was a bad omen for me, just as surely as I knew that the rosemary I had planted by my front gate when she first got sick was for luck.

I would never be lucky again, and I had dug up the worthless bits of green peeking out of the ground on my way out of the house.

It was chilly out at the moment, the moon's rays disappearing behind the distant bayou as a light breeze settled in the air... I knew that soon enough it would be sweltering again as the hot Louisiana sun began to rise on this dismal August day.

I slunk through the edge of the tree line as quietly as I could, trying not to draw attention from any people or animals that might have been up at such an early hour. The small wooden box in my hands, physically not a burden to carry, seemed to gain weight with every step I took. Its contents haunted me, though I'd filled the box myself.

A lonely rooster called out into the night, waking those it guarded through the dark prematurely. I cringed away from the noise, falling farther into the shadow of the thick woods along the side of the highway for a while before leaving the road entirely, slinking onto the small forest path that would lead me to my destination.

Half dead tree branches scratched at my arms and face as I fought my way through the seldom used deer path; I hadn't been this way in a long time. Where it led had always frightened my mama.

I saw bits of orange tinge the night sky through rare breaks in leaves over my head, implying that the dawn was arriving. I should have left earlier so I wouldn't have had to travel in the sun as long.

It got hotter and hotter the longer I traveled and took longer than I remembered, though I knew I was not lost. I debated the idiocy of not bringing water with me before shaking my head at myself. Water would do me no good—I sincerely hoped—once I reached my destination.

I wasn't overheated with many layers of clothing, but I was still burning up in the warmth of the quickly progressing day, the white fabric of the plain dress I wore sticking to my skin in the most uncomfortable way as I hurried through the vaguely familiar woods, not even an animal in sight. I prayed like the hypocrite that I was to arrive soon.

I glanced up to see the sun had passed overhead, the day half over and I was near ready to collapse from exhaustion, hunger, and dehydration; the feel of it beating down on my mostly bare back was almost unbearable. Would the sunburn matter when all was said and done? I had no idea.

The air became oppressive as I reached the clearing in the woods, but I paid no attention: I had made it.

The grass was long and a disturbing greenish-gray, reaching up past my waist. There were no trees, or flowers, or even weeds in the area to disrupt its wild growth. The dark trees that surrounded the meadow made an almost perfect circle, enclosing the space in a haunting way.

Haunting because this wasn't just a random meadow in the midst of the forest.

It was a crossroads.

My mama always feared crossroads; she was frightened that a demon would meet her and tempt her into giving away her soul for something she said she didn't really need.

Like wealth. Love. Maybe a few more years of life.

My wooden box made a soft thud as it hit the ground, sobs trying to fight their way out of my chest and vomit wanting to expel itself from my throat. I held both urges back, as neither wouldn't do me any good right now.

On her death bed, my mama confided to me how much she wished she had more time. How she wished that she could have done more, loved more, been more. She deserved more, but the disease took her from me too quickly and she never had the chance to do more once she discovered the necessity.

"I'd do just about anything to have more time," she'd confessed to me, her voice weak with mortality.

I admit to being too much like my mama for my own good. My mama was superstitious, and so was I. She craved the ability to live above all else, and so did I. She died from a genetic disease passed on to her from her own mother, and so would I.

But she also believed that a demon would appear at a crossroads... and so did I.

I breathed in deeply to gather my composure, bending over to pick up my box. The box was important, as it would bring me what I desired above all: a bargain.

I stared ahead at the paths before me at the far end of the clearing, trying to judge the distance between each. I was told that I needed to find the exact center. I paced the area to measure as precisely as I could, the sweat on my skin glistening in the sun as if I were covered in sparkles. It was a bright image to contrast the desolate reason I had come all the way to the location.

A bird called in the distance as I collapsed on the ground in what I hoped was the correct spot. I looked up in time to see a solitary raven flying away, giving one last echoing cry to me as its form faded from my sight. Ravens were the familiars of the underworld. I took this to mean that I should continue with my sordid plans.

Despite this, my heart still beat frantically as I dug a hole in the ground, large enough to place my box within.

The ground under the grass was dry, making it easy for me to brush off the dust that had accumulated on the slip I still wore from the night before.

It was what I had worn under my funeral dress.

Monday I had submitted myself to be tested for the same illness that was taking my mama away from me. Tuesday she had died. Thursday I received my positive results. Saturday, the day before, was her funeral.

My week had been so exhausting that I had merely removed all my layers but this one, this falsely innocent white lace slip dress that clung to my body in a way that I thought would entice a demon to come and get me, should I summon one. This was why I didn't change once I'd made my decision.

I had meant to sleep after that melancholy-filled day, but had stayed up all night instead, pondering my mortality until I reached my conclusion, one that couldn't wait. My mother had died exactly five weeks after she had first started showing symptoms, and I was already having the frequent headaches and vomiting blood several times a day. My time would be up soon as well, and I didn't even have the few people left to mourn my death that my mama did. We had no family left but each other, and her friends that had come to the service were not mine.

I was as alone as the raven who had wished death and hell upon me as it flew away.

I flattened the mound over my box with my foot, trying to even out the soil and erase my presence from the area as much as possible. Besides the bent grass from where I had sat, it was as if I was never there—as if I had never existed in this place.

I took a deep breath and waited. Hoped. I might have even called what I was doing praying, considering how Satan was once one of God's most precious angels.

I waited for a long time, wondering if I was successful. Did I forget something? Did I do something wrong? The sun's brightness lowered in the sky as I dissected my actions.

And then He arrived.

The sun behind his back made his shape a dark silhouette; tall, lean, and strikingly familiar. I stood stark still as he slowly approached, willing him to come close enough for me to make out his features.

After a long while, he was right in front of me.

His hair was a dark red, and looked surprisingly soft for his line of work. His flesh was pale as death, though that shouldn't have shocked me, either. And his eyes... they frightened me with the way they vacillated between a deep black and bright topaz as we stared at each other.

I shouldn't have been astonished that he would be so handsome or have charm in his stature. After all, this couldn't have been merely a demon sent in to make a deal, but he had to be Lucifer himself; he was more beautiful and tempting than sin itself. The devil had come to strike a bargain with me himself. I should have been flattered.

"You kept me waiting a long time today," I told him quietly.

"I do apologize for that, ma'am," he replied, giving a half bow like a gentleman. "I had to come a long way to meet you... and you've kept me waiting even longer, Bella."

I nodded in acceptance. This was true. "I should have guessed that you were the devil," I whispered, more to myself than him.

He'd been in and out of town for as long as I could remember; talking to a few people, shaking hands, grinning his secret out in daylight. Making deals and collecting souls, as I'd never noticed before. But how could I have been so easily fooled? He'd caught my eye every single time, nodding a greeting to me. He'd known this was coming, just as I suppose I had always known that he was more than simply a man.

"Perhaps," he easily agreed to my earlier words. "I was so glad when I saw that you'd finally come to me, when I saw your picture," he said, lifting a photo from my wooden box.

I blinked at the image before looking down at the ground in front of me, seeing it still looking undisturbed, barely a mound on the ground after my stomping on it. How did he get the box? Had he had it the entire time he approached me?

He didn't respond to my stunned expression, merely kept on talking.

"A little of everything that could tie your soul to this earth, all fitting into such a small box. A little depressing, if you ask me."

It was. I didn't deny his statement.

"A picture of yourself, your face drawn in with your blood to tempt me closer. Oh, how it worked, love. I came all the way from Africa to broker this deal myself."

I wasn't sure how to respond to that, so I kept quiet.

"A favorite book... a piece of your own baby blanket... a photo of your mother... a slice of cheesecake from your fridge?"

He seemed amused by this last one, and I couldn't find it in me to blame him.

"A piece of an old blue sweater... You knit this for your father, did you not? Before you realized that a simple gift would never bring him back to your mother?"

I clenched my mouth closed tightly, trying not to react.

"Pictures of the sparse, dying town you live in. It hasn't thrived since long before my first visit here, and now everyone of value is making deals to be better, leaving the desolation behind. The entire place will be a ghost town in the next half century, trust me."

I had a feeling his words were meant to hurt me, but they didn't. Without my mama, there was nothing left for me here, anyway.

"The church where you never fit in... The store where everyone stared at the bastard child whenever you'd enter... The home you lived in, fit for 'Southern Trash' like yourself, as it clearly should have been condemned decades before-"

"There's no reason for you to sort through all that now," I interrupted him. "Can't we just get this over with?"

"It's all a part of the process," he said calmly, though he left the last picture unmentioned. Had he even glanced at it? "These are all things you are agreeing to leave behind. You are giving them all to me, Bella. They are no longer yours."

As he said these words I noticed that the box was gone. His black magic had stored it somewhere, just as it had taken it from the earth under my very feet.

"My Bella," he began again, lightly grasping my fingertips in his and planting a kiss upon them. His freezing breath, his hands so cold they couldn't be of the living, sent a shiver down my spine despite the heat. "I have watched you for many years, knowing your fate. Would you like to walk into Death's hands, or do you wish to dance with Him instead? Give up such a small part of yourself to live on, free and unburdened by the laws of man? To live past the short life you were given by a cruel God? Would you give up a meaningless soul to live through the centuries, satisfying all your wants and desires?"

His words were so tempting, though I knew that was the point. But what was a soul, anyway? It wasn't my life—this man certainly didn't have a soul and yet he walked, talked, thought, and lived on as an individual. What did it actually mean to give up my soul and live on? It wasn't as if I would end up spending an eternity in hell, tortured by demons as I'd been taught in the church. What was a soul, then, if not my existence? What is it that the devil himself was asking for me to give to him?

"I want to live," I decided, my voice cracking slightly as a few tears managed to escape. "Take my soul. I don't want or need it."

I couldn't think that it wouldn't be worth it. I would live forever, experiencing all that my mama wanted to and more. I couldn't think of any consequences to my actions.

He nodded, a satisfied look in his eyes.

"Do you know how to seal a devil's bargain, my Bella?" he asked, stepping even closer to me, his chest touching mine with each labored breath I exhaled. His didn't move at all. "Most deals are closed with a simple kiss, but your deal is more than what most others ask for. Do you understand?"

"Yes," I whispered, waiting for him to do as he must to give me eternity.

A cold hand touched the small of my back and I gasped, not having noticed him moving. He used the hand to press me closer against his body, and I was surprised to feel how hard the body was. Then again, of course the devil could make his appearance attractive to me, considering how we needed to seal the deal.

He bent his head down, his lips meeting the corner of my mouth and I didn't know if I was afraid or excited for the better aimed one I knew was coming.

His other hand was on the bare part of my upper back, smoothing his coldness down the burnt skin there, healing my wounds with his touch. The hand ghosted over my back, down my arms, up my neck and to my cheek, leaving a fiery frost in its wake, while his first hand stayed attached at my lower back, not moving a muscle.

"Shall we make this deal?" He spoke the words roughly into my ear, leaving no gentle whisper or soft breath.

"Yes."

In one swift motion he used the hand on my lower back to push me even harder into him and grabbed hold of my leg to hitch it over his hip, pressing his lips firmly into my own.

My mind went blank, my body reacting to him of its own accord, responding to the seductive charm that emanated from every pore of his being. If nothing else became of my life... if no tragedy befell my family... I would have still given him my soul if he agreed to kiss me.

These thoughts came to me before he even parted my lips with his tongue, caressing my soul out from within, begging it to come to him, to be his. The flutterings in my body responded, bringing it out for him.

A hand gripped my hair hard, pushing my face roughly into his, and I spasmed against him at the sensation.

He tugged my mouth away from his long enough for a passionate declaration before connecting our lips once more. "I will consume every ounce of your soul, Bella Swan. I will rip it from your body with my hands, my lips, and my teeth. There will be no stopping me from possessing it now."

I couldn't tell him no even if I wanted to. It was his. I wrapped my hands into his hair as my only response. I could feel how my acquiescence pleased him in his renewed vigor against my mouth, his hand reaching my breast through the cleavage of my dress, and his arousal so close to where I throbbed for him as I hadn't for anyone else.

I forced a hand out of his luscious hair only because I would use it to instead pull his shirt from his slacks, letting me feel the chilled skin of his back as he felt mine.

He growled at me, his eyes shifting from a deep honey to pitch black, though still as unreadable as always. He shocked me by taking a step back from me and I did my best to stay upright, breathing heavily from our interaction.

Only those dark eyes of his moved, gazing up and down my body, assessing what he saw there.

My hair, a complete mess from his hands, sweaty from my long walk and wait in the sun. My face and chest, flushed and heaving from desire. The left strap to my dress broken and hanging loosely, the right down my shoulder, both causing more of my chest to show than I'd ever normally let someone see. The slip itself had several rips along the torso and I could feel bruises forming along the skin these rips showcased from his grabbing hands.

I looked thoroughly ravaged, though I hadn't yet been by this devil, only the one who left me years before. I hadn't ever wanted that man like I wanted this fallen angel, though.

His gaze penetrated me hard enough that I was still gasping, even without his touch. Yes, he certainly was Sin incarnate. If I had ever doubted that this man's deal was real, I couldn't have anymore. He would take my soul, and we both would enjoy every moment leading up to it.

Next thing I knew I was flat on my back, the grass acting as a rough bed and I didn't know if my mind had missed the movement or if he had used more of his black magic as he had done with my box. It was irrelevant as our clothing disappeared from our bodies and he spread my legs.

He paused, glaring into my eyes with his black ones and the anticipation nearly killed me.

"Your last picture..." he began, my mind suddenly clearing. "When did you take it?"

"It was the first time I saw you, maybe four years ago," I answered, his piercing gaze forcing honesty out of me despite my will to lie. "I'd never seen a man I wanted more, and I wanted to preserve the memory."

"The only things that go into your soul's box are things that would tie it to the world of the living. I am not that. I am taking your soul to the world of the dead, so you'll understand that I had to remove it," he said, pulling the picture from thin air.

I gazed at the man in the photo and the man holding it. They were one and the same, and I had no idea how I could have mistaken him for human in town and known right away who he was here, in our Crossroads Hell.

"It doesn't matter. I gave you my soul four years ago. You're only just now collecting it."

And with that he kissed me again as he settled himself in place between my legs, his lips trailing from my mouth, down my jaw, and across my neck.

I was breathing heavily as he pushed himself inside of me, his mouth opening and his teeth clenching down on my throat—hard.

I cried out, the pain more intense than I would have imagined, contrasting horribly with the pleasure going on in the rest of my body as he pulled out and pushed in, one hand roughly clutching my breast and the other tenderly caressing the painless side of my neck.

"Oh, God," I whimpered.

It's too late for him, I hear whispered in my head. He must not have wanted to remove his teeth to speak the words aloud. You are mine now.

My body burned in response.

As he bit me, I could actually feel my soul leaving my body, feel the scorching as it was viciously ripped and torn from my being.

The blaze within me continued to get worse as it spread from the starting point, and after only a minute or so, I could no longer feel pleasure, then I couldn't feel him at all, then I could feel nothing except the feeling of being incinerated from the inside out.

It was horrifying, and I screamed louder than I'd ever screamed in my life, yet still the fire scalded me.

It burned forever.

Once forever ended, and burning turned to singing, and the singing turned to cold, I lay still.

I was cold. I was naked. And the devil was still on top of me, his frigid body now seeming an average temperature.

A new beginning for me found itself in front of my eyes, this time as a soulless creature of my own making.

Whatever that meant.

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Tell me your thoughts. Ask me your questions. I shall respond.

Much Love,

MuffN