AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hellooooo. This is my first story and I got the inspiration when I found that hardly anyone did a fanfic about Nessie and Jacob being separated and the latter dying. I hope you'll all enjoy it! I'd also LOVE to see some reviews! (Hint, hint.)
Disclaimer: I do NOT own anything except the plotline. And the OCs. And the deaths of the—OK, OK. I think you all get the idea.

Prologue

Renesmee Cullen clenched a fistful of fur in her hand, watching the two sides 'negotiate'. She could literally feel the tension simmering in the air like a heat wave.

"It's going to be all right," Rosalie muttered under her breath. Renesmee glanced at her aunt, who was fixatedly glaring at the Volturi.

"Aunt Rose?" Renesmee said quietly. Her aunt turned to glance at her.

"Yes?" the blond vampire asked.

"Is Momma going to be OK?" she said. She shuddered, seeing the Volturi's stonily cold stares meet hers. She turned her head so that she wouldn't have to look them in the eye, feeling a chill seep into her bones. Beneath her, Jacob Black growled.

"Of course, Nessie," Rosalie assured her, but didn't elaborate.

"But…" Renesmee bit her tongue. They're so scary, she had wanted to say, but she was well aware of the vampires' superhuman hearing, and she didn't want to sound like the frightened little girl that she was inside. "What about Dad?"

"He's going to be fine too," said Rosalie gently. "Don't worry, Nessie. We won't let them hurt you."

"But Irina got bur—"

"Irina deserved it, for causing this." Rosalie's voice was surprisingly harsh.

"You're sure we're going to be all right?"

Rosalie forced a smile. "Darling, why would I ever lie?"

You lie all the time, thought Renesmee. Then, suddenly, her dad was on the ground, screaming in agony.

"EDWARD!" Even from this distance, Renesmee could hear the pure pain in her mother's shriek as she dropped to her knees in the snow beside her husband, who was writhing and twisting as if he could get away from the torment.

"Aunt Rose, Aunt Rose," Renesmee gasped.

"Nessie, stay here," Rosalie urged her. "Stay here with Jacob, OK?"

"But, Aunt Rose!"

"Stay here!" Rosalie almost yelled.

Flinching, Renesmee shrank into Jacob's thick, matted russet fur, not liking the sudden flash of anger in Rosalie's face. Jacob trembled in her hands, but whether it was because of anger or fear, she didn't know.

Rosalie sighed and looked away. "I'm sorry, Nessie," she said finally. "Look, keep this safe, all right?" She tucked a white envelope into Renesmee's pants pocket and patted it. "It's your passport—I mean, it's Vanessa Wolfe's passport. Don't lose it. You'll need it if there's a fight. Remember to stay with Jacob, OK? Trust me, nobody will come close to harming you."

Renesmee nodded mutely, scared of her aunt's reaction.

Rosalie brushed her lips over Renesmee's pale forehead and managed to smile at her. Renesmee smiled back, faintly, memorizing every small feature of her aunt in case…in case this was the last time she saw her. What happened next was so abrupt that when Renesmee blinked, the beautiful moment was lost.

First, Alec of the Volturi raised his hand and pushed; a nanosecond later, Bella was lying in the snow, face-down and screaming. Renesmee's dad had gone limp like an abandoned rag doll, but he was still moaning when Caius stepped forward and, kneeling beside him, jerked his head off and threw it overhand into the crackling flames that had burned Irina Denali to nothingness a minute ago. Or was it an hour? Renesmee couldn't seem to recall.

Then the clearing exploded into pure, utter chaos and mayhem as the perfect, orderly lines before transformed within the space of a second into an outright, crazy fight.

Renesmee ducked as somebody's head went flying over her, petrified by it all. "Momma!" she shrilled. "MOMMA!" Aunt Rose? she thought repeatedly, but her aunt was missing.

Jacob suddenly growled and spun on his heels, first padding, then running for the woods.

"Jake! Stop!" she cried, but herself off when she heard soft footsteps behind them. Renesmee grasped the wolf's neck fur and twisted around to see their pursuer sprinting after them: Demetri.

The tracker, Renesmee remembered, with a sinking feeling—dread, probably—in her stomach. She turned back and shivered. Run, Jake, she thought. Run.

For a while, they seemed to be picking up speed, and Renesmee's pounding heart slowed. She thought of her aunt Rose. Was she still alive? Renesmee pressed her palm to the spot between Jacob's two ears and channeled her memory of Rosalie's warm, motherly smile to him. Is she going to be OK? she asked him.

It was then that Jacob's steps faltered for a second. Afterward, Renesmee would think it over—the chase and everything that happened next—and wonder if she had been the one who had caused his steady lope to falter with her memory of Rosalie. Jacob recovered his pace hastily, but that was all it took—a single second, seemingly unimportant, yet so crucial—for Demetri to catch up with us, stick his arm out, and knock Jacob to the ground.

Renesmee tumbled off to the side and bit her tongue to keep from moaning from the pain in her shoulder. It felt broken, but she had to get up, so she leaned on a nearby tree for support, wincing with pain.

Jacob was in his human form and on his feet, growling. Demetri kicked at him, but he ducked and head-butted the vampire in the gut. Quick as a flash, the vampire tracker brought his knee upward and hit the werewolf in the face. Jacob flew into the snow and lay there, unmoving.

"JAKE!" Renesmee ran to him, screaming his name.

Demetri looked up as if just noticing her, and she barely had time to think to herself, Damn it, he saw me, before he came for her.

He caught at her arms, but she ducked in time. The vampire snarled at her, and she wanted to cower, but then she remembered Jacob's limp figure in the snow, and she found the courage within her to kick him in the groin with her small foot. To her surprise, it worked, and Demetri collapsed in a heap, groaning. Immediately she was at Jacob's side, eyes wide.

"Jake?" she whispered, fearful.

Groaning, he turned on his side. She was scared to death, but at the same time relieved that he was still alive. "Nessie…?"

"Jake, we have to get out of here!"

"Vanessa…Wolfe…" he mumbled.

"What?" Renesmee was truly confounded.

"Your…alias," he managed. "You'll be safe—trust me."

"But, Jake, aren't you coming with?"

"I—" Then Demetri landed atop Jacob, and the two of them tumbled aside into the snow. "Ness! Trust me, I'll keep you safe!" Jake shouted from underneath the vampire.

"Jake!" Renesmee gasped, her small, childlike hands flying to her mouth. "Are you OK?"

Jacob grunted with exertion. The two slammed against a pine tree, hitting it with so much impact that snow fell off the branches above and half-buried them under it.

"Jake!" repeated Renesmee, aghast.

"Nessie, run!" A dark blot of scarlet stained the formerly pristine white ground, and Renesmee screamed. "Run! Go!"

"No, Jake!" Renesmee clambered to her feet, cautiously approaching the brawling couple. "I'm not going without you!"

As she watched, the stain spread, and the fight seemed less energized and more half-hearted. Demetri rose out of the heap of snow and slammed Jacob against the ground. He stood, with one foot on top of Jake's chest, right above a bloody wound.

"Go, Ness!" Jacob managed to grunt out before he swiped at Demetri's calves, and they fell into a brutal brawl again.

Mouth open wide, Renesmee took a few steps back. "Jake," she whispered. "Jake, please don't leave me alone. I'm scared."

Demetri's maniacal laugh/cackle of triumph split the air. He bit down on the werewolf's shoulder, and it was then that Renesmee felt her heart shatter as if sliced into a zillion shards, each and every one of them broken. She knew that there was no hope—not anymore.

"I'm not…leaving you alone," Jacob gasped. He screamed when Demetri sank his teeth into his arm again. "You'll be…safe. Trust me…Nessie. I won't—" His last words were cut off by another tortured scream of pure, indescribable pain. Somehow, somewhere, he found the strength to shrill out a hoarse, "Trust me!" and that two words, meaningless as they seemed, changed her blasted immortal life forever.

Renesmee turned on her heels away from her broken heart and ran for all she was worth, hot salty tears rolling down her cheeks, some dripping into her mouth, open in a single silent scream. She turned away from her dying imprint; she turned away from her tortured friend, running toward her conscience and logic and everything that screamed to her, This is the practical answer! She felt as though she was dying herself as yet another scream pierced her ears. It hurt so much that she couldn't believe that she was still on her feet and alive. She wanted to die, even.

But then Jacob hollered, "GO!" and that fueled her feet.

The passport of 'Vanessa Wolfe' weighing in her pocket and her guilt, shame, fear, betrayal and hurt—hurt most of all—weighing a hundredfold more in her broken, unfixable heart, she ran off into the horizon, tears flowing at a steady pace.

Away from her family, loved ones, and screaming heart and toward the unknown.

If only she could pick the first one.