Remember
The next thing I knew, I was running. Sticking to the forests and sparsely populated areas, I planned to run and run until my lungs gave out with exhaustion. They never did. I didn't need food or sleep—I only stopped to drink the blood of animals when it was absolutely necessary. I found that I preferred the blood of bears and mountain lions to deer and elk. I snapped their necks and drained them dry, sometimes two at a time. I was a monster.
As I ran, particularly after I fed, more memories of the final day of my life resurfaced. Disconnected fragments of events came back to me, and I started to piece them together like some perverse puzzle.
The last day of my life was my first day at Forks High School. I was driving my beloved, battered old truck, which had somehow survived the journey from Arizona to Washington. I parked it in the lot outside the school, where it blended in with the other assorted beaters, save for three flashy cars that I noticed. As much as I tried to keep my head down and avoid notice, the other students treated me like a shiny new toy, vying for my attention and questioning me endlessly. The most remarkable part of my day was when I saw a beautiful boy and his strange, captivating family. He met my eyes in the cafeteria, giving me a look I couldn't interpret. They told me his name was Edward Cullen, and I saw him again in Biology.
Oh, God, no. Biology. My pace slowed from an inhumanly fast run to a sudden stop. I locked my knees when the memory assaulted my mind, and I was flung face-first into the ground with incredible momentum.
That day, I walked into Biology class, the overly friendly Mike Newton at my heels. The teacher directed me towards the only empty seat in the room, beside the impossibly gorgeous, bronze-haired boy. He gave me the most terrifying glare I'd ever seen—he had the cold, furious eyes of a predator. I walked past the fan, my strawberry-scented hair catching the breeze. Edward seemed to sniff the air. For a moment, he looked like he would spring from his seat, but he stayed put, his hands clenched so tightly around the edge of the table that I'd swear he'd warped the wood.
All through class, he stared at me with a murderous glare. He terrified me, yet simultaneously intrigued me. So beautiful, so dangerous. So frightening, so flawless. Like the sullen Angel of Death. I imagined touching him in ways my virgin hands and lips and body had never dreamed of touching anyone.
Before the end of class, he leaned over to me. My heart pounded in my chest. A flood of fear-induced adrenaline surged through my veins at the exact instant that an equally powerful flood of arousal soaked through my white cotton panties. Edward inhaled deeply, groaning, oblivious to the curious stares of the people around us. It was almost as if he could smell me. He spoke into my ear and his honeyed breath swirled around my face, intoxicating me.
"Bella," he spoke in a silken tone, "would you mind accompanying me out to my car after class?" He looked down shyly, then glanced up at me from beneath his long fringe of black lashes. All traces of darkness were gone from his eyes, and they shone a beguiling topaz. "I've got something I'd like to show you." He held my gaze for a moment and exhaled another delicious breath of air into my face.
Unable to form a coherent response, I nodded. It felt as though he had me under some sort of a spell, and I was powerless to refuse him. When class ended, he simply hooked my arm in his and led me out to the parking lot. My heart fluttered at his touch, and he looked over at me with a smirk, as if he'd heard it. Dazzled by his scent, his touch, and his mere proximity, I forgot all about his strange behavior in class, and the terrifying blackness of his eyes.
As we walked in the fresh air, my head seemed to clear, and I realized that I'd agreed to leave school with a complete stranger. By the time he'd led me nearly to the end of the parking lot and diverted our course toward the surrounding woods, I began to get nervous. "Uh, Edward," I asked, my voice shaking perceptibly, "where are we going? You said you wanted to show me something in your car."
"Hmm?" he said, as if I were interrupting his thoughts. "Oh, yes. Well, I decided I'd like to show you something in the woods, instead." His innocently lopsided grin did little to assuage my unease as he led me into the woods.
He pulled me to a stop in a small clearing and paced around me, clearly pleased with himself. He looked strangely like a photographer, trying to set up the perfect shot. He circled me once, twice, then fluffed my long, mahogany locks out around my shoulders and stood back, admiring me. Then, my worst nightmare began.
Edward stalked up to me slowly, practically purring in anticipatory delight. I began to shake uncontrollably, and he seemed to enjoy my reaction. My heart felt like it would thump out of my ribcage, but I couldn't make my legs move. Somehow, I knew that even if I tried to run, he would catch me. Whatever he was trying to do, he was drawing it out. I couldn't stop a big, salty tear from rolling down my cheek.
Instantly, he stood before me. His pointy pink tongue darted out and licked the tear from my face. As if he couldn't restrain himself any longer, he stepped forward, his hand fisting in my thick hair and pulling my head back to expose my neck. He buried his nose in the skin of my neck, dragging it from my collarbone, up beneath my ear and over to my jaw line. Rubbing and nuzzling his face into my neck, he reminded me of a cat, seeking to saturate itself with its favorite smell. He held my stiff, shaking frame close to his body, and I could feel the hardness of his erection pressing against my stomach.
His hands began roaming roughly over my body, feeling and squeezing wherever he pleased. As he touched me, I began weeping guiltily. After all, it was I who had been fantasizing about this since the first moment I saw him. I envisioned his hands on my body, his lips on my skin, but not like this. This was wrong. Cautiously, I spoke. "Please stop, Edward. This is wrong. You're hurting me." The words came out as barely a whisper.
He removed his lips from my neck to look at my face. I'm sure my expressive brown eyes relayed fear, hurt, and bewilderment, but none of those emotions seemed to register with him. "I can't stop," he said with a shrug and a deceptively boyish smile. "You see, my dear, I'm already going to hell anyway, so I may as well do it thoroughly."
With that, he let his sharp, slick teeth graze my neck, and I whimpered with fear. "Hush now, Bella. This doesn't have to hurt. I can make it feel good for you. Do you want me to do that for you, Bella?"
If he could somehow ease the pain of whatever horrible thing he was going to do to me, I would let him. If that made me a coward or a traitor to my own body, then I was both, but in truth I just feared the pain. So, with tears in my eyes, confusion still clouding my mind, I nodded.
Edward met my eyes for a long moment, and his golden eyes penetrated mine with an unparalleled intensity. He inhaled deeply then breathed a swirling cloud of his glorious scent into my nose and between my parted lips, rendering me senseless and unsteady on my feet. Suddenly, I felt no trepidation, no uncertainty, only inexplicable, undeniable lust. I was utterly and completely dazzled.
My eyes were unfocused as he pressed his soft lips to mine with exquisite gentleness. Our mouths moved together, my warm, pliant kisses meeting his cool, firm ones. Overcome by the incredible sensations stirring within my body, I threaded my small hands in the back of his hair. He kept up the languid pace of our kisses as his icy hands moved under the hem at the back of my shirt, stroking the skin there with feather-light caresses. I shivered at his touch and released a small, involuntary groan into his open mouth. In response, he slipped his clever tongue between my lips, massaging mine and bathing it in his sweet, incredible taste, intoxicating my senses further. Completely under his spell, my body reacted of its own accord, and I sucked his tongue further into my mouth, eliciting a guttural moan from deep within his chest.
One of his hands moved to tangle in my hair, the other slipped under the front of my shirt, grazing my stomach and traveling up to cup my breast. Removing his hands from me for a moment, he gently pulled my shirt off over my head, then unbuttoned his own and spread it out upon the ground. One hand beneath my neck, the other around my waist, he lowered me down on his shirt.
Distracting me with gentle kisses to my lips, he quickly unhooked my bra and unbuttoned my pants. Climbing over to straddle my body while continuing to kiss me, his sweet breath enveloped my face, and he slipped my jeans and underwear off my legs, then slid my bra off my shoulders, tossing it onto the pile of clothing. I barely noticed that he was still almost completely clothed, while I lay bare and spread before him. One of his hands moved to the back of my neck, gently angling my chin up to give him better access to my mouth. The other hand moved deftly to my left breast, squeezing it gently and brushing his thumb across the nipple. It hardened beneath his touch, and I shivered.
His hands moved to lightly caress my arms and shoulders, then down to my stomach and up to my breasts, lightly teasing my nipples then pinching and rolling them between his fingertips. I moaned loudly as a warm surge of wetness trickled from my body. Edward smelled my arousal, and his eyes darkened. While one hand continued to toy with my hardened nipple, his other hand moved lower, towards my swollen, wet heat. I gasped at the unfamiliar sensation of his long, dexterous fingers on my delicate skin, but he continued to kiss my mouth gently, distracting me from the intensity of his touch.
His slick fingers slid down the folds of my skin, then moved up to circle my most sensitive part, then down again in a maddening circuit. His head lowered to suckle my breast, trailing soft kisses and nibbles and licks to its hardened peak. He sucked my nipple between his lips and teased it with the pointy tip of his tongue as his hand continued its adept movements, making me groan and arch my back in pleasure. When I did so, he moved to the side before sliding me over his lap, holding me as he continued to touch my body.
Edward moved his lips back up to mine, penetrating my mouth with his nimble tongue just as I felt the foreign sensation of his finger sliding inside me. I gasped and he deepened our kiss, adding another finger to my throbbing need and massaging my sensitive nerve bundle with the wet pad of his thumb. An unfamiliar feeling swelled in my stomach and I began to pant, unsure of what was happening to me. "Ssh, now," he spoke against my lips, his scent enveloping me once again. "Don't be afraid. Just let yourself go."
With that, he quickened the pace of his motions, sliding his fingers into me and massaging my insides while his thumb worked the tight bundle of nerves above. Worried and confused, I locked my gaze on Edward's swirling topaz eyes. In that moment, he was my only tie to the world, and I trusted him to keep me from floating away. I had forgotten his words about promising me pleasure to distract me from the pain—I had forgotten about everything but the sensations welling up inside me. He pulled his mouth away from mine to look into my eyes as I came apart in his arms.
As wave after wave of ecstasy crashed over me, he lowered his lips to my neck, sinking his teeth into my flesh as his fingers continued to pump inside me. I cried out in a tortured expression of pleasure and pain as he latched onto my neck, sucking with wild abandon. Hips arching under my back, he held me across his lap and ground his erection against me as he grunted and moaned into my neck. He sucked deeply from my wound, and as he thrust and twitched against my back, I could feel the cool dampness of his release soaking through the fabric of his jeans.
My body went limp as the world went dark. It was then that I began to die.
As I died, I had a strange dream. I dreamed that Edward suddenly stopped, disengaging himself from my neck. "What have I done? Oh God, Bella, please! NO!" he wailed. Even my dying brain knew that was an impossible scenario, though. Killers feel no remorse, and that was just my mind's pathetic attempt to ease my suffering as I slipped into the cold darkness of the eternal night.
Naked, alone, and left for dead, I burned for what may have been days or months or years. When the burning stopped and my heart exploded in my chest, I remained still. I felt cold and lifeless and dead, inside and out. I thought I was dead. So, I withdrew into the protective cocoon of my mind. I was there, locked within my mind, when the search dogs found me, when the medical examiner broke bone saws on my body trying to cut me open for an autopsy, and when they lowered my casket into the ground at my funeral.
At some point, lying cold and undead within the earth, I must have realized that I was not dead, after all. I was no longer living, either… he had stolen that from me.