Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight. Stephenie Meyer does.
I don't know how long I sat there on the ground, unmoving. I was in shock. After about five minutes, though, I heard what had made Victoria leave so abruptly. Several voices, all of them worried, were calling my name. The voices were faint, and faded quickly. But they still snapped me out of whatever trance I had been in.
I started to think, though I was still a little dazed. I had to figure out what the heck I was going to do. If there was ever a time for a plan, then this was it. I started by laying out what I knew. It wasn't easy; I was still terrified and still incredibly sad. But I needed to do something, and in order to do that I had to think. So. First of all, Victoria was back. Second, she was out for my blood, and I was on my own. Third, she only wanted to kill me after I wanted to die first, which meant that she had something very nasty up her sleeve. Fourth, if Victoria was closing in on me, then Charlie was also at risk. I would have to find a way to protect him.
How I was going to protect him was another matter entirely. But Charlie was my first priority, so I put all thoughts of myself out of my head and started thinking of ways to get Charlie out of Forks. I couldn't tell him that someone was after me, and that he might be in danger, too. No, Charlie would probably involve the police, and that would just put even more people in danger. Besides, Charlie would ask questions that I couldn't answer if I wanted to stay out of an insane asylum.
But thinking of insane asylums made me think about Alice, and thinking about Alice made me think about him. I couldn't think about them right now, not when I desperately needed to be able to think clearly. I thumped my head against the tree I was leaning up against, letting the physical pain draw my attention away from the emotional pain, and distracted myself further by thinking of more ways to get Charlie out of town. Hmm... I thought, Maybe Billy will help me kidnap him...
My thoughts were interrupted by footsteps. My head snapped up in time to see a tall, dark-skinned man walking through the trees about ten yards away from me. He was holding a lantern and looked extremely worried. The fear on his face made me think about how frightened Charlie must have been for me; I had been in the woods for five hours, at least. Charlie was no doubt worried sick about me, and I didn't want that; Charlie was one of the few reasons I had for living.
So I called out to the strange man, who looked like he might have been from the Quileute reservation. He whirled around at the sound of my voice, his eyes took in my disheveled state as he ran toward me. But when he was about five feet away from me, he stopped like he had hit a brick wall. His face went an odd green color, his nostrils flared like he was smelling something, and his hands started to shake. I would have asked him what was wrong, but I was suddenly aware of the fact that I was exhausted. I was, quite literally, too tired to move, speak, or even think. The man said a few things -the only thing I remembered was his name, Sam Uley- but when I didn't respond, he figured that I was out for the count and picked me up. He was warm, and the rhythm of his steps was so soothing that I fell asleep.
I had a dream. I was running through my front yard, my back to my house, and I was terrified. I knew that something bad was happening at my house, but I didn't know what. I also knew that I was running for help. I ran to the last place I would ever want to go if I had been awake. I ran to the path where Edward had told me that he was leaving. When I reached it, I saw that I was not alone. Edward was there. I tried to plead for help, bit this was one of the dreams in which you can't speak. So I gestured toward my house, motioning for him to come with me. He didn't move, didn't even blink. My movements became more frantic, I even tried to pull Edward along, for all the good it did. His face remained totally expressionless. I heard a loud laugh behind me, but before I could turn around, I woke up.
I was in my room. Disoriented -wasn't I in the woods a few minutes ago?- I sat up and noticed that my room was filled with smoke and lit by a flickering, orange light. I gasped, then promptly started coughing from inhaling the smoke. I staggered out of bed, still coughing, and ran to Charlie's room across the hall.
The door was already open. Apparently the fire had started there, I remember being surprised that Charlie was still in bed. Ignoring the spreading flames, I grabbed Charlie's shoulders and shook him, trying to wake him up. "Dad!" I shouted between coughs, "Dad, there's a fire, you have to get up!" Charlie's head lolled to the side, and I jumped back, horrified, looking at the mark on his throat. A mark like the one on my palm where James had bitten me. Charlie's eyes were wide and glassy. With shaking hands, I felt his wrist for a pulse, and came up empty. "No," I whispered, trying to deny the truth. My dad was dead.
Before I could think about it, someone grabbed me around the waist and started dragging me down the stairs. I struggled futilely; I didn't want to leave Charlie. "DAD!" I screamed.
"He's gone," my rescuer shouted back at me. "You can't do anything now, he's gone!" That voice was vaguely familiar. It was as we ran through the living room – or, rather, as he dragged me through the living room - that I saw it. The large, red V painted on the living room wall in what I wished was paint but knew was blood.
Then we were outside. The man who had gotten me out of the house gripped me by the shoulders and spun me around to face him. I realized, with as much shock as my numb mind was capable of, that he was Sam Uley.
"Are you alright?" he demanded. I didn't answer. My mind was still on that red V. V for vendetta. V for Victoria. I remembered her parting words: You will wish for death long before I actually kill you. She had killed Charlie. I was beginning to understand her threat now. It looked like she was going to kill the people I cared about. The people I loved. This, I realized, is one type of torture that I can never be ready for. The thought of the coming horror knocked me to my knees. Sam was speaking, but his words were just a hum. She is going to kill my family, a voice screamed in my mind. The thought pushed me over the edge, and I started to sob. And pretty soon I was screaming with that voice.
