Chapter Four Wings

"Stop!" The screams were nonexistent behind the carnage. While in the middle, Edward's fist met Jacob's face and Jacob's claws met Edward's chest. They were interlocked now. Coiled into their own vengeance and self pity to recognize that I was losing my mind. Tears rattling. Heart thumping. I was dying, yet they seemed too content upon their own appeals. For each other's deaths.

"Jake! Edward! Please stop..." I went to the floor. Blaring a whisper.

Releasing, Jacob knocked Edward sideways on step. Then began to ravish and tear at the vampire. His howls slapping me in the face continuously.

"Stop..." I had no more breath left. Only gasps of absent air left to use. But I found myself slipping into darkness. My entire body went numb. Cold. As though I had been held by Edward the entire night.

Edward rose, shifting from the ground. Crouched. Ready for more.

That's when everything went blank...

I couldn't tell whether it was day or night because my blinds were closed. The room dark. And my panicked gasps taking in everything. I rose at once. Then suddenly, everything crashed over me. Like a tidal wave of misfortunes, I was drowning. Drowning deeper and deeper into the dark waves.

Tears came again, but then I noticed a figure at the edge of my room. A tall and dark figure. Jacob? Edward?

"Bella, you're awake," Jacob came from the shadows. Shirtless. Dry blood smeared across his face. Then abruptly, the wetness under my eyes flowed. It couldn't be helped. "Bella?"

"You won?" I asked.

"Won?" He knelt at the side of my bed, holding the sides of my face together. "No, Bella. I didn't."

A new sense of hope cleared back into my head. Stopped the sobbing. Jacob's grip on to my face became intense.

"Losing you wouldn't be a prize, it'd be a nightmare, Bella," Jacob told me; struggling on to something. "So that's why I took it upon myself to leave..."

"What? What do you mean leave? What happened?"

And in that instant, Jacob's lips met mine, with crushing effect, like before. But there was a sadness in me that I could not recognize that told myself to not resist and to enjoy. And so I did. Held his cropped hair in my hands and tasted to sweet taste of my best friend. Tasted his warm, almost volcanic touch as he grazed down my body. Savoring the kiss. Savoring the moment it felt. As though it would be the last.

He let go, slowly. "Please don't leave, Jake."

"It's for the best, Bella," He sounded close to desperation, but pull back. Though still holding my face up to look at him. His wonderful eyes. "The pack has agreed to help the Cullens with the vampire army, but I must take my leave. I know when to give up."

"Well that would be a first," I joked, and all that supplied his humor was a grime smile. One that didn't remind me at all of my Jacob. My Jacob. My best friend. "I know I can't make up for all the pain that I caused you, but I wish, I wish I could. I wish I could have never asked you to help me fix those damn bikes months ago. If I knew it would lead to you getting hurt like this."

He scoffed. Angry. "I wouldn't change it. I would only change the way you feel. That's it. Nothing else."

"I love you, Jacob," I said honestly.

"I love you too, Bella," And then we held each other for more than ten minutes in silence. His warm body made me sweat, but I didn't care. I couldn't care about anything other than his departure. Than all the wrong I'd done him. I would never forgive myself. Never.

He saw everything I was thinking plastered in my eyes.

"Don't beat yourself up, Bells," He smiled wider.

I frowned. "Please, just let me hate myself without even more guilt, Jake,"

"Okay,"

Throughout the years, pass after I gave birth to my vampire-human daughter, pass when I became a vampire myself, I could always feel Jacob. He was around me, he was my energy, also, I could smell his dog stench anywhere. Something I thought would smell terrible, but the smell was tolerable and had a slight fluffy sense to it. Edward knew that Jacob was always watching me too, watching, and waiting in the wings until I needed him. I wish I could tell him to give up, because I had my forever and I wish he had his…