A Throw of the Dice

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We approach the house again at dawn, while the icy shadows of night are still clinging to the deeper parts of the forest. After a full night of snowfall, Second had more than doubled the amount of white on the ground, throwing several feet of fresh powder onto an already hard-packed surface. The snow is falling much thicker now, white-washing everything in sight and muffling every sound and every smell. I have to almost crawl out of every footstep (heels weren't exactly a stellar fashion choice this morning), and the hem of my dress is soaked clear through. Barely visible through the snowflakes, a white-covered roof appears in the distance, with a quaint stream of smoke rising out of a fireplace that our kind couldn't possibly deem necessary; some cheap attempt to act like warm-blooded humans in the face of a burgeoning storm.

I stop just on the edge of the bordering woods, and hand Second a canvas knapsack. "Don't mess this up," I tell him plainly.

He shoulders the knapsack and gives me a cold, enigmatic smile. "Oh, I won't."

We continue down the hill and into the open, slower than usual because of a veritable wall of snow blocking our path. Unlike yesterday, the coven members appear casual and unconcerned, loosely gathered around the yard in groups of two and three. Jasper is the only one whose posture remains stiff and guarded, watching me with unblinkingly with those creepy yellow eyes. His hand is once again firmly linked with his mate's, both of them dressed in stylish winter attire: cashmere sweaters, wool coats, perfectly coordinating scarves. I note critically that despite the dreadful weather, the coven has yet to invite me into their home, and that the front door is firmly shut today, too. I fight off a scowl, well aware that this means another ruined hairdo and another uncomfortably wet dress. Uptight, condescending, sycophants — god forbid they allow me to sit on their sofa.

"Hello again," I say pleasantly, as if we are all old, familiar friends. "I see we meet on friendlier terms this morning, and for that I am glad." I direct this observation to the blonde patriarch of the family, not Jasper, and consciously keep my gaze from falling on the bronze-haired one in the back. In my mind, beneath what I say out loud on the surface, I begin to recite romantic poems in all the languages that I know: Spanish, Italian, French, Russian. I recite them forwards, I recite them backwards, I mix-and-match the languages to form new double-meanings and rhythm. It could be nothing, certainly, but this isn't the time to take unnecessary risks, and I am rarely, if ever, wrong.

The patriarch nods his head in agreement, his tone all politeness and warmth. "However different our lifestyles may be, we are of the same kind, and that allows for a certain amount of kinship. My son may not welcome you as one of our own, but that is his choice. As for the rest of my family, we are neutral and willing to listen."

Considering his silence yesterday, I find it suspicious that he should want to play leader now. And I don't fail to notice that he calls Jasper his son. I look to Jasper to gauge his reaction to this potent word, but find him as composed and expressionless as always. I have never, in all my years, had the audacity to refer to my changeling newborns as my sons or daughters; I could barely even bring myself to refer to them by name. They are not my family. They are not even my friends. A coven, or in my case — an army, was not a relationship. It was a contract built upon the usefulness of each member. A business. This animal-eating coven's idea of a family atmosphere is absurd and repulsive, and Jasper is a fool for buying into it.

And as for the patriarch's other sentiments... although nothing in his face, posture, or tone hints at fabrication, I can sense a lie in the air: the same desperate sort of lie that humans gibber out when I am standing over them and they think they can somehow bargain their way out of death. I feel no more welcome today than I did yesterday, despite the coven's more relaxed appearance. Despite the foreign waves of calm and acceptance running through my veins. This is no more than a ploy. They are trying to spin me, just as I spun them the day before. The attempt is admirable, but hideously inadequate. No one ever manipulates a master.

I can feel the bronze-haired one staring at me, and immediately resume translating Mallarme into English, Spanish, Italian, Russian and back to the original French.

I smile politely. "As I said yesterday, my only intention in coming here is that I have something I'd like to discuss with Jasper. A private matter, but not an unfavorable one," I say, keeping my thoughts buried deep within me, hidden under layers and layers of defense.

Une constellation, froide d'oubli et de desuetude, pas tant, qu'elle n'énumère, sur quelque surface vacante et supérieure le heurt successif, sidéralement, d'un compte total en formation…. Veillant, doutant, roulant, brillant et méditant, avant de s'arrêter, à quelque point dernier qui le sacre, Toute pensée émet un Coup de Dés. The verses cycle through and I break them down into smaller portions and new meanings, not so much as flinching when the bronze-haired one narrows his eyes. Let him think I'm a romantic, let him think this is nothing but scorned love. Let him think I want to Jasper back. This is it. A throw of the dice. This is my moment. This is my first and most important move. Turning to Jasper, I hold out a hand for him — just as I had held out my hand on the dance floor of the Monterrey mansion, half a lifetime ago.

"Take a walk with me," I say, a command in the form of a suggestion. Jasper doesn't move or even flinch, and my stomach sinks at the disgusted look in his eyes — the same look I had seen the night he deserted. "Take a walk with me, please," I correct myself, almost painfully.

He keeps his gaze steady on mine, but I notice out of the corner of my eye that he relaxes the iron grip on his little mate's hand. The bronze-haired one notices too, and immediately shakes his head, "Jasper, this isn't a good—"

"I know," Jasper interrupts curtly.

Without any visible change in emotion, his hand disentangles itself and falls loosely to his side. His mate inhales a shaky breath at this decision, but she doesn't grab his hand back as I would have done. She merely touches his arm instead, and gently guides him to look at her. I suddenly hate this pixie-sized female with every seething particle of me — I hate her pert little nose and her shiny cap of black hair. I hate her delicate white hands. I hate her for the way that she affects Jasper, and the way that he so easily obeys her commands while casually ignoring mine. And most of all, I hate the fact that she isn't desperate right now as I would have been, but strong and encouraging, even in the face of she must know is dangerous.

"Jazz," she whispers. "You don't have to do this."

I expect him to brush her off, the way he would have brushed off me, but instead he turns to her tenderly. I watch in fascination, almost revulsion, as he touches her short black hair and strokes a thumb just below her ear, a movement that makes her eyes turn bright with emotion. "Yes, I do," he says simply, and I am shocked, stricken, at the amount of love in his eyes — feelings that I had never been able to draw out of him, emotions that no amount of my beauty and charm had ever managed to invoke. The unspoken words "for you" hang in the air like a hateful, mocking ghost — nothing he ever would have said to me.

Nothing I will ever from anyone, not in my hard-edged world of ambition and war.

Jasper turns back to me as if nothing important had just transpired. "Let's walk."

Because Second is watching — because everyone is watching, I keep my face a mask indifference. I curve my lips into a smile so bright it pains me. C'est la vie, what's done is done. I am who I am, and some things, the most fundamental things, can never ever change. My life isn't pointless, it is driven. There is always more for the taking: more territory, more blood, more power. More, always more, and I crave every shattered piece of it, every diminutive drop. I focus on what I know. I focus on what I can do. And block out all the rest. If there is anything further than this, if there is any other fate for me in the universe, I don't want it.

I walk into the snow-filled forest with Jasper at my side, and think of nothing but what is cold, logical, and real. He is meeting my challenge. He is moving his chess pieces across the board. The battle has begun.

***

Leave it to Jasper to go all noble, I think shakily, watching the broad line of his shoulders as he disappears into the forest with Maria. Leave it to Jasper to make me feel overwhelmed with both love and frustration, both anger and admiration. My husband, who always does what he thinks is best for me, even when I don't want him to. My husband, who never seems to comprehend that others are willing to fight with him, who never understands that he's not alone. Even with a family of six standing firmly behind him, he still goes off to face the enemy alone. Overprotective fool.

"It's a matter of honor," Edward says simply, reading my thoughts. "Protecting you, however needless it may be, is not a task that he takes lightly or one that he will trust to anyone else. It is the constant backdrop to all of his thoughts... the reason behind all of his choices."

The one called Second, who Maria tactlessly left behind without so much as a goodbye, shifts slightly at Edward's assessment. All of us turn to scrutinize him, as if just now remembering his presence. In the shadow of Maria and the emotional turmoil that she represents, Second seems horribly insignificant. But when his scarlet eyes glance up at the snow-filled sky with a carefully blank expression, I remember that he isn't as inconsequential as Maria would lead us to believe. Whether he is acting on Maria's orders or not, Second built this snowstorm in July for a reason. A reason that, as of yet, remains unexplained.

He leans against the tree trunk next to me. "A bit awkward, isn't it?" he asks, nodding to the pathway that Jasper and Maria had taken. His mouth twists into a smile that seems bitter and a little jaded, as if this sort of offhanded rejection and abandonment happens to him so regularly that it's reached the point of amusement. "I realize that we're supposed to despise each other and whatnot, but you know, I can't help but feel that you and I have quite a great deal in common."

I raise an imperious eyebrow. "Such as?"

"Such as I hate this every bit as much as you do."

I look up at him in curiosity. As biased as I am about the entire situation, the amount of honest dejection on his face elicits a bit of sympathy. Jasper, years ago, had hinted at Maria's lack of loyalty as a lover: she expected absolute commitment but did not return the favor, and often slept with others as a form of punishment to 'keep her men in line.' I wonder now, staring at Second's handsome face, how many times he had had to watch her walk away with another man, how many times she had betrayed him. And with Maria calling all the shots and dictating his every move, there was little or nothing he could even do about it. Second was trapped, as Jasper was once trapped, so long ago. It seemed a very unhappy existence, his life.

"Jealous?" I ask, my voice a little kinder.

His eyes spark with a bit of humor, and he looks down at me. "Of course not. You?"

I smile. "Of course not."

"Ah, denial," he says fondly. "Another thing we have in common." Lowering his voice, he flashes me a smile that could have charmed a hundred women into falling in love with him. "At this rate we'll have no choice but to run away together and become lovers. Fiji? The Cayman Islands, perhaps?"

The idea is so preposterous that I laugh before I can help it, and my family, close enough to hear the entire conversation, glance over at the two of us warily. Edward, though, has a flat, mean expression on his face, challenging almost — a look of aggression that I'm not used to seeing in his eyes. He is staring at Second like a cockroach that he is about to stomp on and obliterate. Clearly, Second's friendly demeanor is not a reflection of his hidden thoughts. Edward knows something the rest of us do not, and whatever it is, it isn't favorable.

He raises his voice loudly and pointedly. "Have you been with Maria very long?"

Second takes this mercurial turn in stride, only inclining his head slightly at Edward's abrupt and unfriendly tone. "Perhaps four years now. Why do you ask?"

Edward inclines his head as well. "I just find it interesting that she doesn't know your name."

Dead silence settles over the snow-filled yard, broken up only by the mournful chirp of a cold little robin in the branches above us. If anything at all, Edward is impeccably honest, so I can only assume that he's telling the truth now — that Maria really and truly does not know this man's name. But why Edward would so maliciously draw attention to this fact, I'm not sure. It is very unlike him to go out of his way to insult someone who did not provoke him. A quick survey of the rest of the family shows me that the others are just as puzzled as I am; we are all wondering what Edward is seeing that the rest of us are blind to.

Again, Second appears unruffled by Edward's hostility, even intrigued by it. "She knows it, of course, but she prefers to call me Second," he says easily. He glances down at me, and smiles as if sharing a secret joke. "It's her idea of a pet name, I suppose."

"Alice and Jasper are married," Edward all but snarls. "So are Rosalie and Emmett."

"Oh?" Nothing on Second's face hints that he is even remotely insulted by the implications in those two declarations. He grins as if this is the most enjoyable news he's ever heard, and looks down at my left hand with new appreciation. "Well, congratulations. That's wonderful." His gaze lifts to Rosalie, who looks impossibly beautiful standing in the snow behind me — a marble-carved winter fairy with a waterfall of golden curls. His mouth twitches. "And congratulations to you as well," he adds politely. "Rosalie, is it? That's a lovely name."

Rosalie, ever the diplomat, takes in his appraisal with a narrowing of her golden eyes. "Go to hell."

Esme sighs. "Rose."

But Second holds up a hand to stop Esme's reprimand. "It's fine." He slouches against the tree trunk with a humorless laugh and mutters something under his breath that sounds like, "I'm used to the abuse." Again, I wonder what Maria has put him through, what she's made him do. I wonder if she's managed to break him, the way she broke Jasper, so long ago. Second is quiet for a long moment, then looks down at his hands, seemingly deliberate about keeping his eyes away from Edward's keen gaze. "Are you happy here, living like this?"

All of us look at Carlisle, who smiles with the first real warmth all morning. "Very happy," he says.

Second smiles faintly and brushes his knuckles against one another, nervously fiddling with the strap of the canvas knapsack slung over his shoulder. "Sometimes I just... wonder," he says in a voice that sounds slightly ashamed. "If I had been changed by someone else, in another place, in another time... I wonder what life might be like." The jaded smile from earlier returns, twisting his mouth into a half-grimace. "Jasper was lucky."

"Jasper was smart," I correct instantly. Let know one diminish the strength and courage it took for Jasper to walk away from Maria's bloody coven. It wasn't chance. It wasn't luck. The hand Jasper had been dealt in life was not a fortunate one, not at all. He had to fight his way out on his own, and even at that he hadn't been able to escape unscathed. There are scars there that go much deeper than the surface, wounds that will never be able to heal. Years later, he was still struggling. More than anyone, even me, could ever know. "He got out on his own," I continue firmly. "He made a choice. He made the right choice."

Second finally lifts his head, and gives me a penetrating look that I don't understand. "I suppose he did."

I want to ask him if there's a double-meaning behind those words, and even more than that I want to ask Edward what's actually going on in this strange man's head. But even as I open my mouth I can feel a draining sensation in my mind; the present swirling down to vanish into a crystal-clear image of the future:

There are red tracks in the fresh snow, and pink markings as if something dead has been dragged roughly along the ground. In a darkened forest heavy with hanging shadows of icicles and broken branches, two humans are tied to a tree trunk — girls, nothing more than children, their lips blue with cold and fear. They are alive, but barely; the pulse at each little throat is a slow flit of movement, like the last painful tremors of a dying bird. But the blood around them is fresh enough to be recent, warm enough to sink into the snow like pinpricks. A twig snaps with a gunshot of sound, and one of the girls blearily opens her eyes. Maria and Jasper are standing before them, one smiling, the other staring at the blood in unconcealed horror. Horror and hunger... I realize with dread. Obvious hunger. A burning, irrepressible thirst.

I come back to the present with a coldness against my face and a jarring tug on my arm — someone is hauling me off the snow. "Jasper!" I gasp out raggedly, unable to speak anything else but his name. I scream it out as if he can hear me from here, as if I can stop him before it's too late. I struggle with the arms holding onto me, blindly fighting limbs much stronger than my own as I stumble to feet and try to run. "Jasper!"

As if from very far away, I can hear Second's slightly panicked voice. "What's wrong with her? What's happening?"

"Jasper!"

Carlisle and Edward are both holding onto me and, even as small as I am, having difficulty. Everyone is talking and yelling at once, some with concern, some with anger, and all the voices are melding together into a ringing sound in my ears. All I can think about is Jasper — how this will hurt him, how this will kill him. A slip up now will drive him away, and I know it. He'll leave, and out of some misguided, god-awful sense of chivalry, he'll leave without me. Beyond myself, I wildly claw against Carlisle and Edward. But when I finally manage to writhe out of their grasp and sprint for the trees, Emmett is there in an instant, engulfing me in what feels like an iron cage.

"Hey, calm down, it's okay," he soothes gently. "You're alright, you're alright." I wait for half a second, and when I don't feel the immediate flood of calm that I normally would have with Jasper, I ache for his touch. This is a void that no one else could ever fill, no matter how brotherly and loving they may be. I clutch my head in my hands, completely limp, numb all the way through. Emmett, sensing my surrender, folds me into a gentle bear hug, and then releases me. "Edward?" he asks, knowing I can't speak.

Edward's hair is mussed from where I must have hit him in the head, and his wool coat is torn at the shoulder seam. "Maria is leading Jasper into a trap," he says flatly. "Humans. Children," he clarifies, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye.

I have to go to him. The vision stabs through me again, stronger this time, more real. It's about to happen. It's almost here. It will be minutes from now. Maybe less than that. Waves of coldness wash over me in resignation, and I spin around in the snow and start for the trees again. I know now that I won't be able to stop it. But still... I have to go to him. I have to go to him. I have to go to him now, now, now.

"No," Edward argues my unspoken thought sharply, already shrugging out of his torn coat. "You stay. I'll be able to find them faster. Emmett?"

Emmett vanishes from my side immediately. "I'm in."

"No!" I shout, stumbling after them, my heart twisted into a hundred cold, needling knots. "He'll need me— I have to— I have to—"

Carlisle gently grips my arm. "We need you. We need you here," he says with a pointed nod at Second. Without Edward here to read minds, they would need my visions to keep an eye on Maria's partner. In all my years, I have never despised my talent more. In all my years, I have never more desperately wished to be normal. When a terrible sound of vulnerability escapes my throat, Carlisle's eyes soften. "Your brothers won't let you down, you know that, Alice." He pauses for a moment, speaking as delicately as possible. "And should the worst happen, the very worst, I don't think Jasper would want you there to witness it."

***

We walk for at least a half an hour in uncomfortable, ugly silence. The birds in the trees are too cold to sing, and the snow has muffled everything but the repetitive crunching sounds of our feet. I ignore Maria's huffy sighs and pointed looks as if she isn't even there. She wanted to go for a walk — we're walking. I refuse to make any more of an effort than that. I don't even want to be here right now, and wouldn't be, if it didn't mean getting all of this over with so Alice and I could return to our normal lives. Maybe the old Jasper, the one who blindly followed her orders, might have broken the silence, but she won't get a damn word out of me.

Maria sighs again. "You aren't saying anything."

I don't even look at her. "You were the one who wanted to talk. Not me."

"I don't understand why you have to be so hostile," she complains haughtily, her heels punching through the top layer of snow in obvious irritation. "In case you didn't notice, I am at least making an effort to be civil. Common courtesy calls for you to do the same."

When I don't respond, her aura simmers with the same calculating malice I remember from my days in Monterrey: plotting, vengeance, fury, hate. My lack of emotion has unsettled her, the same way it always did. Maria, who lives a life of fiery, turbulent emotion, despises nothing more than my indifference. She purses her lips for a moment, then tosses her dark mane of curls back. "She isn't the type of woman I expected you to fall for, you know. The elf. Pretty, in her own way, I suppose. Dainty. Waifish. Clean. But she just doesn't have that extra... something. I always imagined you'd find someone who was able to intrigue your dark side."

Like who? Like you? Long ago, when I was more monster than man, Maria had appealed to my darker side; as ashamed and horrified as I am to admit it. But there is darkness and there is evil, and Maria always skated a very fine line between the two. The feelings she drew out of me had never been freeing or pleasurable in any capacity. Being with her always made me feel as though I were being thrown into a vast blackened pit, body, soul, and spirit. I never, ever, wanted to return to that place again. And I certainly didn't want to drag Alice into it with me — Alice who is all light and beauty. Alice who had tamed the monster inside of me by showing me what it truly meant to love. I turn away from Maria's prying eyes, refusing to engage her in any sort of conversation about Alice. Alice belongs to me, and no one else. I will share no part of her with Maria.

"I still can't believe you live like this," she continues airily. "It unnatural. Does it make you feel better to lower yourself by feeding on animals? By living among the humans? Falling all over yourself to win their approval?"

I give a noncommittal shrug, not allowing her to bait me.

"And your coven!" she laughs. "My god, what a rabble. I maybe would have kept the big one for protection purposes, but the others are beneath you, Jasper, really. This whole family concept is just ridiculous." Her eyes flick sideways at me. "You don't think they'd ditch you the second you compromised their lifestyle? The instant you messed up? Sure, they love you now— when it's convenient and easy, but as soon as you turn back to the old ways, they'll abandon you like a piece of trash. You're not one of them, Jasper. You never will be."

I turn away from her, and study the cold light on the horizon. I hate that she is right, or at least partially right. Perceptive, manipulative Maria... always able to extort my deepest fears. I know I'm not built like the Cullens, or even Alice. Resisting what I truly want is much harder for me; it always has been. Because Maria is right, it is unnatural. For decades and decades I was a slave to my own lust, acting on every desire and whim until my self-discipline all but vanished. I am weak, and I know it. Every day I hang perilously from a slowly-thinning thread. I don't share the same strength as Carlisle, or Alice, or any of the rest of them.

But they are good, and I feel good when I am with them. And, as weak and selfish as I am, I can't force myself to give that up.

"Just tell me what you want, Maria," I say tiredly. "I'm done with this."

Maria mashes her lips together at my rudeness, and lets out a breath through her nose. "I have a business proposition for you."

Finally, I think to myself, annoyed that it had even gone on even this long. "No," I answer preemptively.

"You haven't even heard what I have to say!" she objects, so loudly that she startles the few huddled birds out of the icy trees above us. She stomps through the snow like a spoiled child, and I wonder in amazement how I ever could have taken orders from someone so clearly incapable of giving them. Always ruled by her emotions. Always hot-headed. A self-indulgent woman who throws a dangerous, vengeful hissy fit every time she doesn't get her way.

"I don't have to hear it. The answer is no."

Maria stops walking, and I stop to, turning around to face her. She crosses her arms and stares me dead in the eye. "I need you to bargain with Volturi for me," she admits. "They took my territory, my mansion, my funds, my everything. They took everything I had. And I want it back. As of now, they are not inclined to listen to my pleading, but you can change that in an instant with your talent. One tiny, insignificant trial. That's all I want. Then you can go back to your rodent-eating coven and live the rest of your days in peace. Simple."

I scowl. "Nothing is ever simple with you, Maria," I argue flatly. "I don't trust you. I never will. And frankly, after the hell you put me through, I am not inclined to listen to your pleading either. Not for any price. Not ever. The answer is no."

"Are you certain?" she asks quietly, in a strange tone that roils with anticipation. There is danger, serious danger here. Anxiety chills me at the animated look on her face, and the wild sensation of pleasure and murder seeping out of her as she backs away from me, down a sideways path into a darkened forest area I cannot see. Her voice is light and taunting, but there is a hard edge to it, a viciousness that makes my stomach drop. "You had better be certain. You had better be damn certain when you say something like that to me, Jasper. I'm resourceful, you know that. And if you deny me now, I will only find another way to get what I want."

I don't respond well to threats. Not from anyone, but especially not from her. She no longer owned me the way she used to, and she never would again. If she thought she could come here, put Alice in danger, and still expect me to follow her orders, she was in for a severe disappointment. I step forward, and shake her by the arm aggressively. "I said no. I meant no."

In the darkness, her eyes gleam like rubies. "Then I want you to remember, later, when this is all said and done, that you brought this upon yourself. This was your doing. Your choice. Every part of this, from beginning to grisly end, is yours."

The last words are still trailing out of her mouth when I catch the scent of blood. Human blood, and a lot of it. Not hot and pumping through live veins, but fresh and cold and nearly frozen. The smell consumes me, clouds my vision, muddles my mind. After years of nothing but mountain lions and bears, the fresh heady scent of human blood is like a feast set out before a starving man. I am not conscious of letting go of Maria, but suddenly my hand is empty, my fingers still numbed from the icy marble of her skin. I try to stop breathing, try to block it out, but the taste of it is already clinging to my lungs, causing me to shudder with longing. Venom floods my mouth, and my throat works, scalding hot and flayed from the absence of fluid.

On the path in front of us, two dark red streaks trail into the near distance, where blood has washed over snow-crystals and hardened. And tied to a tree across the clearing, are two human girls — just children, lying limp and barely breathing in the quiet winter chill. They are on the edge of death, chalk-pale and unseeing, nothing more than two white faces against the peeling grey bark. Long, jagged cuts run up and down each of their arms, the wounds still wet with blood. I step forward blindly, and a twig cracks under my feet like a gunshot.

One of them opens her eyes a crack, nothing more than a fluttering of eyelashes against nearly-dead human skin, and I spasm slightly, holding a hand up to cover my mouth. Maria smiles, and I realize in dumbstruck horror that this is her revenge. This is her punishment. This is the price of my decision. She saunters forward intently, her posture feline and seductive, and grabs the little girl by the chin. Casually, almost lovingly, she brushes the hair away from her neck, exposing the all-important vein pulsing at her throat. The girl lets out a ragged cry of fear, and the sound that twists my heart into a hard, aching knot. Maria's eyes flick back to me.

"Don't," I plead. "No."

She smiles again — that hideous phantom smile that I remember from my nightmare of a former life, and stabs one of her long manicured nails into the girl's skin like a hook. And as the girl whimpers one final cry, Maria draws her hand across her skin in a harsh slashing movement, opening the jugular and spilling a wave of fresh red onto the cold ground.

It is more than I can take. It is beyond me. It is beyond anyone. One second, I am on my feet — the next I am on my knees. My shaking hands clutch at the small helpless body, and before I can stop myself, before I can even comprehend what I'm doing, my mouth locks onto the already-bleeding throat. The first swallow is heaven. The first swallow is hell. It burns all the way through me — pierces through my soul, even as the cool liquid soothes my searing, blistering throat. And still I drink, and still I die, even as her strength and life spreads through me. And my own heart breaks, cracks, and shatters, even as her beating heart slows to a stop.

When I turn to the other girl beside her, in a possessed state of all-consuming, never-ending, insatiable thirst, Maria picks up the edge of her skirt, turns on her heel, and walks away from me without a backwards glance.


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A/N: Bitch.