Her face went blank for a moment, before her eyes snapped back into focus. "Edward!" Alice gasped.
Jacob lay motionless on the cot, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. How long had he been in that room? The vampire guards must have put him in days ago. Cate. Cate. Cate. His heartbeat pounded the name. He closed his eyes, the boundaries of his mind blurring slightly, letting him drift. He fingered the frame of his limits, trailing along the line that kept man and body together. He lost himself along that path, half disconnected altogether. He hovered in a way that was similar to Cate on the night her heart froze. He'd never felt so peculiar as he did now. It was different than the ripping agony of losing Bella, and Cate's death. It was the mere delicate balance of life. He had one foot over the line holding him to his body, one more step, and…
"Jacob." The sharp voice ripped through his dreamy silence, awakening the logic that had been so momentarily lost to him.
Jacob breathed deeply, reviving the disoriented sense of his brain. He cracked open an eye.
"Yes, you're prettier than ever after your beauty sleep, so get your bum out of bed," Roxy snapped.
Jacob closed his eyes again calmly.
"JACOB!"
He ignored her.
"I swear, if you..."
"I have nothing left," he said slowly, his low voice quiet. "What you say makes no difference. What does, when your world is as black as mine?"
She hissed, baring her teeth furiously. "Your daughter."
At the mention of her, his stomach churned uneasily.
"She will not be harmed," Jacob said, "when your dictator has taken such a liking to her."
"That was not…planned," Roxy sighed, unclenching her nails from her palms. "But you're right. He will not harm her."
"So what more can you do to hurt me?" his voice was so quiet, and yet it sent shivers up her spine. Jacob stood. His dead eyes would haunt Roxy's mind forever, "Is there anything more you can possibly do to me?" he yelled, stepping forward.
Roxy looked guiltily at him with shamed eyes, unmoving.
"Come with me," she said quietly.
He looked at her incredulously.
"You'll figure out why you've gone through what you have."
Jacob continued to stare at her, but when she started to leave, he fell in step behind her, his face falling the second he was sure Roxy couldn't see it.
But she felt his sadness, and knew it was her fault. And wished desperately that it wasn't. But one thing he'd said was burned fresh into her thoughts, a phrase that made her actually feel shame. It made feelings come back, emotions lost to her in the years of training she'd spent getting rid of them.
What you say makes no difference. What does, when your world is as black as mine?
Roxy knew she hadn't been the first to darken his skies. She knew that it had probably been a long progression of pain and affliction. But she truly felt the flames of regret licking at her conscious for the simple fact that she'd been the final yank to bring Jacob's last glimmer of light to it's death.
