Hi, everyone. A couple points today ...

I stopped getting FFN notifications and didn't realize it until just yesterday, so my apologies to anyone that I didn't get to thank for your kind reviews and taking the time to drop me a line, even if it's just to let me know you're reading and enjoying.

Here we are at the beginning of Act III; thanks for sticking it out with me. This week's chapter is a bit of a departure from the normal tone of the story, and there was some discussion regarding posting this as an outtake, but I think it's an important point of insight as to what Bella's nights are like and it sets up a few future scenes, so it's here. Besides, I did promise to let you guys know my version of what happened with James. :)

Sorry I went AWOL last week. Today will be a double-post (so be aware!) because of the nature of chap. 14, and I'm going to try to post an additional chapter later in the week to make up for missing last week's post, depending on beta availability. :)

This story is written in the first-person point of view, and sometimes switches between characters by scene or chapter. (Please do not panic; I do not repeat each scene from various points of view.) I do not label my chapters with character names, subsequently, your key is thus: Chapter titles that are short & succinct are Bella's, long witticisms are Esme's; song titles are in quotes, belonging to Edward, and Rose's are questions, finished off with an interrobang (‽).

Chapter Notes:

The most formidable team this side of the pond: cookEgawd, Blackjacklily, MunkeeRajah and Detochkina. Hells yeah. Also a shout-out to KayMarieXW for the ultimate in reader support.

I want to hear from you! Please leave a review and/or say hi to ubergeekness on Twitter

Desert.

It was happening to me again. I was helpless in my desert. I was not awake.

I am relaxed and staring into the dark sky, the deep cries of the crackling thunder exciting me. I am relaxed no more. Now their heads turn; they are all looking at me with fear and alarm. Edward looks at me, regret and an apology on the wind. The once intense and beautiful sky has become baleful, the thunder a potential death rattle. I stand next to him, and my hair is blowing across my face when they arrive. It is whipping hard and it is obscuring my eyes, but I am too afraid to tuck my hair behind my ear because he has told me to let it down, let it shield me. Alice says it will not work, they can smell me regardless, but I hope. Everything happens so quickly, but time slows enough for me to see evil walk towards me with a feline gate. I hear names; Laurent, Victoria, James. I am too afraid to register which name belongs to whom. The wind changes, and the breeze hits me from behind. The next thing I know he is lunging towards me, snarling. Edward is suddenly in front of me, crouched, with a growl the likes of which I have never heard before forced out from his mouth. The sound is so loud it takes over everything in my consciousness. It radiates and reverberates all around me until it fades. Then the colors of twilight and gray sky turn pale.

I fall back into my cloud of insensate slumber.

It was later, but I could recognize that I was in the Gobi, wandering. No beginning and no end in sight. Nothing but sand in every direction. I knew then that it would be a long, restless night.

The color saturates my vision again, and I find that I am yelling. I am yelling at him, the object of my obsession, and it takes me a second to remember why.

I beg, "No! Edward! No, you can't do this."

He tries to quiet me, but I can't let him. My father could be in danger, I could be putting them all in danger, and the plan makes no sense. I plead my case to the woman in the front seat, the one who is small in stature but looks as if she were made of pure strength forged from braided wire.

"Alice, please, listen!"

We are still racing off to who knows where at what feels like the speed of light, but the faster I can make my point the sooner we can turn around. She looks at me.

"Edward, pull over."

He looks at her with vexation, and presses harder upon the gas pedal. She tries again, and I am grateful.

"Edward, let's just talk this through," she says.

Her voice is steady, but it has none of the chiming quality I have become accustomed to. The tone is soft but serious ... and threatening.

"I heard what was in his mind—he's a tracker, and it's his passion. I set him off, and now he wants her, Alice, her."

He says the words as if he cannot really conceive of anyone daring to try to take me away from him.

"The hunt begins tonight, and I have to get her away from here."

Resolve emanates from him. His voice is chilled, and it shakes my confidence, but I am not going to leave my father to die because of this unholy composite of my decisions and sheer bad luck. I find sound from somewhere deep within.

"He'll come looking for me! He might kill Charlie in the process! I'm not leaving Charlie vulnerable like this!"

There is more conversation. Emmett argues that that the tracker is no match for us. Edward refuses to listen; he argues that they will have to kill him, as if this is a bad thing.

"It doesn't make sense to hide me!" I scream at the top of my lungs, tired, panicked, and desperate.

It gets their attention.

"If the hunt is what he wants, taking me away to anywhere is just giving him exactly what he craves. If he's hellbent on getting me, he will find me. If my scent doesn't give me away, something else inevitably will. Edward, you insist that he can't be talked out of hunting me. If that's true, then there's only one way to end this! If you take me away you split up the group and lose the advantage of your combined numbers, your home court advantage, and you place us all on the defensive when you should have the tactical edge here! Think about it, please," the words roll off my tongue, fear pushing me to speak faster than I ever have before, "it makes no sense to leave Forks. You stay, and you take the wind out of his sails, protecting me and Charlie becomes more manageable, and his options are minimized. You frustrate him because he can't give chase. Make him wait, and eventually he'll get lazy. Sloppy. He will make a mistake. It's inevitable."

"Actually, the kid's got a point ... several of 'em." Emmett is impressed, and I am insulted. Did he think so little of my capacity for logical, rational thought?

The car slows, but Edward has not stopped. I have had enough.

"Turn around." I speak with all the anger and determination I can muster through my fear.

The car stops.

Then the car, and everyone in it, disappear.

I did not know how much time had passed. That is the way sleep works; I thought of it as being stranded in the desert of my mind. Whether I encounter a night terror or just a run of the mill, ordinary, household nightmare, they are oases. A cruel joke of hope when I am at my most despondent. I only wake up after I have given up, lain down in the burning sand that has rubbed me raw, and I see the sandstorm approaching me; it is telling me then that my time is done, my destruction guaranteed.

My sandstorm had not yet approached. I was not finished. Colors flooded my vision again.

We are in my bedroom, and Alice and I are communicating, but not talking. She writes to me, in case the one who hunts me is listening. He is always close. This time she has a plan. Her visions have told her it will work.

We walk into the woods, just beside my home. Charlie is at work. I hope that this will be done, one way or the other, before he returns home. My love is waiting nearby, along with his family, but they cannot get too close, lest they scare him. We know that we have to be careful, this is our only foreseeable chance. Alice and I start talking aloud. I am not a good actress, but it will do. We argue. It is a mock fight, otherwise he will not believe that she has left me alone, unguarded. I beg her not to leave me; this time, it is not acting. I am afraid, and it comes out in my pleas. She kicks dirt in my direction, intentionally missing me by an inch. She tells me that I can die for all she cares. I am unworthy and ungrateful. Part of me thinks there is a truth to this. I know these are fake daggers she attacks with, but I hurt anyway.

She is recalculating the vision with every step she takes further into the woods. Neither of us want to be separated too much. I am so focused on trying to hear her long diminished footsteps that I do not hear him coming. I am flying, and I have forgotten everything in the sensation of being rocketed through the wind—until everything around me stops. Or perhaps it is I who have stopped? My body craters the ground around me, and there is pain permeating every limb. It spreads into my core, and then it is everywhere. Nothing is untouched. Rising through the collective of pain, I feel pressure on my wrist; a stinging sensation that echoes through me. It hints at torture, at fire. Alarm soars through me, but it wavers. The flames in my arm die down, and I hear voices now. Alice. Edward. My senses hyper-aware, I can feel that it is Edward who picks me up. I can register his smell, but this is not what tells me it is him. He yells at Alice. I hear something about distractions and a girl; I think they are talking about the redhead. She interfered. She is near. She is watching.

I can smell something sickeningly sweet burning; it is like a vat of cinnamon mixed with vanilla and an entire field of lavender. It makes me retch, but after I can hold myself together, he picks me up and holds me tight as he walks away with me in his arms.

Even in my sleep I can never forget the smell of roasting vampire.

I heard the roar of it. In the haze of the heat I remembered that they call this kind of sandstorm a haboob. It was in view now, just on the horizon. But it was not here yet.

I wake, but I am still tired. My father stands over me, and Carlisle is shining a light in my eye. I think that Tyler has just missed me with his van, but no, that is not right. That was a long time ago. And I am in pain. Carlisle moves, and I notice he is bandaging my wrist. He is doing it quicker than he has to. I realize he is trying to hide the bite mark from my father. I remember now—I remember what has happened. The evil that was James threw me and tried to bite me before he burned. I remember the important part: that he burned. I try to focus but the lights are bright. I see worry on my father's face. I hear the story from Carlisle while I am still assessing my pain. Apparently I have been chased by a wild animal while hiking. I have fallen from a short cliff, I have broken my right leg, and I have bruised ribs. None of it is true. I broke nothing; the breaking was done to me. I am content though. My father is smiling at me, therefore he is not hurt. Carlisle is standing next to me, so Edward must be near. It is over.

The pain I felt in my right leg still ached as I walked through my desert. It was the Patagonian now; I was freezing and the air was painfully thin, like breathing in the midst of a vacuum. I did not know how the desert changed while my head was buried in the sand, I only knew that sometimes that is how dreaming worked. The haboob was advancing upon me now. I only had time to realize that the pain in my right leg, the pain from James' attack, had somehow moved; my left leg now throbbed. The storm was here now, and it hit me with a gale force wind. I welcomed it. It meant I was done for the night.