The Orbiting Meteor

by IdreamofEddy

Three and half years after escaping from the mythological and heartbreaking world of Forks, Bella is moving on with her life. What happens when a mysterious stranger catapults her back into the world she so desperately wanted to leave behind? AU/OC/OOC.

21. Chapter 20 A Slight Shade of Charlotte

Chapter 20: A Slight Shade of Charlotte

A/N: Thanks for reading.

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*B*E*L*L*A*

There was a time I gave up, a time when I let the guilt of all the mistakes I had made consume all the fight and will that I had. And I also gave up because I had thought I was dying. It was the third time in my life that I had thought that. You would think that I had learned. I would have thought that I had learned.

They were mistakes that I would have carried with me for the rest of my life because of the choices I had made. The choice to let Seth come and visit; the choice to go left when maybe I should have gone right. But that's the thing, unless you can see the future, you don't know what's right and what's wrong. So it kind of defeats the purpose of learning and enduring when you make those mistakes because you can't see the future and we're always sure to blame ourselves first. It kind of makes you take a step back and realize that not everything is in your control and maybe you're just not completely at fault.

Sometimes it's in someone else's control. Maybe it's our own. Maybe it's our mother's, or our father's or sister's, our brother's, or the man or the woman we love. Maybe it's even God's. Everything happens for a reason.

But it was my choice to have Seth come visit me in Santa Fe, and it was my choice to invite Debbie along to go with us. That was the guilt I had to bear. I had unknowingly but inevitably sentenced them to horrible deaths, and that was why I gave up.

I just didn't realize that giving up would have a detrimental effect on someone else. I broke that bond. I cut through it with the hardest diamond in the universe. One that could not be seen, and could only be felt. And in doing so, it nearly destroyed him.

If I had the strength to do that, then I had the strength to put it back together. And nothing would cut that fucker ever again.

*******Prelude End********

"Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams, for when dreams go, life is a barren field, frozen with snow."

"Hello?"

..

..

..

"Who are you?!"

"I'm sure if you gave it some thought, you could answer that yourself."

"Am I dead?"

..

..

"No."

Deborah Conroy told me something a long time ago. It was shortly after we had met and we were hanging around the club one night after work, just chatting. When she was sixteen, she had tried acid for the first and very last time. She was driving home after the party where she had taken the drug, and the barren road upon which she was traveling disappeared into the earth. She was driving down, down into a pit filled first with blackness, and the road led down to the fiery gates of hell.

When she woke up, or when the drug had worn off enough to give her some sense of coherency, she found herself in the middle of the road, and her car was sitting on a railroad crossing. The horn from an oncoming train was sounding in the distance. It was the last time she ever experimented with drugs again. She thought it was a sign – a sign from God to straighten up. And she did. But she did it for herself.

"I saw hell, Bell. That was the only wake up call I really needed." And she had laughed it off.

I had to wonder now if maybe she really did.

Little did I know that at the time I was succumbing to my delusions, she was experiencing her own unique kind of hell. She was dying but she was still alive.

The dreams - the delusions we have when we're faced with adversity or we've suffered some traumatic or self-induced stress - can be considerably fucked up. I spent three hours and some odd minutes on the trip to nowhere questioning whether or not I was dead yet, or whether or not I had just succumbed to a delusional state because my mind had finally had enough.

So when I heard that voice – the strong voice of a woman - I obviously had to ask. Was I dead, or just experiencing a slight shade of crazy?

I'd realize later that it was neither. I'd realize later that I was on my own vision quest, a quest for knowledge that I needed to embrace, a quest for the truth; one that I would need to fulfill when I was awake. I'd also realize that they weren't just my own manifestations. Someone was helping me along the way.

Someone who wasn't supposed to exist anymore.

My dream of falling from the rocket slide was just the beginning. They were vivid and colorful dreams; not a detail would fall away with consciousness and not a word would be forgotten when I would finally wake up.

I was curled up on the bracken of the forest floor in Forks, Washington the day that Edward Cullen left. I could feel the cold and dampness of the night air seeping into my bones. I knew where I was - his parting words the minute before I found myself lying there 'told' me where I was. But it was different this time. I was scared. I was frightened to relive the nightmare again because it always brought back the pain and heartache I had suffered. But I wasn't that girl anymore. At least, I didn't think I was. There was only an echo of the pain and the heartache. I was void of the self-imposing numbness because life was different for me now.

Steel arms lifted me up effortlessly, wrapping under my knees and around my back. A large hand came to rest below my left breast, on my ribs. He was cold, and his grip - his touch - I knew very well. Those were the arms I knew the best.

The only difference was that this time the hand that was resting on my ribs wasn't the hand holding my head down on his shoulder, forcing it to stay there so I couldn't look at him.

And he didn't talk.

They were his arms. They always had been. I just hadn't realized it.

"Peter, what's going on?" I lifted my head up to look at him.

He was wearing the black stocking cap. He knew how much I liked him in that cap. His eyes were the color I liked the best, the color he always had after he fed - startling bright burgundy with a glint of soul behind them. He walked slowly, and I could hear the bracken giving way under his feet. The sodden leaves and needles from the trees feathered across my coat, and his feet didn't trip over the exposed roots in the ground.

He gave me a look like I should know the answer. "What do you mean what's going on? I'm taking you home, Bunny. You're freezing." He smiled, but something was off about it. I remember thinking that. In my own dream, I remember thinking that.

"But you're not supposed to be here," I told him.

He gave me the look again. "I was always supposed to be here, Bella. If I waited for Charlie to find you, who knows? You could have died. You're soaking wet."

I scowled at him a little and thought about it. If this was the way my delusion wanted to play out, I might as well enjoy it.

"This makes absolutely no sense. But you're right. You were supposed to be here."

He chuckled for a moment. "It does make absolutely no sense, doesn't it? Trust me, babe, I've been trying to make sense of it for twenty-one goddamn years, and I doubt she'll ever tell me why she did it. Oh well, it's not like I have any other place I'd rather be anyway," he said softly, nuzzling my face with his. He kissed the tip of my nose before he pulled away.

"Who do you mean?" I asked.

The look again. "Charlotte. Do me a favor...if she tells you, don't ever fucking tell me. I hate that bitch," he said, glaring straight ahead.

I slapped his face only somewhat playfully. "Don't say that. You don't hate her. You loved her."

He scoffed. "Yeah, once upon a time. Trust me, babe," he shrugged his whole upper body, "I have every reason in the world to hate her right now, and that's not going to change any time soon. So just drop it." He threw me a withering look.

"God, you can be such an asshole sometimes. Remind me why I love you again?"

He looked at me and smiled. "You love my sparkling personality…and my sparkly dick."

I giggled. "You so aren't getting laid any time soon."

He laughed. "You've got that right." He sighed and looked at me painfully. "This is gonna affect me, Bella, and not in a good way. Just love me, okay?" He stopped and crouched down to put me back on the forest floor. I could see light through the trees.

"Of course. What are you doing?" I asked. He stayed crouched down, but he put his hands on the sides of my head and pulled me closer so he could kiss my forehead.

"I'm leaving. Charlie will find you in a few minutes." He smiled softly. "Don't worry, I'll be around. I've always been around." He looked melancholy, and something flashed in his eyes.

I felt my chest tighten. My heart thudded loudly and painfully. "Don't go. Stay. You should meet him."

Peter nodded. "I have to go. But I will some day. You can introduce us later." He stood up.

I was frantic. He couldn't leave. He couldn't leave now. I needed him. I needed Peter. He was what I needed to heal. The pain was coming back - I could feel it in my chest. It was a slow, methodical build up of all I had once endured, but it pulled at me this time. It pulled me towards him, and every step he took away made it pulse stronger with the inevitability. He was leaving. He was leaving me just like Edward had.

"Peter, no. Please, please don't go." I started to cry.

"Shh, honey. It's okay. It's not time yet. I'll find you again." He turned to walk away.

"No! It's not fair! Don't I get a say? It's my life!" The cold - the numbness - was pouring back into me in waves. It felt like my heart was going to shatter, like my ribs were going to implode.

"It is your life. It has always been your choice. It just hasn't been his. This was the way it was supposed to be. I showed him that."

He was gone. His words made no sense, but it didn't matter. I couldn't ask him about them. He was gone.

"Peter? Peter!"

His broken voice was on the wind. "I love you, Bella. I always have."

He was gone, and the shattering pain of my heart took all the unneeded effort out of my bones. I sank to the forest floor and curled up, trying to protect what was left. But there was nothing left. I wouldn't survive without him.

I closed my eyes and I fell.

Maybe Deb had been on to something instead of just on something because I felt like I was falling into a pit in the earth. It was cold there. And wet. But as I opened my eyes to see the rush I was feeling, I found that I wasn't falling.

I was standing in a black cave with ebony walls that smelled like must and mold. Water streamed and trickled down the surface, dripping into a puddle somewhere behind me. Light was filtering in from somewhere, hitting the wall up high, but it was still dark.

I felt a pull in my chest, something pulling me forward to an outcropping of rock across from me. It was magnetic, luring me in such a way that I could not stay put. It enticed me, and I took that step.

I was falling down again, down into the water.

My lungs were literally imploding and burning, and filling up with water. I was no longer in the hole, and I instantly recognized the raging dark and murky water to be salty. I knew I had just jumped off the cliff in La Push.

The day I jumped off the cliff at First Beach was a day I thought about often because no one can ever forget the feeling of drowning – that is, if they survive. I was sinking, falling further into the dark abyss. The current was pulling me further and further under, until I gave up the fight and drifted along with it.

Down, down into the dark, where no voice existed to soothe me because it wouldn't be the right voice anyway.

But it was the right picture. All of a sudden he was just there, appearing out of nowhere. And he was naked and floating along in the water, which seemed to bend at his will. It made the darkness below not seem so bad. It didn't surround him like it consumed me.

The light of the sun always made him look more surreal, more angelic and majestic in a way, even when he was just sitting at his drafting table under the skylight at home. In the water, in the light that surrounded his pale body, he looked like a ghost or an angel.

And Peter, when naked, was a glorious sight anyway.

Hallelujah.

He gave me a knowing look and raised his arm. His thumb went up on his right hand, his arm moved up and down. It was a silent 'up'; and he blew a kiss. Then he winked.

I felt a warm hand wrap around mine, pulling me up.

The water burned headily in my lungs as I laughed at him.

Even then I knew it was a dream. It was kind of too bad it didn't really happen like that.

As vivid and funny as it was, I needed a good laugh at that moment in my life because I remembered how I had gotten there.

Vision number five was one I remembered very well because it was the first time that I ever hugged him.

"It's so nice to finally meet you, Bella."

I pulled away from him to give him a questioning look. I could feel the coolness of the tailgate under my thighs, like it was real. There wasn't anything I didn't feel.

"What do you mean it's nice to finally meet me? We've already met, silly." I smiled at him questioningly. I had no idea why I said it because it was the first time we had talked in great length, but I knew him in my dreams.

He smiled at me softly and rubbed the tops of my thighs with his hands. "Yeah, but you don't know that. And you ain't gonna accept it until the truth stares you in the face. These aren't just dreams, Bella. They're the instances that brought me into direct contact with you, the ones you can remember the most. But you're stubborn. Even your own mother didn't stand a chance in Marcy's bedroom. It's time to wake up and face the facts. You're not dead and you're not crazy," he said harshly.

I withered under his darkening eyes. "How did you know? I didn't tell you about that."

He frowned and then glared at me. "You didn't tell Peter…and I'm not him." His hands left me and he stepped back. His chin lowered as his eyes blackened, and he stared at me formidably.

A cold breeze, the coldest air I have ever felt, blew down my spine and I could not contain the shiver. His jaw was clenched and he shook his head minutely back and forth.

It was not Peter. It was his body and it was his voice, but those were not his eyes. They weren't evil, but they didn't belong to him either. They were apathetic and distant. There was no profound love in them. The air was thick and so very cold. Malevolence seeped into my pores.

He was not Peter.

"Who are you?"

He smiled tightly, but it wasn't his smile. "It's time to wake up. You're in trouble. Tell that bitch I'm almost there. Make the leap, Bella."

The delusions and dreams I had experienced for over three and a half hours ended that very same moment. But I wouldn't forget. They all mattered, but there was one that was in the forefront of my mind the most.

Somehow, some way, it was him.

"Who am I? Who are you? Wait, don't answer that. I already know. You're Peter's newest whore. His 'Bella'."

I had been talking in my sleep.

Consciousness seemed to come back on board about the same time I was placed on my feet; and about the same time the thick and heady voice of a rich tenor spoke with a Spanish dialect.

I was lethargic and dizzy, either from the bump I had taken to the head or from the run. He didn't let go of me. His arms were still painfully tight around me in a backwards bear hug. Death radiated out of his cold skin.

I was alive. How long seemed to be the question, but even it was one I really didn't need to hear the answer to. I would die one way or the other.

I was groggy, my vision hazy and doubled. It was hot and very humid wherever the hell I was.

It was dark, almost nearly pitch black, and my eyes had a hard time adjusting. I had no idea how long I had been out. I felt like shit and my throat was dry. My mouth tasted sour and my throat burned with bile. Plus, I smelled something awful.

At some point I had vomited right down the front of my shirt. It explained the nasty taste of stomach acid in my mouth.

"Portia, light a couple of fires. Miguel, tell Julian to keep them upwind. Tell them to keep their eyes open and off the girl."

It was the woman's voice; the last one I had heard, the one who had dragged me out of my truck by my hair. She spoke softly, her voice lilting with the bells that came with it.

I was still trying to adjust to the darkness and to the things that surrounded me, and my ears were open to the sounds. A small breeze was blowing in from some direction, but I had no idea which way I was facing.

Three shapes moved in front of me, two of them leaving. The ground beneath me was hard, rock almost, and uneven. My eyes were just slowly adjusting to the area around me and to the blurry Milky Way lighting up the night sky when I was blinded by orange firelight.

I heard water somewhere. It was far away, but I thought I could hear the faint rush of rapid water. A river.

I tried to pull away, wincing from the new light.

"Where you going, girl? There's no place for a whore like you to run." He tightened his grip painfully around my stomach and my chest. My arms were pinned down and his hand was digging in my shoulder.

"Let me go." My throat was parched and my voice cracked. I cried out because it was getting hard to breathe, but very little came out of my throat. The stifling heat in the air wasn't helping. My lungs and my heart felt like they were being crushed.

It wasn't just that. Everything, everything I had seen and experienced before I thought I was dying was coming back to me full force.

Debbie and Seth were dead. The dreams had been a safe haven. The real nightmare was reality.

Visual and graphic memories played again through my mind, and there's no way to accurately describe what it does to your heart. I saw it all again; Debbie's limp and bludgeoned body being thrown by a merciless piece of shit all because he wanted to exhibit a power we all knew he had…just so she could not die quietly…just so she could experience a brand of pain and torture no good person should have to endure.

If I didn't die, it would be there every night, plaguing me worse than anything I had ever had to bear.

And Seth, lying dead in a heap with his soul wrapped in the curse he had had to co-exist with. Seth, who had tried to save us, tried to protect us no matter what I had done. Seth, who had had his whole life still ahead of him and hadn't wanted to be ruled by his genes. Seth, who had had a good heart and had just wanted to live because he had had hopes and dreams.

He was gone.

It was going to be devastating. It was going to be devastating all the way around. Sue could never recover from this loss. And Charlie, Garrett, Peter… There was no worse agony.

What killed us would surely kill them. In some way.

My heart felt like it was literally going to explode. And that would be it. There would be nothing left for that bitch to kill, just a shell of a girl already broken.

"Oh, God." I broke. I just broke.

"Hold still now. See, she's got dick on the brain, mi amor. I always thought Peter liked his pussy blond…and cold." He chuckled under his breath.

All he had to do was mention his name and the pain took on a different meaning. They might as well have gone ahead and ripped my heart out of my chest. It already felt like it had been.

I'd never get to hold him again. I'd never taste him. I'd never feel him. I'd never get to look in his eyes and know that there was only one place I belonged, and that was with him, wherever he was.

What he had to be going through.

But just his name alone gave me purpose. It uplifted me, and no matter how devastating and horrifying it all really was, it also brought back my will to fight.

But I was too weak, too physically weak to do anything. Mentally, it broke me down and built me up all at the same time.

The hand on the arm that was wrapped around my mid-section slid down to palm me roughly between my legs while lifting me in the air. The hand on the arm wrapped around my shoulders slid off to grab my right breast. He squeezed it hard.

No.

Bile rose in my throat. "Oh, God."

This wasn't how it was supposed to be. This wasn't how it was supposed to end. Reality was brutal, and the dread itself was enough to choke me. I knew then that not even half my life's worst experiences could ever compare to dying like this and losing Peter. There was no pain that I could suffer that was worse than this. My heart was bleeding, mortally wounded because there was just no other way to feel.

And this fucker was going rape me…or going to try. There would be no way I could fight him off, but I struggled with all my might just the same.

A cold breath sent a chill through my bones, his lips at my ear. "That pussy's anything but cold. Oh, I bet he just loved you..."

"Carlos, let her go. Right now." There was just a hint of her lineage in her voice. She spoke almost perfect English.

Carlos. I knew that name, and I knew hers too. He was the ass kissing bastard who was there the day Peter went back for Jasper, and he was the one who helped Maria kill Charlotte.

It would have been so nice had he been human. It would have been so nice to kick him in the balls and watch his agony for touching something that didn't belong to him. It would have been so nice to watch Peter kill him. I would not cringe away from the brutality.

She was exactly as he described; pale, cold, and evil in her own right.

Through the dim firelight that made her skin glow, she looked at me, but the threat was for him. I could see the look of expected obedience in her eyes, even if it was for her 'amor'. He was just as disposable as anyone else. That bitch cared about nothing.

Maria.

He stilled in his assault. I could see her. My vision was clearing. If the bitch had snakes in her hair, it wouldn't have shocked me. Any gaze like that and one would think they'd turn to stone. She was smiling a little, but her eyes were full of threat.

That jaw she had was something else. Its structure was well defined, with noticeable joints back by the ears. I pitied the cock that that mouth sucked on. The itty-bitty stump I felt on my backside made me wonder if the rest of his dick had fallen victim at some point.

That was if she was kind enough to suck it. I hated her, and I hated her with conviction.

If there was a Heaven, if there was a way to see this bitch suffer through all the pain and suffering she had ever caused, I wanted to see it. I wanted to watch her die. I wanted to show her through the Gate to Hell.

Maybe this was my hell. Maybe through all my mistakes, this is what I had to go through to get my golden ticket. But a bitch like her could never earn one.

Carlos sighed before he squeezed hard enough that all I could feel was the excruciating pain of my breast, like it was being twisted and ripped off. He dropped me.

I landed on my side, on my hip and my left arm. My head hit the rocky floor and I blacked out for just a moment. My head throbbed with new purpose.

The flash of pain in my hip was subtle but bruising nonetheless. My boob pulsed as my blood flowed, and I unconsciously grabbed it to hold it in my palm for any relief. My head was pulsing, and my eardrums were thudding loudly along with my heart.

"Get my clothes and get her a drink of water."

I sat myself up gingerly, re-orienting myself again. I looked back up at her when I saw a blur out of the corner of my eye. The orange glow was growing, making it easier to see, but my eyes were sensitive to the light.

Carlos was the man with the brown windbreaker and the dirty jeans, the one who had been holding her hand back at the festival. He brought her clothes, handing them to her. His black hair was cut close to his head, his cheeks were sunken in, and I had to wonder if he had astigmatism. His eyes just seemed to float around; he looked at everything; and he sneered at me with full lips. The firelight lit up the shadows on his gaunt and hollow cheeks. He was as skinny as a rail. He flitted away into the darkness after giving me a withering but hungry look.

I looked towards the light. Ten feet away was a stone pyre with a large fire starting to crack and sizzle as dry wood was being thrown in and burned by another one of the males who had been at the festival. Another thirty or so feet farther to the right, higher up on another flat base, was another pyre coming to life. Silhouettes floated around that ring, and sitting down by it were shapes that moved. Low murmurs and low growls drifted in the air.

Reality, dread, and fear like I had never felt before pulsed through my heart and tightened in my throat as I watched Maria slink her way out of her sundress while I took in my surroundings.

I wiped the tears away just so I could shed some more. Crying would get me nowhere though. And this bitch had probably never shed one tear her entire life.

My chances of still being in New Mexico were nil.

Oh, God. No. No. No. No.

"You know where you are, don't you? I can see it in your face," she said. I didn't look at her, but I could feel her eyes on me.

I didn't answer.

The firelight lit up the Texas side of the canyon, reflecting off the layers of limestone, sand, and mud. The glow reached across to the other side of the abyss, highlighting tortured and twisted spirals of rock that used to be sand. In the distance, across the abyss and on the Mexico side, and lit by starlight alone, were flat and rolling mesas that had been carved by water and lava. There were shadows on the ground, which were either the rare succulent growing out of a crevice or flowering wax plants.

Mexico. Big Bend. Boquillas Canyon. I looked south into Mexico. I had to fight off the feeling of wanting to throw up.

There was a cloud bank miles and miles away. A dark wall cloud swallowed up the stars and caressed the horizon. Heat lightning flashed, but so did storm lightning. I could hear the faint rumble of thunder. A small breeze floated in sporadically from the north, just a slight shade cooler than the air around me.

Peter said it was beautiful down here but he could never appreciate it. He could never come back to it again because of the memories it held. I could understand why.

I could understand what the grand scheme was and what it now meant. All it took was a look at my closer surroundings, and bile rose in my throat once again.

The imploding of my heart squeezed my stomach and twisted my guts into knots, and I wretched. I heaved, and my lungs burned with new purpose. The muscles in my back tightened and ached. I heaved again, throwing up nothing but bile as I twisted to the side.

"I take it that's a yes."

I had noticed the rocks. As I sat myself back up, I faced the grim reality.

I had no doubt that the pyre in which I sat - an almost perfect circular formation - was the very pyre in which Charlotte had met her own demise. And I knew that I would meet mine here too. There were pictographs displayed. It was an old Comanche fire pit.

It had been a place to hide for the raiders of a time so long ago. It was a place where vampires could run amok or sit by the fire because there were no towns around and there was very little life. There were caves below in the canyon wall, places to hide from Rangers of the past.

Peter had told me all about them. Charlotte and he had been through the area before, and she had studied meticulously at the homes for bats. There was no artificial light in the distance. There was no sign of life anywhere. This is where the people who had trekked too far or gotten lost had died.

There was just one missing thing; one missing person who would inevitably seal my fate once he showed his face. And goddamn it all to hell, I didn't want to die.

Debbie was gone, and so was Seth, and I would no doubt live with the guilt for the rest of my life, natural or unnatural. I would be rejected and abhorred by the rest of my family, but I still had a reason to live. I still had Peter.

He could make it okay. He wouldn't be able to heal me, but I'd have him and it would have to be enough. It would be enough. But it wasn't going to happen.

I could not watch that. I could not watch her strip him of everything he was. I could not watch him fall to pieces and feel the pain and horror he'd experienced again. He had worked so hard at keeping it so well contained and keeping himself level headed that the tears and the cries he had shed were enough to bear. The pain he felt when he talked about Charlotte didn't even feel close to an inkling of all the bad things I had experienced. This would devastate him. This would break him down and rip the good out of him. I didn't want to see that. It was terrible to think it, but at that moment I didn't want to see him.

There was only one way out of this hell. There was only one way to throw a wrench into her well-thought out plan. It still meant death.

Maria wasn't shy. Not a cold rock in her body was the least bit shy. She stood naked, taking the time to shake out her dress and the clothes she would be wearing. I caught numerous shadows on her back and on her side. A portion of her back on the left side by her ribcage was discolored and reflective in the glow of the fire. It was misshapen, and I wondered if that was the bite Charlotte had managed to get in before they had ripped her apart. I hoped it was. I hoped to God it was.

She was small; very petite with small hands and feet, but she had a lupine grace about her. And the pale contrast of her skin with her long, black hair made her dangerously beautiful without the scars. She was the perfect embodiment of a predator with a rotted heart.

I jumped when a figure rose out of the darkness of the abyss below. The Rio Grande lay down in the depths. There were rare treks made this time of year - people who would challenge themselves to ride the river down from the Santa Elena Canyon because flood waters would make their way south. It wasn't deep, but it was fast and furious.

I had a passing thought. Its option meant death too…most likely. There was no way out.

The figure that climbed out of the darkness was Carlos, and he blurred forward from the edge not fifteen feet away to plop a bowl in front of me.

I once thought Garrett had the eyes of a snake, and he did, but he wasn't the poisonous kind, so-to-speak. Carlos seemed to rattle in his own fucking skin next to Maria, and he was the type of slithery bastard that made you want to squirm. Garrett was more controlled and docile like a python, ever patient for when it was his turn to strike. Yet, he was the type you could hold and not cringe away from. He was the kind you could appreciate because he was a silent protector and a predator, even though he would bite off more than he could chew. But still, he was gentle in his own right.

Maria turned to him while she put on a tank top that must have been red at one point, or tie-died pink. It was kind of dressy for the desert, made of satin or silk. She was still naked from below the waist.

Bitch needed a trim job.

"Leave us. I want you watching, Carlos. Don't let him get in unseen. If they both come in, they'll be coming in quick. There's no room for error," she told him softly.

Peter was going to come. There was no way he couldn't. He was still a vampire. He was still a survivor of the most gruesome and chaotic times in his life. He was a fighter. But even she didn't know whether Garrett would follow, and I had to wonder myself. I hoped that he wouldn't. I hoped he could find a way to put it behind him.

But I doubted it too.

I was conflicted. In my own chaotic thoughts, I was conflicted. Because there was hope. If he came, and if he came with Garrett, there was always a chance.

I looked over at the fire that was the farthest away and I saw shapes and silhouettes and faces that glowed subtly in the orange light. There were thirteen to be seen. There were still more in the dark. Little murmurs and growls floated to me in the air and chilled my bones. I could not see faces, but I could feel their stares. I could feel their thirst. Even my own throat burned with new purpose.

Death waited for all. He was strong, but he wasn't that strong. They were newborns. They were the back up. There was no way out.

"I'm going across to watch the southern flank in case he goes around. Miguel and Portia will be on the ridge. He won't make it in unseen." He smiled at me malevolently.

Carlos stepped forward to slip her some snake tongue and give the crusty, old Mission a caress. I turned away, unable to watch because I felt nauseated enough.

Something was wrong with my head. I either had a slight concussion or I just hadn't acclimated yet after what had probably been a long run. I had to fight off the feeling of wanting to go to sleep, and the throbbing headache I had behind my eyes made it hard to look at any light, not that there was much to begin with.

But I had no time to worry about a fucking headache. The real pain would come later. Hopefully coming close to death by James had built up my tolerance. Maybe I could keep myself from screaming.

For just a moment my mind drifted and I thought about the dreams, the instances in my life altered by grief and despair. But my dreams were always doorways to the things that plagued my past, and sometimes there were glimpses of the present and the future.

"These aren't just dreams, Bella. They're the instances that brought me into direct contact with you, the ones you can remember the most."

There was simply no time to think about it. There was no time to reflect on just what it all meant! Time was still on their side.

But the thoughts were there, eating at me slowly, eating at my resolve that they were just delusional dreams of my past. My mind was trying to tell me something, and being awake it was different again.

Or somebody else was. It had not been Peter in my last dream. It had not been him.

I felt the air change when Carlos ghosted away, and I caught his silhouette as he catapulted himself across the canyon. It had to be forty feet or more to the other side. The river…the river was down below. It had to be at least a two hundred foot drop. I watched him until he disappeared into the darkness.

My thoughts however were confirmed. They had the bait they needed to lure Peter in. And it was only a small question in my mind. He had to come, didn't he? He had to try. And if I was already dead, he would at least need to know. He wouldn't walk away. There was no way he could. It was never in his nature to walk away from anything. But he was scared, too, scared of what he would find. But he was not afraid to die. I don't think I could blame him one bit.

I loved him enough to let him go. As ugly as it was too think it, as crippling as it was to feel it, maybe he should just walk away.

Deep down, I knew he wouldn't. It was going to be ugly. It was going to be worse than that. It was going to be horrendous. And oh, how I dreaded it.

They were watching for him, waiting, and this place was a house to the hunters.

While I was glaring at Carlos until he disappeared, Maria was watching me as she slid her jeans on.

"It may be hard to believe from your perspective, but Carlos is a very loving and family-oriented man. I've never been one to keep my family close. I prefer to keep my enemies closer," she said.

She sat down across from me, folding her legs. She really was quite beautiful, and she knew it too. Bitch deserved to have her face bitten off.

I stared her in the face. "So I've heard." I swallowed.

She smiled a laugh. "I bet you have. I bet you already know what a small world on this side of things it really is."

She looked down and lifted the bowl of water, which really had been a bowl at some point. A bowl made of stone. "Here, drink. You're thirsty. I'm not a complete monster, you know." she said quietly, almost sympathetically. But there was humor in her eyes.

I smiled at her in a thankful way right before I knocked the bowl out of her hand, which surprised me that I could really do it. But she hadn't been expecting it.

"No, thanks. If I'm going to die, I'd prefer to do it on an empty stomach. I'd rather go out not pissing or shitting myself, thank you very much. It's not very becoming. But neither is the color pink, at least not on a cold, evil bitch like you."

Maria's lips twisted in fury and she trembled with contained anger. She breathed out of her nose, a rumble low in her chest, and straightened herself out, shaking it off.

She smiled. "You're intelligent. I like that. Figured it all out for yourself, did you? That's quite remarkable." She glared.

I fought the urge to scurry away. She had probably killed hundreds, if not thousands, human or like her. There was no remorse behind those eyes. They were dead, a gateway into the very hell she embraced.

That bitch's heart really was made of stone.

My throat watered headily and I had to swallow back a bit. "Of course I did. You and your pet snake just spelled it out as clear as day. I know more than enough about you that it makes me sick. But how? How did you know? How did you find us?" I had to know. I had to know whether or not it was just a stroke of luck for them to find us.

She smiled again. "It was a stroke of luck. We were making a rare trek through Tucumari yesterday. Carlos was born in the Santo Domingo Pueblo. I found him two years after Peter joined us, working in an orchard outside of Laredo. He used to have a wife and a son. He found an old paper from weeks ago. His great, great grandson, Jose, had been murdered and tossed into the river, so we went and paid our respects for the dead. He's always made sure his family was taken care of. And, well, Carlos has always stood by my side. Like I said, he's a very...'family-oriented' man."

She paused to smile deviously. "We were on our way back to Terlingua when we...'smelled'…your 'werewolf'? It was obvious that he wasn't human. I've heard of them, but I've never seen one before. We really had no idea what he was. And then I heard you talking with your friend about things that humans shouldn't be talking about. And we smelled the wolf on you. And I heard you say his name, and I couldn't believe it. I just couldn't believe the 'luck' of it all! I mean, to find out that Peter is alive and well and he's taken another mate. Well, I was very…shocked. I was so sure that he had fallen into a hole and withered away. You can't imagine how wonderful this is for me." She breathed out, a victorious smile in her dead eyes and in those stone jowls of death.

Bitch was hungry; maybe for blood, or maybe she just needed to feed her need to be cruel and callous.

And I could imagine her shock. I could feel it because it was my own too. It wasn't just a stroke of luck. It was a fucking small world after all.

Jose Vasquez, murdered by supposed gunshot and dumped in the river. Jose Vasquez, who had had ties to a known drug runner by the name of Ricky Delasantos, who was found a week before Jose was found. It was thought that it was a cartel hit, with Ricky and the other two boys skimming profits or a buy that had really gone bad.

I had recognized his picture in the paper. He was one of the boys in the park that day weeks ago when Peter had taken me on a show and tell tour. Peter had killed Ricky the next night, and Garrett had killed the other two. It wasn't just coincidence.

I sat there speechless and in tears. The way fate took a turn was far from awe-inspiring. It was horrifying. There was no way anyone could see this coming. There was no one at fault. It was fate. Had the time been less chaotic, less insane, had I seen Garrett and Peter and told them what a big, fucking mistake it was to kill those boys, I might have given Garrett shit for choosing the wrong motherfucker to fill his gut on.

I was crying because she talked of those I loved as if they had no consequence, as if they didn't matter when they mattered to me the most. But I couldn't help but laugh at the insanity of it all. Because I was insane. I was having delusions and dreams that made little sense, and possibly discovering an impossible truth. Plus I had just heard the most fucked up bullshit that could ever occur, and I was sitting in a pit of loss and despair where one good woman had already lost her life.

I laughed and I cried because it was so fucking unbelievable and fucked up at the same time.

It was the fourth time I was close to dying. The third time was always the charm, but I had lucked out and got a freebee. I laughed and I cried. Luck was not on my side. The bitch had it all - time, luck, and reinforcements. How could a root of evil garner so much?

"What's so funny?" she asked, and I glanced at her.

She looked a little disturbed, like my laughter was the last thing she expected. I really had gone insane, but little did I know I was on the right track to pushing her over. And I made that decision somewhere along the line. I wanted to push her over. I wanted to Piss. Her. Off.

She was going to kill me anyway. If she killed me before Peter showed his face, it was a slight shade of better. I wanted her attempt to repeat history to fail in a big way. It would still be devastating for Peter, for the both of us in fact, but I could go out satisfied knowing I had throttled that bitch in some way.

I caught my breath and I tried to calm myself. I was in full hysterics. Thunder rumbled to the south and lightning flashed in the distance, and I looked up to see the storm clouds were closer. They were swallowing the clear sky. It was odd because I could have sworn it was coming from the south while the breeze blew in from the northwest, and it was a little bit cooler.

I also had to consider the fact that she didn't know. They didn't know. Both Garrett and Peter could suffer greatly if Carlos and Maria found out. If Carlos was that concerned with his family of the past and present, he would go after Garrett. And maybe so would she. They needed very little reason.

There was always the chance that Garrett and Peter would find some 'way' to survive, some way to live on, especially if they didn't come running into the canyon. But if it meant vengeance, if it kept some will and the reason out of Carlos' and Maria's grasps, then Peter and maybe Garrett would have an advantage, so-to-speak.

If he came, she was going to kill me as soon as he was within sight. There was no doubt about that. There would be no pause to consider. It might kill Peter, but there was the possibility that he could take that bitch down with him. I wouldn't feed her or Carlos' fury. Not with that. And if Garrett found some way to move on, he didn't need the past coming back to bite him one day. Or kill him.

"Nothing...nothing at all. Let's just say it's a small world after all." I looked away from her and down to the floor of the pyre, wiping the tears away from my face and struggling for breath because panic was taking it away.

It's strange the things we think of when turmoil, despair, and desperation slam into you like an oncoming freight train. Because you still have hope. You have to. There's no way to fully accept that you're going to die. You still have hope.

I took a handful of dirt from the pyre and I lay down on my back, putting it in my pocket. I wanted to live, but I needed a fucking miracle. But right then all I could think about was that this was where Charlotte had died.

If God existed and he decided to bless me with one, and if there was a way out of this, I would have a physical representation of Charlotte. It was just dirt, but it was where her life had been extinguished. We all have a place where we began, and we all have a place where we end. It was just dirt, but maybe she was still there.

I could give her a grave. I could bury all the good things in his life, no matter how heartbreaking it was to have lost them.

And if I died, I hoped that he would put me with his family. Maybe he could live. Maybe he could find some way to go on.

It was terrible to think it, but it was thought nonetheless. I didn't want him to. If Heaven existed, I wanted him with me. I didn't see how I could have it without him.

I could feel her eyes on me and her mild shock as I lay down on my back and closed my eyes. I couldn't bear to look at her for another second. My head throbbed behind my eyes, and yelling and screaming at her would just give satisfaction to her desire to see me lose it. I wasn't going to give the bitch the pleasure.

My ponytail was still intact. It was tight on my head and uncomfortable where it was gathered, so I pulled it out and closed my eyes, letting my arms fall lax at my sides and letting my fingers scratch carelessly in the dirt.

"How did you meet him? How are you...not dead? I don't understand."

I said nothing. Right then, the bitch didn't exist. All I wanted to think about was the last time I saw his face, watching me pull out of the garage and wanting to make love again just minutes before. Oh, how I wished that I would have. How I wanted so badly to feel his cool body between my legs as I wrapped him between them. How I needed to feel his arms around me, or feel his hands make my skin tingle when he touched me. How I longed to look into his eyes and see his smile because I knew he was happy. I could look at him and see and feel all his contentment, and know that as each day went by our love would grow a little bit more. The love we shared was above all, and nothing could ever change it or break it. Not even death.

We were just us. We were Peter and Bella.

And all this soulless bitch wanted to do was invade my fantasy because she had none of her own.

I hadn't been looking at her, but she had leaned forward and touched my hand softly. More precisely, she touched my ring with her cold fingers. My arm flew up to try to slap her hand away and she pulled it back.

I glared at her for all it was worth as I sat myself up and moved a little further back. She could not keep the growl contained entirely as she tried to burn me with just her eyes alone.

"Don't. Don't you fucking touch me. You want to kill me, then fine. Kill me. But don't you touch me in any other way," I gritted out.

My voice, or what was left of it, still had the strength to speak with conviction, even with my throat being parched. I honestly wish I had had that drink. Pissing all over her didn't seem like such a bad idea.

She smiled deviously and victoriously. "I would say congratulations, but...well, you know." She cocked her head. "Tell me, was your friend going to be your Maid of Honor? How heartbreakingly sad." She tsked. "Do you think he will come? Garrett, that is? Will he come to avenge her death?"

My heart twisted painfully inside my chest and a sob escaped. The truth was, in another reality that really might have been the case.

I could see the hunger, the desire of such a prospect in her mind - someone who would chase her, like Peter. Someone else to play the game. She thrived on it. She needed it like she needed blood.

The wish of my future had been well in place before fate came into play, and I was well aware of what I would become. I was well aware that I would become an enemy to those who truly hated vampires, and 'bloodsucker' was just a derogatory term that I could have been called were that the case. I would have acknowledged it, and I would have accepted it and maybe even said 'thank you'. But this bitch was of the lowest bitter, and all she was doing was fueling my anger through all the heartbreak, through all the loss of life, and I was still becoming angry. It was what she wanted, and it was what I wanted too.

I said nothing. But as I sat there, I knew I was going to do one thing. I was going to make Seth and Peter proud, wherever they were. It was too bad they weren't around to hear it.

She smiled even more smugly than before while trying to look sympathetic. "And poor Peter. Poor, poor, Peter. You should have heard him cry when I killed Charlotte. It was almost enough to break my heart. He was always...weak. He was a disgrace," she sneered, trembling. "He'll lose you and be reduced to a blubbering weakling again. Maybe I'll kill him this time. Maybe I'll put him out of his misery. Or maybe I'll just let him rot in hell on earth."

That did it.

She smiled like she would be doing us a favor, but I could see right through it. Through that smile, through the fury she was trying to repress, I could see the anger and the pain she had experienced. She once lost the key, the hammer to victory and the chisel to her stone, cold heart. She had lost a country and she had lost her control over the one thing that could get her anywhere. She lost Jasper. And once upon a time, she might have just as well have killed him herself because at some point he found his own. He found his heart.

"I'm sure nothing will please you more, Maria. But let me ask you a question. Tell me, what does it feel like? What does it feel like to lose your 'mate'? Not just to another woman but to a man? I mean, you lost him to a man who didn't even put out." I laughed and watched her boil.

"Shut up." She growled low under her breath.

"Oh, come on," I breathed out, giving her the same faux sympathetic look she had given me. "You can call Peter a disgrace, but I can't tell you the reason you lost Jasper was because of your own greed? Because your pussy just lacked the skill to hold on to his heart and his dick?" I smiled at her, and I watched her eyes go instantly black.

"It's your own fault, you know. If you had loved him instead of the fight, if you had given a shit about his feelings, you might have been able to keep him. I doubt that, though. A bitch like you is incapable of changing for a man, even if it was Jasper. Peter never regretted going back to Monterrey for him. And if love makes him weak and a disgrace in your eyes, you really are nothing more than a heartless, bloodsucking cunt."

Death can happen within an instant, and I was sure I was dying.

The fourth time is the charm. At least it should have been.

What was so incredible was I didn't even see it coming. One would have to wonder if she even tried to gauge the punch. I saw her boiling, I saw the fury in her eyes, but I never figured she'd lose control enough to actually do something. I guess maybe she didn't like the word 'cunt' either; but I was only telling her the truth.

Having my leg broken was nothing compared to the pain of having my face smashed. I suppose it was like having a brick smashed against your face. A brick flying a hundred and fifty miles an hour.

I felt the crunch of my nose shattering before my world started to go black. But right before I felt the blow, I could have sworn I saw lightning strike behind her. My ears were full of fluid, though, and I couldn't be sure if I had heard the electric crack.

My nose was the one thing that I was proud to have never broken throughout my clumsy life. The gush of warm blood filling my cavities, however, only confirmed that she must have shattered it.

That bitch. It was just another reason to hate the cunt.

The throbbing and pulsing pain took away my eyesight, and unconsciousness was only throttled for just a moment as she tore my necklace away from my throat and snapped my ring finger while she removed my ring. I wasn't sure if she had managed to snap the thing completely off. The pain was nothing compared to that behind my eyes, deep within the recesses of tissue and bone. The darkness took me quick, and I was sure that I was dead; or would be soon. My throat filled up with blood.

I didn't even have time to say a silent goodbye.

I was a little upset when I woke up.

I had accepted that I had knocked on death's door one too many times. Waking up to an agony I had never experienced before just made me want it. I was human. I wasn't a vampire and I wasn't a superhero. I honestly just wanted to die. My head felt like it was trying to literally explode.

There was only thing, one person, that would make it all worth it; but when you've most likely lost him, when you don't have much hope to cling to, it's just hard not to wish for death, especially when you're dying in the first place.

I cried with the agony once I felt it. But as soon as I was sure I was experiencing the worse kind of pain imaginable, it disappeared within an instant.

There was no pain. And the sound of my heart and the blood it pumped didn't fill my ears anymore. There was no blood blocking my airways.

I heard water dripping and splashing in a puddle. But it wasn't a puddle. I was knee deep in cold water and I was standing. When I opened my eyes, it was obvious I wasn't awake at all. I was back in the cave.

It was cold and it was dark, but light filtered in from somewhere up above. I looked up and there was a hole carved into the dirt and stone, about four feet in diameter. Daylight filtered in and reflected off the ebony stone in the room. Water was dripping from the walls of the tunnel down into the pit about fifteen to twenty feet above the ceiling.

Light reflected on the wall in front of me, which was wet with condensation, and I could see a worm wiggling out of a dirt crevice.

As I looked around in the darkness, trying to see all that I could see, I listened. I had a feeling the structure was large and circular.

Maybe not a cave.

Maybe a well. Or an old cistern.

But there's a difference between dreaming and being awake. And I felt awake. Everything was so clear, so vivid. The sounds of the water dripping, the water on my legs… It felt so real.

My eyes adjusted even more to the darkness, and I could see even better. The small outcropping of black limestone that grew out of the wall was in front of me.

I was suddenly very scared. I was frightened to death, afraid because the pull was back. But it wasn't the same as before. It wasn't just a pull at my chest; it was yanking and grabbing at me. All my nerves seemed to want to give in to some unseen gravitational force within that rock.

It was as if it was speaking silently to my soul to 'step closer' and 'touch'.

It was magnetic in a way, and the six foot space between was electric. It seemed to make every cell in my body hum.

I was afraid of what would happen if I did because I was afraid I'd fall through again, into the dark abyss. But I was also petrified beyond comprehension because it enticed me in a way nothing ever had. Not even the effect Peter had on me was this strong.

And I wondered if I touched it, would it wrap my soul into a blanket from which I'd never want to leave the warmth? It was like it held the key to perpetual happiness. At least, it felt that way. I didn't know why I thought that, but something deep inside me told me this was more than just a rock.

It was a foundation.

A beginning.

And I did not want that. I didn't want any more than the complacency and the love that I had found with Peter. It was all that I needed to be happy because if there was a mate for my soul, I believed him to be it. If I touched that rock, I had a feeling I'd never let go.

I was scared, I was terrified, and I was cold. It might have been a dream, and maybe I was supposed to touch it, but I didn't want to; and I didn't want to fall when I stepped towards it. It wasn't just the eeriness of the rock, it was the entire place. The walls and the water seemed thick, and the entire well just seemed to be a house to every malignant and negative emotion that could ever be experienced.

I just stood there.

In a way, it was also a calm fortitude that I so desperately needed because the outside world - the one where I was awake - was filled with chaos and devils that wanted to strip my body of its soul and kill those that I loved.

Maybe this was somewhere in between. Maybe I was really dead.

"You're not dead, but you should be."

Frigid air that chilled the marrow in every bone in my body blew by my face. I was not alone. My heart felt like it was floating inside my chest, and movement out of the left corner of my eye startled me at the same time the voice spoke.

It was the voice that spoke to me in the darkness when I was asleep - feminine by its own right, articulate and strong. It caressed my ears like feathers.

More light seemed to filter in as I turned my head to look for the movement that had startled me, and though it was still dark, I could see her face as plain as day.

There wasn't a doubt in my mind that the woman before me, who stood a couple of inches taller and was so real that I could touch her, was Charlotte Osterhoudt.

Charlotte Fischer.

"You're Charlotte. Charlotte Fischer."

She looked quite serious, but the corners of her lips turned up. "Thank you for that acknowledgment."

"Oh, my God." I swallowed. Even though she had said I wasn't, I couldn't be sure that I wasn't dead…or at least dreaming.

She frowned. She was irritated, which was not a good thing because malevolence surrounded her, and me right along with her. The air was thick and my heart felt like it was drowning.

"You're not dead, you're not dreaming, and you're not insane," she gritted out. "But you will be if you don't accept the facts and grow up. You're in trouble, and if you don't listen to me, you will die. You're running out of charms."

Whatever she said just went in one ear and out the other for the most part. I was looking at the best of both worlds and it was awe-inspiring. She was human and vampire. Her eyes were cornflower blue and tears escaped at the corners, yet she was as pale and deadly as any other formidable predator. Her pale, blond hair flowed like silk and her skin sparkled subtly in the light coming from above. She had the most perfectly arched eyebrows and full lips. She looked like the girl in the picture, but she wasn't the same woman either.

She looked at me as if she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders and she was worried. I could feel it, both her burden and her worry. It squeezed my own heart.

"If I'm not dead and I'm not dreaming, what am I? Where am I? And more importantly, how am I talking to you?" I asked shakily.

In an odd sort of way, I felt attracted to her - not in a romantic way, but I wanted to touch her, hold her hand, or just embrace her.

I looked down at the water, trying to figure out why. All of a sudden, I was embarrassed. But she made a little noise, both a sigh and a groan. When I looked back up, she was the one who looked embarrassed. Her cheeks were flushed.

She shook her head, shaking it off.

"In Boquillas, you're unconscious. Here, you are awake. Don't ask me to explain because I can't. You'll still trying to pass it off as some delusion, but maybe it's in your best interests to listen to them. All your life, Bella, your dreams have tried to show you the right direction or give you a glimpse of the future. You've always taken them into account and you've always given them some thought. Now it's like none of it matters!" she said harshly.

My heart plummeted and my blood seemed to thicken. My heart felt like it had to work hard to pump it through my arteries.

"I don't understand." My voice cracked, but my throat wasn't dry. Here, in this place, I wasn't thirsty.

And I didn't. I didn't understand. What I did know was that I felt like I was going to physically fall apart because she seemed to look down on me. And for the first time in my life - my life with Peter - I felt insufficient. Standing next to her, I felt like I could never measure up.

She laughed, but it was in somewhat disbelief. "You don't understand because you refuse to acknowledge the truth. Or you ignore it. And you don't question it. I'm talking about Peter, Bella. After everything you've gone through, how could you be so stupid?! My God! He's fucked up more times than I can even count. You know he's been hiding something and you still don't confront him on it because you're afraid. You're mother taught you better than that. Life has taught you better than that."

I grew angry. Instantly, any inadequacy fell away and I wasn't talking to an immortal of a different nature anymore, I was talking to someone who was sticking her nose where it didn't fucking belong. It didn't belong because I deemed it that way.

I didn't need the goddamn dead interfering with my life. I had enough fucking trouble with the living. Or the half dead.

She flinched as if someone had slapped her.

"Don't tell me I'm stupid. I put my faith in him. He's not a goddamn child who doesn't know right from wrong. He's a grown fucking man, and I'm not a little girl. I've watched him nearly break in two because of some goddamn secret he's still holding on to, and I don't care what it is. I cannot breathe without him. I cannot live without him. I'm not afraid of the truth. I'm more afraid of what the truth will do to him. Don't tell me I'm stupid. My God...In all the conversations we ever had about you, he never told me you were such a bitch," I choked.

That was when it hit me. That was when I realized I was indeed talking to a ghost.

Or…not a ghost. I was having an argument with an angel.

She was too beautiful and she was not an apparition. And the reason it hit me was because of Peter. She had impacted his life so much that even now, after twenty-one years, he couldn't let the past go. And why would that be if she hadn't been affecting him like she was affecting me at that very moment?

She was fucking haunting him. I was sure of it. Bitch just couldn't die and let him live in peace.

Charlotte laughed and looked down to the water. "I guess that's one way to look at it, though I'm afraid it goes much deeper than that. You're not stupid, Bella, but sometimes you just don't think about the things you should think about," she said remorsefully.

She could hear me. She could read my mind, but I didn't give it much thought. I was too consumed with the knowledge that I now had to face, what he had been trying to tell me all along but didn't know how to.

She was as present in his life now as she had been when she was alive. How could he live with that and not be affected? How could he not resent it? He had never be able to let the past go completely because his past was his present. He was no longer angry because she had died; he was angry and resentful because she wouldn't go away.

I had to face some facts alright. I had to face the fact that the afterlife existed, which was wondrous and miraculous in so many ways, yet inconceivable at the same time.

And if she existed, then I really had felt and heard my own mother.

I was still reeling from the pang to the heart after Charlotte told me my mom had taught me better. But I was reeling even more from the thought of him still carrying the burden deep inside him, even after he knew something had happened at Marcy's. He knew and he didn't say anything.

I didn't know how to feel about that.

"You're close. But you're still just a little off track." There were tears in her eyes and she just looked pitiful.

I looked away, to watch her dress float on the water. A black dress, long in length, and it gathered at the waist and dipped low in the front. Long sleeves. Not something you'd expect to find an angel wearing.

I felt a pulse coming from the outcropping of rock and I looked towards it. It was still beckoning me to come closer and touch it.

"What are you doing to him?" I asked, appalled. I didn't look at her. The rock was humming, and it literally felt like every molecule in my body was about to be yanked towards it.

"It's not what I'm doing. It's what I did."

I looked at her and my heart fell. It literally fell into the soles of my feet. There was so much remorse in her face that it was impossible not to feel it. And I did feel it. It seeped from her and I was soaking it in.

I could feel everything she felt and vice versa. But she could read my mind. I couldn't read hers. In some way - some unique way - I was tied to her.

"It's because I carried you down before you were born. You feel what's in my heart because I carried your soul to your mother."

My heart did something that I was incapable of describing. It seemed like it grew within my chest, but I didn't know what to say. I just didn't know what to say.

She carried my…soul?

Lightning struck far away and somewhere above the sound of thunder echoed through the cavern. She looked up for a moment and she was nervous. She shuddered and I shuddered with her.

Something was happening. Outside in the real world, something was happening. I was sure of it.

She looked at me pointedly. "Listen to me, Bella. We don't have a lot of time. Do you remember what Peter told you about what happened two months after Jasper and Alice left him on the hunt, after I died, that night up in Sandia? Do you remember?" she asked with desperation.

Of course I remembered.

"He had an epiphany. He said he knew you wouldn't want him to give up and quit living. You wouldn't want him..."

I hadn't remembered it all, not until that very moment.

"...I grieved for my wife. I knew that...that if heaven existed, she would always be with me somehow. She'd be angry with me for just giving up, for just...becoming the very thing we'd escaped from. For being a monster. Especially when we have hearts…and souls…and care for one another."

I had never given it much thought until that moment because his statement had been one of closure.

But it had been a lie. There had been no closure.

Her smile was bittersweet. "Yes, but he wasn't kidding when he told you he fell down into a hole. You have to think about Peter, Bella. He's a strong man, but he's not that strong. Do you honestly think he could pull himself together after that just because he knew that's what I wanted? Peter's love is a remarkable thing because he had never given it easily, not after everything he experienced as a child. It doesn't take an unbreakable bond to keep a man from feeling an endless love for another. I'm proof of that. But if he loses you, if he loses you now, it will kill him," she said firmly.

The rock hummed and I wavered on my feet.

The key to perpetual happiness lay in that rock. The key to my perpetual happiness.

Peter.

This just wasn't any hole. This was his hole. Something had happened here; something miraculous and wondrous and awful. Something inconceivable, like this woman before me.

Something she did.

Charlotte was watching me guardedly.

"What did you do to him?"

Her chin lowered and she looked into my soul. "I gave him you. I gave him something to think about. I gave him the sight to see how you lived, how you loved, how you suffered, and how you persevered. I gave him two years to...cool down. I gave him time to find it within himself to appreciate the life and the hand he had been dealt with because we all struggle. We all suffer. When he crawled out of here, he was already on the path to truth. It was always his decision to go after you. He fell in love with you and everything you'd become all because I gave him something to dream about. I gave him someone else to look after. And the thing is, Bella, he didn't want to accept it because it was a dream. Just like you won't. Not yet anyway," she ended softly.

She gave him…me? She didn't give him me. I gave him me.

"Yes, you did. But I gave him a way. I gave him a gift. I gave him the sight. Much like I am giving you now."

What was one supposed to think after hearing something like that? It was impossible.

But I was standing here and talking to his dead wife, who happened to be an angel and had carried my soul down to my mother.

It all...just didn't make sense. It wasn't supposed to.

"What? You did what? He..." I didn't even know what to say.

She stepped forward until she was directly in front of me. She was frightened and worried.

She wiped away her tears and palmed my cheeks tenderly in her hands, wiping away mine. Her hands were warm. "He couldn't acknowledge it until he saw you. And when he did, his entire life changed. It's not a bond any God created. He did that himself. He found his humanity again. He found his ability to love again; to love like he had never loved before. All because of you. Peter created his own life with you, his own future. Everything he worked for, Bella, was because of you. I didn't give him the sight to see that. That was all him. He had faith and hope before he ever crawled out of here. He had you."

The truth. The truth was unconscionable. Inconceivable. Appalling. Life-altering. Miraculous.

It was him. It was Peter who had carried me out of the forest. It was Peter who had caught me on the rocket slide.

I was numb, unable to think about the possibility. I was unable to think about what it all meant.

Charlotte shushed me silently with her lips. I felt her deep concern. "You never asked him the date, Bella. The day I died. I died on September 13, 1987, one hour before you were born," she whispered, nodding minutely and sighing when she was finished.

I broke down. "Oh, my God..."

She gave me a shake, holding my face more firmly. She was irritated. There was obviously more to tell, but there wasn't time; time for what, I didn't know. And I honestly didn't care. It was impossible to soak this all in and think about it rationally all at once. I didn't know what to think. I didn't know what to feel.

"He's relied on me when he has needed to rely on himself. Because you were his gift. And I did give him a gift, to a point. He needed to experience falling in love with you all over again. He needed to feel it and love it and let it grow into what it is now. And I gave you a gift, too. I gave you the ability to feel him like no other one can. Because your love has always been strong, no matter who it was you loved. But he still needed to learn a few things, and he needed to be himself. You wouldn't have loved him like you do now, not with the preconceived ideas he had. Your fate has always been your choice. I wish he would have realized that earlier," she ended softly, sobbing.

She wiped away my tears so I could see her before she let go of my face. Maliciousness poured into me and I struggled for air.

She spoke strongly. She spoke with conviction. She spoke with hate. "I altered it. I changed the future because he still deserves to have it all. And you both will have it all, but he left some things unfinished. Some things were left...untied and unsettled. I altered it because I'm a selfish bitch and I want vindication. I want to be avenged. I didn't want to die. I never wanted to give him up, but I did. Because I love him. And I love you."

There were so many questions and so many thoughts going through my mind that I didn't know what to ask or what to say!

Until she said that.

Because none of it would have mattered in the long run, not if she had fucked with our fate. Not if this was all real. And if she had fucked with fate, if she was single-handedly responsible for changing it when she obviously had the power, then she was the one who had killed Seth and Debbie.

I stepped back away from her. "You're telling me that...he's been in my life since I was born? That he...saw my life? You're telling me you 'changed' it? You changed what?!"

She looked at me guardedly, but there was no remorse. "This and that. But I also gave him Delasantos."

It took a moment for it to register.

"Oh, My GOD! You did this?! Seth and Debbie are DEAD! They're DEAD!"

She sobbed and just looked at me for a moment. She was conflicted.

"Seth and Debbie are right where they need to be, you can believe that. You made your own decisions, Bella. I didn't make them for you," she said apathetically. "Your decisions have always been your own, just like Peter's have been. I've just given you both the prompts."

I glared at her, and she seemed to want to take a step back. "You mean you've set the triggers. You've given us the triggers to pull, but we're the ones in front of the barrel, Charlotte! All because what? You want Maria to die?! Tell me, how is she going to die when she's got a goddamn army waiting for him to come walking in?! I don't want to die! I don't want Peter to die! Oh, GOD! What did you do?"

Yet I was going to die anyway. In some way. Even if Maria didn't take us down, I was handing over my heartbeat and my right to bear children.

I was utterly conflicted. This was lunacy. This was insanity. I was talking to an angel who had just told me that the man I loved, the man I was going to marry, the man I was planning on spending eternity with because he was a vampire and he was going to make me like him and we were going to slaughter all the evil doers in humanity while we built our own little place in the world as a loving couple had been and has played an active, key role throughout my entire life.

At what point did I lose my goddamn head, I'll never figure out. Did I understand it all? Most definitely not. Did I believe in it?

I wasn't sure.

The rock pulsed. The pull was becoming too much to bear. Thunder sounded from up above. The storm was closer.

Charlotte was looking rather nervously up to the ceiling of the pit. She was breathing heavily, and I could tell that she was even more worried than before. "It's almost time," she seemed to say to herself.

She looked at me and spoke emphatically. "You're not going to die and neither will Peter, if you listen to me. You're going to wake up and you're going to think you were dreaming, once again. What you take out of this depends on you. You want the proof? You want to see it with your own two eyes? You'll know how to do that when it's time. You've already thought about how to get out of this mess; you came up with two alternatives. One of them is obviously no good anymore. I suggest you go with the second, but only when it's time."

The two ways I could thwart Maria's plan. One I had barely acknowledged because it meant taking my own life. The other was to piss her off, and I had already managed to do that, which was why I was in that goddamn hole in the first place.

And it was a cursed place. If it was all real, if it all really did happen, how could he not look at it as a curse?

He loved me like no one else could, but he had committed the greatest sin there ever was. He had kept the truth from me. It wasn't the first time, but this...this was unreal.

I just couldn't acknowledge it.

No matter what she said, I was sure that I was crazy. How could I not be?

When it was 'time'… But there was no time. Time was not on our side.

"Time hasn't been on our side, it's been on theirs! You want me to kill myself?! How the fuck does that help?! It ends it all!" I was way past just crying, and my heart was already past the point where it could ever beat normally again. Because it was broken.

My entire world was filled with pain, with an ugly and miraculous truth that was devastating for us all.

Maybe there really was no reason to go on.

"Is it a possibility? Yes. But I'm not asking you to kill yourself. I'm asking you to jump. You've done it before, Bella, and whether you believe it or not, the outcome was grand. Make the leap, Bella, and have faith that everything will be alright. Time isn't on their side. It's on ours. And he's coming. He's coming big." She seemed morbidly excited. "He's going to wreak holy havoc because there is nothing he wouldn't do for you. Have faith. Believe in it, Bella, even if you don't have all the answers. It's your choice. It always has been. I can't make you do it." She wiped the new tears away. Her remorse was overpowering.

I felt like I had every reason to hate her, yet I couldn't.

The rock throbbed with inevitability. My foot moved towards it involuntarily and I pulled it back.

When I turned back to her, she was staring at me, gauging me.

"What are you afraid of? The truth?" she asked.

"I fell the last time. Or I jumped. Off the…"

I thought of my earlier delusions and their significance now.

"Was he there? Was he there that day?"

She looked down and to the right, smiling a little. "You'll find all the answers in time." She was holding something back.

"Why not just tell me?!"

"Because you need to find the truth for yourself. You still have doubt! Touch it, Bella. Maybe you'll find some truths on your own," she said firmly.

The rock pulled me closer. Or I just gave up. Or maybe she even stripped me of my will to stay away.

I waded closer, the water grew colder and deeper, until it hit my upper thighs and soaked through my shorts. The outcropping was about five feet in length and about three feet wide. Every molecule in my body seemed to pulsate with the hum, and there wasn't a desire I had ever experienced that was stronger than the need to 'touch' that rock.

And I did. I lay my palm on its slick and cool surface.

And I saw a monster.

It was a green field just below a mountain with melting snowcaps. The sky was blue and the grass swayed in the breeze.

There was a man who stumbled out of the tree line, falling down on the ground like he was weak. He had on a thick, brown button down shirt and a pair of jeans, both of which seemed to hang off him because he was emaciated.

His clothes were muddied and caked with dirt and black dust. His shirt hung loosely around his neck and collarbones because it was unbuttoned, and they stood out sharply. The bones in his hands and wrists protruded largely. His cheeks were sullen, darkened by the loss of muscle and tissue. His hair was dark and filled with grime and dirt.

He was too weak to walk; and as pale as than the snow on the mountains. He did not shine in the sunlight. There was barely the hint of a glimmer. His skin did not look honed or polished. He was withering away.

Slowly but surely, with arms that seemed to rattle from the weight they had to bear and legs that had to carry a ton just because of the purpose he was seeking, he stood himself up. His eyes were completely black, the sockets sunken in and dark.

When I saw his eyes, I knew. There was life in them, but they had seen trouble. They had seen grief like no one else had. But there was hope in them. It seemed to take all the ugly away and he was not a monster.

He was thirsty. Peter was thirsty. How long had he gone without feeding?

The weight of the pull was still there and it seemed to pull me to him. It was as if I was attached to him by thousands of steel chains or wires, and there wasn't anything I wouldn't do for him. He was my salvation. He was the very air I needed to breathe. Through all the dirt and grime I could smell him, and his scent was even more potent. Oranges and vanilla. Lilacs and…

Freesia. It was freesia.

I looked at that man and I could see his determination. He would not fail. He didn't know how. He couldn't live with himself if he did.

There wasn't anything he wouldn't do for me. There was nothing I wouldn't do for him.

As quickly as the vision began, it was gone. And I cried. Oh, how I cried. There was so much pain and so much grief and despair that he had had to experience, and I really didn't know if I could ever comprehend it all with the knowledge I had now - which wasn't a whole lot, but it was the basis of discovery. It was the road to the truth.

"What did you do to him?" I cried, unable to look at her.

I think at that moment I really did hate her.

I looked down at the rock. Light from above made the surface visible, and there were dirt and grime covering it. I felt a ridge just under the fingertip of my middle finger and I wiped the dirt. It was caked on. I puddled water in my hand to wash at it.

On that rock, scratched sloppily into its surface by probably his finger, was my name. He had been weak. He had been starving.

Bella.

"I broke him down. You built him back up. He's a better man now, more human than when he really was. Everything I've done, I've done for the both of you. I know it doesn't seem that way. And it's okay to hate me. But I do love you." She broke down.

My turmoil was enough. I didn't need hers, too. I was so sick of this 'you, you, you' business. I didn't do anything! I just loved him.

I hated her because of what she had done to him, but I could also somewhat understand why she had done it. And I knew she was trying to show me the way, the way out of all of this. Because I could feel her love, and it was the only thing that seemed to be easing my broken heart. It blanketed my soul in reassurance, comfort, and love, and I couldn't help but return it.

Out there in the real world was a man who had struggled like no other man had. It was hard to look at it without wonder. It was painful to think about everything he had had to go through. He was there, catching me from a fall off a slide. He was there, picking me up off the ground when all hope was lost. How much had he seen? Just what had he seen?

I was incapable of too much thought, numb to feeling anything but my horror and disbelief. I didn't want to hear anymore, but I needed to. I needed my eyes wide open because you couldn't even trust an angel. She was telling me to jump off a cliff, for Christ's sake, and have 'faith'. Faith that the riverbed would break my fall?

Cold air blew by my hair; air colder than that which was in the room already. The rock no longer pulled or hummed, but I could still feel the gravitational force and it lifted my heart. It literally seemed to want to lift it out of the room, through the rock, and into real world.

But the cold air was electric. It made my skin prick, and I shuddered.

I was not alone. And it wasn't Charlotte.

When she laid her warm hand on my shoulder, it only made the love I already felt pouring out of her that much more intense.

I always recognized her touch. How could one ever forget their mother's?

I was looking at Charlotte through tears and shock. Her face was all bunched up, trying to keep from letting herself cry. Her hand was covering her mouth. Happiness, although bittersweet, poured from her.

She nodded at me animatedly. "You should say goodbye. It'll be the last time," she sobbed brokenly.

"So should you."

It was her.

When I turned around she was there. It was her. It was my mother. Her hair was short, and she looked just as I remembered when she was healthy, with vitality and excitement in her eyes. Her skin seemed to glow with youth. Her eyes were puffy because she had been crying, but she was a younger version of herself. I wasn't looking at a woman in her forties - I was looking at her when she was thirty. I was looking in a mirror because even I could see it now. I looked like her.

My mother in Heaven was thirty years old.

I knew she was real.

"Mom?...Mom?" I looked at her. All over. Her black dress floated on top of the water. It was the same as Charlotte's.

She smiled at me through her tears and touched me, and then pulled me into her arms. "Oh, Bella."

I cried. I cried because my mother was holding me. I felt her hands smoothing my hair, and I felt Charlotte doing the same. And for the first time, it didn't feel like my heart was about to break. It felt stronger. It was growing inside my chest, while the pull was yanking me up. And the room, the well, it didn't feel like it was swimming in a deluge of malevolence and grief anymore. It flowed with purpose, with love, with tenderness, and boundless happiness and comfort.

My tears and snot were staining her dress, which was made out of the finest material I had no name for. I pulled back because I just wanted to look at her. I wanted to remember her like this. She wasn't dying, she wasn't withering away on some hospital bed. She was alive.

"I'm ruining your pretty dress."

She smiled sinfully and her eyes lit with fire. "Trust me, when the three of us get a hold of that bitch and drag her down to hell, it'll get ruined enough. We have more." She smiled.

"Renee..." Charlotte warned, but she sounded sort of bored, like she expected my mother to say the worst.

Renee just ignored her and she put her hands on my shoulders, giving me a good shake. "Listen to me, Bella. Daughter. You have to jump. But you have to do it. If you love him enough to want to keep him forever, which you do, then you have to make the choice. We won't let you die. We'll be there, Bella, and Peter's coming. Trust her. Trust Charlotte."

I was suddenly very afraid of my own mother. Malevolence filled the room again, but I knew it wasn't for me. And I knew I could trust my mother.

"The three of you?" I was listening to every word she said, and that was the only thing that made no sense - 'The three of us'. Was she talking about...God?

She laughed under her breath and her eyes filled with love. She was holding something back. "No. But she likes to play God. You'll know when it's time. Say goodbye, baby. You have to go back."

I didn't want to go. Not now. I wanted more time. "No. No, not yet."

Charlotte was there, palming my cheek and turning my face so I would look at her.

Tears stained her face. "You have to. I'm sorry, Bella. I'm so sorry to put you through this. Don't hate me. I didn't just do this all for me, or for him, I did this for all of us. Don't hate me. And I'm not saying goodbye just yet. Look at your mother."

I looked at my mother, and pain was all I could feel. The throbbing in my head was back and my eyes wanted to close. I struggled to keep them open. Darkness was swallowing me.

Her voice seemed further and further away. "You'll know when it's time. Say it, Bella. Say goodbye."

"Mom, no! No, Mom!"

They were gone. The room was gone and I was in the dark again.

"Goodbye."

When I tried to open my eyes, I couldn't.

I had a headache of epic proportions right in the frontal lobe of my brain. I could feel tears running down my temples and I could taste the heady iron in my blood. My throat was filled with it, and I coughed and sputtered it up just so I could take a breath.

My nose seemed to twitch at the bridge and it throbbed deep inside my head. I couldn't breathe through it, and it even felt crooked.

Lighting crashed somewhere nearby. Thunder sounded almost instantly with it. It made my ears ring.

"Good. You're awake. Make sure you stay that way," the bitch's bell voice chimed. She didn't sound happy. In fact, she sounded a little nervous.

Pain radiated through my left arm and I lifted it up from the ground to lay my hand on my stomach. I was flat on my back and probably still in the pit, but opening my eyes seemed nearly impossible. It was as if my eyelids were glued down or caked with sleep or dry tears that made them stick together, and I could feel the swelling.

I ran my fingers from my right hand over my left. My ring was gone, but my finger was still there. That was a plus. It was broken; I could feel my nerves throbbing around it; but it wasn't as bad as the agony in my head and behind my eyes. I touched my face. While the left side was painful, it wasn't as bad as the right. I was pretty sure my cheekbone was fractured, and maybe my eye socket. I was swelling.

But I found I could overlook it all. I could think around the pain, and more importantly, I could feel. And every speck of flesh and bone inside me, every part of my being, especially that which lay in my heart, was being pulled again. And the very thing I was being pulled toward was somewhere up above.

Somewhere in the sky. In the heavens. And I wondered if I could fly because I already felt like I was floating.

I was able to pry my eyelids apart with my fingers after I wiped and picked at the corners for a minute. I could see, but everything was hazy and dark. My right eye wouldn't open all the way.

Lightning flashed through the sky. The storm that had been moving in was now here at the canyon. I could make out the outline of black and formidable low clouds above me, and billowing white and gray above them when the lightning lit up the sky; heat lightning and storm lightning.

God was putting on a show. Or someone was.

I was awake, and I remembered everything. It was the most vivid dream of my entire life, and though I was tempted to slip back into slumber, I could not. Because it was real. It did happen.

My shorts were wet.

The air around me was hot and humid, but the breeze was cool and it swirled over my face. The warmth actually felt good because I hadn't realized I had been so cold. My skin was cool to the touch.

I didn't need to make a choice. I had made it when I felt the pull. It was really all the proof I needed.

And I believed. I had faith. Logically, it would have been the worst decision in the world to make. It was lunacy personified.

But Peter always said I was a little fucking crazy. That's just the way my life had been.

There was no choice left to make, yet I was conflicted in so many ways because I was scared to death. I was scared because I didn't want it all to be just a delusion, and maybe I had wet my pants after all. I was scared because of what it all meant if it was the truth. If it was all real. If he had been a part of my life - my entire life - in such a grand way.

My bladder felt full.

I had to have hope. I prayed that it was all real. And if it wasn't, and if I made that jump and the only thing I succeeded at was dying, then I would have still thwarted Maria's plan.

There was nothing to do but just wait. Wait for a sign. I begged God that it would come.

I started to sit myself up. Every bone in my body seemed to protest. She had either kicked the shit out of me while I was out, or I was finally starting to feel the effects of whiplash from crashing my truck head on with a vampire moving at full speed.

My heart twisted inside my chest because I thought about Debbie and Seth. It was calm and it was beating its normal rhythm at first, but it was coming to life again. They were still gone. Still dead.

Blood gushed out of my nose when I was completely up. I gagged on it, but I couldn't taste it that much. My hand still flew up automatically, though, to catch it and wipe it away.

The lightning was beautiful. It streaked across the sky all around me. I was still in the pit, and I looked straight out in front of me. Light from the show in the sky lit up the Mexico side and a part of the opposite canyon wall. Maria was standing to my left, close to the fire, about ten feet away. There was another female vampire standing about five feet away from her. In fact, most of them were standing down by the other pit. More wood had been thrown in it, and the flames were licking furiously at the wind.

They were all looking, all looking out across the canyon to the Mexico side and watching the storm. The air was charged and filled with malice.

The wind picked up a little, and then a little more, until it was almost howling through the landscape and through the dark abyss below.

Maria looked at me. Her hair was blowing in the wind. She looked angry and nervous. "You were talking in your sleep. About your mother. Is she dead, Bella?"

I sat there for a moment, and I realized that all I could feel was relief. My mother…my mother was an angel. My mother was happy.

And she was going to carry this bitch down to hell.

"Yeah. She's an angel, you know. Where's yours? Oh, wait. You don't have to answer that. Like mother, like daughter. She's probably down on her knees right now, sucking Beelzebub's dick," I mumbled.

I had no time for her shit.

She blurred in front of me and crouched down, growling. "I suggest shutting your mouth unless you want me to ruin the other side of your face, not that you'll be needing it."

"Yeah, go fuck yourself, you bitch." The pain in my head was fierce and unrelenting. The light show was all too beautiful, but it stung.

"Tell me, Bella. Does Peter love you like you love him? I have to wonder because he's not here yet." She was worried.

I thought about my earlier dream, the one with Peter and when I first held him. And that's when it clicked. It hadn't been him. It had been Charlotte.

"He's coming. And he's coming big."

"We'll be there, Bella, and Peter's coming."

That was the one that really counted.

"Nothing can ever happen to you. If something ever does, that'll be the day it'll rain fucking blood."

He had said that on a Wednesday three weeks ago, during a thunderstorm that was producing sideways rain and winds that took off rooftops. I was heading into work and he was adamant about driving me. I had let him.

It was going to rain soon.

I looked at her, and for some reason she flinched back. "He's coming. They all are. You're going to die."

She trembled with fury in the flashing light. Her eyes blackened and she was about to say something when the world was turned upside down.

"LOOK!" someone screamed.

It was Carlos. He was on the other side of the canyon, to the left, pointing and looking towards the southwest.

I couldn't see it at first, but the lightning and the noise gave it away. An enormous black cloud set low, almost touching the horizon, and it was growing and billowing out even more. Out of that cloud came a funnel, dancing along the air and making its way to the ground below.

It growled. That fucking twister growled.

Maria was already on her feet. She had moved closer to the fire. The funnel was far away, maybe a mile or two, rolling over the mesas on a path of its own towards the north. It wasn't heading in our direction at all; it was just a natural phenomenon.

In the desert.

When the twister touched the ground, it roared as it ate dirt and sand, throwing it up as it grew in mass. The base was about a half mile thick, and the lightning struck around it as the heat lightning lit it up. And when it was dark, when I could not see it, I could hear it; the low rumble of a freight train, swallowing the desert and carving its path through dunes and mesas.

Lightning struck a bush or a cactus in its path. It ate the fire, twisting itself through the spirals of the funnel, fast and furious and unforgivable, towards the base and up into the heavens, lighting the funnel for just one moment.

A distraction. All eyes were on it.

A sign.

The time.

She was already pulling me up. A fair-haired girl with gray eyes. A girl of fifteen. The air seemed to disappear and I felt something even more powerful than the pull itself, which seemed to grow closer and closer with every tick of absolute time.

Something was coming. It was raw. It was hungry. And it was determined. It was also scared and love poured from it.

"Tell him I said hello."

She smiled and she was gone.

My vision was hazy and tears filled my eyes. But I was light on my feet. I hoped for a miracle. I wasn't jumping because two angels had told me to, I was jumping for Peter. Because I knew that he was there. I could feel it. I could feel the love, the panic, and the hysteria. And I didn't want to do anything but soothe his heart and love him for all time.

Had he loved me for all of mine?

I was scared, frightened beyond belief about whatever lay on the other side. Life, Death, and Truth. But this time, I ran for all the right reasons. Water squished in between my toes. My sneakers were soaked.

I was light on my feet. There was not even a whisper of my feet hitting the surface. But Maria could hear my heart and I could feel her behind me.

I made it to the edge, to the top of the abyss, and I leaped into the air and into the darkness.

My world was filled with light. And it was cold.