all i got today is some sweet nothing / nothing to take away
Mark Lanegan Band, "Can't Come Down"

16. Conflagration

(Bella)

"Bella, I don't mean to be rude, but your pacing is enough to drive me to drink." With a hasty glance at Charlie, Jessica amended, "I mean, if I was twenty-one, which I'm totally not."

"Oh. Sorry." I sat down in the recliner and tried to settle for just jiggling one leg. The anxiety was making it next to impossible for me to remain still; I couldn't tell how much of it was natural, and how much of it was imprint-related. Was I anxious because Jacob could be in danger, or because he was in danger? What was I doing in my house, where it was perfectly safe, when I ought to be in La Push helping him?

I stared out the window and drummed my fingers again the side table.

"That doesn't help." Jessica sounded exasperated.

"She's got a point, Bells," Charlie said, sinking onto the couch. "Stop tapping and... continue the story." His words were said in the same tone one might use to tell a surgeon to continue to hack off a gangrenous limb. I still couldn't believe they both knew about the Pack. My only refuges of normalcy were now gone.

This is going to be my whole life, Jacob had said about being a werewolf. There won't be anything left.

He'd been right.

The story. "Okay. Right." I pulled back my hand and tucked it under my opposite arm, holding it in place with my cast. "So, after Laurent—"

"One of the vampires."

"Yes."

"Who used to be with the other vampire who tried to kill you."

"Well, not exactly. I mean, he used to travel with James and Victoria, but he wasn't with them with them."

"Wait, so which one of those was it that tried to kill you?"

I sighed. "They both did."

There were not really words to describe the look on Charlie's face. Jessica just whistled. "Do you, like, have a sign on your back? 'Hey, mythical creatures! I'm super-tasty!'"

That surprised a laugh out of me. "I told you, everyone says I smell good."

"Apparently."

"Right, so, when he was destroyed by the Pack—"

"James?" Charlie interrupted.

"No, Laurent—"

Charlie rubbed his eyes.

"—Jake... uh, imprinted on me." I glanced at Charlie and quickly added, "He didn't do it on purpose."

"Right."

"It's true! He hated it, he still hates it, he's made himself sick fighting—"

"Hold up, question from the class." Jessica raised her hand sarcastically. "Can you explain the imprint part again?"

"Later," I said as Charlie's expression darkened even further. "The point is that that's when the Pack started trying to keep Victoria from getting to me—"

"And Victoria was Laurent's BFF?"

"Kind of, but she was mostly upset about James, ever since the Cullens burned him in Phoenix—"

"I can't believe this," Charlie muttered, cutting me off. "I cannot believe this—my own daughter—vampire boyfriend—almost murdered—visits in the middle of the night!—a gang of giant wolves trying to—broken bones, burned hands, kidnapped to Brazil— I can't even call myself a cop anymore, let alone a father!"

"Dad, don't be so hard on yourself," I hastened to reassure him, getting out of the chair. I crossed the room and put my hand on his trembling shoulder. "I mean, your instincts were correct. You knew something was wrong. You couldn't have guessed it was vampires and werewolves."

"That's true, I guess, but..." He watched me as I started making the circuit around the living room again. "Bells, could you quit that?"

I shook my head. Being on my feet had started to pump the restless energy through my body again—if I didn't move I would fall to pieces. The feeling of dread and terror kept climbing, crowding out the feel of my own heartbeat; air wouldn't come into my lungs.

"Bella, sit down."

"I can't!" Jacob's fear was making me crazy, which I knew must in turn be feeding his worry, which made me more worried, and I wasn't supposed to be here, I was supposed to be to the west by the ocean— "You don't get it—I can't stand knowing something's wrong and not being able to do anything about it!"

"You'd be surprised, kiddo."

The phone rang before I could acknowledge the irony in his voice. Keeping a wary eye on me, Charlie went to answer it. "Hello? Oh hey, Debbie." After a long pause, during which his face grew more and more grim, he asked, "Have they evacuated?"

Jessica glanced at me in alarm. What's going on?she mouthed as I tried—and failed—not to hyperventilate.

"How long until—" Another pause, and Charlie blanched white. "All right," he said, "headed over now."

"Jacob?" I gasped as the phone clicked back into the receiver. "Is it Jacob?"

Charlie was already brushing past Jessica and I to grab his coat off the hook by the door. "Fires at La Push," he said, his voice clipped and business-like. "The reservation police called the station, looking for support. They don't have the resources to deal with this and the Forest Service is a long way out."

Jessica made a noise of horror, and I swore I could feel the lighter flicking on in my left hand, the flames crawling across my fingers. "How bad is it?"

"Bad." His gun belt was strapped on, and he didn't spare me a look as he opened the door and strode out into the torrential rain. "Stay here until I get back," he called over his shoulder.

"But I—"

"No. I swear to God, Isabella, if you step one foot outside this house I'll ground you till you're fifty."

I ignored his warning to dash after him onto the lawn, getting instantly soaked to the bone in the downpour. A terrible thought had occurred to me, something that— "Dad! Billy won't be able to get out without Jake!"

Charlie froze, his hand on the cruiser door. Then he shook himself. "Right," he said, his tone still curt. "I'll take care of it, Bells." And a moment later he was driving away, his tires squealing as the siren cut through the wet air. I followed the flashing lights with my eyes, then looked up, blinking through the rain.

Even from here, from miles away, I could see twists of black smoke pressing against the steel gray of the stratus clouds.

A fire this big, in a rain this strong, in a forest this wet...

It couldn't be natural.

The Volturi.

As I turned back to the house, Jessica crossed her arms in the doorway, looking dry and disapproving. "Are you really going to stay here?" she demanded, regarding me with naked suspicion.

I laughed hopelessly. "Of course not." I had to get to La Push; every cell of my body was calling me in that direction. "Can I borrow your car?"

"No!" She sounded appalled. "No way am I letting you borrow my baby, are you nuts?"

"Okay, I'll walk."

"Walk?"

"I have to go." I stepped back into the house and grabbed my raincoat. Fifteen miles in Wellingtons would be miserable, though it was more like six as the crow flew, if I beat a path I could—

Jessica sighed and kicked the boots away as I reached for them. "Yeesh, Embry was right, you imprint people are weird." She took a step backwards, turned on her heel away from me, and tossed her keys over her shoulder. They landed on the tile floor with a clatter. "I have full coverage in the event of theft," she said to the opposite wall. "Not that anyone would ever steal my baby to go joyriding into a forest fire. Because that's just stupid."

"Definitely stupid," I agreed, grabbing the key ring off the floor. "Thanks, Jessica."

"Don't mention it, or I might come to my senses. And I'm taking the rest of the Godiva out of your fridge."

I threw on my coat, stepped into my sneakers, and ran for the car.

(Sam)

The Volturi were everything Carlisle had promised and more, but now I understood why wolves imprinted.

My brothers were ripping their teeth and claws into every inch of stinking bloodsucker skin they could find. The thought of La Push had maddened them and they wanted to save their families, their friends, everyone, and the Pack consciousness was a maelstrom of different drives and desires—

—except Quil. His mind had exactly one thought: [twirling girl won't live in a world with these monsters]. No complexity, just a single goal. Make the world safe for Claire.

Quil was fighting better than anyone else.

Sam, the thin one, what do we—

Embry, Jared, right and left!

I ducked as the female took a swing at my head, and as I snapped for her she shot back out of the way. I saw Rosalie and Emmett chase her, all of them racing high into the trees so fast the branches snapped under their feet.

(KIM!KIM!KIM!)

Focus, Jared!

Kim had to be near the fire, I could feel it through Jared's senses, and he was doing as badly as Quil was doing well. The vamps were getting in some pretty hard blows on him— I felt pain in my side, a phantom of his broken ribs. He couldn't think.

Luckily, he didn't need to think to kill vampires. It was all instinct.

I reached out through the eyes of the other Pack members, knocking aside the long-haired leech as it ran through the clearing towards the doctor's wife. Leah, Paul, go after—

But Leah and Paul's minds were quiet. I blinked, and looked over with my own eyes—they were there, they were fine, why weren't they...

My vision started to blur. Through a darkening tunnel I saw the boy twin, younger than Seth, giving me an eerie stare.

Sensory deprivation.

We have to take him out first, I directed, seeing through Jared's eyes instead of my own—ow, his rib was definitely broken—and turning the Pack's attention to the boy. But before we could get there, a stab of blinding agony shot through Leah and Paul, who both yelped and started writhing on the ground. There was a shout from fifteen feet away—it sounded like Edward was getting hit, too. The girl twin's pain magic could apparently focus on more than one person at a time.

Quil, circle around and catch him from behind! We couldn't take out the girl twin if we couldn't see, and we couldn't see if we couldn't take out the boy twin first—

—but Quil left off fighting the thin leech and crashed into the boy from behind, knocking him flat to the ground. A moment later Quil was flying through the air as the vamp threw him off, but it worked. The haze lifted from my vision and I could see again. Leah and Paul were screaming in my head, and I ran for the little girl—she jumped just out of the path of my jaws to land twenty feet on the other side of the clearing, but it distracted her. Emmett dropped out of the trees to land on the thin leech and Leah and Paul whined for breath as Edward shook himself and ran back into the fray and everything was getting so messy—

Focus. Keep track. Give directives.

Female: Overhead. Leave to Rosalie for now.

Thin leech: Fighting Emmett. Embry. Paul. Backup.

Long-haired leech: Other side of clearing. Leave to Esme for now.

Girl twin: Other side of clearing. Leave to Edward for now.

Boy twin: Getting back on his feet. Quil. Leah. Jared. Take him out.

Everyone obeyed without question. That left...

I turned my head to see Aro and Carlisle whirling around in hand-to-hand combat so fast that even with the eyes of the wolf it was hard to follow. The doctor was really putting his all into it, and I ran to help him—

—but before I could get there, Aro embraced Carlisle from behind, wrapped an arm around his neck, and ripped the doctor's head from his shoulders. His corpse hit the forest floor like a boulder falling from a cliff.

Holy shit.

"No!" his wife shrieked from across the clearing, breaking off from her battle with the long-haired leech. She vaulted over Paul's back and screamed like a banshee as she dashed towards Aro, for once the pissed-off girlfriend factor was working in our favor—

—but then Esme ran right past Aro without stopping, her expression turning from furious to confused in the blink of an eye.

There was a series of cracks as Rosalie dropped from however high up, her body breaking every branch on the way down. She was shouting, though, so she was still alive—but now the female, Aro's mate, landed gracefully on the ground as well. Right, she was the shield, the one who distracted Aro's opponents so they couldn't remember who they were going for. And she was focused on the doctor's wife.

Leah, I ordered, look at the female without attacking.

Leah saw what I had in mind and turned her face towards the bloodsucker, backing away from where Quil and Jared were trying to get a chunk out of the boy. I focused on the Packmind and put myself into Leah's point of view—and saw myself through her eyes, standing a few feet away from Aro.

Four steps and a jump.

The female saw me as I was coming. She tried to use her abilities to distract me, but I wasn't using my brain, I was using Leah's, and I bit her head off before she could figure out what to do.

Spitting it out—along with the venom, the scar in my side ached, I would never forget that taste as long as I lived—I skidded to a stop and turned to get Aro, he was the one I wanted, I'd take him apart and then go for the one setting the fires—

—but out of nowhere the long-haired leech's arm wrapped around my front leg and yanked me to the ground. The air left my body in a huff, and the thing leaned down, gave me a smile, and patted my muzzle.

My head spun—(emilyemilyemily)(leah)—and the leech jerked back before I could snap off his hand. But the smile stayed on his face as he looked across the clearing—at Leah. "What an interesting life you lead, dog," he said, smirking.

This was the one who felt relationships.

I went cold.

The bloodsucker streaked toward Leah as I twisted to catch him, and broke her leg at the knee before I could blink—and as she went down, the boy twin took the opportunity to swing his feeble little child arm into Jared's side. The sound of Jared's already-broken ribs snapping in a line was audible even over the howls and snarls, and the (kimkimkim)s in my mind faded to a whisper.

An instant later, as I jumped for the long-haired leech's neck, Leah wrenched forward and caught his ankle between her teeth. We yanked in opposite directions. The leech split in two and didn't move again.

Leah tried to get back to her feet, but her leg gave beneath her. Jared was barely breathing. I batted the boy twin fifteen feet through the air with my claw and Quil chased to where he landed, I felt outwards, Embry and Paul were doing okay with Emmett, someone needed to get after the girl twin, and Aro, and the bloodsucker lighting the fire—

A new voice, separate from the Pack's and louder. Sam? Sam!

No way.

Sam, where are you? Sam!

Jacob? I called.

Sam, I'm coming, I'll be right—

No, don't! There was no time for greetings, or questions, or worries—I just poured out a complicated thought-stream of feelings and pictures and memories, all overlaid with the sight of the smoke rising from the reservation. Find the leech and kill it!

I felt Jacob change course instantly and head straight for La Push. I had just enough headspace to be extremely, extremely grateful that he hadn't been with us. Otherwise, there would be no one to stop the firesetter.

Then I threw myself back into the battle.

(Bella)

As I careened up La Push Road toward the reservation, I realized I had no idea what to do.

I was driving into a forest fire, one very likely perpetrated and supernaturally propelled by vampires. Sense, even the smallest amount of it, dictated that I take a U-turn and head in the exact opposite direction—but even considering such a thing made me tighten my hand on the steering wheel and floor the gas pedal. The land is safe, the thrumming thing inside me said. The land is defended.

The thrumming thing was wrong, though. La Push wasn't safe. Somehow the wolves had been flanked, that much was obvious. But still, I was drawn there like a magnet, to the place the imprint told me I had to be, so that Jacob could protect me from harm. I couldn't disobey.

I wondered if this was what an order felt like.

The car slipped and slid on the twisting road, and maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I could see a faint light through the trees.

It would be okay, though. I'd just have to make the best of it and find a way to be useful when I got there. Doing something always calmed me down—that was a lesson I'd learned from the Victoria debacle. Not to mention, if I was focused on acting, that meant I'd be less anxious, which meant Jacob would be less anxious, and then he would be safer. Which, in turn, made me less anxious—

—I almost hit the sandy-colored wolf that ran out into my path.

With a shriek, I jammed on the brakes, spinning a little on the wet pavement. The wolf stared at me for a quarter of a second, and then in a blink of an eye it was no longer a wolf, but a naked boy instead. "Bella!" he shouted.

I gaped. "Seth?"

Seth jumped into the car next to me before I even had a chance to process what was happening. "Quick, floor it!"

Obediently, I flattened my foot on the accelerator as much as I dared; the tires gripped the road and we were off again. "What the hell is going on, Seth?" I demanded.

"The leeches are here, and Sam Alpha-ordered me to run from the fighting. There's a bloodsucker burning down the reservation but I can't go do anything about it!" Seth's voice shook with a very familiar frustration. "Jacob's fighting him and Sam's fighting the others and I can't go help!"

Jacob."Is Jake all right?" I asked urgently.

"He's doing okay last I saw, but it's hard to tell, everything's just this big jumble. The bloodsucker has some kind of superpower that lets him feed the fires and keep them burning—they're trying to kill everyone so there won't be any more wolves, and Jared's getting all ripped to pieces because Kim's in danger, I think she's gotta be injured or something, he keeps shouting for her in his head and I hate it when that happens—"

Wolves couldn't think when their imprints were threatened.

A plan came together in my mind. "Then let's go get Kim."

"What?"

The trees were passing by in a dark blur, and now I could definitely see the orange glow to the west—hopefully the fire hadn't yet cut off our road. "We'll get Kim out of danger," I explained, "and then Jared will be able to focus, and that's how we'll help. It's not actually a fight, so you're not disobeying an order."

Seth frowned, and he stared into middle space for a brief moment before shaking his head. "No, that's not disobeying," he pronounced authoritatively. "I can do that."

"Good." Another thought had occurred to me. "What about Sam? Is he okay?"

"He's been fine—" Seth's eyes widened. "Right. Emily. Yeah, the fire might not be to her yet but she doesn't have a car, and Sam will freak if something happens."

"Okay," I said, nodding. "First Kim, then Emily, then... we'll just figure the rest of it out after that."

"Right. Unless you have another plan? What were you going to do before you ran into me?"

"Show up and try not to catch on fire."

"Wow, that's dumb." Seth gave me a quick, worried look. "But you're going to have to stay pretty safe," he said, "or Jake will lose it too."

"It'll be okay," I said, inhaling deeply. Now that I was acting, not just sitting still, I could breathe. "He'll be fine as long as I'm not afraid, so... I won't be."

Seth groaned.

Jacob. Jacob. Jacob.

(Sam)

The black-haired leech and the female were both dead. That left the thin leech, the twins, and Aro. And the firesetter.

Edward, Emmett, and Rosalie had ganged together to take on the thin one—who could fight like a demon even though he was skinny—and were slowly beating him back. I didn't think vampires could really get tired, but I wasn't sure they could keep it up for much longer.

Jared was down and wasn't getting back up any time soon. Paul and Embry were on the boy twin, swapping perspective whenever one of them lost sight or hearing; the boy couldn't seem to get a leg up on it. Quil was all over the girl twin now, who apparently couldn't pull her pain voodoo trick if she was too busy fighting, and Leah was backing him up as best she could without use of one of her legs.

Aro was the big problem, but Esme was after him in a way that shocked the hell out of both him and me. He absolutely could not get a grip on her. Unfortunately she was fighting so furiously that I couldn't get in either. I didn't dare give him an inch of opening, so I snapped at whatever part of the bastard I could reach and kept track of Jacob at the same time.

I felt it the moment Jacob hit the fires. They'd almost entirely surrounded La Push.

—emilyemilyemily—

Ten seconds later I saw a white-haired leech through Jacob's eyes—then they crashed into each other, and I couldn't tell who was winning.

That was when Paul and Embry made their moves. They went low and high at the same moment—the boy swung upward and broke Embry's jaw with a crunch, but it was too late. The leech was in pieces before Embry even landed from his jump.

The girl screeched with fury as her twin fell, reached out lightning-fast, and grabbed Quil by the neck. I heard the snap from across the clearing.

Just like that, Quil vanished from my mind.

Even though I knew the truth, I couldn't stop myself from asking, Quil? as Leah lunged forward and bit through the girl's marble skin. There was no answer.

Aro finally shook Esme off, her flying body taking out a couple of trees before it landed, and turned to face me with a smile.

I leapt for the leech king's throat.

Coming Soon: Ashes

Sanity Update, Audrey Edition: The delay on this chapter was due to technical difficulties, namely this fic being on one side of a door and myself being on the other side. (This is not a metaphor. I locked myself out of the house for fifteen hours.) Rescheduling means the next update will be moved to Friday unless something else intervenes, like a plague of frogs.

As a side note for anyone who cares - I am now on Tumblr, talking about fandom and whatnot. Because I obviously have too much time on my hands. audreyii-fic (dot) tumblr (dot) com.