I lay face down across the sleeping bag, waiting for an avalanche or something to bury me. It would be easier that way. Far more so than facing the choice I now had to make.
How had everything become such a mess? How much damage had I caused by not seeing what was right in front of me? No, it was worse than that. How much damage had I caused by not admitting what I already knew? I loved Kristoff. I had realized it before. I had admitted it to myself. Yet, somehow, after Kristoff had stopped talking to me I had convinced myself that love was no longer part of the equation. I had been so desperate to keep Kristoff as a friend that I refused to acknowledge my love for him. Now, I had to face the consequences of my actions. I had to make a choice.
There was no sound to warn me. Out of nowhere, Elsa's cold hand stroked against my hair. I shuddered at her touch.
"Are you all right?" she murmured, her voice anxious.
"No. I want to die."
"That will never happen. I won't allow it."
I groaned and then whispered, "You might change your mind about that."
"Where's Kristoff?"
"He went to the fight," I mumbled into the floor.
Kristoff had left the camp reluctantly—with a solemn "I'll be back"—running with renewed vigor for the clearing, already quivering as he prepared to shift into his other self. By now, the whole pack knew everything. Olaf Clearwater, pacing outside the tent, was an intimate witness.
Elsa was silent for a long moment. "Oh," she finally said.
The tone of her voice worried me that my avalanche wasn't coming fast enough. I peeked up at her and, sure enough, her eyes were unfocused as she listened to something I'd rather die than have her hear. I dropped my face back to the floor.
It stunned me when Elsa chuckled reluctantly.
"And I thought I was the better person," she said with grudging admiration. "Now I feel even more guilty for what I did." Her hand brushed against the part of my cheek that was exposed. "I'm not mad at you, love. Kristoff being willing to bow out was something even I wouldn't have expected. I do wish you hadn't asked him, though."
"Elsa," I whispered to the rough nylon. "I… I… I'm—"
"Shh," she hushed me, her fingers soothing against my cheek. "I can't blame you for what happened. Truly, I can't. It's just that now I don't have an excuse to break his face. I would have really enjoyed that."
I raised my head slowly to meet her patient gaze. Her expression was soft; her eyes were full of understanding rather than the anger or revulsion I expected to see.
"Why aren't you angry with me?" I asked. "Why don't you hate me? Or haven't you heard the whole story yet?"
"I think I got a fairly comprehensive look," she said in a light, easy voice. "Kristoff makes vivid mental pictures. I feel almost as bad for his pack as I do for myself. Poor Olaf was so embarrassed he could hardly stand it. But Sam is making Kristoff focus now."
I closed my eyes and shook my head in agony. The sharp nylon fibers of the tent floor scraped against my skin.
"You're only human," she whispered, stroking my hair again.
"That's the most miserable defense I've ever heard."
"But you are human, Anna. And, as much as I might wish otherwise, so is he… There are holes in your life that I can't fill. I understand that."
"But—but—"
"You love him," she murmured gently.
I wished I could deny it, I wished I could say she was wrong.
"I love you," I said. It was the best I could do.
"Yes, I know that, too. But… when I left you, Anna, I left you bleeding. Kristoff was the one to stitch you back up again. That was bound to leave its mark—on both of you. I'm not sure those kinds of stitches dissolve on their own. I can't blame either of you for something that's my own fault. I may gain forgiveness, but that doesn't let me escape the consequences."
"I knew you'd find some way to blame yourself for this. Please don't."
"What would you like me to say?"
"I don't know. Tell me how angry you are with me. Tell me that you feel betrayed or hurt. That I cheated. Something."
"I'm sorry." She sighed. "I can't do that."
"At least stop trying to make me feel better."
"No," she murmured.
I nodded slowly. "You're right. Keep on being too understanding. That's probably worse."
She was silent for a moment, and I sensed a charge in the atmosphere, a new urgency.
"It's getting close," I stated.
"Yes, a few more minutes now. Just enough time to say one more thing…"
I waited. When she finally spoke again, she was whispering. "I can bow out too, Anna. I'm not going to make you choose between us. Just be happy, and you can have whatever part of me you want, or none at all, if that's better. Don't let any debt you feel you owe me influence your decision."
I pushed off the floor, shoving myself up onto my knees.
"Dammit, stop that!" I shouted at her.
Her eyes widened in surprise. "No—you don't understand. I'm not trying to make you feel better, Anna, I really mean it."
"I know you do," I groaned. "What happened to fighting back? Don't you do this to me, too. Fight!"
"How?" she asked, and her eyes were ancient with their sadness.
I tried to speak, I scrambled forward towards her, all the words catching in my throat. Finally I collapsed into her lap and cried. "I don't know. I just don't know. I shouldn't be angry with you or with Kristoff. I'm not. I'm angry with myself. You're both so willing to let me be happy. But that means choosing one of you and hurting the other. But it's not just one or the other, it's all of us. We all get hurt by this."
"I know, love, I know." Elsa said softly, stroking my hair.
"I don't know how to do this." I sobbed.
"Whatever your choice," Elsa murmured, "We will both accept it."
I cried for what seemed like ages, but was probably only minutes.
Suddenly, Olaf howled stridently outside the tent.
My body stiffened to the sound. I didn't realize my left hand was clenched into a fist, nails biting into my bandaged palm, until Elsa took it and gently smoothed my fingers out.
"It's starting." I choked out the words.
"It's going to be fine, Anna," she promised. "We've got skill, training, and surprise on our side. It will be over very soon. If I didn't truly believe that, I would be down there now—and you'd be here, chained to a tree or something along those lines."
"Alice is so small," I moaned.
She chuckled. "That might be a problem… if it were possible for someone to catch her."
Olaf started to whimper.
"He's just angry that he's stuck here with us. He knows the pack kept him out of the action to protect him. He's salivating to join them."
I scowled in Olaf's general direction.
"The newborns have reached the end of the trail—it worked like a charm, Jasper's a genius—and they've caught the scent of the ones in the meadow, so they're splitting into two groups now, as Alice said," Elsa murmured, her eyes focused on something far away. "Sam's taking us to head off the ambush party." She was so intent on what she was hearing that she used the pack plural.
Suddenly she looked down at me. "Breath, Anna."
I struggled to do what she asked. I could hear Olaf's heavy panting just outside the tent wall, and I tried to keep my lungs on the same even pace, so that I wouldn't hyperventilate.
"The first group is in the clearing. We can hear the fighting."
My teeth locked together.
She laughed once. "We can hear Emmett—he's enjoying himself."
I made myself take another breath with Olaf.
"The second group is getting ready—they aren't paying attention, they haven't heard us yet."
Elsa growled.
"What?" I gasped.
"They're talking about you." Her teeth clenched together. "They're supposed to make sure you don't escape… Nice move, Liam! Mmm, he's quite fast," he murmured in approval. "One of the newborns caught our scent, and Liam took him down before he could even turn. Sam's helping him finish it off. Paul and Kristoff got another one, but the others are on the defensive now. They have no idea what to make of us. Both sides are feinting… No, let Sam lead. Stay out of the way," she muttered. "Separate them—don't let them protect each other's backs."
Olaf whined.
"That's better, drive them toward the clearing," Elsa approved. Her body was shifting unconsciously as she watched, tensing for moves she would have made. Her hands still held mine; I twisted my fingers through hers. At least she wasn't down there.
The sudden absence of sound was the only warning.
The deep rush of Olaf's breathing cut off, and—as I'd paced my breaths with his—I noticed.
I stopped breathing, too—too frightened to even make my lungs work as I realized that Elsa had frozen into a block of ice beside me.
Oh, no. No. No.
Who had been lost? Theirs or ours? Mine, all mine. What was my loss?
So quickly that I wasn't exactly sure how it happened, I was on my feet and the tent was collapsing in ragged shreds around me. Had Elsa ripped our way out? Why?
I blinked, shocked, into the brilliant light. Olaf was all I could see, right beside us, his face only six inches from Elsa's. They stared at each other with absolute concentration for one infinite second. The sun shattered off Elsa's skin and sent sparkling flames dancing across Olaf's fur.
And then Elsa whispered urgently, "Go, Olaf!"
The huge wolf wheeled and disappeared into the forest shadows.
Had two entire seconds passed? It felt like hours. I was terrified to the point of nausea by the knowledge that something horrible had gone awry in the clearing. I opened my mouth to demand that Elsa take me there, and do it now. They needed her, and they needed me. If I had to bleed to save them, I would do it. I would die if I had to, like the third wife. I had no silver dagger in my hand, but I would find a way—
Before I could get the first syllable out, I felt as if I was being flung through the air. But Elsa's hands never let go of me—I was only being moved, so quickly that the sensation was like falling sideways.
I found myself with my back pressed against the sheer cliff face. Elsa stood in front of me, holding a posture that I knew at once.
Relief washed through my mind at the same time that my stomach dropped through the soles of my feet.
I'd misunderstood.
Relief—nothing had gone wrong in the clearing.
Horror—the crisis washere.
Elsa held a defensive position—half-crouched, her arms extended slightly—that I recognized with sickening certainty. The rock at my back could have been the ancient brick walls of the Italian alley where she had stood between me and the black-cloaked Volturi warriors.
Something was coming for us.
"Who?" I whispered.
The words came through her teeth in a snarl that was louder than I expected. Too loud. It meant that it was far too late to hide. We were trapped, and it didn't matter who heard her answer.
"Gerda," she said, spitting the word, making it a curse. "She's not alone. She crossed my scent, following the newborns to watch—she never meant to fight with them. She made a spur-of-the-moment decision to find me, guessing that you would be wherever I was. She was right. You were right. It was always Gerda."
She was close enough that Elsa could hear her thoughts.
Relief again, if it had been the Volturi, we were both dead. But with Gerda, it didn't have to be both.Elsa could survive this. She was a good fighter, as good as Jasper. If Gerda didn't bring too many others, Elsa could fight her way out, back to her family. Elsa was faster than anyone. She could make it.
I was so glad she'd sent Olaf away. Of course, there was no one Olaf could run to for help. Gerda had timed her decision perfectly. But at least Olaf was safe; I couldn't see the huge sandy wolf in my head when I thought his name—just the gangly fifteen-year-old boy.
Elsa's body shifted—only infinitesimally, but it told me where to look. I stared at the black shadows of the forest.
It was like having my nightmares walk forward to greet me.
Two vampires edged slowly into the small opening of our camp, eyes intent, missing nothing. They glistened like diamonds in the sun.
I could barely look at the blond boy—yes, he was just a boy, though he was muscular and tall, maybe my age when he was changed. His eyes—a more vivid red than I had ever seen before—could not hold mine. Though he was the closest to Elsa, the nearest danger, I could not watch him.
Because, a few feet to the side and a few feet back, Gerda was staring at me.
Her black hair was darker than I'd remembered, more like a flame. There was no wind here, but the fire around her face seemed to shimmer slightly, as if it were alive.
Her eyes were black with thirst. She did not smile, as she always had in my nightmares—her lips were pressed into a tight line. There was a striking feline quality to the way she held her coiled body, a lion waiting for an opening to spring. Her restless, wild gaze flickered between Elsa and me, but never rested on her for more than a half-second. She could not keep her eyes away from my face any more than I could keep mine from hers.
Tension rolled off her body, nearly visible in the air. I could feel the desire, the all-consuming passion that held her in its grip. Almost as if I could hear her thoughts, too, I knew what she was thinking.
She was so close to what she wanted—the focus of her whole existence for more than a year now was just so close.
My death.
Her plan was as obvious as it was practical. The big blond boy would attack Elsa. As soon as Elsa was sufficiently distracted, Gerda would finish me.
It would be quick—she had no time for games here—but it would be thorough. Something that it would be impossible to recover from. Something that even vampire venom could not repair.
She'd have to stop my heart. Perhaps a hand shoved through my chest, crushing it. Something along those lines.
My heart beat furiously, loudly, as if to make her target more obvious.
An immense distance away, from far across the black forest, a wolf's howl echoed in the still air. With Olaf gone, there was no way to interpret the sound.
The blond boy looked at Gerda from the corner of his eye, waiting on her command.
He was young in more ways than one. I guessed from his brilliant crimson irises that he couldn't have been a vampire for very long. He would be strong, but inept. Elsa would know how to fight him. Elsa would survive.
Gerda jerked her chin toward Elsa, wordlessly ordering the boy forward.
"Riley," Elsa said in a soft, pleading voice.
The blond boy froze, his red eyes widening.
"She's lying to you, Riley," Elsa told him. "Listen to me. She's lying to you just like she lied to the others who are dying now in the clearing. You know that she'd lied to them, that she had you lie to them, that neither of you were ever going to help them. Is it so hard to believe that she's lied to you, too?"
Confusion swept across Riley's face.
Elsa shifted a few inches to the side, and Riley automatically compensated with an adjustment of his own.
"She doesn't love you, Riley." Elsa's soft voice was compelling, almost hypnotic. "She never has. She loved someone named Hans, and you're no more than a tool to her."
When she said Hans's name, Gerda's lips pulled back in a teeth-baring grimace. Her eyes stayed locked on me.
Riley cast a frantic glance in Gerda's direction.
"Riley?" Elsa said.
Riley automatically refocused on Elsa.
"She knows that I will kill you, Riley. She wants you to die so that she doesn't have to keep up the pretense anymore. Yes—you've seen that, haven't you? You've read the reluctance in her eyes, suspected a false not in her promises. You were right. She's never wanted you. Every kiss, every touch was a lie."
Elsa moved again, moved a few inches toward the boy, a few inches away from me.
Gerda's gaze zeroed in on the gap between us. It would take him less than a second to kill me—he only needed the tiniest margin of opportunity.
Slower this time, Riley repositioned himself.
"You don't have to die," Elsa promised, her eyes holding the boy's. "There are other ways to live than the way she's shown you. It's not all lies and blood, Riley. You can walk away right now. You don't have to die for her lies."You could stay with me and my family. You could have a family.
Elsa slid her feet forward and to the side. There was a foot of space between us now. Riley circled too far, overcompensating this time. Gerda leaned onto the balls of her feet.
"Last chance, Riley," Elsa whispered.
Riley's face was desperate as he looked to Gerda for answers.
"She's the liar, Riley," Gerda said, and my mouth fell open in shock at the sound of her voice. "I told you about their mind tricks. You know I love only you."
Her voice was not the strong, wild, catlike growl I would have put with her face and stance. It was soft, it was gentle—an alluring tenor. It was almost girlish. Childish. It made no sense coming through her bared, glistening teeth.
Riley's jaw tightened, and he squared his shoulders. His eyes emptied—there was no more confusion, no more suspicion. There was no thought at all. He tensed himself to attack.
Gerda's body seemed to be trembling, she was so tightly wound. Her fingers were ready claws, waiting for Elsa to move just one more inch away from me.
The snarl came from none of them.
A mammoth tan shape flew through the center of the opening, throwing Riley to the ground.
"No!" Gerda cried, her tenor voice shrill with disbelief.
A yard and a half in front of me, the huge wolf ripped and tore at the blond vampire beneath him. Something white and hard smacked into the rocks by my feet. I cringed away from it.
Gerda did not spare one glance for the boy she'd just pledged her love to. Her eyes were still on me, filled with a disappointment so ferocious that she looked deranged.
"No," she said again, through her teeth, as Elsa started to move toward her, blocking her path to me.
Riley was on his feet again, looking misshapen and haggard, but he was able to fling a vicious kick into Olaf's shoulder. I heard the bone crunch. Olaf backed off and started to circle, limping. Riley had his arms out, ready, though he seemed to be missing part of one hand…
Only a few yards away from that fight, Elsa and Gerda were dancing.
Not quite circling, because Elsa was not allowing her to position herself closer to me. She sashayed back, moving from side to side, trying to find a hole in her defense. Elsa shadowed her footwork lithely, stalking her with perfect concentration. Elsa began to move just a fraction of a second before Gerda moved, reading her intentions in her thoughts.
Olaf lunged at Riley from the side, and something tore with a hideous, grating screech. Another heavy white chunk flew into the forest with a thud. Riley roared in fury, and Olaf skipped back — amazingly light on his feet for his size — as Riley took a swipe at him with one mangled hand.
Gerda was weaving through the tree trunks at the far end of the little opening now. She was torn, her feet pulling her toward safety while her eyes yearned toward me as if I were a magnet, reeling her in. I could see the burning desire to kill warring with her survival instinct.
Elsa could see that, too.
"Don't go, Gerda" she murmured in that same hypnotic tone as before. "You'll never get another chance like this."
She showed her teeth and hissed at her, but she seemed unable to move farther away from me.
"You can always run later," Elsa purred. "Plenty of time for that. It's what you do, isn't it? It's why Hans kept you around. Useful, if you like to play deadly games. A partner with an uncanny instinct for escaping. He shouldn't have left you — he could have used your skills when we caught up to him in Phoenix."
A snarl ripped from between her lips.
"That's all you ever were to him, though. Silly to waste so much energy avenging someone who had less affection for you than a hunter for his mount. You were never more than a convenience to him. I would know."
Elsa's lips pulled up on one side as she tapped her temple.
With a strangled screech, Gerda darted out of the trees again, feinting to the side. Elsa responded, and the dance began again.
Just then, Riley's fist caught Olaf's flank, and a low yelp coughed out of Olaf's throat. Olaf backed away, his shoulders twitching as if he were trying to shake off the pain.
Please, I wanted to plead with Riley, but I couldn't find the muscles to make my mouth open, to pull the air up from my lungs.Please, he's just a child!
Why hadn't Olaf run away? Why didn't he run now?
Riley was closing the distance between them again, driving Olaf toward the cliff face beside me. Gerda was suddenly interested in her partner's fate. I could see her, from the corner of her eyes, judge the distance between Riley and me. Olaf snapped at Riley, forcing him back again, and Gerda hissed.
Olaf wasn't limping anymore. His circling took him within inches of Elsa; his tail brushed Elsa's back, and Gerda's eyes bulged.
"No, he won't turn on me," Elsa said, answering the question in Gerda's head. She used her distraction to slide closer. "You provided us with a common enemy. You allied us."
She clenched her teeth, trying to keep her focus on Elsa alone.
"Look more closely, Gerda" Elsa murmured, pulling at the threads of her concentration. "Is he really so much like the monster Hans tracked across Siberia?"
Gerda's eyes popped wide open, and then began flickering wildly from Elsa to Olaf to me, around and around. "Not the same?" She snarled in her little girl's tenor. "Impossible!"
"Nothing is impossible," Elsa murmured, voice velvet soft as she moved another inch closer to her. "Except what you want. You'll never touch Anna."
Gerda shook her head, fast and jerky, fighting Elsa's diversions, and tried to duck around her, but Elsa was in place to block her as soon as she'd thought of the plan. Gerda's face contorted in frustration, and then she shifted lower into her crouch, a lion again, and stalked deliberately forward.
Gerda was no inexperienced, instinct-driven newborn. She was lethal. Even I could tell the difference between her and Riley, and I knew that Olaf wouldn't have lasted so long if he'd been fighting this vampire.
Elsa shifted, too, as they closed on each other, and it was lion versus lion. The dance increased in tempo.
It was like Alice and Jasper in the meadow, a blurred spiraling of movement, only this dance was not as perfectly choreographed. Sharp crunches and cracklings reverberated off the cliff face whenever someone slipped in their formation. But they were moving too fast for me to see who was making the mistakes…
Riley was distracted by the violent ballet, his eyes anxious for his partner. Olaf struck, crunching off another small piece of the vampire. Riley bellowed and launched a massive backhanded blow that caught Olaf full in his broad chest. Olaf's huge body soared ten feet and crashed into the rocky wall over my head with a force that seemed to shake the whole peak. I heard the breath whoosh from his lungs, and I ducked out of the way as he rebounded off the stone and collapsed on the ground a few feet in front of me.
A low whimper escaped through Olaf's teeth.
Sharp fragments of gray stone showered down on my head, scratching my exposed skin. A jagged spike of rock rolled down my right arm and I caught it reflexively. My fingers clenched around the long shard as my own survival instincts kicked in; since there was no chance of flight, my body—not caring how ineffectual the gesture was—prepared for a fight.
Adrenaline jolted through my veins. I knew time was running out.
Behind Riley, all I could see was the twisting flame of Gerda's hair and a blur of white. The increasingly frequent metallic snaps and tears, the gasps and shocked hissings, made it clear that the dance was turning deadly for someone.
But which someone?
Riley lurched toward me, his red eyes brilliant with fury. He glared at the limp mountain of sand-colored fur between us, and his hands—mangled, broken hands—curled into talons. His mouth opened, widened, his teeth glistening, as he prepared to rip out Olaf's throat.
A second kick of adrenaline hit like an electric shock, and everything was suddenly very clear.
Both fights were too close. Olaf was about to lose his, and I had no idea if Elsa was winning or losing. They needed help. A distraction. Something to give them an edge.
My hand gripped the stone spike so tightly that I felt it digging into my skin.
Was I strong enough? Was I brave enough? How hard could I shove the rough stone into my body? Would this buy Olaf enough time to get back on his feet? Would he heal fast enough for my sacrifice to do him any good?
I raked the point of the shard up my arm, yanking my thick sweater back to expose the skin, and then pressed the sharp tip to the crease at my elbow. I already had a long scar there from my last birthday. That night, my flowing blood had been enough to catch every vampire's attention, to freeze them all in place for an instant. I prayed it would work that way again. I steeled myself and sucked in one deep breath.
Gerda was distracted by the sound of my gasp. Her eyes, holding still for one tiny portion of a second, met mine. Fury and curiosity mingled strangely in her expression.
I winced as I sliced the stone shard across my arm. I didn't dare look down at the damage, but I felt the warm blood ooze down my forearm. Gerda's eyes widened with surprise, then narrowed with ferocious hunger, she lurched forward toward me—ignoring Elsa.
In one short second, everything broke violently apart. It happened so quickly that it was over before I could follow the sequence of events. I tried to catch up in my head.
Gerda had flown out view and smashed into a tall spruce about halfway up the tree. She dropped back to the earth already crouched to spring.
Simultaniously, Elsa—all but invisible with speed—had twisted backward and caught the distracted Riley by the arm. It had looked like Elsa had planted her foot against Riley's back, and heaved—
The little campsite was filled with Riley's piercing shriek of agony.
At the same time, Olaf leaped to his feet, cutting off most of my view.
But I could still see Gerda. And, though she looked oddly deformed—as if she were unable to straighten up completely—I could see the smile I'd been dreaming off flash across her wild face.
She coiled and sprang.
Something small and white whistled through the air and collided with her mid-flight. The impact sounded like an explosion, and it threw her against another tree—this one snapped in half. She landed on her feet again, crouched and ready, but Elsa was already in place. Relief swelled in my heart when I saw that she stood straight and perfect.
Gerda kicked something aside with a flick of her bare foot—the missle that had crippled her attack. It rolled toward me, and I realized what it was.
My stomach lurched.
The fingers were still twitching; grasping at blades of grass, Riley's arm began to drag itself mindlessly across the ground.
Olaf was circling Riley again, and now Riley was retreating. He backed away from the advancing werewolf, his face rigid with pain. He raised his one arm defensively.
Olaf rushed Riley, and the vampire was clearly off-balance. I saw Olaf sink his teeth into Riley's shoulder and tear, jumping back again.
With an earsplitting metallic screech, Riley lost his other arm.
Olaf shook his head, flinging the arm into the words. The broken hissing noise that came through Olaf's teeth sounded like shrieking.
Riley screamed out a tortured plea. "Gerda!"
Gerda did not even flinch to the sound of her name. Her eyes did not flicker once toward her partner.
Olaf launched himself forward with the force of a wrecking ball. The thrust carried both Olaf and Riley into the trees, where the metallic screeching was matched by Riley's screams. Screams that abruptly cut off, while the sounds of rocks being ripped to shreds continued.
Though she spared Riley no farewell glance, Gerda seemed to realize she was on her own. She began to back away from Elsa, frenzied disappointment blazing in her eyes. She threw me one short, agonized stare of longing, and then she started to retreat faster.
"No,' Elsa crooned, her voice seductive. "Stay just a little longer."
Gerda wheeled and flew toward the refuge of the forest from a bow.
But Elsa was faster—a bullet from a gun.
She caught Gerda's unprotected back at the edge of the trees and, with one last, simple step, the dance was over.
Elsa's mouth brushed one across Gerda's neck, like a caress. The squeeling clamor coming from Olaf's efforts covered up every other noise, so there was no discernable sound to make the image one of violence. Elsa could have been kissing Gerda.
And then the black tangle of hair was no longer connected to the rest of her body. The shivering black waves fell to the ground, and bounced once before rolling toward the trees.
so what did you guys think of this chapter