Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers up all wrongs.-Proverbs.
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ESCAPE
"I have to go..."Leah whispered quickly, fumbling with the string by her leg-trying to fold her jeans and tank top loosely but still securely by her leg.
"You are certain..." I murmured swallowing hard. "It was Edward... Jacob was fighting him?"
"Not really fighting" she sighed, chucking the clothes away in the end and pausing to study me.
"Not fighting..." she said slowly, looking at me anxiously "Edward wasn't interested in fighting him. Seth... Seth was scared for Jacob... everyone is fine. Edward left."
"He left" I said in a daze. "Are you sure..."
"Carlisle..." she said sternly, walking over to me. "You need to find him. The wolf link... very difficult to lie when it's a replay in real time-Seth heard him. He was talking about death and Italy... I have an idea of were he will leave from. The same location I saw him leave from last. The cliff a few feet of from were the stream connects with the waterfall. I have to go... this is... shit"
She was naked and I saw the many purplish bruises spotting her skin in various places. The wound by her neck was taking exceptionally long to heal... but as long as I had sucked the venom out, she would be fine she had promised. She promised she would be fine...
She looked at me closely, her eyes wide and deep and the strength I associated with her-an adamant sort of will to live and be-swimming in them but even that didn't hide the fear. Something wasn't right, something she couldn't tell me... she reached up and kissed me softly, sighing gently before walking away from me. She threw me one last look before leaping in the air, her form shimmering and when she was lucid she had turned into the soft grey giant slender wolf.
The image of her standing in front of the rubble of the boulder I had destroyed would remain engraved in my memory like all things but with different connotations more intense than most memories I contained. Her grey fur almost a similar grey to the many rock fragments and eyes wide and amber staring at me with too much emotion for any normal natural creature...
She sighed, one gust of air warming the chilled air in front of her and bounded through the woods. Moments later it rained... it rained hard and I knew I had to find him. All the shock of the world evaporated from my still form and I ran down the little stream praying his scent will cross my path and not be washed away by the ferocious rain.
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CARLISLE CULLEN
Even as I ran, moving in synch with the thrashing wind and slicing rain, I couldn't comprehend her words. He was here... he was talking about death, giving his own eulogy to Isabella and Seth-condoning Jacob Blacks affection for his Bella. It felt like Leah had been speaking about someone else... it couldn't be Edward.
Not my Edward...
I suppose I had deceived myself in someway to survive his... departure. He and I... we had performed the most atrocious act of deformed love in our kissing and touching but somehow I had managed to forgive myself. A doctor can't heal those who aren't sick...
God cannot forgive the ones who haven't sinned. And as long as I had come in front of the Lord with this... would he turn me away? Was it not Leah's voice that had merged into my mind with the one sentence that had set lose to so many chains; Forgive yourself... and you will be forgiven.
Sin... and temptation.
I had no shirt on and her smell began to fade from me in the holy shower of rain. But it was evident-sin and temptation. I should care and worry but there were more pressing matters right now... matters that still felt distant as I ran crazed through the forest. He was faster than I was but I had been nearer to the edge of the peninsula he planned on departing from.
If it was where he planned on leaving from... but where else would he go? He had to stay in contact with the Wolves territory to avoid Alice. Like I had... preconceived trickery.
I caught his scent in the wind, mingling with the rain and fading... I wasn't sure if it meant he was ahead or behind me so I ran faster. The howling wind, the violent flashing of lightning and the rumbling thunder fuelling my frenzied pace-and I saw him.
He turned his head briefly, his eyes wide and black-bruised around in ways I had never seen on him-and he cursed low, muttering that he thought I was further away... murmuring how he had to reach the water quickly...
Talking to him self even as I called out to him to wait.
He wouldn't wait. He pushed further but he hadn't fed, he was weak in a very vampire way. His mind was distracted.
"Edward!" I roared over the storm and he ran-trying to push for faster but failing, shaking his head and chanting "No... I can't...!"
"Stop!" I yelled but he continued, we were only a few seconds from the cliff and I knew even if I was much faster than he was at swimming, I wouldn't be able to capture him in the water.
"I will follow you to Volterra!" I tried and his pace stumbled. I took advantage and propelled myself through the air, whizzing past the trees and confusing him-he stared at me in disbelief and we collided.
I tackled him hard to the ground, uprooting trees and sending kilograms of dirt, earth and foliage flying through the air. We rolled and tumbled to the clearing over the sea-by the cliff and I realised he was struggling against me. I had thought if I held him he would calm down like he had always done when he had been a younger immortal but he fought. He hissed, he spat and snapped his teeth at me and I could see the little markers of wildness in his eyes-the natural vampire that our way of life had kept at bay erupting in him. He was beyond reason...
"Please..." I groaned, locking my arms around him, knowing that if I gave him an inch to move I would never hold him again.
His talent would ensure that. I had caught him by surprise... a hard thing to do but I gave thanks to the storm. The wind thrashed uselessly against us, trying desperately to push us and blow us of the edge but no hard marble body would ever give in to such feeble strength.
I moved us back into the woods, opting to throw us over the ground and fight him kilometre by kilometre towards the manor, my arms never relenting around his torso. I kept him facing away, his snapping and snarling wild and desperate-he would maim me to get away, I realised. I prayed she would see us the closer we moved into our thicker territory, the terrain working against me as he uprooted trees and tried to use them to whack me, his snarls and inhuman sounds fighting to be heard against the thunder and venom flailing from his mouth in indifferent abundance and mingling with the rain-ending up on my face.
"Edward...!" I cried "Stop son... stop, you are safe...!"
"No...!" it was the first coherent word to leave his mouth.
I heard the quick footsteps, I heard Emmett's shouts that he was coming and I breathed finally. He would not escape us this time. He would stay. He was home.
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"Edward..." Emmett tried but even as Jasper held his other arm, even as he sent wave after wave of calm over him-he struggled. It was down to frail motions, influenced by Jasper's gift to give the elusion of weariness on vampires but he was unbending in his resolution to be away from us.
"Lock his arms behind his back, Em" Jasper sighed, looking to me for support and I nodded. "He'll break the house apart..."
"No..." Edward moaned in a feeble voice, his eyes flicking wildly left right and down-never looking at anyone or acknowledging a single one solid thing. He may as well have been moving through a dream, a nightmare...
They stood by the entrance; Alice and Rosalie-their eyes wide and desolate. It was Rosalie who ran to us, looking to me first and I sighed, rubbing my arm were Edward had managed to bite; luckily not gauging any flesh out but leaving his venom there. I would have to suck the venom art to ensure no scar would remain...
"Inside..." I instructed "In the dining room, please"
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"Edward you are safe" Rosalie said-her voice quivering. She tried to touch his hair but he snapped at her and she jumped back to my side, clutching me in fear.
"He doesn't mean to hurt you" I whispered to her.
"He is safe..." she cried. "You are safe Edward... stop!"
It was like she hadn't spoken. He continued to mutter incoherent things vampire fast under his breath and in regular intervals he groaned the word "No" and when he felt up to it, he fought against Jasper's manipulation of his emotions and tried to free himself from Emmett's titanium grip, cursing loudly when his body was unable to shake of the feeling of weariness to move Emmett's arms even slightly.
"Is that the shirt...?" Alice whimpered, gazing at Edward, she had not tried to look at his face as Rosalie and I had "Is that the shirt from Bella's birthday...?"
"He hasn't changed?" Rosalie cried, shaking me and I saw it too. He was in the same shirt from that fateful day that had changed everything somehow... it was tattered and faded-I guessed from swimming in the ocean, one arm ripped by his shoulder.
"They..."Alice murmured and then sighed, dropping to the ground and crying silently, the rain water still trickling from all our hair forming tears on our faces-tears we could not shed at this...
"What did they do to him?" Jasper growled.
"Why didn't I see this?" Alice cried behind her hands, curling on the floor a few feet from Emmett's hard form-unmoving and expressionless-holding a whimpering Edward.
"I wanted him gone" Rose whispered bleakly, letting me hold her with my one arm.
"Let's get him to the cottage..." I instructed Jasper. "I'll... I'll calm him"
"Carlisle" Jasper drawled, raising an eyebrow. "He really is beyond..."
"We can't sit around here restraining him and manipulating his emotions till the end of time" I said sternly and he frowned-it was always most difficult for him to take orders. "Get him to the cottage..."
"I need to clean him up" Rose murmured.
"I'll clean him up... Rose" I said slowly, smiling weakly at her. "I'll calm him and clean him and then you and Alice can tend to him"
She nodded then, calming somewhat and sat by Alice, pulling her slender arm over Alice's little form and whispering to her sister that he was back. That it was over, that none of them could have known this and now they could take care of their brother.
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He let the steady stream of curses erupt from his chest through out the short journey to the cottage hidden in our woods-and I knew if not for Jasper, we would have had to wrestle and fight him there and there would have been slight injuries.
"No..." Edward repeated as he was pushed through the door. His movements had become half-hearted and I took this as a good sign.
"Let me be alone with him..." I muttered, looking at his face unrelenting and waiting for him to brave my eyes. He refused, staring at the hard wood floor angrily, his breathing heavy and fast.
"Alone... how?" Jasper asked. "Should we stand somewhere near...?"
"Alone Jasper" I sighed.
"Carlisle..." Emmett began.
"He won't hurt me" I said calmly. "Not like his leaving me had done after he had promised me he wouldn't."
Edward paused his limp thrashing then and looked deliberately away. Slackening in Emmett's hold suddenly and letting Emmett prop him up.
"Leave" I said firmly "I'll bring him to the main house after he has showered"
They left through the rain, the storm roaring violently over us and heavy raindrops falling hard on the roof. He stood still in the little lounge, staring out the large window and fumbling with the torn sleeve of his shirt before opting to rip it of completely and throwing it absently to the side.
"Carlisle" he said hoarsely. "I shouldn't be here"
"And where should you be, Edward" I said, walking over to him slowly.
He whimpered in response, moving too fast away from me and appearing by the opposite wall, staring at it with his back to me.
"Tell me what happened" I said coolly, sitting on the coffee table. "Everything..."
"No" he sobbed, falling to his knees and clawing at his hair. "No, no... No!"
I rushed to him, expecting him to run away again but he didn't. instead he surprised me with his cringing of my touch, his violent pushing against me-refusing to let me hold him and growling low in warning.
"Tell me Edward!" I said desperately, fighting him into my arms and locking him in place. He gave up then, his body shaking against me as he cried silently with his eyes closed. "Won't you tell me...?"
He remained quiet and crying and a violent anger emerged in me. Even with the rain, even with the sea and air... I could smell him. His scent which was a compilation of my own I imagined as was with Rosalie and Emmett... Alice and Jasper's was only slightly similar as a result of living together in a coven.
"Tell me about it" he whispered after a second.
"The scent...?"
"Yes" he breathed, remaining still in my arms and letting me source through my aggressive emotions and thoughts.
"Eleazar..." I said slowly, trying to keep the hard edge from the revelation of Edward's changed scent. "Eleazar explained to me when he first met you... how you sort of smell like me. It is the same with every vampire really, almost like half of your scent is that of your maker... and then the other is an intensified version of your human smell"
"I don't know what I smell like, naturally..."I sighed and I felt his hand twitch behind me-he held me as I held him finally. "But it... I know we are a family because of this"
"Natural vampire coven intimacy" he said softly, picking this from my thoughts.
"You smell..." I growled. "Like..."
"Like I should be with them?" he whispered softly, twisting my jumbled words into a hard truth I didn't want to say. "Because I should be, Carlisle..."
"No" I growled, surprising him with my conviction. "I am your father..."
"You don't want me" he gulped. "Trust me, you don't want me..."
"... you need a shower" I continued adamantly overriding his own conviction on the matter, scooping him up awkwardly but securely in my arms-his longer limbs remaining limp in the air as I moved us to the bathroom. "...and I'll remind you who loves you..."
"You don't want to love this" he sighed, letting me seat him on the closed toilet.
"You don't know much for a mind-reader" I scoffed and he chuckled derisively. I opened the faucet of the shower, letting it turn all the way to hot and waiting as the steam to filled up the bathroom.
"Shall I congratulate this new you to Leah" he whispered and when I turned to him he looked away.
"Shall I congratulate you not hurting Jacob to Seth?" I countered and he froze-that frenzied look returning hard to his features and terrifying me. He would run, I was sure...
"The water is filling at the bottom" he said instead.
"That's because you refused to clean out the drain when Rosalie asked you" I said confused but grateful he was trying to stay with me.
"She didn't ask me" he said in a dry tone-detached to the conversation but somehow I thought he only wanted to move away from the scene that had played out at Isabella's house. "She commanded me... only she and Emmett use this cottage anyway"
"Come..."I instructed, reaching my hand out to him. He let his hand fall in mine gingerly and sighed, rising up slowly.
When I reached for the collar of his shirt to undo the buttons, he froze-growling low again.
"Do you want to take it of yourself?" I asked softly and he moved his head tersely, looking away from me with his face contorted relentlessly into an unforgiving scowl. Still he was beautiful... but I wanted to smooth his forehead with my fingers and wipe away the violent fear in his eyes.
He undid one button and then stopped; looking at me desperately and he seemed surprised by something-surprised and terrified.
"I'll... shower with my clothes on" he mumbled.
"Why?" I asked.
"You have bruises by your neck, did I do that?" he asked-deflected-pointing at my neck lightly.
I touched my neck, almost sure he had inflicted them but I remembered Leah... wolf teeth were formidable in their wolf form but in human their jaws didn't have the necessary strength to utilise the arsenal...
"Hmm" he murmured, moving past me and opening the shower door. "The good Doctor Cullen takes house calls and forest calls too..."
He stepped in and sat down at the bottom, his shirt darkening slowly with the shower raining on it and he pulled his legs to his chest-staring at nothing. He was completely wet in seconds, humming something and moving his lips-muttering about the sea and its crushing depths.
His hair had turned black, his face pale and the purple bruised more pronounces-he looked bleak even in his magnificent youthful looks; the shirt and pants darkness elevating his wild aura.
"Take the shirt off, Edward" I said softly and he shook his head.
"I am taking the damn shower!" He hissed. "I am here, I am here... leave me be!"
"The shirt..."
"You know I am going to leave you...!" he shouted, swivelling his eyes to me, their dark flatness terrifying me in their narrowed encasing.
I stepped into the shower and he looked away, refusing to make space in the cramped square cubicle, his longer legs already taking up unnecessary space. I sat by him and put my arms around him, pulling him to my chest and he tried to shrug the motion of but failed, falling into my arms instead.
"No" he said.
I ignored him and reached for the buttons. He shook; his breathing erratic and head shaking vehemently but he didn't push my hands off. Not when I undid the second button, not when I managed to reach over for the third... but he continued to shake and mumble-his voice moist and no tears streaming from his eyes although I knew he was crying again.
"What did he do to you!" I gasped, pushing the shirt of his shoulders and struggling to get the one sleeve of his arm and then just ripping the entire shirt of and throwing it over the glass door of the shower.
There were marks... not on his front were his chest and stomach remained smooth white marble, but tiny little marks along his rib cage were his arm could have easily fallen over and hid them. A single violent still healing purplish gauge just at the base of his neck; more to his back than the front-almost aligned with his shoulder. It was still healing but it was definitely a gauge from teeth...
I touched it and he winced.
"Did you get hurt when you..."
"Jacob Black didn't hurt me" he groaned.
"Who hurt...?"
"You know who hurt me, Carlisle" he whispered. He let me dip to his neck, smelling the venom easily and sucking it out tentatively, cleaning the wound and spitting the liquid near the drain. I breathed in hard... trying to remain calm... but it was too late...
"You shouldn't have gone...!" I cried eventually. "You are not to leave me! Do you hear me, Edward...?"
He remained silent, never removing his locked hands from his knees.
"I said do you hear me, boy!" I shouted harshly and he winced when I shook him. "Do not leave me...!"
"Don't leave me..." I whispered, crying and holding him to me. He let his head fall to my chest and sobbed silently.
I didn't know much about fighting... even play fighting was an issue for me. But I was sure in this moment I could take down the whole guard to get to Aro... and in some form of sick pleasure, I wanted his head to remain after everything was burnt. His big head that believed it was entitled to everything and that love and company were for the weak and pleasure fell second after power.
"The rib cage is Jane" he said eventually. "Carlisle, such dangerous thoughts..."
"Hmm" I murmured, rocking him back and forth and ignoring the groan the tiling made when I hit back too hard against it, chipping it.
"I..." he whispered panicked. "It wasn't so bad"
"Don't lie to me" I said dryly. I would have thought it for him to know but I needed him to feel that this was not the time for his pride to get in the way-he wouldn't stand alone in this.
"This isn't about pride...!" he cried. "I have to... return"
"Nonsense" I breathed.
"He promised... All of them promised" he stammered. "If I didn't return they would hurt you... he would hurt everyone"
"Let him try"
"Carlisle, he sent me to kill Isabella" he whispered. "That is how Seth saved her... well, Seth saved Jacob but inadvertently Jacob's confused love for her saved her too"
"You wouldn't hurt her" I muttered angrily, Aro's red wicked eyes flashing over my vision.
"I am wicked too" he said and I realised he was trying to get me to hate him. To dismiss him and send him on his way to Volterra.
"Then I am evil because I am your maker" I said calmly and he resumed his crying. "You are my son, you are Emmett's brother and you are Jasper's brother... Rosalie and Alice's brother... and they are waiting for you at the main house. Will you not let them take care of you?"
"Carlisle...!" he managed.
"Let them take care of you" I whispered. "They have missed you so and their love for you would survive more than you know"
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LEAH CLEARWATER
This was bad... this was very bad.
I wasn't even sure if this meant the treaty was off. Isabella's house was technically on the expanse of 'No Man's Land'. I had to be crafty about getting in; I ran through the woods quickly, reaching the house and crouching by the corner-listening inside for ay movements. A naked Leah was not a good thing in this chaos...
The rain had washed his scent away but the little bruises were taking longer to fade, the bite mark on my neck was still very visible as a bite mark. I crept inside and made my way to my room. The house was quiet, empty... I had to get dressed and head to Sam's immediately. It was early morning, maybe two in the morning and the storm had somehow missed this side of La Push in its ferocity.
A scarf... I hadn't worn one of those in a while and I would have to suffer through the heat but it was better than trying to explain a bite mark...
"Leah...!" Seth shouted, and I heard his anxious barging up the stairs. "Leah...!"
"What!" I hissed as he broke my door down-literally, it was hanging by the bottom hinge.
"He didn't mean to tell..." he stammered, pulling at his hair."He didn't... even though it was... he wouldn't but the wolf link..."
"What are you on about!" I hissed.
"They know... you have to leave now!" he growled shaking me.
"Know...?" I stared at him blankly
"You had sex with a cold one!" he roared and I felt the world move beneath my feet.
"Leah!" it was Sam and he was outside. My senses were alert, I could hear the heavy breathing of phased wolves outside, probably hidden in the forest.
"Don't go down there..." Seth whispered in a tiny voice.
"I have to "I hugged him dazed "I am so sorry Sethie, just... stay inside"
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"You are a disgrace and disgust me..." he managed before his closed fist connected with my face.
I stumbled back, groaning and the taste of blood filling my mouth but I got up again and faced him. He frowned hard and lurched forward but I didn't back away.
"You disgust us..." he hissed slapping me with the back of his hand this time, and when the flashing bulbs of pain desisted somewhat, I could make out three wolves standing still just outside the forest.
Paul and Jared were gazing at my irrecoverable humiliation with scrunched up furry faces and Jacob... Jacob's head was lowered, hung grimly and eyes averted from everything and a hard sadness rolling of him.
"You stop...!" Seth roared crashing out the house and charging at Sam's looming form.
He was going to try and punch Sam, I realised-and if I could see this fact then Sam could too. Seth missed and collided with Sam's awaiting strike instead, flying backward form Sam and landing on the ground in a mass of sandy fur and tattered cotton fabric floating over him.
It was then that all hell broke loose...
Sam turned around confused; attention divided by Seth snarling and wriggling to get upright and my violent shuddering and insistent blows against him; most of my punches missing him through my blurring vision and those that collided with him were of no use. Seth knew the law; we could only fight each other when we were in the same form and Sam was still human.
My anger broke me. I couldn't phase but remained shivering and shuddering, the hard heat rolling up and down my spine. He hit me once more and I rebounded; my fist connecting with the centre of his face, breaking his nose. Before my eyes, he shuddered and blurred and I heard Seth's distorted whimper and growl as I failed to move out of the giant black wolves snarling way.
The pain was exquisite, flashing all over my back and the smell of rust was released in the air. It was then the ripple managed to spread all over my body and I phased; my mind merging with chaos as I saw Jacob, Embry and Seth battling with Sam and Paul-Jared remained perplexed and watching.
Leave Leah! Seth roared and I sprung up, ignoring the shooting pain in my leg and thanking the heavens I was the fastest wolf in the pack and Sam was too angry-murderously and dangerously angry-to manage a coherent sentence to order me with his Alpha tone.
Leave... I heard Embry murmur. And phase immediately, he will order you back otherwise...
I saw in his mind the division I had put the pack under-more so after Paul and Jared had come across the red-heads scent today. Paul, Sam and although Jared had paused; they were all for punishing me severely. Of course punishing me when you are ruled by instinct could be a danger to my mortality...
I had to leave and I was sure I could never return.
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AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Once again, thank you for the reviews and pm's! Seriously inspiring..!