Bella hung her head and squinted at the ground.
"I can't do it."
"Don't put so much pressure on yourself, Bella. We have an army. It's not all up to you."
"Psh. That's bullshit and you know it, Edward. It is all up to me. We lost Chicago, even after the Brazilian was gone. There was just too much firepower.
"And the entire Midwest is gone. The. Whole. Fucking. Thing. I mean, Jesus Fucking Christ, Edward, the president's been rushed into hiding. It's over. It's fucking over unless I can do that thing, whatever it is. But I can't do it. Fuck."
She lit a cigarette and threw the Zippo at the wall.
Edward went over and picked it up, slipped it quietly into his pocket. He went up to her and he put his arms around her shoulders and he kissed the top of her head. "It's too much, Bella."
She pushed him away and sucked on her cigarette. "It's reality is what it is. He's won. All that's left is the mopping up, and there's nothing you or I can do about it."
Edward did not want to admit that she was right, but it was hard to ignore the facts. The vast majority of their human troops were dead, both civilians and military. Half the vampires on both sides were gone, but the Brazilian still outnumbered them ten to one. He'd taken over every major country in the world and installed new leadership. The United States was the last one left. The government had nuked half its major cities in an effort to rid it of the vamps. It didn't work, of course, and now everyone was screwed.
Still, Edward was surprised to find himself acting as the optimist. He couldn't help but think they still had a chance.
"I know what you're thinking, Edward. You know that," Bella said. "And you're full of shit. We can't win.
"We should just run away. Elope. Forget about all of this. Take Charlie with us, hide out in some jungle. Whatever. It's over."
"We can win, Bella. I feel it in my gut. I just don't know how. Yet."
"Well," she said, smiling, "we'd better figure it out quick. There's a scary horde of vampires outside, and I think they're looking to kill us."
"What do you say," he said, "we go show them who's boss?"
They left the command center, hiked two blocks to the main gate on the Pentagon's grounds. Outside, the world was ending.
Tanks rolled through the streets of the nation's capital. Every other building had been damaged or destroyed, including the White House.
But it wasn't over yet. It couldn't be.
Edward was prepared to rush into the fight, but he found himself watching Bella instead. She was a machine, despite the inevitable, taking down vamps one after another, as if she were picking weeds from her garden.
Edward saw the horde, though, and he knew the truth. They would lose today, and that would be the end. If they were lucky enough to survive the battle there would be no hiding.
He saw the sun peeking through the clouds and he felt at peace, now that he had faced the inevitable. He put a cigarette between his lips and he reached for the Zippo, felt comfort in its familiar contours, the way the lid flipped up almost of its own volition, the gentle curves, the flowing corners designed to perfection.
He took a moment to marvel at a race of beings who could fabricate such an object, an object with a single purpose, however fruitless, but still flawless in its execution. And yet, here these people were, experiencing the end, through no fault of their own. It was as if the universe had misaligned itself. All it needed was a gentle push back in the right direction. Or a violent one. Whichever worked.
It would not be the end for all of them, probably. This was no extinction event. Vampires needed blood to survive. Human blood was preferable. Edward imagined that, in his arrogance, the Brazilian would round up a group of survivors and cordon them off into concentration camps, keep them fed just enough to sustain life, so that he could drain it away drop by drop. The ruling vampires would need that food supply, and they didn't seem like the type to subsist on animal blood. Perhaps, one day, their arrogance would be their undoing.
But, sadly, today did not seem to be that day.
Edward caught sight of Bella out of the corner of his eye, and he turned to watch her. She was a miracle. She wore cut off military fatigues and black steel-toed boots and a Kevlar vest that protected her torso. A knife was strapped to her thigh and she waved an M16 in the air as if it were a permanent extension of her body. He could not help but think of the angry teenager he'd run into at the gas station oh so many months ago. She'd always been so angry; still was, probably always would be, however long "always" turned out to be.
A flash of light caught his attention. It was the sun reflecting off a sword. He remembered the boy wielding it. Brody was his name. Amazing that so many civilians had survived this long.
The boy swung the sword low, taking the legs off a vampire, and he swung it high, taking the head. He wound himself around and caught another in the torso, and finished it off with a death blow to the back of the neck.
This boy was a living enigma in a world without answers, and it was a shame that he was probably going to die with the rest of them.
What was it that he had said? Vampires did not seem like the type to sacrifice themselves for the good of others. How true, young Brody. How true. This battle, pitting tens of thousands against the pathetic few left on the good side, was evidence enough.
But was it, really?
Edward, after all, had lived the most selfish life he could have, until this happened. Now everything was different. He was different. And what of Charlie and Bella? Or Alice. What about the rest of the Cullens? Had they not given all they had? None of them had lived selfish lives.
No. The boy was wrong. Vampires were as capable of self-sacrifice as were humans, perhaps more so because they had more to give. If only they so chose. Choosing sacrifice became more difficult as one amassed more power; it did not become impossible.
How to choose, though? Was there such a thing as choice? As free will? Bella, for example. She did not appear to choose when she unleashed her mysterious power, whatever it was, whatever its source. It came when it came, and it did not when it did not.
He wondered at that. His power was not like hers. He could read minds whenever he wanted to, no matter the situation. Why did hers act the way it did? Why did it come with apparent restrictions? Were those restrictions from the outside, or were they inside Bella? Could she learn to control that power, and if so, how? And how soon?
He puzzled over this, oblivious as the battle raged around him. He knew it was an important question, and so he focused his energy on it. He closed his eyes to the world and he concentrated on the events of these last months.
Bella had done it three times: once, when they were escaping the Volturi compound. All their lives had been in danger, and without her extraordinary abilities, they might have perished right there.
She had done it again in that conference room when the asshole Marine had confronted them. Wait. No. It wasn't immediately after the confrontation. Bella had not undergone her transformation until Edward had been shot.
And again, she had taken out dozens of vampires and a cannon atop that building in Chicago just as Edward was about to die.
A pattern emerged. Edward could see it now, clear as day.
Bella became this magical creature when Edward's life was in danger.
It was then that Edward realized what he must do.
If the only hope was Bella's power, and if the only way that power got engaged was through Bella's rage at Edward's impending death, then Edward must die.
There was no other solution.
Edward could not imagine the strength her power would have once she realized that he had been killed. Certainly it would be a sight to behold. He only hoped that it was enough to save humanity. To save herself.
Edward felt a weight lift itself from his shoulders now that he knew the solution to their problem.
He opened his eyes and he sought out Bella. There she was, in battle, as always. He knew that she was paying him no mind right then, which was good. He could be alone with his thoughts. He rose and he walked slowly toward her as if she were the only thing in the world.
"Forgive me, sweet Isabella Marie Swan," he whispered. He watched her for a moment. She was beauty and grace, and he would miss her greatly. He was satisfied, though, to know that she would endure without him.
Bella Swan could endure anything.
He blew her a kiss and he turned on his heels and he knew. He put his boots on the ground and he walked into the battle.
The first bullet hit him low. The second hit his shoulder and spun him around. He did not feel either of them.
He heard Bella scream, a psychic scream that he could not be certain was real. Perhaps it was only in his head. Reality was only a concept now, nothing more. He did not know the difference between what existed in his head and what existed in the real world. He was not sure there was a difference, or that the world existed at all, or that it had ever existed outside of the construct in his mind.
The third bullet tore through his jawbone, and yet Edward did not fall.
He walked on, determined.
A round hit him in the knee, and Edward wobbled a moment before falling to the Earth.
He lay prone, ready.
Something exploded nearby. Shrapnel littered his body and the pavement surrounding him. His black coat caught fire.
He closed his eyes and he felt a bullet tear into his torso as the fire spread to his body. Another. Another. Another. So many that he could not count them if he tried. And yet, aflame and full of wounds that he knew would never have a chance to heal, he remained at peace.
Soon, Edward. Relief would come soon.
He saw a great light then, as if he were watching his destiny unfold. Bella's face appeared before him and he thought it must be an apparition.
She was focused, a vision of determination.
He saw Charlie, too. Charlie Swan, police chief, leader of a renewed Volturi. This is what would happen. Of course it would happen. This was Alice's vision of a ceremony on a cliff above a beach, glowing in the firelight. Charlie would be the new vampire chief, after the Brazilian's defeat at the hands of his daughter. He would recast its bylaws, and he would form a union with the humans, and they would live in peace. They would rebuild what had been taken down.
Bella rose from Edward, whether in real life or in his vision he was not sure, and her focus disappeared. There was no longer a distinction between what was real and what wasn't. Edward was no longer sure that he was alive.
Bella's eyes turned the color of blood and she opened her mouth and a horror escaped and it engulfed the world.
Her rifle vanished from her hand and the landscape burst into flame, flames as far as the eye could see, glorious flames, selecting those she chose to select, ignoring the rest.
Artillery exploded and gunfire erupted and dozens, scores, hundreds of vampires collapsed in heaps upon the ground. Heads exploded in bursts of black blood and the clouds blocked out the sun and the ground glowed an evil red through the haze.
Bella rose from the Earth and she hovered there, arms out at her sides, eyes closed now, almost serene. She glowed in a white gown, its train flowing behind her.
The ground rose up.
The fire climbed higher.
The clouds met the Earth and the mountains collapsed and the surface of the planet reshaped itself in the form she chose.
The fallen burst into flames and the planet cleansed itself of the vampire horde for good.
The Brazilian exploded and his corpse disintegrated and its remains floated in the air and the particles that remained glinted in the sunlight and then they were gone. Reabsorbed into the void.
Edward watched Bella rise higher into the sky, and he saw anger on her face and he knew that he had been right. Her anger fueled her power, as it had done for him his entire life. Vile as it was, it was also an undeniable truth. This is who she was. Who she was meant to be.
Bella was rage and rage was Bella and the two could not exist without one another. She was more human than anyone else on the planet.
She was doomed to live a life of anger. In anger, she had saved not only humanity by destroying the Brazilian and his army, but she had saved herself.
Edward struggled to pull the Zippo from his pocket. He found its cool steel and he ran his fingers gently over its perfect curves and he felt as if this were the reason for his being, the curves, the perfection, the end of the world, the start of a new one. The end of one flawed thing in favor of a perfect one.
He watched through closed eyes as Bella wreaked destruction upon the rest of the world. In unison he saw cities across the globe explode in flames. Beijing, Moscow, Sydney and Johannesburg. Miami, Tokyo, Baghdad and Rome.
They would burn, and they would rise, and from the ashes a new civilization would be borne, and it would be good, and it would be just. Edward knew that it would be just.
Flames overtook what remained of his body then, and he welcomed them, and they did not hurt, they did not burn, and their cleansing power felt like a form of healing.
Edward felt the peace that the flames brought with them, and he died there on the newly reformed Earth with a smile on his face.
-30-