WILD THING
I never saw a wild thing sorry for it. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself. D. H Lawrence
CHARLES EDWARD BLACK
Did it scare me that in my short life-for surely a duo digit age was a short life for an immortal; did it scare me that I had no fear of death? That the only thing keeping me from charging through the werewolves was the pain it would cause my family if I died? The pain it would cause Leah...
The thought that the purpose and sanctity of my existence to my own understanding could only be summed up to its benefit to those I loved; that thought, it scared me.
I was all too aware of what it was I meant to my mother, besides being her child. What I meant to Edward, to Jacob, my Leah... to them, and yet I couldn't help thinking if it was truly worth it. Was I truly worth this?
"This is the last level, Tanya" I murmured. There was no longer any light, even to my supernatural sight. We were in darkness, our only perception coming from the heat of the werewolves and their scents. They had turned fully, crawling all over each other and killing themselves-their hunger driving them insane, the smell of a vampire so close and unreachable creating a squirming chaos of teeth and claws. Contaminated blood filled the air, growls and howls pierced the silence of our imprisonment.
"I have to phase" I whispered. She was silent, terrified. I thought she may have been a daisy in her human life; a precious pretty girl, with flowers in her hair and no understanding of the savageness of the world... I envied some of that. At times it felt too short a time, to strange a peace.
She was terrified, motionless at the furthest corner of our hideout; she would be useless to me in such a state, if those werewolves' brain cells decided to communicate to each other and they figured out how to get to us...
"You said phasing would be dangerous to you" she didn't stammer, but something about her voice suggested that she would have, had she been human. "You said it would send you back to that... wildness"
I was all too aware that the word 'wildness' stood next to an image of a werewolf.
"I wasn't prepared for the thirst, back then" I said. It was to a certain extent a lie; I truly hadn't been prepared for the thirst, but it wouldn't have mattered. The hunger inside that wolf, that hunger transcended our understanding of the supernatural world. It was consuming.
"You are lying" she breathed.
"When they open the doors" I said "We have to run across that..." I pointed forward, through the darkness and out to the wild iridescent eyes peering at us, hating us. "I would sooner die than let them cross that river of death"
Leah's face flashed over my vision and my heart squeezed painfully. It would be better if I were running towards her, than the other way around. If she died, I would cease to exist and with that demise... Edward, Jacob and Renesme would follow.
And there it was; it was not I that tied their happiness together-it was Leah Clearwater, and they would never know it.
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RENESME CARLIE CULLEN
"We should be going the other way" she insisted.
I hadn't bothered to learn her name. She was small, exceptionally young-possibly a few years old, and very much Joham's. He was all over her face, in her features but her eyes were round and hazel. She repeated the statement and it annoyed me. She annoyed me; her resemblance to Nahuel irritated me into such intense altitudes of fury. I realised I wanted to slap her as much as I was concerned for her arm and strange frailty.
"No" I stated, touching the thick door. We had gotten this far from moving through the air ventilation ducts. There was something distinctly wrong with her; she was bleeding from grazing on a jagged piece of metal, her arm was sprained from the fall out of the air ventilation tunnels and she was hyperventilating from the run... gulping down air hard and dark skin visibly flushed.
She was annoying me and fast turning into a possible casualty... a necessary one if I was to keep from going insane from irritation. Who dared to be bothersome in such terrifying circumstances?
"My father and grandfather are in there... I am sure" I pressed my ear to the door and listened carefully "There is a werewolf in there, that I am certain of"
"We should definitely be going the other way then" she stammered, backing away.
"You won't survive three seconds alone" I said slowly, looking for the security panel. "You are weak, bleeding and... strangely human. Go, if it is what you want"
She stood there unsure and then sighed, limping towards the door. "Here" she said, pointing at a box on an adjacent wall. "Its heat coded"
I pressed my finger on the little blue pad and looked to the door but nothing happened.
"Human heat" she said, removing my finger and pressing her own. "My body temperature is... human. Yours should be higher, like the other half vampires"
"Are you not half vampire?" I asked her, but before she could respond... the door began to open. She had already moved back up the duct, looking at me apologetically before closing the panelling and waiting behind it.
"Right" I told myself. "Here we go again... just wolves with...""
"Renesme!" I knew the voice, but the strangeness of it resounding under the growling snarling werewolf threw me off. I peeked into the shadows and saw large covered containers, blood and bodies... and Angela Weber standing frazzled at the far end of the room, with Isabella Swan by her side.
"Nessie, my daughter!" she attacked me in a hug, a painfully tight hug and wheeled me around. I felt like I had been doused with ice cold water and then thrown into a pot of boiling water straight after.
"Release me" I hissed but she pretended not to hear me, not to notice my stiffness, to ignore my tugging away. "Mother, release me!"
She released me then, an awkward smile on her face and all memory of how she had snapped my wrist evidently lost in her cruel love.
"Where is my father?" I pierced through her eyes, my fingers curling into fists at my sides. I looked to Angela, suddenly very much aware that she wasn't harmed... I took that as a positive to the situation.
"He was shot" Isabella said unsure, her smile twitching on her lips. "He is behind that cage... but he is healing. A little slowly thanks to his refusal for blood"
"Where is Carlisle?" I whispered. I realised that somewhere, illogically or maybe it was warranted, I held all the disaster and carnage over Isabella's unharmed head. If she had a scar, if she had a wound... would it have made it better? Did I want it? What could I do with this emotion, with this odd loathing and relief to see her unharmed...?
I didn't wait for her to finish, running to Edward. I could hear the whining growls of hunger from the werewolf. It was caged under the canvas, I realised.
"Father?"
"You found me" he sighed. He was shirtless and whole; something about him being shot made me believe that every seam that had solidified him back in the attic would come unravelling. But he was whole, the wound visible on his body...
"Who is she?" I looked at the silent girl seated beside him, her hands wound around her and a look of deep desolation etched on her face. "Is she relevant?"
"Who is she?" Angela pointed ahead. "Is she relevant...?"
"Wonderful!" Isabella laughed softly "You brought leverage"
"Leverage?" Edward and I said simultaneously. He let me help him up, shaking his leg a little before bracing himself on me.
"Leverage for what?" I snapped. The girl had come out of the air vents, it seemed, and braved the unknown. She stood awkwardly by the entrance, her eyes large and hands trembling. It was the dead bodies, I realised, and the absurdness of her being traumatised by that when we had killed men and women in our escape...
Blood lust, I thought. But then she had referred to me as the half vampire... and wasn't she human, or more so?
"For Joham?" Isabella said tentatively, casting Edward a cautious look. He leaned away from me and stood on his own. He succeeded after a second and sighed in relief before looking at Isabella in annoyance. "When we leave this place, we will need protection...!"
"What?" I breathed.
"She must be Nahuel's child" Isabella said slowly "Joham knew of it... tried to track her down and failed. The mother survived the birthing and put her up for adoption. Well, the mother was taken care off..."
"You knew this?" I looked at the girl, who stared at all of us as though we were insane. We were insane I supposed. She couldn't hear us, as far away as she was... and as terribly human as she was.
"Yes" Isabella said quietly. "I learnt it through Joham, who found out about it too late to fix the situation. Joham does not believe in lesser vampires, as you know, Renesme. Nahuel well, never knew of his child..."
"He... cheated..." I began. I didn't know what to feel; betrayed, numb...
"Judging from her age, I wouldn't say so" Isabella said and then in a tone riddled with sarcasm, she smiled "It would have been around the time you were still with Jacob. Still it remains, Nessie... it was you doing all the double living"
"I wonder where I learnt it from"
"And again...!" Angela hissed "This is not the fucking time!"
"I agree with Angela" Edward said sombrely. "Charles has only one exit, and it's through a mass of werewolves, he has contacted Jacob..."
"Jacob...?" I whispered.
"And again, not the time..." Angela began moving, tugging the other girl with her before grabbing the non-half vampire's hand too. "We need to get out of here... and all we need is the directions?"
"The... duct..." I looked at the non-half vampire girl in shock.
"Like hell you are leaving alone!" Edward roared and Angela's step faltered.
She wheeled around, forcing both girls to turn with her and said hotly "I am done waiting on all of you... Vampires and Werewolves be damned..."
She was cut short when the cage rattled and the beast inside it writhed, shaking the whole cage until the canvas slid off. Her eyes swerved to the cage and behind her biohazard suit, behind her spectacles, they widened in terror.
It was gruesome as any mindless abomination was, staring dumbly at all of us with fevered hunger and unremitting brutality.
"Leave, then..." Edward satisfied with her reaction "And tell us how your bio-suit fairs against a thousand of these..."
"What are we waiting for, really...?" Angela murmured but her voice was cut off by a droning snarl of hunger. It snapped viciously at us and paced its tiny cage, clawing at the bars and flinching back when its skin reacted to the silver.
"Charles has contacted Jacob and is leading him to us..." Edward said "Billy and Embry will take you back..." Edward looked at me carefully "I suppose I can't convince you to go with them?"
"Like..."
"Mind the language" he cut me, pressing his leg and shaking his muscles loose. "Thank you, Annabelle once again... those bullets are nasty little devices..."
"Any time" the girl-Annabelle grumbled, rolling her eyes and pouting. "I may have the lining of my stomach disintegrated but at least I saved a vampire..."
"Wolves will not be enough against this many werewolves" Isabella said fearfully.
"Who says it's just wolves?" Edward smiled dubiously "Jacob is not how you remember him Isabella... although we still have a lot in common with regards to you. As much as we both loved you once, we now equally hate your guts..."
"Oh, don't say that" Isabella smiled lovingly at him "We have a marriage to work on... Carlisle's last request..."
"I believe it was you, who finalised the divorce my love..."
"When I said forever..." she whispered "I meant it, Edward... Divorce be damned"
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CHARLES EDWARD BLACK
I had only ever died once.
It had hurt like hell... but what had hurt the most, was reawakening. There was no greater pain in the world, than breaking through the shield of life, escaping death and fighting to breathe again. No greater pain...
And just because I had gone through it once, did not mean that this would be second time lucky. I had to survive, I just had to live... and I had to have control. It would be quick, Jacob had instructed.
The doors would open and I would begin to phase, charging down the tunnel and by the time I broke free with Tanya, by the time the doors had opened just enough, I would be battling across to the safety of the other side. They would follow, they would smell the vampires but we would run...
We would run, and never look back until we reached the surface. Daytime would be upon us, and the werewolves would be no more that frozen human bodies in the snow.
And we would be free.
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They approached the doors cautiously; a mass of hard concrete stood in front of them, with a near invisible line running through its middle-the point in which the giant doors would open. The rescue team was fearsome, even if the majority of Inuit warriors had declined to go further into the hell created by the humans, the facility that had hosted many an 'inhuman' experiment on behalf of The Company, by the God's People Foundation.
"No treachery, Isabella..." Rosalie warned. They had travelled this far and this deep into the layer of their once faceless enemy and doubts amongst themselves would be their destruction. The howls and brutal snarls reverberated through the barrier, the sick scraping of claws and the thunder of large bodies ramming against each other.
"The door opens and Jacob and Atka, with Bradley and Collin charge in..." Edward relayed Jacob's instruction "They will not go deep and the Werewolves will flank them. It is best that we stay outside..." Edward finished sombrely.
"If we jam the door so it leaves a narrow opening, we can control who comes in and out while they get Charles..." Jasper loosened his muscles as he spoke, his fingers twitching and dark eyes excited. He had gone this far without satiating his thirst, although the blood had flown freely from many a human in the facility.
To him, that in its self had been a victory and a testament to where he was in his immortality and where he stood in Carlisle Cullen's family and principles. No one had yet been explained the absence of Carlisle, and Edward and Isabella had silently resolved that it would be detrimental to the rescue of their grandson as well as time consuming in relaying what had transpired in the laboratory... time consuming in the sense that, just like Edward, the rest of Carlisle's 'children' would want to seek him out, they would want to convince him of a different path...
They would not understand or believe Edward so readily in his description of the spiritual death of their father (it would be natural for them to refute a word Isabella would say on the matter).
"This is South America all over again..." Renesme whispered.
"No..." Emmett smiled at his niece, briefly holding her hand. "I can't say this is the same thing"
"Sure, we are rescuing yet another family member" Rosalie smiled "But we are all united..."
"Even with Isabella" Alice scoffed. She had not questioned Edward on the absence of their father, for she was a psychic and in her captivity in Volterra... she had had her vision, and she had known with Esme's death that there was little anyone could do to change that future.
Jacob let out a soft growl, pawing the ground and turning his head back at the army of large supernatural wolves and two polar bears bristling and awaiting.
"Yes, I agree" Edward chuckled "We don't have the best pre-war speech. Shall we begin?"
"Just a little tumble with giant wolves... you've done it before... all you have to do now, is avoid the teeth" Renesme chanted and a large grey wolf moved to her side, giving her a dubious look. She touched Leah's fur absently, ignoring the questioning looks she was receiving from three of Leah's packmates.
"These werewolves won't be like the ones you encountered in South America" Isabella said, pushing her voice out despite the discomfort she felt to be around all that hated her so explicitly. "Their eyes will not be black and they will not have collars around their necks. They will be wild, incompetent hunters... but best of all; their bite will not be poisonous"
"By 'not poisonous' you mean we will be able to reattach ourselves lest we find our limbs ripped away from our torsos?" Edward grumbled the memory fresh in his mind.
"Precisely" she deadpanned "But scars, I am afraid, will last forever"
The doors opened slowly, the automated sound somehow discernible through the steadily rising sound of a ghastly hidden scene. The wolves moved forward and the delectable vampires braced themselves at either side of the doors, awaiting the moment when the command to charge through would be shouted and they had to jam the doors.
From behind the doors, Charles Black's darkness was penetrated by a sanitary strip of light that confused the werewolves. He could see it splaying from the distance, briefly hidden by the jumbling bodies of the werewolves. It thickened and widened slowly, and in his mind... Jacob Black's voice boomed for him to prepare himself...
The authority and fortitude in his father's voice was so severe, that it could have been mistaken for an edict. An edict to live, to survive and to fight his way through the sea of death; they couldn't reach him, and he would have to meet them half way.
"That's all that is expected, Tanya..." Charles whispered, casually removing his pants and flexing his fingers. "We make it half way... they will provide more than enough distraction by simply opening that door and letting the combined waft of the Cullens sift through. It would be as easy as walking through a park"
"Bullshit" Tanya said "But we will get to the other side"
"Agreed" Charles let the unfamiliar heat travel through his body, closing his eyes and willing that the hunger not drive him insane just yet, although initial pain of the phase was close to doing just that "The grass is much greener there, after all"
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JACOB BLACK
Purpose.
I wondered if I would have been capable of leading them this far, of orchestrating this with Charles, of surviving eternity in a world were humans were turning into monsters...
Would I have survived this as Jacob Black, the old?
As the entrance widened, enough for one wolf to walk through, a mangle of shadows moved over it-disorganized and mindless, yellow eyes glowing in those shadows and serrated yellow teeth snapping.
The moment Atka and I can rush through, you jam the doors. I told Edward.
We braced ourselves, and when our animal minds calculated the width; we rushed forward. It mindless and fearless-Atka's fuel was probably the love he had lost in his mother's death and mine... well, this was my purpose. Charles survival, uniting my pack and protecting my tribe. We juggernauted through them and pushed a few of the werewolves back to allow the rest of the pack entrance, and they filtered through behind us and immediately set to work on the edges of our impenetrable ball. At the most, the werewolves were not interested in us save for that natural violence, that preternatural aggression...
At the most...
Mindless purpose.
Blood was in my mouth, my paws aching and vision flashing with yellow eyes and taut leathery skin. The blood was not my own, my paws ached from the force of swiping across an insignificant body, claws snagged with skin and flesh.
It was so easy to fall back into the brutality we had been in, back up top of this deep and endless hellhole. There truly was no need for a pep talk with the wolves, with the werewolves or with Atka and his fellow warrior. It was like dancing all over again; dancing with death and life, swaying to the sound of crunching bones and ripping flesh.
WHERE ARE YOU! I demanded of Charles, allowing him to see into my wry thought that he better not be bitching out. Collin was limping, retreating into the centre of our battalion and Leah was determined to die with her erratic movements.
STAY CLOSE, STAY TO OUR RIGHT, I pierced into Dominic's mind, but unlike Katherine who was all too willing to surrender her entire psyche, Dominic's instincts yet again veered him away from the pack and cajoled him to go to the darkness of those of his kind. He was moving away from us, the light behind us washing over him and conveying his marred bleeding face. He wouldn't be able to feel the pain, overtaken by the bloodlust that I had let him succumb to from the moment those vampires and werewolves had sprung from all manner of hidden places beneath the ice and through the building.
But if he strayed from us, if he wandered into the depth of those wild hungry werewolves alone and coated in a scent so thoroughly mixed with that of the pack... he would certainly die. The same thought reverberated through the pack, and most of them were ready to mourn him; species was always considered in the risk factor in the end-but Leah, pushed past Seth and let out a whine for his return...
I stalled; Atka pushing further than I-he ignored my hesitance and chewed easily through any daring werewolves, his massive body playing hugely on his side.
Clearwater...! I hissed, watching as she inched further away, watching as Dominic's battling with two werewolves turned bad; watching as Seth moved towards his sister. They were breaking the battalion, those motherfucking impulsive Clearwaters and that masochistic Dominic...!
Atka, slow down, I have to fix the brigade otherwise we are going to have some casualties...!
Jacob, I see your packmate ahead...Atka had slowed but the clever little legion battalion was shattered as his fellow polar bear rushed to back him up... and we were all left as easy pickings. If there is one universal intelligence, its opportunity and the werewolves sensed it almost immediately.
They lunged, dragging Dominic further into the shadows, his writhing and snapping turned futile almost immediately as a horde of beasts covered him from sights.
Jake...! Collin yelled in fright, but he was safe. Bradley and him, as irritating as they were, were the only ones who understood sticking together. I ignored his yell and panic and moved forward to Dominic, ignoring Atka's question on what had happened and the mental image he sent me of a phased Charles tearing his way through werewolves.
Clearwater one and two, lead Katherine with you and go and back up Atka dammit, I'll take care of Dominic... I hissed and when they ignored me I added, Atka is near Charles...!
Leah barely threw Dominic's oncoming death a glance as she bounded alongside Seth to the easily discernible white fur ahead.
The moment Tanya moves out of that hole, we have to bolt because this is going to get ugly... I breathed, fighting the werewolves off Dominic, and the moment Dominic was free... he lunged at me.
Dude, it's me... It was a dumb thought to think to him, my own ignorance that werewolves didn't think in words or emotions but purpose.
STOP. I threw the thought into his mind, loud and packed with 'no take backs' and he whimpered, shaking his head in pain. Fuck! I hate doing that...
Jacob! Charles roared. I saw it in his mind, Tanya on his back-the vampire turning him into a silver dish topped with venom as a main course. I couldn't see him, only an excited mass of werewolves killing themselves to get to something... to him... to Tanya.
Edward, we are coming...and there won't be time to close those doors...! I hissed and then, with little care for the volume of my tone, I announced. Everyone, leave...
Already at the door, boss... Collin thought grimly.
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The run out of the level was much more gruesome to entering it.
Everyone had their share of the fight; blood was everywhere and behind us, around us... the werewolves followed. They diminished in numbers, distracted by other vampires, distracted by each other and humans... but the majority tailed us.
And with each level we passed, they got closer.
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There was no other way out.
They had run out of the facility as though hell was what they were leaving but the fatal truth was that hell was what stood between them and freedom. A clash of malevolence melted the ice; blood, venom and corpses. Vampires, werewolves and humans; fighting to survive, fighting for dominance... killing and ripping. Screams and roars; gunshots and death.
"Shit" Edward swore as he gazed at the barricade of death. His first thought went to Renesme, trickled to Charles and in the background of it all he found himself searching for Angela Weber's thoughts. Had they escaped this... had they made it out, to the safety of the far off Inuit tribe, as Jacob Black had promised?
He did not have the luxury of dwelling on that. He knew that they would look to him for survival, he was now the head of the Cullen Coven.
"We have an advantage over them" Jasper said quickly, pointing to the left were three werewolves ripped a fellow of their species to pieces; each one had sunk its teeth into some appendage of the miserable beast, and they proceeded to pull in opposing directions. In a second, thick repugnant blood exploded as the dead werewolf was dismembered into thirds. Renesme looked away, burying her head into her father's shoulder.
"We are united..." Edward agreed and unheard to the vampires, Jacob Black agreed too. "But we have a disadvantage too, Jasper... we are vampire and we are all over half a century old. Our venom..."
Edward pointed to the right, were four werewolves had paused their feasting of human soldiers to stalk towards them "Our venom... is entirely more potent than the vampires they kept here"
"I never thought the day would come when I would be considered appetizing" Rosalie whispered.
"You're always considered appetizing, my love" Emmett entwined his fingers with his eternal loves dainty ones "But the day you get served to any beast that is not me... well, that won't be today. It won't be ever"
"We have no choice but to take care of them" Isabella breathed.
"Take care of them?" Edward raised an eyebrow but Jacob called his attention with a low growl. The werewolves were inching towards them, blood and silver dripping from the muzzles and eyes glowing yellow with greed.
The pack, werewolves and polar bears had formed a barrier around the vampires, Renesme and Charles but it was barely enough. Every being would be called upon to protect themselves as well as the whole.
"Kill them" Rosalie clarified Isabella's suggestion "They will follow us whichever way we run…"
"They will follow us alone" Emmett breathed. "I say we split up…"
"Splitting up is the best we can do" Edward said quickly. "Renesme you will go with the pack"
"Charles..." Renesme began.
"If his four legs weren't a dead giveaway, sweetie" Rosalie said "He is part of the pack"
"They will follow us" Edward said "If we run north...we can escape in the water"
"We'll it's too late for a vote…" Jasper drawled, flipping his gaze up in time to spot a torpedoing werewolf ramming into the side of a Polar Bear but before Edward could shout out, "Run..." Isabella had already broken away from the safety of their group.
"No... No..." Edward chanted as he wrestled with the beasts hind legs while Collin pulled it off the polar bear. They had to at least move in a unified front out of the werewolf infested space but Isabella's disbanding had left her a single target and Edward watched in terror as a werewolf tailed her...
And Renesme followed to the rescue of her mother.
"Fuck!" Emmett hissed, tailing his niece. The beast collided with Isabella, who let out a deafening screech of terror before Renesme ploughed into it-disorienting it.
"My arm...!" Isabella cried but she silenced instantly as she saw why the werewolf had released her. She saw her only daughter caught in the vile creatures muzzle and watched in blessed despair as it clenched and unclenched its jaws; her daughter's blood spluttering and trickling from its lips and Renesme failing to open its muzzle and release herself, coughing out blood.
Isabella rose from the ground shakily and determined but the moment she was upright, she was ploughed down by another werewolf.
No...! Charles cried but as he made for his mother, three vampires-eyes dark and demented, intercepted him and wrangled with the werewolf that had his mother in its jaws; they fought for the blood the beast was squeezing out of Renesme Cullen's body, the blood that was cooling immediately on the ice and wasted so uncouthly.
Charles tailed them, grabbing one vampire in his jaws but it smacked his head and when the light bulbs flashed and exploded in his mind, pain soaring in-the vampire kicked his side viciously and sent him sliding across the ice. It grinned at him, its lips tinted crimson even in the darkness but as it made its way to him, Leah Clearwater leapt up and with an snatched it up into the air before catching it once more and tossing her head easily left; sending its head tumbling from its shoulders and landing at the paws of another werewolf.
"Edward!" Rosalie cried. She was failing to keep the werewolf from feasting on a moaning Isabella and she knew if she released the ugly tail... that would be the end. "I can't... I have to..."
As Rosalie battled with the decision of saving Isabella's life in the wake of Renesme's impending death in the jaws of a werewolf(a battle that was not winning in favour of Isabella), Jacob Black rammed into the beast that held Nessie and fought it, along with the two vampires that were fighting for the addictive blood of a half vampire.
"God!" Edward fist went through the skull of the werewolf and as he felt the mushy hotness of its brain, the beast shimmered and it boiled before its whole form retreated into the shape of a gaunt pallid man... with its head surrounding Edward's curled fingers. He pulled his hand out, not caring for the blackened blood covering his hands and ran to his daughter and Jacob.
"Argh!" he clawed at the male vampires face, hooking his finger through its eye and gripping. Edward pulled it off Jacob's back and wrestled it away from him before tossing it to an awaiting Emmett. "Finish it!" he commanded, returning to Jacob Black and taking care of the second vampire.
"Renesme is free!" Isabella shouted, holding her daughter in her small arms while Rosalie surveyed the damage that her niece had received.
"Jacob?" Renesme breathed, peeking through her eyes in time to see Edward and Emmett pushed away from Jacob Black by two werewolves, and Jacob Black being swarmed by three other werewolves. "Jacob!"
She watched as Leah and Charles attacked the throng of mangy fur that had covered Jacob Black's form, she watched as anonymous vampires had intercepted all rescue attempts-trying to feed on the blood of Jacob, she thought, as the humans had either retreated or been killed and drained.
"Argh!" she fought her way out of her mother's arms but failed to move past Rosalie. "JACOB!"
He wasn't her Jacob, he wasn't Leah's Jacob... he wasn't anyone's Jacob as he lay under the heap of hungry demented beasts that were drawn to life and death equally. He was Jacob the irritating, Jacob the immature... simply and perfectly Jacob; and he was about to be killed again because of her...
"No...!" she tried again to fight them off of her, to free herself so she could save him. She couldn't feel the itch across her stomach from where the werewolves teeth had sunk into her, she couldn't feel the flash of hot pain running along her back that told of a damaged spine, she didn't notice that blood kept gurgling up her throat...
"JACOB!"
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ANGELA WEBER
There was no other way for this to have ended, I supposed.
Blood, bodies and death. Werewolves, vampires and… polar bears? We were hidden behind an over turned snow truck, as though that would do us any good in the midst of this chaos. The two Quileute wolves were half naked and trembling in front of us-fighting to not phase. Violence was alluring, killing addictive.
"It won't be long until the sun comes out…" the new girl said. "They…" she cocked her head to the east, to the sight of two werewolves ripping another werewolf in half "They will be human once more and they…" she flicked her eyes up, at two vampires trying to ward off a group of werewolves "They will either stick around to feed on them, which I doubt thanks to those…" now she looked at the highly organised humans and their rifles "Or leave"
"Or leave" I said stiffly. "And us?"
"We go to the village" the taller Quileute said, turning around and looking at me carefully. "Jake's orders were to take you to the village immediately"
"The village?" Annabelle asked but the two wolves backed away from the truck and led us through the darkness, further away from the chaos.
"Can we trust them?!" Annabelle hissed. Her and I were still holding hands, united in our fear and forever bonded by what we had been through, since joining The Company and after its facility.
"Out of everyone..." I breathed, stopping as the two men stopped. "I'd trust anyone that took orders from one Jacob Black"
"Hey!" the new girl yelped when they began taking their pants off.
"A bit of privacy...?" the taller Quileute-the one with the same light in his eyes like Jacob-chuckled, although nothing about his reprimand sounded offended.
"What are they doing?" Annabelle whispered, the other girl suddenly taking my other hand and muttering that 'On top of everything, I get raped...'
"They are giving us a ride to the village, I suppose" I said and in a second there was movement in the air, so different to the supernatural violence behind us. It was a shimmer, a wobble in the fabric of our world and in the second it happened, the sound of a heavy being landing on four feet accompanied it.
I had never really seen a wolf before and maybe this wasn't really the same as seeing due to the darkness we were in, but the presence of one was... magical. It wasn't like with the werewolf or a vampire-they seemed... vastly celestial and yet more natural, standing there beside us.
"I didn't bargain for this" the girl muttered. "This... what is this?!"
"You take freedom, in all its shapes" I breathed, scampering onto the wolf's back. "No intolerance against the supernatural, you should have learnt that back in the boot camp"
Xx~xx~xX
The village was unassuming. Tiny and quaint, oblivious to the death rolling out a few miles from it. As we arrived, a few giant Polar Bears appeared; they seemed to rise up out of the snow... their fur shimmering silver with the rays from the rising sun.
We were greeted by more than a dozen people, all speaking a foreign language and all looking amongst us for their loved ones. The Bears phased out, the wolves too... and soon, the men had formed a parley outside a large hut.
"It's over" I told Annabelle. I gave her a side hug, which she received wiling enough although her eyes had not stopped their staring of the large animated discussion between the men. "Honey, let's just stay out of it" I whispered "We have done our part"
"I never thought I would be a part of this?" she said, letting me lead her away. "I never thought I would be... here. The Manor had been my world... my heaven and my hell"
"Welcome to reality then" I chuckled. "Let it be your purgatory"
"You are both human" our new acquaintance announced.
"And you aren't?" I asked her.
She looked down at herself, clutching her injured arm and scowled. "No..." she said angrily and then she looked up at us, her eyes were still hard "Although I had believed I was for so long. My name is Maria, I grew up in Chicago and go to a high school there. I have a mother and a father, I have a family and a pet. One day... I was kidnapped... and then, well..." she looked back the way we had come, to the too far away facility, her prison "I realised I wasn't human"
"There is another like you!" I told her "His name is Charles... was he with you, in the laboratory you were held in?"
"We were only girls and I am pretty sure I was the only one of my kind..." a hint of disdain in her tone. She raised her arm and pointed at a trail of crescent shaped scars "And I suffered for it" she finished bitterly. "Each day, I had to survive... from humans and from them"
"Angela!" Annabelle hissed "The tall wolf is calling you..!" I looked to where she pointed and sure enough, he stood away from the circle of men, waving his hand at me.
"You want to come?" I asked Maria and she nodded tersely, walking to my other side but unlike Annabelle who held my hand, she folded her arms over her chest defensively and eyed the wolf warily.
"Angela..." he said, meeting us half way in three strides "I am Embry... I have heard about you..." he tapped the side of his head and grinned toothily "I am Jacob's second Beta"
"You wolves' sure look a lot alike" I smiled at him.
"Why?" he asked.
I pointed at him indicatively, then back at the other wolf and smiled "And I lived with Jacob for quite a bit..."
"We share blood" he said tensely, his smile vanishing. "The rest of the pack will be here soon"
"By the pack you mean...?"
"I mean the pack" Embry said, already backing up. "Jacob and Renesme were badly injured, I have to go. The chief wants us to stay a while... and I think it will do us good to do just that"
"What about Renesme's injuries?" I called out to him. "Hey, what about the Cullens?!"
At first, he appeared not to have heard me but when I began angrily following him towards the men, he paused and turned back swiftly, coming to stand too close by me.
"The Cullens?" he hissed into my ear "Are long gone into the waters. We have a delicate situation right here..." he nodded his head back to the huddled men. "One of their bear's was bitten, another is injured and we are bringing in a disembowelled half vampire who is going to need blood to heal!"
"Dis...?"
"And on top of that, there is the possibility that vampires will be tailing all that blood dripping over the ice and leading them here... and if vampires are tailing them... then werewolves will follow tonight!" Embry growled.
"I guess it's not over" Annabelle said wryly, backing away from Embry and I "I'm going to take a nap before I die... excuse me"
Xx~xx~xX
X
Xx~xx~xX
"You are an idiot" Leah told him. "You are such a bloody idiot! Always, you have to fucking intervene...!"
He wouldn't hear her, of course. He was deeply unconscious, his face barely recognisable and heart beating slow and weak. From across the snow compound, Leah could hear Renesme's pained moans as the Chief's medicine man cleaned out her wounds.
She could hear Charles trying to placate her, she could hear Katherine sobbing alone somewhere, she could hear Annabelle Erikson's heartbreaking reunion with Dominic... she could hear everything. She pressed her head against his pillow, by his head and whispered "Don't die on us, Alpha..."
"He won't" Embry told her, raking her hand. "He can't"
"Oh, but he can..." Leah looked up at Embry, not caring that he was witnessing the tears running over her face "There is no such thing as immortality!" Leah hissed "There is only prolonged living..." she finished miserably.
Renesme let out one walloping supernatural scream and when she was done, the outside quietened. For a minute, all she could hear was Jacob's slow weak heartbeat.
"It's venom" Billy whispered. He had been silent throughout the arrival of the pack; through the embraces, the fears and tears. "We die from venom..."
"I can't tell if I've sucked it all out!" Angela cried, her lips and around her mouth was stained red and in her hand she held a cup she had used to spit out Jacob's blood. But the wounds had been many, some of them had been open gashed and no one could tell which ones had been vampire inflicted or werewolves. "I don't know...!"
"Only a vampire can know if his blood is clean" Leah whispered. "But the number of bites he had... the time he had the venom inside of him..."
"What do we do?" Collin asked.
"What can we do?" Bradley sighed, sitting on the floor and cradling his head in his hands.
They listened in silence as Jacob's heart began to pound in long lethargic beats until finally; it let out three stutters and stopped all together.
Xx~xx~xX
"Hey..." he walked up to her slowly and she peeked up at him, before quickly wiping her tears away as well as her mouth... for the hundredth time. He sat down beside her silently, stretching his legs out in front of them and said nothing.
In a second, Renesme had roared in pain again and Charles had resumed his soft words of encouragement to his mother. The wild roars simmered down, and with them Charles words turned firmer and more enthusiastic.
"She's healing..." Seth told Katherine. "They cleaned her wounds out successfully..." he paused and exhaled sharply, his hot breath forming an almost tangible cloud in front of his lips.
Katherine sniffled, wiping her nose and trying to hide her mouth.
"It must have been something, huh?" Seth asked. "To wake up to this?"
"I was naked when I woke up" Katherine whispered "And I didn't realise I had blood on my face... when I got out of the hut... and the women saw me...!" she had resumed her violent wiping of her mouth and to Seth's horror, he realised that she had rubbed the skin around her mouth raw...
"Stop!" Seth hissed, taking her hands. "Katherine stop... you don't have blood on you...!"
"I had it...!" she sobbed, trying to fight him off of her "I could taste it! And Dominic..."
"He is with his sister!" Seth was caught between pulling her hands off her face and trying not to hurt her.
"He said I would his sister!" Katherine cried, tugging futilely and kicking at Seth "And Atka won't even look at me! He saw me... he knew what I was...! I can't ever remember anything...!"
"It's better that way" Seth pulled her to his chest and cradled her. She let out a half hearted push before settling herself in his arms, defeated.
"I am a monster..." she breathed. "I killed. I killed... I did what those beasts did to my parents? I am a demon...!"
"No..." Seth kissed her hair. "You're just a tortured angel. And I am sorry for that"
Katherine quietened then, as loud mournful howls filled the air and echoed for minutes.
"What was that?" she whispered. She looked up at Seth's face and her heart clenched. "Seth...?"
Behind his fear, Seth was aware that she had called out to him directly. "That's the pack..." he told her. He rose from the ground, pulling her up with him and led them to the hut were Jacob Black had been in.
Inside, by his father's bedside, Charles Black lay awkwardly in Leah's arm, vicious sobs shaking through his body.
Xx~xx~xX
X
x
RENESME CARLIE CULLEN
It all seemed like a scary story told to children when they were naughty.
Beware, if you sin, death will come and find you riding on a vile beast from hell. Pain will embrace you if your transgressions were filled with tainted pleasures...
Have you sinned of late, Nessie?. It was Nahuel's voice, I knew it too well. It brought no comfort to me; it brought no warmth or safety. I was cold inside, over my stomach... everything ripped open, guts spilling and soul snatched away.
"I haven't..." my lips moved, the sound was carried into reality. I could feel self frown; I could feel the distinction between reality and my mind, but I couldn't tell were exactly my conscious stood in all of it.
Was I with Nahuel, in the black jeep driving down a bumpy road to Joham's club; about to be served to some ancient gorgeous man? Or was I alone in a dark room with my son-so much older and lovelier, staring at me with misery in his eyes and lips set hard and unforgiving.
"Have you sinned?" Charles lips moved but I knew that the words I had heard were not the words he uttered.
"No I haven't" I insisted and Charles face was covered in smoke, his green eyes piercing the opaque film before dimming to nothing, and in their place I found I was looking into Nahuel's eyes. Or at least, I had thought they were his eyes...
But then I had known those eyes since the moment I had gazed into them and they had tied me to the earth. They were Jacob's eyes... but not my Jacob, or Isabella's, or Leah's or anyone's Jacob. This was the new Jacob, the old Jacob; the angry Jacob, the passionate Jacob, the annoying immature and naive Jacob...
"Stupid mutt" I grumbled and he grinned. It was his sunshine smile; the true one that I had never witnessed. The one that wasn't coated in heartbreak or imprint just... Jacob being Jacob.
"He is gone" Jacob smiled sadly.
"What were you getting involved for?" I scolded him. "How many times to do I have to tell you to stay out of fights involving my mother...!?"
I remembered too late that he wouldn't remember me telling him that. To him, those ugly fights between Bella and I had never happened, he had never witnessed or participated...
"Even fights with werewolves..." I finished miserably.
"Mum?" Jacob said and I frowned. He sighed, touching my forehead with a cool hand and kissed me there. When I closed my eyes, I could feel him leave and soon the distinction between reality and my subconscious merged and my mind fell into a peaceful blackness.
Xx~xx~xX
I was alone when I woke up. The first thing I saw was the ceiling of the hut. This frightened me but then it all came rushing back to me; ice cold water in a bucket... poured right over my head with no warning.
I shivered.
Fear, misery, fear, pain... a mantra of emotions wrecked my heart, thrummed it too fast and loud for a good minute.
I removed the furs and surveyed my stomach; an ugly scar twinged red over my abdomen, healing inhumanly fast but still much slower than any wound I had ever had. I lay back down carefully, consoling myself that it was infinitesimally better than the flu.
They had left through the ocean, in the end... tailed by werewolves. Whatever vampires that were left, would be long gone by now; we would be safe but we needed to leave as soon as possible.
I rose up slowly, sure to wrap the wound back up properly. The hut smelt of incense and mints, and in one corner were cloths stained with blood. My blood. The blood made me realise how horribly thirsty I was...
It made me realise how much faster I would have healed if I had had blood, but they wouldn't have known that and I wouldn't have told them that.
"Leah?" I peeked my head outside and saw three women-Inuit, I guessed-busying themselves with some chore. They looked at me warily and I wondered if they had tales of evil succubus as the Quileute did? Had they heard the latest one on the half demon woman who had driven a wolf insane with heartbreak through the woods...?
The ice felt cold... on a human level. I needed blood, I was horribly weak.
"Leah?" I called. "Charles?" I tried. I tried focusing on my mind, but all that made me realise was the thirst was drenched with a human dehydration too. "God... it would be just like them to leave me the moment they knew I wasn't dying. Poisoning my son's mind while they were at it..."
I ignored the wary stares I got; the rambling pale woman shuffling through the snow. I had had worse stares... I had been in a fish tank, naked.
"Charles!" I called but it was Seth that I saw, with Katherine huddled at his side. "Have you seen... my...s-s..."
"He is in there" Seth sighed, pointing at a hut to his left. He said nothing further, watching me carefully as I walked away. Katherine made to follow but when she realised Seth wasn't about to come inside the hut too, she retreated back to his side... allowing him to put his arm around her.
The door was rickety and creaked loudly when I pushed it open. The inside was musty, shadows overlapping shadows but in the corner, by Jacob's bed, was a little lamp giving a meagre light. Charles sat still by his side, staring at Jacob's face.
"Why did you not answer me?" I asked him. I stopped by the edge of the bed, trying not to look at Jacob's face.
"I... didn't know if..." his voice was hoarse, cracking painfully. He stopped talking altogether and looked up at me; his green eyes so dark, a sheen of moisture over them and purple bruises buried so deep under his eyes.
"If you could speak?" I finished. I didn't want to look at Jacob. My heart was racing, pushing against my chest and the wound on my stomach and the punctures were the werewolves teeth had gotten into; they all hurt at the same time. My heart, the wounds, my soul...
"Where..." I looked around us dumbly, as though Leah could actually remain unseen to me, even if my senses were dulled "Where is Leah?"
"Wolf form" Charles said. "It's getting late... the pack thinks the werewolves that may have remained will come this way. And there is the problem of Katherine and Dominic..."
"I saw Katherine..." I began, pointing behind me. I couldn't finish; yes, she was active but no, she did not look okay. She was frail, sickly and had an insistent twitch... "Seth was..."
"Yeah, watching her" Charles said. He looked at me, then back down at Jacob... and when he returned his gaze to me, I shook my head sideways once.
"No" I told him curtly.
"Mother..." he whispered.
"NO!" I growled at him, suddenly so angry with him for trying to pull me to this... this... impossibility!
"It's the venom" Charles whispered fearfully, trying to implore me to the reality but afraid of what it would do to me. He looked at Jacob again, then back at me, his eyes brimming with pain "It was the venom"
"No..." I took a step forward and then another and in a flash, I was by Jacob's side. "I just saw him..."
"Where?"
"In my..." I pointed back, out to the cold world and back into my hut. "He was with me"
"That was me and you were delirious"
"NO!" I snarled, never looking at Jacob and glaring at Charles-I loved him, I hated the words he was fighting to let out and make me hear. I took Jacob's finger in my own, still looking at Charles and hissed into his touch, through his skin and carried the thoughts an demotions into his every nerve...
You stupid mutt, how dare you!
"The werewolf bites haven't healed yet..."Charles began.
"No"
"He... we couldn't get the venom out..."
"No...!"
"He has died, mother" Charles said. "My father... your..."
"He isn't mine!" I hissed, releasing Jacob's hand and finally facing his body. "You hear me? You were never mine...! So don't you dare..." I hit his arm, punched his chest and Charles scrambled to control me, wrestling me away from the body.
He flung me away in the end, but I managed to right myself and ran right back at Jacob "Wake the fuck up...!"
"Renesme...!" Charles cried "Stop it..." he was sobbing again but he couldn't contain me "Let him be!"
"Wake the fuck up! You did this death thing to me once, then twice and you think third time..."
"Geroffofmeyoucrazybitch!"
I was flung off, truly thrown through the air and went colliding with the side of the hut and when I fell down to the ground, the debris of the material crumbled over me and my stomach roared in pain.
"Your mother is crazy!?" Jacob Black stammered, standing naked in the far corner of the hut and clutching his chest. A red bruise blossomed over the skin there and he panted, before hunkering and wheezing "Bitch, you tried to kill me?!" he coughed hoarsely "You saw it... Charles...!?" he pointed at me and looked at Charles hopefully "She tried to kill me!"
"My mother is not to be referred to as bitch" Charles said robotically, staring at Jacob's form in mesmerised disbelief "But she can be a bit... crazy"
"A bit...?!" Jacob guffawed before letting out a painful dry cough without covering his mouth (his hands were currently hiding his private parts). I could discern the silver tint to his lips and with the memory of his dying in the kitchen, back on the farm after Jane's attack on his neck...
"Right" I looked at Charles, wiping my tears away quickly and backing out "Now that that little enigma is clarified... I shall return to my hut and recuperate further"
"Absolutely insane!" I heard Jacob tell Charles who hadn't said a word further "I'm getting a restraining order, I swear!"
Xx~xx~xX
X
Xx~xx~xX
LEAH CLEARWATER
"I like Dominic a little more now" Charles sighed. We watched Dominic fuss over his younger sister, very cynical girl who wouldn't stop staring at Charles. If she was so obviously not his type-queue in blonde Tanya, I would have chewed her out.
Or at least, bitten the leg that she kept making Dominic check, bitten it right off.
"You like him more because...?" I smiled at him and he grinned back, shaking his head.
" Those werewolves..." Charles shook his head. "They were... demented"
"I think people who don't participate in the werewolf wrangling team should not comment on werewolves" I said pointedly. "Unless you'll be phasing tonight?"
He tensed and shook his head once.
"Well, it won't be so bad now that Jake's... awake" he smiled. I tried not to pay too much attention to his hand holding my own hand for over ten minutes now. He did a good job of ignoring my insistent staring of our hands, even placing our joined hands on his knee and bouncing it up and down.
Jacob's death and resurrection had not been discussed and it seemed no one was willing to tell him off it. Only Angela and Renesme had said anything on the matter, both stating how this had not been the first time.
"Awake, huh" I chuckled. "An Alpha that keeps coming back like a freaking terminator...? Doesn't get better than that; Bears can go suck it"
"Don't say that!" Charles puckered. "I had to suck venom out of that guy's thigh!"
"Did he at least take you to dinner for it?" I smiled and he gave me his small smile, the shy one. The new one that made my heart inflate and burn up. I ignored it(only because I wanted to keep my sanity), and looked at Seth. "Look" I nudged Charles.
Seth was caught in a weird place; Katherine's new best friend, to replace Dominic. In between her werewolf shakes, she was barraging Seth on advice on how she could approach the topic of her little ailment to her first kiss, Atka the not-so-cute-and-cuddly Polar Bear.
"Talk about Karma, eh?" Charles chuckled.
"Karma is Renesme being thrown through a wall!"
"I said against a wall, Clearwater!" Charles sighed "Not through! Good Lord, you can edit!"
The fire crackled lazily, its warmth never really felt by anyone and we silently counted down the hours until Dominic and Katherine would be forced to succumb to their curse. They were a part of the pack, now more so than ever, and so suddenly and without warning, their curse had become ours and we had accepted it wholly.
Somewhere far off the Cullen's would be walking over a beach and making their way to Carlisle Cullen's holiday home in England and soon (predicted or not) our pack would be whole again.
AUHTORS NOTE:
THE END.