Disclaimer: Twilight is Stephenie Meyers... not mine. So don't sue me and all of that.

What I've been reading: Bonne Foi by Amethyst Jackson is delciously dark - also Vampire in the Basement by michellephants has my full attention - cuz I wanna know why Eddo has all the weird crap going on - and what's the mystery. I love a good mystery. So, check 'em out.

Once again, thank you for lovely reviews despite my insane cliffies.

Okay, so hopefully y'all won't hate me for the chapter below - I'm a bit nervous about the response to it, but it's how things were supposed to be, so let me know... And there are officially two more chaps after this.

Chapter 35: Resistance and Reminiscence

"Now lay quiet, and be a bonne fille," Bernie sang.

"No," I hissed.

"Fantastique," she muttered dryly.

And then she cracked my head against the stone.

I felt a splitting pain.

And then nothing.

Blackness and void.

A loud bang.

An aching pounding both from inside and out.

A ping and a smack, followed by a hyena shriek and the resounding echo of a lion roar.
A hiss of steam.
Pitter-patter and trickle water.
A crunch and groan.
Crumbling plunk-and-pink in the aftermath.

Wetness. A sliver of foggy grey.
Darkening back to blackness.
Wetness at my temple.
Fingers crawling in the dark—seeking.
My palm skidded along the stone floor: wetness on concrete, soupy grit.
Until fingers met the skin on my face.
No pain.

My eye lids parted.
Murk and gray and blur.
My vision was not clear.
The room was not clear.
Steam.
Haze?
A broken pipe, water everywhere—was disappearing through a drain in the center of the room.

And curved hexagons, like arrows.
Grey silhouettes.
Flying. Twisting. Leaping.
Dueling like diving hawks.

The roars and shrieks again.
My name being yelled.
Once. Twice. Thrice.
"Nessie! Nessie! Nessie!"
A deep, caramel male voice.
Fuck.
It was still happening.

And then instinct and automation: I dodged white jaws and a whipping silver mane with a twist and slide. She followed me, but black hair and warm skin and teak eyes slammed her away into more hissing pipe work, and his teeth caught her shoulder.

She shrieked and turned on him.

Her teeth grazed his swinging forearm—and alarm swept through me.
But then I saw the others.
On her—collar, forearm. On him—just above the knee.
A battle of bites.
And Nahuel was unaffected.
Small miracles. The venom.
He was safe from that toxin at least.
But I was not.

And yet we had to take her down before—

Sounds from down the brick hall.
Estela.
A struggle. But no sound of…

Where was Jake?

There was no fourth body in the room—human or lupine.

Another shout from Nahuel.
"Estela—go, Nessie! ESTELA! GO!"

And I was down the hall, breezing past door after door following the sounds to the origin. At the door, I halted, peering in through the small circular window to see Estela flipping through the air, the top part of her dress ripped, the top curves of her breasts burgeoning, and yet she was dancing and dodging with every ounce of skill.

Olivier lunged—and she had to dodge his assault.

I made to pull the door open, but the handle merely groaned and bent instead of pulling door open—the lock was connected to a pressurized lever which relied on a cast-iron wheel to unlock it.

I spun the wheel clockwise until I heard it click.
A whoosh sounded as I yanked open the pressurized door.

And then I was in the room, and then I was rolling on the floor.
I had to, because Olivier sprang after me.
An icy hand caught the bottom of my dress, a long white ribbon ripped away.

A tinkling of dislodged bells pinging off the walls.
I evaded another swipe, spring to the right and running along the wall.
Olivier, faster, gained on me.

But was cut off by Estela catching his arm.

A bite.
The scent of venom leaking out of the wound.

Now that we both were here…
But we had to avoid the venom.
Catch him from the sides.
Not unlike the wolves.

And I had my power.

So I jumped behind Olivier, my hand skirting his upper back.
He retaliated by back-kicking me into the wall.
But I had redirected his focus.

Estela was not where he thought she was.

It worked.
She caught him again.
A finger flew plunked into the bricks on the opposite wall.
The ensuing growl and snarl seemed to shake the room.
Estela barely evaded Olivier's jaws, but his hand foot caught her back and sent her smack into the far wall.

I rushed at him.
But he sidestepped, dancing away.
And then it seemed like he was going to charge me.

But there was another sound.
A sound audible over the echoing fight down the hall.
A familiar though distant creak and then a double pound and the soft screech of rubber against metal.

Olivier grinned. A wicked all-knowing grin.
He faked like he was going to lunge.

But instead he punched a large pipe in the corner.
Water exploded out, hammering the opposite wall.

And then Olivier was out the door.
A quarter second spin of the wheel and then the click and lock.
"Enjoy the water my little flowers," he cooed through the portal.
And then another sound. A crack and a clanging.
My mind registered it only as he Olivier disappeared.
He had broken off the wheel outside.
The door: three inches of pressurized metal.
The whole room functioned as a tank.

We would have to break through.

"Nahuel's solo against los dos!," Estela screamed, throwing her body against the door.
A ringing crack made the whole room shudder.
The door bent.

But the water had reached our knees.
Busting open the door was swiftly getting harder.
I made the next attack.
A deep groan and a deeper bend.

Water at our waists.

Estela threw herself off of the opposite wall, shooting like an arrow over the jet from the pipe and piercing the metal of the door—a shot fired from a cannon.
The top of the door gave way under her force.
Bent at a thirty-five degree angle.
We needed more.

Water at our necks.

And we both pounded at the metal.
Smashing with our fists until it bent more and more.

And then… it was enough.
Estela leapt off my shoulders and into the hall.
Sopping and weighed down, I kept at her heels.

And as I turned—I really heard it…

The slick swish of another body coming down the chute.
And the smell: woodsy, musky, warm swept out from the vent.
Not Nahuel.
Olivier had not run because of Nahuel.
The noise had been Jake.

Jake.
Jake couldn't come down the vent as a wolf.
He was too big as a wolf.
He had to slide down as a human.

And Olivier was waiting.

But then another shock.

Estela, in rounding the corner first, met with Bernie—Nahuel was trying to get at Olivier.

He was trying to get Olivier away from the vent, while watching his back.

Bernie bit Estela.
Estela's mouth opened in a scream that didn't arrive.
Bernie's teeth caught her upper thigh and sank in.
I sprang.
I leapt at the Bernie in the same sixteenth of a second that Nahuel did.
I caught the vampire's legs at the same time that Nahuel caught her throat.
I held.
He ripped and tore.

Silver hair sailed across the room like an angry storm cloud.
The marble body stayed in our hands.
Estela lay breathing heavily, lifeless on the grimy brick floor.
Wild eyes undead in their emptiness.
Nahuel was already finding the outline of her wound.
He was going to get it out.
Estela would be saved.

Just—must—had to—Olivier.

Another sound.
A human yell already fading into a howl—and I turned.
As I leaped.
As my heart blasted in pain.
As the smell of blood fired in my nostrils.
And fur and nails and snout erupted.

I bit into Olivier's neck but gained no purchase.
But I did free Jake.
A half second soon enough.

But I gained no purchase because Olivier jumped back, slamming both of us into the wall.
In front of me—Jake was a wolf.
But his back leg—bleeding.
And the venom. Fucking venom.

And there we were:
Nahuel frantically trying to save his poisoned sister.
Jake—the strongest of us—bleeding soundly from a poisonous gash in his hind leg in the corner.
I was the only one left standing.
Besides Olivier.

And Olivier turned on me, his hands grabbing my neck and trying to hold me steady as his teeth neared my throat. His eyes blazed. I moved to snap at him—but then his expression changed. His eyes seemed to burst from black to red to white, and then he ran—with me—a splashing, dead sprint down the rapidly flooding hall.

An outraged howl ricocheted down the hall after us.

And then we were at the end of the hall, around a corner, and at the end of the passageway, a ladder on the wall and an open hatch above us, and Olivier leaped.

But I threw my arms out—stopping the both of us from fitting through the three foot diameter above.
And so we crashed to the floor instead.
I prepared to fight—I expected him to repeat the scene from the lighthouse.

Instead he whispered an uncanny thing.
"Just kiss me—and it will be over."
I lifted my head up, my eyes blinking open in wary surprise—but there was no sign of attack.
Just a steady black-eyed stare.
Some strange desperation.
But not the trickery I expected.

And I heard the words from down the hall.
Estela's weak voice—telling them, "Fine, now go."

So, I kissed Olivier.
Because I needed time.
And because I couldn't beat him the normal way.
I kissed him and filled his mind with heat and jungle and dark and balmy velvet—but then I felt him pulling away; he was starting to focus on running with us again, forcing us through the hatch, so I kissed him harder, pressing myself against him, and showing other images—a dark room with scarlet furnishing, a blazing fire, and candles everywhere.

But then I felt him shake his head slightly. "Mountains, ocean, cottage," he murmured against my lips—and unexpectedly, he said it not with menace but rather a nostalgic longing.

I complied, ever the more focused on the task as my eyes focused on the two shapes soundlessly sweeping down the passageway toward us.

I pushed my images as deep as they would go: a country cottage with a thatched roof and walls of uneven stones, a valley reborn in the spring with blades of grass still emerald bright, violet mountains with iced peaks slicing through low hanging cumuli, and against it all, the infinity of the cerulean ocean—and against me, I felt Olivier respond, kissing feverishly—I had to flinch slightly as his bottom teeth pressed down too roughly—and yet still there was no violence.

And then Nahuel and Jake stood directly behind us—their breathing and the smell of Jake's blood potent at the hall's end. I expected Olivier to jump—to attack—he knew they were there.

He pulled his face back and stared at me determinedly. "I would never have made it through that hatch with the both us." And he pressed his lips against my gaping expression a final time, and my eyes popped in shock.

In the next quarter second, Jake ripped his head off.

A sphere of white and black flying and sinking in the rising water.

I threw myself back, pressed into the wall—sobbing furiously, for whom or for what didn't seem to matter anymore—perhaps in shock—because the wrongness of everything wasn't forgotten. I became vaguely aware that Nahuel was talking, "…Estela…be okay, but…needs to get that gash cleaned… Carlisle …know… burn… not here… the whole system… need to move… !"

My head shot up.
My eyes immediately looked to Jake.
Jake hadn't phased.
His leg.
The wound.

I pressed my palm to his ear. I love you. He dropped his head, a weak nod, and then I crouched down to examine his leg.

"Does it chill?" I asked, staring at the wound.

Jake's russet snout shook from side to side.

"It burns?" I asked fearfully.

Another weak nod—and then a tremble.
And more trembling.

I looked up at him in concern. "Jake, you shouldn't phase now—you'll heal faster if you—"

But then the lupine body shook even more furiously until the mass of fur and strength seemed to automatically retract into itself.

And once again, Jake stood in human form.
He stared at me for a long second.
"Ow," he whispered.
"Jake, are you…?"
I caught him before he could fall into the rising water.

I held him close, jumping easily to the next level.
I barely noticed Estela and Nahuel following.
They held heads and torsos in their arms.
I didn't look at the faces.

Before we could even emerge from the public water works building above, my family burst into the room—exploding with questions and too many eager-to-help hands. I avoided them, looking for my grandfather and refusing to let go of Jake. I only released him when I felt Carlisle's gentle pull and soothing words.

The rest of the events didn't make sense to me—a weak Estela biting my arm—my blank stare as Carlisle injected my blood into Jake. Jasper and Alice retrieving the heads and bodies and smaller vampire bits from Nahuel and Estela. Something about Emmett taking a swim to fix the city's plumbing.

I didn't try to make sense of the events, because I had one focus: I was focused on Jake.

I released a long breath when his jagged breathing finally leveled out again.

My mom patted my arm, "He's going to be okay, Ness."

We drove home.
My parents sat in the front, dad driving.
Jake was stretched across my lap in the back of the car—still unconscious.

On the opposite river bank, I saw the fire raging.

The glow flickered across the glass windows.

And when I took a breath—sickening incense crammed the air.

***