Darkness. Only darkness.
Then something. A feeling. Small at first, then greater, more urgent. A tugging in my gut. Like the floor falling away, like sinking into space. Black, blacker, blackest. Later, there's a sliver of light. It stretches out across my vision until it's ripping and tearing, sending the shadows haemorrhaging from everywhere at once. It all fades in and out, keeping perfect time with the throbbing in my head. The world feels wet, cold, and blue all-over. Blue sky, blue hands, blue lips. I scrub at my eyes with stinging fingers, useless from the chill, and find myself sitting in a sea of stars. Not stars. Snow. It sparkles in every direction, blinding and white, numbing my legs, soaking my skin. I make three failed attempts at standing before I hear the voice.
"Hello, young thing."
Two cloaked figures, hand-in-hand, stand perfectly still behind me. I do not know which of them spoke, but it is clear that neither is entirely human. The pair are small and strange. Bodies petite, cheeks plump. Remnants of their stolen youth. When I open my mouth to respond, the noisy, uncontrollable chatter of my teeth seems deafening.
"It will freeze... it will die," one says.
"Oh, it will die," the other responds, "but we still have time." Their faces turn back to me, blank, unblinking. "Do you know who we are?"
I shake my head, no.
"Do you know what we are?"
One nod, yes.
The inquirer smiles. She tells me that I may call them Jane and Alec, that they are here on Volturi business. I am that business. "There are laws, young thing. You broke them; you, Carlisle, and his mangy brood."
What exactly does it cost me to know your secret? Alice: brutal and beautiful, I wonder if she saw me here, on my knees. I wonder if she saw me die. Whatever lenience her affiliation with the Volturi affords the Cullen's does not seem to extend to me. They mean to punish me, to snatch away my life like a simple petty theft. At the top of a tree, at the edge of a building, in the hands of a monster I had wished for death. But now, with my palms pressed to my chest, I can feel my brothers heartbeat. I'm sorry, Luc. Sorry that I couldn't save you, sorry that I couldn't save myself.
"Make it quick, make it clean," the boy says.
"No. We make an example. They overstep their bounds. The law is immutable."
My veins begin to itch. My skin heats, sweats. And then my mind is on fire. Everything ceases to exist beyond the cutting, the burning, the constricting; a pain so pure it is beyond imagining. A stream of relentless torment floods my body and saturates my psyche. I can hear myself screaming, feel it tearing up my throat, rushing between gritted teeth. When I am certain I will die, the agony wanes. I breathe. I cry. I fall onto my hands and knees, shaking and shivering, the snow stained pink with blood. And though I would swear to the reality of every slice, every rupture I endured, I can see no visible wounds. Then I taste it. Coppery and foul, blood oozes from my eyes, my nose, my ears. The agony of Jane's gift is unfathomable. This will not be quick. This will not be clean.
Behind her, the boy stands motionless—this is not his crusade, is not his choice—yet there he is, at her heels like a shadow. Now I see them for what they are. Not just demons made of living stone, but family. He will let me die to please her. Somehow, sickeningly, I understand.
I cough into my hands, splatter them with gore all warm and sticky. "I had a brother. I used to follow him everywhere. Until I didn't... until I couldn't. I loved him more than anyone, more than anything. I just wanted him to be happy."
He looks at me. It's the first time I've really felt the weight of his gaze. It is pained, and ancient, and powerful. I am not foolish enough to imagine it may also be merciful but there is something, something when he speaks again. "Return it to its patriarch, or deliver it to our masters. I do not wish to linger here."
"No. What? No!" Her first loss of composure. A naked stutter of fury.
"This is not how it's done," he says, "the law is immutable."
Pacing, clutching, hungry, and hollow. She seethes in silence for one minute, then two. There's a low growl to signal her approach, a guttural sound that vibrates through her lips and struggles to pierce the freezing winds. When I think I have mustered the courage to speak again, she grabs at my collar, gathers it tightly in her fist, and hurls me through the air. Beneath me, the snow glitters like smashed glass; above me, the cloudless sky is blue, then purple, then blue, then black. The descent is fast. Too fast. I drive into the snow with my shoulder, my cheek. There's a sound like a snapping twig, a rush of warmth as I bleed anew. I cannot move. Not an arm, not an inch. Sinking deeper, snow fills my mouth, my nose until it is all I can breathe.
I am plucked from the frost, gathered up like a child. The one who carries me has dark skin, blanched a peculiar olive by his undead curse. Deducing what he is is simple enough. The eyes are a giveaway; where Bella's are a ruddy brown, his are as vivid as sour cherries. The cloak across his shoulders is dark and familiar - Volturi. Another. More. Always more. I may never escape them. He seems to find my sobbing and shaking as unwelcome as I do. There is little I can do to halt either. My head lolls to the side and I see another figure, clad in black, forging the path ahead.
Struggling is futile. I try it just the same. And though I doubt he struggles to restrain me, he stops. He places me on the ground in a jumble of limbs. In three deft swipes he removes his cloak, wraps me in it, and has me back in his arms. He tells me to be still. He tells me we are friends.
We travel through the woods. The trees grow thicker and taller, cluster together until we're weaving between them at an entirely human pace. We stop at a cabin. It exists in a clearing so small and perfectly formed that I have no doubt it was created to hide this place from sight. Its log walls are mouldy and grey, the front of it barely wide enough to contain the single door and shuttered window. Inside is as sparse and colourless. The only reprieve - a dimly glowing fire. My captor deposits me there and flees the cabin, leaving me alone with his companion. She turns to me then, and I find myself staring blearily at the face of Alice Cullen.
"I'm sorry, Lena. I know you have a million questions, and I'll answer what I can later, but I can't wait here with you. There's too much... much too much... I'm sorry." She disappears in a blur, desperate to escape the much-too-much blood that drains from my body, soaks the boards beneath me.
Later, there's a tinny little sound like a voice from a radio. It crackles like static in my ears, urges me to open my eyes. I do. Carlisle Cullen—patriarch and protector—kneels before me, probes at my skull with practised hands. He removes my clothes, strips me down to my underwear with less regard for my pride than my health, and begins. There are needles to numb and stitches to bind. Limbs are stretched, muscles flexed, and tissue tested. When his work is complete I notice the moonlight, pale and silver. The dying of the day.
"How long?"
Though it is barely a question, he intuits my meaning well enough. The tinny fizz of his voice grows thicker, more real. "You went missing yesterday. Alice and Demitri found you."
He spends some time helping me dress. The clothes, he tells me, Bella picked from my bag. The largest, warmest things she could find. I fumble with the laces of my boots, my discoloured fingertips struggling to comply. This task he completes for me too, before guiding my hands into a bowl of water warmed on the hearth. He gathers up the bloodied gauze and cotton, pitches them into the fire. Then, my clothes. I want weep and wail, to thrash about, but all I do is stare. My dead brothers sweatshirt smoulders, then sparks. Soon it will be gone. Ash and dust like he will be. The patriarch leaves me alone with my thoughts, my pain, my burnt and blistered skin.
When the mess of my mortality is squared away, his family arrives. Bella rubs at my hair with a damp cloth while Edward stares through narrowed eyes. It's a familiar expression. He picks my brain clean, pinches his face in displeasure. Jasper and Alice chatter softly. The only evidence of this exchange are quivering lips and hurried glances. She smiles at me, small and lovely, with a hint of condescension. He does not meet my gaze. I've never seen a thing more captivating than the two of them. She's a jar of starlight, he's a ray of golden sun. Together they are heaven. Last is Demitri, the Volturi who calls himself my friend. I track the line of his body—curved and lean—to find his hand entwined with Alice's. There is no great mystery as to what brings him here. It is love. As clear on his face as the moon in the sky.
Alice tells me she is sorry. She stutters and stammers in her human affectation. This guise is just one of many - a soft and humble skin to make me feel bigger, feel braver. And I do. "It wasn't supposed to be like this. I didn't see- Don't know how I missed it." She kneels before me, hardly deterred by my conspicuous flinch. "You don't have to worry about Jane anymore."
"She's gone?"
As Alice answers 'yes', Jasper responds 'no'.
"We don't know how Jane found out about you," Edward says. "Alice will speak to the Volturi, she'll explain your situation. Whatever decision there is to be made, we still have time."
"My situation?"
The room floods with silence. It comes up to my chin, laps at my lips, threatens to sweep me away. Bella ceases her grooming and stares into the fire. I look at her face, all perfect and pale, and void of pretence. No more holding hands, no more climbing trees, no more laughing until our lungs ache. I am wrecked. I am ravaged. Whatever secret she still keeps could be the one that finally kills me. Though I should have seen it sooner, it is only now that I realise just how unsuited I am to keep her company. I am a gentle heart, wrapped in the softest skin, far too fragile for games such as these.
"Fine. But why not just kill me? Why drag me all the way out to... wherever the hell we are?"
"Too close to home," she says, "we're not her only enemies out here. She can't afford to get caught by the pack."
The pack. I think of Jacob—the boy, the wolf, the warrior—trying so hard to warn me from danger. He was right. Bella can't fix me, can't save me. She can barely keep me alive. "Should I- I mean- Is it too late for me to just drive home and pretend I don't know about any of this?"
"Could you?" The doctor asks.
I want to say yes; make the word like a box and stuff my concerns inside. But a lie like that is a considerable burden. My heart is heavy enough. Any lingering doubt dissipates as Edward and I respond in unison, "no."
They chatter on around me in a storm of words loud enough to hear, but too quick to comprehend. There is an itch under my skin. The smeary irritation of being spoken about and not spoken to. Wobbling lips, tapping tongues. These six strange things cast their shadows, roll their dice, decide my fate, and only one will look at me. Jasper. He approaches the fire. He stares at the odorous remains of my oversized sweatshirt as though it means something more than it does. For me, it is an ending. The bloody resolution of a weeks long nightmare. For him, it is Saturday.
He takes my hands in his. It is not a romantic gesture, it is not comfort or companionship. It feels dutiful, the way he examines my hands, the way he dries them gently and binds them loosely. But there is something intimate in his gaze. As though he stares in to the centre of me until he sees the light inside. The astronomical light that flares and burns, that heats my chest with each press of his skin to mine. But it isn't real. It can't be. No blush on my cheek or swell in my chest should survive his brutal past. My fragile skin and feeble bones barely survive his present. I was a fool to build a heart of twigs - too easy to burn, too easy to break. More foolish still to give it to him, to set the thing ablaze.
"I'll fix this," he says.
If Jasper says more aloud, I do not hear it. Edward argues against something unspoken, and suddenly the silent creatures are loud and livid. The noise of it is like a kick in the teeth, like a slap in the face. No more secretive whispers, no more furtive glances. Whatever information Edward has stolen from Jasper's mind, he does not care for it. But no one does, it seems. Their voices overlap, winding together like an ocean of sound until I am fully submerged in it. When I've finally had enough of their sniping and scoffing, I leave. They let me.
My nose burns and my eyes water. I feel small, and empty, and tired. So terribly tired. The towering trees and sparkling sky paint a mockingly beautiful landscape, but I have little time to enjoy it before the cabin door opens and Bella follows me outside. She doesn't tell me why they argue, and I am too cowardly to ask. Even if I wished to be, I cannot be like Bella. Keeping the company of monsters will not make me capable, will not make me courageous. It will make me dead. These creatures are violent, their desires are dark. I would not trade my bleeding heart or my racing pulse to live forever, made of stone. No, even if I wished to be, I cannot be like Bella.
Breathe, she tells me, before hoisting me onto her back. I fold my arms over her shoulders, wrap my legs around her waist. It feels like so long since she taught me to fly, so long since we scaled a tree and imagined a new world. The thought makes me cry. Just a little. Because even though I want to be ready, I know that it is still too soon to fly, to climb. It is still too soon to heal.
She cuts through the air like a knife. The path she carves is narrow and light, twisting further away from her angry family, the mouldy cabin, and my blood-drenched clothes. I see their cars in the distance. Three of them, covered in snow. Bella sets me down and takes my face in her hands. There's a crease in her brow—an ugly furrow through her pristine skin. She scrutinises me like a stag in her sights. And then, she backs away. It's slow, palms forward as though she expects me to raise my hooves and lunge. She's doing something stupid. Something she'll regret. I don't have time to figure out what it is before she is gone, and Jasper stands in her place.
There is something urgent in the way he grips at my arms, my shoulders. He clenches and clings, he squeezes tighter than he knows he should. I know that he won't apologise for his long forgotten life. He knows that I don't regret my judgement of him. This hole we've dug is a curious thing. It is somehow furious and desirous, and no longer recognisable as a petty crush on a pretty boy. We made ourselves strange. We made ourselves cold.
"Would you promise me something?"
It isn't a demand. We both know he has no right to such a thing. I am small and mean, and eager to deny him for nothing more than the taste of power it would bring. But still I say yes, and the lie lingers on my lips, sticky and sour.
"I'm fixing to do something foolish." He laughs. It isn't a sound he means. But decades of pretending to be human have taught him that it's the perfect place to put a grim chuckle. "And Bella's gonna beg you to stop me. All I need you to promise is that you won't."
Foolish means dangerous. Dangerous for him means deadly for me, and I am neither silly nor lovesick enough to follow him to my death. Not like Bella was. "I won't stop you." My answer seems to satisfy him, and I cannot help but feel like I have passed an unspoken test. "So when... when will I see you again?" I offer him something a little like hope. A trail to follow back to me.
"The very second you wish to."
I suspect he knows that won't be soon.
He lets his hand press against my face. Fingertips trace the curve of my cheek, the slope of my neck, before he presses his mouth to mine. It is delicate work. Slow, cautious, seductive in a way I have never felt before. This is the breadth of his evil, the depth of his darkness. He brazenly plunders willing prey. My cheeks heat, my lips chill. I am the scarcely smothered flame of vulgar human desire.
He doesn't speak another word. But he walks away with my heart between his teeth.
