Disclaimer: I do not, nor will ever, own the Twilight Saga, or any of its characters and plots.


TW: This story will contain references to child abuse (physical, mental, sexual), self-harm, and suicide attempts (both past and present).


Isla

Her relationship with the Cullens was different than it was two months ago. They weren't trying to kill her, to start, but they were also kinder.

She found herself spending more and more time with them and, as a result of not being constantly alone, the kids at school began to ignore her.

Because she wasn't missing so much school now, the phone calls between her and her parents became few and far in between – maybe once a week just to make sure she hadn't burnt the house down. She didn't dare to tell them that their precious room with all of their trophies and rewards was completely destroyed.

How she had managed to do that without remember, she wasn't sure.

The cafeteria buzzed with conversations, but nobody even glanced in her direction as she walked to the table that had become as familiar as her bedroom.

"Hey!" Alice, the smallest of the Cullen kids, exclaimed, her eyes searching Isla's face as she sat in her usual seat next to Jasper, the blonde who had become quite close to her, though she wasn't sure why he had taken an interest in her.

"Hi." She replied, glancing across the table.

Emmett, the largest of the Cullens, beamed at her, while Rosalie, the beautiful blonde, ignored her completely.

"Not eating today?" Alice asked, her eyes still gazing intently at her.

Isla shook her head. The very idea of eating anything made her stomach flutter nervously.

"Isla, you can't starve yourself." Jasper said, and Alice sat back, a pout on her face.

"I'm not." Isla snapped, her temper flaring unexpectedly.

He looked at her silently, his eyebrows lifting. She looked down at her hands, curled into fists in her lap.

She knew what was wrong, but she hated it. At the table nearest to them, a Junior guy looked up from his book at her raised voice.

"Are you okay, Ilyssa?" He asked, and she startled a bit at her full name.

The next moment, she was standing, ignoring Alice's question as she slid into the seat next to the boy.

"Charles Dickens?" She prompted, looking at his book.

He perked up, obviously wanting to talk about the book. As he droned on excitedly, she played the part of an attentive listener, nodding and smiling appropriately. The words he was saying, however, went in one ear and out the other.

When she felt like he had spoken enough for it to be casual, she allowed her hand to brush against his, the memories that flashed through her mind causing the tension to ebb from her. The boy seemed to relax too, his words stuttering to a stop as she smiled.

"What a lovely story." She breathed, looking up at the boy.

Her accent was odd, her words sounding off to her ears.

"But I think we're done here."

She caught the boy's hand when he reached out to her, squeezing lightly.

"Oh." He gasped, and she smiled coldly, rising to her feet.

The Cullens followed her as she walked out of the school.


Onyx

She ignored the Cullens altogether as she lit up, sending a mental 'thank you' to Eden for not abandoning their self-destructive ways despite their unfortunate alliance with their own personal emotion-manipulator.

From a separate building, she saw Edward emerge, his face clouded with concern. That was almost adorable. Perhaps if he hadn't skipped lunch, he would've seen this coming.

"Onyx." He said as he slowed down, stopping a few feet from her.

His eyes flickered down to the blunt between her fingers and back to her face.

"Relax, Red. It's too weak to do any real effect." She said, blowing smoke towards the sky.

"HEY! No smoking on campus!" A teacher yelled, stepping out of the same building Edward came from. "Is that-?"

Onyx promptly walked away, disregarding the teacher altogether. The Cullens began talking behind her, and apparently it was decided that Edward and Jasper would follow her while the other three went back to class.

Onyx laced her fingers with Jasper's, staring coldly at the people they passed. They were given a wide berth. She disposed of the remains of her smoke in the creek under the bridge they walked over.

They walked passed her house, and it was then that Jasper asked, "Where are we going?"

"I don't know." She replied emotionlessly.

They continued onward, silent except for the sound of their shoes against the pavement. The sun, high up in the sky when they first began their trek, was slowly falling towards the horizon by the time they made it to their destination – as in, Onyx finally stopped. They were following her, after all.

She pulled off her sweater, kicking off her shoes and socks.

"Onyx –?"

"Sh." She hissed at Edward, her fingers brushing against Jasper's wrist as she hesitated.

The air was becoming colder, causing goosebumps to raise on her shoulders. The sun would be setting any moment now. It was now or never. The others would've never dared to return to this place.

Even now, only Ash remained slightly aware, watching from the shadows. She could feel his trepidation, his fear, but he didn't trust her to be alone. That was fine.

She walked forward, barely glancing at the spot where Jared's body had once rested. The creek's water was cold, its banks flooded from the recent rain, but she ignored the mud and temperature, wading in.

The water only came up to the middle of her thighs and swirled around her. She slipped once, nearly sending herself downstream, but Jasper was suddenly at her side, steadying her.

"Thanks, Major."

His hand tightened on hers, but he didn't express the distaste that was growing in his eyes at the nickname. She knew it would bring back unsavory memories from his time with Maria, but she didn't care much.

If he was unable to face his own past, how would he help them with theirs?

She made it to the other side without much fuss, and then she took off running, slipping from Jasper's hands. They easily kept up with her, but she wasn't running from them. She was leading them to one of the only places she had ever felt safe.

She pushed through the last of the brush, revealing a small ledge, probably only four feet by four feet, that jutted out over a three-hundred-foot drop to the sharp rocks and crashing waves below.

"Onyx…" Edward warned as she stepped up to the edge, peering down.

"I may be the Persecutor, Red, but I'm not about to jump off a cliff just because I'm standing next to one." She said quietly, looking up from the waves to the skyline.

The sun was nearing it, turning the sky orangish with stripes of purple and pink. She carefully sat down on the edge, allowing her feet to dangle. After a moment, they joined her, sitting on either side of her.

"May I ask what triggered you to come out? We haven't met you yet." Jasper said as he laced their fingers together again.

She leaned her head on his shoulder, staring at the sunset.

"You know of our ability to absorb memories, but what you may not know is that if we don't do it often enough, certain portions of our brain begin to shut down. It's why Isla has been refusing to eat because she interprets this as nausea. She wasn't capable of taking advantage of the boy, so I stepped up. Ash was going to, but he was weaker than Isla was, and the others were asleep." She said, her voice soft.

"It has been a while since I've been in the Front." She admitted after a moment.

"Ash once told me that you didn't like to Front." Edward said, and Onyx glanced at him.

He was watching her carefully, a hint of curiosity in his eyes, but there was no judgement. She could see why the others had become so fond of him, almost as much as they were fond of Jasper.

"There have been… incidents when I've Fronted in the past. Dolan's and Eden's most recent suicide attempt was fueled by my emotions, and it wasn't the first time I convinced them to try." She admitted, looking away.

She wasn't ashamed, necessarily, of what she had done. At the time, it seemed like the only option.

"Do you still want to die?" Jasper asked.

She tightened her hand around his, wondering how odd it was for him to be in a relationship of sorts with at least three different people.

His question, however, struck an odd cord inside of her. Did she genuinely want to die? Her instinctual answer was 'yes', just like it had always been. But, sitting there on the ledge, as the darkness slowly creeped across the water, with Jasper's hand in hers and Edward's knee bumping against her own every few moments, she felt more at ease than she'd ever felt.

"Not right now." She said, the words feeling heavy despite the light feeling that washed through her.

"Good." He responded, pressing a kiss against her temple. Her smile wasn't nearly as cold as she looked up at him.

She wished she could stay in that moment forever.


Ash

He came to himself on the edge of a cliff of all things, with Jasper's hand in his, and Edward on his other side, watching him carefully. He knew from the way he was dressed that Izzy had been present at least in the morning, and he had a vague recollection of watching Onyx bring them here.

"We didn't try to jump, did we?" He asked quietly, looking down at the water.

It was getting harder to see, but the water still reflected the moonlight.

"No… Onyx was quite insistent that she wasn't going to." Edward replied.

Ash smiled despite himself, watching as the moon rose higher into the sky. It was full tonight, and so very bright. He opened his mouth to say something, probably to remark on the rare clear weather, but then he was being tugged to his feet, both vampire boys tensed.

"Someone's close." Edward whispered, so quiet that Ash barely heard him.

Jasper's hand was tight around his.

"We need to mask their scent." He whispered back, and Edward turned to Ash, shrugging off his jacket and wrapping it around his shoulders.

Ash let go of Jasper's hand only to push his arms through the sleeves, and then took it again, glancing at the trees.

"Ash, please relax. Your heartbeat needs to be quiet." Jasper murmured.

He took a deep breath, and the fact that he could smell both Edward on his jacket, and Jasper due to being so close to him, helped immensely. Edward gave an approving nod.

"We need to get off this ledge." Jasper muttered, guiding him through the forest with Edward falling behind them.

They'd just crossed into a small clearing when two men stepped through the trees, their eyes glowing a bright red.

"Greetings. I apologize for broaching on your territory, but we were curious. Your scents are all throughout the town, and yet no murders have been reported lately." The blonde said, giving them a short bow.

"We live a peaceful life here with our coven. All of our hunting is done to the north to not draw suspicion to us." Edward responded neutrally, his hand reaching forward to touch the small of Ash's back.

His movement drew the brunette's gaze, and he smirked.

"And who is this delicious creature?"

In that moment, the wind shifted from the south, blowing Ash's hair in their direction. Immediately, both strangers stiffened, crouching with a snarl on their lips. Jasper fell into the same posture, while Edward pulled Ash backwards.

"They are ours." Jasper hissed, and the two vampires grinned.

"We'll see about that, won't we?" The blonde chuckled before they lunged forward.

Time seemed to slow, the blood rushing from Ash's face as his heart pounded in his chest. They were going to kill Jasper and Edward, and then kill them. They were going to hurt the few people who actually mattered to him.

"NO!" His anguished cry fell from his lips as he threw his hands outwards towards the two strangers intent on destroying the small bubble of security, they had built for themselves.

Something strange happened then.

A buzz ran down both of his arms, exploding outwards in a bright light that blinded him momentarily. When the dots finally faded from his vision, both of the strangers were lying on the ground, staring around them in confusion.

Edward caught him when he crumpled, but Ash remained stubbornly awake, looking up at Jasper when he turned to look at him.

"What-?"

"He erased their memories." Edward said quietly, his arms tightening protectively around Ash's waist.

The smile that crossed Jasper's lips was beautiful in all the right ways.

"Of course, he did. Go ahead with him; I'll catch up after I deal with these two." He said.

Ash was shifted in Edward's arms, being carried like one would a bride, or a small child. He stared up at the stars, flickering between the blur of passing tree branches.

There was a strange elegance to the universe, in that no matter what happened on earth, it remained constant. War could break out, the entirety of life wiped out by atomic bombs, but the world would continue to rotate around the sun.

The stars would still live out their lives, exploding into dust one by one, or swallowed by a black hole that they could not escape. Time would go onward, unaffected by the loss of a minuscular part of reality. An idea floated to the Front, and it was so cold and harsh that Ash instinctively knew it didn't belong to him.

Even if they died here, held tightly in Edward's arms, everyone else would go on. The Cullens would forget about them sooner or later and move on with their eternal lives. Their parents might just be glad they were gone.

"You are going to be fine." Edward spoke, and there was a sudden change of scenery as they passed from the outside world into the Cullens' home.

"Edward! Is he-?"

"Get him on the couch." Carlisle interrupted Alice, and Edward complied.

Ash stared up at the high ceilings, feeling like he was sinking into the cushions. The lights were blinding, not at all like the stars outside.

"Ash, look at me."

Carlisle's voice was a pleasant hum, and Ash blinked. Were the black spots in his vision because of the lights or because he was drifting away?

"We're losing him!"

Edward sounded panicked, and cold hands brushed against his face. Ash wanted to reassure him, tell him that this would hurt less if they just let him go, but he was unable to form words. A flicker of another's thoughts brushed against his own.

Isla and Sylas were asleep. Eden and Onyx were willing. Dolan was willing. Izzy was… tired. She was tired of fighting; tired of defending them from the world.

Majority rules. He closed his eyes.