Disclaimer: I do not own or profit off of Twilight or its characters.
Coming to the meadow was a bad idea. Though it is spring, and everything is in bloom everywhere else, here the grass is still yellow and dormant, the wildflowers that littered the grass a year ago stand dead and dry. It's as if the life of the meadow left when he left, just like life left me. Slowly, I walk towards the center of the clearing, studying the blades of grass, the old stems of last season's flowers, hoping for some sign of greenery, some form of life. I reach the middle without seeing a single green blade. Pain rips its way through my chest, and I collapse to my knees with the suddenness of it.
Maybe the meadow has always looked like this, but it looked like so much more when he was here. I was blinded by his beauty, by his light. Now that he's gone, everything looks dead and dull.
"Why does this hurt so bad?" I whisper aloud. I knew this pain is not normal; as a human, I should have started to recover by now. Instead, each week stretches on longer, the days getting harder to struggle through, the nights harder to survive.
The birds fall silent around me, the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I hear my father's voice ringing in my head; if you're out in the woods and the birds suddenly grow quiet, be careful, a predator is nearby. I focus on my breathing as I slowly turn my head slightly to my right, scanning the surrounding tree line. My blood runs cold when I spot what I am looking for.
She isn't not hard to spot, then again, she most likely isn't trying to hide. Her bright white skin seems to glow in the shade of the forest around her. Her clothing is torn to near shreds, her fire red hair in tangled disarray. I could tell her eyes are black, the dark shadows beneath them giving away her thirst. She pulls her plump lips back in a snarl.
Still, she was beautiful.
"Did the Cullens finally get tired of playing with Bella?" Her artificially sweet voice reaches my ears, sending chills down my spine. "Did Edward-" I flinch at his name- "get bored of you?"
I swallow past the lump in my throat, not at all shocked at how accurate she has guessed- I am nothing but a human, and a plain one at that; it was only a matter of time before they would have moved on. It just happened sooner than I had feared. "Something like that," I whisper, knowing her sensitive ears would pick up my words with ease.
Her laugh is shrill and bitter and sends fear coursing through me. "Oh, this is just perfect! James would have loved to see this outcome, you know. He would find it absolutely hilarious. The lengths they went through to protect a mere human, only to throw her away a short few months later."
"Are you going to kill me?" I ask, not really dreading the answer. I was tired of pretending to be okay for everybody. My death would hurt Charlie and Renee, but they would eventually recover. I never will, I know that.
Victoria seems to think before answering. "I can see that killing you will not have the intended effect I would have liked, seeing that Edward no longer wants you. No, I don't think I will kill you, though you do smell tasty. I have something better in mind, something I think even my James would approve of if he were here."
I look up at her questioningly, watching as she took each elegant step at a slow, human pace. I fight down the urge to run- I know it will do me no good. Victoria stops mere feet from me, I can practically feel her excitement radiating off of her lithe body. She kneels down so we are eye to eye, the maroon of her irises so dark they nearly appear brown. When she opens her mouth to speak, each word is filled with despair, hostility, and retribution.
"Since I have to live forever without my James, you will have to face an eternity knowing that you will never be enough for your mate to want you. That's why it hurts, you know." Victoria gets a haunted look in her eyes and I know she is telling me something the Cullens never bothered to tell me about vampire nature. "A vampire will only ever fall in love once, with their mate, and the bond is permanent. Edward is your mate, and that is something you will never recover from, just like I will never recover from losing James."
"A mate for a mate," I breathe. She nods her head before slamming her fist into my sternum and sending me flying into the trunk of a nearby tree. My back cracks painfully at the violent contact and I fall limply to the ground, everything numb from my chest down. Victoria appears in front of me, pouncing on my leg- the same leg that her mate broke last year- and watch in horror as the bone makes a loud crack, though I don't feel anything. Victoria looks vaguely stunned, picking up my other leg and watching it drop lifelessly to the ground when she lets go of it. She reaches for my right arm next, bending the wrist until it snaps, my scream echoing off the trees.
Her head snaps up, tilting to the side as if trying to hear something. She hisses under her breath, too quiet and fast for me to understand the words she says, and then she reaches for my good arm. I fear she's going to break that one too, but she does something much worse.
She sinks her teeth into my flesh, and I immediately begin to feel the burn of her venom in my veins. I bite my cheek to force back another scream. It will only serve to fuel her enjoyment. Her teeth move from my arm to my neck, biting down once again. She drinks from me first, a few greedy, hungry gulps before I feel her injecting me with more of her venom. She grabs my broken arm, twisting it sharply to reveal the inner side of it, and once again bites onto the area of skin above my elbow. I watch in horror and mild fascination as she runs her tongue along my broken skin, her venom sealing the wound, locking itself inside.
I can hear crashing through the forest now, thuds of heavy footsteps quickly growing closer. Victoria props me up against the tree and I rest against it as if boneless, dizzy from the sudden righting of the world around me.
"I have one last thing I want you to see, I didn't think of this before" she announces, standing and seeming to vanish, reappearing in the center of my dead meadow. She is still smiling when a large black wolf jumps out of the woods from behind her and latches onto her head, a gray one comes in from the side and grabs hold on one of her arms. I scream, the sound of it echoing in my mind, the release only increasing the burning I will have to struggle through for the next three days. The last thing I see is a russet brown wolf, slightly smaller than the black one, kneeling down beside me, its head lifted as it releases a mournful sounding howl.
A/N: This idea has been playing in my mind for forever, but I always struggled to write it down just the way I wanted. I don't know what changed tonight; the words I had searched for finally came to mind and it was almost as if I couldn't type fast enough. I hope you enjoy this little fic, I plan on updating once a week, maybe more if I can fit writing into my work schedule. As of now, this will be entirely in BPOV, though the characters seem to have a mind of their own (the wolves weren't supposed to make an appearance in this chapter and Victoria refused to bite Bella and run even though she had ample time to escape), who knows, maybe Edward or Jacob will demand to narrate a chapter or two.