Chapter 39: Chaos
EDWARD
In the forest, the sky vanished almost completely, only a few fragments of blue remained- dotting us all in patches of light as we made our way toward the lake.
The trees grew so thickly that there was no undergrowth at all. About our feet were only the browned remnants of branches and needles that had fallen during the rain, so we were able to move fairly quietly.
There were a few zombies wandering aimlessly in the woods, but with zombie blood smeared on us, none of them paid us any attention.
When Bella, Seth, Katie, and I got close to the forest edge, we gingerly slid towards the treeline on our stomachs, making as little noise as possible.
It was all as Seth had described it. The camp was surrounded by vehicles and there were guards positioned on top of them, scanning the area with guns drawn. They were focused on their job, not spending their time talking or goofing off.
They would have to be the first ones that we got rid of.
I almost flinched at that thought because it sounded cold even in my own head.
It was near midday which was when Tia had told Seth she'd be washing laundry. We didn't have to wait long before we saw movement between the transports.
A woman sandwiched between two large men was led towards the lake. She struggled with a large basket of laundry, but neither man did anything to help her.
Once she'd reached the water's edge, she said something to them.
One of the men barked something back at her and gave her a shove towards the water's edge then strode up an embankment that looked over the water. The other guard trailed behind him, leaving Tia alone on the beach.
Tia looked just as Jasper had described her.
She appeared to be a little older than me, but she was small with curly black hair that hung below her shoulders and across her face as she leaned forward in the water washing clothes with a bar of soap.
She never once looked in our direction even though she knew that we were supposed to be there.
I held my breath as she stood up half way through the laundry and stretched. Then, she said something to the soldiers and gestured towards the woods.
One of the men stood up as if to follow her, but the other said something to him and the soldier grudgingly sat back down.
She didn't hurry as she trudged towards the woods, never once looking back towards where the soldiers were waiting.
Once she breached the treeline, she barely reacted when she saw us laying on the ground with weapons drawn. Instead, she just walked over to us.
We all climbed quietly to our feet, but it was Seth that stepped forward.
In a voice barely above a whisper Seth began to speak. "Tia, this is-"
"We don't have time for introductions," Tia said, looking behind her.
"You're right. What do you need from us, Tia?" I asked, knowing that she only had a few minutes.
"The bastard takes me to bed every night. I'll kill him then. Some of the other women would like to kill their "owners" too."
"Do you need weapons?" I asked, hauling out my gun.
"Too big. Too noisy."
Bella pulled her swiss army knife out of her pocket and pressed it into her hand.
"About half of the women would rather deal with the zombies than these animals," Tia said bitterly. "Your group will have to take care of the soldiers that we don't kill. Can you do that?"
"Yes," I said.
Everyone else nodded in agreement as each of us gave her whatever small weapon we could, but she couldn't take much or else the guards would notice. The only ones she could take had to be hidden inside of her clothing.
"I need to go. Come in two days at dawn and don't let any of them live. They'll come after you if you do," she said, beginning to turn away.
"Not all the women can be trusted," Bella said, grabbing her arm. "Victoria and Tanya-"
"I know all about them. I know who can be trusted," she said, her eyes dark and angry.
"I have to go," she said again, pulling away.
"Thank you," I said, feeling a profound sense of gratitude towards this stranger. We were still going to be fighting an uphill battle but with half of the soldiers dead or incapacitated and the others confused we had a fighting chance.
With a small nod, she left the woods and returned to the water's edge.
Cautiously, we made our way back to our community and the safety of its walls.
It was Carlisle that was on guard duty at the front gate when we arrived.
As we left the woods and approached the wall, Carlisle stood up from behind the camouflaged blind with a look of relief on his face.
Using a ladder so we wouldn't have to open the gates, he helped us climb over the wall.
"What did the woman say?" he asked, concern written all over his face.
"Tia said that she'd work with us," I said. "Let's talk more about it at the community house. We shouldn't talk about this here."
Carlisle began to say something and stopped.
"What?" I asked.
"The others will tell you," he said, looking towards the woods. "You're right. Someone may be listening."
Quickly, we climbed down from the wall and hurried to the community house, leaving Carlisle at his guard post.
It was chaos inside.
"What do we do?"
"The son of a bitch-"
"We can't just kill-"
The angry voices all came to a sudden stop as we opened the door.
"Oh thank god," Emmett said with a huge gust of air, as he rushed towards us and picked Bella up in a bear hug and slapped me on the back.
However, that was the only greeting we got as he ushered us towards the kitchen.
To my surprise, I found a beaten Tyler and Aro tied to chairs at the table.
"What's going on?" Katie gasped, looking at the others.
"Jasper caught this bastard trying to climb over the wall," Peter snarled, giving Tyler's head a shove.
I looked in shock at Tyler who was now cringing away from Peter.
"What?" Bella gasped.
"The shithead was going to warn Stefan," Quil said. "Apparently, Aro and this asshole don't think our odds are all that good against company z, so they decided to give us up to save their own sorry asses."
"The bastard's been sabotaging us. Tyler let in the dead," Embry snapped.
I lunged across the table at Tyler, not able to control my anger.
Grabbing a hold of his shirt, I nearly yanked the chair he was tied to off the floor.
"You let the zombies in? You killed Liam!" I snarled.
"Edward, don't-" Bella said, grabbing my arm.
"Let him, Bella," Rosalie said, venom dripping from her voice. "He let the soldier in too."
I looked at Rosalie in horror.
Rosalie's dark blue eyes flashed in anger as she grimly looked at our two captives.
I wanted to kill Tyler with my bare hands.
Without even thinking about it, I hauled back my fist and punched Tyler in the face.
The only thought in my head at that moment was that he was the cause of Ben's attack.
"Edward, Edward," Arnold said, joining Emmett in pulling me off of a now unconscious Tyler.
"There's more," Embry said from where he sat across the table from Aro with his gun resting on the table in front of him. "Aro released the soldier we captured and he almost got away. Quil shot him just as he was about to climb the wall."
"You're no match for Stefan's group. It's all about survival. We were only-" Aro began, but he was interrupted by Emmett who grabbed a hold of his neck in a vicious grip.
"What should we do with them?" Embry asked, not taking his eyes off of Aro.
"Kill them…" Jasper voice's came out of nowhere. I hadn't even noticed that he was in the room.
"Have you been in contact with Stefan?" I asked, sitting down at the table so that I could glare directly into Aro's eyes.
"No," he said with a defensive frown.
"Why should we believe you?" Rosalie growled.
Tyler who had woken up during the conversation muttered, "Ask psycho over there. He's been watching the two of us like a hawk ever since you left."
I saw that he was glaring at Jasper who was standing next to Emmett.
"He didn't try to go anywhere until tonight," Jasper said in his soft voice.
"There's no sense fighting them. They're trained soldiers," Aro said. "Just abandon this place. I'll make sure to tell them that you went willingly."
I looked at Aro incredulously.
"You seriously think that's going to happen?" I asked.
"We're not giving this place up," Quil snarled.
"Why did you release the soldier?" Bella asked, her voice cold.
I looked at her and there was nothing but blind hatred on her face.
It was a look that I didn't like seeing on her beautiful face. It was usually so full of love.
For a minute, Aro didn't answer until Embry picked up his gun and aimed it at his forehead.
"It was a sign of good faith. The soldier promised to tell Stefan that we supported him."
"You're a fucking moron," Emmett said with a shake of his head.
"So now what?" Aro asked, trying to keep the look of fear off his face.
"You die," Jasper said as he moved towards Aro with a knife in his hand.
Aro cringed away from him, practically knocking his chair over.
"Jasper, we can't just kill them," Bella said.
I was torn. We weren't murderers. We killed when we had to, but this seemed too cold-blooded.
Looking at Jasper, I saw the blankness in his eyes. Killing had taken away a piece of him that he probably wasn't ever going to get back.
"They need to die," Rose said. "They're always going to be a risk to us and we can't just banish them. They'll run to Stefan."
"Let's lock them up for now," I said. Killing them wasn't a decision we could take lightly, but we also had other things that we needed to discuss. We had a time crunch before we had to attack Stefan's camp.
"Fine, let's take them to Ben's basement," Emmett said, yanking on Aro's bindings and dragging him to his feet.
Once Quil grabbed Tyler the four of them left the building.
"I can do it," Jasper said, coming to stand next to me. "It's okay. I can get rid of them."
"It's not that, Jasper," Bella said, placing her hand on his forearm. "We just need to think about it before making a decision."
I nodded in agreement with her and then spoke, "Besides, we have more important things to deal with now. We're attacking Stefan's camp in two days…"
After the meeting with Tia and the betrayal of Aro and Tyler, things were tense in the community.
Our group was split about what to do with the traitors. Half said we should execute them and half said we should banish them after the battle with Stefan.
Regardless, most of us finally agreed that it could wait until after the battle as long as they were guarded.
Another point of contention was that Mrs. Cope insisted that we prepare for the worst in case scenario. She wanted us to pack up everything, food stores, household items that we'd need if we had to escape. Before the attack on Ben, we'd started doing just that, but afterwards it didn't seem as important.
Most people wanted to focus on the upcoming battle or spend time with their loved ones, but she didn't waver in her insistence. Many people finally relented and did what she wanted but a lot of them thought it was wasted time. Emily and Katie even felt like we were cursing the upcoming battle by doing it.
Bella and I were both going to be a part of the fight. I didn't want her to be, but she insisted and I had to admit that she was one of our best shots.
Emmett was coming, but Rosalie was staying behind. She had gotten better at using a gun, but a battle situation would be too much for her.
Watching how they agonized over being separated made me feel slightly better about having Bella with me. At least I would be there to protect her.
"You will stay by my side no matter what, right?" I insisted for the umpteenth time.
"Yes, I promise," Bella said, resting her head on my shoulder. "You need my brain to go with your brawn."
My heart clenched at the reminder of when we first met. She'd said a very similar thing to me.
"Don't hesitate," I said, tilting her face up to look at me. "If we don't kill them, they will kill us. We're not murderers. We're going there to protect our lives and our loved ones.
She nodded.
She'd been traumatized by the first battle. She'd never purposefully hurt or killed another person who wasn't directly threatening her life. The times that she had killed in the past had been a survival instinct.
"I know. They've slaughtered whole communities for their supplies. That wasn't just Stefan." The soldiers made their own choices to be a part of it."
"Right," I said confidently, kissing her on the lips.
She smiled up at me and then with a sigh burrowed closer in my arms.
"I've missed you," I whispered in her ear.
We'd barely been alone since the fight, spending our time patrolling and sleeping in the community house.
Bella kissed my neck in response.
"Now, that we've caught Tyler and Aro," she murmured," I think it would be okay to go home tonight after our patrol. Don't you think?"
I kissed the top of her head and pulled her closer to me.
Looking over her head, I couldn't help but fixate on Angela and Ben. She never left his side even though he hadn't woken up and no one knew if he ever would.
Carlisle said that his pulse was steady, but that there had to be internal injuries or else he would have woken up by now. Carlisle felt helpless in his care of Ben. Without medicine or equipment, there wasn't anything he could do, but it weighed heavily on him.
We'd decided that Carlisle had to stay behind order to take care of Ben. Esme, Embry, Claire, Emily, and Charlotte would patrol the walls while Siobhan, Alice, and Rosalie would take care of the babies and guard the prisoners.
That left Bella and I, Jasper and Emmett, as well as Arnold, Emmett, Katie, Seth, Quil, and Peter to ambush company z.
I didn't like that we were taking almost all of our strongest fighters with us. But the greatest threat was Company z, so we had to go in full force.
After our shift, Bella and I went home.
We didn't talk about anything heavy or even very important. For a time, we were just us, shutting out the stress of the outside world.
I stretched out on the couch with my head pillowed in Bella's lap as she read out loud from the fourth Harry Potter novel. She'd read all these books before, but she was insistent on the fact that I had to experience all of them too.
I hummed in contentment as she ran her fingers through my hair and lulled me with her gentle voice.
"You know," I said, after a while of contemplation. "We're basically married."
Bella paused in her reading.
"What?" she asked with a giggle. "What brought this on?"
"Just thinkin' me thoughts," I said, grinning up at her smiling face.
"Who would have thought that I'd be an old married man by the time I was nineteen?" I mused.
"Old?" she said with a raised eyebrow as she looked down at me.
"Well, we've basically been shacking up since we were fifteen."
Bella snickered.
"Charlie would be so proud…"
I laughed with her, thinking about how scandalized my mom would have been.
"Do you think if we had met in the old world that we'd have fallen in love?" she asked.
I thought about what I'd been like before the world ended. I spent my days in school and every other spare moment that I had was spent either on video games or with Anna. Girls hadn't even been on my radar at the time although Bella might have changed all of that if I had met her.
"I think my stupid fifteen year old self in the old world wouldn't have known what to make of you. But I hope that I would have gotten my shit together and asked you out," I said, with a grin as I tickled her side.
Bella began to laugh, dropping her book and trying to wiggle away from me which only served to knock us both off the couch.
Pulling her against me, I rested my head against her breast. With a sigh, I relaxed just enjoying her warmth. Bella ran one of her hands through my hair while the other stroked my arm that was around her waist.
"I love you," I murmured.
"I love you too," she said, kissing the top of my head.
Two days went by quickly.
The sun was just beginning to touch the horizon when we approached Company Zs camp.
Jasper was on one side of me while Bella was on the other as we slipped through the trees towards the camp.
Our progress was slow because we did not want to attract any attention with our movements or sound as we approached the edge of the treeline.
Just before the edge of the trees, we took up position. Jasper and I had crossbows while Bella stood behind us with her rifle in case things didn't go as planned.
There were four guards on duty, standing on top of the transport trucks.
Both Jasper and I focused the sight of our crossbows on the guard on the truck nearest us. However, it was Jasper that made the first move.
Waiting until the soldier turned his back to us as he scanned the area, Jasper shot his crossbow without hesitation.
With a grunt, the soldier toppled off the transport. However when he hit the ground, he began to moan and then scream.
As if that was the signal, those from our group set to kill the other guards shot their bolts into the other startled soldiers.
I rushed towards the camp, needing to kill the soldier that was moaning on the ground. I didn't want him to warn the others. However, by the time I got there it didn't matter. Sounds of screams and chaos had already begun inside the barricade of vehicles.
Whoever said that women were the gentler sex might have changed their mind if they had been there that morning.
With nothing but knives, axes, or anything sharp that they could find, the women had already begun the fight before the sun had risen.
Bodies of men were lying half in and half out of their tents as they'd tried to escape the attacks of the women that they'd enslaved.
At first, the sleeping men were slow to comprehend what was happening. However, the confusion didn't last long before the men started to fight back.
Even caught off guard, some of these men were trained soldiers so they were easily able to fight off the women.
Here and there, some of the women were able to hold their own.
Like Bella and me, this new world had taught them how to use weapons and to fight for survival.
However, the tide was turning as the soldiers started fighting back and the bodies of the soldiers that had been killed began to rise from the dead.
I tried not to focus on the eyes of those I fought. I concentrated on everything else-the weapons in their hands, the weak spots of their bodies, the direction of their killing blows.
I couldn't understand at first why the soldiers fought with their fists and blades, Here and there, there were gunshots but not many. Then, I noticed how many of the men were trying to reach the RV that blocked the north end of the campground.
That was when I realized that in an attempt to control the soldiers that surrounded him, Stefan had confiscated their guns every night. I could see through the open door of the RV that rifles and other military weapons lined the wall.
"Don't let them get to the RV!" I shouted to the others.
Having drawn attention to myself, two soldiers descended on me- one with a machete and the other with a baseball bat that had nails driven into it.
I backed up, my gun in my hand, but the two of them were close enough that I wouldn't be able to take them both on at once.
The one with the machete swung at me. I was sure he was going to take the top of my head off because I couldn't back away fast enough—but the blade passed in front of me, missing by no more than an inch. The force of the swing blew my sweaty hair back from my forehead.
Raising my gun, I fired, grazing the man's left shoulder, but he was already swinging again and this time it sliced me along my hairline with a stunning force that made me think for a moment that the top of my head really had come off. Stumbling backwards, warm blood ran into my right eye, stinging and blinding me.
Before he could reach me again, Bella suddenly appeared behind him and with a scream of rage she stabbed him in the neck.
I spun towards the other man with the baseball bat, but Jasper was already taking care of him.
Bella yanked the bandana off her head that she'd been using to keep her hair out of her face and wrapped it around my head, staunching the blood to keep it from obscuring my vision.
Without a word, the three of us kept going, but by this time the chaos inside the camp had died down.
For better or for worse, the battle was over and only carnage remained.
The zombie soldiers had already fallen upon the injured ones and had begun to tear them apart. We were relatively safe with our zombie camouflage, but we still went about getting rid of them as well.
Sadly, several of the women were killed during the fight. They'd done their best to kill their captors, but not all of them could stand up against battle-experienced soldiers.
As we went tent to tent, vehicle to vehicle, we found the injured and brought them to the center of the camp. Some were soldiers while others were women that hadn't made it through the battle unharmed.
Bella and Katie tried to patch up the women while the rest of us continued to search the tents.
I was just about to step into another tent when someone stepped out from behind it.
I raised my axe, prepared to attack when I realized who it was.
Tanya stepped towards me with a smile on her face and a vacant look in her eyes. One side of her face sported a large bruise and someone had cut her blonde hair short without a great deal of care. There were some spots that had been cropped almost to the scalp.
"Edward, you're finally here. You've come to rescue me," she said in a happy yet far away voice.
She didn't have a weapon in her hand. Instead she was walking towards me with open arms.
Her shirt was covered in blood, hers or someone else's I couldn't tell.
"Where's Dad? I thought he'd be with you?" she asked, her forehead furrowing in confusion.
It was in that moment that I realized that she'd gone completely mad or maybe she always had been.
"Stop where you are, Tanya," I said, not lowering my gun.
"Edward? Why do you have a gun pointed at me?" she asked, the smile dropping from her face. "Am I in trouble? Is Dad mad at me?"
I started lowering my gun because she didn't have a weapon in her hand and clearly had no idea where she was.
"Gareth is gone, Tanya," I said firmly, but gently. "He died a long time ago."
A look of anger crossed her face suddenly and she yanked a knife from the waistband of her pants.
I raised my gun again and took a step back.
"Why would you leave him behind? He loves you like a son," she snapped, taking another step towards me.
"Stop, Tanya," I said again, more loudly.
"You're a monster!" she shrieked and ran at me.
Before I had a chance to do anything, Bella ran by me and knocked Tanya to the ground.
As Tanya thrashed, Bella placed one knee on her chest and yanked the knife out of her hand.
"Stay down or I'll kill you," Bella hissed.
"You caused all of this," Tanya screamed. "I told James that you were the one to kill, you and that bitch Alice. Without you, Jasper and Edward would be easy to kill. James doesn't care about Stefan and his crew. He wants revenge. You took everything away from him."
Then, she began laughing.
"It doesn't matter. He didn't get the two of you, but he still got his revenge."
"What do you mean?" Bella snarled, placing her knife against Tanya's throat.
"You'll see soon enough."
As I tried to figure out what she was talking about, I wasn't prepared for a person running past me and shoving Bella off of Tanya.
Before I could even make a sound, Tia plunged her knife into Tanya's chest, silencing her laughter forever.
Tia stood up and turned towards us. There was a cut that stretched along the side of Tia's cheek that was bleeding profusely and her left eye was practically swelled shut.
"Let's go. There's nothing more to do here. Stefan got away, so we need to track him."
"We need to gather the food and supplies that company z has left and the others aren't back yet," Bella said.
Arnold, Emmett, and Seth were searching the surrounding woods for any soldiers that had made an escape while the rest of us fought our way to the center.
Tia shook her head and said, "Fine, I'll go by myself. The bastard doesn't get to live."
And with that she ran towards the woods.
Bella and I looked at each other, torn about what to do.
Tia had saved us all, but I couldn't leave the camp and all the supplies that we could use. Plus, we had to make sure everyone else was safe. Tanya's words still echoed in my mind.
We returned to the center of camp just in time to see Jasper standing up from the bodies of the now dead soldiers that we'd found wounded.
A bloody knife hung loosely from Jasper's hand. In horror, I realized that Jasper had methodically killed all of them.
"It had to be done," he said in a dead voice when I hurried to his side.
I didn't know what to say, so I chose not to say anything.
"Did you find James and Victoria?" Bella asked.
"One of the women killed Victoria," Jasper said, gesturing towards a tent to his left. "There are a couple of bodies that could be James, but their faces were destroyed by the dead."
"What about Stefan?" Jasper asked.
"Tia has gone after him," I said.
Jasper stood up straight looking around the camp with an intent look on his face.
"Alone? She can't-" he began, but was cut off as Emmett and Seth rushed towards us.
"Have you seen Arnold?" Emmett asked in a strained voice.
"No," I said, fear flooding me.
"He was right next to me," Seth said, "but then I caught sight of a soldier trying to run away so I chased him. I thought Arnold was right behind me."
"Take us to where you were," I ordered as a feeling of panic began to rise inside of me.
Seth nodded and took off ahead of us, leading us to a dense part of the woods.
We searched the area, but found no signs of Arnold.
"He might be hiding," Emmett said. "If he came across a couple of soldiers at the same time, he would have hidden. He knows that he couldn't take on more than one."
I nodded, thinking along the same lines.
However, suddenly I heard a crunch under the sole of my boot.
Lifting my foot, my heart lodged in my throat at what I saw.
It was Arnold's glasses.
"Oh no…" Bella cried, tears coming to her eyes.
The cracked lenses of his glasses were sprayed with blood and I saw that under where they'd been laying the grass was stained with more blood.
I heard Emmett let out a sob and I suddenly felt like I was choking.
I pulled Bella to me and we held on to each other tightly as our tears began to flow.
Arnold had been like an uncle to all of us. His calm demeanor had given comfort to all of us at one point in time.
I was going to miss him.
Jasper slammed his fist against a tree with a snarl of rage. But just as quickly as it had come, he was calm again.
"We need to get back," he said. "Arnold's gone and we need to help the others."
By late afternoon, we had packed up all the supplies and had the surviving women packed into the RVs. The company had gathered quite a bit of food and weaponry from camps they'd destroyed. Not only did they have guns, but also grenades, grenade launchers and other large weapons.
As we looked over the camp one last time, Jasper suddenly spoke.
"Do you have any water, Edward?" Jasper asked me out of the blue.
I handed him my water bottle which had a little left, but he shook his head.
"No. I need more. I can't go home to Alice covered in blood," he said.
I looked at him in surprise, scanning him from head to toe. Beyond a spattering of blood on his shirt, he was relatively clean. Earlier he had taken off his coat that had been covered in blood, so his shirt underneath was unstained.
"Jasper…" I said, carefully. "You're not covered in blood."
Jasper looked down at himself and then up at me with an incredulous look on his face.
"What are you talking about?" Jasper said. "Can't you see it?" gesturing to his shirt and hands. "Are you blind?"
"There's nothing there," I said, worried as my words seemed to upset him more.
Hearing Jasper's raised voice, Bella rushed over to us.
"What's wrong?" she asked, looking between the two of us.
"I think you need to get Edward's eyes checked," Jasper said in a voice that was edged with hysteria. "He can't see the blood on me."
"Jasper," I said, trying to sound calm and soothing. "You're hallucinating. There's no blood on you. You're fine."
But it was clear that he wasn't fine. He started pulling at his clothes, yanking his shirt off over his head. Frantically, he used his balled up shirt to scrub at his face, chest and arms.
I looked at Bella, desperately hoping that she knew what to do because I had no idea. He was coming unravelled.
"Come over here, Jasper," she finally said, taking his arm. "Let's get you cleaned up."
Gently, she led him over to the center of camp where the soldiers had left a bucket of lake water.
With a cloth that she'd taken from the bandages, she soaked it in water and began washing Jasper's face and then chest and arms just like she would a little kid all the while whispering soothing things to him.
I shook my head in sadness. Jasper had endured so much and I again worried that he'd forever be this broken man.
When we made it back just after dark, we were surrounded by relieved happy people.
As the others helped the injured women out of the RV we'd brought inside, I quietly had a conversation with Carlisle telling him what had happened and how we'd lost Arnold.
Carlisle shook his head sadly, having become quite close to Arnold during the last year.
With a deep indrawn breath, he finally spoke.
"How many women did you bring back?" he asked.
"Seven. Some of the women chose not to come with us. They preferred to make it on their own," I said, still not understanding why they would choose to do that.
"A few of them are hurt quite badly," I said with a frown.
Carlisle nodded. "I wish I had medical supplies."
"We found some at company z's camp," I remembered suddenly. "I don't know what everything is, but it's more than we had before."
Carlisle's eyes brightened at that and he rushed off towards where things were being unloaded.
The community house became the make-shift hospital. One of the women succumbed to her wounds, but under the care of Carlisle and Esme the others looked like they were going to pull through.
Everyone returned to their homes battle-weary, but relieved and happy that their loved ones were safe.
Bella and I made love over and over again that night, both of us coming down off the trauma of seeing each other in mortal danger.
By the morning, we were both exhausted but at ease for the first time in what felt like forever.
"I'm so happy," I said to her with a sigh.
Still sleep rumpled and with hair a tangled mess, she smiled back at me and it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.
"We need to get up," she said with a tired sigh, beginning to pull away from me.
I shook my head and pulled her closer.
"For once, we don't have to," I murmured against the skin of her neck. "We're safe. We've already harvested our gardens. There's nothing and no one that needs us today."
With a long happy sigh, Bella relaxed in bed next to me.
"I'm sure we're not the only ones that are recovering from a night of debauchery," I chuckled.
"Edward…" Bella chided.
"What?" I asked. "It's the truth. I bet Carlisle and Esme got their freak on last night. And we both know that we won't see Emmett and Rosalie for a couple of days even though we live with them."
Bella laughed hard at that, rolling against me.
I wanted her again, but my eyes were also getting heavy with sleep.
"I need a time-out to recover, but I plan on continuing with our night of debauchery at least for the next twenty-four hours," I said, groggily.
Bella laughed again, but I felt her arm that was wrapped around me relax in sleep.
Three days later, I was awoken by a loud banging on our door downstairs.
Quickly, I pulled on a pair of pants and rushed down the stairs with Bella, Emmett, and Rosalie, close behind me.
Throwing open the door I was met with a smiling Seth.
"Ben's woken up!" he gasped with happiness.
I yanked on a pair of boots and ran to the community house full of happy excitement.
Ben was sitting up on the couch, looking weak and exhausted but very much alive and aware of his surroundings.
"Edward," he rasped. "I hear congratulations are in order."
I frowned in confusion as I sat down in a chair closest to him.
"You organized the attack on Stefan's compound. You saved the community," Ben said with a smile on his face.
"That wasn't just me," I said, shaking my head in denial.
"I know that. I just wanted to thank each one of you personally," he smiled and then looked over my shoulder at where I assumed Emmett, Rosalie, and Bella were standing.
"All of you. You saved us," he said.
Ben was still hurt and probably would still be recovering for a while, but it was amazing to see him alive. I'd been really worried that one of my best friends wouldn't make it.
Angela could barely contain her happiness and it was a welcome sight.
I hadn't seen her smile since her mother and brother died.
Bella hugged her tight and whispered something in her ear that made Angela's smile grow wider.
It was the end of summer and the nights had started to become cold in contrast to the heat of the day.
As the days bled into each other, our community had really come alive, beginning to enjoy every day life and not focus solely on survival.
Aro and Tyler had been banished. We'd risked taking a vehicle outside the wall to drive them a good distance away and left them there with nothing but knives as protection. We could very well have sentenced them to death, but at least we'd given them a fighting chance.
The dead still milled around the walls of the community moaning, but I'd become used to the sound. It was almost like the hum of electricity that people barely noticed until it was absent.
We still patrolled the walls, but not as much as before and it became just a regular part of our everyday routine.
It was on a clear and crisp day when the majority of the community met behind one of the houses on the other end of the community from our home.
Emmett had recently found a baseball bat and gloves in one of the basements of the houses we weren't using, so he decided we should have a baseball game.
The field behind the house was the biggest within the walls, so that is where Emmett had painstakingly mapped out a baseball field.
I hadn't played baseball since I was thirteen or fourteen and I'd never been very good at it, but I was fast.
Emmett was the first one to bat and when Carlisle threw the first ball Emmett hit it with a resounding crack.
There was no way any of us could catch it.
"It's going, going...GONE and the crowd goes wild," Emmett sang out as he ran around the bases.
There was a disgruntled muttering from my team, but it was drowned out by Rosalie and Ben cheering loudly.
Ben was still too injured to play, but he was enjoying it nonetheless.
Jasper was the next to bat and he focused on hitting the ball with an intensity that was amazing. And he did just that, but I was able to catch it and tag him. He glared at me for a moment, but then broke into a grin.
When we'd returned to camp, it had taken Jasper longer than the rest of us to settle back into daily life, but Clara helped. Her needs became paramount to him, keeping him from his dark thoughts whenever she would cry or reach for him.
Rosalie had just stepped up to the plate when the tension of the game was interrupted by someone screaming, "Everyone! The front gate!"
I spun towards the sound and saw Katie running towards us.
In shock, we dropped everything and ran as fast as we could towards the gate.
As we got closer, we heard the sound of shouting and an engine running.
Bella, Carlisle and I reached it first, scrambling up onto the platform that looked over the wall, joining Quil and Claire.
It took me a moment to register everything I was seeing.
An RV was idling in front of the gate with three people on the roof and two in the cab.
My eyes focused on those on the roof and I saw in shock that it was Stefan, James, and a very injured Arnold.
"I was just saying to these kids that I think you can see where this is going. You defeated me. I concede to that. You killed my men, but you didn't kill me." Stefan was disheveled and there was a manic look in his eyes that I could see even from this distance. He wasn't the composed military man that he'd once been.
"Open the gates and leave. Don't take anything with you. Just walk out the front gates and I'll let you go. You're going to do this or I'll blow this man's brains out," Stefan shouted, shoving Arnold with his foot and nearly knocking him off the roof of the RV.
Ben was suddenly next to me, looking down at Stefan in panic.
"I'll give you 5 seconds to decide."
Arnold jerked his head up with great effort and peered through swollen eyes at us.
"Don't do it, Ben! Save the community!" The voice that came out of him was strangled with pain. "Don't—"
"5…" Stefan said as he smashed the blunt end of the gun down on the back of Arnold's head, driving him down onto the roof of the RV.
Arnold let out a half grunt, half moan.
"Shut up!" Stefan gazed down at the man as though looking at garbage. "Shut your fucking mouth!" Then he looked back up at the wall.
"4…"
"Arnold," Bella cried out.
"Ben, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few…" Arnold said, his voice barely understandable.
I couldn't stop a sob from escaping me. Only Arnold would quote Star Trek at a moment like this.
Stefan struck him again, leaving him practically unconscious.
"3…"
"You fucking bastard!" I screamed at him, futilely.
"You think I'm a bad man," Stefan said with a false acknowledgement of understanding. "Good, bad. Right, wrong. That hasn't mattered to me in a long time."
"2…"
"So what's it going to be?"
He waited for a moment, the sound of Arnold's ragged breathing the only audible sound.
I looked at Arnold despairingly because I knew that Ben couldn't give in.
I knew that the others were scrambling for weapons, but they wouldn't get here in time.
Stefan nodded as if acknowledging our answer and cocked the gun.
"Daddy!" a child's shrill voice called out. "You're a bad man!"
Everyone froze at the sound that was suddenly coming from right next to me.
I looked down and saw that Chris had snuck up on the platform with us.
He should not be witnessing this, was my first thought. My second was that Chris had said Daddy.
"Sawyer? Oh my god," Stefan said, all the color draining from his face as he froze with his gun pressed against the side of Arnold's head. "You're alive?"
Carlisle stepped in front of Chris, shielding him with his body.
"Sawyer? Come here," Stefan choked out, beckoning to Chris. "Come to Daddy."
Instead of making a move to go to his father, Chris hid behind Carlisle, clutching his leg.
"I'm Chris!" the little boy yelled out, "and you're bad!"
The look on Stefan's face went from shock to bewilderment, and then settled into a look of anguish. He seemed oblivious to everything around him except for his son.
"Sawyer…" Stefan said as Chris began to cry. "I'm so sorry…"
The gun that Stefan held clattered to the roof of the RV and he fell to his knees next to Arnold.
For a moment everything stood still, the calm before the storm.
"Fuck this!" James suddenly snarled and kicked Stefan hard enough to knock him off the RV and into the mass of dead milling below. Then, he raised a large weapon and pointed it at us.
Everything happened at once. I recognized that James was holding a grenade launcher, I saw Arnold scramble towards James kicking at him in order to knock him off the RV, and I saw James fire as he fell off the roof.
Suddenly, there was a loud rumbling force that threw me backwards.
The ground came towards me quickly and I hit the ground hard enough that my head slammed painfully back against the ground.
A loud ringing sound was in my ears as I blinked, my vision blurring and clearing repeatedly.
I looked to my left and saw Bella and the others were lying on the ground too.
I looked around disoriented as dust and debris puffed into the air and thousands of pieces of cement and wood, showered a deadly rainfall down on us.
Bella and the others had climbed to their feet and were waving their arms and shouting but I couldn't hear them.
All I could hear was a loud ringing and a constant hum that seemed to be emanating from inside of me.
I couldn't process what was happening, everything was hazy. There was motion all around me, but I couldn't make sense of it.
However, everything came into focus when Bella dropped to my side.
"Edward!" she shouted, grabbing my arm.
I looked at her in growing alarm at the frightened look on her face.
"Come on," she said, pulling on me. "We've got to go!"
She tugged on my arm, but she wasn't nearly strong enough to move me.
Sluggishly, I sat up and raised my hand to my forehead which was bleeding again.
"Edward!" Bella screamed and this time, her panic got through to me.
"We've got to go," she screamed. "The wall! The wall is gone!"
I looked quickly towards the front gate, but there wasn't any. A pile of twisted metal and debris lay in its place.
"Oh god," I cried out.
I climbed painfully to my feet and with Bella's hand in mine ran deeper into the community and away from the dead that had begun to spill inside.
I'm hiding behind a tree right now with my head covered, waiting for the projectiles to be thrown at me. I have six chapters left of this story and I promise it will be a happy ending. Stick with me. You won't be disappointed.