A/N: Thanks for the reviews and birthday wishes! It made turning a year older actually palatable. And to LivelyLaura, you totally caught my mistake there--I've taken the liberty of aging Edward to 25 years old in this fic, and I went back and changed the numbers in my previous chapters. Keep on reviewing, can we try for 10 this time? They do goad me to write faster. This chapter is still from EPOV. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own nothing, not the book, not the movie, not the songs
Rating: M for mature situations and adult themes in later chapters
Flight 5107
Chapter Three: World was on fire…no one could save me but you
EPOV
My inner conflict was eating at me, gnashing it's ugly teeth and ripping its way through my body. I thought of every scenario that I could think of, anything I could do to quell this hunger until I could safely get her off this plane. Her life was now more important to me than my own thirst.
Yeah, I'm real selfless.
Unfortunately, most of the ideas that I kicked around still ended up in her demise. It seemed inevitable. If I could just get off the plane, everything would be fine. I would just have to fight myself and stay away. I would not lie in wait at the airport until I could lure her into my car with the false pretense of offering her a ride to her final destination. I would not lurk around in the shadows in the alleys of Sydney. I would not follow her scent to her friend's home, break in while she was sleeping and kill her.
No, there would be no human casualties. I would feed immediately and often, suppressing the urge to go back and find her. As many animals as it took, I would sacrifice them for her. Hopefully, in time, I would forget how she smelled, how she looked, how her skin felt against mine. I could go back to living my pre-Bella life.
That's the thing though. Now my life was split into two distinct stages. Pre-Bella and Post-Bella. And I hated the fact that she had that much impact on my existence. My very flawed existence. She was the dictator now, she owned me.
Maybe I would go to Isle Esme for an extended vacation. I could be alone, collect myself, think. Get away from everyone, everything I knew, clear my head. That was a great idea. I would broach the subject with Carlisle when I saw him. He wouldn't say no, not when it was something that would save me from myself. First thing was first though, if I wanted to see him or anyone else in my family again, I had to make it through this obstacle.
The plane lurched slightly, jarring me from my thoughts. Great, turbulence. Somewhere behind me a baby started to cry.
Right on cue, the seatbelt light dinged.
"Ladies and gentleman, please take your seats. The captains have turned on the fasten seatbelt sign."
"Attention from the flight deck, we seem to be meeting a bit of turbulence, so if you could please return to your seats or remain seated with your seatbelts fastened, we'll try to move to a different cruising altitude to see if we can avoid some of the bumps. As always we care most about your safety, thank you for your patience."
I looked over at Bella to see if her belt was fastened…it wasn't.
I reached over to adjust her belt for her…as the plane staggered sharply, buckling beneath us, crushing into an invisible concrete wall of wind. It's sharp motion caused several people around us to be jarred from their seats, their heads striking against the ceiling.
Fuck.
The impact caused everyone to snap back in a fierce whiplash. The plane shook and rolled haphazardly, twisting about like a rag doll at the hands of a ruthless older brother. There was nothing controlling our fate now but the furious wind. We were like a stray piece of paper, being crushed and torn up by the intense current. It carried us and rocked up and down and back and forth, dropping and twisting us at it's mercy.
We started to plummet quickly, the wind still pummeling against the body of the plane. I could hear the thuds of bodies hitting the walls of the plane, the crush of bones deafening in my ears. I couldn't even react. No one could. Her body slumped against me as the plane shook. I looked over at her again, forgetting about what I was about to do…
A gust collided with the aft side of the plane, the reverberation striking us with a force that shook passengers from their seats, belts and all.
No.
Bella, her body limp, floated out of her seat ethereally, her head forcefully hitting the overhead compartment.
No! Fuck! No!
Even in peril she looked completely peaceful. I grabbed her body, still warm, and held her close to me, trying to protect what wasn't damaged. A strange sensation rushed over my body as grief overwhelmed all of my being.
The plane continued to shake and roll, a rumble escaping from somewhere below. A body slid past my seat in the aisle, lifeless from the force of the impact. Our vessel turned abruptly to the left, tossing a flight attendant who was struggling towards her seat from one side of the plane right into a door. Her motionless body slid down and stared coldly at anyone who dared to meet her fatal gaze.
Oh shit.
My mind became a jumble of noises, both internal and external. Screams permeated the air. The cries were guttural, crying for injured loved ones, crying in pain, crying for salvation. Fingers furiously typed on their cell phones, desperate to get a signal, desperate to tell the people back on Earth that they loved them.
Just desperate.
The thoughts I heard most clearly were the prayers.
Please Lord…let my wife know I love her…
Oh God, please don't let us die…
We're all going to fucking die…
If you save us, I promise to change my life, never do anything or say anything hurtful…
I wish I could tell him I love him, I wish I could see his face one last time…
Take me, but don't take my baby…
I searched the scene for anything that might help us. A mother lay clutching her screaming child, her head bloodied and drooping. The elderly man in front of her sat still, his eyes clenched, having resigned to his fate. His neighbor, a young woman gasping her last breaths, ran through images of a family she would never see again. Everyone around was starting to give up, but I would not.
My pleads were a little different.
Please save her…anything, I will do anything, just save her please.
We jolted again, and a beverage cart became unhinged, crushing the man in the front row. I had to avert my eyes. Even this violence was too much for me.
The plane swept to the right, suddenly changing direction, and out of the corner of my eye, something bright reflected in the window.
Red. Orange. Yellow. Blue. Blazing. Hot.
We were on fire. The flames rose from the wings, smoke enveloping us from all sides. It wasn't just the turbulence, our engines were giving up on us, too.
All three hundred and eighteen of us were just handed a death sentence. We were all going to die.
We were all going down and going down fast.
All around me, I heard all the bargaining, the acceptance, the denial, the anger, the depression--every one of the stages of grief. So this is what it would be like. Death was something I had thought about frequently in the past. I had even wanted it many times during my tortured existence as an immortal. I wanted it because I thought it was unattainable. But I wasn't feeling quite so sure of that desire now that it wasn't quite so impossible.
Carlisle's face flashed in my mind. More than a father to me, he was the loving, caring figure who saved me. I would miss him most of all for his compassion and infinite wisdom. Esme, my adoptive mother…no, just my mother, she deserved that title now, her endless love seeing me through the darkest of times. Emmett, with his strength yet teddy bear like softness, was the big brother I never had, but I always wanted. His jovial personality always lifted my spirits, I know I could have used him right about now. Even Rosalie, we didn't always get along. Actually we never really agreed on anything, but that's what I loved about her. Her pride and dignity made up two of her best qualities.
And Jasper, my best friend. He and I were often left to our own accord, since we were the two unpaired ones in the family. But we often chose to travel the world together, to stave off some of the loneliness I suppose. To say we were a close was an understatement. I knew all of his struggles with this life and the choices we made. He knew of mine. We both had demons, but at least we each had someone else who could relate. I had always admired his intensity and attention to emotions, something I had never really bothered with myself, being gifted with my mind-reading skills. I didn't need to understand or try to decipher meanings in different feelings, they were all laid out for me. I think that made Jasper a lot more complex, and his struggles a lot more real than mine. I'd been able to control myself better than he had, and to him, that meant he would never be able to adhere to our chosen path. So, he broke off on his own. This would have been the first time I'd seen him in almost a year. He was quiet but stead in his ways and it saddened me to think that I'd never get to see if he'd ever grow out of his waywardness.
I would miss them all. If anything came out of this predicament, it would be that I guess I would get to find out if I had a soul or not. Maybe Carlisle was right. Maybe there was hope for our kind.
I hoped he was right.
I hugged Bella closely to my chest…I could still feel her chest move against mine. Maybe it was better that she wasn't conscious enough to experience this horrific end.
Our aircraft started to spin through the air, throwing the already chaotic masses into even more hysterics. The woman beside me wept, and repeated a prayer over and over in her mind. Children screamed in agony, their parents having been injured or already killed. Blood seeped through the carpet, making a sea of crimson ribbons run across the floor. The smell of shed blood was terrific inside me. The lights flickered, our electrical system was finally failing.
We whipped around, struggling to survive a battle that was already lost. The oxygen masks futilely dropped from the ceiling as our cabin pressure started falling. I hadn't noticed, but now realized that Bella's breaths had gotten more labored. I broke the golden rule of airlines and put her mask on first before putting one on myself.
Please save her.
In a few moments, everything would be lost. There was nothing holding me back now. I kissed her forehead and her hair, willing her to open those beguiling brown eyes. I inhaled the scent from her hair, the sweetest strawberries from the best field. We could be there forever. We could have forever.
I smelled something else. Something saltier, metallic almost. Like rust.
Oh God. Blood. She's bleeding.
The wound on her head was oozing warm blood onto my fingers. I lifted a blood tinged digit to my nostril.
I closed my eyes and gave in, inhaling deeply through my nose. Superb blood wine. The bloodlust was tremendous. I could take her here, I could die with a lingering memory of the best moment of my life. The moment where I would taste my Bella.
I opened my mouth, showing off the gleaming teeth that would quickly pierce her skin. I saw them shine brightly in the window. I looked at myself long and hard. My reflection appeared to be exactly what I was…a monster. I took off her oxygen mask, throwing it to the side. She wouldn't need it.
Her carotid pulse thumped right under her sternocleidomastoid muscle. Oh my, how I had imagined this moment. How I had wanted it so badly. I paused right at the side of her silky neck, caressing it gently. I kissed her jaw and then her pulse point.
Goodnight, Bella.
I lifted my head, ready to attack. My head snapped forward…
"Uhhgdhgd." Her eyes flicked open and widened at the sight of my pouncing face.
"Bella?" I stopped myself, stronger than I thought.
Her chest heaved, taking heavy deep respirations. "Ed…ward?" She moved her hand slowly to her head and touched the bloody spot. Her face twisted in shock and pain as she brought her fingers to her sight. "Uuhh!" she cried out, the tears suddenly streaming down her face.
"Don't worry, it'll all be okay. We will be okay."
She stared up at me, her face displaying a calmness I wasn't expecting. Like she was resigning to this cruel fate. She grabbed my hand and squeezed it, hugging herself closer to me. The pain she must have felt, the confusion. Nothing was shown on her face. Would she have looked like this had I had the chance to end it for her?
The anger seared through me. Was her life that insignificant to her? That she was just willing to lay down and die without a fight? She should be scared, she should be petrified. But, she just looked up at me, her eyes reflecting a life that would never be.
I made up my mind. I was going to save her. She was going to walk out of this alive.
I looked out the window again, trying to see past the blurs of wind and light. It was pitch black out there, as we were likely over the ocean. We didn't have a shot in hell. It wasn't humanly possible, but it's a good thing I am no human. We were rapidly descending and when we hit the water at the velocity we were going, everyone would explode into a million pieces. I knew we would hit fast, it had already been a minute or two since we started to fall.
I picked Bella up, wrapped her up in her blanket and fastened her seat cushion to her. If we could just make it to the water intact, I could let my speed do the rest.
She stared at me with alarmed eyes. I tucked her into my arms, and in a blinding flash carried her towards the front of the plane. She huffed up and down, her chest now making shallow breaths, obviously she was surprised at my speed. She hadn't seen anything yet.
I kicked the drink cart aside with my leg, denting it. If she had any reservations about me before, she certainly had them now. But she, probably stupidly, pulled herself closer to me.
"Edward…" her voice was hoarse and low…and weak. "Your eyes…are black."
I smiled. We were about to die and she was noting the color change of my eyes? "You're okay, Bella. I just need you to hold on tight. Don't let go. Do you hear me? Whatever you do, don't let go."
I pushed through the mess of luggage and bodies to the cabin door with her in my arms. She looked around in terror as she realized the state of the plane. This was it.
I turned to her and saw the hesitance in her eyes.
"Bella, do you trust me?"
She stared, her mouth agape. "Do I have a choice?"
"Just hang on, everything will be okay, Bella. I promise."
I took a deep breath and kicked the door open easily.
"I just want to try something," I leaned towards her smelling her luscious scent as the wind rushed into the cabin. "Be very still...don't move."
I turned to my brown-eyed girl and placed the most feathery of kisses on her lips.
"I've wanted to do that since I saw you."
Her furiously blushing face was the last thing I saw as I jumped.
Inspired by Wicked Game by Chris Isaak, Died in Your Arms Tonight by Cutting Crew, Prayer for the Dying by Seal, Break Myself by Something Corporate, One Day Robots will Cry by Cobra Starship
