I ran toward the sound as fast as my legs would carry me. Each new howl of pain was like a fresh stab piercing all the way through my chest. I tried unsuccessfully not to think about what was happening to him. What if I was too late? How badly was he hurt?
I knew I was getting close once his yelps got louder. Sure enough, a moment later I could just see the reddish-brown fur of his coat. It took all of my self-control not to just run straight to him, but I forced myself to keep my head. I crept closer. There were two vampires on either side of Jacob, facing away from me. He was standing, but not straight. His front left leg looked mangled and bloody, and there were several gashes all over his body. His face was twisted with pain and fear. This made the vampires smile wickedly.
"Can we bite now?" one said franticly to the other.
"No, not yet." the other said. He was clearly the leader. "We must wait until he doesn't have any fight left. The best satisfaction comes when he is writhing on the ground, howling for death." He flashed a blood-thirsty grin. The other laughed maniacally, the sound of which made my insides turn to ice.
This had to be stopped. But how? I could hardly jump in and beat them by myself. I looked around. If I wanted to defeat them, I would have to eventually burn them. Praying that the vampires were too focused to notice, I crept closer and started to prepare a decent fire pit. My family had shown me plenty of times how to make a fire, I just hoped I could make one quickly enough. I almost had a small flame started when Jacob let out another howl.
Hurry, Renesmee! I shouted to myself. Hurry up, stupid! The fire was getting a little bigger by now. Careful not to smother it, I fed the bright yellow flames more wood. The fire grew larger and larger. It was then that Jacob finally noticed me there. He gave a panicked bark which caught the vampire's attention. They turned to look at me incredulously.
"A human?" one wondered loudly.
I smiled, feigning bravery. "Not exactly," I said, walking directly in front of the fire.
The leader jerked his head in my direction, "Finish her off." Jacob barked and yelped, more horrified and pained than ever. The follower smiled and shot toward me. When he was close enough, I jumped to the side. Much to my dismay, the follower stopped himself just before he could fall straight into the fire. He turned to me, his lips curled in a sneer.
"You thought you could fool me, did you, little girl?" he spat at me. He was right; my feeble plan had failed easily. He began to creep toward me again. Did there happen to be a plan B, Renesmee? I turned and ran up the nearest tree, where he followed me. I was barely on the first branch when I found myself cornered. The smoke from the fire below billowed up behind him, making him appear more sinister than ever before. Desperate for some kind of defensive weapon, I reached above me and tried to rip off the nearest branch. The vampire laughed at me maliciously.
"You don't have a chance!" he cackled. Oh, but there had to be. I gripped the branch above me with both hands and tugged with all of my strength. The branch broke off and fell down but missed him by mere inches. But the force of it cracked the center of the branch we were standing on. Plan B! I smiled at myself. I stepped forward and stomped on his half of the broken branch until it broke as well. I picked up the other broken branch and shoved it into him so that he fell backward-- exactly in the path of the fire. Once he fell into the center of the fire, both of the tree branches fell on top of him and trapped him inside, so that he could only scream and burn until he was nothing but ash.
I jumped out of the tree, anxious to see if Jacob was alright. My heart sank when I saw he was limping worse than ever, and there was yet another gash on his shoulder. But my spirits raised a little when I saw that the leader's left arm was torn off at the elbow, and a chunk was missing from his back. Jacob cast another chunk of what appeared to be a piece of his foot towards the fire.
"That's it, wolf!" the leader snarled, "I'm not playing any more games!" he launched himself on top of Jacob, his teeth bearing. He was eyeing Jacob's neck…
"No!" I screamed. I leapt onto the vampire's back. I seized a clump of his hair and pulled his head sharply back. The surprise caused him to lose his grip and fall back toward the ground. Yet I was still beneath him when he fell. I hadn't slammed into the forest floor one fraction of a second before his rock solid body smashed into me with a sound as loud as a thunderclap. All of the air flew out of my lungs; I couldn't breathe. Jacob picked him up by the head with his teeth and launched him into a tree, which cracked and fell. Jacob ran as fast as his three good legs could carry him to the fallen leader and jumped on him. It was all over then. Jacob ripped him apart limb by limb, flinging each piece into the fire with his teeth.
After every piece was burned, Jacob looked as though he would fall over from exhaustion. He slowly limped behind a clump of trees to transform. When he emerged, tears flooded his eyes.
"Nessie!" he choked, limping toward me. I ran quickly to him. He fell to his knees and wrapped his good arm around me. I threw my arms around him with tears streaming down my face as well.
"Nessie, don't you ever do that to me again!" he sobbed. I was crying and choking too much to reply out loud. I just clutched him close to me, trying to appreciate that he was alright and safe with me. But even as I held him he seemed to het heavier. I pulled back a little. He appeared to be too exhausted to even kneel. As carefully as I could, I laid him down on the forest floor. He had to be in so much pain. His injuries looked much more pronounced when he was in human form. Most of his gashes had mostly healed, but the one on his shoulder still looked pretty bad. The worst part was his broken arm. Since it had started healing already, it had a kind of gruesome bump between his wrist and his elbow. I took off my sweatshirt to wrap around his arm so it could at least be protected until Carlisle could fix it. But he winced when I tried to touch his arm. A new tear fell off my cheek. I wished I could take the pain away from him. I'd rather have all of my bones broken than see him hurting this much.
"I'm sorry, Jacob," I wept softly.
His warm eyes looked up at me. "For what? The pain, or for putting yourself in danger?" his voice cracked on the last word. "Anything could have happened to you. What was I supposed to do if you got hurt? Do you expect me to live without you?"
"But I couldn't leave you alone. I couldn't. When I heard you howling like that… I…I had to… I had to do something… I…"
He smiled weakly, "Are you in love with me or something?"
I had to smile back, "Yes, I am."
He gently stroked my cheek, "I'm in love with you too."
That simple little sentence felt so healing. So purifying. The fear and hurt that overwhelmed me just moments ago drifted away, replaced with elation. I bent my head towards his and kissed him tenderly on the lips.
When I pulled back a moment later, some of the pain seemed to have left his face. In fact, his smile had even grown a little wider. I would have been contented to just grab onto him and hold him forever.
Running footsteps interrupted our moment of peace. Momma and Daddy came running toward us, their faces full of shock.
"Nessie! Jacob!" Momma exclaimed, kneeling down next to me and pulling me into a bone-crushing embrace.
"Momma," I wept, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please forgive me, Momma, I'm so sorry." Momma took a minute of broken, tearless sobs before she replied.
"Baby," she said, "it's more important to me that you've learned selflessness than to sit quietly on the sidelines."
I looked at her in confusion, "You're not mad?"
"Well, I didn't say that," she smiled wryly.
Daddy came to kneel beside me. "Are you hurt at all, Nessie? Do you have any breaks or burns or anything?"
"No, Daddy, I'm ok."
"Are you sure?" he wiped the hair out of my face to examine me a little closer.
"Yes, Daddy, I'm sure." I assured him. A smile of relief lit his face. He turned back to Jacob.
"I wish you could say the same thing," he said sadly. "What's broken?"
"My arm," Jacob said hoarsely, "and they cracked my rib too."
"We can reset that right away." Daddy grabbed my discarded sweatshirt, wrapped it around the broken arm and tied it around Jacob's neck so it could serve as a sling.
"Whoop-dee-doo," Jacob said with as much sarcasm as he could muster.
"Hey, you're lucky you got away with just one major injury. Taking on two vampires…"
"Yup, I'm awesome like that."
I saw the rest of the family starting to appear in the distance. Carlisle… Emmett… Alice… Jasper… Esme and finally Rosalie. All of the guys carefully lifted Jacob and started to carry him away. My heart started to sink when I saw him leaving again, but then I remembered Daddy just barely said they were getting his arm fixed. Geez, Renesmee. I sighed, but then turned back to Momma.
"What happened, Momma? What happened at the fight?"
"Well, at first, it looked like they only had a few vampires with them. Things were going smoothly when Jacob saw the leader run off. He got suspicious and followed him, but then another of the stronger ones pursued him. As if that didn't worry us enough, more of them showed up and outnumbered us. That's when your father called."
I looked around at my aunts and grandmother. Their clothes were a little torn, and they looked a little battered, but otherwise they looked unscathed.
"But everything turned out okay, right?" her story didn't seem to fit with the outcome.
Momma smiled. "It turned out I showed up just in time to even out the playing field."
"Was anyone else hurt?"
"Seth and Leah have a few minor injuries, but they're fine. And, well…" Momma reached behind her shoulder and touched a rip in her clothes. I looked around her to see where she was touching. Beneath the rip was a crescent shaped scar…
"Oh, Momma," I gasped, touching her back lightly. Her beautiful body was scarred forever. A small tear brimmed my eye.
"It's not a big deal," she said, tried to shake it off.
"Not a big deal," Alice pouted, "You'll never be able to wear strapless dresses again!" she folded her arms in disapproval. Despite the situation, I giggled a little. She was seriously disappointed. Momma smiled.
"Yes, Alice, that is the worst part of all." We chuckled at Alice's martyred expression.
"Come on," Momma said to me, "let's go back home and get you cleaned up."
I touched her face and asked why I couldn't be with Jacob.
"We need to give Carlisle a chance to fix his bones first. Besides, you're a royal mess."
I looked down at myself. I was covered in dirt and soot, and only had my undershirt on since my sweatshirt was now ruined. I tried to tell her that I couldn't care less, but she was smarter than that.
"You've lived your entire life with these two models," she indicated with a nod of her head to Alice and Rosalie behind me, "and you're trying to tell me that tattered, dirty clothes don't make you crazy?"
I worked to keep my face composed, but she saw right through me.
"I promise once you're clean and presentable, you can go and see Jacob," she bribed. I sighed, defeated, and followed her home.