CHAPTER SIX: INTO THE SHADOWS
I WAS STILL GROWING ACCUSTOM TO THE FEROCITY OF MY VISIONS. The last thing I could remember seeing was the back of Edward's head as we laid on the pullout couch, cuddling. I could remember my eyelids growing heavy, my thick lashes, fluttering down in black curtains over my vision. And then a moment of darkness.
The world around me burned with light. I coated my face under my arms, shielding myself from the blaring sun. Slowly, blinking blindly into the white until softs forms began to take, I opened my eyes to the vision.
As my sight adjusted, I began to make out certain sounds. I recognized the soft crashing waves, the calls of seabirds over and about—could inhale the warmth and salt of the beach.
Powder-soft sand coated my feet. My toes wiggled around, scattering the sand around. Hesitantly, I let my arms fall to my side. The bitterly blinding blaring sun stung my face. And I had to close my eyes again. This heat was unbearable, I long for the coldness of home—Edward…like I could feel my body burning. I sucked in a jagged breath, then slowly reopened my eyes.
I was, indeed, on a beach, or was it an island? Thick, tropical foliage shot out like a lead curtain on my right. On my left, was a vast, endless sea of cerulean. The sand, so blindingly white, reflected the sun into my eyes. I squinted, staring out through my eyelashes, peering deeper ahead.
There was a figure, basking in the waves. I could make out ivory of its skin, and clamped, tangle of ebony hair.
My eyes blinked several times, and each time, the figure grow clearer. A woman, her body bare, the soft, gentle curves of her body glistening in the sunlight. She washed herself in the sea, scrubbing the saltwater up over her arms. Over the sound of the sea, I could make out a trance inducing hum. The woman's curled up in a smile as she contiuned her song. Without thinking, I found myself walking closer to her, my lag jerky. As I drew closer towards the woman, her features became more clear. She had full lips, though the bottom was slightly fuller. A soft, gently swooped nose, and wide, mocha brown eyes. Her hair had not been black, as I'd first thought, but only appeared so when wet. As the sun glistened over it, I could see the rich shades of crimson and umber.
Her ivory skin, glowed strangely, in the sun. Like it should burn her, but refused. I couldn't help but stare. Gracefully, her neck turned, piercing out from her collarbones, to stare back at me. The wide, mahogany eyes glared into mine. And with a smile, that I was horrified to recognize, gleamed up at me.
"Beaufort," she cooed.
The world around me shifted. Blurring over me in a storm of white and grey. There was the occasional flash of color. Brighting, blinding lights of blue, purple and white, warm, enchanting orange flames, a rose, and something that shimmered like a star…and then there was a clear image.
I could feel myself, gripped in terror, could feel my heart—thundering, wrenchingly, in my chest. My lips trembled as I glared at my fate.
I could feel the bitter, icy wind slap me in the face. Sheets of snow fell from the heavens, obscuring the world in a sheet of white, save for one figure.
Perched high, poised to strike, in a large pine, was Victoria. Her wild, flaming hair billowed around her. Her crimson lips curled over her teeth, her eyes…black as her soul, baring down at me.
"No! Beau," I heard Edward cry. I turned to his voice, but couldn't find him. Victoria leapt, and I knew…it was over.
My body jolted up upright. My mouth opened wide as I engulfed the air around me. Edward's comforting arms were around me instantly.
"Beau?" he gasped in my ear. I couldn't answer him, not immediately. One arm reached over to rest over my chest. I could still feel my heart hammering underneath. I continued to suck in ragged breaths, as silently as I could, my mind desperate to dislodge what it had seen.
Baby, Edward groaned, miserably. I shook my head, trying to shake away the vision, trying to comfort him. I yanked my eyes shut and let my head slump. Edward's mind was a blur. His hands yanked me into his bare chest, his arms shielding me from harm. My hands shot up to grip him, holding him as the life vest against the blackhole.
"Victoria," I answered, in a ragged rasp. The vision taking sense in my conscious. A time to come. An event yet to be. She'd gotten away…
She'd gotten away.
"She escaped," I explained, my voice still jagged. I gripped onto Edward tighter as my breathing settled.
"She's coming back. And she's going to get me."
Edward's grip on me strengthen, nearly crushing me, the sound of my joints and bones cracking filling the air.
NEVER! he snarled, protectively in his head. The sound more similar to a beast or monster. I could feel his muscle trembling under mine. Venom coursed through his every vein.
I shook my head, still unbelieving. The terror I had felt then, still mine in the present, rattled through me. She was going to get me. I was going to die.
Edward's phone pang on top of the end table. With one arm still wrapped over me, he reached his other over to wrench his phone to his face.
"Start talking," he hissed into the phone, his voice a mimic of the beast in his head.
It was Alice's voice that pleaded out to him. "Edward, let me explain."
"How?" he demanded, yanking me tighter into his side.
"Son," Carlisle's voice called out soothingly.
"He just saw—"
"I know," Alice cried. "I know," she repeated, her voice more soothing. And then there was a pause.
"And I saw it, too."
Edward hissed.
I trembled, a dark gasp, rasping out as my voice.
"You said—"
"That was before, Edward," Alice explained.
"Before what?"
"Before Beau's act of charity got in the way."
Edward's voice was frightening, the most vicious and threatening I'd ever could remember hearing. "Don't you dare—"
"We're not." Edward's mother decreed. "Of course, what Beau did was the right thing," she said, as if her opinion on the matter was the decided one.
"She didn't know that we'd returned. But she brought the sacrifice along with her, incase she ran across the wolves."
"What was it?" I asked, my mind desperate to focus on anything but what would be.
Alice had seen me ask."Father believes him to have been homeless, a psychotic of some sort, the transformation—it somehow excelherbrated that.
"Added on top of his already heightened senses as a newborn," Carlisle affirmed.
"He's gone," Rosalie added smugly. "It was almost too easy. I'm getting rusty."
"And her," Edward snarled.
"The wolves were waiting for her, fellas," Emmett explained, despairingly—the Tennessee twang evident in his voice.
"And she crossed into their boarder line," Jasper added, his voice, thicker than Emmett's, repulsively. "She jetted from line to line. Like she knew every angle that was comin' at her," his voice grew more fierce.
"Jasper," Alice sighed.
I thought I heard him grunt.
"Emmett was lucky to get away, unscathed," Rosalie complained, her voice thick with disappointment. "He and that grey wolf collided."
I felt my heart leap into my throat. With my eyes wide, I jolted my head upward to stare at Edward.
"Everyone is fine," Esme soothed, "on both sides. Jasper saw to that."
"Harder than you think to subdue a pack of mongrels," he added bitterly.
"We left, amicably," Carlisle promised. "There is nothing to fear."
Edward was fierce again. "Nothing to fear? Nothing to fear?" he seethed into the phone.
"Edward, listen," Alice cried on the other end. "Beau only saw that one vision—the very worst vision."
"His visions are prophetic, Alice," Edward hurled.
"We don't know that for sure," Alice warned.
"How can you—,"
"He could see, only the very worst possible, thing," Carlisle added, heavily. "It would make a pattern, regarding his family." He sounded like he was declaring me dead.
Edward's mind spun for resolution in his father's suggestion. He clung to any memory of a pattern or pair between myself, my grandfather and my great-grandfather. But he could find none. Until Alice explained.
"Alexander saw his death. Beaufort saw his—each right before they died."
"And Beau only saw the worst outcomes of our leaving—what happened in Volterra, and what happened to Hailey Clearwater."
The very worst, most vivid visions. Ones that had haunted me then, and that plague me for all time.
"Witches tend to meet sticky ends…"
Is that what we saw? A vision of our deaths? My great-grandfather in a logging accident, my grand-father in a fiery crash. Me—decapitated by Victoria.
"If you think that changes anyth—"
"Edward," Carlisle begged, exhasberated. "Son, please. Let your sister explain."
Edward growled, but remained silent.
"My vision was faint, Edward. It was a fade, a glimpse at the impossibility. But I saw that Beau's vision would be as real as his other's, And I saw it in full, and I'm sorry he's had to see it…but mine is almost invisible. He's still here. Ten, fifty, a hundred years later. I still see him, clear as day.
"Beau saw this impossible, worse-thing imaginable, a vision of the two of you separated, permanently. It's what he fears the most. His family has a history of that, of leaving behind the people they love without a goodbye. Because their absolute fear, manifest into the imaginable—it almost summons it."
Edward's head dipped, and his lips pressed again the top of my head.
Never. Never. Never, he vowed over and over in his head.
Carlisle's voice contiuned elaborating. "But Beau has more than they had. He has knowledge of who he is, what he is…and he has us. None of us, will ever allow any harm to fall upon him."
"You two need to be ready," Alice warned. "You have fifteen minutes before Beau's parents start waking up."
"Everything is going to be fine, little brothers," Emmett promised.
"I am watching her every move. I will know the instant she decided, and I will see us end her." Alice's voice rang with conviction.
"Your father and I will meet you at the airport," Esme chimed.
"Jasper and I will be there, as well," Alice added. "We'll need help explaining this to Charley and Sean, especially Seth…"
My heart jerked for him.
This was supposed to be it. This nightmare was one he would finally awake from. Victoria would be gone. The monster vanquished. The true healing, to begin.
How could I let him down like this.
If I'd been there. Then she never would…
"Tell Beau to stop blaming himself," Alice commanded at her brother. Edward's arm crushed me tighter, my lungs aching to breathe.
"There was nothing he could've done. Even if he'd been here. That would have only escalated things," she stated, matter-of-factly.
I was repulsed to believe her. On either matter.
"Boys, we need you to play your part for a few more hours. It will do no one good if you let them know now," Carlisle request.
I felt Edward shake his head.
"We'll see you in nine-hours."
"Love you, both," Carlisle added before Edward ended the call.
We leaned against one another, silently. My heart still hammering. The image of my death played over and over in my hand.
It would be quick. Painless. But something permentant, something that not even vampire venom could alter. But I would leave them all alone. Without a goodbye. I would be sentencing Edward to the same fate.
I was going to die.
No! A stronger voice commanded, silencing the other. No. You're not going to die. You are different. You are better than, stronger than that. She is not going to take you away from the people you love. You are going to end her.
And I knew that I could. I knew that I was capable now, more so than ever, to destroy Victoria once and for all. She would burn, before and after. The icy thrill of hate in my head assured me of that. It purred for that change to strike, grasping with jagged claws to escape, to cause pain.
I'd rip her head off. One, swift, rushing flick of my wrist, and it would be off. I would not dignify her by using magic any further. I would kick her head, like a soccer ball, into a blazing fire.
And my revenge would be sated, and my death, deterred at last. For after this. I would be a vampire. And nothing, would ever threaten me again.
My hands ran up and down Edward's arms as I began controlling my breathing. I inhaled through my nosed, and exhaled through my mouth. My body rose and fell with each movement.
"It's going to be okay," I soothed him, gripping him into my clutches. "It's going to be fine. Don't worry. That's not going to happen."
"Beau," he sobbed in my hair, kissing the top of his head again. He rocked us, more forcibly than other times. Every molecule of his body was ravaged in fear. His soul yelled out in agony, the very notion of what could be, more than he could withstand.
"That's not going to happen," I told him again, more fiercely. "We won't let that happen."
Edward froze. "What are saying?"
I swallowed a gasp. I'd seen and felt snow. Winter. She'd come back in winter. December—January?
When I answered, my voice was strangely settled. "Six months," I announced flatly. "I get one semester of college in. And then, I'll turn into a vampire."
Six months—November.
My timeline was firmly set.
I felt the sands of time pelt me in the head, the upper contents of my time as human tumbling to an end.
Edward licked his lips. "Six months?" he repeated, unsure.
In many ways, it felt like a death sentence. Six more months to live. Six more months until it was all over. I was going die, in one way. When I awoke from the burning, I would be entering into my own form of Heaven. With Edward, up in the stars.
And though I knew there would be a bright light at the end of the tunnel, the last six months of my life loomed over me in inky blackness.
I nodded. "Six months. And then she'll never be able to kill me."
Only the people I left behind, as I escaped into everlasting ever after.
No. I would kill her before she had the chance. I would be stronger. A newborn, capable of strength and power that was beyond her. My vision of her death shifted. I wouldn't need magic at all, to kill her. I would be able to achieve it with my own two hands.
But the burning. The burning would have to transpire.
Edward's lips brought me back to reality.
"Beau," he crooned, worryingly, in my ear. "Beau I am so sorry. I am so, so sorry."
I turned my head towards him, confused. His eyes stung with ghostly tears. "I am so, sorry," he repeated, his voice rasping out in shallow sobs. "I thought this would be over. I thought we'd have more time."
I cradled him in my arms, letting him dry sob into my chest. He kept his crying down, too low for anyone else to risk hearing. But I heard it. I felt it. Emotionally, physically. My arms wrapped around him protectively, shielding him from this troubles.
But it was no use.
His mind replayed the concocted image he'd created of my demise. His grief was insurmountable. His desire all encompassing.
My timeline moved up.
"Graduation," I announced. "We do it after graduation."
I sand fell heavier, drowning me under its weight.
I listened as Edward's thoughts shifted…
"No. No—you can't, it's too—"
"It's the smart thing," I said slowly. "The wisest thing. We can't delay this much longer. It's getting too dangerous."
My pension to lure disaster towards me railed into my consciousness. For years now, Fate had tried to kill me. And I'd always managed to escape, but just. And the longer I stayed human, the more desperate Fate would get. My time had run up.
It was time to embrace the fate I had created, and venture, to descend, into the shadows.