Chapter Nine-

I will admit that I blacked out. Fainted, I was pretty much a goner actually. Not good. Not good at all.

The next thing that I can remember is laying in a fluffy mattress, I could feel the vibrations coming off the floor boards of people angrily stomping around.

"Quiet down, guys, jeez," Alice said.

"How? Alice, a mutt carried her here knocked out cold and weak! How am I supposed to calm down?" Edward yelled.

Oookay, someone's got the painters in.

Very quietly I slipped out the door, trying to process what had happened.

Flicks of the bad ending went through my head. The Latin mumbles of a curse that made me doomed in seven short months. I walked, mulling over what the consequences of being weak and vulnerable were.

"BELLA!" Esme shouted, spotting me in the crowd.

"Oh, hello," I said, softly.

"So, you want to talk about what happened?"

And- I burst into tears (which I can do thanks to an annoying vamp that had humanity as a power).

--

The six months crept by, Bella growing weaker, the city thriving, and everyone's concern for their leader growing to new heights.

Edward Cullen worried over her more than anyone else. When her time came he wouldn't know what to do with himself. Probably help run the city, her final project. He just couldn't fathom that when he finally found her, she was dying.

Life, predictable or not, was cruel.

--

You know what I hate the most? Feeling so weak like this. It stinks majorilu. Worse than a dead cow in the Sahara desert in August. That's how incredibly bad.

I didn't even know how the death was going to do itself. Truly, in my sleep is out of the question. Fainting? A last antagonizing shock of pain and BAM over the rainbow?

It was a month away. What would people do when the found out? Smile up at the heavens, glad I found my peace? Cry because their leader is gone?

But- what happened on the first day of the seventh month I never expected.

"Oh, Isabella, you thought you could hide?" A menacing voice of Alex snarled at me.

"What do you want now?" I asked. We were in a surprisingly empty main street. Not a soul to be found.

"I want to kill you myself," Alex shrugged. So I went through six months of pain for nothing?

"I'm already dying!" I screeched at him with whatever strength I had left.

"Its so much more satisfying to watch the lights leave your eyes," Alex said, sounding truly evil.

He grabbed me by my hair, and snatched me closer to him. He was so close I could smell his breath. I did smell it. He needed to brush his teeth after eating Doritos, honestly.

"Smile my dear, you are about to die," he hissed into my ear.

I'd never find my true love. I'd never see my city at full peace. I'd never watch the girls fall in love. I'd never get to walk down that isle in a white dress. I'd never challenge Emmett to an arm wrestle. I'd never go shopping with Alice. I'd never make peace with Rosalie. I'd never really get to know Jasper.

All those possibilities flew down the drain.

'Not so fast, bucko."

"Not quite."

"Not today."

The three most surprising people ever to say that for me to a raving mad human killing vampire.

(A/N I'm totally rushing cuz this is due on Friday. YIKES!)