Downpour
"So...I need you to sabotage the engine." Rosalie looks surprised, but on board. Colossus, though...
"Didn't you just say this would be too dangerous? You're talking about exploding a barge, Amory," Emmett is so serious he's completely dropped the nicknames, "something that usually involves a lot of fire. Have you totally lost your mind?"
My plan is to scare them into moving the boat out to the bay, at which point Swan will lay our explosives, Rosa will make sure they can't try to make it back to shore, and I'll try to talk some of the newborns down. I'll be alone in a sea of bloodthirsty newly turned killing machines, Emmett's wife will be stuck on a boat that we plan to set ablaze, and my protege will quite literally get a trial by fire as her first hunt.
"...Yeah." Par for the course, business as usual, et cetera.
"I'll do it." Rosalie speaks up, tone sure and even. Her eyes are set as hard as steel as she looks between Swan and I, "When?"
"Babe -"
"Emmett, we have to do this. Rory got us into this...and I trust her to get us out of it, too. I'll be fine. I can do this." They share a look that transcends words – a mental link that's different but just as effective as the one I share with Jasper. She smiles reassuringly at him; it's such a rare thing to see her smile so gently and genuinely that it renders the entire room momentarily silent.
"I know you can. I just can't lose you."
"Look, no one is losing anyone." I can't stand seeing Emmett look like he's about to cry, so I try to be reassuring, "We aren't going to lose. We aren't losers."
"Oh, I don't know about that. You've -"
"Swan, now isn't the time for your snarky comments." This banter is becoming a thing with us...and I really like it.
"Really? Kitten, you know I love you, but -"
"Children, please," Carlisle pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs, "can you focus?"
I settle myself into a dining chair and pull one of the overhead pictures in front of me, "While the three of us are on the ship the rest of our force will wait on the docks. I don't think the blast will get all of them and I don't want any of these newborns escaping. If they can't listen to reason, we'll have to kill them."
"What if Marcus shows up? What if he's already there?"
"Well, Al?" Esme asks the question, but I turn it on our resident fortune-teller.
Alice gets the far away look in her eyes associated with discerning the future, "He's not there. Not yet."
"If he shows up when we do, we explain what's happening. Tell him about our plan; he agrees and joins us, or he dies with the rest of them. Get ready – we're leaving tomorrow at dusk."
Maddie shuffles around as everyone else starts their own preparations. As soon as the room is cleared of everyone but Liam, her, and myself, she opens her mouth to speak and then disguises it as a yawn. I catch her again and she feigns a smile.
My brow raises at her odd behavior, "What do you want Witchie?"
"I...I'm a little afraid," she finally admits, eyes pointed to the floor at our feet, "considering that the last time we did something like this...well, it didn't go well." She's great at understating things – I remember escaping that small torture dungeon with her, covered in blood, only to be gunned down in the desert. I had died, sure, but she got the worst of it; stuck alone with a corpse in the middle of nowhere. 'Didn't go well' doesn't begin to cover it.
"Everything is going to work out...right?" She looks not at all convinced. Hopeful, but not convinced.
"You're there as support only. We'll keep you safe." I give her a knowing look and nudge her shoulder with mine, "Edward will keep you safe."
She flushes scarlet, "He is...very determined. I didn't think he'd be this – "
"You tell him yet?"
Her face contorts in confusion, "What do you mean?"
"You love him. Have you told him yet?" It's just something to get her mind off what's about to come. It works.
"No!" She squeaks, now even more red than before, "I couldn't possibly...he's too...I'm...it just wouldn't work! We're just -"
"Please don't say friends because that's the biggest load of bullshit I've ever heard. You really should tell him." I goad her further.
She's so flustered that she doesn't even talk back, just stalks off more red than a strawberry.
"You're only making it harder for him to resist, blushing like that Witchie. How shameless!" I call after her. She looks back at me with large, mortified eyes and quickly leaves the room.
"Rory, you're going to cause that girl to go into cardiac arrest." Liam comments as he starts to unload alchemy components. I wave dismissively and get to work.
Another sleepless night, only this time Jasper and I stay up late with Al, Swan, Maddie and Ed making bombs to Liam's specifications. The old alchemist has some wonderful, deadly recipes still knocking around his old skull. And I haven't forgotten what John taught me, not everything. The rest of the Cullen clan are off hunting, gearing up for different facets of the battle we're about to fight. Bryn is meeting Leah at the borderline to make sure she knows the importance of her pack – if this does go sideways, there is a very good chance that Red and Maria will take it out on the people we all know. They'll be the last line of occult defense. The Chief just learned about all this existing barely forty two hours ago, and I doubt he's going to be making an arrest on a bloodsucker anytime soon.
Basically, we've got to win. Simple.
By the time we're loading everything up, the sky decides to open up; rain pours down viciously, lightening tears through the clouds, and the thunder shakes the house. Maddie thinks it's an omen, but I refuse to believe it.
"What if it is?" Jasper is helping me move the last of the crates of explosives carefully out of the house and into the trunk of his car. His mood is heavy; I've been trying to push my almost giddy anticipation on him, but he's still not fully into it.
"You aren't going to screw this up. Trust me."
I've been able to feel it since I thought of this craziness to end the threat of a newborn army. For Jasper, it's all to easy to remember the time he spent with Maria in her ranks, the emotions of the newborn vampires, his own role in their deaths. The gambit of feelings that come along with that death. Eventually he couldn't take it and left – now he's wondering if that's going to happen again. If he gets the way he used to get when put in that position, he'll either run or go insane. I know he wont, but he's not so sure.
So I throw everything she ever did into the forefront of his mind, but not the things she did to him – the things she did to me. From the moment I saw her in the villa to the thugs she hired to torture me, I bring it all back. The smell of copper as the bolt cutters cut first through skin and sinew, then bone, and then nothing. My hand forever disfigured. The wild shot that stopped my heart...and the moment I thought it was all over. It's so fresh in my mind that the thought of it makes my body ache, especially my missing digits.
Jasper makes an unintelligible noise; he's still as a statue save the clenching and clenching of his fists. Whatever parts of his eyes were red, they're as black as night in rage.
"Sorry, went a little overboard," I put my hand on his shoulder and try to calm him down before it gets out of hand, "just had to get your head in the game."
"I'm not one for violence against women," he looks deeply into my eyes while trying to get his now ragged breathing under control, "but I'm going to rip her apart."
"That's...quite possibly the sexiest thing you've ever said to me. I might swoon."
"I can go on." The darkness in his eyes shifts to something much more pleasant. I almost give in.
"Later. Focus. We've got a boat to blow up." Almost – I barely manage to keep my composure.
"Emmett and Rose are meeting the rest of us just outside of the docks, right?"
"That's what Colossus said. Carlisle thinks we should bring Maddie -"
"That's the worst idea I've ever heard."
It is, but all I can do is sigh and explain, "I told him that too. He said if they have that many newborns it's not impossible to think they have people on hand there in case someone gets...hungry. If someone needs medical attention, she's qualified to give it." Sort of. She's just a nursing student, but she's got healing magic that's second to none, at least not that I've seen. She saved my ass, and that's good enough for me.
"Professor X is worried too. He'll keep her safe."
"You're very confident."
"That's why you love me."
The marina is small and just a few miles outside of Seattle. Swan, Rosa, and I hang back as the rest of the gang make a false first move; it's as simple as driving in with the headlights on, but it's enough to tip off the two ringleaders inside that we're here. There are two guards posted that are instantly on offence, but our force on the shore outnumbers them immensely; they're quickly cut down.
Maria and Red call a kind of retreat - the barge doesn't move quickly, but they must be thinking we'll need to get boats to get out to them. They aren't banking on a small water sabotage group. We wait on a small sand bank until they're about a hundred yards from the dock and holding before we slip our explosives on a plank of wood and plunge into the choppy waves.
Swan gasps slightly when she enters the frigid water and I fight back a smirk. She's marked enough to feel the fire on her skin, enough to stave off hypothermia, but not enough to make it feel nice to be in an ice bath. We'll have to change that soon.
The three of us make our way silently through the dark water – kelp grabs at our ankles as if to pull us into the depths, but soon we're far enough away that the water seems vastly empty. The only thing we can make out in the darkness is the barge hulking in front of us. The soft hum of the engines is occasionally drowned out by a crack of thunder or the creaking of the barge itself.
Rosalie makes eye contact with me in the dark, face illuminated by a burst of lightening. I nod at her and she soundlessly begins climbing the rear of the ship to find the engine room. Her figure slips out of view and I'm left with Swan. She starts after the blonde, finding hand-holds in the worn out metal surface. I help her hoist the bag over the edge with her and climb out after.
The deck is awash in light as bright as day, albeit briefly; it's enough time for us to make out how many containers there are. While Swan begins to attach the bombs to most of the holding cells, I take a deep breath and start to wind my way through the maze of containers to a more open position.
"Quite the downgrade from that fancy villa you were in, Maria," thunder cuts through my statement as I pace the deck, watching, "too bad it went up like a house of matches." My voice is surprisingly strong against the torrent of rain. I'm met with silence, so I try again.
"Are you going to come out here and settle this or are you too chicken-shit?" Out of the corner of my eye I see a figure move; for a second I think it might be another guard, maybe one of the top bitches themselves, but the figure trips over nothing.
Goddamn it, Swan, hold it together. I know it's raining, but come on.
"You." It's a word laced with sheer contempt.
Like the first time I saw her, Maria seems to materialize out of nowhere. One second there's darkness, then a flash, and then there's the beautiful woman with desperation in her eyes. We've got her. More than that, we've got her and she knows it. All the anticipation and nervous energy I felt seems to melt away as my blood sings with one purpose.
Destroy.
"I should have killed you and been done with it," Maria's voice hangs in the air, musical and accented and slightly wavering, "but how could I have known you'd be so persistent, so hard to kill. This time, I wont make the mistake of letting you live.
"Any of you."
From somewhere on the port side of the ship there's a noise – Swan scrambling like hell to get everything wired. Maria looks momentarily startled, and then turns on me with murder written on her face. I'm not sure what she was thinking, whether I'd be foolish enough to try taking her on again alone. From the time that's passed, I can only guess that Rosa is off the ship and Swan is nearly done.
I have to wait for their signal before I hit the kill switch. The flare gun is back on shore; Jazz will fire a round off when Swan and Rosa are back on the dock.
Somewhere below us I hear an insane cackle and the clang of a few container doors.
"Shit." I really hope they hurry the hell up.
I'm still waiting on them as the nearby entrance to the lower decks open with a bang and ten newborns come pouring out. They're foaming at the mouth, wild eyed, and way too far gone to try to reason with. Before I have a chance to think about how to handle them I'm swarmed. Teeth and nails scrape my skin, but I barely feel it. I'm so driven by the need to put this to rest that there is nothing else.
Newborns are always pretty problematic, mostly because they don't yet have a defined limit. Sometimes it's hard to kill someone so newly turned, emotionally speaking; usually it's some stupid kid caught up in something bigger than they could have conceived, a poor sap with just a touch of humanity left in their newly changed eyes. This, though, this is...different. If Maria and Red were gong to unleash these on Forks, they wanted them hungry. There are no more people here, no more beings with any shred of humanity left. There is only blood thirst.
I go from defense to offense; across the water Jasper is sifting through my thoughts again, removing anything unnecessary. What's more is that he's using his empathy to boost my already strong feelings about this fight. However pissed I was before is nothing compared to now. On top of having his venom in my veins, it all proves to be a potent mix.
The nearest bloodsucker I pull off of me by the hair and land a punch so hard it sends them through the metal deck. The others waver for a second, stare at their fallen comrade, but continue their assault. I deal with them all in a similar fashion – limbs are torn off and shattered, and by the time I'm done there's stone-like flesh strewn across the slick metal. Maria is still watching through the downpour, looking more worried than before. Victoria is at her side, her hair as dark as blood from the water. She looks far more entertained than her counterpart.
"I knew you'd be a pain in my ass."
"It's kind of my thing, being charmingly annoying," the grin I throw the two of them is obviously disarming, "well, that and killing scum like you."
Rory, do it!
"We'll see about that," Red smiles back at me, dark and malignant, "that was just two of the containers. You're fucked. We're going to get back to shore and set our pets on your town. You're done."
"Oh really? I'm not nearly as stupid as you are, falling for the same trick twice." I click my tongue at the two women.
Amory! Trigger the damn explosives!
All I have to do is stall for a few more seconds so that Swan and Rosa aren't caught in the blast.
"Hey Red, when you get to Hell say hey to James for me."
Maria's eyes widen in recognition as she catches on about the explosives, and the smile on Red's face twists into evil itself at the mention of her seriously dead boyfriend. Jasper is worried and ready to fight. I'm out of time. A streak of white and red is careening towards me. Then out of the corner of my eye I see the flare fire from the shore - it's soaring through the rain, almost in slow motion. For a moment I wonder if Swan actually rigged the explosives right; maybe nothing will happen. Then I really might be fucked. My finger presses down on the switch as Victoria slams into me.
And then there's nothing but heat – I'm thrown into the air in a blast of fire. My wet clothing doesn't catch, but the newborns aren't so lucky; from the heat of the fire I'd say it got quite a few of them, some swallowed up instantly. In the explosive wave Red goes flying. Maria is screaming somewhere below me and I can hear the ship itself start to break apart.
When I finally come crashing back down I hit the edge of a shipping container first before I bounce into the chill water. Gasping, trying to get my bearings, I start to swim in the general direction of the dock, away from the barge that is going up in flames. As I'm being thrown around by the choppy water, I catch a glimpse of a fight happening on shore.
I'll be damned if it isn't Swan who's dragging Red out of the water by her hair, spitting mad. Alice is watching her, torn between being impressed and being terrified as she keeps the few newborns that made it off the ship off her girlfriend's back. They've got the situation under control; Red's already pinned to the dock, about to be killed. Struggling to get to my family as quickly as possible I haul myself up onto the deck and start to rush to battle.
There's a blur across the dark of night, headed straight for me, but before it gets remotely close it's taken down. The wood structure buckles, nearly breaks but holds, and for a brief second there's no movement. Jasper has his hands around Maria's throat and she's looking up at him in shock. He's got a look in his eyes that's so savage the breath is knocked from my body.
True to his word, he begins rending her into pieces. He doesn't say anything as she screams at him, pleads at him to stop. And, though he must have done this too many times to count and it's never been something he's been happy with doing – taking a life – this is something he's reveling in. I can feel it.
"Hey Ink!"
I'm torn from watching the long awaited scene unfolding in front of me by Emmett's voice. I look at him and for the first time I don't see Emmett as just some 'young' guy that I talk games and comics with. There's a need for violence sparking in his eyes that's maybe inherent to him, or maybe part of his vampire nature. Either way, it's good to know he's down for a fight.
"This is awesome."
It's all I need to join the fray myself. I help take care of the newborns while Jasper and Swan have the main baddies covered. When the last of the newly turned lie in rocky masses at our feet the other two finally join us. Jasper tosses Maria's remains harshly into the rest of the pile. While I'm glad Jasper is who he is, what she did to him is still festering in my mind, so I spit on her corpse. One final fuck you. Swan starts the burning of the bodies and we can all finally take a collective breath.
As we watch the boat burn in the distant water I can feel the heat on my skin from the fire burning not ten feet from us. Two of our major problems are going up in smoke; the latter's fiery red hair seems to meld with the flame and become one with it. Soon enough there will be nothing but ash and bad memories.
"Marcus showed up. He's heading Esme and Carlisle's way right now." Jasper joins me at the edge of the water. In the distance the barge is burning – we'll watch it sink before we leave. Maybe I'll come back for clean up later.
At least later is an option now.
"Not out of the woods yet, huh?" I cross my arms and rest my head on his shoulder.
Jasper smiles as he pulls me close, "Almost."
"We did good, yeah? I mean, it almost went sideways, what's new, but -"
"Marry me."
Jasper watches me intensely as I turn from the fire and look into his eyes. His pale skin seems to glow in the firelight and it makes the curly curtain of hair falling into his eyes shine gold. I stare at him for a good long minute, committing how perfect he is even disheveled after a fight. Especially disheveled after a fight.
The words make me go stupid for a little longer than that; I look at all the destruction around us then back at him.
"I thought of making a big production out of this, but," he shrugs and flashes that boyishly charming smile I fell in love with almost two years ago, "this is who we are. I've been running from this side of myself for a long time, but you...you made me realize that sometimes this is what's needed. Whatever we're up against we'll make it work. Even if that always means charging headfirst into danger with no plan other than giving someone hell. I want to be with you forever, Amory.
"I want you forever." He grabs both of my hands in his and looks more sincere than I've ever seen him.
"We'll see how you feel about that in a hundred years." I'll never let him leave again and I'm sure as hell in this for the long haul.
"Can I assume that's a yes?" His smile transforms into a grin - it's as beautiful as he is.
"What do you think?" I say through the lump in my throat as tears form in my eyes. His lips crash into mind as soon as I ask; he knows it's yes, knows that there's no one else for me but him. He unlocked a part of me I didn't knew existed, a part of me filled with compassion and joy. John had tried to break me, and for a long while succeeded in breaking me; Jasper managed to help me fit the pieces back together into something wonderful.
He breaks the kiss to slip a simple band out of his pocket, smooth dark metal, and slides it onto the ring finger of my left hand. With the faintest pressure he presses his lips to my knuckles. His eyes flicker more beautiful shades of red than the fires surrounding us.
A shrill shriek pierces the night, followed by a roar. The peace is shattered all too soon. There's a fight at the end of the dock, but that's not what has me running for the rest of the group.
Cradled in Edward's arms is a brutally bitten Witchie, eyes shaking and fearful. My heart breaks as I think of our conversation from earlier, how I'd assured her everything would be fine. When I finally reach them, she's barely hanging on. Her shoulder is all blood and gore, already decaying on the edges from the venom. Ed looks like he's losing everything, every shred of light in his life. She looks up at him with adoration in her fading eyes, the edges of her lips curled in the faintest smile.
"I really do love you."
We all stand near the edge of the water in shock. The one person we were most sure would come out of this unscathed, that we could protect...and she's dying. Edward looks up at me with broken eyes. The usually warm golden tone of them is dull.
"It's too late for me to do anything. Save her like you saved Bella." He means it's too late to suck out the venom. The bite is too close to her heart; it's probably already through her whole system.
"I can't," my voice cracks and I begin to gently lift her from his arms; her dark skin is unnaturally pale. "I'm not sure if she'd make it, or what these marks would do to a witch -"
"Will this...will this turn her?" He's covered in her blood but he's holding onto his composure. I hear Swan say something about grabbing a car and hear the others leave the dock, but it's all muffled. I'm keeping track of Maddie's heartbeat, faint but there, and not really paying attention to anything else.
But for how long?
"I don't know." I've heard of witches trying to become vampires, but a hunter usually intervenes. Or, if it has happened, no one is left to confirm the story. Which doesn't bode well for us.
"We'll take her back to Forks, let Carlisle look at her...Edward, I'm so sorry."
"Get her there, Amory, quickly. She's..." He trails off and can't continue. All he can do is stare at her limp figure in my arms, grief written on his face.
We start to hear sirens closing in, so we all disperse. I leave with Maddie in my arms. By the time Swan I lay her in the back of the car, her heartbeat is out of control. She's going into shock.
We're not even out of Seattle and I'm giving directions on how to give CPR to a frightened yet determined Swan. This is the second time Madeline's heart has stopped since we left the docks.
"Drive faster!" She's doing chest compression's while trying to avoid the poorly bandaged bite. I can tell she's close to breaking; Swan isn't one for blood, and now she's covered in blood that isn't hers. She was only just getting used to getting a little bit on her during our practice fights. We both hold our breath as she gets more and more frantic; finally she does succeed in starting her heart again, which makes the both of us nearly sag in relief.
"Hold on." I don't have a – I push the pedal down as far as it can go and hope to whoever is in charge here that we make it back with more than just a body.
(A/N: Two chapters in one month?! Preposterous. Let's see if I can keep up the pace! Thanks for reading, you're all awesome!)