As I turned, I prayed my legs wouldn't let me down, that my natural clumsiness wouldn't send me sprawling with a sprained ankle, or worse, something that would require an embarrassing trip to the hospital.

I reached the kitchen and then the back door, amazingly without incident, and literally flung myself out into the night. He would know I wasn't standing behind the door anymore, my scent would grow faint, but hopefully he'd just think I'd run upstairs and his new-found politeness would keep him outside, either waiting for me to change my mind, or not waiting as he lost interest and left again.

Edward!

Outside the weather was far worse than I'd realised, the rain clutching at my clothes like heavy wet fingers, the wind pushing me back, even as I fought to cross the backyard to scale the wooden fence.

That I was running away from him horrified me even as it kept me sane. I simply couldn't take any more, couldn't stand to see him as he'd been that day in the forest: distant, impatient, regretful that I was unable to let go.

It never occurred to me that it wouldn't be that way; that his regret might be due to something else entirely, that his love might still exist, despite what he'd said and how long he'd been gone. The only thing I could imagine was that this must have something to do with Alice, that she'd seen what was in my mind, the crazed thoughts of finding him, of finding someone else who could help me find him. The thoughts that I could really, honestly do anything to be with him – the pathetic thoughts, the insane thoughts, the selfish thoughts, the hurtful thoughts. Was it possible that she'd seen I would do something so crazy it would hurt them? Somehow damage their secrecy? Had she shared this with Edward? Had they sat down and discussed me? Discussed me the way you'd discuss a rat problem or a particularly smelly relative who just wouldn't leave?

As I reached the fence and started clambering over, tearing the inner thigh of my jeans in the process, I could picture it so clearly I wanted to throw up.

You've got to tell her Edward.

I did, I told her when I left!

Well you've got to tell her again – get it through to her this time.


I don't see how –

Well you've got to find a way. It isn't just her - this time she's putting us in danger, Edward, is that what you want?

No! But what can I do?

You can go back – make her listen. Make her believe – You don't actually love her do you?

No!

Then go back and tell her!

I thought I had.

Well you were wrong – I told you what I saw! Now go back there and stop her!

I dropped to the earth on the other side of the fence, my knees shaking with the impact, my face swimming with rain and the beginning of tears. I wasn't a fool, I knew that the Alice voice of my imagination was meaner, less sympathetic than the Alice I had known. No matter the danger, Alice was probably still sad for me. I had to believe that her affection had been real, that something of that time had been real. But at the same time I knew Alice, knew how she felt about Jasper, just how far she would go to keep him safe. If she'd seen something in my future that would threaten them, I knew what she'd do – just as I knew what Edward would do.

Especially now that he didn't love me.

I whimpered aloud this time, the sound audible despite the screaming wind.

That he'd never loved me.

But such thoughts were useless. If I could just stay away from him – stay away long enough for Alice to see a new future, to see it and call him and tell him. Tell him so I wouldn't need to go through it again. Tell him so that he'd leave, without having to grind my heart into vapour for a second time.

As I ran I made a solemn vow: no matter what it took I would stop craving him. I would throw myself into something – anything - to occupy my brain so that thoughts of him would be to a minimum. So that I wouldn't crumple so far down as to start having those thoughts of finding him. So that my thoughts of him, when they came, would be heartbroken – yes - but not desperate, or at least not as desperate as they'd been. As I ran I swore on Charlie, Renee, Angela and even Jacob.

Jacob! My mind gasped, seizing on his image like a hot sweater in an ice box. I would be with Jacob! Be with him the way he wanted me to! I would be everything to him that he'd want me to be; explode into his life and into his heart and cling to them for dear life. I'd use his love for me as a lifeline, use it to haul myself out of the fire and keep me out – even if the flames would always be licking at my heels.

Maybe it wasn't right, but I would make it right! I would force myself to love him; drown in all his good points, his kindness, his everything. If only I could get to him – get to him before Edward found me. Because if he found me, if he said the words I knew he'd come to say I wouldn't survive. I'd never claw my way out.

I was in the woods now, fighting not only the wind and rain but tree branches and thick roots that lunged out of the earth to snag my feet and bruise my shins. I threw a glance over my shoulder. I could see my house, the light coming from the kitchen window. I was glad I couldn't see the front door – I didn't want to know if he was still there, waiting for me, or on foot walking away.

Both thoughts lead to horror, to misery. The only one that didn't was somehow getting away, somehow making it far enough. Somehow finding Jacob and hiding deep in his arms.

But then as I staggered over a particularly prominent tree root, barely keeping my feet as I did so, I felt him. And in that moment I knew he wasn't standing on my porch, or casually strolling away down my street.

He was coming after me.

My heart hit turbulence, jolting up and down in my chest with horrible force. I turned again towards the light of the house, still running, no longer caring if I went down on my face. Maybe I'd get lucky, I thought wildly, maybe I'd go down hard and knock my head so bad I'd go into a coma and –

"Bella…"

I stopped in my tracks, my head still wrenched awkwardly towards the light. I felt my hands start to shake and a scream of denial build in my throat.

"Bella – please…" Despite the storm and the thick strands of soaking hair moulded to my head, his words were so clear he could have been standing next to me, murmuring them in my ear.

Slowly I turned, wanting badly to run, to keep running, but knowing it was useless – had always been useless. I could feel the pain and the fear for my still-broken heart twisting my features, contorting them into expressions they'd never before known. If I was ugly compared to him before, I thought bitterly, I would be doubly so now.

Not that he'd care either way.

"Please Bella…I'm not going to hurt you."

His words, just as the sheer glory of him, the awful, untouchable perfection of him came into view yanked me to the cliff face and sent me hurtling over the edge. I screamed at him, screamed so hard I doubled over and my fingers twisted into clawed fists. The words that wanted to come out, the ones that told him to go away, leave me alone, don't do this to me, please, please don't do this were all hopelessly tangled in that one terrible scream that went on and on, seemingly forever, before finally, finally, choking off to die.

He looked shocked, horrified, his honey-coloured eyes wider than I'd ever seen them in his white, wet face. He was standing about six feet away from me, his back to a huge, towering pine. And as I looked at him - the awful scream just an echo in my mind and a rawness in my throat - my heart, my horrible, treacherous, Judas heart, just leaped.

I wrenched my eyes away from him, whimpering. It was a thousand, a million times worse than I had imagined. It was like seeing him, for the first time, all over again; like seeing him die and then finding him brought back to life. Every pore in my skin, every hair on my head trembled with love for him. And the awful thing, the truly terrible, unbearable thing was that for every tremor of love, there was the cold, dark certainty that nothing, not even a sliver, could ever be offered in return.

I took a shaky step back, stumbled and fell. Immediately he was there, crouched next to me, one arm supporting my back seconds before it slammed down into the mud. The feel of his cold skin through my thin sweater was purest torture, a sadistic reminder of the last time he had touched me, the last time I had been in his arms.

"D-don't!" I jerked away from him, dragging myself just inches away, the mud sucking at my jeans with the effort. "Don't touch me!"

His eyes, still huge and golden, regarded me without blinking. I couldn't look at them, to do so was to throw myself into the whirlpool and be lost forever.

"Bella, please – you have to listen to me. I need you to listen to me."

Without looking at him I shook my head viciously, the little voice in my head wailing and beating it's fists against my mind, desperate for me to succumb, not just to listen to him, but to throw myself against him, let go of my longing and inhale his sweet smell deep into my nostrils and let it sooth the remnants of the scream from my throat.

He touched me again, this time a cold hand against my cheek. Immediately I felt myself ripple, lose solidity and start to melt against him. With a will born from the purest heartache alone I yanked my anger back around me like a cape and snapped my head around to face him.

"Don't touch me." This time it was his turn to flinch, his hand pausing in mid-air at the centre point between our faces. I allowed the cloak of rage to spread, not just over my body but over my face. The ragged mess of misery scraped from my features to leave the red raw visage of anger. I saw the change in my face register on his and his hand dropped to the earth, any intention he had of reaching out again deader than dead.

"Ok…" His voice was soft, careful now. Within his smooth tones I could hear the twang of restraint. "I'm sorry, Bella, I didn't mean –"

"Didn't mean what? To come here? You mean you just accidentally stumbled across my house?"

"No…" He shook his head slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. "I always meant to come here."

Forgetting for a second that I was the human and he the vampire I barred my teeth at him and hissed in rage.

"Well I don't want you here – understand me?" My voice shook, the little voice in my mind completely trashing the hotel room of my brain at my words. I clawed the cloak closer to my flesh. "I don't want you here!" I repeated, feeling the scream building up again in my throat. "I don't want you here!"

Something flashed in Edward's eyes. For just a moment he had the look of a man reliving something truly horrible. His shoulders hunched infinitesimally and his head dropped ever so slightly forward as though it had grown heavier on his neck.

My heart, still winging violently in my chest, hit a particularly large air-pocket and plummeted to the ground.

"Don't say that."

At first I thought I'd imagined it, his words – usually bell-clear and beautifully formed – came out guttural-sounding and ragged around the edges.

My rage cloak billowed around me.

"Why?" I spat. "Is it only ok for you to say it? You can give it but you can't take it?" His eyes seemed to grow dull as I raged, but I couldn't stop, didn't care if his already low opinion of me was dwindling into nothingness. "I don't want you here," I said again. "I wish you'd never come back! I hate -"

Quick as a flash he was back at my side, his cold, cold fingers pressing against my lips, forcing the word that had come so close to bursting forth to stall in my mouth.

"Don't!" And now he sounded angry. His eyes that had grown dull suddenly raging a pure, brilliant topaz.

"Bella…" He leaned closer, his perfect lips locked into the last shape of my name. From this close I could see his nostrils flare and knew that he wasn't just fighting his anger, but his thirst…

The thought shocked me – not because I was afraid, but because my first reaction was to want to press my body into him, fling back my head and tilt my neck to his face.

Instead I stared at him, my rage cloak unravelling beneath the power of being in his arms, my flesh beneath his fingers.

His eyes dilated and I saw them flick to the white skin of my neck, to my lips and then back again.

"Don't…" He said again. "Don't ever say that."