Ch 7: Hatred

BPOV

As soon as we pulled into the driveway, I leapt out of the car. Never in all of my wildest imaginations had I thought that I would want to get away from the love of my life so quickly, and yet here I was.

I was an idiot. How could I have expected the impossible? Edward wasn´t going to come groveling at my feet begging me to take him back. I knew all along he was far better than I was, and it took him too long to realize it as it was. Still the fact that he wasn´t infuriated me, that and his apparent disdain for my mere presence. I didn´t want to look at him anymore. I would only humiliate myself by crying even more, and ultimately begging him to love me again. I couldn´t put myself through it. It wasn´t enough when I left my car to not say another word to him. In my bitterness, I wanted him to see that I was happy without him, or at least I wanted it to appear that way. He might not care about me anymore, but at least I could show him that he was replaceable. I needed Jacob at the moment for more than just comfort; I somehow desperately needed him in order to get under Edward´s skin.

As soon as I embraced my boy werewolf, I knew I was safe from myself. He looked at me with fear, so concerned that something was wrong with me. That felt good, to know that he cared if I lived or died. Even if I had the tiniest cut, he would care. I could feel him shaking and squeezed him tighter. Now was not the time for him to lose himself to his temper.

Jacob didn´t return my embrace. He pulled out of it and stalked after Edward´s car, making its way out my driveway. He blocked his exit, putting both hands on the hood of the car. Jacob was strong enough that he might have stood a chance against the machine, and I imagined him crunching the metal in his hands, knowing that regardless, Edward would emerge unscratched. But Edward´s car was no doubt more powerful and sturdy than most, and I found myself fearing for Jake´s safety.

He growled at my vampire ex boyfriend, "What are you doing here? What did you do to her?"

The sound that arose out of Edward a second later was unexpected. He sounded infuriated, and so much like the kind of vampire I had always read about, vicious. "Her car crashed and I took her home. End of story. Now get out of my way."

I bit my lip hard to keep from crying ever harder. He was still dying to get away from me. Maybe he was lucky, maybe he would never see me again.

Jacob was at my side again before I had a chance to collapse. Edward´s car was gone, but I didn´t see it leave through my cloud of tears. Jacob cradled me against him and led me to the house. I collapsed onto the sofa barely even seeing that it was there. I couldn´t see much of anything. Edward knelt before me and took my hand… Warmth… No, that wasn´t Edward. It was Jacob. It would never be Edward. I doubted I would ever be able to touch him again. "Are you okay?"

I nodded, a truly pathetic attempt at lying, and of course Jacob didn´t buy it. He wiped away my tears with his free hand. "What happened?"

I shook my head, "I was stupid. I was driving down the road so fast… and it was raining so hard…"

Panic filled his eyes, a look that reminded me so much of how Edward looked after he pulled me from my car. "Good God, Bella, why? What were you thinking?"

I paused. There was no way I could tell him the reason why. I couldn´t even tell him where the accident had taken place, since he would know I was going to the Cullens´ old home. Telling him about Edward´s voice in my head was even more dangerous. First, it truly did make me sound crazy. Second, my cover would be blown. He would know that I wasn´t getting over Edward at all, that I had been using him from the very beginning to hear that voice. I couldn´t do that to him. He was all I had left, and I couldn´t stand it if he abandoned me too.

"I don´t know," I sighed.

Jacob rubbed his face in frustration. "Well then I guess I should have thanked him instead, but I sure hope you won´t make me."

"I won´t," I said, tears falling on my cheeks again.

He sat on the couch next to me and took me into his arms. "So why are you crying?" He asked, "Did you get hurt in the accident?"

"No… I´m fine. He got me out just in time."

"Did he at least take you to the hospital?"

"No, Carlisle checked me out."

I didn´t catch myself in time. Jacob´s skin hardened and shook. "You mean he´s back, too? They´re all back?"

"Yes," I whispered.

Jacob let go of me and balanced his head in his hands. I knew that he was fighting to keep himself human for my sake, knowing that if he changed he might hurt me in his anger. I never doubted him, though, just like I had never doubted Edward. I had somehow surrounded myself by people who could kill me, but I was either too brave or too stupid to stay away. Like me, they were different. Maybe that was why I needed them. I could relate to them in a way I could never relate to normal people. I didn´t know if that made me less human and more monster, but the latter was sounding better and better each day.

After he calmed himself down, his eyes looked dead, staring off into empty space. "The pack isn´t going to like this."

I embraced him, drawing back his attention. "Please… Don´t chase them away. I haven´t gotten to see them in so long. I don´t even know how long they´ll stay here. Please…"

Jacob grimaced hard and I didn´t know why. He took me in his arms and pressed his face into my neck. I was warm and satisfactorily happy for the moment, happy to have him there to support me when I couldn´t support myself. We stayed that way for several minutes, or it could have been hours, but when he spoke his voice was a sea of torment, "Are you going back to him?"

Could I have denied how badly I wanted to? To this day, Edward held a part of my heart that could never be replaced. I had always imagined that seeing him again would heal all my wounds, but seeing him had not closed the gap in my heart, it had only increased it, because there was no love left between us. He had said before he left me that he would always love me, in a way, but even that promise had been broken. He not only didn´t love me, but he wanted nothing to do with me. It was clear the moment he threw me away from him at his house. It might have been all he could do to take me there to get checked out, but his chivalry could not hold out forever.

And here I had Jacob, so warm and alive, and loving me desperately. And I needed his love like I needed air to breathe. There wasn´t a doubt in my mind that I loved him in a special way, more than as just a friend, but still less than I loved Edward. I couldn´t give into my feelings. Edward was lost to me now.

"No, of course not," I said, the most difficult words I had to say all day.

He relaxed and held me tighter, "I was so afraid that was why you were crying…"

I couldn´t understand why going back to Edward would ever make me upset, why I would be crying were that the case, but I kept my mouth closed on that one. "I was just overwhelmed. One minute I was about to die and the next I was seeing his whole family. They are all so important to me, and I thought I would never see them again."

I was careful not to mention Edward too precisely. He didn´t need to know that I missed Edward more than any other.

"If you love them so much, then I won´t stop you from seeing them, assuming that they really are leaving soon."

Esme´s words came back to me, "We just couldn´t stay away. Forks is very dear to us, as are you. How could we stay away?" Had she meant they were here to stay, or that they were just hear to visit?

"And if they end up staying?"

He sighed, "You shouldn´t be around those leeches. Just seeing you around that female one makes my blood boil."

How I hated it when he called them that. "They´re like a second family to me, Jake. I didn´t even get to say goodbye to them last time."

"And the pack? Do you think they could become a second family to you?"

I smiled a real smile, for the first time since I got home, "I´m getting there."

"Then you won´t need those leeches anymore," He said, and my smile faded. "Don´t give me that look. You know I´m only looking out for your best interest."

"Are you sure? Are you sure you aren´t just… jealous?"

He rolled his eyes, but underneath that, his body was tightening, and I knew I had hit a sore spot. "It´s more than that… They aren´t natural. They´re dead, and they´ve admitted to thirsting for your blood. Don't you think it´s a little crazy that you´re their friend?"

"Maybe I can´t chose my friends. If I could, I probably wouldn´t be with a werewolf either."

He tensed up and shook his head, "It´s not the same."

"Isn´t it? You´ve admitted to me that when you lose your temper, you never know who you might hurt… including me."

"I would never hurt you."

"I don´t think you would hurt me either, but I´m just saying that by your own definition it´s just as dangerous for me to be with you as it is for me to be with them."

He grumbled under his breath, knowing he had put himself in a corner on this one.

"I was heading over to see you," I admitted, leaving out any info on my little detour.

"You were? Why?" He said, wrinkling his forehead.

"Don´t look so surprised. I knew you´d be there in your garage."

He nudged me, "You make me sound like a hermit. I do leave the garage every once in a while." I giggled. "Actually, I came here to see you."

"Yeah?"

"Absolutely. It´s been a while since we got to do anything fun together. The rain has stopped," he said, looking out the window, "What do you say we go fire up those motorcycles?"

"That sounds great," I mused, "Right after crashing my car, you take me out on a motorcycle."

He pulled me to my feet, "Well I didn´t get my chance to rescue you today."

"Great, so you´re just trying to get me into trouble so that you can boost your ego."

"Come on. Let´s go."

I followed him out the door to his lone motorcycle. The other one was surely waiting for us at his garage. I climbed aboard behind him and pressed my head into his back. We sped off to La Push and I held onto him tighter as we gained speed. I would follow him anywhere, so long as he cared, so long as he loved me.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...................................................................................................................................................

EPOV

´She hates me… She hates me… She hates me,´ I thought. It was all I could think about.

We stopped by the scene of the accident to see the condition of her car. They were just piling up the pieces to take them away. Just as I had always thought, her car wasn´t as sturdy as she had always believed it to be. At the speed she was going, the car was completely totaled. I cringed at the sight of the frame, contorted in a grotesque way, jutting out into the driver´s seat where Bella would have been a small fraction of a second later after I pulled her from the car. How happy I was that she would never be able to ride it again, and no doubt it would be an even longer amount of time before she got her hands on another vehicle.

My family took away her corpse of the car in pieces. It wasn´t worth it to call the police or the insurance companies. This car was done for and we didn´t want to draw any attention to ourselves. They would have a tough time figuring out how Bella got out in time and how the seatbelt and been completely yanked out of the seat.

While my family was distracted, I ran off again, unable to hear their words of comfort. Even from here, they would have heard the sounds of my fight with Bella. I didn´t want to talk to anyone right now. I just wanted to run… to run away from them, from who I was, even from Bella. I wanted to force myself not to feel excruciating pain at her early words, "You´re not even a "person" to begin with!"

Perhaps she finally realized what a monster I was. Maybe once she stopped loving me she was able to see how foolish it was to begin with. Love truly is blind after all. I had been blind to reality. I knew all along that we could never stay together, but I let myself believe the impossible. Now that she was out of love with me, her natural instincts kicked in. She knew that inside I was a vile bloodthirsty soulless murderer… What she didn´t know was that I was a vile bloodthirsty soulless murderer that loved her like a mad man. And she never would know.

It didn´t matter. It was best if she didn´t know. At this point, it would only make things worse for me. I couldn´t bear for her to reject me officially. I would be broken beyond repair.

I ran for miles. I didn´t even know how far, or if I was even running straight. I only stopped when I realized that I was about to cross the border into La Push. I stopped in the meadow, eyeing that invisible line. Maybe it wouldn´t be so bad to cross the line. The wolves would descend and kill me in a few minutes at most. Maybe Jacob would come back to join in. How fitting, to be killed by Bella´s new boyfriend. Now he could be her knight in shining armor, destroying the evil beast that had lured her into his arms. In the stories, whenever such a thing happened, the monster had lusted after the princess in a purely sexual way, or at least it could be interpreted as such. I wondered if any of the stories had been based on some level of truth, if the monster had loved the princess with all his being, and wanted only to be by her side. But history is written by the victors. If such a thing happened, we would never know.

There was one thing I knew to be true: I still wanted to be by her side, even if she hated me. I didn´t know if I had the strength to stay away even if she wanted me to. That made me even worse. It made me a sick stalker. I couldn´t be that much of a monster. If she told me to stay away, I would, for her sake, but I didn´t know how.

I had to think of my family in times like this, too. Crossing this border not only meant the end of my life but the end of the treaty, meaning they were all targets. Who knew whether they would be killed or simply driven away, but either way I couldn´t ask them to sacrifice anything else on my behalf. If my death was selfish, there was truly nothing good about me. I don´t know if my fears were warranted, but at least it kept me alive long enough to get the chance to see Bella again. And before I died, as I doubted I would last very long, I would somehow find a way to tell her that I loved her. Such a thing was too important for me to dismiss.

I wasn´t expecting it when her scent hit me, but when it did I tensed, not from the smell of her blood, but of my fear of confrontation. I wouldn´t be able to stand hearing her hateful words again. And I most certainly didn´t expect to see her appear out of the forest on the dirt road riding a motorcycle… no helmet… no protective gear of any kind. And then Jake following after her on his own motorcycle, telling her to slow down but not trying very hard.

The growl that erupted from my throat sounded more like that of a lion than of a vampire. Here I thought that her boyfriend would have the sense to take care of her, and I couldn´t have been more wrong.

Jacob was a dead man!

I leapt after them, not caring what their reactions would be. Jacob was apparently still down with a cold and could not smell me as a leapt over him. Bella was laughing happily and free, wounding my already trampled heart, but I didn´t dwell on it. My anger at them both right now was enough to ward off the pain.

In an instant, I snatched Bella out of her seat. She didn´t even have time to scream. The motorcycle rode up for a moment before crashing down hard, into Jacob´s path. He was surprisingly quick in moving out of its path, and then screeched to a halt, looking around panicked for Bella.

She was slow to realize what had happened. It was only when she realized she was no longer moving that she tensed. Then she looked up at me, with the same look in her eyes that I saw when I pulled her out of her car. She had often talked about how much I dazzled her, without knowing how much she dazzled me, like right now. Her eyes were big and bright. I was falling into them as though I was falling into the deepest pits of the earth.

"Edward…" She said, stunned.

Her voice cut me off from my trance, and I was angry again… Not angry, but fuming. I set her on her feet and towered over her, "What in God´s name is wrong with you? You nearly died just an hour ago, and now this? No helmet, Bella? Are you really that stupid?"

She snarled in indignation. "You´re not my father, Edward. You can´t tell me what to do."

Typical teenager logic! Clearly this girl had no sense of self-preservation, or she believed herself to be somehow invincible. From the looks of things, anyone should be able to tell her what to do… almost everyone, except maybe her pitiful excuse for a boyfriend.

"Have you lost your mind? You aren´t even trying to protect yourself! Do you know how many people die every year doing what you´re doing? There is a reason why doctors call motorcyclists "organ donors", Bella, and you aren't making the slightest effort to be safe! Why are you doing this?"

"That´s none of your business!"

"You´re still not answering my question!"

Suddenly, I was knocked to the side. The force of it was so great that when I hit the road some 20 feet away, the pavement cracked in the shape of a spider´s web. Jacob stood in front of Bella protectively, shaking, loathing me with his stare. That was just fine with me. I would see him dead yet!

He growled at me, sounding more and more like a wolf, "You bastard! Why won´t you leave her alone? She´s none of your concern!"

That was a laugh. The only thing I was concerned about was her. I got to my feet and stalked towards him. It didn´t matter that he was significantly taller than me. I would obliterate him.

"What the hell were you doing? You just let her get onto that death machine?! Do you even care about her safety in the slightest?!"

"She wasn´t going any faster than 30 miles per hour!"

That was my last nerve. I leapt for him, sending him and myself back 40 feet in the opposite direction. Bella screamed, but I blocked her out. I pinned him to the ground. He groaned as he hit, and I relished in his pain. I squeezed his neck with my fingers. If only he was human, he would be dead in an instant, but his skin was almost as hard as mine, and he was pushing against me.

I could see my own reflection in his eyes, and my eyes were ablaze in red. I had never seen them that way before. "DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS WHEN SOMEONE HITS ANY SURFACE AT 30 MILES PER HOUR?! IT´S THE SAME AS BEING DROPPED FROM A 3 STORY BUILDING!"

My fury overtook me. The thought of Bella mangled on the side of the road was more painful than anything I could imagine, even more than the long months of separation. It drove me to insanity, over the edge of reason. I could only feel hatred… Red, hot, blinding hatred. And hatred wasn´t supposed to arise from love. Love was supposed to be pure. There was nothing pure about this outrage I felt. It just proved once again that there was no love left between Bella and I.

Jacob transformed underneath me. His clothes exploded first and then he threw me away from him. By the time I looked up again, he was gnashing his teeth at me, pinning me to the ground, diving to mere inches before my throat. I snarled again, throwing him off me, stepping back to get some velocity. When I hit him again, we both collided into a tree, which disintegrated on impact. The next thing we hit was a large rock, which also crumbled, but not completely.

In his eyes, I could see my own. I didn´t understand it. They were blood red, just like when I had been a newborn vampire. But I had to be seeing things. Nothing was clear to me in this haze of madness.

I lunged for his neck, wanting his blood badly. If I couldn´t inject him with venom, I would feel fine if I sucked all of his vile blood from his body. The disgusting stuff wouldn´t satisfy my appetite in the least, but it would quench my thirst for vengeance. Not only vengeance for putting Bella in danger, but for taking away from me my reason for living, my Bella, who was not my Bella anymore thanks to him.

I couldn´t do that, but with my hands I could feel his collarbone dislocate. It exhilarated me, fed my bloodlust. Gone was the beast who disguised himself as a gentleman. I was ready for the kill, and I would gratify that craving by killing off Bella´s knight in shining armor. He howled in pain and I could have smiled were I not so focused.

He threw me off of him onto the ground, but I wouldn´t let him pin me down again. I tripped him with my feet and sent him down next to me. I rose up to strike at him when suddenly Bella appeared between us, covering Jacob with her body. Oh, for the love of God, what was she thinking now? This was not the best time to go up against an enraged vampire, especially when he was in battle with a werewolf!

I withdrew, looking down on her with shock as the fury faded from my face. She was covering him with every part of her body as she could, gripping onto his fur like a lifeline. She was shaking violently, I didn´t know if it was from anger or fear.

When she looked up at me, I was once again a pitiful, vulnerable scrap of a man, lost, alone, and desperate. Her features were all calm save her eyes, burning with more intensity than I had ever seen. She looked beautiful even then, but it was a kind of beauty that turned my insides in a most unpleasant way. In ancient times, she could have been mistaken for that devious goddess who roasted her pursuers alive with her gaze, even the ones who worshipped her. This was a new edge to our little twisted fairy tale. The weak little princess had become the ruthless but noble protector, she had become the hunter. And all the weapons I had in my vampire body were nothing against the weapons she had against me. My weapons could only break skin and bone. Hers would destroy me from the inside out, from the most profound part of me.

She slowly rose to her feet, and I backed away two steps. As hard as it was to admit, I was afraid… petrified of her, in a way I didn´t even know existed. Maybe it was my body´s automatic response to what I unconsciously knew would destroy me. Even as tears formed in her eyes, she did not look weak to me. She didn´t resemble the fragile girl I had fallen in love with.

She had become my enemy.

My darling Bella hated me passionately. That was her ultimate weapon. She had no more to do than hate me and I was vanquished.

She parted her soft lips, her breath rushing in with a hiss, and she said barely above a whisper, "Go away…" It was like I couldn´t even hear her, my feet had no reaction, "Get out of here and never come back…" My head started to hum, "I never want to see your despicable, sorry face ever again… Get… out… of… my… life."

…

The wind was silent now. Everything was silent to me, even the murmurs of Jacob´s mind, of the people some miles away. A bird passed over me and I didn´t even feel the change in the air. The forest was a dull blur to me. There was only her… and I… floating in endless space and time, looking at each other in a way that was unfathomable to me. I was drowning in her hatred, I couldn´t even breathe though I desperately needed air. She was pushing me into the very bowels of hell. The person who I had wanted so badly to be my salvation was my condemner, just like the wretched fairy tale beast who died only by loving a beautiful woman.

Would there be any salvation for the monster? No, there was nothing that would pull me up and away from this torture. This kind of pain was never ending. And no one would take pity on the lovesick monster. He didn´t deserve to be pitied, and his love meant nothing no matter how intense. He was a destroyer of souls and purity, the devil incarnate.

Every monster, no matter how powerful, can be destroyed. In a most unlikely twist, Bella, my only love, had become my destroyer. Without being able to see it, she was mutilating me from the inside out, without even breaking a sweat.

I stepped backwards, actually stumbling in the terrain, never looking away. I ran my eyes over her again and again, memorizing her once more, and then once more, and then once more. She had ruined me and yet I still burned for her. Behind my hatred and pain, I still ached to hold her against me, to whisper my hopeless words of love to her. I had made that even less possible, and I promised myself, didn´t I? If she asked me to stay away, I would, for her sake… I wouldn´t deny her anything. I wouldn´t burden her life anymore. This was my gift to her, one she would never be able to grasp, the hardest one for me to give.

´I love you.´

When I turned away, I still kept my face firm. If I faltered even the slightest I would break down. I walked away at a slow human speed. Unusually, I couldn´t just break out into a run. I only stopped for a fraction of a second by her fallen motorcycle to step on the motor with my foot and crush it. Oil spilled out everywhere. No matter how much she hated me, I had to do something to keep her from endangering her own life. I continued walking, slowly getting faster, and faster, and then I was flying. I didn´t feel the ground, nor the wind, nor the sunshine that peaked through the clouds. I knew I was sobbing but tried to convince myself that the burning in my eyes was nothing more than the air, but only tears could cause this sensation. I shut my eyes, wishing I would hit something if I couldn´t see it in front of me, wishing that doing so could release me from this world. How wonderful it would be to die, to be free of this pain, and yet I didn´t even deserve that. What was worse than killing a monster? Letting it live in agony for the rest of its days.

The monster was slain.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………................................................................................................................................................

Miles away from this tragic fairy tale, a rather fairy-like vampire came across a scroll in her family´s mailbox. Not a letter, but a scroll. There was no address posted. Untying the pretty blue ribbon, the scroll unfurled.

Reading it, she gasped, clutching the letter to her chest as her body froze over. Her husband rushed to her side to see what was the matter. She only murmured two words, "Find Edward."

To be continued…

*Smacks both Edward and Bella upside the head with a fish* Well I certainly can´t make this easy on them, can I? If I did what I want them to do, I would forget all this and they would kiss and be happy immediately, but then there would be no story :) so I hope you´ll forgive me.

Also, the chapters will be coming in a bit slower for the next few weeks. It´s finals time at Graduate School! Just when I thought college was bad, it went and one-upped itself. I will get them in as soon as possible! Take care everyone and please continue to support me with your comments! xoxo