Chapter Twenty-Eight: Playing With Fire

Like a quick swipe from a sharp object, seeing him tore open the bubble of calm that had carried me here, and now all the had been kept suspended, crashed down on top of me like a crushing weight.

Panic rushed through my veins, regret that I had come here, far from anyone else all by myself, without telling anyone. The gag fell from the mouth of my brain and it screeched in protest for leaving Jacob, the memory that it was fair to leave him, that I didn't deserve to sleep in his arms tonight, could not silence it.

But mostly it was the panic, and as his head turned slowly so that his fiery red eyes came to meet mine, that panic erupted into a fear that had the thump of my heart so wild I thought it close to shattering my rib cage.

When I'd first met Victor, I hardly knew what intimidation was. I was a child born in a world where fear was a rare thing, where there was the knowledge, however in the background of my mind, that there were few things in the world to be feared when you lived in a family like mine.

But then I'd left them, lost the dome of protection that had sheltered me all my life, and was exposed. That was when I found out what intimidation was. Victor, despite what little I saw of him, was nothing but cordial. But behind his words I heard the sting of what may happen if they went disobeyed, I witnessed the hold he had over Cora and the way he seemed to be able to manipulate and taunt her wild emotional ways. But then I met Sonny, Al, Brice and Oz, and my fear for Victor was born. He was ruthless and would not stop. That I'd found out, and this I knew, as I stood in my gas-soaked cabin with him slowly rising to stand from where he had sat on Sonny's bed.

Without drawing breath, he spoke.

"It's been a long time, Renesmee." He turned, callousness in his glare that kept me frozen as he walked towards me. "Have you missed me?" He smiled, weaving some small, silver rectangle through his fingers as the other swung rhythmically with each stride. Quickly he ducked forward until he was close enough that the air from his growling whisper blew against my ear "Because I've missed you."


{--}

Had everything always been this loud?

I could hardly remember, but it seemed to hit me like a freight train. Quickly, noticeably, and really, really, loud.

I'd spent the past months; countless, endless months in this place. In nature. Woods and trees and meadows were just one huge abyss to me now. Like the ocean. Like it always merges in the end. Nature always finds nature.

More birds squawked, more trees rustled and that lake kept whipping itself around in the strong winds. All of it thundering against my ears.

Do you ever have that moment?

At some time, be it random or monumental, you blink.

You just blink, and when you open your eyes everything is a billion times realer than it was before.

It's like you've been sleepwalking through time and at that point, with that blink, you wake up.

Thad had happened to me earlier, and it hadn't faded.

That happened to me when I saw Ness again.

I stretched again, pulling my arms out as wide as I could to release the buzz. Staying still felt impossible. And when I dropped my arms back down at my side it was weird, weird to have them hanging there again instead of throwing them down into the mud. I drummed my fingers and exercised my thumb. Opposable thumbs felt odd after so long.

I started to pace again, trying to go back to counting.

I counted the numbers of logs I could see as I passed laps around the visibly worn circle I'd walked into the grass.

I counted the stupid trees.

I even tried to count the goddamn stars, but my concentration was somewhat limited at that moment.

"Stop it, Jacob." My hand banged against my forehead before falling back to my side, rolling up tight into a fist as I exhaled deep and started to pace again.

I was going to explode, and at the end of it there wouldn't be some wolf, just a pile of remains of a crazy, over-excited jackass.

I had to battle to keep the balance, not totally lose it. There was still a chance this wasn't real. Still a horrible chance I was asleep somewhere, unconscious in my wolf form slumped between a mass of stupid trees.

It had happened before. Lots of times.

Sleep, along with everything else had slid right down my list of priorities from the second Alice called the Juneau house, screeching that something had took Ness. But sleep, hell, nature in general, is a bitch. Always catches up with you.

I'd wake from every forced slumber having been in some sort of paradise. Somewhere where I was with her. I'd wake and she was gone again.

I slapped my hands together, drawing my focus.

I had to conserve myself, not got in too deep. I couldn't afford to just wake up and fall apart like I'd done a few times before.

If this wasn't real, I still needed to find her.

But what if it was?

I growled when that little thought sent a tidal wave down my body. A whole goddamn rush of euphoria. It was possible, right?

I went back to counting, dropping my head and staring at my feet. I was higher than I could remember being in a long time, my feet were a few feet further away then I was used to them being now.

And I was wearing boots. These big, brown combat boots.

I remember Leah's voice in my head. So real. Too real to be my imagination?

After explaining everything to me; who the touchy asshole was who'd grabbed Ness when I'd found her was, and that me trying to bite that other one, that Alvar, was a big no-no, she'd told me I'd find a couple of packages with clothes in for me spread around in the woods.

Had everything always been so loud?

When I first heard Leah in my head it had shocked me for a second. It was almost like I'd forgotten anything else existed except my own inner voice.

For the longest time, nothing else had existed except my own desperation to find Ness. I'd been totally alone. I'd gone, to be honest, a little nuts.

So having Leah - more suitable than anyone for a firm wake up call - yelling through my mind was like waking up in the morning and throwing open the curtains to blinding sun.

My whole mind, my whole body, had squinted.

"Jacob?"

I leapt, staggered back into a slight crouch, sinking slowly further when my eyes found the one who had spoken.

The scentless one.

I couldn't fight the rumble that rose in my chest, hell, I didn't even try. She had started all this, used her power to whisk Nessie away from under my nose without detection.

"Sorry," she smiled, "I do have a tendency to sneak up on people." It was so strange to have her be so invisible, nothing but the sight before my eyes to state she was really there. My nostrils were left wanting when they searched for verification of her presence. "I just thought I should come and say hello. I thought I should … introduce myself." In her arms she carried a thick, deep purple sheet and a large plastic tub; each void of aroma. "I'm Cora."

She shifted, almost uncomfortably. What could be said after that? I didn't need any more introduction, and she didn't need to offer one. It was then I checked myself. Straightened my posture, relaxed my glare and cleared my throat.

She smiled again. The truce called.

"I brought you food. It felt wrong seeing Renesmee warm in her bed knowing you were out here hungry."

"Is she okay?" I felt the question spill out without a thought. She smiled again and it was then I first saw what may have fed Ness's trust in her. They seemed so similar. This Cora's smile was on the surface so peaceful and playful, but deep in her eyes lay more. More intensity and knowledge, more power. In the same way my love for Nessie steered me to want to do her will, I could see a same influence lying so naturally in the vampire eyes of this woman.

"She is. And please know, Jacob, that her well-being has always been priority to me. I love her very much. I would never see her hurt."

Those eyes stuck with mine, a mystical hold over me. They said 'Listen to what I say, it's true and I'm not prepared to take any crap from the likes of you..'

I nodded. In this pack I had wandered into I now found myself in the presence of the alpha. Through Leah's eyes I had seen her as a kind and loving individual, but also one with a wild temper and ruthless wrath when the things she cherished were put in danger.

I pressed my lips to keep from smiling. Nessie had found the right wind to take shelter under and for this I was glad but also aware that I should not make the kind of fuss that would cause trouble.

"Yes, Ma'am."

She smiled and nodded, a bounce in her step as she moved forward and held out the plastic tub.

"Here, please eat. I'd like to sit with you if that's alright."

I ate. The taste of food so mind-blowing I had to keep down a few groans as I tucked into the tub. It was easy to forget she was there, sat cross-legged in the grass watching me and smiling.

When I was done she giggled, a strange sound coming from one with such a presence.

"Thanks." She took the tub from me as I sat back and felt my stomach ache. It hadn't been this full in a while.

"Oh, you are more than welcome. I just hope it was enough." I patted my stomach as I nodded and smiled. "Good. Until breakfast then."

She stared at me for a moment, then her gaze narrowed. "You are to come up the house for breakfast, and if anyone gets in your way you send them to me, understand?" I smiled and nodded. "And.." She turned, reaching down and retrieving the blanket she'd brought down with her, "though I promise we won't keep you sleeping out here permanently, I'm afraid tonight is unavoidable. Here, take this."

It was a pleasant enough night; I'd slept in far worse conditions lately and relied on only my internal wolf conditions to keep me warm.

"No, thankyou. Really, I'll be fine." She just smiled, leaning down to where I sat and pressing the thing against my chest.

"Trust me, Jacob Black. You want this." She smiled again and skipped away.

When she was gone I breathed in, her disappearance releasing the scents of the comforter from the binds she had put them in.

I groaned. This was Nessie's.

I woke when the sky was still dark but for the thick dusting of stars. My entire body felt relaxed, almost sunk into the earth I slept on as I breathed in the sent of the sheet covering me once more.

When it was tainted I coughed, jumping to my feet as I determined the toxic aroma lacing that of paradise.

Vamp.

"You." I met the one whose stench had woken me with a greeting filled with the contempt that felt as undeserved as it did natural.

This was Alvar. I'd seen a lot of him when my conscious had fused with Leah's, and as I felt my hands clench into fists I thought, too much.

He stood still, watching me with caution as he clutched a piece of paper in his hands.

Moments passed and we just stared at each other, saying nothing.

His lips moved in a silent search before he spoke.

"She's gone."

I leapt forward, landing inches before him growling, "What?"

He didn't flinch as I snarled, just stared patiently. I fell back on my heels and steadied my composure. This kid was so composed it felt like a challenge.

Fine. I could do calm.

He folded the paper with one hand and pushed it in his back pocket without breaking eye-contact.

"I just went to check on her and she wasn't there. I caught her scent leading out of her bedroom window. She headed south, and I think I know where she's going."

I closed my eyes and sighed, was she running again? "It's what she does."

I opened my eyes again. He took a step back, his stare easing and I did the same. "She'll have gone to think. Well, worry probably." He smirked, "and I don't think we should let her."

"We?" I growled the word, I couldn't help it. It felt like I was programmed to dislike this guy. I didn't delve into the reasoning at that moment. It wouldn't have been a good idea.

"Yes. She over-thinks things, sends herself into a fuss that she has not yet grown into being able to control. I suppose you could call it a naivety of her wisdom. And she'll keep running from things until she really learns to face them, instead of just …thinking all the time."

It hurt to hear him talk about her the way he did. It was like he knew her inside and out. My Nessie. "The last thing I want is to fight with you, Jacob. Renesmee loves you so much and … and you're her family. You're her home. But this is her home too, and we love her just as much as she does us. Perhaps more."

He trailed off, backing away from me, widening the gap between us. "It would be unfair for you to resent us for that."

I breathed in, thought on what he said. Some part of me, not exactly small, was angry that they loved her; wanted, selfishly, for them to just disappear. It felt like I was fighting for the biggest chunk of Nessie's heart I could. The more people who lay claim to it, the less there would be left for me.

I knew it was possessive and selfish, but these were the things I would probably always be when it came to her. I could try and dilute them all I could to keep her happy, but they would always be there. Festering away in my head.

So in the way I was so used to, internal conflicts were wiped over with the same reasoning brush. What's right for Renesmee?

All I could do was nod. It felt like admitting defeat, conceiting to share the thing that above all else was precious to me.

"Then, we should go after her. Nip this fear she has in the bud. The two of us find her, and we let her know it's far more simple than she's making it. She belongs with you and when she's ready, maybe with her family too. But there's us too, and we will always be there for her."

I nodded again, easier this time.

"So you know where she'll be?"

He twisted his head slowly and raised his head as though the answer lay on the wind.

"Somewhere safe, somewhere simple. Yeah, I know where she is."

{--}


I drew back quickly, backing myself against the wall to be farther from him. He retracted, but remained leaned close to where I was so that I shrunk further against the wall. "It took me such a long time to find this place. Imagine my disappointment when I came and found it empty. I was just trying to think how on earth I could hunt you down again." The red of his eyes was dizzying, they held a stinging hold over mine with their starkness. "In the end, patience was all that was necessary." He turned with a wicked grin and sauntered back around to the side of the bed. He hadn't needed to find me. I'd come to him.

"You …" with two fingers he reached out and tapped the wooden wall, "slept in there. I know. I could smell you on that bed." The two caverns of burning embers set in his face slid to me, a look of insincere and mocking wonder across his features. His hand drifted slowly down from the wall and onto the bed where they stroked along its surface. "But here? Whoever slept here, Renesmee?" With one more look from his grinning, flaming eyes a fire was lit inside me that melted whatever had kept me frozen to the spot and I instead found myself fighting to keep still. "A human?" He leaned further down and pulled a deep breath through his nose, his eyelids fluttering as he did. "Yes. A pure human. Not one with a tainted scent like you, but mortal and delicious … and young." He stood straight, grinning as he watched me and I felt pressure and tension set inside my whole frame.

This monster did not belong in the same world as Sonny, and the thought that Victor's evil could be near to him had my mind burning with fury. "I do so prefer the taste of youth. I've heard humans talk of letting things better with age, but I disagree." He spoke with a chuckle, "Give them to me at that stage just before adulthood when they have paths in their eyes and a world at their feet to weave them along"

Even now I fell prey to his charisma. It was positively toxic as it floated like a black cloud from his every gesture and held me observant.

"Pretty, young Alvar for instance." The loud hiss that rushed through my gritted teeth seemed to rise from some involuntary place. It was a sound I had never made before, had only ever heard.

Victor snaked closer, the grin at his lips widening. "But I have tasted better than him … smelled better than him." When his head turned slightly, his eyes rolling as he gestured to Sonny's bed, I could contain myself no longer.

I lunged forward with a snarl, my fingers clenched to grab Victor when his quickly found my neck and forced me back against the wall.

He held me there, only enough space to pull a little air through my lips and leaned in, his face inches from mine he scowled and hissed, "It will give me so much pleasure to kill you, Renesmee Cullen. Almost as much as it will give me to watch Brice when I snap and suck and burn the very life from his precious boys." I fought forward, feeling heat rise to my face.

Victor's body was pressed against mine so the furious wriggling had little effect. Pulling in what air I could I coughed my words through gritted teeth, a snarl at my upper lip. The inability to move my head meant my burning eye contact with his was iron cast.

"They won't let you touch him. They'll kill you." My body buzzed with the surety behind my words, it was evident as the feral, passionate, wild aggression rushed through my veins, there was no logic outside the fact that I'd do anything to keep Victor from the people I loved. If that was how I felt then I knew that Leah, Oz, Brice and Al, even Cora would rip him to shreds before he even got to smell Sonny in person.

He laughed, his head rolling back as he did so and the grip around my neck weakening for just a second.

"Oh, they will try. You are so correct, Renesmee, they will try and kill me." He leaned in further, and in disgust I tried to move as his lips tickled my ears as he murmured, "But that shall simply make it all the more entertaining, my dear."

A slight dizziness was working its way across my eyes as sucking small breaths through my lips became even harder. Victor's head rolled back in laughter again, and this time I was prepared to use the momentary lapse to my advantage.

My left fist collided with the front of his throat with all the force my weakening body could muster. He spluttered and stepped back enough for me to lift my knee and smash it into his ribs. He dropped me and I fell to my feet.

He stepped back, growling. His expression twisted into a smile as he pulled the hair from his face and copied my slight crouch.

"Come on then, little half breed. Let's see what you can do."

He rushed forward and I ducked, swinging around him bringing one hand to his back and another to his hair where it buried itself in and forced his head against the wall. The wood buckled with the force and I did it again, harder this time. When Victor's skull created a complete fissure I pulled at his back to move him to where there was fresh wood for pounding. By the third time his palms found the wall and he pushed himself back so that my grip was lost.

He seized my wrist as he flew back crushing it between his fingers as his other hand collided with my stomach. The force threw me across the room, through the wall that separated mine and Sonny's and sent me crashing into the remains of my old bed.

It hurt, undoubtedly. But the pain was overshadowed by so much more. By mind had become dependant of the rest of me. It soared above all else but the fight between me and Victor.

I picked myself up quickly backing into a crouch as my opponent dropped quickly down the small gap between the two levels. I twisted the wrist he had crushed. I had never had much opportunity to test the resilience of my half-way body. So far it was pleasantly surprising me.

Again he crouched before me. A smile still twisting the corner of his lips, but it had faded from before and his eyes were even darker. He beckoned,

"More."

He was not agile, not overly. His size seemed to inhibit him despite what he was. He wasn't quick, but he was strong.

I charged forward, and when he did the same, leapt into the air, spinning to land on his back. My arms wrapped around his neck and I pulled as he fell to his knees.

Here was little Renesmee Cullen, trying to rip off a vampire's head.

He seethed, his hands flying back and pulling at my arms. He clawed at them, tearing the flesh so the sleeves of my sweater ran red with blood.

He reached further back, seizing my shoulders and pulling. My grip around his neck was lost as he threw me over the top of him. Again I crashed to the floor as the air popped from my chest.

He was on top of me, one knee against my ribs so that I felt sure they would buckle. His hands found my throat again.

"Of all the ways to kill you, Renesmee, which shall I pick first? How far can this mutant frame of yours go so that it may come back and heal for me to have another go?" As he squeezed my throat he lifted it, and smashed it back down again, again and again. Each time my head creating a crater in the floorboards.

My arms stretched, searched to reach him and tear at his seething face. I settled for his arm, pulled against the bend of his elbow with such ferocity I heard it snap. Victor screamed above me as I pulled harder and higher until a pop, even louder, was heard from his shoulder. He dropped and my hands reached his temple.

The force around my neck disappeared as I sent a screech across his consciousness. His eyes seemed to lose focus as I rolled atop him and dug my fingers in.

I'd known my gift to shock people, but right now I transmitted noise and chaos and pain. I tried to burn his mind.

His eyes squeezed shut as his body wriggled beneath me, his hands thrashing blindly against my torso. They squeezed, and Victor's eyes shot open,

"No." He rolled, throwing me from him. My body smashed through the wall, colliding high against the stone chimney breast in the living room, shattering the mirror that hung there and thumping against the fireplace as it dropped to the floor.

My ears rung, my head spun, the blood inside me seemed to pump so hard my veins throbbed. I crawled to my feed, wiping the glass that could not pierce my skin from where it stuck to my clothes. Victor walked towards me, standing the other side of the couch between us.

The silver object he held when I arrived was being span through his fingers again, the smile no longer at his lips.

"I should probably end this quickly, so that there is enough of you left on the wind that I might trace back to where you came from." He spun the silver thing again, and the pain faded as I fell back into a crouch. "It's not yet fully light outside, perhaps I may find little Sonny still in his bed." He smiled again when the hiss rose through me.

His fingers enclosed the silver rectangle once more, before with one flick, it was alight.

I was suddenly even more aware of the stench of gas that soaked every inch of the building. My eyes didn't leave Victor's as the smile returned to his lips, and he threw the little light down onto the couch.

It exploded into flames between us, I threw my arm over my eyes and took a step back. The fire spread quickly, all along the width of the living room, dividing the two of us.

Victor smiled across at me from the other side, close to the kitchen and the front door, the only areas not currently damaged by our brawl.

I was trapped, surrounded by the flames that were already tickling my flesh with intense heat.

"So I'd love to stay and play, Renesmee, but I'm afraid there are more important games afoot. I really do hope Brice has fallen for Cora as hard as what I see through you would suggest." His laughter carried over the flames, making my face burn hotter than they could.

"That will make it even more wonderful to kill the traitorous bitch." The circle of flames continued to spread, and Victor took a further step back. "I had hoped to burn the others on the flames of this cabin, but I suppose you shall just have to do."

As the heat increased and the space in which I had got smaller and smaller, I was overcome with the thought that death was not far from me now. It felt inevitable. I swallowed hard as I felt tears build in my eyes, the thought of what I would leave could not take me now. I had to be brave, and if I was going to die I had to take Victor with me, I could not risk him finding the others. He moved towards the door,

"A shame really, burning you seems a waste. There we so many other opportunities."

He turned for the door, smiling again and I sunk deeper into my crouch.

"Oh, I don't know, Victor. It seemed okay for Francesca." He froze. Even the flames seemed to still for a moment as the name of Victor's slaughtered mate hung on the air. He turned, his body stiff, his eyes onyx black.

It was my turn to smile.

He leapt forward, barely clearing the flames as he flew towards me. We collided and I pushed back on the momentum, throwing him beneath me and clambering on his chest to pin him down.

The flames licked at us, a burning wall to which we both lay dangerously close. Victor yelled beneath me and hot tension built in my face as I held him down. One of his arms flew free and smashed against my cheek in a fist. I heard it shatter and screeched through pressed teeth. Grabbing the arm before it could deal another blow I grappled with it, and thrust it into the flames.

Beneath me Victor bucked, his chest thrashing against the floor as I watched the flames envelop his arm. I watched it crawl upwards, sparked by the venom in his veins it spread. Victor's movements grew more violent before he fell still with one loud yell, before throwing himself forward. His head smashed into and I was thrown from on top of him.

I fought to open my eyes as I lay slumped, inches from the growing fire. Victor rose to his feet, coming to stand over me. He bent down, seizing me and pulling me up so I was suspended from the floor. The smoke began to spread, my eyes began to grow moist and sore and an ache started to fill my chest.

Victor snarled as the fire reached us, setting fire to the bottom of his long coat. He tossed me through the air, barely clearing the pit of flames. I struggled to land in a crouch in the kitchen and could barely stand as the air choked me. It was so thick now I could barely see through my strained eyes. He leapt through the flames, throwing me back again. My body collided with kitchen counter. It was destroyed around me. Water from the severed tap shot into the air, soaking my face. It was soothing if anything, to have some cold relieve the burning that had consumed my whole body. But it brought attention to particular swells of heat, mainly one that seemed to stream from the back of my head. My fingers fumbled to the spot, and came away deep red.

I stared up at Victor as he approached again, "You needn't worry about that."

He leaned down, seizing me by the shoulders. "Your blood does nothing for me. The idea of tasting it turns my stomach. You are nothing but a monster, Renesmee Cullen, a freak. The very idea of your existence sickens me." He leaned down further, smiling, "You are nothing."

He pulled me violently to my feet, roughly wiping the hair from my face. Dizziness started to take me then, my lungs filled with the dense smoke.

Victor's hand met my cheek in a crushing slap, he seized my chin roughly and demanded that I stay awake.

Still the heat poured down the back of my neck, each increase of the stream, like every consciousness of breath, drawing me closer to sleep.

"Renesmee!" I choked awake, Victor had screamed, then fell silent. It was not this sound that had roused me. It was a sound over the crackle of the fire, over the moan of the building as it burned and the fountain of water exploding beside us. It came from the woods. It sounded like a howl.

Victor stared at me, whether he had heard it, or whether it was just in my head, I didn't know. But something inside me buzzed, stomped it's foot and said I was not to give up just yet. I pushed, threw Victor back against the wall then fell forward, throwing my fists at him. He staggered, but grabbed me again, throwing me into the stone island at the centre of the kitchen.

It crumbled around me, but over the sound of that was a snap, like twigs underfoot in the forest, that shot from my torso. Again he grabbed me, this time throwing me through the window. I crashed through the glass and saw the ground move beneath me.

I landed with a crack, and all went black.

When my eyes opened the world was just a portrait.

It felt like I had no place in it, I was just an observer; staring, completely lacking in interaction.

Without choice I fell completely immobile. It felt as though everything was gone, as though my body no longer existed and all that remained was the blue sky above me and the eyes through which I saw it.

The sky was hidden for a moment. I could blink, and it seemed that was all. I tried to move, tried to feel. My lips pursed, and I tasted earth in my mouth as I ran my tongue across them. Nothing else moved, and when I pulled a slow, shaky whisp of air through my lips I tasted smoke.

All was silent but for a high ringing that resonated through my aching skull. It washed over and over in an agonising pulse; beckoning my eyes to close once more.

The blue sky disappeared, eclipsed by Victor's frame looming above me.

He knelt, the smoke from the budding fire seemed to have clung to him, followed him on the wind so that the destruction was all that existed. No scent outside it was distinguishable as I sucked in small doses of air. No hope was left in the air.

His hand reached and wiped the hair from across my face and he sighed. He held my chin as he crouched over me,

"If your Mommy and Daddy could see you now…" he snickered, and something inside me set alight. A slow burn, it started at the base of my jaw and began to spread, down to the places I had thought gone. "Or Aro?" He laughed again, with a bitter snarl at his lips this time.

"You have no place in this world, Renesmee. You are a misfit and have caused nothing but pain." He leaned in further, and the fire continued to spread. "I thought you should know that before you died."

His hand returned to my face, this time to wipe a solitary tear from my cheek. The fire brought pain with it, more pain than my face could mask as I forced my teeth together. As it burned feeling returned, feelings I did not want.

With a stutter I sucked another breath through my lips, and screeched as I felt my chest rise as a result. It shattered with the movement. My head floated and the fire raged even hotter as the pain shot through me. My heart skipped into a gallop, the beat of it so strong the heat throbbed in my throat. Each demand for breath that ensued brought agony. My structure moaned, its broken pieces protesting.

Victor laughed, and the throb of the sound pounded at my head. The blue sky vanished one last time as his darkening visage moved closer, and then all was silent.

The light erupted before my eyes again. Victor was gone.

The silence exploded in a roar. A blaze of colour shot over me and all was loud again. A growl, a screech, a taunting laugh, and the sound of thumping impact. Again and again.

I tried to breathe, finding my lungs in a desperate, panicked want for more and more to fuel my rampaging heart. But with each inhale, each rise of my shattered chest the pain flew up my neck; numbing my jaw and sending a stream of hot tears across my face.

The sounds didn't go away, they just got louder. The snarls, the tearing, and the roar and crackle of the fire. Still my body ignored me, still it left me abandoned and still. It's only offering the pain that continued to spread.

My eyes closed and the flames burned everything. In that moment I was nothing, just like Victor had said.

I knew not my Mother's name nor the smell of her hair. The feet that tingled as the flames inside me licked at them could not recall the feel of sand beneath them as they ran along La Push beach, and my vacant fingers could not skip along keys of a piano and play the sounds their father had taught them.

Nothing existed but pain.

I sunk further into the hot, hot abyss.

Then cold.

Cold reached at my mind and tugged me back up, the shock of it sent my eyes flying open as it spread across my face. I seethed as the sensation had me drawing a deeper breaths.

"Shhh, it's okay, it's okay." I gasped, searched the burning white at my eyes until it faded.

Alvar.

I remembered now. My entire life erupted inside me like a second ball of fire and everything was real. So real.

I whimpered, and Al moved further over me.

"Oh god," He stroked my forehead again and his eyes surveyed me, eyes that told of what he saw. The creases between them deepened as they travelled me, the corners of his full lips bent helplessly downwards when his face returned to mine. "Oh god, what has he done to you?"

"I'm dead?" No sound but what wispy one could float through the movement of my lips. But he heard, and his look grew all the more severe as his hands now clasped both of my cheeks; his dark eyes staring into mine so consumingly.

"No." It was more than an answer. It was a statement, a surety. A promise. It carried more weight and more future than this current circumstance and it both filled me with a sense of so much security, and crippled me with fear.

He stared for a further second, then smiled. Slowly it filled his beautiful face and it scared me even more. So much so I almost felt my lower half move to stamp in protest. It was so hauntingly genuine and peaceful. It said he was ready.

I wasn't.

He leaned forward until his lips met my forehead. They lingered there and against my skin he whispered, "I love you, Renesmee Cullen. And all that you are."

And he was gone.

My mind screamed. Everything inside me erupted, but nothing moved. I wanted to follow him, I could hear his voice in the distant. It was raised and desperate.

"Go! Go now!"

Another snarl, another groan as the fire continued to consume the cabin and another sweep as the fire inside me now burned at all parts.

When the great wolf approached the blue sky disappeared above me. He buried his face into my side but I felt nothing as my carcass was rolled onto his back. I dipped in and out of complete darkness as my skin throbbed under the pressure of the heat. The ground began to move beneath me and the last thing I saw was a stream of red leak across my eyesight and begin to drip from my nose.

Then the fire took me completely.