AN: Thank you again a thousand times to all the reviewers. I can't say it enough. However, I must warn you: Carnage ahead. Please don't read if it will upset you.
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I knew she didn't expect to have to run far.
"What a shame," she purred. Her liquid voice cut through the wind towards me like a knife. "I thought you belonged to the Cullen boy….to the little traitor-beast that slayed my James." Her head cocked, the red inside of her eyes widening as her pupil suddenly constricted. "I have watched you for years….and I never knew you to be such a whore, Isabella." She smiled, and her walk suddenly quickened. The black branches stabbed my back, blocking my way, and my eyes couldn't leave her approach. I was hypnotized--hell walked towards me on two thin legs. "I'll try to enjoy this anyway….maybe I'll save your shirt, all slathered in the dog's smell, and give it to the little Cullen beast." She was less than ten feet away. "He'll probably suck the blood right out of it," she whispered, and then—she was gone.
The wolf knocked her down on the highway with such force she skipped like a stone across the asphalt, ripping deep gulches each time she hit. Jake was after her bouncing body like a streak of rust-red lightning. He towered over her—he was the size of the truck. The truck. I turned and ran towards it as fast as I could, the interior light beaming brightly and the doors hanging open. That's when I saw them.
There were more vampires in the trees. Wisps of white—hands, feet, teeth--running parallel but away from me…and towards Jake. I screamed his name again, knowing he would hear, not knowing if it would help. I had to help him. I ran to the truck, feeling my lungs bursting with sounds. Exhaustion and panic coupled with my weak, painfully human body, dragging the world in to slow motion. Stars flew behind my eyes—this is not the time, I hushed myself. My legs weighed a thousand pounds as I pulled myself in to the truck and slammed the door, simultaneously mashing my heavy foot on the gas pedal and turning the key. The truck roared to life and I pulled the wheel in a hard left, swinging my truck around to face the white bodies swelling in my rearview mirror.
There were seven of them. Five flew towards Jake, two more were slightly behind and arcing out. From this distance all I could do was count the diamond white limbs as I barreled towards Jake; Victoria's flaming hair lit up the ground near his feet. As the truck approached I saw him look up, his ears flattened against his skull as he prepared to jump, teeth bared.
Trust me, Jake, I thought. And I slammed on the brake.
His body soared over my truck as he jumped. I pulled the wheel with all of my strength and felt my truck clutch and grab Victoria's body with my tires, the earth screaming apart beneath us; the friction pulled up more highway and sealed her underneath the truck. We lurched to a halt, and I didn't even wait for the engine to stop before my mind raced towards a plan. Mania seized me as I dug through the glove box frantically—where was it where was it where was it—Jane's lighter, Janie always smoked a cigarette before second shift, I gave Janie a ride the last time I worked—where is it where is it where is it—there! I jumped out of the truck and ran back towards Victoria's twisted leg, twitching beneath my tire.
I couldn't let her touch me, I told myself, my hands flicking the lighter in the rain. This had to work. If one of her hands could reach me, I would die. I couldn't let her touch me, but I could do this.
I ripped the sleeve off of my shirt and roughly stuffed it in the opening of the gas tank, her lilting voice pricking at my subconscious as she chanted at me nonstop in the rain—you're always the bait, aren't you, Isabella, bait for all the monsters to play with, do you think if you kill me Cullen won't know what you are, do you think I care if I die, we mate for life, Isabella, we mate for life, when you die do you think Cullen will be waiting for you like James waits for me, now that he knows you're a—and then it was lit. I looked down at her face, the skin peeled back from her white teeth in a hideous grimace, one of her red eyes skimming her cheekbone, all of her beauty gone.
I ran. I ran into the woods and I didn't look back.
Until I heard the sound—a sound like worlds splitting, my teeth grinding against one another and my heart exploding into a marathon against my ribs. I turned slowly back to the highway. The wolf, slick and wet and vicious teeth, ripping; two vampires baiting him, their bodies strangely misshapen, lopsided; two more vampires wrestling roughly near the crater that was my ruined truck; blurred white limbs in the background, faster and faster, spinning towards the center, towards the husk that sat on Victoria. What was once Victoria. Nightmares, in real life.
The vampires—the pair that was wrestling—I separated them, pulling their faces apart from one another in my mind…their movements were so fast it was almost impossible to…to tell…but I suddenly knew. It was Edward. As I said his name out loud the head of his opponent rolled across the ground like a grotesque bowling ball. The remains of the body were broken down to nothing, tossed carelessly in the smoking rubble and Edward found another fight in almost the same second. His next opponent was even weaker; Alice's flashing body stopped in what seemed like midair and ripped its arm off with a fierce crack while Edward beheaded them. My hands involuntarily crept up over my eyes, but I quickly pulled them down—where was Jake?
The wolf was staggering, the vampire in front of it shrieking, laughing maddeningly. Like Victoria had. Was it saying the same filthy things to him, cursing him? It didn't matter. I watched as Jacob slaughtered it, rending its body in half and slinging the parts into the incineration like so much dust. He was weakening, but his long teeth snaked into the flesh of the creature clinging to Edward like stones through butter, and then he danced away as Edward ripped it apart. I saw their eyes meet in the same instant that I felt myself become locked in a frozen cage. I prayed I was dreaming, as if I were a child—her voice interrupted me, ripping me back to lucidity, and I immediately began to hyperventilate. Its arms tightened.
"You are unique, human," a voice hummed in my ear. Like a wicked harmony to the mayhem we watched, it thrummed gently at me as I realized I was immobile in its vise-like grasp. It hadn't taken any effort to capture me; it was silent, granite strong. I was the only human in miles.
"I don't know what you mean," I said in spite of my fear. I knew it could smell my adrenaline, the slick sweat suddenly covering me in the cool rain as it pressed me effortlessly against its hard body. I could struggle but never be free, I could hide nothing from it…but I was suddenly proud of my efforts. If I was going to die, I didn't want to do it like a coward. My breath slowed. It's good to like yourself, I thought, especially when you have no more time to change anything. The cold seeped through me as I watched the men I loved; they knew how I felt, how I wanted to make things right. That was the best I could do.
"Unique among mortals, to belong not to one, not two, but three separate worlds." It was cooing. Its hands were white, long fingered; I could not guess its gender from the music of its voice—no face, only taunting words. "She said you were a strange one, loved by a vampire, and the hunter's mate." I heard it almost sigh, and the air whistled as it suddenly whipped me around to face it. "I promise to savor you," she whispered, her perfect face drawing closer to mine as her blistering red mouth pulling down into a snarl, "which is more than he did for mine." I closed my eyes when I could smell her sickly sweet breath blowing on my face.
But then—a chilling blast, choking dust—she was gone. Only Alice remained, prying stiff fingers from my crushed arms. I couldn't understand her—deafness. Nightmares. Death. But she gently persisted, the white dream, and I focused on her moving lips, and begged myself to listen.
"Bella, please—come quick," she was saying, and then saw I couldn't and picked me up and ran. My eyes watered; it was just a moment, the scene ahead rushing at us at warp speed…everything was eerily silent except for the low crackle of the fire, and then I realized we were standing over the Jacob wolf. Edward kneeled next to the hulk, his pale hands lost in the fur of its leg and his terrified eyes turned up to us, gold steeled with sadness.
"I don't know what to do," he said. I stumbled out of Alice's hands, falling next to the giant body. It's chest rose and fell with shuddering breaths; one leg twitched feebly.
"We have to suck the venom out," I said, and I looked in to Edward's eyes and saw there that he would help me, would do anything, to erase whatever he saw on my face. "It's going to kill him," I whispered, and then I crawled to the wolf's massive head, the tongue dry and the teeth longer than my hands. "Jake, please phase." My tears fell on his face and thick fur repelled them like dew drops until the rain carried them away. His eyes whirled wildly, locked with mine, and then closed.
I held Jake in my arms, his long smooth body plastered with bracken and blood. Edward swiftly handed me the smooth arm that had been twitching and then delicately sniffed another wound on Jacob's long leg before moving it towards his mouth. We searched each other's eyes as we locked our mouths onto the raw, bloody skin.