I was wrong—it wasn't a soft light, a mist—it was smoke. A fire—there was a fire in my skin! Did anyone else see it? Didn't anyone else—all coherent thought temporarily left my mind as the agonizing pain seized me, and as I closed my eyes I heard the strangest thing. I must be dying. I must be dreaming, I must not be here. This is not real.
A quiet, blurry drawl. Samantha, one of the girls I worked with in Tucson, was from Mississippi…it was exactly what she would say at the end of the third shift. "Thank the Lord." Thahnk thuh Law-ord. And then my body was not the only thing being ripped by agonized lightning—the world changed. The whole world became suddenly, undeniably and horribly different.
More than anything, it was a world made of noises—of screaming, and screaming, and more screaming. Loud, sharp animal noises, gasps, heavy stones wretched loose and violent, broken eruptions, and screaming. Everywhere, echoing through me, inside of me, the sound of constant screaming. The pain spread, convincing me I was awake… but I could not be awake and see and hear these things. I could not be alive and watching hell open and fill the world with sickness and death. Horsemen. Apocalypse. This. Is. Not. Real.
I was being carried, but by whom, or where, I did not know. The hands were freezing, and then they were gone as I rattled to the floor again, another bone breaking—something in my arm, as I reached out instinctively to break my fall. The shock of new pain sparking through the fire wrenched my eyes open.
I could only process the sight in front of me as an hallucination. What I saw, what my eyes took in and sent to my uncomprehending mind could not be real, not as real as the aching waves that pulsed through me from the wound on my hand, as the fear making my heart stutter. But I was beginning to know… this was real. My feet impulsively pushed on the floor, skittering on the smooth stones helplessly as the nightmare raged.
The werewolves' fur was dense and thick. They stood upright, like humans, but their forearms were long enough to run on and thickly muscled, like a gorillas; their heads were all snapping, vicious jaws, protruding from their skulls like grotesque alligator snouts. The children they had been were nowhere, and the beasts that took their place were savagely wild, falling on any vamp that dared near them with their wicked mouths. They were the physical opposite of the glimmering monsters that surrounded them, their bodies unwieldy and ungraceful, but equally lethal.
The vampires tried to overtake them with speed, but the tight formation made it difficult. Then I realized there were only four of them in the center.
The largest werewolf by far was pure white. It's eyes were albino pink, visible even in the muted light of the moon, and somehow all the more horrible for it. She ripped and slashed savagely through the vampires, who fled from her, close by me; I remembered Edward's nervous words, and scrabbled on the floor to get away from her just as the lurid pink eye rolled my way.
I was being dragged—carried away again by unseen protectors. The white werewolf screamed and staggered toward me, using her razor clawed arms to help her. It occurred to me that whoever had me wasn't Alice, and tried to twist my head. My broken bone protested, and the flashes of pain creeping along my veins conspired to make me totally rigid. Dead. Rigor mortis. Like the screamers, the white ghosts---
The white wolf swung a paw at my savior, and I dropped again. This time, she picked me up, roaring. And then I saw them, and everything dropped to slow motion. Each movement was distinct, crisp; each heartbeat lasted an hour.
The vampires were going to close in on the children, who tightened their ring. Their strikes became erratic and harried. And then, in front of them….were wolves. True wolves. And then more of the upright fighters locked in battle with the vamps…and then the screams. Screaming. Screaming. Always, that hell of endless screaming.
The pack had arrived. The white wolf carried me roughly away, locked beneath one arm, and then I was on the floor again, my nose smashing and blood running down my face as I tried to roll over and time abruptly catching up to me. I was crippled by the pain from the venom. I tried to crawl away as the werewolf loomed over me, terrifying and rank.
Aro was my secret savior. His papery skin was torn, the grey robe he wore open and baring his fragile seeming shoulder where the white wolf had landed a blow. Her vicious jaws snapped at him as he ducked her, faster and faster, swirling robes and white skin shining. "Bella, my dearest, we shall have to meet again," he trilled, his voice animated and harried. "I'm sure you understand." He intended to dodge her.
And then a silver wolf leapt at him and he ran, just as Jane's pale, fragile seeming form appeared before the white werewolf. Her lips were locked in a wicked grimace, and the monster fell to its knees before her, clutching its head. I could practically see the little girl inside of its shape, screaming in horrified pain. Jane disappeared, she moved so quickly, and then she held a brutal arm in her tiny hands, and then—crack! The werewolf howled, agonized.
Leah caught Jane off guard. She dove fearlessly at the vampire, snagging it in her teeth before it teased itself loose and ducked another jump. Suddenly Leah was the one being tortured; Jane hissed as the white alpha rushed her and caught a thin arm in her remaining claw. When the vampire turned her mind on her captor, Leah pinned her against the wall. Terror crushed Jane's sneering face as she once again traded off her attention, and this time the mistake was fatal. The white werewolf's open mouth descended on her and I closed my eyes tight, tight, tight—screaming, screaming, more screaming…endless.
The battle wasn't near over. I opened my eyes again, thinking only that I had to crawl, I had to get away, and instead I froze, my legs dead and unmoving with only my right arm still functional. There was blood on the floor. Extend the arm. Push my fingers through the blood, find the cracks with my fingertips. Pull. Extend the arm. Push my fingers…Pull….An arm—an inhuman arm, but an arm—landed on the floor close by, and I changed course. More blood. A pair of wolves flanked a swiftly moving, muscled vampire with black hair. A second vampire appeared, and my heart sank, but then they gripped the first one and I looked away. Emmett. Could it have been…? I refused to look again. My elbow wouldn't extend completely. My face was frozen in a horrified grimace.
I wondered if my children were already dead inside of me.
And then—hot hands lifted me off of the ground. "Damn Bella," Leah muttered. "What were you thinking?" She slung me beneath her arm, much as the white werewolf had, and then I realized Leah was dragging her long white body with her free hand. Two bodies in two hands. No wonder she was in human form. Leah scanned the area around us like a wary veteran. She seemed calmer now than she had earlier; I suddenly realized the pain had made me delirious when her hair turned in to snakes. It was almost comforting—maybe I was asleep, maybe none of this was real, but no…They were biting me—no, Bella, no, I told myself. It's just the venom. My tear ducts could no longer produce tears.
"Just the venom," I whispered, but Leah wasn't paying attention to me. Her snake ridden face turned instead towards the huge white body she dragged, and she carefully placed me on the ground next to her other charge. The area was momentarily clear of the fighting. We were almost to the entrance way.
"Don't," Leah was saying. The snakes were biting her face, but instead of blood, water ran down her cheeks. A river. "Don't," she said, over and over and over. Take me to the sea. Cool me.
The white wolf lurched closer to me. Leah's snakes covered her face completely in a writhing, mobile mass.
And then she bit me. The little alpha—it was almost gentle, her teeth were glacial knives, stabbing through the heat. She bit the same arm Alice had; she made a twin crater, and the sea opened in my chest, and I could not see of feel anything but pain, and more pain, and more pain, sinking deep below the black water of the ocean. But she was not done—Leah pulled on her, the snakes liquefying and roaming down her long golden arms, and the white wolf bit me one last time, right on my chest. A tiny nip. A puppy's unintentional bight. The venoms traveled together, lacing, intertwining beneath my skin, racing towards my heart.
Jake.
Pull me from the water. This taste is new—copper, white heat and the burn, the always ripping burn, but ice water. I am choking to death on the ice water, just like before—I know this place. Save me, please—save me one more time, please.
Jacob.