16

Kate appears right around the moment Izzy shifts herself onto my lap. If she was pissed at me, I could probably handle it. I feel pretty much the same about myself. The pitying look she gives me as she shakes her head and turns to leave though, almost breaks my heart.

I drop my head onto Izzy's shoulder, wholly defeated by the entire situation.

"Are you okay?" I mumble into her hair. It smells the same as it always did and I inhale deeply, getting a fix of an addiction I thought I was strong enough to resist. I wrap one arm around her, then the other and I hold her close, my fingers twitching slightly at the feel of her beneath them once again.

"I think so." She lifts her head slowly and my eyes meet hers. She blinks once, twice; as though she can't believe what she's seeing. She reaches out and touches my cheek, tracing down to my jaw and round to my chin. Her thumb reaches up and sweeps slowly and gently across my bottom lip as I hold my breath.

Somewhere in the distance I hear someone call my name, and the sound snaps me back into reality.

"I can't do this," I tell her.

"Edward …" Her voice is a whisper, tendrils reaching out and piercing into my chest, wrapping themselves around my heart. I know from experience this is how it starts - the gentle caress eventually turns to suffocation.

"No. No, no, no." I'm saying it mainly to myself, my brain beginning to whir in panic. If I keep speaking then I can't hear her and I can't hear her then she can't get to me.

Only of course it's not that simple.

Like a person deprived of any of their senses, as soon as I make myself deaf to her words, my senses of touch and smell magnify. I'm aware of her. She's on me, all over me.

"Get off me," I say. The words sound weak, even to my own ears. She doesn't move. "Get off me, Izzy," I say with more force, trying to push her away. "Get the hell off me!"

"Edward, please!"

She's clinging on and I can't seem to shake her off.

I can't be sure if the sobs I hear are coming from her or me, and I'm beginning to wonder if I'm having some kind of breakdown. I feel like I'm fighting hard, but I shouldn't be struggling against an opponent as slight as she is and getting nowhere.

I hear my name again, but this time it's different and I'm hit with the realization I'm being saved. Rosalie won't let me sink on this ship again, of this I'm certain.

She hauls Izzy off me easily and drops her back onto the beach a few feet away, still fighting, before she comes back and grips my arm to help me up.

"What the fuck are you doing?" she hisses at me under her breath. My shoulders sag as she lets go of my arm. I wipe a palm roughly over my eyes and my hand comes away dry. Apparently I wasn't the one crying earlier.

I notice Kate hanging back, her face tight with concern. Guilt floods me at the memory of how I bolted and left her.

"I'm sorry." I move closer and am relieved when she comes to meet me. "Whitlock and his friend, they were all over her, I just …" I turn to look at Izzy. She has her arms wrapped around her legs and her forehead resting against her knees as she rocks gently back and forth.

"I got this," Kate says. "You go."

"You don't have a car."

"Jake'll take her," Rosalie says. "We're leaving." She grabs my hand and pulls me along with her. I turn again to say bye to Kate, but she's already crouching down beside Izzy, her back to me.

"Whitlock needs reporting to the police," Rosalie says as we retreat.

"She won't do that," I say.

"I know she won't, but what if you hadn't heard her? What about the next girl? He shouldn't be allowed to get away with it, that's all."

"Don't worry," I tell her, the emotional tightness I carry in my chest igniting and beginning to burn hot. "He's not going to."

~S~