A/N: I don't own Twilight or anything else.

So here is chapter 83 of Static. If you didn't read the last chapter, go back and read it. If you haven't read the last few chapters, go back and read those, too. If you're trying to catch up and you don't know what Wafflegate is, stay away from the reviews and keep catching up. And if you're trying to catch up but somewhere in the plot, Bella and Jacob are still dating... I'm sorry.

This chapter, chapter 83 (!), started out really short and bare, which was annoying, so I filled it out with some pretty details and throwbacks. Anyway, here it is. Oh, and I forgot to say this last chapter, but as a warning, this chapter is heavy on the violence.

Enjoy.

LXXXIII.

over futile odds
and laughed at by the gods
and now the final frame
love is a losing game

She didn't know if she couldn't hear because of the first gunshot or because of everybody suddenly screaming and trying to scramble away, but Bella could hardly hear herself think by the moment she pulled out her gun and immediately shot Edward square in the chest.

She didn't know who Edward had shot—she was too afraid to look, and whoever had been shot was immediately surrounded by the Quileutes. Bella was so angry that he had threatened and shot anybody at all. She didn't even know why she had shot him, but she watched him fall over almost in slow motion, like he was underwater, and she didn't even feel bad.

He was dead, and her mind was clear.

It's over, she thought. He is finally over.

Then she turned, and when she saw Jacob and Quil both perfectly fine, that was when she realized that Edward had shot Paul. Amidst all the screaming, all the chaos, all the men hopping into the pickup trucks and driving away, she finally realized that Paul had been shot in the stomach.

"He fuckin' shot me!" he screamed, his hands covered in his own blood. "The motherfucker shot me!"

Bella was suddenly on her knees, having let go of the gun, and the world had become too loud. Too harsh. She was deafening herself with her own screams and cries. She made loud, ugly noises as she held him at his hands, trying to process what had just happened. She hoped that it was all fake, but the dark, warm blood covering both of their hands was anything but.

"You're gonna be alright," she said frantically. "We're gonna be alright."

All he could do was scream in pain. It was the ugliest sound Bella could ever imagine. The image of him was hard to witness, too. He had never looked so vulnerable. The aggressive kid who had never been afraid of anyone or anything had finally gotten knocked down.

"He fuckin' shot me," he cried. "He shot me."

Bella glanced around her at everybody else left, who were all in a state of panic. "Can somebody call an ambulance?" she demanded.

"They're on the way," Emily said, still on the phone.

"Oh my God," Bella murmured, looking down at all the blood. "Oh my God."

Kim was kneeling next to Bella and Paul. "Shit, he's bleeding out fast," she muttered.

"Where the hell is the ambulance?" Bella asked impatiently.

"They're coming from Forks," Kim explained, trying her hardest to stay calm when on the inside, nothing was okay. Not Paul, who had been shot right in the stomach. Definitely not Edward, who was already dead. "It'll be a little while."

Bella still held Paul's hands. "We've got this," she told him. "We're gonna be alright. Don't worry about it, baby. We're gonna be alright. You're gonna be alright."

Paul was fading out increasingly by the minute, but Bella—the queen of empty promises—kept assuring him that they would be okay, as if he hadn't already lost the fight. She kept telling him he would be okay as he was being loaded into an ambulance. She wasn't allowed to go with him, and as she nearly drowned in her own tears, she noticed the police cars approaching the parking lot not too far behind the ambulances.

She quickly picked up the gun where she left it, near Edward's dead body, and began to take off towards the beach. She held the gun in her right hand and had her left hand on her stomach. Leah followed her.

"Bella, what the fuck are you doing?" Leah demanded as she caught up to her, catching her by the arm.

Bella turned and shrugged out of Leah's grip. "It's over, Leah!" she shouted. "I can't live like this. Paul's dead, and I'm going to prison."

"You don't know if he's dead," Leah replied. "You don't fucking know that."

"He was shot in the stomach. He's probably dead right now. And I'm going to prison. I can't fucking do this."

"Put the gun down," Leah told her. "You're gonna do something really fucking stupid if you don't."

"Stop!" Bella yelled. "I have nothing now."

"You have your baby," Leah countered. "You literally have millions of dollars."

"You think that means shit without Paul?" she asked. "You think any of that matters now?" Then she was sobbing. She had such an ugly, defeated cry that it was hard to watch.

All that Leah could say was that she was sorry, and that nobody deserved this, and that this was all an accident, but Bella couldn't hear her. She was still deaf because of her own sobs. Leah couldn't do anything but cry with her. It was the only thing they really had in common in the moment.

Bella had gotten through the worst of her sobbing when she lifted the gun to her head. She had cried herself out. She had cried about everything she could have cried about because Paul was her everything.

"Bella, you don't have to do this," Leah said desperately. "You're my sister. You haven't lost everything. Don't do this."

Bella had always been the girl who lived for love. She had never cared for platonic love. Plain, classic, romantic love was all that she had ever wanted. She would do anything or be anything for it. She didn't have many passions, but one had always been to seek the idea of love. She'd tried being independent, but that had gotten boring. She'd tried looking after herself first, but that had never been very inspiring. She wasn't a people person by any means, but she was head over heels for the idea of romantic love alone.

Bella had gone through her life as a walking, beating, thoughtless heart, blindly deciding that if love prevailed, she would prevail, too. As long as love was enough, she would be enough. But in this moment, she had never felt more wrong. She could have been Edward and she wouldn't even know it. Her heart, her soul, her entire being felt like it had been shot right out. Her essence bled like Paul's stomach. Even if he was still alive in any possible way at this moment, she couldn't be with him anymore. In her own stomach lived a part of Paul, but Paul was no more, and subsequently, Bella was no more. Her heart was gone, and if she couldn't carry on without it, then what was she? What was love?

Love wasn't enough anymore. Love, she had found, was a losing game.

And even though she was a giant loser in all of this, even though she would never win now, she still lived for love. It was tragic, and the only thing that made this worse was that she would die for it, too.

"I have nothing," Bella said once again. Then she closed her eyes and pulled the trigger.

A/N: This story isn't over until it's over. Stay tuned.

Thanks as always,

HS