[Edit: 04 Sept 2021]

TW: Body horror, vomiting

The scent has picked up.

Through the interwoven connection, I can smell as if it's my own nose.

We're gaining on them.

Them. More than one?

Yes, two or three, maybe more. It may be a stray group…or Volturi.

Volturi. I tumble over my paws and right myself. Blinking away hazy memories that stunk of fear.

If it is... we'll need to let Jake know, the only reason they'd be here is to mess with Renesme.

What about the small one?

Alice. Might be her too.

I'll meet you south of Coal Creek, I'm coming from Hole-in-the-Wall. We might be able to corner them.

It stopped!

Gone!

What? What happened? You lost them?

Damn, they turned around, headed south.

It's too close to the airfield-

We've been played for fools!

They're headed towards me? I'll meet them head on, come up on rear.

No, wait! Leah!

Stop it! Leah, this is suicide!

You can't take on more than one alone! Wait for us!

They're headed towards the camping ground-

Leah! Stop!

Shut up, shutupshutup! I try tuning them out. I'm not weak, I can at least get one of them before they overpower me, it should give the others enough time to show up and get the rest. The worst that would happen is a few broken bones, but that is little to sacrifice in the way of vampire slaying.

So stupid-

I'm going to get Sam. Paul, get to her, now!

Sam...My mind retracts for a moment, dwindling, mourning. A distraction. I don't need this now, did they want me to die? I need to get my mind out of the gutter.

I shake my large head, the rest of my fur ripples with the movement, shaking off water.

The scent slips past me.

I have them! South toward Mora.

I bound harder, faster. The scent grows, I'm practically on top of them. A howl escapes me and I catch a flash of blonde. I would know that hair anywhere, rage boils under my skin. It's the Volturi after all, the bastards, to send their rabbits out to face the wolves.

You're sure? It's them?

The question is stupid, I don't bother answering it, he already knows I'm sure. Two voices join, Sam and Quill.

Immediately my chest begins to pain and my lope staggers, I slam into a tree but regain my balance before I can go down. My next steps are uneven as a low thrumming ache spreads through me. Howls fill the air and more voices materialise in my head. Everyone except Jacob and Seth are here, which doesn't surprise me, Jake's first priority would be his mate.

The blonde flashes again. I'm catching up!

Leah, stop! It's Sam. He's my alpha and there's no choice but to obey him, even if I hate to do so.

Yet he isn't the reason I fall to the ground. No, the ache expands and every muscle seizes. I crash into a tree, the cells in my body contracting and expanding rapidly, cramping with a stabbing, throbbing sensation that permeates my very ability to think. I squirm, breathless as the change grips at my bones, my muscles contorting to accept it. There should be relief that follows, but the change doesn't release me in supple flesh but plunges me back under the crushing weight of another change and another and another. Until I'm no longer sure which skin I wear, what shape my mind takes.

The air smells sharply of blood and urine, but I can't see anything beyond the flashes of conscious images. Not my own. Not my vision or scent or hearing. Someone else's, everyone else's. It tastes like horror.

I'm not entirely sure I'm breathing, and at this point I beg all the forces of the Earth that I'm not. If only it'll stop. Please god make it stop I can't do this please please please-

Lea-

Volturi!

-there-

Its-

It's a strange conglomeration of disassociation, fear, mindless jabber. And hell why hasn't it stopped yet? The voices in my head only get louder, more persistent in their lack of sense. I'm whacked with the image of red, of smiles and torn limbs. There's an odd moment where I'm staring at myself, but it's not me it can't be me, not like that. And the rancid permeating of urine makes my eyes (is it my eyes?) water. Someone won't stop screaming.

Me. It's me. Or maybe not. I can't feel my lungs or my lips, just the all-consuming buzz of electricity as every fibre of my being tries to metamorphose into something it's not. Can't possibly be.

Abruptly it ends. Leaving behind a swarm of bees in my head, bees that make my limbs flail around madly and who scream and scream and scream.

A hot pressure falls on my head and I struggle. Don't trap the bees in here with me, I beg. Please no, but the bees are already stinging at my scalp, tracing the pressure across the expanse of my mind, stinging me with billions of tiny poisonous tails.

"Lea? Eah! 'ok at me!" the voice doesn't sound right and only serves to anger the bees who attack me in retaliation.

"Sam!" and suddenly there's silence, blissful. The bees calm to an angry buzz, but stop trying to kill me.

"Oh, fuck, look at her..." the bees don't seem to mind this, swarming 'round and round my head in a chaotic dance smelling of vomit and soil.

"Don't,"

"-get her back, to the res-"

"Billy, we need the doctor,"

I realise suddenly that the flashes of thoughts and images and scents have stopped. That the bees are honey drunk bumping against my skull. When did the screaming stop?

"I don't think-"

"Do it! Make sure to keep Seth away."