Chapter 25: The Fight

I was crouched in the tall grass, waiting to spring into the clearing to attack. I was with Alice, Rosalie, and Emmett, and we were flanked by three wolves. I knew that Paul was directly behind me—as soon as we'd arrived, he'd nuzzled my arm to let me know who he was.

The other half of the pack was with Carlisle, Esme, and Jasper, and they were already fighting. I could hear the sounds from the fight and I was finding it difficult to figure out what exactly was happening. It was killing me to stand by and wait to attack, not knowing what was going on. Alice had her hand on my arm, sensing how antsy I was and stopping me from jumping in too early. Alice had seen that the newborns were going to split into two groups to try and catch us off guard, so we'd followed a similar plan.

After what felt like entirely too long, the second group of newborns entered the clearing and we waited another two minutes before jumping in and attacking.

It wasn't very difficult to take them down; newborns only cared about thing: blood. We'd surprised them by entering late and that helped us tremendously. As I was taking down my third newborn, I saw the chocolate coloured wolf I knew to be Jared get ambushed by two vampires. They had him pinned down and he was yelping, trying to get anyone's attention so they could help him. I looked around and saw that everyone was too busy with their own fights to help Jared.

My body seemed to move on its' own accord as I rushed over to Jared and knocked both of the newborns off of him. I tore both of them apart without hesitation and turned to look at Jared to make sure he was okay. He pulled himself off the ground and started fighting more newborns without even a glance my way.

I didn't have time to dwell on that because I got pinned to the ground from behind by another vampire. He had his hand tight around my neck and I fought against him, trying to break the arm that was pinning me down, but I couldn't. I tried everything I could, throwing all my strength at him, but it wouldn't work. He was too strong and he had me in too awkward of a position to get a good grip on him. His teeth sank into my left shoulder and I cried out in pain before he pressed me harder into the ground.

I felt like an idiot—I shouldn't have let my guard down like I had. One tiny mistake was all it had taken to take me out.

Just as I'd accepted my fate and thought only of Paul, the newborn was off of me.

I felt the pressure ease off of my back and I rolled into a defensive stance immediately. I looked up to see that Paul had jumped over us and had gotten the newborn off of me. I threw a thankful look in his direction and moved on to fight some more.

The fight was over sooner than I'd expected and with less injuries than I'd anticipated.

My shoulder was a little sore from the newborn's bite and Jasper had also been bitten a couple times—we'd compared our battle scars with each other when the fighting had ended.

The entire right side of Jacob's body had been shattered when a newborn had gotten its' arms around him too tightly, but other than that there were only a few very minor injuries among the pack. We'd gotten through it relatively unscathed and for that, I was grateful.

I glanced over at Esme, who was crouched down and speaking to the young vampire who'd surrendered. It had been decided that she was going to stay with the Cullens until she could completely adapt to our lifestyle. She'd looked terrified during the battle and Esme couldn't help but try to protect her from all the bloodshed. I didn't fully trust the young vampire yet—the only thing she knew was the chaotic newborn lifestyle she'd been thrust into. It wasn't an easy habit to break.

While Emmett and Jasper gathered the pieces of dead vampire, I helped Alice build a fire to burn the pieces.

Within minutes, the air was filled with the purple smoke that came with burning pieces of dead vampire. I sat on the ground and prodded at the fire to keep it going while Emmett and Jasper continued to bring over the limbs.

In the distance I could see another pillar of purple smoke and I furrowed my brow.

"That's Victoria," Alice said, noticing my look.

"What do you mean?"

"She found Edward and Bella's camp," she said. "Edward…disposed of her."

"Is everyone okay?" I asked.

She nodded. "Bella cut herself, but other than that everyone's fine."

I stiffened slightly. "She was bleeding?"

"She was," Alice confirmed. "Edward's already stitched her up, though. You'll be fine."

"You've seen that?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. "They'll be here in five minutes so you have some time to prepare."

I turned my attention back to the fire, continuing to poke and prod at it. As Alice promised, five minutes later, Edward and Bella entered the clearing. She was cradling her arm against her chest and I saw that it had been wrapped in a piece of a shirt. She sent a small smile my way when she saw me but was soon distracted by Carlisle inspecting his son's handiwork on her arm.

As usual when Bella was around, the scent of her blood made my throat burn. I locked my muscles into place and kept my focus on the fire, trying to distract myself from the scent of her blood.

I was so focused on the fire that I didn't even notice that Alice had gone stiff as a board until I noticed Jasper rush over to her. He placed a hand on her shoulder and searched her face, anxiously waiting for her to return to the present.

Alice blinked a few times and turned to me, looking scared. "They're coming."

"Who?"

"The Volturi."

"What?" I whispered, grasping her arm. "No, no, no, they can't come here."

"They are."

"Why?"

"To inspect."

"Alice…I need to get away from here," I said. "I can't…they can't see me here."

"You don't have time," she said. "They'll be here in three minutes. Even if you run off, they'll smell you and probably try to attack you when you're on your own. We will protect you."

Emmett and Jasper quickly finished the vampire limb cleanup and I stood with Alice as we anxiously awaited the Volturi's arrival. Every cell in my body was screaming at me to run off before they could arrive. I knew that Alice was right, though—I wouldn't get away in time and it wouldn't do any good to have me isolated while they were in the area.

I watched as the four hooded figures approached and felt my stomach tighten anxiously. It was Jane, Alec, Demetri, and Felix. Even from afar, I could see the excitement dancing in Demetri's eyes. His eyes were trained on me and I could tell he was probably thinking, I can get you this time.

"Hmmm," murmured Jane's dead and obviously bored voice.

"Welcome, Jane," Edward said.

I watched as Jane's eyes scanned our lineup until they fell on me. She raised a brow and cooly said, "Hello, Natalia. I see you've taken residence with the Cullens. Aro will be so interested to learn that."

"I haven't taken residence with them," I said quickly. "I was just passing through town and they mentioned they could use all the help they could get. I'll be out of Forks by the end of the week."

Alice shifted slightly next to me and Jane's eyes widened slightly. More than ever, I wished that I could peek into her mind like Edward could. I wished that I could know what she was thinking and if she'd seen through my lie.

Jane turned her attention from me and to the newborn that had surrendered. She furrowed her brow and said, "I don't understand."

Edward explained the situation, but Jane wasn't having any of it and I knew that she was going to have the newborn executed.

Despite my distrust of her, I felt sorry for her—she was young, no older than sixteen, and she'd had her life ripped away from her so quickly.

I didn't pay attention to the rest of the conversation between Jane and Edward—I'd turned my attention back to Demetri and felt my stomach lurch. He still had his eyes trained on me and I felt incredibly anxious. It felt like he was willing Jane to tell him to come after me so that he would finally succeed in his goal. He hated the fact that I'd evaded him in the past—he saw that as a weakness. But…he would wait for the order from one of his superiors to attempt to take me again. He wouldn't act on his own.

It was only when Felix advanced on the group that I tore my eyes away from Demetri. I watched as he approached the newborn and began to tear her apart. I shuddered slightly and looked away so I wouldn't have to watch Felix throw her limbs into the fire.

"Oh…and one last thing," Jane said, turning her attention back to me. "Aro will be incredibly displeased with me if I don't ask you, Natalia—have you reconsidered his offer?"

"No," I said sharply. "And my answer will never change."

"Such a pity," she said, clicking her tongue. "It's too bad…we both know how strong you are."

I barely had time to process what she meant before it felt like my entire body was on fire. I sank to my knees and gritted my teeth, fighting the urge to cry out in pain.

As quickly as it had started, it was over, and I felt my head clearing, relief pouring into every cell of my body.

The relief didn't last long, though.

As my eyes focused on the scene in front of me, it felt like my entire world was crashing down around me.

Paul, still in his wolf form, had jumped between Jane and me and was now yelping in pain as his body crumpled to the ground. Jane was glaring at him intensely and I was sure that she was using her power at full force.

My head whipped around and my eyes locked onto Edward's, mentally screaming a message to him: She can't know.

He gave me the tiniest of nods before giving a pointed look to Jasper. I watched as Jasper turned his eyes to Jane and furrowed his brow slightly, using his power on her to calm her down.

"Jane, there is no reason for that," Edward said quickly. "The wolves were incredibly helpful to us today and they've spent the entire morning defending us—he doesn't understand that you're different from the others."

It took an extreme amount of self-control to not lunge at Jane and attack her for harming Paul the way she was. I couldn't do that, though—I couldn't give her any indication that he meant anything to me, otherwise she'd know that I'd found happiness here.

I watched as Jane's eyes left Paul's and snapped back to Edward's. "These wolves were defending our kind?"

In my peripheral vision, I watched as Paul's body relaxed, his breathing slowly going back to normal and his whimpers of pain lessening.

"They were," Edward confirmed. "They wanted the same thing we did—to remove the threat."

Jane's eyes slowly travelled between Paul and me, and I held her gaze as nonchalantly as I could, trying to conceal any sort of emotion at her look. It looked like she was going to say more, but seemed to change her mind as she ended the encounter by saying goodbye to us and stalking away with the rest of them.

Paul pulled himself off the ground and nuzzled my arm with his nose before running off into the forest, presumably back into La Push. I watched him until he was too far to see anymore, knowing that our entire relationship was about to implode.