A/N Twilight is the property of Stephanie Meyer. Anya Simms is all mine.

Chapter 13: The Switch

JPOV

Late Saturday Evening, Jan 15/05

Saturday night was unusually still, as if the world was holding its breath. I stood in the shadows of Anya's backyard. I was wrapped in my raincoat once more, watching the librarian every bit the private eye I was by night.

Anya's house was warm, her lights on, curtains wide open as was her norm. She was in the back of her house this evening. I could see her through the wide window of what I assumed was her office—a room lined with bookshelves lined with orderly books, a few knick knacks. A solid desk – mahogany if I had to guess – that was polished to a deep sheen, a laptop screen casting a pale glow on her face. Some papers strewn around her.

Organized chaos.

She looked peaceful, content even, as she worked on whatever was on her screen. Every so often, she jotted down the odd note on the papers to her side. The music playing faintly in the background was something mellow, Leonard Cohen's gravelly voice. A different vibe from her typical rock. At least it wasn't Tainted Love. I did hear her playing that a few times earlier in the day, each time laughing as she sang, no doubt thinking about the look on Eddie boy's face when she was putting on a show in the cafeteria the day before. Tonight's music seemed to suit her, an atmosphere of studious reflection.

Anya had always struck me as someone who embraced life with an open heart, who found joy in the little things—jumping in puddles, singing in her living room, the warmth of a fire, pushing Edward's buttons. I was enjoying the buzz of her emotional cocktail and I barely felt the freezing drizzle.

But then, something changed.

It was like a switch had been flipped. The smile that always played at the corners of her lips faltered, her brow furrowing as her eyes widened. Her fingers, which had been tapping rhythmically on the keyboard, stilled.

I saw her tense, a deep shudder running through her frame as if she had just received a blow that knocked the wind out of her.

Her hand came up to her mouth, trembling, and then she was crying.

What the actual fuck? I thought my dead heart would crack.

Sure, Anya's emotional cocktail would change subtly over the time I had been keeping tabs on her; but this was like someone had swapped it out completely for a darker deadly toxin.

Silent tears at first, just streaming down her cheeks, but they quickly turned to sobs that wracked her body. I could feel the sorrow radiating off of her, raw and unguarded, as if she had been torn open from the inside.

I had seen grief before—had lived through it in more ways than one—but this was different. This was despair, the kind that sinks its claws into you and doesn't let go.

Again, what the actual fuck was I witnessing?!

She rose from her desk, moving like an automaton, sluggish, disconnected. Her usual grace, the lightness with which she moved through her space, was gone; her feet dragging as she walked to the back door, the one that led to the steps I rarely saw her use. Her preference being the front porch and it's swing. Anya then pulled the door open and stepped out, oblivious to the freezing drizzle that fell around her. She sank down onto the cold, wet stone, her head bowed, arms wrapped tightly around herself as if trying to hold herself together. Her sobs had quieted, but her shoulders still shook with the force of her grief.

And then she spoke, her voice barely more than a whisper, carried to me on the wind as she rose and returned inside, "I know you're out there. Just get it over with. Kill me, numb me—je m'en calisse."

For a moment, I was frozen, caught between the instinct to disappear into the night and the need to understand what had just happened.

Holy shit. She knew.

The paranoid fucker was right – Anya had known all along, and now she was laying herself bare before me, offering me her life—or her release.

WHAT?

I stepped forward, crossing the distance between us without a sound. The door was still ajar, the warmth from inside spilling out into the cold night. I followed her into the house, drawn by the sorrow that clung to her. The ghostly strains of "Dance me to the End of Love" playing.

She had collapsed in front of the fire, curled up on the rug like a discarded doll. Her body trembled with silent sobs, each one tearing through her as she barely held herself together. The flames cast a golden halo around her, but it only made her seem more fragile, like she might shatter if I so much as touched her.

Her blue wire-rim glasses were missing, tossed aside without care, lying somewhere out of reach. She never took them off unless she was going to bed, but now they were gone, forgotten in the wake of whatever had broken her. Her face was bare, exposed in a way I had never seen before, and it only made her look smaller, more vulnerable.

She wasn't the Anya I was used to seeing—the one who laughed easily, jumped in puddles and sang ridiculous songs with students in the cafeteria. That Anya was gone. What was left was someone crumpled and defeated, curled into herself as if trying to disappear. Her manicured toes peeked out from the hem of her soaked jeans, a stark contrast to the raw, unfiltered grief that had taken over her.

I stood over her, uncertain, for the first time in a long time, of what to do. My instinct as a predator warred with something else, something deeper. She had given me permission, hadn't she? But it didn't feel right. This wasn't what I wanted. I wasn't here to destroy her. I had never been here to destroy her.

I fucking loved how unabashedly happy and content this odd human was. Why would I destroy that?

What the hell was going on in that brain of hers? Well shit, now I get why Edward found her so confounding. I had no idea what to make of this.

Her voice, barely audible spat out, "Sacrament! Get it over with. I'm done. I concede." She didn't look at me, she didn't move. But she clearly expected me to make a decision.

So, I did.

I numbed her. I emoted every bit of drowsiness and tiredness I could muster to get her to pass out, to stop the tsunami of grief emitting from her.

And just before she did, she whispered one last sentence … "I'll explain everything tomorrow; I just need oblivion."

I sat there on the floor beside her as her fire gently cracked and popped. Eventually I found a blanket to drape over her. I had thought to carry her upstairs, but I didn't want to overstep my welcome.

Weird I know, given how she had essentially given me carte blanche do to whatever. But her admission to explaining everything tomorrow kept me in check.

I stayed there for a while, just watching her sleep. She looked peaceful now, her breath steady, the grief momentarily eased by the blanket of calm I'd forced over her. I should have left, should have stepped back into the shadows where I belonged, but something kept me rooted to the spot.

Anya was an enigma—had been since the moment her car ran off Highway 101. I thought I understood her, at least a little, but tonight had shattered that illusion. The way she broke down, the raw, unfiltered pain... it didn't add up. Why now? What had she seen? What could have caused such a drastic shift?

I glanced around the room, my eyes landing on her laptop, still open on the desk. The screen had gone dark, but I could imagine the images that might have been there. Anya's sobs, her whispered plea for oblivion, echoed in my mind. What had she seen that was so devastating?

Curiosity got the better of me. I stood up, moving silently across the room to the desk, closing the back door on my way. The laptop was still on, just asleep. I tapped the trackpad, bringing the screen back to life. The browser was open, several tabs lined up at the top. The current tab was opened to an old news article of a report of a tragedy.

Her family was dead.

The article was from years ago, detailing a car accident that had wiped out an entire family—Anya's family.

I scrolled down, looking at the other tabs she had open. Notes, documents, historical references. It took me a moment to piece it together. She was researching something—something to do with World War II. The French Resistance, from the looks of it.

I frowned, trying to make sense of what I was reading. Okay, so she had an interest in WWII. Not overly strange, especially considering her background. I'd seen her résumé before a BA in English and a Master of Library and Information Science. The kind of background that could explain a deep dive into history, sure. But why now? And why pair it with a news article about her family's death?

What the hell had she been looking for?

I flipped through the pages of her notes on the desk, skimming through the smooth cursive script. It was meticulous, almost obsessive. Details about ordinary women who had played roles in the Resistance—names, dates, locations. It was all there, cataloged and cross-referenced. Colour coded even. I could tell she'd been at this for a while, but why? And what did any of this have to do with the tragedy that had shattered her tonight?

It didn't make sense. Unless... she wasn't just interested in this stuff. Maybe she was trying to find something, or someone. But what could she possibly be hoping to discover that connected her family's death from 1996 with the French Resistance, over 50 years earlier?

What the fuck?

She had said she'd explain everything tomorrow, but that didn't stop my mind from racing. The need to understand, to figure this out, was almost overwhelming. But I couldn't push her. I mean I could have manipulated her emotions to get her to confess everything, but I didn't want to. She said she'd explain, and I believed her. I would know tomorrow.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, snapping me out of my thoughts. I pulled it out and saw a text from Alice.

Invite Anya over for lunch.

I stared at the message, my confusion deepening. Alice must have seen something, but she wasn't giving me much to go on. Still, her timing was uncanny as always. She must have sensed something was off. And if Alice thought it was important for Anya to come over, then I wasn't going to argue.

I put the phone away, glancing back at Anya's sleeping form. The fire had nearly died out, the room growing colder by the minute. I could hear the faint patter of rain outside, the night settling into a quiet that felt heavy, almost oppressive. There was nothing more I could do tonight. She needed rest, and I needed to figure out how to handle this. Tomorrow would bring answers, hopefully.

For now, I settled back into the desk chair, keeping watch as the last embers flickered out.

And when Anya woke up, I'd ask her to come to lunch—no matter how bizarre that felt after the evening we'd just had.

But bizarre was becoming the new normal.