The wind wiped
around the plaza, sending hair and clothes flying, and blowing a
hundred human scents in my direction. I barley noted the burn in my
throat. It would all be over soon. No more burning. Not thirst at
least. By all accounts, there was plenty of fire in Hell.
As I stood in the
shadows of the alley, I thought of nothing but the end. The end of my
miserable, prolonged existence. The end of the pain. The end of me.
But I didn't care. Bella was dead - the words stabbed my heart,
though I had thought them countless times over the last 24 hours -
and a world without her was completely pointless. Living without her
was torture. But at least then there had been a possibility, a chance
of seeing her again. And there was the thought that she could be
happy, keeping me going. Knowing that there was no chance, that she
wasn't happy, was unbearable - I couldn't bear it.
Rosalie's words
echoed around my head again, effectively blocking out the mental
chatter in a million different languages that I wasn't listening to
anyway.
She's dead
Edward.
I'm... sorry.
You have a right to know though, I think. Bella... threw herself off
a cliff two days ago. Alice saw it, but it was too late to do
anything. I think she would have helped though, broken her word, if
there had been time. She went back to do what she could for Charlie.
You know how she's always cared for him-
That was when I
turned my phone off.
Now I stood here,
waiting for the clock to chime and signal my end.
I shrugged out of
my tattered shirt and dumped it on the floor just as the first chime
rang through the square, bouncing off the tiles and sienna walls and
coming back double the volume. To my sensitive vampire ears, the
noise was deafening. I thought I heard something, almost drowned out
by the chime; a voice, hoarse but familiar, calling my name.
So familiar. I
listened, trying to hear past the chime. There was definitely
something there. I listened harder.
Heavy breathing.
Pounding feet.
Hands pushing
against the crowd.
A heartbeat,
racing with exertion.
A sound I had
heard so many times before.
I closed my eyes
and let a small smile play at the corners of my mouth.
Edward Cullen, the
world's first crazy vampire.
My mind was
obviously giving me what I wanted. Because there was no way that was
really Bella's heartbeat I could hear. The clock was so loud, I could
just as easily have imagined it. I could still hear her voice,
calling my name, calling out to me. I let myself imagine, just for
the fun of it, that she was really calling to me, calling out
for me to come to her. I let myself imagine that I could go to
her, that it was possible; that I could go to heaven, and see my
Bella.
As the ninth chime
boomed from the clock, I took a step forward.
"No Edward,
look at me!" the voice cried, still faint, still hidden. Still
just my imagination.
I'm coming my
love. I thought, as the clock tolled again and I lifted my foot
to take the final step.
Something hit me,
slamming into my chest with enough force that whoever it was knocked
the air from their lungs and almost toppled. My hands instinctively
went out to catch them.
This wasn't right.
I had expected the force to come from behind, a pull, strong enough
to move me. And a large, muscled figure; Felix or someone like him,
someone with enough strength to finish me off. The person in my arms
was small, shorter than me, and slight. I felt long hair brush
against my hand. What on earth?
I opened my eyes,
slowly... and stared in wonder.
For Bella was in
my arms.
Her head was
tilted back, staring up at me with desperate, wide eyes, the same
beautiful shade of chocolate brown as my memories. So much was in
those eyes; desperation, panic, fear, exhaustion ... and something
else, something I couldn't quite place - pain?
Her face looked
different, thinner, more drawn; but still more gorgeous than anything
I had ever seen in all my years. There were dark circles under her
eyes, like she hadn't slept well. Her skin was even paler than I
remembered, almost as pale as mine. Her hair was a mess, but I didn't
care.
"Amazing,"
I said - reasoning that, since I was dead, I might as well speak my
thoughts, "Carlisle was right."
"Edward,"
Bella breathed, barely making a noise, "you have to get back
into the shadows. You have to move."
I didn't know what
she meant, so I chose to ignore her, instead brushing my hand along
her cheek. It was pink, as always, despite her unusually pale
complexion. Her hands pressed against my bare chest, so warm and
comforting.
"I can't
believe how quick it was. I didn't feel a thing. They're very good."
I kissed her hair
softly, inhaling the perfect scent that had evaded me for seven long
months. My memories, though precise, were nothing compared to the
real thing.
"Death, that
hath sucked the honey of thy breath, hath had no power yet upon thy
beauty." I quoted, remembering our afternoon long ago, watching
Romeo and Juliet in Charlie's little living room. The final chime
boomed around us, but nothing could distract me from the angel in my
arms.
My throat burned,
aching just like that first day; her scent blown towards me as she
passed the heating duct in Biology, hitting me so hard it almost
knocked me flying. Thinking of her as a demon, come straight out of
hell to ruin my years of self-denial. And giving me a reason to live.
"You smell
just exactly the same as always. So maybe this is hell. I
don't care. I'll take it."
"I'm not
dead," Bella interjected, cutting me off. The sound of her voice
almost distracted me from her words. Almost. "And neither are
you! Please Edward, we have to move. They can't be far away!"
panic was evident in her tone, as she wriggled in my arms, trying to
move me.
I frowned. "What
was that?"
"We're not
dead, not yet! But we have to get out of here before the Volturi-"
As she spoke, I
heard the distinctive mental voices of Felix and Demetri behind us.
Spinning Bella around away from the sunshine, I pressed her back
against the alley wall, and spread my arms in front of her.
Though the danger
was still very real, and very close, I suddenly felt at peace.
I was protecting
the one I loved, standing between her and danger.
I was back with my
Bella.
Back where I
belonged.
THE END.
