Falling Star

"Don't be afraid," I murmured. "We belong together."

I was abruptly overwhelmed by the truth of my own words. The moment was so perfect, so right, there was no way to doubt it. His arms wrapped around me, holding me against him...It felt like every nerve ending in my body was a live wire.

"Forever," he agreed.

***

The words, the moment, played again and again through my mind. Stupid. We had been so stupid. There was no such thing as forever--there never had been. We had fooled each other, and, more dangerously, we'd fooled ourselves into believing there was.

They were closer than before. I didn't need the vampiric hearing to catch the snapping of twigs, the huff of their breath. Their stench filled my nose and dulled my thoughts as I manuvered and darted through the maze of trees and shadows, trying to lose them. I hadn't fed though, and they were gaining, taking advantage of my flagging strength. Part of me, even now ever the martyr, wanted to stop there, allow the sheets of rain to pour down over me, to give in to what I knew was coming...

No. I wasn't that person anymore, that child that ran from her mistakes. I had all but wasted my human life, stumbling through the paces, waiting to be saved from myself. I wasn't going to waste this life too, troublesome though it sometimes proved to be.

I had two legs; it was time to stand on them.

I stopped and the storm winds whistled past my ears. If I had still been human, hypothermia would be a very real fear--my clothes were soaked through and my disheveled hair dripped in rat tails down my forehead. I didn't need to breathe anymore, but inhaled anyway to calm myself and clear my thoughts. The breeze had shifted, and the pollution of their odor no longer scalded the inside of my nose.

Okay, Bella Cullen, what are you going to do now?

Somewhere in the distance, lightening rippled through the blackness. Thunder rumbled under my sneakers. I swore I heard the drip of each raindrop falling from every leaf and frond.

I had to lead them a little further. There was a clearing just yards ahead that I could use to hide, buy myself time, and there would be more room for what I needed to do. One foot in front of the other, one step at a time, that was the way to do this.

I fell.

Lungs burning and vision blurring, I cursed under my breath, thinking I could have used a squirrel right about then. I was weaker than I'd anticipated. Too weak.

A sharp bark behind me, signalling that they were closer still. A warning from one to another? Or was it a sound of victory?

I closed my eyes and remembered our happiness, the wedding, the isle, trying to cling to the last of my strength. Edward.

"Well, well."

She was here, sooner than I thought she would be. Leaning casually against a tree trunk, she appraised me with dark, amused eyes. "You gave us quite a chase, leech." She eyed my predicament with a smirk. "It's just a shame becoming an abomination didn't burn the clumsiness out of you, too."

There was a time when I might have blushed at that, or had tears well up in my eyes at her tone. Never mind that I was physically incapable of either blushing or crying now. A low snarl started in the back of my throat as I forced myself to get up, shaking but still alive.

If I was going to die, I was going to do it fighting, no matter the odds stacked against me.