"We take what we do very seriously, Bella. Nothing's been forgotten. Everything they need to know has been passed down from father to son for generations."
That didn't comfort me the way he probably intended it to. The memory of Victoria, wild, catlike, lethal, was too strong in my head. If she couldn't get around the wolves, she would eventually try to go through them.
Billy went back to his breakfast; I sat down on the sofa and flipped aimlessly though the TV channels. That didn't last long. I started to feel closed in by the small room, claustrophobic, upset by the fact that I couldn't see out the curtained windows.
"I'll be at the beach," I told Billy abruptly, and hurried out the door.
Being outside didn't help as much as I'd hoped. The clouds pushed down with an invisible weight that kept the claustrophobia from easing. The forest seemed strangely vacant as I walked toward the beach. I didn't see any animals--no birds, no squirrels. I couldn't hear any birds, either. The silence was eerie; there wasn't even the sound of wind in the trees.
I knew it was all just a product of the weather, but it still made me edgy. The heavy, warm pressure of the atmosphere was perceptible even to my weak human senses, and it hinted at something major in the storm department. A glance at the sky backed this up; the clouds were churning sluggishly despite the lack of breeze on the ground. The closest clouds were a smoky gray, but between the cracks I could see another layer that was a gruesome purple color. The skies had a ferocious plan in store for today. The animals must be bunkering down.
As soon as I reached the beach, I wished I hadn't come--I'd already had enough of this place. I'd been here almost every day, wandering alone. Was it so much different from my nightmares? But where else to go? I trudged down to the driftwood tree, and sat at the end so that I could lean against the tangled roots. I stared up at the angry sky broodingly, waiting for the first drops to break the stillness.
I tried not to think about the danger Jacob and his friends were in. Because nothing could happen to Jacob. The thought was unendurable. I'd lost too much already--would fate take the last few shreds of peace left behind? That seemed unfair, out of balance. But maybe I'd violated some unknown rule, crossed some line that had condemned me. Maybe it was wrong to be so involved with myths and legends, to turn my back on the human world. Maybe...
No. Nothing would happen to Jacob. I had to believe that or I wouldn't be able to function.
"Argh!" I groaned, and jumped off the log. I couldn't sit still; it was worse than pacing.
I'd really been counting on hearing Edward this morning. It seemed like that was the one thing that might make it bearable to live through this day. The hole had been festering lately, like it was getting revenge for the times that Jacob's presence had tamed it. The edges burned.
The waves picked up as I paced, beginning to crash against the rocks, but there was still no wind. I felt pinned down by the pressure of the storm. Everything swirled around me, but it was perfectly still where I stood. The air had a faint electric charge--I could feel the static in my hair.
Farther out, the waves were angrier than they were along the shore. I could see them battering against the line of the cliffs, spraying big white clouds of sea foam into the sky. There was still no movement in the air, though the clouds roiled more quickly now. It was eerie looking--like the clouds were moving by their own will. I shivered, though I knew it was just a trick of the pressure.
The cliffs were a black knife edge against the livid sky. Staring at them, I remembered the day Jacob had told me about Sam and his "gang." I thought of the boys--the werewolves--throwing themselves into the empty air. The image of the falling, spiraling figures was still vivid in my mind. I imagined the utter freedom of the fall... I imagined the way Edward's voice would have sounded in my head--furious, velvet, perfect... The burning in my chest flared agonizingly.
There had to be some way to quench it. The pain was growing more and more intolerable by the second. I glared at the cliffs and the crashing waves.
Well, why not? Why not quench it right now?
Jacob had promised me cliff diving, hadn't he? Just because he was unavailable, should I have to give up the distraction I needed so badly--needed even worse because Jacob was out risking his life? Risking it, in essence, for me. If it weren't for me, Victoria would not be killing people here... just somewhere else, far away. If anything happened to Jacob, it would be my fault. That realization stabbed deep and had me jogging back up to the road toward Billy's house, where my truck waited.
I knew my way to the lane that passed closest to the cliffs, but I had to hunt for the little path that would take me out to the ledge. As I followed it, I looked for turns or forks, knowing that Jake had planned to take me off the lower outcropping rather than the top, but the path wound in a thin single line toward the brink with no options. I didn't have time to find another way down--the storm was moving in quickly now. The wind was finally beginning to touch me, the clouds pressing closer to the ground. Just as I reached the place where the dirt path fanned out into the stone precipice, the first drops broke through and splattered on my face.
It was not hard to convince myself that I didn't have time to search for another way--I wanted to jump from the top. This was the image that had lingered in my head. I wanted the long fall that would feel like flying.
I knew that this was the stupidest, most reckless thing I had done yet. The thought made me smile. The pain was already easing, as if my body knew that Edward's voice was just seconds away...
The ocean sounded very far away, somehow farther than before, when I was on the path in the trees. I grimaced when I thought of the probable temperature of the water. But I wasn't going to let that stop me.
The wind blew stronger now, whipping the rain into eddies around me.
I stepped out to the edge, keeping my eyes on the empty space in front of me. My toes felt ahead blindly, caressing the edge of the rock when they encountered it. I drew in a deep breath and held it . . waiting.
"Bella."
I smiled and exhaled.
Yes? I didn't answer out loud, for fear that the sound of my voice would shatter the beautiful illusion. He sounded so real, so close. It was only when lie was disapproving like this that I could hear the true memory of his voice--the velvet texture and the musical intonation that made up the most perfect of all voices.
"Don't do this," he pleaded.
You wanted me to be human, I reminded him. Well, watch me.
"Please. For me."
But you won't stay with me any other way.
"Please." It was just a whisper in the blowing rain that tossed my hair and drenched my clothes--making me as wet as if this were my second jump of the day.
I rolled up onto the balls of my feet.
"No, Bella!" He was angry now, and the anger was so lovely.
I smiled and raised my arms straight out, as if I were going to dive, lifting my face into the rain. But it was too ingrained from years of swimming at the public pool--feet first, first time. I leaned forward, crouching to get more spring...
And I flung myself off the cliff.
I screamed as I dropped through the open air like a meteor, but it was a scream of exhilaration and not fear. The wind resisted, trying vainly to fight the unconquerable gravity, pushing against me and twirling me in spirals like a rocket crashing to the earth.
Yes! The word echoed through my head as I sliced through the surface of the water. It was icy, colder than I'd feared, and yet the chill only added to the high.
I was proud of myself as I plunged deeper into the freezing black water. I hadn't had one moment of terror--just pure adrenaline. Really, the fall wasn't scary at all. Where was the challenge?
That was when the current caught me.
I'd been so preoccupied by the size of the cliffs, by the obvious danger of their high, sheer faces, that I hadn't worried at all about the dark water waiting. I never dreamed that the true menace was lurking far below me, unde
r the heaving surf.
It felt like the waves were fighting over me, jerking me back and forth between them as if determined to share by pulling me into halves. I knew the right way to avoid a riptide: swim parallel to the beach rather than struggling for the shore. But the knowledge did me little good when I didn't know which way the shore was.
I couldn't even tell which way the surface was.
The angry water was black in every direction; there was no brightness to direct me upward. Gravity was all-powerful when it competed with the air, but it had nothing on the waves--I couldn't feel a downward pull, a sinking in any direction. Just the battering of the current that flung me round and round like a rag doll.
I fought to keep my breath in, to keep my lips locked around my last store of oxygen.
It didn't surprise me that my delusion of Edward was there. He owed me that much, considering that I was dying. I was surprised by how sure that knowledge was. I was going to drown. I was drowning.
"Keep swimming!" Edward begged urgently in my head.
Where? There was nothing but the darkness. There was no place to swim to.
"Stop that!" he ordered. "Don't you dare give up!"
The cold of the water was numbing my arms and legs. I didn't feel the buffeting so much as before. It was more of just a dizziness now, a helpless spinning in the water.
But I listened to him. I forced my arms to continue reaching, my legs to kick harder, though every second I was facing a new direction. It couldn't be doing any good. What was the point?
"Fight!" he yelled. "Damn it, Bella, keep fighting."
Why?
I didn't want to fight anymore. And it wasn't the light-headedness, or the cold, or the failure of my arms as the muscles gave out in exhaustion, that made me content to stay where I was. I was almost happy that it was over. This was an easier death than others I'd faced. Oddly peaceful.
I thought briefly of the cliches, about how you were suppose to see your life flash before your eyes. I was so much luckier. Who wanted to see a rerun, anyway?
I saw him, and I had no will to fight. It was so clear, so much more defined than any memory. My subconscious had stored Edward away in flawless detail, saving him for this final moment. I could see his perfect face as if he were really there; the exact shade of his icy skin, the shape of his lips, the line of his jaw, the gold glinting in his furious eyes. He was angry, naturally, that I was giving up. His teeth were clenched and his nostrils flared with rage.
"No! Bella, no!"
My ears were flooded with the freezing water, but his voice was clearer than ever. I ignored his words and concentrated on the sound of his voice. Why would I fight when I was so happy where I was? Even as my lungs burned for more air and my legs cramped in the icy cold, I was content. I'd forgotten what real happiness felt like.
Happiness. It made the whole dying thing pretty bearable.
The current won at that moment, shoving me abruptly against something hard, a rock invisible in the gloom. It hit me solidly across the chest, slamming into me like an iron bar, and the breath whooshed out of my lungs, escaping in a thick cloud of silver bubbles. Water flooded down my throat, choking and burning. The iron bar seemed to be dragging me, pulling me away from Edward, deeper into the dark, to the ocean floor.
Goodbye, I love you, was my last thought.
16. Paris
AT THAT MOMENT, MY head broke the surface.
How disorienting. I'd been sure I was sinking.
The current wouldn't let up. It was slamming me against more rocks; they beat against the center of my back sharply, rhythmically, pushing the water from my lungs. It gushed out in amazing volume, absolute torrents pouring from my mouth and nose. The salt burned and my lungs burned and my throat was too full of water to catch a breath and the rocks were hurting my back. Somehow I stayed in one place, though the waves still heaved around me. I couldn't see anything but water everywhere, reaching for my face.
"Breathe!" a voice, wild with anxiety, ordered, and I felt a cruel stab of pain wher I recognized the voice--because it wasn't Edward's.
I could not obey. The waterfall pouring from my mouth didn't stop long enough for me to catch a breath. The black, icy water filled my chest, burning.
The rock smacked into my back again, right between my shoulder blades, and another volley of water choked its way out of my lungs.
"Breathe, Bella! C'mon!" Jacob begged.
Black spots bloomed across my vision, getting wider and wider, blocking out the light.
The rock struck me again.
The rock wasn't cold like the water; it was hot on my skin. I realized it was Jacob's hand, trying to beat the water from my lungs. The iron bar that had dragged me from the sea was also... warm... My head whirled, the black spots covered everything...
Was I dying again, then? I didn't like it--this wasn't as good as the last time. It was only dark now, nothing worth looking at here. The sound of the crashing waves faded into the black and became a quiet, even whoosh that sounded like it was coming from the inside of my ears...
"Bella?" Jacob asked, his voice still tense, but not as wild as before. "Bells, honey, can you hear me?"
The contents of my head swished and rolled sickeningly, like they'd joined the rough water...
"How long has she been unconscious?" someone else asked.
The voice that was not Jacob's shocked me, jarred me into a more focused awareness.
I realized that I was still. There was no tug of the current on me--the heaving was inside my head. The surface under me was flat and motionless. It felt grainy against my bare arms.
"I don't know," Jacob reported, still frantic. His voice was very close. Hands--so warm they had to be his--brushed wet hair from my cheeks. "A few minutes? It didn't take long to tow her to the beach."
The quiet whooshing inside my ears was not the waves--it was the air moving in and out of my lungs again. Each breath burned--the passageways were as raw as if I'd scrubbed them out with steel wool. But I was breathing.
And I was freezing. A thousand sharp, icy beads were striking my face and arms, making the cold worse.
"She's breathing. She'll come around. We should get her out of the cold, though. I don't like the color she's turning..." I recognized Sam's voice this time.
"You think it's okay to move her?"
"She didn't hurt her back or anything when she fell?"
"I don't know."
They hesitated.
I tried to open my eyes. It took me a minute, but then I could see the dark, purple clouds, flinging the freezing rain down at me. "Jake?" I croaked.
Jacob's face blocked out the sky. "Oh!" he gasped, relief washing over his features. His eyes were wet from the rain. "Oh, Bella! Are you okay? Can you hear me? Do you hurt anywhere?"
"J-Just m-my throat," I stuttered, my lips quivering from the cold.
"Let's get you out of here, then," Jacob said. He slid his arms under me and lifted me without effort--like picking up an empty box. His chest was bare and warm; he hunched his shoulders to keep the rain off of me. My head lolled over his arm. I stared vacantly back toward the furious water, beating the sand behind him.
"You got her?" I heard Sam ask.
"Yeah, I'll take it from here. Get back to the hospital. I'll join you later. Thanks, Sam."
My head was still rolling. None of his words sunk in at first. Sam didn't answer. There was no sound, and I wondered if he were already gone.
The water licked and writhed up the sand after us as Jacob carried me away, like it was angry that I'd escaped. As I stared wearily, a spark of color caught my unfocused eyes--a small flash of fire was dancing on the black water, far out in the bay. The image made no sense, and I wondered how conscious I really was. My head swirled with the memory of the black, churning water--of being so lost that I couldn't find up or down. So lost... but somehow Jacob...
"How did you find me?" I rasped.
"I was searching for you," he told me. He wa
s half-jogging through the rain, up the beach toward the road. "I followed the tire tracks to your truck, and then I heard you scream..." He shuddered. "Why would you jump, Bella? Didn't you notice that it's turning into a hurricane out here? Couldn't you have waited for me?" Anger filled his tone as the relief faded.
"Sorry," I muttered. "It was stupid."
"Yeah, it was really stupid," he agreed, drops of rain shaking free of his hair as he nodded. "Look, do you mind saving the stupid stuff for when I'm around? I won't be able to concentrate if I think you're jumping off cliffs behind my back."
"Sure," I agreed. "No problem." I sounded like a chain-smoker. I tried to clear my throat--and then winced; the throat-clearing felt like stabbing a knife down there. "What happened today? Did you... find her?" It was my turn to shudder, though I wasn't so cold here, right next to his ridiculous body heat.
Jacob shook his head. He was still more running than walking as he headed up the road to his house. "No. She took off into the water--the bloodsuckers have the advantage there. That's why I raced home--I was afraid she was going to double back swimming. You spend so much time on the beach..." He trailed off, a catch in his throat.
"Sam came back with you... is everyone else home, too?" I hoped they weren't still out searching for her.
"Yeah. Sort of."
I tried to read his expression, squinting into the hammering rain. His eyes were tight with worry or pain.
The words that hadn't made sense before suddenly did. "You said... hospital. Before, to Sam. Is someone hurt? Did she fight you?" My voice jumped up an octave, sounding strange with the hoarseness.
"No, no. When we got back, Em was waiting with the news. It's Harry Clearwater. Harry had a heart attack this morning."
"Harry?" I shook my head, trying to absorb what he was staying. "Oh, no! Does Charlie know?"
"Yeah. He's over there, too, with my dad."
"Is Harry going to be okay?"
Jacob's eyes tightened again. "It doesn't look so great right now."
Abruptly, I felt really sick with guilt--felt truly horrible about the brainless cliff dive. Nobody needed to be worrying about me right now. What a stupid time to be reckless.