burning

Book III

Beau

I argue thee that love is life.

And life has immortality.

                                    -Emily Dickinson

Preface

No longer just a nightmare, the line of black advanced on us through the icy mist stirred up by their feet.

We're going to die, I thought in panic. I was desperate for the loved ones I guarded, but even to think of that was a lapse in attention I could not afford.

They ghosted closer, their dark robes billowing slightly with the movement. I saw their hands curl into bone-colored claws. They drifted apart, angling to come at us from all sides. We were outnumbered. It was over.

And then, like a burst of light from a flash, the whole scene was different. Yet nothing changed—the Volturi still stalked toward us, poised to kill. All that really changed was how the picture looked to me. Suddenly, I was hungry for it. I wantedthem to charge. The panic changed to bloodlust as I crouched forward, a smile on my face, and a growl ripped through my bared teeth.

Chapter 19. Burning

The pain was bewildering.

Exactly that—I was bewildered. I couldn't understand, couldn't make sense of what was happening.

My body tried to reject the pain, and I was sucked again and again into the blackness that cut whole seconds or maybe even minutes of the agony, making it that much harder to keep up with reality.

I tried to separate them.

Non-reality was black, and it didn't hurt so much.

Reality was red, and it felt like I was being sawed in half, hit by a bus, punched by a prize fighter, trampled by bulls, and submerged in acid, all at the same time.

Reality was feeling my body twitch and spasm when I couldn't possibly move because of the pain.

Reality was knowing there was something so much more important than all this torture, and not being able to remember what it was.

Reality had come on so fast.

One moment, everything was as it should have been. Surrounded by people I loved. Smiles. Somehow, unlikely as it was, it seemed like I was about to get everything I'd been fighting for.

And then it all went wrong.

I'd felt the odd thump in my chest, a strange and unwelcome spasm. Then the growing pain that spread from my chest to my arm before the searing pain of my heart stopping and panicking sent me reeling backwards.

If the pain in my chest had been bad, the feeling of my spine snapping against the hard arm of the sofa was unbearable.

Cracking. Breaking. Agony.

The darkness had taken over, and then washed away to a wave of torture. I couldn't breathe—I had drowned once before, and this was different; it was too hot in my throat.

Pieces of me shattering, snapping, slicing apart…

More blackness.

Voices, this time, shouting, as the pain came back.

"He must be going into cardiac arrest."

More pain, more shouting, less awareness. Then a slight reprieve. Some air. A deep breath of painful air.

"Edward," I choked out his name through my pain. "Edw—"

I was cut off, my throat was hot again. Everything was hot and cold all at once.

The pain faded away again.

How long had passed? Seconds or minutes? The pain was gone. Numb. I couldn't feel. I still couldn't see, either, but I could hear. There was air in my lungs again, scraping in rough bubbles up and down my throat.

"You stay with me now, Beau! Do you hear me? Stay! You're not leaving me. Keep your heart beating!"

Jacob? Jacob, still here, still trying to save me.

Of course, I wanted to tell him. Of course I would keep my heart beating. Hadn't I promised them both?

"Ja… cob…" I breathed, "S…Sorr…"

I tried to give Jacob that apology he so desperately deserved. But I didn't have the strength anymore.My arms felt like empty rubber hoses for a moment, and then they felt like nothing at all. I couldn't feel them. I couldn't feel me.

The blackness rushed over my eyes more solidly than before. Like a thick blindfold, firm and fast. Covering not just my eyes but also my self with a crushing weight. It was exhausting to push against it. I knew it would be so much easier to give in. To let the blackness push me down, down, down to a place where there was no pain and no weariness and no worry and no fear.

If it had only been for myself, I wouldn't have been able to struggle very long. I was only human, with no more than human strength. I'd been trying to keep up with the supernatural for too long.

But this wasn't just about me.

If I did the easy thing now, let the black nothingness erase me, I would hurt them.

Edward. My Edward. My life and his were twisted into a single strand. Cut one, and you cut both. If he were gone, I would not be able to live through that. If I were gone, he wouldn't live through it, either. And a world without Edward seemed completely pointless. Edward had to exist.

Jacob—who'd said goodbye to me over and over but kept coming back when I needed him. Jacob, who I'd wounded so many times it was criminal. Would I hurt him again, the worst way yet? He'd stayed for me, despite everything. Now all he asked was that I stay for him.

But it was so dark here that I couldn't see either of their faces. Nothing seemed real. That made it hard not to just give up.

I kept pushing against the black, though, almost a reflex. I wasn't trying to lift it. I was just resisting. Not allowing it to crush me completely. I wasn't Atlas, and the black felt as heavy as a planet; I couldn't shoulder it. All I could do was not be entirely obliterated.

It was sort of the pattern to my life—I'd never been strong enough to deal with the things outside my control, to attack the enemies or outrun them. To avoid the pain. Always human and weak, the only thing I'd ever been able to do was keep going. Endure. Survive.

It had been enough up to this point. It would have to be enough today. I would endure this until help came.

I knew Edward would be doing everything he could. He would not give up. Neither would I.

I held the blackness of nonexistence at bay by inches.

It wasn't enough, though—that determination. As the time ground on and on and the darkness gained by tiny eighths and sixteenths of my inches, I needed something more to draw strength from.

I couldn't pull even Edward's face into view. Not Jacob's, not Alice's or Royal's or Charlie's or Renée's or Carlisle's or Esme's... Nothing. It terrified me, and I wondered if it was too late.

I felt myself slipping—there was nothing to hold on to.

No! I had to survive this. Edward was depending on me. Jacob. Charlie, Alice, Royal, Carlisle, Renée, Emmett, Esme, Jasper, Jessica, Angela, Mike…

All the connections, all the important people in my life.

I had been foolish, selfish, to put everyone through this. I had made them wait, refused a cure when I needed it most so I could put all the pieces of my life in perfect order. What I thought was the right decision. But now, I was at risk of hurting them all more than ever. Dying wouldn't be right. I couldn't put any of them through that.

So I would survive. I would hold on.

Dying is easy, living is harder.

And then, though I still couldn't see anything, suddenly I could feel something. Like phantom limbs, I imagined I could feel myself again. Like a small spot of heat somewhere deep inside me.

I could do this. I had survived so much before now. I would keep surviving. I would wake up.

I would tell Edward how much I loved him, apologize for ever making him think I regretted choosing him.

I would tell Jacob how sorry I was and how much I valued him as a friend and hope that would be enough for him.

I would see Charlie, my mom, my friends. Some day.

That spot of heat in my phantom body felt so real. I clutched it closer. It was exactly where my heart should be. Holding tight the warm memory of my loved ones, I knew that I would be able to fight the darkness as long as I needed to.

The warmth inside my heart got more and more real, warmer and warmer. Hotter. The heat was so real it was hard to believe that I was imagining it.

Hotter.

Uncomfortable now. Too hot. Much, much too hot.

Like accidentally placing a hand on a hot stove—my automatic response was to wrench my body away from the heat. But there was no way to do that. My body was not mine to control right now. My body was a dead thing lying in darkness and that heat was inside of me.

The burning grew—rose and peaked and rose again until it surpassed anything I'd ever felt.

I felt the pulse behind the fire raging now in my chest and realized that I'd found my heart again, just in time to wish I never had. To wish that I'd embraced the blackness while I'd still had the chance. I wanted to raise my arms and claw my chest open and rip the heart from it—anything to get rid of this torture. But I couldn't feel my arms, couldn't move one vanished finger.

James, snapping my leg under his foot. That was nothing. That was a soft place to rest on a feather bed. I'd take that now, a hundred times. A hundred snaps. I'd take it and be grateful.

The sickness, ravaging my body, weakening me to the point of death. That was nothing. That was floating in a pool of cool water. I'd take it a thousand times. Take it and be grateful.

The fire blazed hotter and I wanted to scream. To beg for someone to kill me now, before I lived one more second in this pain. But I couldn't move my lips. The weight was still there, pressing on me.

I realized it wasn't the darkness holding me down; it was my body. So heavy. Burying me in the flames that were chewing their way out from my heart now, spreading with impossible pain through my shoulders and stomach, scalding their way up my throat, licking at my face.

Why couldn't I move? Why couldn't I scream? This wasn't part of the stories.

My mind was unbearably clear—sharpened by the fierce pain—and I saw the answer almost as soon as I could form the questions.

The morphine.

It seemed like a million deaths ago that we'd discussed it—Edward, Carlisle, and I. Edward and Carlisle had hoped that enough painkillers would help fight the pain of the venom. Carlisle had tried with Emmett, but the venom had burned ahead of the medicine, sealing his veins. There hadn't been time for it to spread.

I'd kept my face smooth and nodded and thanked my rarely lucky stars that Edward could not read my mind.

Because I'd had morphine and venom together in my system before, and I knew the truth. I knew the numbness of the medicine was completely irrelevant while the venom seared through my veins. But I thought, foolishly, that keeping that fact to myself was better. That it would make the whole process easier for everyone else, for Edward...

I hadn't guessed that the morphine would have this effect—that it would pin me down and gag me. Hold me paralyzed while I burned.

I knew all the stories. I knew that Carlisle had kept quiet enough to avoid discovery while he burned. I knew that, according to Royal, it did no good to scream. And I'd hoped that maybe I could be like Carlisle. That I would believe Royal's words and keep my mouth shut. Because I knew that every scream that escaped my lips would torment Edward.

Now it seemed like a hideous joke that I was getting my wish fulfilled. If I couldn't scream, how could I tell them to kill me?

All I wanted was to die. To never have been born. The whole of my existence did not outweigh this pain. Wasn't worth living through it for one more heartbeat.

Let me die, let me die, let me die.

And, for a never-ending space, that was all there was. Just the fiery torture, and my soundless shrieks, pleading for death to come. Nothing else, not even time. So that made it infinite, with no beginning and no end. One infinite moment of pain.

The only change came when suddenly, impossibly, my pain was doubled. The lower half of my body, deadened since before the morphine, was suddenly on fire, too. Some broken connection had been healed—knitted together by the scorching fingers of the flame.

The endless burn raged on.

It could have been seconds or days, weeks or years, but, eventually, time came to mean something again.

Three things happened together, grew from each other so that I didn't know which came first: time restarted, the morphine's weight faded, and I got stronger.

I could feel the control of my body come back to me in increments, and those increments were my first markers of the time passing. I knew it when I was able to twitch my toes and twist my fingers into fists. I knew it, but I did not act on it.

Though the fire did not decrease one tiny degree—in fact, I began to develop a new capacity for experiencing it, a new sensitivity to appreciate, separately, each blistering tongue of flame that licked through my veins—I discovered that I could think around it.

At first I became aware of an acute difference between the burning. Because there were two different kinds of burning in my body now. I remembered the pain from when James had bit me. I had likened it to fire at the time, but I was wrong. The burn of the venom wasn't like fire. It was a cold burn. I knew that because I had something to compare it to now; the second kind of burning. This sensation was heat. Searing fire. It was a torturous and odd sensation. Fire and ice burning in my body.

Then, after cataloguing all this, I could remember whyI shouldn't scream. I could remember the reason why I'd committed to enduring this unendurable agony. I could remember that, though it felt impossible now, there was something that might be worth the torture.

This happened just in time for me to hold on when the weights left my body. To anyone watching me, there would be no change. But for me, as I struggled to keep the screams and thrashing locked up inside my body, where they couldn't hurt anyone else, it felt like I'd gone from being tiedto the stake as I burned, to gripping that stake to hold myself in the fire.

I had just enough strength to lie there unmoving while I was charred and frozen alive.

My hearing got clearer and clearer, and I could count the frantic, pounding beats of my heart to mark the time.

I could count the shallow breaths that gasped through my teeth.

I could count the low, even breaths that came from somewhere close beside me. These moved slowest, so I concentrated on them. They meant the most time passing. More even than a clock's pendulum, those breaths pulled me through the burning seconds toward the end.

I continued to get stronger, my thoughts clearer. When new noises came, I could listen.

There were light footsteps, the whisper of air stirred by an opening door. The footsteps got closer, and I felt pressure against the inside of my wrist. I couldn't feel the kind coolness of the fingers. The fire—cold and hot—pushed away every memory of bearable cool.

"Still no change?"

"None."

The lightest pressure, breath against my freezing, burning skin. "There's no scent of the morphine left."

"I know."

"Beau? Can you hear me?"

I knew, beyond all doubt, that if I unlocked my teeth I would lose it—I would shriek and screech and writhe and thrash. If I opened my eyes, if I so much as twitched a finger—any change at all would be the end of my control.

"Beau? Beau, love? Can you open your eyes? Can you squeeze my hand?"

Pressure on my fingers. It was harder not to answer this voice, but I stayed paralyzed. I knew that the pain in his voice now was nothing compared to what it could be. Right now he only feared that I was suffering.

"Maybe... Carlisle, maybe I was too late." His voice was muffled; it broke on the word late.

My resolve wavered for a second.

"Listen to his heart, Edward. It's stronger than even Emmett's was. I've never heard anything so vital. He'll be perfect."

Yes, I was right to keep quiet. Carlisle would reassure him. He didn't need to suffer with me.

"And his—his spine?"

"His injuries weren't so much worse than Esme's. The venom will heal him as it did Esme."

"But he's so still. I must have done something wrong."

"Or something right, Edward. Son, you did everything I could have and more. I'm not sure I would have had the persistence, the faith it took to save him. Stop berating yourself. Beau is going to be fine."

A broken whisper. "He must be in agony."

"We don't know that. He had so much morphine in his system. We don't know the effect that will have on his experience. Or how Alice's visions will play into things."

Alice's visions were working again? What had she seen?

"None of us know about that."

"We can't dwell on it now."

Faint pressure inside the crease of my elbow. Another whisper. "Beau, I love you. Beau, I'm sorry."

I wanted so much to answer him, but I wouldn't make his pain worse. Not while I had the strength to hold myself still.

Through all this, the racking fires went right on burning me and freezing me. But there was so much space in my head now. Room to ponder their conversation, room to remember what had happened, room to look ahead to the future, with still endless room left over to suffer in.

Also room to worry.

Where was Jacob? Was he okay? Why weren't they talking about him? And what about the wolves? Had the tribe declared war? Why weren't they talking about that?

"No, I'm staying right here," Edward whispered, answering an unspoken thought. "They'll sort it out."

"An interesting situation," Carlisle responded. "And I'd thought I'd seen just about everything."

"I'll deal with it later. We'll deal with it." Something pressed softly to my blistering palm.

"I'm sure, between the five of us, we can figure it out."

Edward sighed. "I don't know what to think about it right now, to be honest."

"I wonder what Beau will think—whose side he'll take," Carlisle mused.

One low, strained chuckle. "I'm sure he'll surprise me. He always does."

Carlisle's footsteps faded away again, and I was frustrated that there was no further explanation. Were they talking so mysteriously just to annoy me?

I went back to counting Edward's breaths to mark the time.

Ten thousand, nine hundred forty-three breaths later, a different set of footsteps whispered into the room. Lighter. More... rhythmic.

Strange that I could distinguish the minute differences between footsteps that I'd never been able to hear at all before today.

"How much longer?" Edward asked.

"It won't be long now," Alice told him. "See how clear he's becoming? I can see him so much better." She sighed.

"Still feeling a little bitter?"

"Yes, thanks so much for bringing it up," she grumbled. "You would be mortified, too, if every limitation you had was suddenly forced upon you all at once. I see vampires best, because I am one; I see humans okay, because I was one. But all the indecision and unpredictability was wreaking absolute havoc on my visions." A tiny huff of air. "And now I can't see these new house guests at all because they're nothing I've experienced. Bah!"

"Focus, Alice."

"Right. Beau's almost too easy to see now. Which is a relief, considering."

There was a long moment of silence, and then Edward sighed. It was a new sound, happier.

"He's really going to be fine," he breathed.

"Of course he is."

"You weren't so sanguine two days ago."

"I couldn't see right two days ago. But now that he's free of all the blind spots, it's a piece of cake."

"Could you concentrate for me? On the clock—give me an estimate."

Alice sighed. "So impatient. Fine. Give me a sec—"

Quiet breathing.

"Thank you, Alice." His voice was brighter.

How long?Couldn't they at least say it aloud for me? Was that too much to ask? How many more seconds would I burn? Ten thousand? Twenty? Another day—eighty-six thousand, four hundred? More than that?

"He's going to be dazzling."

Edward growled quietly. "He always has been."

Alice snorted. "You know what I mean. Look at him."

Edward didn't answer, but Alice's words gave me hope that maybe I didn't resemble the charcoal briquette I felt like. It seemed as if I must be just a pile of charred bones by now. Every cell in my body had been razed to ash.

I heard Alice breeze out of the room. I heard the swish of the fabric she moved, rubbing against itself. I heard the quiet buzz of the light hanging from the ceiling. I heard the faint wind brushing against the outside of the house. I could hear everything.

Downstairs, someone was watching a ball game. The Mariners were winning by two runs.

"Give me the remote," I heard Royal snap at someone, and there was a low snarl in response.

"Hey, now," Emmett cautioned.

Someone hissed.

I listened for more, but there was nothing but the game. Baseball was not interesting enough to distract me from the pain, so I listened to Edward's breathing again, counting the seconds.

Twenty-one thousand, nine hundred seventeen and a half seconds later, the pain changed.

On the good-news side of things, it started to fade from my fingertips and toes. Fading slowly, but at least it was doing something new. This had to be it. The pain was on its way out....

And then the bad news: The fire inside my heart got hotter. How was that possible?

My heartbeat, already too fast, picked up—the fire drove its rhythm to a new frantic pace.

"Carlisle," Edward called. His voice was low but clear. I knew that Carlisle would hear it, if he were in or near the house.

The fire retreated from my palms, leaving them blissfully pain-free and cool. But it retreated to my heart, which blazed hot as the sun and cold as ice as it beat at a furious new speed.

Carlisle entered the room, Alice at his side. Their footsteps were so distinct, I could even tell that Carlisle was on the right, and a foot ahead of Alice.

"Listen," Edward told them.

The loudest sound in the room was my frenzied heart, pounding to the rhythm of the fire.

"Ah," Carlisle said. "It's almost over."

My relief at his words was overshadowed by the excruciating pain in my heart.

My wrists were free, though, and my ankles. The fire was totally extinguished there.

"Soon," Alice agreed eagerly. "I'll get the others. Should we have…?"

"No, keep the boys away."

What? What boys? Holy crow, was everyone determined to upset me right now?

My fingers twitched—the irritation breaking through my perfect façade. The room went silent besides the jack-hammering of my heart as they all stopped breathing for a second in response.

A hand squeezed my wayward fingers. "Beau? Beau, love?"

Could I answer him without screaming? I considered that for a moment, and then the fire ripped hotter still through my chest, draining in from my elbows and knees. Better not to chance it.

"I'll bring them right up," Alice said, an urgent edge to her tone, and I heard the swish of wind as she darted away.

And then—oh!

My heart took off, beating like helicopter blades, the sound almost a single sustained note; it felt like it would grind through my ribs. The fire flared up in the center of my chest, sucking the last remnants of the flames and ice from the rest of my body to fuel the most freezing and scorching blaze yet. The pain was enough to stun me, to break through my iron grip on the stake. My back arched, bowed as if the fire was dragging me upward by my heart.

I allowed no other piece of my body to break rank as my torso slumped back to the table.

It became a battle inside me—my sprinting heart racing against the attacking fire. Both were losing. The fire was doomed, having consumed everything that was combustible; my heart galloped toward its last beat.

The fire constricted, concentrating inside that one remaining human organ with a final, unbearable surge. The surge was answered by a deep, hollow-sounding thud. My heart stuttered twice, and then thudded quietly again just once more.

There was no sound. No breathing. Not even mine.

For a moment, the absence of pain was all I could comprehend.

And then I opened my eyes and gazed above me in wonder.