Chapter 1

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? I stared out at the sea again. The cliffs looked so small from here. A sharp wind iced it's way through my jacket and I shivered. Not today. Not without Jake.

What else could I do to hear his voice? I walked back to my truck. Motorbikes didn't arouse his voice anymore, what could I do that would be dangerous? I searched my mind for dangerous activities, but came up blank. There was a time when danger found me. Now it seemed I had an addiction- to search for it… need it. The hole ached again as I felt disappointment wring me again. I so needed his voice. My truck was in my drive without me consciously planning to drive home. I sat in the kitchen for a moment before I felt darkening thoughts begin to settle. I needed to do something- I couldn't sit around and let my thoughts engulf me. I straightened my legs again and headed for my truck. I drove back to the beach. No amazing ideas for trouble had found me yet. I needed to be creative. But the need, the urgency for the velvet voice had smothered my mind with a black fog.

I trudged back to the beach slowly. The stones were shiny and dark. It was raining. My eyes strained out to the sea, but I could only see a few hundred meters out. Suddenly I saw a light- was it a light? It was quite like fire, except not quite, yet on the water. How odd. A chill seeped slowly up my legs, paralysing me. It grew up to my arms, freezing me with a painful cold sensation. The fire was getting closer. I realised I recognised it before I knew what it was.

Not what.

Who.

Victoria emerged from the water, her hair wet yet somehow static enough that it still floated around her face. Her teeth were bared in a predatory smile, and I would have run, if I were not as paralysed as the rock beneath me. She took a deep breath and I flinched.

You always smell better in the rain.

My breath stuttered and Victoria laughed but I had relaxed. His voice was back. I could see it in her eyes that she meant to kill me, and I knew I was in no way strong enough to escape. But if his voice was here, I would be happy to die slowly.

You are not going to die.

My eyes stung lightly. There were too many promises he'd broken.

I won't let it happen.

My lungs struggled to grab the air around me as I blinked the tears away. I looked up into Victoria's face, suddenly inches from my own.

"Why did he leave you?" Her voice shocked me. I expected a feline growl, yet a high American soprano fell from her lips. Her words shook me.

"At least you have felt some of the pain I have. I can only hope Edward will too."

Edward

EDWARD

My mind, having carefully tiptoed around his name for months finally clung to it and yelled it in my head.

EDWARD

The velvet voice, the cold white fingers,

EDWARD EDWARD

The clear echo of his voice, so sweet with reproach,

EDWARD EDWARD EDWARD

His face, blank and distant, his words, those words…

BELLA

The tears were streaming from my eyes, the hole in my heart ripping at my chest, tearing my lungs, I barely noticed Victoria's voice taunting me more, my hands strangled my ribs, choking my lungs yet still not filling the consuming black hole inside me. My knees gave way and I fell to the ground still with my arms wrapped around my chest. My face fell like a rock onto the cold beach stones.

BELLA

I saw her hands reach out towards me, slowly, sadistically, in the corner of my streaming eyes.

Bella

Suddenly the stones under my head trembled and I heard a ripping throaty growl. My body was no longer curled up on the stones, and I was in someone's arms. I looked up. Jacob's. Obviously. With blurry vision, I saw the flames dart across the water a second before it disappeared and I moaned with pain. The hole throbbed again and I pressed my cold teary face against Jacob's chest. I saw some dark shapes disappear into the forest. I hadn't even registered Jacob's brothers. Jacob sat on an old sea bleached tree with me still cradled in his arms. The incredible warmth of his body was somehow so comforting yet did nothing to the pain. My memory still echoed his name in Victoria's tones. Victoria. I shuddered yet knew I had welcomed death. Whatever pain she thought she was suffering it was nothing to what her words had inflicted on me. It took weeks of Jacob to pad up that hole, not fix it but stifle it, ignore it. Jacob.

He was silently rocking me, stroking my hair, smoothing it off my face and gently wiping away my tears. His eyes were clear windows and I saw the pain I was causing him. I tried to stifle my sobs, locking my jaw so my lungs jerked to drag air through my throat and I gasped and shuddered. But I stopped. The hole still chafed and my eyes still streamed but I tried to stifle the pain on my face, because I could not stand Jacob's too. He stood up and walked back through the wood. The rocking of his step soothed my breath more, and my eyes began to close. I welcomed it. I did not know how long Jacob held me while I sobbed but I knew it had exhausted my system. I could only hope my hole would feel better when I awoke.