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CHAPTER FOURTEEN ᴄᴏɴғʟɪᴄᴛ
What nerved me the most about the oncoming fight was the fact that the battlefield didn't look at all like a battlefield. I don't know what I expected. It wasn't the trenches and mud of World War Two but it certainly wasn't this either: this dismal stretch of patchy, yellowed grass, and the cawing of crows, ominous and foretelling. There was a silence mimicking that of a graveyard, cold and thick, a quietness which one could walk through and be pushed back against, struggling against an unknown, tricky substance.
The newborns would be coming soon. Alice was trusted to give whatever knowledge she could, but thanks to the wolves she could never be certain. They were still absent, and so she was on edge, her pink lips bitten beneath sharp, perfect teeth, her smooth skin never torn. Her nails were painted red- a dark, blood-like stain.
"You ready for this?" I asked, moving even closer to her side, hoping that my presence could bring her as much comfort as hers did to me.
"Not in the slightest," she mumbled, void of her usual fiery spirit.
Esme must have heard. She hurried over, squared face warming into a sad smile as she enveloped Alice into her hug.
"There's nothing to worry about girls. Edward has Bella safe and Jasper has taught us everything he knows," she hummed, patting her shoulder.
Esme wrapped her arms around me the moment she pulled away from Alice. We all knew that despite her urges of comfort, that Esme was the most nervous of us all. She hid it acutely with her hugs, shrugging it off as a gesture to show that she was proud of us in her motherly way, but we could almost smell the fear radiating from her.
That made me even more terrified. As Esme made her rounds, the silence grew. The wolves had not yet shown, and by that time, as the clouds darkened overhead, clamping to the tops of the trees like a shadowy shield, Bella would have been far into the mountains, no doubt shivering from the icy storm that was blowing in.
When the wolves finally emerged from the forest, their glossy coats blending in with the colours, Alice was more jittery than she had been. Even though her powers were muffled by the presence of the wolves, she seemed to sense it still. But then again, we all could. The oncoming threat was obvious. The stench of them hung in the air like suffocating smoke.
"They're coming," Alice whispered, somehow managing to be sure of herself. "We have three and a half minutes exactly."
Then abruptly, knowing what it meant, she turned, placed one hand behind my neck and pulled me toward her until my forehead was against hers. To reach her height, I had to bend down slightly. I could feel her stillness pouring toward me. She was like an ice sculpture, stuck in her position, frozen to the touch and only getting colder.
"Don't make me need to save you," she said, referencing the last time we'd fought a vampire to save Bella.
"Don't get too arrogant. I can hold my own," I said, grinning, forcing out laughter.
Her lips were so close to mine. In this precarious position, I didn't know what to do. Kissing her felt wrong at a time like this. But it felt as if it could be the only right thing. Alice resulted in choosing for me. Her lips placed a chaste kiss against mine, her nose brushing along my cheek until she pulled me closer into a hug.
"Be safe," she whispered.
"Be safe," I replied.
Three unspoken words hung between us like an invisible brand. It seemed as if we were both desperate to say them, but both fell too short. Because it was that moment then, as she pulled her forehead from mine, her hand still resting on my neck as she looked toward the tree line, that she looked so fierce, so elegant, like an elf of old stories. It was then, that I remembered what had drawn me to her in the first place, and it was then that I remembered why I loved Alice Cullen.
"Thirty seconds," she said, her figure growing tense as I pulled away, standing squarely beside her. "They'll come from exactly where we wanted them to."
Jasper nodded clearly, watching as the wolves spread out between his family, then he flicked his wrist. "Emmett we need more coverage on this side."
There was no mistaken crunch of a twig, no hiss of desperation as there should have been. The newborn army stalked toward us like skeletons, as silent as the buried dead, their faces as sickly as the pallor of ghosts. Violent eyes peered out from the darkness of the trees, basking in the promise of a fight. Then they lunged.
Beside me, Alice was quicker to throw herself into the fighting as a newborn prowled her way. I followed my lead and found my own target in that of an older man, his deep, brown skin now blanched a deadly grey thanks to his new curse.
I remembered what Jasper had taught us. Go from behind if you can, just don't let them get their arms around you. The vampire crouched and leapt like a leopard, landing where I once stood as I slid out of way in time. He turned on his heel, teeth barred as I was already onto him, taking an arm to hurl him toward another of his kind. With an unmatched quickness, the newborns were on their feet within less than seconds.
They threw punches as distractions as they tried to get their arms around me, distractions of which all were easily dismissed. I feigned left, dropped to my knees and pushed myself up again, planting two hands on either side of the newborn's head, ripping it from his shoulders. The other newborn had lost interest in me before it's even started.
"To your left!" I shouted, alerting Esme to the vampire that was now stalking her way.
She ducked, kicking out her legs, wrapping an arm around the newborn as she threw him forward, preparing to finish him altogether.
Alice was at my side again, her back pressing against mine every so often as she would find me again. As I finished against another vampire, I felt her nudge into me purposefully.
"Elide, look. Across the other side of the field."
William had actually shown his face. He looked as frightening as ever with his piercing, scarlet eyes, which somehow managed to find me across the field. He grinned as he saw me. We began to move toward each other at the same time. Alice followed.
Another newborn jumped into our path, smiling sadistically as he lunged forward, gripping my arm, almost managing to wrap himself around me as I forced my eyes away from William. Alice jumped onto him, wrapping her legs around his neck and twisting until it was severed clean off, only for another newborn to replace its brother on our path.
"You go," Alice shouted over the noise of shouts. "Go before you lose him!"
I hurried forward, kicking and ripping whatever I could in my way toward the treelike and to the last, exact spot where I'd seen William. When I reached there, somehow not pulled apart by the newborns, he was nowhere in sight. But I could detect his scent, exaggerated and overpowering by his heated anger.
He was somewhere within the nearby woods, lurking behind trees, waiting for me to go close enough to warrant an attack. As I imaged, as he had done before, William slipped out in front of me, legs bent and fingers arched, wanting to form a fist.
