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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: WAITING GAME (trigger warning: death and religious connotations)
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THERE WAS SOMETHING FREEING in knowing when you'll die. It wasn't that Maggie wanted her life to end. Precious days came and went, and Maggie spent as much time with her family and friends as she could. Whether she was shopping with Vera (much to her eldest sister's surprise and delight) or having a movie night with Zeke; visiting Dakota at the diner where they ate burgers and fries to their hearts' content, or simply taking Scooby for his walk. Maggie wrangled Paul into days lounging on the beach. She even went cliff-diving, screaming her lungs out on the way down. She had forgotten what it was like to just live. The panic never came, nor the fear; only peace. If what remained of her life were these memories and words, she wanted to be sure that everyone would find comfort in something. That they wouldn't remember her in sorrow, but in the laughter of one final family dinner or a day of adventure.
She even messaged Hayden, not that she heard anything back. Beforehand, this would've upset her, but she knew she'd done what she could. Carson would've been happy that she'd tried. That was what mattered now. Maggie had to wonder if she'd see him again, soon. If there really was an afterlife, she hoped he had found Delilah, that she was taking on the role as his second mother as she always hoped she would. Maggie hated the thought of him being alone.
It made Paul furious, in a way that momentarily clouded her contentment with sadness; he argued that she was giving up, that she should want to fight -- for him, her family, their friends. Her future. If she was able to 'waste' so much energy in giving them these good memories, she should want to stay alive to make more. To be there for the important moments, to live for herself. He didn't understand. For once in Maggie's life, she was absolutely certain of what was to come. She could hate Death as much as she wanted, scream until her lungs gave out, but her life was hers to lose, no one else's. She had hesitated so much, too much, and she was tired of it. She was taking back control.
So she smiled when she wanted to cry, whispered when he shouted, hugged him until his anger burned out. It was Paul who took her cliff-diving ("as if I'm going to let you jump off a cliff alone, babe.") on one of the rare afternoons that he wasn't training with the pack and the Cullens or patrolling La Push. Alice hadn't given them an exact day yet for when the army would attack, but Maggie didn't need to see the future to feel time dwindling down, the weight of indecision hanging over their heads.
She would be -- no, she was ready.
Fear was what Victoria wanted, what she craved when she hunted down her next victim, and Maggie Sullivan would be damned if she let her have more of her than she'd already taken.
The fateful day came, and Maggie was to stay at Sam and Emily's place with Emily, Kim, Mae and Zeke. The pack were due to leave for the Cullen territory at any moment. It was only early in the morning. The sun had not yet risen, but everyone was wide awake. Emily passed around coffee and piled plates with barely touched food. It was strange to see the pack so solemn that none of them -- not even Paul -- could bring themselves to eat. Only Zeke seemed relatively unaffected, but Maggie couldn't mistake the concern in his eyes as they turned to her every so often.
