AEGIS ↠ EMBRY CALL [R.U]

59| AVOIDANCE

     Embry stared at her for a moment, his eyes glanced over the features of her face taking everything in, as if it would be the last time—including how tears had welled up in her eyes at the thought of being killed by the Volturi—before he removed his hands from Callas's cheeks, standing up from the rock. Where his hands once were, there was now a cold, sharp, and uncomfortable absence. Callas almost wanted to pull him back to her just to keep him close, but she couldn't do that, she couldn't even move. The cold wind that came from the water didn't help the situation either. The more Embry inched away, the colder she became as her source of heat disappeared and was replaced with an unwelcome feeling of being alone. Callas was still frozen on the rock, sucking in a deep breath when she realised that he was trying to avoid her question, to avoid the topic that she needed to understand. One that she needed to make sense of before anything else continued. She needed to know what she was getting herself into, or at least getting herself into more.

"What? No." Callas shook her head. "Embry, we... This isn't over!" She turned, facing Embry as she stood up from the rock. But he didn't stop, he kept walking away, his shoulders were hunched as he grew more stressed, he was even muttering something to himself, but it was too quiet for her to hear him. Callas grabbed his arm and pulled him back to her.

"Do you understand what you're asking me to do?" His voice rose as he stared into her eyes, he had his body facing away from her while only his head was turned towards hers. "I won't talk about you dying, Callas!" Embry now faced her, his body towering over hers while he was holding his hands to his head as he tried to wrap his mind around it all, as he tried to make sense of what she just asked him. To Embry, this wasn't a conversation that they needed to have at all, he would have gladly avoided it for the rest of his life if he could. "Do you understand that? I'm not okay with this, please... just... don't make me talk about this."

"We can't avoid it forever, Embry. I don't have forever here. But if Will gets his own way, I will."

Embry shuddered at the thought, scrunching his face up in disgust before he placed his hands on her upper arms, keeping her from moving away. She was close enough, and yet far enough, from himself, where he knew Callas would be forced to listen to his words. "Just the thought of it sickens me," Embry spoke quietly at first, his voice was low and Callas swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat, having never heard Embry speak that way before, at least not to her. "A-And the fact that you would even suggest that those bloodsuckers would get anywhere near you while I'm alive...? I just don't get it? Do you think I would ever let you be hurt like that? That I would ever let something like that happen to you? That I would let you be turned into what they are? Or, that I would let even one of them close enough to you, where they could touch you? Callas... Your life is now my life, and I'm not letting yours end. Not while it hasn't begun, okay? Please tell me you understand what I'm saying."

"I just need to be prepared," she responded quietly, staring back at him.

"For what?"

"To say goodbye."

"No." Embry shook his head. "That's not happening. You're not saying goodbye to anyone because you're not going anywhere!" His low voice from before rose again while his eyebrows drew together in anger.

Callas kept her voice quiet and level, "You don't know that."

"Yeah? Well, neither do you!" His grip tightened around her upper arms, but not enough to hurt her. "You are my imprint. You are my life. Even though we haven't known each other for very long, you are my goddamn world, okay? As cliché and as overdone as that sentence might be, it's true. Callas... Will won't turn you. Will won't touch another hair on your head." He paused, glancing at the bandage she had on her forehead still and the fading bruise that dipped down to her eye from her last encounter with Will. "Not again. Not while I'm still alive. Not while any of us are still alive. That includes the Cullens. My job is to protect you, to keep you safe. So, that's what I'm going to do. No, high-speed, disco-ball looking psychopath will change that. Okay?"