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gaysparklepires · 6 years

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9. Sure As Hell Didn’t See That One Coming

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I didn’t really know what my plan was.

I needed to be careful, avoid tipping Billy off, otherwise he’d call Sam and the game would be up. They’d cut me off and push me back. Probably try to make me angry, or even hurt me—somehow force me to phase so that Sam could lay down a new law.

But Billy was expecting me, knowing I’d be in some kind of state. He was in the yard, just sitting there in his wheelchair with his eyes right on the spot where I came through the trees. I saw him judge my direction—headed straight past the house to my homemade garage.

“Got a minute, Jake?”

I skidded to a stop. I looked at him and then toward the garage.

“C’mon kid. At least help me inside.”

I gritted my teeth but decided that he’d be more likely to cause trouble with Sam if I didn’t lie to him for a few minutes.

“Since when do you need help, old man?”

He laughed his rumbling laugh. “My arms are tired. I pushed myself all the way here from Sue’s.”

“It’s downhill. You coasted the whole way.”

I rolled his chair up the little ramp I’d made for him and into the living room.

“Caught me. Think I got up to about thirty miles per hour. It was great.”

“You’re gonna wreck that chair, you know. And then you’ll be dragging yourself around by your elbows.”

“Not a chance. It’ll be your job to carry me.”

“You won’t be going many places.”

Billy put his hands on the wheels and steered himself to the fridge. “Any food left?”

“You got me. Paul was here all day, though, so probably not.”

Billy sighed. “Have to start hiding the groceries if we’re gonna avoid starvation.”

“Tell Rachel to go stay at his place.”

Billy’s joking tone vanished, and his eyes got soft. “We’ve only had her home a few weeks. First time she’s been here in a long time. It’s hard—the girls were older than you when your mom passed. They have more trouble being in this house.”

“I know.”

Rebecca hadn’t been home once since she got married, though she did have a good excuse. Plane tickets from Hawaii were pretty pricey. Washington State was close enough that Rachel didn’t have the same defense. She’d taken classes straight through the summer semesters, working double shifts over the holidays at some café on campus. If it hadn’t been for Paul, she probably would have taken off again real quick. Maybe that was why Billy wouldn’t kick him out.

“Well, I’m going to go work on some stuff…” I started for the back door.

“Wait up, Jake. Aren’t you going to tell me what happened? Do I have to call Sam for an update?”

I stood with my back to him, hiding my face.

“Nothing happened. Sam doesn’t want to do anything till we know for sure the treaty’s been broken. Guess we’re all just a bunch of leech lovers now.”

“Jake…”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Are you leaving, son?”

The room was quiet for a long time while I decided how to say it.

“Rachel can have her room back. I know she hates that air mattress.”

“She’d rather sleep on the floor than lose you. So would I.”

I snorted.

“Jacob, please. If you need... a break. Well, take it. But not so long again. Come back.”

“Maybe. Maybe my gig will be weddings. Make a cameo at Sam’s, then Rachel’s. Jared and Kim might come first, though. Probably ought to have a suit or something.”

“Jake, look at me.”

I turned around slowly. “What?”

He stared into my eyes for a long minute. “Where are you going?”

“I don’t really have a specific place in mind.”

He cocked his head to the side, and his eyes narrowed. “Don’t you?”

We stared each other down. The seconds ticked by.

“Jacob,” he said. His voice was strained. “Jacob, don’t. It’s not worth it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Leave Beau and the Cullens be. Sam is right.”

I stared at him for a second, and then I crossed the room in two long strides. I grabbed the phone and disconnected the cable from the box and the jack. I wadded the gray cord up in the palm of my hand.

“Bye, Dad.”

“Jake, wait—,” he called after me, but I was out the door, running.

The motorcycle wasn’t as fast as running, but it was more discreet. I wondered how long it would take Billy to wheel himself down to the store and then get someone on the phone who could get a message to Sam. I’d bet Sam was still in his wolf form. The problem would be if Paul came back to our place anytime soon. He could phase in a second and let Sam know what I was doing...

I wasn’t going to worry about it. I would go as fast as I could, and if they caught me, I’d deal with that when I had to.

I kicked the bike to life and then I was racing down the muddy lane. I didn’t look behind me as I passed the house.

The highway was busy with tourist traffic; I wove in and out of the cars, earning a bunch of honks and a few fingers. I took the turn onto the 101 at seventy, not bothering to look. I had to ride the line for a minute to avoid getting smeared by a minivan. Not that it would have killed me, but it would have slowed me down. Broken bones—the big ones, at least—took days to heal completely, as I had good cause to know.

The freeway cleared up a little, and I pushed the bike to eighty. I didn’t touch the brake until I was close to the narrow drive; I figured I was in the clear then. Sam wouldn’t come this far to stop me. It was too late.

It wasn’t until that moment—when I was sure that I’d made it—that I started to think about what exactly I was going to do now. I slowed down to twenty, taking the twists through the trees more carefully than I needed to.

I knew they would hear me coming, bike or no bike, so surprise was out. There was no way to disguise my intentions. Edward would hear my plan as soon as I was close enough. Maybe he already could. But I thought this would still work out, because I had his ego on my side. He’d want to fight me alone.

So I’d just walk in, see Sam’s precious evidence for myself, and then challenge Edward to a duel.

I snorted. The parasite’d probably get a kick out of the theatrics of it.

When I finished with him, I’d take as many of the rest of them as I could before they got me. Huh—I wondered if Sam would consider my death enough. Probably say I got what I deserved. Wouldn’t want to offend his bloodsucker BFFs.

The drive opened up into the meadow, and the smell hit me like a rotten tomato to the face. Ugh. Reeking vampires. My stomach started churning. The stench would be hard to take this way—undiluted by the scent of humans as it had been the other time I’d come here—though not as bad as smelling it through my wolf nose.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but there was no sign of life around the big white crypt. Of course they knew I was here.

I cut the engine and listened to the quiet. Now I could hear tense, angry murmurs from just the other side of the wide double doors. Someone was home. I heard my name and I smiled, happy to think I was causing them a little stress.

I took one big gulp of air—it would only be worse inside—and leaped up the porch stairs in one bound.

The door opened before my fist touched it, and the doctor stood in the frame, his eyes grave.

“Hello, Jacob,” he said, calmer than I would have expected. “How are you?”

I took a deep breath through my mouth. The reek pouring through the door was overpowering.

I was disappointed that it was Carlisle who answered. I’d rather Edward had come through the door, fangs out. Carlisle was so... just human or something. Maybe it was the house calls he made last spring when I got busted up. But it made me uncomfortable to look into his face and know that I was planning to kill him if I could.

“I heard Beau made it back alive,” I said.

“Er, Jacob, it’s not really the best time.” The doctor seemed uncomfortable, too, but not in the way I expected. “Could we do this later?”

I stared at him, dumbfounded. Was he asking to post-pone the death match for a more convenient time?

And then I heard Beau’s voice, cracked and rough, and I couldn’t think about anything else.

“Why not?” he asked someone. “Are we keeping secrets from Jacob, too? What’s the point?”

His voice was not what I was expecting. I tried to remember the voices of the young vampires we’d fought in the spring, but all I’d registered was snarling. Maybe those newborns hadn’t had the piercing, ringing sound of the older ones, either. Maybe all new vampires sounded hoarse.

“Come in, please, Jacob,” Beau croaked more loudly.

Carlisle’s eyes tightened.

I wondered if Beau was thirsty. My eyes narrowed, too.

“Excuse me,” I said to the doctor as I stepped around him. It was hard—it went against all my instincts to turn my back to one of them. Not impossible, though. If there was such a thing as a safe vampire, it was the strangely gentle leader.

I would stay away from Carlisle when the fight started. There were enough of them to kill without including him.

I sidestepped into the house, keeping my back to the wall. My eyes swept the room—it was unfamiliar. The last time I’d been in here it had been all done up for a party. Everything was bright and pale now. Including the six vampires standing in a group by the white sofa.

They were all here, all together, but that was not what froze me where I stood and had my jaw dropping to the floor.

It was Edward. It was the expression on his face.

I’d seen him angry, and I’d seen him arrogant, and once I’d seen him in pain. But this— this was beyond agony. His eyes were half-crazed. He didn’t look up to glare at me. He stared down at the couch beside him with an expression like someone had lit him on fire. His hands were rigid claws at his side.

I couldn’t even enjoy his anguish. I could only think of one thing that would make him look like that, and my eyes followed his.

I saw him at the same moment that I caught his scent. His warm, human scent.

Beau was half-hidden behind the arm of the sofa, curled up in a loose fetal position, his arms wrapped around his knees. For a long second I could see nothing except that he was still the Beau that I loved, his skin still a soft, pale peach, his eyes still the same silvery grey. My heart thudded a strange, broken meter, and I wondered if this was just some lying dream that I was about to wake up from.

Then I really saw him.

There were deep circles under his eyes, dark circles that jumped out because his face was all haggard. Was he thinner? His skin seemed tight—like his cheekbones might break right through it. Most of his long, dark hair was pulled away from his face into a messy knot, but a few strands stuck limply to his forehead and neck, to the sheen of sweat that covered his skin. There was something about his fingers and wrists that looked so fragile it was scary.

He wassick. Very sick.

Not a lie. The story Charlie’d told Billy was not a story. While I stared, eyes bugging, his body convulsed and he started coughing.

The blond bloodsucker—the showy one, Royal—bent over Beau, cutting into my view, hovering in a strange, protective way.

This was wrong. I knew how Beau felt about almost everything—his thoughts were so obvious; sometimes it was like they were printed on his forehead. So he didn’t have to tell me every detail of a situation for me to get it. I knew that Beau didn’t like Royal. I’d seen it in the set of his lips when he talked about the blond. Not just that he didn’t like him. He was afraid of Royal. Or he had been.

There was no fear as Beau glanced up at Royal now. Beau’s expression was... apologetic or something. Then Royal snatched a towel from the nearby table and held it up to Beau’s face as he coughed violently into it.

Edward fell to his knees by Beau’s side—his eyes all tortured-looking—and Royal held out his hand, warning Edward to keep back.

None of it made sense.

When he could raise his head, Beau smiled weakly at me, sort of embarrassed. “Sorry about that,” he whispered to me.

Edward moaned real quiet. His head slumped against Beau’s knees. Beau put one of his hands against Edward’s cheek. Like he was comforting him.

I didn’t realize my legs had carried me forward until Royal hissed at me, suddenly appearing between me and the couch. He was like a person on a TV screen. I didn’t care he was there. He didn’t seem real.

“Roy, don’t,” Beau whispered. “It’s fine.”

Blondie moved out of my way, though I could tell he hated to do it. Scowling at me, he crouched by Beau’s head, tensed to spring. He was easier to ignore than I ever would have dreamed.

“Beau, what’s wrong?” I whispered. Without thinking about it, I found myself on my knees, too, leaning over the back of the couch across from his... husband. Edward didn’t seem to notice me, and I barely glanced at him. I reached out for Beau’s free hand, taking it in both of mine. His skin was icy cold. “Are you all right?”

It was a stupid question. He didn’t answer it.

“I’m so glad you came to see me today, Jacob,” he said.

Even though I knew Edward couldn’t hear Beau’s thoughts, he seemed to hear some meaning I didn’t. He moaned again, into the blanket that covered Beau, and Beau stroked his cheek.

“What is it, Beau?” I insisted, wrapping my hands tight around his icy, fragile fingers.

He didn’t answer me right away, he glanced around the room. Six pairs of anxious yellow eyes stared back at him. Finally, he turned to Royal.

“Help me up, Roy?” he asked.

Royal’s lips pulled back over his teeth, and he glared up at me like he wanted to rip my throat out. I was sure that was exactly the case.

“Please, Roy.”

The blond made a face, but leaned over Beau again, next to Edward, who didn’t move an inch. He put his arm carefully behind Beau’s shoulders.

“No,” I whispered. “Don’t get up…” He looked so weak.

“Oh, stop fussing,” He coughed, rolling his eyes, sounding a little bit more like his usual self. “I want to give you a hug.”

Royal pulled Beau off the couch. Edward stayed where he was, sagging forward till his face was buried in the cushions. The blanket fell to the ground at Beau’s feet.

He wasthinner. His clothes hung off his body, like he had been wasting away in the short month since I’d seen him last. He staggered forward, weakly holding his arms out to me. I stood up and caught him, and wrapped my arms around him as gently as I could. I felt like I would snap him in half if I wasn’t careful. His body felt small and cold in my arms.

“Jake,” He sighed. “I’m obviously not doing so great.” He tried to laugh, but he started coughing.

The blond jerked forward, hand outstretched.

“It’s fine, Roy,” Beau held back the coughs. “It’s—shoot, sorry Jake.”

I glanced down. I felt a chill run down my spine. There was blood on my chest where his head had been resting.

“Beau, babe,” I choked out the words. “What’s going on? How—why—”

“We don’t know, Jake,” He sighed. “It’s bad, though. We’re trying to fix it.”

I didn’t know what to think. If he was doing this badly, and if they were still tryingto fix it, well, that had to mean that they weren’t making good progress. Beau was dying, the longer I was here, the more I could smell it—the sickness—rooted deep inside of him, killing him, destroying him.

Some rare, obviously fatal disease picked up from the other side of the world. All because the bloodsucker had to take Beau away with him. Take him away, but not do a good enough job protecting him.

I always knew the bloodsucker would be responsible for killing him.

Edward’s head snapped up as he heard the words inside mine. One second he was on his knees, and then he was on his feet, inches away from my face. His eyes were flat black, the circles under them dark purple.

“Outside, Jacob,” he snarled.

I let go of Beau and turned to face the leech. This was why I was here.

“Let’s do this,” I agreed.

The big one, Emmett, pushed forward on Edward’s other side, with the hungry-looking one, Jasper, right behind him. I really didn’t care. Maybe my pack would clean up the scraps when they finished me off. Maybe not. It didn’t matter.

For the tiniest part of a second my eyes touched on the two standing in the back. Esme. Alice. Small and gentle looking. Well, I was sure the others would kill me before I had to do anything about them. I didn’t want to kill girls… even vampire girls.

“No,” Beau gasped, coughing as he stumbled forward, weak and out of balance, to clutch at Edward’s arm. Royal moved with him, like there was a chain locking them to each other.

“I just need to talk to him, Beau,” Edward said in a low voice, talking only to him. He reached up to touch his face, to stroke it. This made the room turn read, made me see fire—that, after all the pain he’d put Beau through, after letting him get so sick, he was still allowed to touch him that way. “Don’t strain yourself,” he went on, pleading. “Please rest. We’ll both be back in just a few minutes.”

Beau stared at his face, reading it carefully. Then he nodded and drooped toward the couch. Royal helped lower him back onto the cushions. Beau stared at me, trying to hold my eyes.

“Behave, Jake,” he insisted. “And then come back.”

I didn’t answer. I wasn’t making any promises today. I looked away and then followed Edward out the front door.

A random, disjointed voice in my head noted that separating him from the coven hadn’t been so difficult, had it?

He kept walking, never checking to see if I was about to spring at his unprotected back. I supposed he didn’t need to check. He would know when I decided to attack. Which meant I’d have to make that decision very quickly.

“I’m not ready for you to kill me yet, Jacob Black,” he whispered as he paced quickly away from the house. “You’ll have to have a little patience.”

Like I cared about his schedule. I growled under my breath. “Patience isn’t my specialty.”

He kept walking, maybe a couple hundred yards down the drive away from the house, with me right on his heels. I was all hot, my fingers trembling. On the edge, ready and waiting.

He stopped without warning and pivoted to face me. His expression froze me again.

For a second I was just a kid—a kid who had lived all of his life in the same tiny town. Just a child. Because I knew I would have to live a lot more, suffer a lot more, to ever understand the searing agony in Edward’s eyes.

He raised a hand as if to wipe sweat from his forehead, but his fingers scraped against his face like they were going to rip his granite skin right off. His black eyes burned in their sockets, out of focus, or seeing things that weren’t there. His mouth opened like he was going to scream, but nothing came out.

This was the face a man would have if he were burning at the stake.

For a moment I couldn’t speak. It was too real, this face—I’d seen a shadow of it in the house, seen it in Beau’s eyes and his, but this made it final. The last nail in Beau’s coffin.

“This… disease, it’s killing him right? He’s dying.” And I knew when I said it that my face was a watered-down echo of his. Weaker, different, because I was still in shock. I hadn’t wrapped my head around it yet—it was happening too fast. He’d had time to get to this point. And it was different because I’d already lost him so many times, so many ways, in my head. And different because he was never really mine to lose.

And different because this wasn’t my fault.

“My fault,” Edward whispered, and his knees gave out. He crumpled in front of me, vulnerable, the easiest target you could imagine.

But I felt cold as snow—there was no fire in me.

“Yes,” he groaned into the dirt, like he was confessing to the ground. “Yes, it’s killing him.”

His broken helplessness irritated me. I wanted a fight, not an execution. Where was his smug superiority now?

“So why hasn’t Carlisle done anything?” I growled. “He’s a doctor, right? Give him medicine, fix it.”

He looked up then and answered me in a broken voice. “Nothing is working.”

“What do you mean?”

“We weren’t lying to Charlie,” he whispered. “This sickness… it’s unpredictable, violent. One moment, Carlisle thought Malaria, then a strain of Dengue Fever. But just when he thinks he knows what it is—how to fight it—it shifts, and it gets worse. Beau is dying. His body is giving out on him. He’s burning up one moment, then freezing the next. He can’t keep food down, he’s coughing up blood. Every joint in his body hurts…” He pulled his fingers through his hair. “We can’t save him, not with any medicine we have here.”

“So take him to a hospital!” I snapped.

He shook his head slowly. “If we take him to a hospital…” He closed his eyes and sighed. “You have to know what our contingency is. If Beau is taken to a hospital, with this disease—it’s nothing seen here before. He’d be immediately quarantined, locked up in a lab somewhere while they watch him waste away so they can learn more about this mysterious new illness. I wouldn’t be able to save him through…”

He didn’t have to say it, I knew what he meant. I shuddered.

“I’m honestly surprised you haven’t already changed him, I mean, since you’ve already put him through so much hell.” I sneered.

His eyes met mine again. “He won’t let us.”

It took a minute for the words to sink in. Beau was dying of some insane disease, and the Cullens had their damned miraclecure, and he wouldn’t let them… It was so stubborn, so human… so Beau.

“You know him well,” he whispered. “How quickly you see… I didn’t see. Not in time. He wouldn’t talk to me on the way home, not really. I thought he was frightened—that would be natural. I thought he was angry with me for putting him through this, for endangering his life. Again. I never imagined what he was really thinking, what he was resolving. Not until my family met us at the airport and he stumbled right into Royal’s arms. Royal’s! And then I heard what Royal was thinking. I didn’t understand until I heard that. Yet youunderstand after one second…” He half-sighed, half-groaned.

“Just back up a second. He won’t let you.” The words were acid on my tongue. “So you weregoing to change him?”

“I wanted to,” he whispered. “Carlisle would have…”

So eager to make another reeking bloodsucker.

“No. Not at all. We knew early on; this sickness would kill him. Alice saw it. Changing him was the last thing I wanted to do. But it was the surest way to save him. I was ready to do it, but his bodyguard complicated things.”

Oh. His story hadn’t made much sense before, but it fit together now. So that’s what Blondie was up to. What was in it for him, though? Did the prom king want Beau to die so bad?

“Hardly,” he said. “Royal understands better than the rest of us how precious humanity is.”

Huh. Well, I guess I couldn’t hate the blond bloodsucker that much. He was keeping Beau human, at least.

“Yes, and ruined our chances of saving him,” Edward groaned. “I know Beau would never had forgiven me, I know it’s selfish, but I couldn’t watch him die. I told myself changing him was the right thing—I was only trying to save him. But now…” He shook his head, defeated. “The disease attacked his cardiovascular system.”

I raised an eyebrow, confused.

“His heart,” he snapped, “Beau’s heart. It’s weak. Too weak. He’d never survive the transformation process. His heart would give out and he would die.”

I took all this in for a second. Processed it. My anger was slowly being pushed out of the way for another emotion; despair. Beau was dying. There was no stopping it. Medicine couldn’t fix it, and now he couldn’t be changed. I was going to lose him.

“Congratulations, bloodsucker. I hope you’re happy with yourself.”

He stared up at me with a face that looked a thousand years old.

“Even you, Jacob Black, cannot hate me as much as I hate myself.”

Wrong, I thought, too enraged to speak.

“Killing me now doesn’t save him,” he said quietly.

“So what does?”

“Jacob, you have to do something for me.”

“The hellI do, parasite!”

He kept staring at me with those half-tired, half-crazy eyes. “For him?”

I clenched my teeth together hard. “I did everything I could to keep him away from you. Every single thing. You should have left him with me. Now it’s too late.”

He stared up at me from inside his own personal hell, and I could see that he agreed with me.

“You know him, Jacob. You connect with him on a level that I don’t even understand. You are part of him, and he is part of you. He won’t listen to me, because he thinks I’m just punishing myself. He won’t let me say anything…” He chocked and then swallowed. “He might listen to you.”

“Why would he?”

He lurched to his feet, his eyes burning brighter than before, wilder. I wondered if he was really going crazy. Could vampires lose their minds?

“Maybe,” he answered my thought. “I don’t know. It feels like it.” He shook his head. “I have to try and hide this in front of him, because stress makes him more ill. He can’t keep anything down as it is. I have to be composed; I can’t make it harder. But that doesn’t matter now. He has to listen to you!”

“I’m not going to march in there and convince him to hold on long enough for you to change him, bloodsucker!” I snarled. “You mustbe crazy if you think I’d do that.”

“I’m not asking that,” he whispered. “Carlisle thinks there’s a chance—a small chance—Beau cansurvive this. It won’t be easy, but it is possible if we do everything we possibly can.” He shook his head. “I don’t care about anything but keeping him alive,” he said, suddenly focused now. “If he can survive this, I want him to have a long human life. I want him to be happy. I understand now, that I can’t be a part of that happiness. We always end up here. Beau clinging to life, in mortal danger, and it ismy fault.” He paused and let out a slow, ragged sigh “I already knew I would do anything to keep him from dying but seeing him like this—knowing I would go so far as to take away his choice and—and changehim…” he choked on the words. “I need you to convince Beau that he belongs with you.”

He met my stare for a moment and his face was frenzied under the thin layer of control. My hard scowl crumbled as I processed his words, and I felt my mouth pop open in shock.

“Convince Beau that if he survives this, he needs to go with you. That he needs to stay here in Forks and live a long, happy life with you, Charlie, his human friends. I ama monster, Jacob Black. Don’t think I’ve ever for a moment thought otherwise. But I’m not a monster for the reasons you believe. I’m a monster because I would destroy his humanity just to keep myself from losing him. I am a monster because I am so selfish that I would end his mortal life to keep away the pain of his death.”

The noise coming from my throat sounded like I was choking.

Was he serious? After everything that had happened—everything I had tried to do—did he really think I could convince Beau to choose me? To love me?

“He does love you.”

“Not enough.”

“Maybe he does.”

“You really have lost your mind,” I mumbled.

“Please, Jacob.” His eyes were focused on me like lasers. “I know, I know it’s going to take a lot of convincing. That’s why I need you. You know how he thinks. Make him see sense.”

I couldn’t think about what he was asking. It was too much. Impossible. Rushing into that stinking house, getting down on one knee, and pleading Beau to leave his husband and run away with me? So messed up.

So tempting.

I didn’t want to consider, didn’t want to imagine, but the images came anyway. I’d dreamed about Beau loving me like that too many times, back when there was still a possibility of us, and then long after it was clear that the dreams would only leave festering sores because there was no possibility, none at all. I hadn’t been able to help myself then. I couldn’t stop myself now. Beau in my arms, Beau sighing my name.

I tried to put the idea out of my head. “Make Beausee sense? What universe do you live in?”

“At least try.”

I shook my head fast. He waited, ignoring the negative answer because he could hear the conflict in my thoughts.

“Where is this psycho crap coming from? Are you making this up as you go?”

“I can’t be allowed to love him anymore. Not when I’m willing to go to such extremes. I’ve lost the right to call Beau mine. He wants to stay human. I want him to stay human. If he survives this, I don’t know if I’ll be strong enough to keep myself from changing him if anything like this happens again. I don’t think I trust myself.”

“You’re one hell of a mess.”

“Help me,” he whispered. “Help me keep him human and happy.”

“He’ll never do it.” I growled. “He won’t choose me. He’s made that pretty clear.”

“Try. There’s nothing to lose now. How will it hurt?”

It would hurt me. Hadn’t I taken enough rejection from Beau without this?

“A little pain to save him? Is it such a high cost?”

“But it won’t work.”

“But it might. After everything, you don’t think I’m so egotistical that I can’t see how much he does love you?”

I hadn’t expected that. I didn’t have a comeback.

“Talk to him. Convince him. If he chooses you, I won’t fight.”

I couldn’t believe I was thinking about this. I shouldn’t let him talk to me, mess with my head. I should just kill him now.

“Not now,” he whispered. “Not yet. Right or wrong, it would destroy him, and you know it. No need to be hasty. If he doesn’t survive… The moment Beau’s heart stops beating, you’ll get your chance. I will be begging for you to kill me.”

“You won’t have to beg long.”

The hint of a worn smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I’m very much counting on that.”

“Then we have a deal.”

He nodded and held out his cold stone hand.

Swallowing my disgust, I reached out to take his hand. My fingers closed around the rock, and I shook it once.

“We have a deal,” he agreed.

#breaking dawn #Breaking Dawn Revamped #gay breaking dawn #the twilight saga #The Twilight Saga Revamped #Beau Swan #Edward Cullen #Jacob Black #ao3 #ao3 link #AO3 update #Beau Cullen

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