Purple Sky by A. Teller (unputdownable books .TXT) 📕

I felt…a sudden dread.

“You know what you said about bringing the battle to them?” Jake asked, a cold seriousness to his tone. I could feel the pain of fear building up in my chest.

“Yeah?” I asked, moving to the window. I caught a few glimpses of shadows, dancing around in the front of the house. They were jumping from tree to tree in the forest in front of our house, and I froze with fear.

“Looks like they’re one step ahead,” Jake said, rushing out the door to phase.

“Jacob!” I screamed, running after him. Others shouted my name, following me. But I didn’t stop, not for them. I had to go after Jacob. He was gonna get himself killed. I ran outside, confused.

 

Flames

I smelled smoke. There’s flickering lights of yellow and orange in the distance, and I could see wolves and vampires jumping everywhere. A wolf I believed to be Leah was mercilessly pinning a vampire beneath her giant paws as he held her back by the ears. And that was just one scene. The rest was absolute chaos.

I counted them in my head. Four wolves, five rogue vampires, and six of my family. All but Alice and Jasper are battling it out, right on our front lawn. It seems everyone had their own vampires to focus on. Bella and Edward cornered a blonde male, who was obviously a raging newborn. Carlisle and Esme fought a crafty-looking brunette girl. Emmett and Rose taunted with another boy with straight black hair and crazed red eyes. Leah was fighting another blonde haired boy, who looked pretty tough for his crazed state. Nate was battling it out with a blonde girl who seems to be way too fast for him. Seth, with Jake’s help, fought against a smaller looking vampire girl, probably turned when she was young. They all seemed like newborns. I was caught with a bout of confusion; until I was snapped awake by a black haired, amber-eyed girl leaping her way towards me. I jumped out of the way with lightning speed. The girl hissed at me, crouching into her hunting position. For a moment, I felt like helpless prey. But once I noticed the glint of crystal on her finger, I turned into the predator. I leaped at her, holding her arm up and pushing her face back with my foot. I bent down, and yanked the ring from her finger. It’s still perfect, even after being worn by this snake.

“Hey! Gimme that back! Its mine!” she shrieked. She squirmed around, shrieking like a banshee. But my grip remained firm.

“Wrong. It’s mine. And you made a big mistake stealing it from me,” I hissed back at her. She suddenly ceased her constant flailing.

“Wait. Your face,” she said. As she stared into the sky behind my face, I caught something that rung a bell. That distant look, that black, short hair. Besides the slightly reddish eyes and rounded face, this girl resembled…Alice. A younger, smaller Alice.

“You’re the vampire hybrid! The one who killed Kila!” she screamed.

Right when she said Kila, I felt a sudden weight on my back. I released the smaller girl, and caught a glimpse of straight, dark red hair. I flailed around and screamed, but I didn’t really start screaming until I felt the slice of flesh in my neck. I gripped the girl’s head and pulled as hard as I could, throwing her off me and watch as Nate violently attacked her. I shrieked in agony. The scent of blood and bleach filled my nose as I lie on the ground. I pulled over my mask, keeping my face as a wall of no emotion. But the agony raged within me. When I froze my face, my eyes remained open. I could see the trees around me turn to yellow and orange flames. Forest fire.

What was happening? With all of this? The girl who resembled Alice, the many vampires that are trying to lay waist to our family, this consuming forest fire? Where did it all come from? Who started the fire? I could feel the flames around me giving off hot air that I breathed in painfully, along with the dust and ash of the air.

But nothing compared to the burning in my brain.

The pain radiated from my neck. It felt as though if your hand were to waver around the spot, you’d feel it burning like a campfire. I could feel the burning start to consume my head, filling it with venom. I could feel everything in my head, down to the very synapsis of my brain, be slowly razed to ash. I dare not scream, but simply remain a frozen body. Every inkling of cool is gone. I can feel the venom begin to coarse through me, and a feel a tear begin to form in my eye. If I break my mask, I would shriek and thrash in agony. And that won’t help me. It’ll simply leave my family confused and vulnerable.

As my brain turned to dust, and my eyes turned to ash, I began to think of my family. Of after all they’d been through, all this hell and torment, I’d die like this. Murdered by flames of both kinds. After all Jake has gone through, since the day he and Bella met, up to this point, it would all be for nothing. What will Jake do after I’m gone? Will he go on? Or will he give in and…no. I can’t think of what he might do. He’s told me, he refuses to live without me.

I would look into his eyes, and everything was okay. There was no pain, no suffering, no stress. It all just fell off my shoulders like snow falling off a roof. It seemed like his gaze could go on forever, and I wished it would. But reality had to come creeping back. I never knew if it had to come or if I wanted to make sure it was still there. But when it was, I was glad to see he was still in it. He was my best friend, my other half. My Jacob. He would always be my Jacob. I loved him. But as I searched for his eyes, my own eyes burned from the dry, crackling smoke.

The flames around me soon fade after time. They’re what helped me keep in mind, I’ve not yet died. Although my face had probably been scorched and blackened, unrecognizable. The burning had slowly creped down to my fingertips, and I continued to lie in agony and torture. It felt like being ripped apart, sliced up, burned with a fire poker, hit by a train, and pushed off a cliff. Ten times over.

The flames around me that had flickered orange and red before, had turned to grey clouds of smoke and ash. Had we won? Or are there remains? Am I the only one left? Will I be turned into a vampire out of all this?

But I believed we had truly won. Because soon, although I couldn’t see any faces since I’m just looking straight up into the air, I heard voices. Familiar voices, out of all the razing torment. Carlisle, Esme. Edward. And Jacob. He was still alive. They’re alive.

I could feel Jake’s warm hand brush away the ashes that stuck to my face and hair. In the heat around us, his hand felt cooler for once. I felt a cold, almost soothing water droplet hit my cheek. It was a tear. But it wasn’t mine. Jake was trying his best, but it wasn’t enough. It was hopeless. I couldn’t move. I was trapped within my own heart, pounding on the cage bars, screaming. But in reality, I was silent. Cold. My words were stolen by numbness and pain.

“Jake, you have to do it. If any of us try, we’ll kill her.”

“But…isn’t there some other way? Can’t we just—“

“Jake,” Carlisle interjected. “It’s the only way she’ll survive. Unless you want her to be a vampire.”

I heard nothing. A quick pause, followed by, “Alright, I’ll do it.”

What’s he doing? What is this life-saving thing Jake has to do? There’s nothing anyone can do. It’s venom. It’s unstoppable.

I could feel Jake hovering near me. He was bending closer to my face. I could feel him glide the back of his hand against my face.

“I’m so sorry.”

What was going on? As I lay there, petrified by pain and fear, my neck felt a sensation of both pressure and pain. Like someone was…biting into me.

Of course. The others would kill me. Only Jake could do it. He had to suck out the venom. By sucking out my poisoned blood.

I wanted to cry for him. Jake always had extreme squeamishness around blood. And now he has to taste it, to be as close to it as one could get to it, to save me.

“Remember Jacob, don’t swallow it. Vampire venom is an automatic death sentence to werewolves.”

“Oh, I wasn’t planning on swallowing it,” Jacob replied as he wretched to the side, spitting and coughing out the blood. It takes what feel s like an eternity, but slowly, I felt the coolness of my normal body temperature return to me. But the pressure and pain of Jake’s bites, the burning, searing pain within my head and neck, and my massive bloodless, has left me so weak. I have to push through. I have to see another day. If not for me, for him. For Jacob.

Soon, it all went black, and Jake’s face, his lips red with my blood, was the last thing I saw as the pain within me, devoured.

Cold Again

 

I woke up in the dark, feeling weak and battered. I couldn’t even raise my arms; they burned with remnants of venom. I was in a hospital bed, with three tubes attached to my right hand and one on my left. I felt a bandage on my eyebrow, and my lips were dry and cracked. In the hours it took me to adjust to the light, I fiddled with the cold sheets. The soft cotton felt nice between my fingers. I allowed my mind to wander…

What happened? Well, I was still alive. Somehow. But what about the others? Had we all survived, or were there only a few that made it? Why was I hospitalized? Wait, hospital? No, no I couldn’t be in the hospital! They’d know what I was!

I panicked. I started to try and sit up, but I couldn’t move my arms let alone my whole body. Every movement led to