Memento Mori Chapter Eight

As she lay there within the echoing walls, the voices crowded in her head. There was a vampire she was familiar with that gained new powers after suffering great trauma. Isabella wasn't quite pleased with the new talent she’d acquired, since she couldn't silence the constant noise.

“Get the fuck out of my head!” she screamed.

It was no use. It wasn’t like they could hear her anyway. She wanted to go back home. She wanted to see her coven, and she wanted to bring Edward with her. She was miserable for the first time in her existence and there was nothing she could do about it.

She heard the outer door open. The subsequent footfalls were familiar, the cadence on the stones those of her beloved. She heard his thoughts, though she wished for them to be silent. She didn't want him to try to save her because she knew he would suffer. She didn't want him to be in pain, and that was all she could see coming for them both. If he came into the cell, she would drain him dry. She didn't see any way around it. If he died, she would gladly let them burn her at the stake as they so joyfully planned. She couldn't live in a world where Edward didn't exist in some form, even if he remained human for the rest of his days.

The steps grew closer. She lifted her head and tried to look at him, but the sight of him so whole and beautiful in front of her was painful. “You must go,” she said harshly.

He halted in his tracks. “Why?” He’d expected her relief, not her wrath.

“I’ll attack you if you enter this cell; I won’t be able to stop myself.”

“Why haven't you escaped? I thought you were fast and strong.” He moved closer to the iron bars, enough that he could see her. She was laden with heavy chains, curled into the corner of the dank cell.

“I have been weakened by those imbeciles that wanted your land. They came at me all at once and I was unprepared. I killed several of them, but the sun is too much for me to fight against.” She shifted and the chains clanked.

“What are their plans? The baker says they wish to burn you at the stake, but nobody has done that here in decades.” He peered more closely at her. She looked haggard, almost human.

“That is the only true way to destroy a vampire. They can weaken me in the sunlight and turn my body sluggish with a lack of blood, but the only way to stop me is to burn me.” Her voice had taken on a feral quality, growling and spitting as she struggled against the chains. The scent of his blood filled her entire being until she raged with the hunger that consumed her. She’d gone from resembling a weak human to a crazed vampire in an instant.

“Isabella?” Edward was frightened again, feeling like he had when she was feeding off of him. His fight or flight instincts kicked in, but he didn’t know which to choose.

“If you don’t leave, I will find a way to break that lock and drink from you.”

“I have to help you. I can’t let them destroy you.”

She pleaded with him with her eyes, knowing there was no way he could survive her imminent attack.

He remained.

“If what you need to escape is my blood, then come and take it. You can have it—I won’t hate you for it.”

“No.”

They were interrupted by the sound of others. They had come to collect Isabella and tie her to the stake. It was staged in the middle of the town so everyone could watch.

Edward didn't think, he just acted. He thrust his arm through the bars, crying out when she moved with blinding speed and bit his ulnar artery. Voices and colors swarmed around him as he faded in and out. He was aware of the screaming as Isabella broke loose. The blood returned her strength, and she used it to run as fast and as far as she could from the town full of evil people.

“You're going to pay for that, Masen,” was all he heard before he was shoved into the cell to lay in the damp cold where Isabella had previously been kept.