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For a moment, Jamie forgot where he was. He was on his back and his arm hurt, he felt it with every breath. But with every breath came a terrible smell, something he had smelt before but worse, much worse. He turned his head and vomited, something wet pressing to the back of his neck. He moved, trying to sit up but only rolled his cheek into his sick.
He blinked and wondered if he'd gone blind, squinting in the darkness. Then suddenly there was Susanna. She wasn't looking at him but her face was gaping up the sky and he realised with another wave of sickness, that her head was barely still on her shoulders. Jamie cried out, crawling forward and reaching for her. The pain of his arm was awful, dragging behind him as the other pulled him forward. His head swam and dipped for a moment, forehead on the earth before he heaved himself further.
It was when he finally touched her still warm skin, that she was torn away. Her body was taken by the shoulders, pale fingers sinking into her and taking her into the shadows with a blur of red curls he had only seen in his nightmares. A pale face vanished with a smile and Susanna vanished with her. He couldn't see far through the trees but he could hear it, the wet cracks of the feeding. He yelled into the dirt, beating his fist against it before laying silent.
Jamie looked up and there it was standing over him, bent at the waist and looming. The thing's mouth was bloody, stains on its chest and hands. The blood dripped down onto Jamie, stinging his skin where it landed. He was silent and the thing only stared. "Get on with it," he said finally, in a rasp of voice.
It cocked its head, regarding him with red eyes and a coy blink. "You know," it started in a well-mannered tone, "you really are such good fun, I'm in half a mind to keep you going."
Jamie only stared, feeling something within himself tug. "Don't be like that," the thing said, leaning closer. "I knew you were the silent type but this is just boring."
It nudged him with its foot. Jamie rolled over onto his back with a wheeze and opened both of his eyes wide, concentrating on the thing's face. It was one of such remarkable plainness that Jamie almost felt disappointed. It looked back at him with those bright eyes and it pursed its lips as if chewing on a thought.
Then suddenly it brung its foot down on Jamie's arm with an incredible crack. Jamie screamed and his sight fogged. The foot pressed and Jamie was sure through the pain, that his arm had been flattened to mush. He almost fainted, head light as his body roared in agony. Something flared, a blink of a sucking blackness and then he was feeling something soft beneath his heel. The feeling disappeared as fast as it had come and he yelled out again as the pain returned.
His eyes were wild, spinning in their sockets as the creature lifted its foot and brought it down once more. He vomited again, bile and spittle spilling over his mouth, running up his nose and bubbling his shrieks. The burst of dark and then he could feel the flesh between his toes, the maddening thirst as arteries split. A hand flashed down, the man under his foot was still and as he took a fistful of hair he only saw the whites of his eyes.
He was disappointed and it was with that slim emotion, that Jamie to recognised himself. Awakening from within the creature with a sudden clarity of urgency. The hand tighten its fingers around his hair and shook his head violently. Vaguely he felt a prickle at the back of his mind, where his skull should've been but where it was no longer.
The creature tutted but with the hunger, the sluggish movement of its tongue set off a new heat down its throat. It craned its neck and lifted Jamie's head up further towards itself, breathing in deep. Then it was at his throat, mouth wide and teeth puncturing and with everything he had, Jamie pulled. He pulled the tendrils of the monster's mind before it could even get its first draw of blood. The thing froze as if it had been struck dumb.
Jamie felt its muscles strain and he kept his hold as tight as he could, overlapping himself atop the monster's very being. He thought of his hands holding strings, ones that thickened themselves at every tug. Teeth pressed harder and Jamie gathered himself and pulled with all he had left. The thing flung itself backwards, splintering a tree and roaring in fury. But with the movement Jamie's control was lost and the creature surged forward.
This time he felt it, the teeth and something else. He couldn't move or yell and as the thing shook its head, tearing the flesh from his neck, Jamie was also torn from its mind. He was burning, skin searing as his blood boiled inside. He spasmed but hands held him down, cracking his bones as he choked, spitting up his own blood.
It was when he began to die, without much thought about it, that he saw Susanna. She stood over him and Jamie could see the faces of all the others that he had once sought retribution for behind her. Her hand covered the watch face on her wrist but she wasn't crying like he was. "I died with dignity," her mouth said, "you can too."
Then suddenly something was hurdling through her, wasting her and the other faces away into the air. The teeth were gone from his neck but the hands stayed. "They're coming," he heard. "They outnumber us."
Jamie felt as if he was laying atop hot coals, shaking and gurgling. He didn't feel the mouth on him again until it was being ripped away, the monster's hiss of rage swallowed by a rush of wind. Without the hands pressing him down, he felt too light, as if the earth had fallen from beneath him.
This time he was sure that he was going blind, the wave of white fire crescendoing and splitting through his veins. He didn't know if the thing was still there, watching him, but he knew that he was dying whether it finished him off or not. With a strength he didn't mindfully possess he screamed, crying out as his body seized.
Something touched him but he couldn't see it, couldn't open his eyes though the pain. He kept screaming, feeling his lungs clog. Someone was talking he was sure, strong and rhythmic. Jamie managed to squint his eyes enough to peer up. He saw through a seeping blackness that it wasn't the terrible, plain face above him. Nor was it Susanna looking down, but two golden eyes that blurred together on the features of Carlisle Cullen.
Jamie was in agony. He was in agony and he was dying but through his cries came a laugh, bubbling through the blood and twisting his mouth in a way that sent a new cascade of fire. He was staining the doctor's shirt, head held against his chest in solid arms. He grit his teeth and shrieked through them, body jerking and Carlisle put a cold hand on his forehead, whispering down to him.
"I'll stay with you," he told him, and Jamie could only cry in answer.
