CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:
WAITING GAME
(trigger warning: death and religious connotations)
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THERE WAS SOMETHING FREEING in knowing when you'll die. It wasn't that Maggie wanted her life to end. Precious days came and went, and Maggie spent as much time with her family and friends as she could. Whether she was shopping with Vera (much to her eldest sister's surprise and delight) or having a movie night with Zeke; visiting Dakota at the diner where they ate burgers and fries to their hearts' content, or simply taking Scooby for his walk. Maggie wrangled Paul into days lounging on the beach. She even went cliff-diving, screaming her lungs out on the way down. She had forgotten what it was like to just live. The panic never came, nor the fear; only peace. If what remained of her life were these memories and words, she wanted to be sure that everyone would find comfort in something. That they wouldn't remember her in sorrow, but in the laughter of one final family dinner or a day of adventure.
She even messaged Hayden, not that she heard anything back. Beforehand, this would've upset her, but she knew she'd done what she could. Carson would've been happy that she'd tried. That was what mattered now. Maggie had to wonder if she'd see him again, soon. If there really was an afterlife, she hoped he had found Delilah, that she was taking on the role as his second mother as she always hoped she would. Maggie hated the thought of him being alone.
It made Paul furious, in a way that momentarily clouded her contentment with sadness; he argued that she was giving up, that she should want to fight -- for him, her family, their friends. Her future. If she was able to 'waste' so much energy in giving them these good memories, she should want to stay alive to make more. To be there for the important moments, to live for herself. He didn't understand. For once in Maggie's life, she was absolutely certain of what was to come. She could hate Death as much as she wanted, scream until her lungs gave out, but her life was hers to lose, no one else's. She had hesitated so much, too much, and she was tired of it. She was taking back control.
So she smiled when she wanted to cry, whispered when he shouted, hugged him until his anger burned out. It was Paul who took her cliff-diving ("as if I'm going to let you jump off a cliff alone, babe.") on one of the rare afternoons that he wasn't training with the pack and the Cullens or patrolling La Push. Alice hadn't given them an exact day yet for when the army would attack, but Maggie didn't need to see the future to feel time dwindling down, the weight of indecision hanging over their heads.
She would be -- no, she was ready.
Fear was what Victoria wanted, what she craved when she hunted down her next victim, and Maggie Sullivan would be damned if she let her have more of her than she'd already taken.
The fateful day came, and Maggie was to stay at Sam and Emily's place with Emily, Kim, Mae and Zeke. The pack were due to leave for the Cullen territory at any moment. It was only early in the morning. The sun had not yet risen, but everyone was wide awake. Emily passed around coffee and piled plates with barely touched food. It was strange to see the pack so solemn that none of them -- not even Paul -- could bring themselves to eat. Only Zeke seemed relatively unaffected, but Maggie couldn't mistake the concern in his eyes as they turned to her every so often.
(What felt like a lifetime ago, he had made her promise to keep him in the loop when it came to their mother's memory. She was my mother, too. Did he regret that promise now? Had the truth of their reality scarred him too?)
It was decided that Leah would stay behind and guard the imprints. She wasn't happy with the choice, especially when Sam had assigned (more like dumped) her with their newest addition, a boy no older than fourteen by the name of Collin Littlesea, but not even she interrupted the quiet last moments of the morning as she sat alone on the front porch. Every so often, Maggie glanced at her through the open window, her back to the door as she sat on the step, and wondered what she was thinking. She trusted every single one of them with her safety, but couldn't help the old habit of feeling weary of Leah's indifference. She clung desperately to Paul's warm hand and the fading fragments of peace from the past few days.
It's okay. She was okay.
And it was time.
Suddenly, Maggie couldn't tear her eyes away from the pack as one-by-one, the boys began to depart. Committing each of their faces to memory; the sight of Embry cradling Mae's head in his hands, Jared's forehead dipped to Kim's, the lingering kiss shared between Sam and Emily; every last detail was seared into her brain. She turned and kissed Paul then, almost caving when she pulled back and he chased her lips desperately.
"I'll see you soon, okay?" The door opened behind them as Embry and Quil left next. The cold breeze sent a chill down her spine. Paul's hands on her back soon burned it away, but the harshness of it seemed to settle in and burrow down deep. She smiled and smoothed his hair back from his face. "I love you."
"Please don't do anything stupid," he said (pleaded) in response. "I want you in one piece when I come back. Okay?"
Maggie hesitated then. Would he say it? "Do you love me, Paul?"
Would it make a difference if he did?
Anguish came and went, perhaps a trick of the eye. He kissed her again, vaguely nodding over her shoulder at Sam when the older man called out his name. It was only him and Jared waiting behind now; they'd have to leave at any second, before it was too late. Today was not a day they could afford to be late to.
"I'm not saying goodbye to you, Mags," Paul said. To him, I love you and goodbye were one and the same. The last thing his mother had ever said to him before she skipped town was I love you. A mother's love, unconditional until it wasn't. And maybe that was the root of the problem at first, but Paul couldn't help but fear he'd say it and come back to a ghost of a girlfriend. The first and last time he gave her his whole heart with three little but deadly words. No. He would not say it. "I won't."
"Paul," Sam urged again, impatient this time.
Maggie merely smiled. She was okay. Nothing else mattered anymore. "You need to go," she sighed and released her grip on him. "Is there a point in me asking you to be safe?"
"I'm always safe, Mags. No need to worry."
And then he was gone.
She watched from the window until the three of them were long out of sight. The silence now deafening, foreboding in the absence of their familiarity. Zeke came to sit with her soon enough, their shoulders pressed together in the small window bay, and so the waiting game began. Would Victoria find her like she suspected? Or would the fight go on while they sat safely behind the firing line? Had Maggie made her peace for nothing? Would she be so lucky?
"Zeke, I need you to promise me something." Her brother didn't look at her, but she knew she had his attention. Her words seem to echo in the cavernous living room, far too loud and vulnerable. Kim and Emily were whispering in the kitchen as they pretended not to listen, Emily fiddling with the engagement ring on her left hand, while Mae paced from one end of the living room to the other, her feet wired to keep moving. "When Victoria gets past Leah and Collin--"
"Maggie, don't--"
"When she does," she continued like he hadn't interrupted her. He was watching her now, jaw visibly clenched. She had to know he'd listen to her, that she wouldn't lose him too. "You get the girls and you run like hell to Paul's truck. Here, the keys." She pressed them into his hand when he didn't move. "You take them to Billy's place. Uncle Everett is waiting there, okay? He'll know how to tell Paul."
Something wounded appeared on Zeke's face then. Like Maggie had betrayed him, and he couldn't comprehend why. It was her turn not to look. "You really think you're going to die."
"When Victoria does get past them--"
"If, Maggie. There's no guarantee she'll even come here at all. The pack's scent is all over the place. She might not even be able to pick you out..."
Maggie frowned, as if to say aren't you tired of making excuses? She certainly was. "Just promise me you'll go, Zeke. Please. It makes no sense for all of us to die. I'm okay with it."
"Well, you shouldn't be," he snapped, but Maggie could see the defeat slowly creeping in. She reached out and hugged him. Zeke clung to her, maybe for the last time, his baby sister. "I promise."
"Thank you."
Wren had always believed (hoped) that, after death, your loved ones on the other side would be the first faces you saw. This idea provided some psychological level of comfort when Delilah died. Maggie couldn't confirm this to be true until her luck ran out and Victoria overpowered Leah at the door. Wooden splinters suddenly scattered through the air, Emily shrieked and dragged the closest person, Kim, behind the safety of the kitchen counter. Outside, Leah's wolf form lay limp in the snow, eyes wide open as she whined. Alive, at least, but wounded enough that she had no choice but to watch the redhead go straight for the one girl she'd spent so long chasing. Collin was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he'd panicked and ran away, or maybe Victoria had gotten to him first. Maggie didn't know. She had no more time on the mortal coil to think.
Victoria seemed frantic, like time and its movements weren't just affecting Maggie. She had two birds to kill with only one stone. Perhaps, if the Cullens hadn't angered her so, she would've let Bella go. She would've dragged out the process of Maggie's death. Instead, she went straight for the girl and grabbed her by the throat in a suffocating hold. Instinctively, red hot panic coiled in her gut. It resisted the assurance of peace as Maggie's hands scraped against marble fingers hard enough to draw blood. Victoria's eyes went pitch black. She smiled, and suddenly Maggie was not okay.
"It's over, Maggie."
This isn't over, the same woman once smiled with Mae at her feet. An oath made mere months ago, now fulfilled. She bit down on Maggie's wrist, and the world suddenly burned.
In purgatory, it is said that those who die in God's good graces, in their state of sinful imperfection, must face the purification that can only occur after the final blows of death. As the soul was released from the body, in suffering did their existence become painless. Victoria's damning bite as she sucked the blood from Maggie's body was an agony like no other. She burned, and she screamed, and she fought with bones too heavy to move. The fire ate into her flesh, pouring down her lungs until there was no air left to withstand. Maggie didn't know if Zeke and the others got out, couldn't use her eyes to see anything but the red pits of what surely had to be Hell.
And then -- nothing.
Just a never-ending shadow, and a sense of weightlessness that Maggie could only associate with sleep. In the darkness, she could just make out the outlines of a face, a soft smile and a gentle touch, the bright twinkle of familiar eyes.
Delilah.
Mum.
But try as she might, Maggie could not move to get to her. She simply floated, swamped in shadow, desperately battling her own body when Delilah's features began to fade. She was alone now, as she had feared for Carson, with a confusing thump within her chest.
Her heart, slamming against her ribcage. Like a bird taking flight, or a fist pounding against stone, the warning beat of a war drum. She was alive, but stuck. Suddenly, everything seemed to explode again, but not in fire. She could hear sounds, strange whispers, muted in their intensity. Feel the scrape of teeth on her inner arm; this time, it was not blood being drawn from her body, but something tangy like gasoline.
Still, she did not wake.
And a new waiting game once began.