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WARNING: BLOOD & DEATH & FIRE AHEAD
000
THE HEART WAS AN EXTREMELY FRAGILE ORGAN.
The very center of a person, so easy to tear out and break. Destroy. Like glass, the inclination to shatter was insurmountable. Harder to rebuild. But reforged with fire and blood, ice and resilience, reborn of a dragon–the heart becomes harder to pierce.
For humans, the heart tended to be limited, weak, simple. Thrumming with life, beating for another.
But for vampires, the heart was much more symbolic than physical, no longer beating with life—tied to bonds and relationships. Or maybe...the physicality of which manifested elsewhere than behind the ribs...in the eyes and in the lips, between shared glances and secrets shared amidst.
She had thought the truth would simplify everything. The truths that had been shrouded in darkness were supposed to be the key to what made her who she was. It would solve everything; answering the questions that plagued her restless, immortal mind.
But as it turned out—knowing only made everything more complicated.
She had given so much. Lost all the same.
And she was still standing alone in the middle of a damned forest.
As she broke down in the Olympic forest, far from all she knew now, her overworked mind divided into two.
Return to Alec and their coven, letting the Cullens perish in a battle that went beyond simple revenge and never speaking of Rory Aden ever again. She'd remain a guard for the rest of eternity, loyal yet guilt-ridden. She'd lose herself, her family and her past.
Or
Help the Cullens defeat the newborn army, betraying her coven and her duty, while not ensuring the Cullens will escape unscathed. She'd jeopardize both sides further, possibly surmounting a larger war. And she could lose Alec.
It was an impossible decision to make, a matter of deciding which loss she could live with, not which loss she could live without. Either way, she lost.
Hearts would be broken.
But she would survive.
000
While the Cullens and the pack fought the horde of newborns in the baseball field, Edward and Seth were fighting off Riley and Victoria in an unmatched battle, all while Bella watched helplessly. She was human, after all.
