gone, he wouldn't live through it, either. And a world without Edward seemed completely pointless. Edward had to exist.
Jacob - who'd said goodbye to me over and over but kept coming back when I needed him. Jacob, who I'd wounded so many times it was criminal. Would I hurt him again, the worst way yet? He'd stayed for me, despite everything. Now all he asked was that I stay for him.
But it was so dark here that I couldn't see either of their faces. Nothing seemed real. That made it hard not to give up.
I kept pushing against the black, though, almost a reflex. I wasn't trying to lift it. I was just resisting. Not allowing it to crush me completely. I wasn't Atlas, and the black felt as heavy as a planet; I couldn't shoulder it. All I could do was not be entirely obliterated.
It was sort of the pattern to my life - I'd never been strong enough to deal with the things outside my control, to attack the enemies or outrun them. To avoid the pain. Always human and weak, the only thing I'd ever been able to
do was keep going. Endure. Survive.
It had been enough up to this point. It would have to be enough today. I would endure this until help came.
I knew Edward would be doing everything he could. He would not give up. Neither would I.
I held the blackness of nonexistence at bay by inches.
It wasn't enough, though - that determination. As the time ground on and on and the darkness gained by tiny eighths and sixteenths of my inches, I needed something more to draw strength from.
I couldn't pull even Edward's face into view. Not Jacob's, not Alice's or Rosalie's or Charlie's or Renee's or Carlisle's or Esme's... Nothing. It terrified me, and I wondered if it was too late.
I felt myself slipping - there was nothing to hold on to.
No!I had to survive this. Edward was depending on me. Jacob. Charlie Alice Rosalie Carlisle Renee Esme...
Renesmee.
And then, though I still couldn't see anything, suddenly I could feel something. Like phantom limbs, I imagined I could feel my arms again. And in them, something small and hard and very, very warm.
My baby. My little nudger.
I had done it. Against the odds, I had been strong enough to survive Renesmee, to hold on to her until she was strong enough to live without me.
That spot of heat in my phantom arms felt so real. I clutched it closer. It was exactly where my heart should be. Holding tight the warm memory of my daughter, I knew that I would be able to fight the darkness as long as I needed to.
The warmth beside my heart got more and more real, warmer and warmer. Hotter. The heat was so real it was hard to believe that I was imagining it.
Hotter.
Uncomfortable now. Too hot. Much, much too hot.
Like grabbing the wrong end of a curling iron - my automatic response was to drop the scorching thing in my arms. But there was nothing in my arms. My arms were not curled to my chest. My arms were dead things lying somewhere at my side. The heat was inside me.
The burning grew - rose and peaked and rose again until it surpassed anything I'd ever felt.
I felt the pulse behind the fire raging now in my chest and realized that I'd found my heart again, just in time to wish I never had. To wish that I'd embraced the blackness while I'd still had the chance. I wanted to raise my arms and claw my chest open and rip the heart from it - anything to get rid of this torture. But I couldn't feel my arms, couldn't move one vanished finger.
James, snapping my leg under his foot. That was nothing. That was a soft place to rest on a feather bed. I'd take that now, a hundred times. A hundred snaps. I'd take it and be grateful.
The baby, kicking my ribs apart, breaking her way through me piece by piece. That was nothing. That was floating in a pool of cool water. I'd take it a thousand times. Take it and be grateful.
The fire blazed hotter and I wanted to scream. To beg for someone to kill me now, before I lived one more second in this pain. But I couldn't move my lips. The weight was still there, pressing on me.
I realized it wasn't the darkness holding me down; it was my body. So