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𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐎𝐑 𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐃 𝐀𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 𝐄𝐃𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐃 flying off the wall in pieces. The roar that exploded from his core was entirely instinctual. The tracker's head jerked to the side. James was holding his Athena up with his hands while she was barely - if not at all - conscious.
Edward flew into the tracker mid-lunge, throwing him away from her, then Athena fell loudly to the floor.
James smashed into the floor, too, but with much more force, enough to crater the wooden planks. Edward rolled, pulling him over him, and then kicked him to the center of the room where Emmett was waiting.
For the entire quarter of a second that Edward was grappling with the tracker, he was barely aware of him as a living creature. James was just an object in his way. He knew that at some point in the near future, he would be jealous of his two brothers. He would wish for the chance to claw and slash and sever. But that was all meaningless now.
As Edward had known she would be, Athena was crumpled against the floor, framed by splintered mirrors.
All the terror and pain he'd been subduing since he'd first heard Alice's dread in the airport crashed into him in an unstoppable tidal wave.
Her eyes were closed.
Her pale hand had fallen limp beside her.
Her heartbeat was weak, faltering.
Edward didn't decide to move, he was just there beside her, kneeling in her blood. Fire burning through his chest and his head, he couldn't separate out the different kinds of pain, though.
The vampire was afraid to touch her. She was broken and mostly hurt in so many places.
He could make it even worse.
𓇽𓇽𓇽 ✰★✰
As Athena drifted, she dreamed. Where she floated, under the dark water, she heard a sound her mind could conjure up - as beautiful, as uplifting, as it was ghastly. It was another snarl; a deeper, wilder roar that rang with fury.
She was brought back, almost to the surface, by a sharp pain slashing her upraised hand, but she couldn't find her way back far enough to open her eyes.
And then Athena knew she was dead.
Because, through the heavy water, she heard the sound of an angel calling her name, calling her to heaven.
"Oh no, Athena, no!" the angel's voice cried in horror.
Behind that longed-for sound was another noise - an awful tumult that her mind shied away from. A vicious bass growling, a shocking snapping sound, and a high keening, suddenly breaking off...
