(2) Katnis Swan: Moved On?

Chapter 18: D.R.A.M.A

The wind blew stronger now, whipping the rain into eddies around her. She stepped out to the edge, keeping her eyes on the empty space in front of her. Her toes felt ahead blindly, caressing the edge of the rock when they encountered it. She drew in a deep breath and held it . . waiting.

"Katnis."

She groaned and exhaled.

He sounded so close.

"Don't do this," he pleaded.

You wanted me to be human, she reminded him. Watch me do just that.

"Please. For me."

Piss off, Cullen.

"Please." It was just a whisper in the blowing rain that tossed her hair and drenched her clothes-making
her as wet as if this were hee second jump of the day.

She pushed on the heels of her feet.

"No, Katnis!" He was angry now.

She raised her arms straight out, as if Ishe were going to dive, lifting her face into the rain. But it was too ingrained from years of swimming at the public pool-feet first, first time. She leaned forward, crouching
to get more spring...

And she flung herself off the cliff.
She screamed as she dropped through the open air like a meteor, but it was a scream of exhilaration and excitement. The wind resisted, trying vainly to fight the unconquerable gravity, pushing against hee and twirling her in spirals like a rocket crashing to the earth.

She was proud of herself as she plunged deeper into the freezing black water. She hadn't had one moment of terror-just pure adrenaline. Really, the fall wasn't scary at all.

Where was the challenge?

That was when the current caught her.

She'd been so preoccupied by the size of the cliffs, by the obvious danger of their high, sheer faces, that she
didn't worry at all about the dark water waiting. She never dreamed that the true menace was lurking far
below her, under the heaving surf.
It felt like the waves were fighting over her, jerking her back and forth between them as if determined to
share by pulling her into halves.

She knew the right way to avoid a riptide: swim parallel to the beach rather than struggling for the shore. But the knowledge did her little good when the waves were far stronger than she could have anticipated.

She couldn't even tell which way the surface was. The angry water was black in every direction; there was no brightness to direct her upward.

She fought to keep her breath in, to keep her lips locked around her last store of oxygen.

It didn't surprise her that her delusion of Edward was there.

She was drowning and he would bebthe last image she'd see.

"Keep swimming!" Edward begged urgently.

Where? There was nothing but the darkness. There was no place to swim to.

"Stop that!" he ordered. "Don't you dare give up!"

She forced her arms to continue reaching, her legs to kick harder, though every second she was facing a new direction. It couldn't be doing any good.

What was the point?

"Fight!" he yelled. "Damn it, Katnis, keep fighting."

She thought briefly of the clichés, about how you were suppose to see your life flash before your eyes and yet she saw him.