Run, Run, As Fast As You Can
a Twilight story
by me211152004
Any slower and I'm an old man.
I panted into the neck of a moose. It had taken four tries to collapse the leggy vegetarian. There were scratches on its body from my earlier attempts on its life. They had probably been painful but had not life threatening.
The scent of blood was sharp in my nose and before I could so much as register this, my face contracted and a wet sounding sneeze burst forth. "Hh'PFH-SSSSHHh!"
I kept my eyes closed. I just used the moose's neck like a tissue. I could feel blood spatter everywhere. It was dripping and sliding eerie warm trails through my fur.
The feel of five tiny fingers pressing themselves to my neck startled me from my observations. However, I held myself still, as I realized their source almost immediately. The fingers brought with them a picture that began to manifest in the depths of my mind, but I was forced to pull back and the picture disappeared.
"I only wanted to know if it was dead now."
I looked to my side where the source of both the fingers and the picture stood and whined in apology before my head buckled under my chest with another sneeze. "H'PPHh-FUSSSSSHh!" Whining again was the best I could do to excuse myself, as I was still in my wolf form and without the ability of speech.
I had no intentions of switching into my human form any time soon though. I wasn't sure how well I could handle it right now. I was so tired—exhausted, really—that I was functioning almost entirely because of the animal running in my veins. If I change into a human now I might fall asleep for a century like Rip Van Winkle and wake to find a city built around me and Nessie fully grown—or at least as grown as she was ever going to be—and married to another man.
I hid my head under my paws so I wouldn't let Nessie see the distraught expression that at my thoughts had inspired.
She loves me too, I reminded myself fiercely as I swiped at the blood on my fur, not like how Bella did.
It was why Bella had given her to me after all. We loved each other like brother and sister, parent and child, male and female (well, not like that quite yet).
But wait! That was not what Bella had said at all! No, she had said that I love Nessie. She had not said that Nessie and I share a deep eternal love for each other.
The thought was so sudden and earth shattering that I hardly noticed the tingle in my nose heralding yet another sneeze. And how could I? How could I when my heart was stuttering in my chest, my lungs were tight, and a hot swelling pain was behind my eyes?
"Hhh'PHUH-UFFFff'hh! Hhh-Hhh-HHP'UUHFFfffh!" A low growl scraped my throat and I hooked one paw irritably on my snout, wrestling with my head. What the hell was wrong with me?! Why was I sneezing so much? It was true that since becoming a wolf I had found that more scents overwhelmed me easily, but I couldn't figure out what scents were plaguing me today in the pristine chill of the north.
Nessie's fingers found my neck and nestled into the fur close to my skin. There she could feel the natural heat my body radiated and she took a moment to warm her hand because I was better than a pair of mittens on the coldest day. Then showed me a picture. It was of how I must look right now: dirty from a week or so of being on the run and bloody from sneezing into the moose. There was a question behind the picture she showed me: a silent "Are you alright?"
I both dismissed and answered her question when I put my nose against her shoulder and gently nudged her closer to the moose. I would feel better knowing she wasn't hungry or, more importantly, thirsty.
Nessie's head turned and she regarded me solemnly with her big chocolate eyes. It was only for a moment, but I felt like I was being surveyed by her father's eyes rather that hers. If she read something in me though it must have been how much I wanted her to eat because she acquiesced to my gentle nudging and knelt low over the moose's ribs. I watched a faint puff of steam vanish into the air over the rib section as Nessie pulled off a dripping hunk of moose meat. Amazingly no blood smeared anything but her lips as she ate with efficiency that spoke of her vampire blood.
I joined her at the carcass' neck now. I had already torn off a strip of meat in my tired and therefore messy tackle of the moose. We ate in companionable silence for a while, examining each other between hot, juicy mouthfuls of moose.
I watched Nessie's tiny hands in particular. I had been worrying about them for the last couple days especially, since the temperature had been dropping steadily every day we got further into the north.
She was fine as a fiddle as long as she was not thirsty though. It seemed the thirstier she got the closer she got to her human side and vice versa, so I had been forcing huge amounts of blood down her throat these past few days to keep her vampire immunity to the cold well stocked.
We slept curled around each other for warmth too. My big heart pumped enough heat to keep both of us warm, even though our bed was a snow bank.
Going north had not been my first move. Nessie and I had actually been headed south after reading a note Nessie's mother, Bella, had written. We had been walking, running, and sometimes outright sprinting to Rio de Janeiro like planned. However, when we were crossing Death Valley in California we came across death himself—or rather Dimitri, the Volturi's tracker, who certainly meant death for us.
I had spotted Dimitri on top of one of the many dunes that marked Death Valley like a teenager with a bad case of acne. Dimitri had dressed himself almost entirely in black clothing to hide the sparkly crystalline effect the sun had on a vampire's skin. Even so, my gut, or maybe it was the wolf, told me it was him.He must have recognized me or recognized me recognizing him, for his eyes—all I could see of him—flooded with the blackest, hungriest shade of night. They were eyes that held the emotion of something—man or beast or otherwise—with their eyes on their prey.
Part of me had nearly died of fright at the sight of Dimitri on top of a sharply inclined dune that was so close to us. I kept full sense of myself, however. I couldn't lose myself now. I had to keep Nessie alive.
It was a chant flowing and singing in my veins. NESSIE MUST LIVE. The words rolled with me as I ran trying to buy us more time. I had to save Nessie.
The pain of her fingers tangled tightly in my fur spurred me on rather than dragged me down. I was running flat out. The sun was as hot as the fires of hell and built heat in my labouring body at twice the normal rate. Regardless of the boiling heat though, I was running fast enough that I could've beat Leah. I wondered if it could beat a parasite's notoriously swift feet.
As it turned out I never found out. My chant and churning legs narrowed my world so that I barely noticed when Dimitri pounced like a mountain lion from the dune he had been watching Nessie and me from.
He was nothing but a ripple of dark cloth in his descent. He could have been someone's lost hat playing in the wind for the amount of subtlety he possessed.
But he was not. He was Dimitri. A tracker hired to find us and he wasn't going to let us escape so easily. He would stop our mad dash for freedom so he would not have to do his job twice. He would not find us again for the Volturi that was inevitably following some distance behind him salivating for our ruin.
The leech's weight punched me in my kidneys as he landed in a crouch on my still sprinting haunches. The pain swallowed me for a moment. It shocked me and even my mantra into a dusty halt.
I released a high pitched whine as Dimitri stepped off my back and I slowly came back to my senses. My back was rapidly healing the foot shaped bruises Dimitri had left, so when he reached out to scoop Nessie from where she was cinched and clinging around my neck I was able to rear back with a warning growl.
Nessie clung on, but I couldn't fight Dimitri with her on my back. It wouldn't be safe, so I reared back again. This time I stamped my feet too.
Nessie got the message and her arms and legs sprung apart as she let go of my neck. She spread like a starfish for a brief suspended moment in the air before her vampire blood landed her as elegantly as a cat on the ground.
With Nessie free from immediate harm I charged at Dimitri with a loud and snapping snarl. The wolf raced in my veins, howling in my heart. I dredged up all my anger for Dimitri. He was as good as going to kill Nessie!
My heart softened. Nessie...
I had expected the explosion of love inside me to wilt the wolf's power, but it did not—rather it bit fiercely and brought a sharp clarity. I felt myself grow several inches under this concoction of volatile emotions, and as the alpha in me reacted favourably to the hostile climate.
My paws hit Dimitri's chest solidly and my momentum barrelled the two of us over onto the ground. We tumbled there. Our movements were so quick that we melted into a ball of sand, limbs, and flashing teeth.
I was out of my element since werewolves routinely attacked vampires with their pack. Dimitri was also probably out of his element too as I didn't imagine that he fought many battles, just pointed out the way to one. It was an even match. Both of us were singles and at a disadvantage.
But I was fighting for more than myself. I was fighting for Nessie. I was fighting for love.
When the clouds of dust that were kicked up parted it was love that was still standing albeit shakily. It was I who limped away panting with my mouth foaming and bloody.
"Jake? Jacob?"
The sound of the small voice hit my ears just right. I pricked my ears and lifted my weary head in the direction I had heard the tentative voice issue from. When I found Nessie's eyes sparking in the deep darkness from the shadows of two dunes the blood running from a wound on my shoulder that Dimitri had inflicted upon me was no longer of consequence and my body discovered new energy.
So long leech. I yipped triumphantly at Nessie and my face relaxed into wide doggy grin complete with my tongue lolling out one side of my mouth. NESSIE WAS ALIVE. We were safe—for now.
I stopped grinning and cocked my head. Could I hear the Volturi coming? Could I hear death speeding toward us along the airwaves?
I listened for a long while, but after shaking my head and listening again I could hear nothing more ominous than cars passing on the road. I scanned the landscape looking for anything my ears had missed, but came across nothing again.
I looked between Nessie—who was half out of the shadows with an adoring grin—and Dimitri's mangled body. I needed to get Nessie and myself out of Death Valley before the Volturi found us, as I was certain Dimitri had signalled that Nessie and I were here. At the same time though I needed to make sure Dimitri was well and truly destroyed.
The sun was still pressing hot kisses into my fur. I noticed that Nessie's cheeks were flushed from the high temperatures too. It was never this hot in Forks.My tail was limp from this irrepressible heat as I prowled closer to Dimitri's body—my shoulder throbbing in the periphery of my senses. I sniffed the air carefully as I went, checking for any changes.
Change was not subtle when it came though. The burst of light dimmed my vision and the wave of smoke hit me like an aftershock.
A sudden fire. I narrowed my eyes and searched the desert for the source.
Nessie's fingers touched my neck. Dimitri's visage tumbled into in my head and was accompanied by a picture of the fire burning ten feet away from us. I dipped my head in agreement.
The fire was from Dimitri. Parasites were flammable things when their venom was exposed. I must have spilt quite a lot of it in our fight when I was ripping out his throat. I supposed the heat of the desert and venom had created the fire now consuming Dimitri's body.
I paused my walk towards where Dimitri was being cremated and shook myself. The sun felt too hot in my fur.
My fur! The venom! It must be all over me from our fight.
I jerked myself away from Nessie. My eyes were wide with caution as I locked with hers.
As fire began to smoulder and singe my fur I dropped into the desert sand and rolled. Sand stung and stuck in my wounded shoulder, but I forced the pain into a small dark corner of my mind focusing only on putting the fire out of my fur so I could continue living and protecting Nessie.
Rolling did some good but I could still feel heat in my fur after fifteen minutes of it. There wasn't any water nearby that I could tell of so washing the flammable venom from my fur was out of the question. Thus, I decided that I needed to get out of the sun's harmful rays.
When I paused my rolling I remembered Nessie's hand. It had been touching me and my venom dampened fur. I should probably get her into the shade as well.
I wasn't sure if very much venom had rubbed off on her, but I was not taking any chances. She followed me obediently however. I led us back into the shade she had been hiding in earlier. I rolled some more in the cool sand there and the fire felt gone, but I did not trust it to stay away even though werewolves weren't as susceptible to burning as vampires.
Fortunately Nessie's hand was unharmed and seemed unlikely to give us future problems. Whatever venom that had transferred onto her hand had been minimal enough not to matter. Despite this fact, when I reluctantly sent Nessie out to cover up Dimitri's body I instructed her to keep the hand that had been touching me curled into a fist inside one of her pockets. She did as I told her while she kicked sand over the top of the mere glowing ashes Dimitri had fizzled into.
It had not taken long for Dimitri's body to be consumed by flames, so I felt slightly better about Nessie's chances of running into the Volturi after us. Still, I kept a close watch from the shadows for the Volturi or for if some crazy fate should befall us and Dimitri should jump back to "life" snarling and ready for another go at things.
When nothing happened and Nessie returned to me utterly unharmed we spent the afternoon creeping from sandy shadow to sandy shadow. We were slowly working our way out of Death Valley hopping to shadows and trying to avoid the burning sun and the Volturi sent for us.
Luckily, it took a mere two hours to wind away from certain death. Nessie and I kept up our dodging amongst the shadows once we were free of Death Valley though. I knew the Volturi had to be coming and when the leech sent to kill us got there I was sure its hunt for us wouldn't end at a missing tracker.
I was so worried about the Volturi after us that I couldn't wait for the sun to drop completely out of sight before I broke from the growing shadows and pounded across the ground with Nessie riding on my back. My long strides felt liberating after a day of tippy toeing around.
We sprinted north—as fast as I could—crunching over California's dry lands and scrambling through California's more lush territory. It was really tiring to run so fast for so long, but fear kept me moving and when fear wasn't enough love stepped in and made me see beyond the throbbing pain in my shoulder where Dimitri had ripped my skin into a gape.
Vampire venom nullified the wolf's quick healing in me, which meant that I would have this wound for as long as it took for it to heal normally. Which could be quite a while seeing as the cut was deep and ragged and had sand packed into it.
Somehow over the course of nightfall Nessie and I made it deep into the wood around the state lines between California and Washington.
The sky was starting to fuse with shades of purple and pink when I found a narrow river not far into the woods. I immediately submerged myself in it to wash off the venom, blood, and sand. I convinced Nessie to wash her hand in the rushing water too. After she had finished twisting her hand around in the water, I shook myself thoroughly and Nessie clambered back onto me and we continued on our journey north.
We'd barely stopped moving since, which might have been why the cut on my shoulder was still gaping and swollen. It might also explain the burning itch in my nose.
"Hh-Hhh-PH'SSSHHhh'hh!" My head snapped down at my side and sprayed the air there with blood from the morsel of meat I had hurriedly swallowed before.I gazed down at the moose in front of me. It no longer seemed appealing, even when I summoned up more of the always ravenous wolf my body wanted to reject it. I couldn't remember the last time I had lost my appetite. I mean really truly lost it. Surely it was before I had discovered the wolf in me, and even then I had been a very healthy boy. Perhaps that had been a subtlety from the wolf lurking in me.
"H'KUPH-UUFFFfh!" I sneezed again.
When I looked up Nessie was gazing at me intently.
A short wave of something like shame bubbled up inside me. My eyes skittered away from hers. I was beginning to think Nessie was perhaps with reason to worry about me.
Although not too much. A cold was a cold, a nuisance certainly, but nothing like a case of appendicitis or the trial of death by Volturi would be.
I stood and shook my fur out. It was my signal to Nessie that it was time we kept moving.
I thought we were probably in northern Canada by now—in one of the territories there. I had no idea which one because didn't they make a new one a couple of years ago? I thought it was likely that we were in the territory by Alaska though, whichever that one should be.
It would be same one I'd romped around during the summer before Bella's wedding. A time during which I had enjoyed pestering the local wildlife—even baiting a huge Grizzly Bear—and gorging myself on caribou while trying to forget the ache in my chest.
Nessie looked like she wanted to protest any movement further, but, upon looking at the scraggly snowy woods around us, slowly rose to her feet. She gave me a cautious eye as she fisted my fur and pulled herself onto my back. Her arms slipped around my neck like usual. However, before I began bounding through snow, around pine trees, and over deadfall she pressed her fingers to my neck and sent a warning picture of me as I must look now. Even though Nessie had showed me a picture of myself not long ago the image had not improved with age.
I hide my dismay though and wagged my tail reassuringly and gave her a wolfy smile. Then I stretched my neck out and playfully jumped over a bump of snow.
Nessie giggled softly at my antics. We had been jumping and leaping over all matter of things or weaving challengingly through trees on our journey to help make the atmosphere lighter.
I relaxed with a sigh into a comfortable run, or at least it was supposed to be comfortable. Unfortunately, my shoulder was still building in agony every day. In moments of peace, I wondered when it was going to heal or if it ever was. The wound still bled a little each day and when we slept I always made sure I lay in the snow on that side so it would go blissfully numb.
If my shoulder was not giving me enough trouble just breathing was becoming a chore. The cold air was burned my lungs and each breath I took stabbed a new point of pain.
The very act of breathing was stirring up my sinuses too. In fact, it did this so much so that my body clenched every few feet with startled sneezes.
"H-KT'HFFSSSh!" My head bowed at my side. My paws stumbled slightly, but my pace hardly slowed. We had to keep going. I wanted to make sure Nessie and I were properly lost in these wild empty northern forests.
I knew people—criminals and the likes—had lost themselves in them before. Although most preferred to go south where they couldn't freeze to death.
"Hh-H-HPHFT'SSSHhhhh!" My nose continued to stage a rebellion. All the sneezing I was doing was making me seem more like the character of the Big Bad Wolf out of my favourite fairytale, Three Little Pigs.
Nessie moved her fingers closer to my skin. I knew she was going to ask me if I was okay in that special way of hers. I felt a hot flash of guilt or embarrassment—I couldn't tell which—at my predicament, our predicament. My weakness was our weakness, and so I picked up my heavy feet and head and tried to get my head around what was happening around us.
There was a raven making a strange croaky glucking sound from one of the thin pine trees nearby. A moose was shifting among a thicket of willows a few miles away. A herd of sled dogs—all Huskies as far as I could tell—were howling and barking from even farther away. I relaxed into the sounds of the wilderness.
I tossed my head to look at Nessie.She looked as surprised as I felt. Her intelligent eyes measured me and she slid from my back. Coming to stand in front of me, she stretched her fingers into my fur. She showed me a picture of herself walking beside me.
I looked at Nessie sceptically.
She guessed my desire for speed and changed the image in my head to show her running beside me.
I ran my eyes over her small body. She had continued growing rapidly over the weeks we were on the road and her legs were longer now. In the picture she had showed me she was running with the ease of the half vampire in her. I found I did not doubt her ability.
I acknowledged also that her additional weight was perhaps wearing me out faster. Reluctantly, I nodded at her.
However, before we could continue on my nose pricked and I bowed my head away from Nessie with a quick sneeze. "HFF-USSSHhh'hoo!"That time I definitely felt the human rise in me. It was like my human side was trying to tell me to rest or it would conquer the wolf and force me to rest.
With this in mind, I gathered as much of the wolf into my limbs and my head and my heart as I could. An ugly snarl spread my lips and I leapt forward with a spring of raw energy. Nessie followed quietly in my wake but I could feel her disapproval at my methods of medication.
We kept a fluid pace. I'm sure we made quite the picture: a sweet little girl following gracefully at the heels of a loping russet wolf.
The picture didn't last that long though, for my wolf instincts had a somewhat short attention span. The fire of the wolf seeped from me faster than I liked.
"H-HPHFF'SSSSSHHhhhoo!"
My face was in the snow.
The draw from the human had been so strong with that last sneeze, so so very strong. It had knocked me flat and I realized as I took stock of myself that it had ripped away my furry self and unfurled my fleshy self.
My naked fleshy self lay in the snow. Exhaustion was knocking behind every body part. It was tiring to even breathe. I closed my eyes.
The snow touching me was melting from the heat of my body but freezing into ice as soon as it was far enough away. It was a vaguely uncomfortable feeling but I was too tired.
And then I felt Nessie. Her small hands were tugging at my shoulders trying to pull my face out of the snow.
I mumbled at her to leave me and coughed shortly.
Nessie's hands stilled. Then tentatively she spoke. Her voice relaxed me even more than my exhaustion.
"Jake?" she said, "Jacob?"
Mustering up some unknown energy I pulled my head out of the snow, and since it was uncomfortable to lie this way on my front I rolled over.
I sighed. I can make snow angels now.
I tried to work my arms and legs, but they were heavy—so very heavy—with exhaustion.
"Jacob?"
I paused. Since her first word Nessie had sounded more like a grown up than a child, but now as she repeated my name there was something that bottomed her voice and made her sound her age.
"What are you doing, Jacob?" Nessie asked.
There's a hint of something like desperation in her voice.
My tired tongue flopped uselessly for a few moments and then it said the first thing that came to mind. "Making snow angels."
Nessie was silent for a while.
I struggled to move my limbs.
"I'm scared, Jacob." Nessie confided in a rush.
Sparks of strength stirred inside me, but I didn't use them to move my arms or legs. Instead the energy flooded into my upper body seizing at my lungs and twitching my face. My eyes fluttered shut and I brought my hands up slowly. "Hh-H'KTTCHHhh-hoo!" I sneezed and the energy I had felt leeched from me.
What a waste. I could have made snow angels with that.
Crudely, I wiped the tangle of my fingers under my nose and sniffled loudly—such a bother. I relaxed slowly against the snow and gave into a brief shiver.
"I love you, Jacob."
The way Nessie said it made something bloom inside me—something both victorious and depressing.
I am her life.
At this moment, we had only each other in this wilderness and only each other for strength against any murderous Volturi. I was her shield and sword, and she was the strength in my legs and arms.
"I love you too, Nessie." I said quietly and roughly from a combination of the upsurge of emotion and a scratchy throat. "I won't make snow angels right now."
Nessie's eyes—which had been dark with shadows of worry—warmed and the lurking scared child evaporated, a sunny child smile taking its place. Her smile matched the glitter of the surrounding snow.
"We'll find some place to rest." She said.
Her fingers felt my neck. They were near my jugular almost like she was checking my pulse. She showed me a bed that looked impossibly soft and a bowl of chicken noodle soup that I could nearly smell.
Disclaimer: All familiar characters, concepts, or scenes belong to Twilight author, Stephenie Meyer, Rip Van Winkle author, Washington Irving, and Three Little Pigs author, who is unknown. The title comes from The Gingerbread Man by another unknown author.