Kiss, Kiss, BITE!

            “Happy birthday!” they all yelled at me. The decrepit van shook under us. All of the screaming around me must have been a fright to neighboring kids trying to sleep. It was midnight, and yet as I looked up to the luscious full moon, I felt no angst. No wanting to go back to Alicia. No wanting to deal with anything with fangs. It made for unpleasant conversation.
          When I said all my friends, I meant my four good friends. Not like I have any others. It was my eighteenth birthday, and I was about to make one of the hardest decisions of my life. I had to choose whether or not to sign.
          “Too bad we’re all going to die before the nights over. Except Me.” Juli barely whispered after the screaming had gone down. We’ve learned to disregard her.
          After a moment of silence from Juli’s very morbid thought, the screaming and chatting continued. Juli got up, and walked over to me, smiling now, “Adam!” Juli yelled even thought we were less than a foot away, “here, I got you a birthday gift.” She handed me a brown bag, twisted by hand at the top.
          Juli was my best friend. She was pale, extremely pale. She had dark brown, straight hair. She was about five foot eight, and skinny. She was so skinny; it was almost like she didn’t eat. She was an outcast of society, like the rest of us here.
          I opened the bag, not surprised to find a six-pack of Miller Light. “Beer. Thanks Juli.” I tried hard to sound enthused. “Now we can all have one.” I turned around in my seat.
          We were sitting in the back of a decrepit van. It belonged to Trent. Trent was the coolest guy I knew, but the rest of the kids here still shunned him in Edgesville. His girlfriend was sitting next to him. Her name was Denine. She was small, five foot two, with a pixie style haircut. Her hair was naturally black. Pitch black. She was skinny, not Juli skinny, but still skinnier than normal girls in our school.
          “Toss it,” Trent said. He held out his hand.
          I unwrapped the six-pack from the brown bag, and pulled a bottle through the plastic seals and threw it too him, next handing one to Juli. Followed by tossing one to Denine, and lastly I pulled one for myself.
          Here we were, at midnight in the middle of Edgesville, Pennsylvania, drinking on my eighteenth birthday, when we should have been studying for our finals.
          The only problem was that we had no high school. We were all dropouts. Drinking our youth away. Besides, we had a caste system here in Edgesville, where preps came first, then jocks, cheerleaders, druggies, gays, and then us. The Goths.
          “So Adam,” Denine began, “do you plan to sign with Alicia?” She seemed sincere, not that anyone should care. It would only affect me in the long run.
          “You’re not going to.” Juli shook her head.
          Juli thought she was physic; she was really just psycho though. She had a few visions when she was fifteen that we were going to crash. We did. So ever since, she warns us every time she “sees” something.
          “Did you sign Trent?” I asked him. He was nineteen, and I needed a new possibility. I was definitely not signing with Alicia, no matter what.
          “Yeah I did. Although Scarlet really is quite a pushover.” He shook his head. His words were slurring together. He was already drunk before he got here. He had to have been.
          “Dude, you better not be driving us home.” I laughed, “Do you think Scarlet would allow me to sign with her?” I asked innocently.
          “Probably not, she already deals with my house and the Dena family. You know those twins are a handful.” He laughed a bit more. However it wasn’t a humorous laugh, it was a ‘what-the-hell-am-doing-with-my-life’ sort of laugh.
          The most important clique here in Edgesville, was not the preps or the jocks. It was in fact the Darkness. There were only eight of them, but they were powerful, and frightening. The Darkness was composed of four males: Brandon, Edward, Demetrius, and Antony. Then there were the four females: Alicia, Isabella, Scarlet, and Francesca. They were protectors. However, they protected you from themselves. Your family is assigned one of the Darkness when the first child was born.
          My family’s protector was Alicia. She was cruel, relentless, and evil. I hated her. She would ransack my room when I used to go to school, she would set curfews at four o’clock in the afternoon. She set up blood drives around our house. The person who “donated” the most blood that week to her was free from the punishment.
          The punishment was a bite. She would drain the blood from the losers until they all donated the same amount. It was absolutely horrible. The reason they call the Darkness protection is because without one; you die. They like the people who sign with them, so they protect them from other Darkness. Edward wouldn’t attack me, because he would aggravate Alicia. However, without Alicia, I would surely die.
          “Juli, did you sign?” I asked, starting to worry if I was making the right decision.          “Of course. Not that it will matter after tonight thought.” She tapped the watch on her wrist a couple of times.
          “Denine?” She knew what I was asking. I didn’t need to finish the sentence. I had time to gulp.
          She just nodded her head.
          “Should I sign?” I asked them. Would that be smarter in the long run?
          “Not with Alicia. She’s the worst Darkness out there. I could only imagine what it’s like. Edward buys me a book every year for Christmas. Whereas Alicia drains you a few ounces of blood.” Denine shook. Almost like a shiver just ran up her spine.
          “It’s almost time.” She stated.
          “Juli, nothing’s going to happen!” Trent yelled at her. “We’re not going to die!” it was a weird sensation. He was yelling at her, but as a question almost. His voice raised an octave at the end of that sentence. He was also extremely drunk. His voice was stuttering and shaky as well. Overall. Not a believable sentence from the mouth of Trent.
          “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Juli shook her head. She was so messed up, she didn’t even care anymore to try and convince us. “Well, anyone who does believe me can listen to this.” She shifted in her seat. I’m going to sit right here,” she sat Indian style in the right corner of the van and continued, “Adam, you sit right next to me, and when I say right, I mean your hips touching mine. Close.” She patted to the seat right next to her. “Trent, if you want to survive, well, you won’t because you’re driving. If you do realize what’s happening though, duck. Duck until your head is near the pedals.” Trent laughed a little bit.
          “How will that save my life?” Trent asked. He was still laughing.
          “There are no questions. Do as I say.” She repeated sternly. “After all, I’m not losing anything, it’s your life.” She shook her head.
          Without thinking, I shifted from where I was, to the position she had indicated next to her. Better safe than sorry, right? I always listened to what Juli had to say. It always benefited me. It’s been a year now since we met, exactly a year.
          We met late on January 23rd, last year, my seventeenth birthday. I had just been expelled from school for drinking in Geometry class, and I was selling drugs in this alley. She came around, looking for something to ease the ‘pain’. Her protector was abusive. She had just dropped out of school. She needed comfort. So she turned to drugs.
          It turned out in the log run, that we found something greater than drugs. We found each other. We wouldn’t have survived without each other.
          So the way I see it at this moment, if we die…we die together. If there’s a chance to live, I’ll listen to Juli, because she probably knows it.
          “As I was saying, before Trent so rudely interrupted me,” she paused, “Thank you Adam, for humoring me if nothing else,” She smiled, which was something I hadn’t seen in a while, “Denine, you sit right there,” she pointed at the exact center of the van.
          “Wouldn’t that be the most dangerous place to sit?” Denine sounded like she was humoring Juli. This had just gotten a little out of hand. Something tells me she wasn’t kidding. This was no joke. Juli was serious. She really thought tonight was it?
          “It is the most dangerous place to sit, but you’re going to die anyway, might as well make it quick.” She was sadistic.
          “Okay, where’s my best chance of survival?” Denine laughed a bit. She was working on the fifth of the six-pack. She was probably a bit tipsy by now.
          “There is none.” Juli didn’t give it a second thought.
          “Anything I can do?” Denine sounded worried all of a sudden. Maybe she just came to the same epiphany I had come to. Juli wasn’t kidding.
          “Well, you could walk home, but you won’t. Walking home is a definite survival method.” She sounded like this was no big deal.
          “Juli,” I hesitated at first, but needed to know, I would walk home if necessary, “Did you put me in a safe spot, or an easy death spot?” I wondered how she would respond to that question. Would she take offense by it? Would she laugh?
          However, she didn’t do anything. She didn’t say anything or do anything. Then after a minute of this behavior, she looked at me and said, “You’ll be fine. Completely.”
          “This is ridiculous, no one is going to die!” Trent was getting aggravated now. I could tell he didn’t believe a word Juli had said. “Let’s just go!” He sounded like a child who didn’t get his way.
          “Fine, it’s your funeral.” Denine said to him.
          “Well, he won’t have anyone to throw a funeral unless you get out of the van right now.” Juli was really starting to creep me out. It’s bad enough that I had to deal with Alicia later this morning. I didn’t need any non-fang stress.
          “I’m going.” Denine whispered.
          “You mean you’re actually going to listen to this nutcase—“
          “Hey!” Juli yelled at him. “I take offense to that!”
          “Whatever! Let’s just go!” Trent was frustrated now. “Denine, are you coming or not?”
          Denine turned to Juli who was shaking her head, and then back to Trent, who as staring her down. “Yeah, I’m coming.” She took a deep breath, and sat directly next to me.
          “That won’t help. You’ll be food for the Darkness for a month.” Juli shook her head. I think I was the only one who heard it. Because Denine didn’t even shiver, like she had so many times this night.

          The drive started out fine, a few bumps in the road. We only hit two mailboxes, and a small doghouse outside the Varner’s house.
          The streets were dark, covered in darkness in the early morning. It was like a stagnant pond. Everything was still. Everything was idol. It was almost too perfect of a night.
          Then all went wrong.
          Suddenly I noticed many things all at one time. The giant red truck came straight towards us, and Trent shifted the wheel to the left. The impact of the sharp turn threw all three of us. Juli was thrown against the wall right next to her. I was thrown into Juli, and Denine was thrown directly into the middle of the van, where she couldn’t seem to get up.
          Then there was a loud crash, and a few short loud noises, that sounded like a gun going off. Then everything turned red. Everything was red.
          A brilliant dance of wonderful colors swirled around me, and I saw Juli deep in the royal purple of the van, as if she was sleeping. Then there was Trent, who was as much a part of the blood red dance as the rest of the colors, moving magnificently in the waves of orange and yellow. Most importantly was Denine, who was dancing alongside Trent, sharp moves and all. But she danced beautifully, not like his harsh movements. Then the silver lightning struck the dance, and for a minute it was as graceful as all the other colors, until it struck Denine. She then flew down into the purple besides Juli, and she didn’t move then. Trent was then struck by another silver lightning bolt, when he was then no longer part of the wonderful red dance.
          Then it all went black.

          When my eyes finally reopened, I saw myself no longer surrounded by an elegant dance, but by sirens, and men in blue suits.
          I looked up, and I was lying on a gurney, not yet strapped down.
          Juli was right. I did not die.
          I needed to know if she was right about Denine and Trent. I turned my head frantically from left to right over and over again, scouting the area for any of my friends. I don’t know what I would do without them.
          Then I saw it.
          The tears swelled up in my eyes, which were somehow already raw. I noticed a body in a bag. I did not know who’s body it was, but it was a body. I watched it intently until they rolled another gurney up next to it, with Trent on it. The men in blue suits spoke for a minute and then zipped up the bag Trent was laying in.
          He was dead.
          So was another one of my friends, although I had no idea who.
          “Adam!” I heard a sharp whisper all of a sudden.
          Great, now my subconscious was playing tricks on me. Two of my best friends, my only friends in the entire world would never come back.
          The worst part was that we could have avoided it. Juli had warned us. We knew she wasn’t right all the time, but she was right occasionally. We should have just listened to her.
          “Adam!” I heard a louder whisper.
          I couldn’t believe this was the direction my life was taking. I should have just died in that car accident. What else can I do?
          To hell with the Darkness! They can kill me if they want, I’m not signing! I have no reason to sign! I’ll either make it on my own, or I won’t!
          I needed to get out of here. Now. I just didn’t know which way to go. I had to get home. I had to tell Alicia I wasn’t signing!
          “Adam!” I heard the voice again. This time it wasn’t a whisper. This time someone was yelling my name. This was a familiar voice, a nice voice, a comforting voice. I was ecstatic to hear this voice.
          Then, as I saw her, I was crying again.
          Juli was there, pale and beautiful, but alone. Her being here proves that Denine was dead. That hurt worse than not knowing whom it was. Juli’s face was worried, and frightened.
          “Juli! You were right! You were right! They’re dead! They’re never coming back.” I was still in tears, and now that I could see Juli’s face I could also tell she was bawling as well.
          “I know! I know!” She sobbed. “I tried to warn all of you, but if we would have argued any longer in that alley, the truck would have hit us right there, and we both would have died as well.”
          “What do we do?” I was stopping my tears a bit, focusing on the situation at hand.
          “We need to deal with Alicia, or she’ll kill you before you’re admitted to the hospital.”
          She was right, there was no time to go to the hospital, and I had to get away from the scene of the crime. I was technically free-meat as of now. Until I do or don’t sign with Alicia, I’m free game. We needed to leave now. “C’mon!” I grabbed her arm as I jumped off my gurney.
          And then we were running.
          Running away, running from, running towards. Whatever or wherever we were headed was not good. I was hoping Juli knew to run to my house. I would be safe there for now. Especially since it was probably a good idea to inform my parents that the others were not coming home.
          We just kept running. I was out of breath, and for an instant, I seemed to be alone. I wasn’t, Juli was there every time I turned my head, but I just had this feeling that she wasn’t always there.
          Then we stopped.
          We were in front of my house. Although it was almost impossible to tell, considering all the houses on this block were uniform. All of them had their white coat of paint, with a tan overcoat. All of them had the green shutters on both pairs of the second-story windows. All of then had the same bright red door, with the beautiful glass piece adjacent to it. All of them had the double garage, with the white door. They were all exactly the same.
          This one was my house though, because I could see inside it from the first window of the first-floor. I could see the people waiting in that room, the people wide-awake at 12:47 am. There were my parents waiting for me to get home from the ‘football teams after party’ and there was my little sister, and little brother, and one more set of eyes.
          Alicia was also there.
          I could see her red-eyes staring me down. She could see me, and she could see what I was thinking.
          I knew that was impossible, but it felt like she could see straight threw me. I was scared all of a sudden. Frightened out of my mind. I didn’t want to go in there. I couldn’t go in there.
          I looked right, and then left at Juli who was staring intently through my window, and then ran.
          I took off like a lightning bolt. I couldn’t deal with her right now. I ran faster and faster until I—
          Ugh, I fell to the ground. I had hit something. I ran straight into the tree in the middle of my yard. As dumb as that might sound, I was happy it wasn’t one of the Darkness, I would be gone by now.
          “Get back here Adam!” Juli whispered. She was suddenly right beside me. She had my collar in her grasp, and was pulling me back towards the house. I’m sure I could’ve resisted, but I felt she was right. I did need to deal with this eventually.
          I took a deep breath as soon as Juli released me, and walked up the steps of the porch. I slowly turned the doorknob, and walked into the living room, as all of the eyes turned to me.
          “I’m glad you’re finally home.” Alicia smirked, “That party must have been fun.” Her smile was so endearing. She was beautiful, wit her perfect curves, her full red lips, her pale, beautiful skin, and most of all, her hair.
          Her hair was pitch black, darker than night itself, it was beautiful.
          There was a reason the Darkness was in charge. Sure they were beautiful, strong, fast, but most importantly, inhuman.
          “Well, we do have business to attend to.” Alicia’s eyes darted towards the window and back in an instant. “You can tell your friend she can come in.” Alicia winked at me, as Juli walked through the door. The windows were open I guessed.
          “So, honey,” my mom began, “You know it’s that time. Both your father and I signed with Alicia when we turned eighteen. There is no one better.” My mother rummaged through her purse, and pulled out a pen. She slowly crossed the room, and quickened her pace when she came near Alicia. “We would appreciate it if you signed this paper.” She was hesitant in handing me the pen, but she let go, and smiled a bit.
          “Here it is.” Alicia handed me a sheet of paper from her pocket. It was folded four times, so it was a small fragment of the paper’s actual size.
          I unfolded the paper to read the agreements, and the protection guaranteed. However, I was mostly doing this because I wanted to keep up the charade.
          Then I decided it was time.
          “Denine and Trent died tonight.” I tried to be as blunt as I possibly could. I think I did pretty well. As I waited for a reaction I wasn’t going to get, I stared at my parent’s faces. They were lost. Had they not heard what I said? “Denine and Trent died.” I said it louder this time.
          My father didn’t budge, but my mother looked up at me and said, “That’s wonderful dear, now sign the paper.” Neither of them had heard me. This was the moment they had been waiting for. To make sure their oldest child was protected, by anyone apparently.
          “Can I use my own pen?” I asked Alicia, “I don’t particularly like this one, sorry Mom.” I was leading up to it. Something I’ve been meaning to do for a while now.
          “Of course. Whatever makes you feel comfortable. She grimaced at me, like she knew what I was going to do.
          I put my mother’s pen down on the table beside me, and reached into my pocket. I felt around, but I couldn’t find anything. Normally I kept two in my pocket, but I couldn’t find either one! This would never work now!
          I panicked. It was a bad idea, but I panicked anyway. Then I looked up at Alicia who was staring at me, holding my switchblade.
          “Let’s try not to do that again, shall we?” She was ticked now; I had done it. “This is what you were looking for, was it not?” Alicia was so happy with herself, her smile almost looked ugly.
          Then Juli winked at me, and I understood exactly what had happened.
          “No, it wasn’t,” I dug around in my pocket a little longer to find an actual pen. “This is what I was looking for.” I held out a pen, and moved in towards the contract.
          Then once again, everything happened simultaneously.
          I moved towards the contract, and at the very last possible moment I stabbed the pen into my hand, gushing blood from myself. Alicia went mad, I could see the angst in her eyes. She was curling back and forward again, trying not to leap at me, she wanted the blood. While Alicia was in her frenzy, Juli grabbed my other knife from her pocket, and jammed it into Alicia’s head.
          Alicia fell to the floor, and whimpered. She was not dead, nor could she be from this. The only way to kill a member of the Darkness is to behead them, and burn the head. Once again, that was another reason they were in control, invincible, and immortal.
          Alicia shrieked in misery, and wailed. She could feel the pain; it just couldn’t hurt her by the actual definition of the word. Although I would say she was hurt.
          “Adam now!” Juli screamed at me. Thank the heavens that my siblings had fallen asleep, but my parents were in a state of shock. I didn’t know how to tell them what was happening, but I didn’t have time to stammer over words. I needed to get out. “I can give you two minutes! GO!” She yelled, and plunged the knife into Alicia’s abdomen, who writhed in pain and curled over to her side and whimpered louder.
          I ran up my stairs to my bedroom, and grabbed my old backpack from last year. I stuffed it with five shirts, and three pairs of pants. I grabbed seven pairs of socks, and twelve pairs of underwear. The numbers I was grabbing didn’t make sense, but it was whatever was the closest.
          Then I looked over to my dresser drawer, and grabbed it out. I didn’t want Alicia to get her hands on this. My memories. Simple things, like my first clarinet reed from fifth grade, and photos. I took three things: a picture of Trent and Denine, a picture of Juli and I, and a picture of my family, without Alicia looming in the background.
          I ran down the stairs, to see Juli taking the knife out of Alicia’s right arm. “Juli, c’mon!” I yelled at her, but she was one step ahead of me; already out the door.
          I grabbed the knife that Alicia had taken from me in the first place, and then followed Juli out the door.
          “Adam!” My father’s voice boomed behind me, and he then yelled something incoherent, because I slammed the door after hearing my name.
          Then we were running again. Where were we running? I had no idea. I was just following Juli. We ran past trees, and we ran past houses, and at one point, we were just running, and I wasn’t sure if she even had a destination in mind.
          Then, after what seemed like hours, we stopped.
          “We’re here.” Juli puffed. She seemed to glow at her accomplishment.
          “But Juli, I thought you didn’t live with your parents. I thought they kicked you out.” That was what he told me. Surely she couldn’t expect her parents to be okay with harboring a fugitive.
          “I don’t. This is my house. I live alone. I told you that as well.” She smiled. She did say she lived alone, I just assumed it was behind a convenience store or something.
          “Well, let’s go in, maybe I can sign with Demetrius.”
          She looked puzzled for a moment, and then retorted with a smile on her face, “I can’t believe you actually fell for that!” She announced.
          I stared at her incredulously for a brief second, and then it registered.
          She lied earlier. She had not signed with the Darkness.
          “So what, both of us are just going to live here with no protection?” I asked, I didn’t think it was possible to survive this long without protection.
          “Yeah, just come on in. We’re safe in the house.” She smiled, like she knew something the Darkness didn’t.
          “Where do you think you’re going?” I heard her voice, “Grab her Alicia, Scarlet you grab the other one.”
          We turned to see the Darkness, all eight of them, standing there in front of us. Edward was giving the commands. They all wore black robes, almost to add to the effect, because under that was designer clothing. Scarlet, Isabella, and Francesca were in Prada clothing, while Edward, Brandon, Demetrious, and Antony were in Abercrombie & Finch. Expensive.
          Then the cold hands closed around our wrists. As hard as steel, I couldn’t move, she had me. It was Alicia, holding me down. She was wearing bloody rags. Obviously she didn’t want to ruin her good cloths by bleeding on them. She was still in the uniform black coat, and still looked gorgeous. Life was so easy for all of them.
          Edward and Isabella, the only couple of the Darkness, came up to us. Isabella stroked my chin, as if to inspect me. “So these two are the ones that did that to you?” Isabella started to laugh, “They’re nothing. How on earth did they do that?” She was in hysterics laughing at her companion.
          “We’ll deal with them.” Edward’s smile twisted up.
          Edward was the nice one of the Darkness, but he was also sadistic if he needed to be.
          “Now!” Juli yelled at me, like we had a plan. I had no idea what to do, so I just kicked. I kicked everywhere, until Alicia grunted. She was still in pain! I thrust the knife into her, as she fell over.
          “Juli didn’t kick, she didn’t have time, she thrust the knife so hard behind her that she slit a small part of her shoulder, while in the process of slicing Scarlet’s head right off. Scarlet searched the ground for her head, until I reached into my pocket and pulled out my lighter. I sparked it to life, and lit Scarlet’s head ablaze.
          It was a good thing we were junkies, otherwise we would be dead by now, what with no knives or lighters.
          Juli ran to do the same to Alicia, whom I wanted to watch die, but then realized we had six other ravenous ones of the Darkness stalking slowly our way.
          “Go Juli!” I yelled at her, as I ran in the opposite direction, forcing Edward, Isabella, and Brandon to come after me.
          I heard Alicia shriek, and then silence. Right now the old saying was true. Silence truly was golden.
          I turned to face the others, and was ready to fight. I charged Edward. As I went screaming, with one step out of my way, I flew directly into a tree, again. I didn’t have time to fall over.
          I grabbed my knife tighter, and charged again. This time Brandon caught the blade in his hands. His palm started to bleed, but he just laughed at my attempt. I was thrown back, but then it happened. What I had expected. His blood attracted Isabella and Edward. They couldn’t help it! They came closer and closer to him, as he slowly backed away, and then I ran in the opposite direction, to help Juli.
          As I approached Juli, I heard Brandon’s scream, and then silence again. It was almost frightening.
          Juli was in a tight situation, she had her knife in Francesca’s throat, but Demetrious was holding her down, whilst Antony was breaking her fingers. They liked hearing her scream.
          They were attacking her much more ferociously than the others were attacking me.
          I took advantage of their lack of knowledge of my presence. I lunged at Demetrious, and sliced off his head, and quickly lit his head ablaze, and as I did so, Juli jammed the knife into Francesca’s neck, and then sliced Antony’s head off with one fluid motion. I was impressed.
          As I lit Antony’s head on fire, beheaded Francesca, and set her up in smoke as well.
          Two left.
          However, Edward and Isabella were all of a sudden right behind us. “Thank you for the help.” Edward admitted graciously.
          “Although next time we’ll need to go a little tougher on the victims, I’m surprised you didn’t catch on.” Isabella was laughing menacingly.
          “What?” I asked them. I didn’t believe what I was hearing.
          “You couldn’t have possibly believed that this was us trying our hardest to beat two humans. Did you?” He was laughing now too. “I though you would have caught on when we attacked Brandon.”
          “I thought you were just bloodthirsty.” I was grimacing now, not understanding.
          “We were, but we wouldn’t have killed him if we didn’t want to. You must know we have more willpower than that!” He laughed again. He was right, Alicia sparred me earlier, although she wanted it, she withdrew. It was a trick.
          “But why would you do this to your companions?” Juli wasn’t at all confused. She looked angry. Bitter. Disgusted.
          “Well, now that they’re all gone, we’re the only ones in charge of this town.” Edward filled us in on his train of thought, so much for the nice one.
          We were both consciously backing up now. I remembered what Juli had said, about how we’d be safe inside the house. I was trying desperately to get there in time, with Juli by my side.
          “Now, we need to dispose of you as well.” They both stalked forward, pushing us closer to the house at a faster pace. Exactly what we wanted.
          “Go Juli!” I yelled. I turned to look at her, and it looked like she knew exactly what I meant to do. She dashed towards the house.
          “Damn you!” Edward yelled.
          Then he moved next to me at the speed of sound, and grabbed me, restraining my arms behind my back. As Juli was reaching the steps, then Isabella was after her.
          “You lose.” Edward whispered in my ear, and then he grabbed my throat, and slowly turned my head, to see Juli and Isabella standing in the doorway. I guess I’ll never know if Juli survived.
          “Last words?” Edward asked me.
          At the top of my lungs I screamed, “I LOVE YOU JULI!”
          She turned to look at me, and I saw her whisper “forever.”
          Then Edward laughed, the last thing I was sure I would ever hear.
          And then I felt a crunching pain.
          It all went black.