New Moon - Meyer Stephenie. Страница 60

As soon as I reached the beach, I wished I hadn't come—I'd already had enough of this place. I'd been here almost every day, wandering alone. Was it so much different from my nightmares? But where else to go? I trudged down to the driftwood tree, and sat at the end so that I could lean against the tangled roots. I stared up at the angry sky broodingly, waiting for the first drops to break the stillness.

I tried not to think about the danger Jacob and his friends were in. Because nothing could happen to Jacob. The thought was unendurable. I'd lost too much already—would fate take the last few shreds of peace left behind? That seemed unfair, out of balance. But maybe I'd violated some unknown rule, crossed some line that had condemned me. Maybe it was wrong to be so involved with myths and legends, to turn my back on the human world. Maybe…

No. Nothing would happen to Jacob. I had to believe that or I wouldn't be able to function.

"Argh!" I groaned, and jumped off the log. I couldn't sit still; it was worse than pacing.

I'd really been counting on hearing Edward this morning. It seemed like that was the one thing that might make it bearable to live through this day. The hole had been festering lately, like it was getting revenge for the times that Jacob's presence had tamed it. The edges burned.

The waves picked up as I paced, beginning to crash against the rocks, but there was still no wind. I felt pinned down by the pressure of the storm. Everything swirled around me, but it was perfectly still where I stood. The air had a faint electric charge—I could feel the static in my hair.

Farther out, the waves were angrier than they were along the shore. I could see them battering against the line of the cliffs, spraying big white clouds of sea foam into the sky. There was still no movement in the air, though the clouds roiled more quickly now. It was eerie looking—like the clouds were moving by their own will. I shivered, though I knew it was just a trick of the pressure.

The cliffs were a black knife edge against the livid sky. Staring at them, I remembered the day Jacob had told me about Sam and his "gang." I thought of the boys—the werewolves—throwing themselves into the empty air. The image of the falling, spiraling figures was still vivid in my mind. I imagined the utter freedom of the fall… I imagined the way Edward's voice would have sounded in my head—furious, velvet, perfect… The burning in my chest flared agonizingly.

There had to be some way to quench it. The pain was growing more and more intolerable by the second. I glared at the cliffs and the crashing waves.

Well, why not? Why not quench it right now?

Jacob had promised me cliff diving, hadn't he? Just because he was unavailable, should I have to give up the distraction I needed so badly—needed even worse because Jacob was out risking his life? Risking it, in essence, for me. If it weren't for me, Victoria would not be killing people here… just somewhere else, far away. If anything happened to Jacob, it would be my fault. That realization stabbed deep and had me jogging back up to the road toward Billy's house, where my truck waited.

I knew my way to the lane that passed closest to the cliffs, but I had to hunt for the little path that would take me out to the ledge. As I followed it, I looked for turns or forks, knowing that Jake had planned to take me off the lower outcropping rather than the top, but the path wound in a thin single line toward the brink with no options. I didn't have time to find another way down—the storm was moving in quickly now. The wind was finally beginning to touch me, the clouds pressing closer to the ground. Just as I reached the place where the dirt path fanned out into the stone precipice, the first drops broke through and splattered on my face.

It was not hard to convince myself that I didn't have time to search for another way—I wanted to jump from the top. This was the image that had lingered in my head. I wanted the long fall that would feel like flying.

I knew that this was the stupidest, most reckless thing I had done yet. The thought made me smile. The pain was already easing, as if my body knew that Edward's voice was just seconds away…

The ocean sounded very far away, somehow farther than before, when I was on the path in the trees. I grimaced when I thought of the probable temperature of the water. But I wasn't going to let that stop me.

The wind blew stronger now, whipping the rain into eddies around me.

I stepped out to the edge, keeping my eyes on the empty space in front of me. My toes felt ahead blindly, caressing the edge of the rock when they encountered it. I drew in a deep breath and held it . . waiting.

"Bella."

I smiled and exhaled.

Yes? I didn't answer out loud, for fear that the sound of my voice would shatter the beautiful illusion. He sounded so real, so close. It was only when lie was disapproving like this that I could hear the true memory of his voice—the velvet texture and the musical intonation that made up the most perfect of all voices.

"Don't do this," he pleaded.

You wanted me to be human, I reminded him. Well, watch me.

"Please. For me."

But you won't stay with me any other way.

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

I rolled up onto the balls of my feet.

"No, Bella!" He was angry now, and the anger was so lovely.

I smiled and raised my arms straight out, as if I were going to dive, lifting my face into the rain. But it was too ingrained from years of swimming at the public pool—feet first, first time. I leaned forward, crouching to get more spring…

And I flung myself off the cliff.

I screamed as I dropped through the open air like a meteor, but it was a scream of exhilaration and not fear. The wind resisted, trying vainly to fight the unconquerable gravity, pushing against me and twirling me in spirals like a rocket crashing to the earth.

Yes! The word echoed through my head as I sliced through the surface of the water. It was icy, colder than I'd feared, and yet the chill only added to the high.

I was proud of myself as I plunged deeper into the freezing black water. I 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 me.

I'd been so preoccupied by the size of the cliffs, by the obvious danger of their high, sheer faces, that I hadn't worried at all about the dark water waiting. I never dreamed that the true menace was lurking far below me, under the heaving surf.

It felt like the waves were fighting over me, jerking me back and forth between them as if determined to share by pulling me into halves. I knew the right way to avoid a riptide: swim parallel to the beach rather than struggling for the shore. But the knowledge did me little good when I didn't know which way the shore was.

I couldn't even tell which way the surface was.

The angry water was black in every direction; there was no brightness to direct me upward. Gravity was all-powerful when it competed with the air, but it had nothing on the waves—I couldn't feel a downward pull, a sinking in any direction. Just the battering of the current that flung me round and round like a rag doll.

I fought to keep my breath in, to keep my lips locked around my last store of oxygen.

It didn't surprise me that my delusion of Edward was there. He owed me that much, considering that I was dying. I was surprised by how sure that knowledge was. I was going to drown. I was drowning.

"Keep swimming!" Edward begged urgently in my head.

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