Her eyes popped wide open, and then began flickering wildly from Edward to Seth to me, around and around. "Not the same?" she snarled in her little girl's soprano. "Impossible!"
"Nothing is impossible," Edward murmured, voice velvet soft as he moved another inch closer to her. "Except what you want. You'll never touch her."
She shook her head, fast and jerky, fighting his diversions, and tried to duck around him, but he was in place to block her as soon as she'd thought of the plan. Her face contorted in frustration, and then she shifted lower into her crouch, a lioness again, and stalked deliberately forward.
Victoria was no inexperienced, instinct-driven newborn. She was lethal. Even I could tell the difference between her and Riley, and I knew that Seth wouldn't have lasted so long if he'd been fighting this vampire.
Edward shifted, too, as they closed on each other, and it was lion versus lioness.
The dance increased in tempo.
It was like Alice and Jasper in the meadow, a blurred spiraling of movement, only this dance was not as perfectly choreographed. Sharp crunches and crackings reverberated off the cliff face whenever someone slipped in their formation. But they were moving too fast for me to see who was making the mistakes. . . .
Riley was distracted by the violent ballet, his eyes anxious for his partner. Seth struck, crunching off another small piece of the vampire. Riley bellowed and launched a massive backhanded blow that caught Seth full in his broad chest. Seth's huge body soared ten feet and crashed into the rocky wall over my head with a force that seemed to shake the whole peak. I heard the breath whoosh from his lungs, and I ducked out of the way as he rebounded off the stone and collapsed on the ground a few feet in front of me.
A low whimper escaped through Seth's teeth.
Sharp fragments of gray stone showered down on my head, scratching my exposed skin. A jagged spike of rock rolled down my right arm and I caught it reflexively. My fingers clenched around the long shard as my own survival instincts kicked in; since there was no chance of flight, my body - not caring how ineffectual the gesture was - prepared for a fight.
Adrenaline jolted through my veins. I knew the brace was cutting into my palm. I knew the crack in my knuckle was protesting. I knew it, but I could not feel the pain.
Behind Riley, all I could see was the twisting flame of Victoria's hair and a blur of white. The increasingly frequent metallic snaps and tears, the gasps and shocked hissings, made it clear that the dance was turning deadly for someone.
But which someone?
Riley lurched toward me, his red eyes brilliant with fury. He glared at the limp mountain of sand-colored fur between us, and his hands - mangled, broken hands - curled into talons. His mouth opened, widened, his teeth glistening, as he prepared to rip out Seth's throat.
A second kick of adrenaline hit like an electric shock, and everything was suddenly very clear.
Both fights were too close. Seth was about to lose his, and I had no idea if Edward was winning or losing. They needed help. A distraction. Something to give them an edge.
My hand gripped the stone spike so tightly that a support in the brace snapped.
Was I strong enough? Was I brave enough? How hard could I shove the rough stone into my body? Would this buy Seth enough time to get back on his feet? Would he heal fast enough for my sacrifice to do him any good?
I raked the point of the shard up my arm, yanking my thick sweater back to expose the skin, and then pressed the sharp tip to the crease at my elbow. I already had a long scar there from my last birthday. That night, my flowing blood had been enough to catch every vampire's attention, to freeze them all in place for an instant. I prayed it would work that way again. I steeled myself and sucked in one deep breath.
Victoria was distracted by the sound of my gasp. Her eyes, holding still for one tiny portion of a second, met mine. Fury and curiosity mingled strangely in her expression.
I wasn't sure how I heard the low sound with all the other noises echoing off the stone wall and hammering inside my head. My own heartbeat should have been enough to drown it out. But, in the split second that I stared into Victoria's eyes, I thought I heard a familiar, exasperated sigh.
In that same short second, the dance broke violently apart. It happened so quickly that it was over before I could follow the sequence of events. I tried to catch up in my head.
Victoria had flown out of the blurred formation and smashed into a tall spruce about halfway up the tree. She dropped back to the earth already crouched to spring.
Simultaneously, Edward - all but invisible with speed - had twisted backward and caught the unsuspecting Riley by the arm. It had looked like Edward planted his foot against Riley's back, and heaved -
The little campsite was filled with Riley's piercing shriek of agony.
At the same time, Seth leaped to his feet, cutting off most of my view.
But I could still see Victoria. And, though she looked oddly deformed - as if she were unable to straighten up completely - I could see the smile I'd been dreaming of flash across her wild face.
She coiled and sprang.
Something small and white whistled through the air and collided with her mid-flight. The impact sounded like an explosion, and it threw her against another tree - this one snapped in half. She landed on her feet again, crouched and ready, but Edward was already in place. Relief swelled in my heart when I saw that he stood straight and perfect.
Victoria kicked something aside with a flick of her bare foot - the missile that had crippled her attack. It rolled toward me, and I realized what it was.
My stomach lurched.
The fingers were still twitching; grasping at blades of grass, Riley's arm began to drag itself mindlessly across the ground.