I stood in the middle of the ice water, but I couldn't feel the cold. I had not felt cold in two hundred years. My icy heart stood frozen between beats, between breaths, the same as it always would. Like the ice, I was frozen in place. Like the ice, I could crack.

She had jammed the pick into my heart and caused it to shatter.

I looked out across the vast stretch of water that was the Arctic, Novaya Zemlya to my back. The island had all but been abandoned in recent years, no doubt due to its harsh winter climate. It rarely rose above the freezing point, but the wildlife was plentiful. Walrus and polar bears.

I inhaled the chilled air, numbing the burning in my throat, if only temporarily. The months since I, since we, had fled Volterra had been difficult on us all.

I hadn't been thinking when I seized Isabella and Jasper, fleeing from Aro's wrath. I hadn't been thinking in the first weeks that followed. However, in the last few weeks, I could do nothing but think. Today, all that thinking had led to an explosive end.

Aro had been controlling my memories. Of that much, I was now certain. The hazy fog that had surrounded the events of my past had slowly lifted in the first weeks after I left. But with that fog also went my peace. I remembered who that beautiful girl was: Isabella. I understood now my intense desire to protect her. I longed eternally to be with her.

I learned to passionately hate the man I had once called brother.

We had planted ourselves on this island for mere hours when Jasper first approached me. In the voice of a trained and deadly maniac, he hissed, "Don't touch my wife. I will not hesitate to take your life." I hastily agreed, confused then as to his tone and words. What had I ever done for this man to hate me? I knew now, after the fog cleared, what had been hidden to me now. Jasper had every right, every reason, to hate me now.

That I had been her lover first was still constantly in his mind.

That I had killed his wife, he soon found out.

With the haze gone, I hated him as well.

Today ended it all. We could never change the past, but I knew that from the start. What I did not realize was that we could never recover from it either. There would be no gathering of pieces and mending them back into a life. We had destroyed each other completely. My existence had destroyed her beyond repair.

Isabella and I had a tense, distant relationship with each other on that island. We avoided the other's presence, for the most part. Jasper complicated matters as well. He refused to leave her alone with me. Could I blame him? I would have done the same, had I been in his place. I was her whole life once, and I would do anything to remove the man in my love's past. Only now, that man was my brother.

I could only think of her in a cold, clinical manner. She was my lover. We were a couple. I left her to die alone. Jasper found her alone. He bit her when the bloodlust took her. I was to blame for this mess we were in. I alone was to blame.

I longed to hold her in my arms. I hated Jasper for making love to her. I could hear them early in the day, carried out to my beach on the morning breeze. They waited until I left, thankfully, but even they did not realize how sound traveled in this silent place. She belonged with me.

So it was a naturally rare and shocking event when I found myself alone in the house with Isabella. Perhaps if their morning activities had not been so physical, he would not have left her there with me. But as with any of our kind, he required food. Unable to adapt back to our vegetarian lifestyle with ease, Jasper typically ran to the mainland in search of wandering souls. He must have found his victim because he was absent for quite some time.

She silently approached the study where I spent my afternoons in thought. I never read. Not a book in the world held the pleasure or distraction I needed to escape my thoughts. I had buried myself so deeply in my depraved mind that I never heard her steps. She was at my side, touching my shoulder, before I acknowledged her presence.

"You should not be here, Isabella. You know this." My voice came out more harshly than I intended, so I added more softly, "Jasper would not be pleased." Even as I said these words, I wished I could take them back. I wished I could take her in my arms, kiss her with the passion I had locked in my heart, throw her to the floor...I stopped my mind with a shake of my head before my thoughts caused me to break my resolve.

But something about having Isabella's warm, hard body in my lap...forcing our faces together...parting my lips with her firm tongue...

Our bodies were thoroughly entangled, our mouths leaving passionate marks on each other, before my brain registered what had happened. Bella, my meek and shy Bella, had thrown herself at me. She initiated everything, but I certainly made no attempt to stop her.

For just those few moments, I did not give a damn about my brother or his wife. I cared only about the beautiful woman who was making love to me with her tongue. When her hand moved to my belt and her body moved to her knees, I grabbed her wrist to halt her movement. I would not see her there, degraded to that position, as I had placed so many whores before. Instead, I gathered her in my arms softly and carried her to my isolated room.

Behind closed doors, we took the time to undress each other properly. No need to destroy our clothes. We had eternity to play this out. The two of us, naked and wrapped up in each other, felt right. I knew she felt this as well. Her face radiated with a light I had yet to see since she came back into my life.

Just as our passion had moved to a new level, I felt myself lifted from the comfort of her arms. The sensation of flying was exhilarating, followed by the brief pain I felt when I shattered the rock formation on the far end of the clearing. His fierce growl cut through the air, even at the distance he had placed between us.

I felt his hand around my throat, pinning me to a nearby tree, before I even heard his thoughts. But when they did catch his body, his thoughts rushed out at a speed that was difficult to read. His words, however, were clear enough with time.

Animal. Violator. You left her to die, left her for me. Mine. She's my wife. You have no right. You have no claim.

He was right. I had no claim. I, who had prided myself on the morality which I was born to, had no right to another man's wife.

His thoughts screamed for a fight, a chance to tear me apart, a fight for the lady's heart. I aquested with a slight nod. He released my throat as we headed deeper into the forest, to the opposite side of the island. Bella need not hear this lover's fight.

We stalked out to our fighting positions, bent on our useless spat. I tried to communicate first.

"Jasper, I did not approach her first. She..."

"Don't villainize her, you ass," Jasper hiss quickly. "Your empty words mean nothing to a man who has seen what you are truly capable of. Even Isabella, she had no idea. Innocent fantasies in her head."

His words puzzled me, but his crouching stance told me that he did not intend to continue his thoughts. I bent over as well, ready enough in my mind to kill my brother for the woman that I loved.

We had taken our fight outside, but not far enough to escape a vampire's hearing. She had not even bothered to dress, wrapping herself in the bedsheet instead. Neither of us saw her running, but we both felt her body as she placed herself between us, two male animals lunging for the other's throat, the sound like ice breaking from its cap.

As she stood there, forcing us apart with her small hands, her animalistic screams filling the air, I saw the harsh reality of it all. The anger in her features. We had done this to her. Part of her desired me, still desired me, despite all I had done to her. Part of her felt the physical tie to the man who had brushed her bruised body off and fixed her heart. She could never choose between the two of us. The realization forced me to drop my hands. The act of choosing would kill what was left of her.

Her dark eyes told me that she loved me, but she was too devoted to him. I did not then understand her devotion, only see its truth. Time had not been my friend. Instead, time had taught her to love again. She had only done what I had asked her to do. She had moved on. Only, what I had intended would have left her human. I never meant for her to do this.

I stopped fighting. For her. For us. I had killed her once already, physically. This fight would only kill her soul. I would not be responsible for its death as well. I would leave them in peace, for me to do what, I did not know. But I could never hurt her more than I already had today. My eyes must have told of this change, because Bella whispered to me through the hazy.

"No. Edward. Don't."

Her soft, angelic voice. While that, too, had changed, her voice was her beauty wrapped in song. The depth of her eyes, heaven circled in red, begged me for what could never be. Stay with me. Make this work. I can't live without you again. But I could never stay.

I excused myself quietly with a bow, but I noticed that Jasper had to hold Bella back. Keep her from running to my arms. What had I done to her now? She would hurt from my absence as well. Nothing I did would be right.

But I knew where to run this time.

Esme had told me once that Carlisle, my father, had buried his soul deep in Africa. To Africa, I would run. Carlisle would know. He would know where I had gone so terribly wrong. He would know how to fix this thing. He would know.

He had to know.

Even as I returned to our house to gather my clothing, I could hear Bella sob across the island. I hated myself once again.