A/n: Hello, everyone. First I'd like to point out the usual: all content and characters were created by, and are owned by Stephenie Meyer. I simply write for fun and do not make any money with it.
And second, this is my first story. I hope many of you read it and enjoy it ^^
Important: the story picks up towards the end of 'Twilight', and explores what could have happened if Bella had not been saved and she had actually turned into a vampire by James's venom. I start at chapter 23 and then steadily start my own version.
Chapter 23. The Angel
As I drifted, I dreamed.
Where I floated, under the dark water, I heard the happiest sound my mind could conjure up – as beautiful, as uplifting, as it was ghastly. It was another snarl; a deeper, wilder roar that rang with fury.
I was brought back, almost to the surface, by a sharp pain slashing my upraised hand, but I couldn't find my way back far enough to open my eyes.
And then I knew I was dead.
Because through the heavy water, I heard the sound of an angel calling my name, calling me to the only heaven I wanted.
"Oh no, Bella, no!" the angel's voice cried in horror.
But then the longed-for sound was cut off abruptly by a vicious growl, resonating all the way to my core. It pulled me a bit closer to the surface, but not enough for me to find my eyes or my mouth. My ears were my only way out of the dark pool; until they heard an awful tumult that my mind shied away from. Wood was shrieking as it was being ripped, more mirror shards shattered to the ground. And there were loud snapping sounds, hisses and growls.
I wanted to turn away, turn my back to the violence and creep into myself. Instead I sank deeper again under the surface. But the cool dark water wasn't so cool anymore. There was heat somewhere, fire, burning…
It originated from the same place where I'd felt the slashing pain before; it was my hand. It felt like the side of it was being scorched a blowtorch. Then it moved and spread along each of my fingers. The pain was more intense than anything I'd felt before. I wanted to moan, to sob, but I still had no lips.
Who was doing this to me? Why? It hurt so much. Why didn't it stop?
Not only did it not stop, it continued up my arm, slowly reaching my elbow, then my shoulder, until it split my head open and the pain was finally enough to force me to make a sound.
"It's all right, Bella, sweety." Someone responded to my sob. It was only then that I realized I wasn't alone anymore. I tried to concentrate harder; until I could discern two sets of voices conversing in tense whispers. A high soprano and a soothing male one. They were Alice and Carlisle. The tumult from before was gone, I heard nothing but the voices.
"She's lost some blood but the head wound isn't deep," Carlisle's calm voice reached me. "Watch out for her leg, it's broken." I felt a sharp stab in my side. Where had my heaven gone? Where was the angel? "Some ribs, too, I think." Carlisle's methodical voice continued. "Hold your breath, Alice, it will help."
"But…" Alice started hesitantly. "Her blood, it smells strange."
"It's the morphine." Carlisle answered automatically.
I heard some shuffling sounds. Usually I could never hear vampires move. Maybe stress made them more clumsy?
"No, it's not the same." Alice insisted. "Something's wrong." Anxiety crept into her voice.
There was a short pause.
"You're right." Carlisle continued, sounding much less calm and assured. "There must be something I missed." He reproached himself.
I felt more prodding and searching along my limbs, until Alice's tiny fingers finally found my hand, which had apparently been stuck beneath my body.
"Carlisle, her hand!"
"He bit her." He sounded appalled.
There was a longer pause this time. A silence loaded with tense decision-making.
"Can we…?" Alice's voice trailed off.
"No, the fact that we can smell it means it has spread too far already."
Was he talking about the fire? It had to be. It was the only thing spreading through me. It had reached my second shoulder and was going down my arm.
"Edward will –" Alice's voice was barely a whisper now.
"I know."
"What can we do?"
"There's no point in worrying about her other wounds now. I'll make her as comfortable as I can, then we have to get her back to Forks as quickly as possible. Changing on the road is hell; but changing in such a densely populated area is impossible, someone will hear her. We have no choice but to move."
Somewhere at that point, the fire reached my heart in an explosion of heat so intense I collapsed into myself and lost all contact with reality.
There's a limit to how cold things can get: 0 kelvin, or -273.15 degrees Celsius. At that point, the atoms that make up matter stop moving altogether, and the limit is reached. But heat... that's a whole other story. The core of the sun is around 15.5 million degrees Celsius, and it's not even the hottest star.
The temperature of the fire raging through me seemed to have no limit either. It was rising so high I had to have turned to plasma, to stardust; nuclear fusion must have been happening with the carbon atoms that my body contained. Though sometimes, when I felt like my mind was going to disappear, incinerated; slivers of clarity invaded my stellar core. The cosmic oven made room for some earthly reality.
I was even aware of some -very remote- coolness enveloping my body. The coolness was quickly lost in the blazing heat, but I felt the temperature difference in some places: against the left side of my body and my left arm. It also circled my waist, and supported my back and rested against my right shoulder.
The fire was still in the foreground, taking up most of my attention, but in the background I was aware of vibrations, a low thrum. The sound wasn't new, but I felt it deeper than I remembered. It was the sound of an engine, of Carlisle's black Mercedes to be precise.
Then there was another sound, a kind of constant moaning, building up to sobs, to return to moaning again, with sudden fits of screaming. It sounded like someone was in pain. In fact, it sounded like someone was in as much pain as I was.
I was worried. Who was it? Who was hurting? It wasn't Edward, was it? Had something happened to him, to Alice?
I listened more carefully, trying to push through the blaze that made concentrating hard. It shocked me more than it should when I recognized it as my voice. I wasn't even aware I was making the sound.
The shock made me shift my weight. The coolness around me shifted with me. The coolness around my waist and supporting my back, which I now recognized as arms, tightened around me.
"I'm here, Bella, I'm here." Edward's voice reassured me. I felt the vibrations of it through the coolness on my left side. I understood then where I was: cradled in his arms against his chest, in the backseat of Carlisle's car.
But that was as far as I got. I couldn't think any further. My mind was obstructed. Edward had said my name just a second ago, but I already didn't remember it. I began to lose my grip on my surroundings again, the pain was slowly taking up more room, my voice steadily grew louder, sobbing words I didn't even understand.
"I'm sorry, Bella, I'm so sorry." He sounded almost as agonized as I felt. "Carlisle," he spoke away from my ear. "please."
I'd never heard him put so much emotion in one word.
"He's not going to last very long." Alice's voice explained from my left somewhere.
Maybe a few seconds passed, maybe a year. Time felt eternal and distorted.
"Edward," Carlisle began, but he was cut off.
"No bloody way!" The sound felt like a whip against my left side. An infinitely small part of my mind wondered if I'd ever heard Edward curse.
"You saw what Alice saw." Carlisle pleaded. "You'll be no help to Bella if you lose your sanity. There's nothing we can do now but get her to Forks and wait for the conversion to complete. Let Alice take over and run behind the car for a while."
"No!" He sounded like a child now, whining because he knew he was wrong, but didn't want to admit it.
"She's probably not even aware of who's holding her, if she even knows where she is." Alice interjected.
"I can't." His voice was strangled. "I can't let her out of my sight."
A particularly piercing scream escaped my lips. It shocked me again. It reminded me of my leg snapping before, in the ballet studio. But I couldn't remember how it had happened.
Even Carlisle cursed at this point, and I felt the car swerve, lose speed quickly and come to a stop. "We can't drive any further like this. From here on the area is too densely populated again. People will hear her. We'll attract too much attention." He sighed. "Alice?"
"A police car is going to stop us at the next intersection. We can't get through with Bella screaming her lungs out." She responded. "But it isn't our worst problem. Edward is going insane!" Something close to desperation crept into her voice. A low growl/moan reverberated through my left side. The fingers left my right shoulder and pushed my head closer into the coolness, stroking what must be left of my hair.
"There's one thing we can—"
"No!" Edward interrupted Carlisle again, with more force and determination this time.
"It's all we have."
There was silence then; with not even the thrum of the engine to break it.
"What is it?" Alice asked. "Oh." She continued, probably seeing what it was through her visions. "A drug?"
"Yes," Carlisle explained in a calm and rational manner. "It's still experimental though, far away from passing health regulations. But it's growing to be the strongest painkiller we've ever had. Stronger than the morphine I gave Bella, which obviously isn't working. This is all I have left." He added for Edward's sake.
Edward moaned in time with me; in pain, like me.
"How will she react?" Carlisle asked. The question was probably aimed at Alice. Another year passed as they waited for her to see.
"It'll calm her down enough to avoid detection until we reach Forks. I can't see past that yet."
"It'll take away her pain?" Edward asked in a hoarse voice, hope flooding his tone.
"A…a little…I think so."
"What do you mean?" He demanded with a growl.
"I'm not in her head, Edward!" She answered shrilly. "I only see her reaction, not how she feels."
"It could paralyze her without releasing her from the pain?" He asked Carlisle this time, horror-struck.
"I don't know. It hasn't even been tried on humans yet."
The tension was growing too high for my mind to bear. The fire pulled me back into myself. This time, I knew I was screaming.
Years passed again at the core of the hottest, distant star. Until, abruptly, someone turned down the heat of the oven. I changed from the hottest star to a cooler one. The fire still hotter than anything known on earth, but it had in fact dimmed enough for me to pay more attention to my surroundings again.
"Bella? Can you hear me, Bella?" It was Carlisle this time. I was surprised to find that I was able to open my eyes, though my vision was awfully blurry, my pupils still burning white-hot. Five pairs of eyes were fixed on me. Edward and Carlisle were the closest, the most intense, scrutinizing every reaction on my part. "How do you feel, Bella?" Carlisle insisted. Edward seemed unable to speak.
I opened my mouth, but all I could do was breathe. I drank the oxygen as if it would put out the fire, as if I could exhale the pain, make it leave my body. It didn't work, and I squeezed my eyes shut again, gripping Edward's clothes.
"Is the pain less or more than before?" Carlisle continued in a softer, reassuring tone. "Just nod or shake your head."
I nodded briefly; the movement was awkward and jerky. I barely had control over my muscles. I heard and felt Edward exhale next to me. "Thanks, Carlisle." He sighed; then dug his head into my shoulder. I was more sensitive to the coolness now.
"Let's get moving then!" I heard Emmett's booming voice exclaim before I crept back into my bubble in Edward's arms. The thrum of the engine put me into a trance-like state.
I didn't surface again until the fire started losing terrain. At some unknown point in time it began creeping back from my extremities. The tips of my fingers and toes were released first, painless after an eternity of torture. The sensation of being pain-free was strange and alien to me.
Then, the rest of my limbs were also released, followed by the top of my head, my stomach, my neck… It was as if it was folding back to the centre of me: my heart. Once that last milestone was reached, there was a sudden silence, more penetrating than I had ever heard in my life. It took me a while to realize it was the absence of my heart beat and of the air flux in my lungs that made my body utterly still.
I kept lying there, for I did not know what else to do. I had been reduced to a pile of ashes for so long it did not occur to me yet that I could move, that I had control over a body of my own.
The stillness and absolute silence was soon interrupted by the feel of slightly warm fingertips against my chest, where my unmoving heart lay. Then his lips whispered something. "Bella." He whispered. Was that my name?
He was supposed to have a name too. I couldn't remember…
His hands brushed my hair from my face; my fresh and cool face. I revelled in the painlessness.
Then I heard the wood of a door crack as it was opened and in the next nanosecond I was standing in the opposite corner of the room, crouched and hissing at the intruding sound and smell.
"Easy, Bella." Carlisle smiled at me from the door where he'd stopped. "It's just me. You must recognize my smell."
My fresh mind whirred into action, examining the input from my nose. There were many smells in this room. The most overpowering and delicious one was his smell. I recognized it, even though it was very different from what I could remember. Then there was the smell of old wood and fresh paint, damp earth and crispy leaves, a whisk of some distant perfume, maybe in the next room; and also the smell I'd first smelled in a hospital, when I was being examined by Dr. Cullen after a van had nearly crushed me on an icy day not so long ago. This smell too, was both familiar and new. It was like discovering new facets of the smell, the dark side of the moon.
A half second later, I straightened out of my crouch and smiled back at Carlisle. Both vampires in the room relaxed their poses in response. I felt a wave of unnatural calmness wash over me.
"It's all right, Jasper." Carlisle said, apparently addressing Jasper, who wasn't in the room. "I think we're good."
The calmness dimmed, but did not disappear. I remembered now how cautious Jasper could be. I remembered…
"Edward." I said, as if the word was as natural as breathing.
"Yes." He answered as his face lit up. He hurried to my side, and for once, I was able to follow him every step of the way, though it only took him a split second to do so. I couldn't resist wrapping my arms around him.
"Careful!" Carlisle warned me before I'd had the chance to squeeze. "You're stronger than any of us now." I immediately stopped every movement, suddenly terrified of breaking him; which left me in an awkward position where my arms were around him, but just not touching.
Edward's laugh rang through the whole house and he wrapped his arms around me in response, holding me tighter than he'd ever done before, as if he could melt our bodies together. I settled for simply resting my hands on his back, very carefully. Although I nearly lost that bit of control when he started kissing me like we'd just survived an apocalypse.
Someone cleared his throat at the door. My head snapped in the direction of the sound. I'd already forgotten Carlisle's presence. "I guess I can leave you kids alone for now." He added with a grin and closed the door.
I turned back to Edward, who was still staring at me like he was seeing me for the first time.
"You're so beautiful." He breathed. And then suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, his expression darkened considerably, and he averted his eyes as if he couldn't bear to see me any longer.
I felt a sharp stab in my still heart. "What's wrong?" I asked. My voice sounded unfamiliar to me.
"I'm happy." He spit out in a disgusted tone.
I was puzzled. Not even my new and advanced mind could understand his reaction. "I'm happy too." Was all I could say. And it was the truth. At this moment, there was nowhere I wanted to be more, nothing I wanted to do more, than to be in his arms and kissing his lips. I had not a care in the world.
Edward let go of me, and it was with extreme reluctance that I let his warm body slip away from mine.
"Do you realize what you've become, Bella? Try and remember the last few days."
I frowned. I didn't want to waste time on this. I wanted him to hold me if I could not hold him because of my strength. I wanted to kiss him and never stop. But I did as he asked, because he asked, and because it seemed important to him that I would do so.
I let my mind go back to before. I remembered him in the meadow and smiled at the memory, though his face was incredibly blurry. The memory flowed into the baseball game with the Cullen family, the encounter with the strange coven of non-vegetarian vampires. I didn't like that memory so much as I felt the fear again, the panic as Edward threw me in my seat in the Jeep and raced me as fast as he could away from James. I winced as I got to the awful things I'd said to Charlie, then the trip to Phoenix, the hotel room, the airport, my mother's house, the ballet studio…
My head snapped back towards Edward.
"I…I changed." I blurted out as the sound of my last heartbeat invaded my ears.
He nodded, his face contorted in pain, guilt, frustration. "I was too late." He said with finality in his voice that iced my already stone-cold heart. His hand took mine, and I couldn't help but revel at the fact that it felt warm to my skin now. "I came just after he bit you. I heard your scream as I ran into the studio." His thumb rubbed frantically against my palm. "If I'd finished him off sooner, I could've been back in time to get the venom out, I could've –"
"Shhhh, it's all right." I said in my new lullaby voice. It rang high and clear in my ears. I hoped it would soothe him, take away his distress. "It wasn't your fault. You did all you could. If anyone should be blamed it's the idiot who ran off to meet the crazy vampire in the first place."
Edward laughed darkly. "You know, when I arrived at the airport and heard you'd gone off…just during those first moments, I was so angry at you. 'How could you go off into danger like that without me? How could you leave me behind?' I thought."
"I'm sorry." I said as I remembered how stupid and naïve I'd been, thinking James was really going to hurt my mother and running straight into his trap.
"But the worst is," Edward continued, "that I feel happy at this moment. I feel happier than I've ever been that you're here, that I can hold you, that I don't have to be afraid to kill you by mistake, or because of my desire for your blood. I'm so selfish that I'm happy to have you by my side forever; happy to have ruined your life!" The self-loathing was back in his tone.
"Stop!" I said, and had to stop myself from grabbing his arm. I could hurt him now if I wasn't careful. "You haven't ruined my life."
"Don't be absurd, Bella." He snapped at me, and immediately regretted it. "Sorry, I didn't mean to be harsh. But you don't realize it yet, do you? You don't realize what existence you will have from now on. The blood lust, the secrecy, seeing your parents die, your friends, without being able to talk to them or say goodbye. Never able to build a family. And these last few days…" He couldn't continue. He was thinking about the days I'd just spent in agony.
I too, began to remember flashes, moments in the car, arguments and discussions about what to do, my own screams and Edward's agony at hearing them. Edward is going insane! I winced.
"Yes, the past three days were hard. But they were necessary. All of you have had to pass that stage, complete the change. I'm…I'm one of you now." I finished tentatively, with a warm tingling in my cold heart.
This made him look at me again, looking me up and down, examining me from head to toe. "God, Bella!" he exclaimed just before he pushed me against the wall and started kissing me again. His distress turned into desire, he seemed to be starving for me, and I responded with just as much hunger, though controlled on my side.
We stopped when chips of wall began to break loose behind me. Esme wouldn't be too happy if we ruined the house.
"Wait," Edward said as I started to wriggle away from between him and the wall. "Stay in my arms for a bit longer." He begged into my ear. I froze instantly. I may have had superior strength, but it was no match against his tone. "I held you, all the time I kept you with me, from the moment I killed James and came back to you. But there was nothing I could do, it was too late already, it…"
My heart was tearing, the stone was shattering. It seemed like he'd barely survived until now. Alice's words were right, he had nearly gone insane, just as tortured as I was, if not more. Mine had been mere physical pain. I imagined our roles reversed, me holding him while he writhed in agony, and let out a defeated hiss of desperation.
"What's wrong?" He immediately demanded, panic instantly present. I shook my head and pushed away the mental image. I could not deal with it.
Edward sighed against my forehead. "Jasper is worrying. He thinks you need to hunt as quickly as possible. And Alice is impatient to see you."
I nodded and he led the way out of the room and down the stairs.
The first floor was completely silent. Rosalie and Emmett were standing by the window, looking out at the river which was partially obscured by the evening fall, but far from unclear or invisible to my new eyes. They also caught a reflexion in the windowpane, but I did not pay attention to it. I wasn't ready for the confrontation yet.
Alice was silently but energetically flipping through the pages of a magazine, while Jasper was leaning against the wall, regularly throwing glances at her and the stairs. And Carlisle and Esme were sitting together on the couch. They stood up once we came down.
"Bella." Esme said in a tone saturated with warmth. Her smile was equally tender and welcoming. "You're awake." She did not sound very surprised. I reminded myself that everyone must've heard me waking up. No vampire could have missed my very last heartbeat. "How are you, sweety?"
"I'm fine." I answered. I was surprised at how controlled and collected I seemed. Edward's hand lingered at the small of my back, slightly hovering.
Carlisle joined us and put a reassuring hand on Edward's shoulder. Edward slightly relaxed his pose. "Are you feeling thirsty?" Carlisle asked as he turned to me. But he made no move to touch me. Everyone seemed to be keeping a safe distance on purpose.
For the first time since I'd woken, I became aware of the uncomfortable dryness of my throat. I suddenly felt parched, like I could drink an entire lake at once. "A little." I answered carefully.
"I'll go with her." Edward immediately concluded.
"Maybe you should stay, Edward." Carlisle interjected gently. But not gently enough. His adoptive son still glared openly at him. "You've been under a lot of stress. Your body may be immune to it, but not your mind. You should allow yourself to shift your attention away from Bella for a while."
"I'll take her." Jasper joined in, shrugging away from the wall and approaching me slowly and carefully, keeping his gaze fixed on my eyes.
"I'll go too." Alice said, cutting off Edward's protest.
"I'd rather go alone." Jasper insisted.
"It's all right." She smiled and took his arm playfully. "Bella won't hurt me."
Jasper frowned, then looked back at me. A fresh wave of calm control overtook me. "I just think we need to keep the hunting party as small as possible. And I'm more suited than anyone to keep a volatile newborn under control."
"We trust your expertise." Carlisle said diplomatically. "If you think this is best…"
"I do." Jasper answered with determination, mainly directed at Edward whose hand was now clutching the fabric on my back. The same T-shirt I'd changed into in the hotel room, three days ago.
"Come on, let's have a wrestling match!" Emmett exclaimed as he slapped Edward on the back with enthusiasm. "Show me that move you used on that Ja—" He was cut off by a furious growl that came from deep in Edward's chest behind me. "All right, all right." He backpedalled. "Let's just have some fun, okay? I'll race you."
Everyone looked at Edward expectantly, until he finally conceded and followed Emmett out the door, but not before kissing my forehead for a prolonged moment.
Update: Hi again. I notice many people pass through but don't leave any reviews. To be honest, it makes me feel like no one is reading the story and it discourages me. :(
I'd be so incredibly happy if you all just left a bit of proof that you've passed through and liked it. :) Pretty please?
I wouldn't be asking if it didn't matter to me.
Thank youuu!
Aoiika