Fear Against Love
For the last ninety years of my immortal life, I thought that vampirism had freed me from fear. But as Bella's screams rang in my ears, fear was shaking me to the core. "My hand is burning!" she cried as she writhed in agony. I knew all too well what she was experiencing. The venom was burning its way through her veins, torturing her so badly that the wound on her head and the bleeding cut on her thigh felt dull.
"It's the venom!" I reported to Carlisle, who was helping Alice secure the bleeding thigh.
"You have to make a choice. You could let the change happen," Carlisle told me with such calm straightforwardness that it shocked me.
The scent of Bella's blood thickly perfumed the air around me. It clouded my thinking. Resisting the urge to lick the blood from her wounds took the height of my control that, for the first time, my head ached. "No!" It would be cruel to subject Bella to experience I was suffering from, right now.
"It's gonna happen, Edward! I've seen it!" said Alice.
"It doesn't have to be that way!" I argued. "Carlisle, what's my other option?"
Carlisle seemed to not have heard me. He and Alice made a makeshift tourniquet using Alice's belt. "You can suck the venom out, but there are consequences," warned Alice. "She will be at risk to this kind of physical damage. Charlie and the Quileutes will be suspicious. The worst-case scenarios have high odds. If you ask me, we should just let it happen and spare ourselves the trouble of trying to protect her. We can deal with subsequent problems later. It will be easier for all involved in the long run."
"She has minutes left," said Carlisle.
I looked at Bella. Would immortality make her happy? I contemplated Alice's advice. "Let the venom reach her heart," I said solemnly. "I want her, forever."
Alice and Carlisle smiled. Bella's body shuddered violently and her screams dwindled into one sharp gasp. Her eyes rolled to the back of her skull. The pain was too much, but there was nothing any of us could do except secure her wounds to keep her alive through the transformation.
By the time we arrived in our home the next day, Bella had fallen into a coma. "The transformation will be easier for her," Carlisle gladly told me while Esme stripped and washed Bella's body. Her wounds were already healing.
Days later, the transformation had finished. Clothed in a blue dress Alice had wanted to lend to her for prom, Bella was perfection. We all watched as Bella's eyes opened. Instead of the soft brown I had come to love, her eyes were hard and red. She looked confused, trying to make sense of the new sensations she was feeling. I remembered: It was just like being born again. "I'm here, Bella," I said, holding her head before she could start panicking.
She instantly calmed down. She gazed upon my hand and squeezed it. "You're warm," she said.
I smiled. "We are the same temperature now," I said, glancing at the full-length mirror adjacent to the divan she was reclining in. Bella sat up and followed my gaze. I held her body close in case the realization would overwhelm her. To all our surprise, Bella smiled. She rested her head on my shoulder and locked me in an embrace so tight I couldn't move. "Bella," I said, "you are stronger than me right now." She looked at me, glowing with pride. "It's your turn not to break me," I said.
With Alice's encouragement, I took Bella on her first hunt. In what turned out to be a feat of power, Bella drew herself away from the lure of human prey when we ventured too close. When we arrived home, the whole family showered her with praises, except Rosalie, who stayed away. When all was quiet, Bella tried to talk with Rosalie. Carlisle had to persuade me to let her go alone. I had to listen to the two argue.
"Go blather to someone else about the joys of being a newborn!" snapped Rosalie.
"Rosalie," said Bella, "I don't understand what I did to make you hate me so much."
Rosalie scoffed. "I don't hate you," she said calmly. "I don't particularly like you, but, Bella, I envied you."
"What? That's ridiculous!"
"No, it's not! … I don't care how miserable your human life was. But now, not only will you never be able to bear a child; you will never see your family and friends again!"
"I don't understand …"
"What, did you think you can just show yourself to the public with your red eyes?"
"I can wear contacts," said Bella indignantly. "You can go to Forks High; why can't I?"
"Because everyone thinks you're dead," said Rosalie.
There was a moment of stunned silence. I had to intervene. In Rosalie's bedroom, Bella stood like a statue while Rosalie waited for a proper response from her. "Bella," I began, "instead of cleaning up the mess in the ballet studio, we left traces of the fight we had with James. Your blood was all over the floor. If we were going to keep you immortal, we had to hide you from everybody who knows you."
"Why?" asked Bella.
I beckoned her to give me her hand. "Come, let me show you something."
I led Bella to a gallery of paintings Carlisle had collected in the centuries. One of them was a portrait of the Volturi with Carlisle. "The Volturi is the closest thing our world has to royalty. They enforce the law."
"Vampires have laws?"
"Not very many," I explained, "but only one is regularly enforced: that we keep the existence of our kind a secret. We don't make spectacles of ourselves, and we don't kill conspicuously, unless, of course, you want to die."
"Is that why Rosalie was against our relationship?"
"It's simple, really," said Alice's voice. She had joined us in the gallery. "You were a human who knew everything there was to know about vampires. They could have killed us all."
I sighed. "Alice wanted you to be turned because that was the only way we could save ourselves from the Volturi without losing you."
"So, bound by the law to keep—our kind—a secret, nobody has to know I'm a vampire because I won't grow older. If I stay like this after ten years, people will notice."
"Exactly," said Alice.
Bella gave it a thought. She walked away. "I need time alone."
In the next days when Bella didn't come near me, my family and I made arrangements to leave town. We notified our cousins in Alaska that we would move back in with them. Sisters Irina, Kate, and Tanya were thrilled to have us back. We didn't have to sneak into Chief Swan's house for Bella's things. Alice was more than happy to buy new clothes for Bella.
On the week we were to leave, Bella snuggled up against me in my room. "No more school?" she asked.
"Yes, and no more prom," I said. "I'm sorry you're going to have to miss it."
"You can take me to prom when I'm ready," she said. "Do you want to go to our meadow?"
I grinned fondly at Bella. We both went to the meadow. As we had expected, rays of the sun were bursting through the clouds there. Bella slowly went into the light. She watched in awe as her skin sparkled in response to direct sunlight. She lay on the grass and looked at me. "Edward," she said softly, "take off my clothes."
With no consequences to our lovemaking, I had nothing to be afraid of. I uncovered Bella's body, which was now mine to hold. And I was hers. Making love was the single most delicious thing either of us had ever experienced. By the time we were catching our breath in each other's arms, we knew we were going to be happy. I for one would no longer be left out when Carlisle and Esme, Alice and Jasper, and Emmett and Rosalie were doing their thing. I'd love Bella like this for the next thousand years.
When we were getting dressed, a few hours later, we heard rustling in the woods. We had barely reacted when a woman with vivid red hair burst from the canopy and charged against Bella. I hadn't even reached for my new mate when a pair of arms pinned me against a tree. Laurent was keeping me from interfering with Victoria's attack on Bella. "I thought you were with Irina and the others!" I said to him, kicking him away from me.
"I can't help it if I can't maintain the same discipline as you Yellow Eyes do!" said Laurent.
The four of us destroyed earth and plants and trees on our respective duels. When Laurent was close to ripping my head off, a slender arm smashed his head in. "Are you alright?" asked Bella.
The cracks in my head closed as I sat up. Victoria's and Laurent's severed body parts were still twitching. "You stay here," I told Bella. "I'll go and fetch fire."
When I came back with a lighter and Carlisle, Emmett, and Jasper, Bella was conversing with a tall and muscular Quileute man wearing a sleeveless shirt and jean shorts. Bella looked worried.
"It's alright, Bella," said Carlisle. Carlisle smiled at the young man. "Hello, Sam Uley. You need not be too concerned with these. My family will leave town in a few days."
"Good," he said. "A few of the younger boys in the reservation are beginning to exhibit symptoms of their own transformation. Your departure may spare them the burden of sharing my responsibility."
"Then we'll make haste," I told Sam.
Sam nodded respectfully and then left.
We brought a lock of Laurent's hair to Alaska. We hoped our reintegration with our cousins would be a peaceful one.