'I promise we won't hurt you,' Esme Told the girl in her best soothing voice. She just stayed there shivering violently. A look of pure terror on her face.
Esme began to approach her and she moved away so violently scuttling backwards.
'Stay away!' She cried. He voice was hoarse and scratchy. It sounded like she hadn't used her vocal chords in a long time.
'We're not going to hurt you,' Esme repeated. The girl just shook her head quickly.
'How do I know that you're not infected?' She asked.
We all looked at each other.
Naturally she would think that we were infected. Wouldn't that be every humans primary though now? The Virus was everything to them, and if a human lived this long they must have been determined to keep themselves alive.
'I'm a doctor,' Carlisle announced. 'We are immune I guess you can say, are you the same?' He asked.
'I've never had the virus,'
'Neither have any of us,' Carlisle informed her. The girls lips were turning slightly blue. I had no idea why, that was clearly a bad sign and it sent up the relevant warning lights in my brain but I couldn't fathom what was causing it.
She's to scared. It's Emmett she's most afraid of us and us guys. Jasper thought. I looked at him. He was staring at the girl.
'Why don't we go set up the generators?' I suggested. Jasper nodded. Esme walked up to the girl who flinched in terror at her approach. She would feel better once all us men were out of the room.
One thing was clear – she was an innocent. Scared and alone. She needed someone to look after her. Esme was pretty much chomping at the bit to help this girl.
I grabbed Emmett by the collar and dragged him, despite his protests, out the room. Carlisle got the message because he followed as well.
We all went to the cars and pulled out the gas canisters for the generators.
So thin, she's not healthy. What if she has the Virus? She doesn't have any of the symptoms...
'She would have died by now Carlisle if it really was the Virus,' I answered his unspoken question.
Carrying the generators like they were light as a feather, I allowed my mind to wonder during the menial task and listened in to the conversation happening just in the front room.
'Are you cold dear?' Esme asked quietly. Alice was already on her way out to our convoy of cars to grab a few blankets.
Humans need to stay warm, Washington is cold. When we lived here last everyone wore thick clothes... She must have other human needs... what else do humans need? How long has she survived out here on her own? Alice's thoughts were going into overdrive.
It was winter, to regular humans it must have been frightfully cold, my family never felt any of the changing temperatures though.
Carlisle walked up to me, running his hand through his hair 'Get the heating up, I know we don't need it, but I think we can spare the fuel for this girl. She looks like she's been through the wars, I want her fully checked over. She doesn't look to healthy.' he had instantly switched to doctor mode. He had found another human being and it was his first instinct to care for them. Especially since she was so small and fragile. I think seeing her tugged on most of my families heart strings. Carlisle had a worry lines etched on his face and I could hear him going over most of his medical training in his mind, trying to decide what applied to the girl.
We worked at vampire speed to get the heating in the house working. We had never ran it before, why would we need to? We're vampires, but this was clearly a special occasion.
It wasn't long before the house was filling with warmth. I would probably have to do another fuel run with Emmett soon, but for some reason I didn't seem to mind as much.
When we returned to the house and started actually walking through it and looking around I noticed that she hadn't really opened the house. There was still white sheets over all our furniture and she had only been using one room.
'We don't care that you're here, we'll happily help you. Just tell us your name,' Alice asked.
'B-Bella,' the girl stuttered.
I could tell that Esme was grinning without even looking at her.
She's such a pretty girl, she's practically a baby! Bella... such a beautiful name... suits her.
'Well Bella, would you like a shower? I think Emmett's got the generators working.
'Hot water?' She asked in a timid voice.
'Yeh, we always use generators, go have one, we'll talk after,' The girl let out a small yelp of fright as Esme tried to go near her.
The poor thing is shaking like a leaf! Esme thought as she led her to the bathroom without going anywhere near her.
What should I dress her in? I bet she would look good in the Grey skirts I left here. Oh! What about the Jimmy choos? Oh! This is going to be so fun! She's going to be family!
'What do you mean Alice?' I asked in my normal voice, knowing that she would hear me.
Nothing Edward... All will reveal in time it will... She thought in her best yoda impression. I smiled. Alice seemed to be obsessed with Yoda of late, claiming that she loved him because she could relate to him (They are both clearly vertically challenged)
Esme stayed upstairs to help the frail girl while the rest of the family convened in the living room. We spoke while removing the white sheets off of the furniture.
I am not letting her leave. We're helping her, tell them Edward! I smiled at the thoughts Esme directed to me.
'Well we've never been in a situation like this, we should help her,' Carlisle started.
'This is our home Carlisle!' Rose thundered, 'Our sanctuary! We can't have some human gallivanting around!'
'Rose!' Emmett was clearly shocked at his wife's reaction.
She turned to look at him, her face livid. 'Don't 'Rose' me Emmett! Its the truth!'
'Well what would you propose we do?' I asked, raising my eyebrows.
'Make her find somewhere else, she can hovel up in any number of houses, why does she have to pick our home?'
'You haven't seen what its like out there, Rose,' Emmett told her quietly.
'I don't give a flying Fuck!' She announces, waving her hands in the air.
I don't know why, but hearing Rosalie talk about the girl that way made me snap.
'Rose. Shut it! How can you be such a heartless bitch?' several members of the family gasped slightly at my declaration. 'Up there is a scared, small girl. You should have compassion and want to help her, and what's your first though? To send her out there!' I pointed in the direction of the door. 'You haven't seen what's out there, Bastards roam the street, doing whatever the want, to get whatever they want. Bastards like Royce!' Rose visibly flinched at the name. She appeared to shrink in on herself slightly. 'You want to send a small frightened girl to what will probably be a death just like yours? You really are a bitch if so,'
Before Rose could even reply, Alice suddenly zoned out, we all knew what that meant. A vision. Then, Without warning she squealed happily.
'She's staying!' She declared 'She'll be with us for a while! Like decades! I can see it! But the thing is... she's hurt. She needs a lot of help – and we'll give it her!'
everyone voiced their agreement, well everyone but rose, who stood there quietly staring at the floor, she knew better than to argue with Alice.
'Now, Boys, you clear the rooms and make them liveable again! I've got to go get Bella dressed! She's going to finish in the shower any minute!' We all went about our assigned tasks without question.
Surely she'll need more supplies and stuff, like don't girls need tampons and things? Better leave that stuff to Alice, but what if we need to do a town run? Emmett though. None of his thoughts were on his wife at that moment, just the girl upstairs.
By the time we had cleared all the sheets and got the curtains open making the house look almost normal Alice had been upstairs for a while and from what I could hear, the girl was still to terrified to let anyone near her, she would only let Esme near her.
'Carlisle!' Alice called rushing into the room, a worried look on her dace 'She's hurt! Look at her!'
Bella was still upstairs and Esme was doing her very best to coax her out.
'They don't bite Bella, we just want to help you,' She soothed.
'Can't I just stay up here?' She whispered, clearly not wanting us to hear. She didn't have any idea that we had super hearing.
It took Esme a good half an hour but she managed to convince the girl to come downstairs and meet the family.
Alice had stuck her in a long grey flowing skirt, black vest top, and one of my green dress shirts.
'Hell Bella, I'm Carlisle and this is my family. You've met my wife Esme, and these are my children, Edward, Alice, Emmett, Jasper and Rosalie,' He pointed to each of us in turn. Bella's eyes darted between all of us. She flinched slightly when her gaze fell on Emmett.
'none of us are infected, we're perfectly safe, we're not going to hurt you,' Jasper told her.
Alice came up behind Bella and draped a blanket over her shoulders. The movement was small but Bella flinched in pain, her hand going up to clutch her ribs.
She's in pain. Quite a bit actually. Jasper thought.
Carlisle walked up to Bella. 'What's wrong?' He asked.
'I fell down a week or so ago, my ribs hurt,' She whispered.
She's shy, doesn't like attention. Man she quite pretty isn't she? Jasper thought. I nodded without even thinking about it.
'Will you let me look?' Carlisle asked. 'I'm a doctor, I can help,'
'Later,' She conceded quietly. 'First I have a question for all of you,' She looked round at us.
'Why don't we sit down before we talk?' Esme suggested. Bella nodded and sat on the sofa, wrapping the blanket around her tighter.
'You guys are a family right? How did all of you manage to escape the virus without even a scratch? You all look perfectly healthy to me.' Her voice was small and timid.
'I guess my family was just lucky, I honestly don't think I can give you any other explanation that just that,' Carlisle told her.
It wasn't like we were just going to announce that we were members of the living dead and that is how we survived through the Virus.
'Oh,'
'What happened to you, may I ask. Why did you end up living here? This place is very far out,'
'Well,' She shifted uncomfortably. 'I was living in the woods, this was around six months ago. I couldn't stay near the town, there are survivors there, lets just say its not pretty, they've almost turned feral. I found this place one day and I knew that no-one came this way so I just settled down after a while.'
'Well you're welcome to stay here for as long as you need,' Esme told her. 'I've had the boys open up the whole house so you can take one of the guest rooms. It'll be perfectly warm now that the generators are working the heating,'
Bella's face looked slightly confused.
'It's like you guys live in your own little bubble, you've hardly been affected by the Virus. You're all healthy, you have electricity, cars, heating. How on earth did you manage it? The worlds brutal out there!'
'We stuck together Miss Bella,' It was Jasper that spoke. Bella nodded.
'That always seems to work, the few left in town have what seems to be a pack mentality, they work stick together.'
'Why didn't you stay with a group then?' Jazz asked. 's
'They're brutal. I didn't want to stay around and play witness, part or victim to the abuse, beatings and rapes,' She told us bluntly.
I looked over at Rose, who was looking thoroughly scolded. Esme went and sat next to Bella, putting an arm around her.
'What do you mean abuse, beatings and rapes?' Esme asked in a strained voice.
'Like I said, they're feral, they take what they want with no concern for anyone else.' She told us in a detached voice.
Her eyelids dropped slightly.
'Are you tired dear?' Esme asked.
Carry her Edward. Put her in your room, say its the guest room. Pick her up because she's clumsy. Do it now! Alice thought in a demanding tone.
'I'll show you the guest room, It's a lot better than sleeping down here, I told her, holding my hand out, I'm Edward by the way,' I grinned at her.
She didn't take my hand, opting to stand up on her own 'Esme told me who all of you were...' She didn't finish her sentence because the moment she stood up she swayed and fell down. With my reflexes I managed to catch her easily.
'What's wrong with her?' I asked.
'Take her up, I'll have a look at her,' I followed Carlisle orders and ran her up to my room and placed her on my bed. I never wanted a bed, but Esme insisted it looked good.
I laid her down and Carlisle was instantly there with his doctors kit. It was his old one Esme gave him years ago. Even though we assumed most humans dead he just couldn't let go of it.
He went to work shining a pen torch into her eyes and checking all of her reflexes.
It didn't take long for Carlisle to reach a verdict.
'She's malnourished. Badly. She's clearly not been eating right. Look at her ribs, He lifted her shirt up and I could see each one of her ribs clearly defined. She was seriously a bag of bones!
'Is there any food here?' I asked.
'None. You're brothers searched. She's clearly starving herself,'
'Why hasn't she gone into the town?'
'We'll ask her that once we wake up, she needs a lot of care, vitamins, the right foods. Take a look.' He pointed towards her eyes and sure enough they were pale and dry. That along with the loss of weight indicated a serious problem.
'What about her reflexes?' I asked.
'Almost non-existent. Her muscles are fading away. She clearly hasn't ate a full meal since the start of the Virus outbreak. He sadly looked at her. 'This world we live in now is deadly to humans. If she goes on much longer like this she'll die,'
'We can get her help though right?' I didn't like the idea of this brunette beauty fading away in front of me.
'We'll help here, with a family of vampires there's no way she'll want for anything,'
A light snore brought our attention back to Bella, who had rolled onto her side and was clearly content wrapped up in the blanket.
'She's lucky she didn't get hypothermia with the temperature right now. We'll have to keep the heating on at all times. We'll make another run for fuel soon so we can keep them going,' He mused.
'I'll talk to Jasper about it. Also give us a list of anything that she could possible need. We can try and find some while we're there,'
'She's a beautiful girl. I wonder how old she is. She looks like a baby to me... she kind of reminds me of you,' Carlisle mused out loud.
'Me?' I asked
'Yes, in 1918 when I found you in that hospital. She's got the same light in her eyes, the same passion to lie that you had. You also seemed so fragile and vulnerable. Just like she does now.'
'Well now it's my turn to look after someone,' I decided.
Carlisle smiled at my declaration. 'Go find you're brothers then. You need to make another run,'
Do you like?! Reviews mean quicker updates! I'm having major wrist surgery in two weeks so if I write lots in the next few days I'll have the chapters to post. The more reviews the quicker I post!
WordsWithoutInk
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