Chapter Two

Pain

"Dead?" The word sounds like lead.

Alice nods her head once. "I…" She suddenly looks horrified. "I shouldn't have told you that. It was careless of me. It's just a vision. They hardly ever play out in real life."

I was hearing her lies, but I wasn't comforted in the slighted.

"Bella, the future can change, especially if you know what is coming," Jasper says, trying to offer his own lies to placate me.

"It's fine," I say, my voice stiff. "Was that all you saw? No indication of how I died?"

When my grandma was diagnosed with colon cancer and it became terminal, she said that she wished they could tell her exactly when she was going to die. She said it felt easier knowing why she was dying, she just wanted to know roughly when. She joked that it was because she didn't want to make plans too far in advance, in case money was wasted, but of course she was scared. Just like anyone would be facing death.

Now, apparently, I was about to die, but had no idea what of.

I saw that Alice had no answers for me. Her silence answered that for me.

"Someone should phone Edward," I said, my voice sounding so small. "I mean, if you didn't see Edward, then maybe if he was here would be the start of changing the future."

"Honestly, Bella, don't worry about it," Alice said, suddenly her bubbly self again. "My visions can be way off sometimes."

"Knowing you're about to die, isn't something I can easy shrug off, Alice," I said a little too sharply. "But we can worry about it when Edward gets back."

Jasper was already on his cell phone, so I let it go.

"Bella." Jasper held his cell phone out for me. I took a breath before I held it to my ear.

"Does anything hurt?" Edward got straight to the point. "Dizzy, nausea? Aches, pain, anywhere?"

"No, Edward, everything feels fine." Just as the word slipped out, my head tinged. I tried not to react, instead, I pulled out the bobby pins in my hair as a distraction.

"Are you sure?" Edward persisted. "Just one small bit of pain, let Alice know, okay? We will be there as soon as possible."

"Like Alice said, it's probably nothing to worry about. Jasper said that the future can change and I feel fine, so…" But my head throbbed again. "Just get home, okay?" I hoped my anxiety didn't show too much in my voice. "Love you," I whispered and hung up.

I set the cell on the arm rest and turned away from Alice and Jaspers securitizing stares.

It was just a headache. People got them all the time. No big deal.

I tried to focus on the TV, but the picture was now a blur to me and the voices seemed all squeaky an incoherent. I could tell that Alice and Jasper were scrutinizing my every breath.

As a distraction, I began pulling out the bobby pins in my hair. Once it was free, I shook my hair out, letting it fall down my back.

"Sit here," Alice said, nodding to the space in front of her feet. "I'll brush it out for you." I knew she was needing a distracting of her own so I complied and sat by her feet.

A brush had appeared out of know where and she began de-tangling my locks.

Alice had barely finished smoothing out my hair when I began to feel weird. Like, when you know you are about to puke. Only it was different. I felt like I all my energy had been poured out of me and I was floating. I couldn't stand, even if I wanted to. I knew that my body had suddenly become so weak.

"Bella, what…?" Alice had put down the brush and was in front of me, her eyes probing my body as if it was an x-ray.

But I could speak. I couldn't move. My head began throbbing worse than ever, but that wasn't what made me cry out.

A knife twisted in my abdomen. Or it felt like one had. My body tensed for a moment before I doubled up in agony. I felt hot. Cold. Fuzzy.

Then I blacked out and I was washed with darkness.