A/N: Hello my readers. Here is the awaited chapter 9. Its longer than normal because I wanted to give ya'll something special since I will definately not be updating for at least a week maybe two. Hopefully it will only be a week though. Anyways, tell me what you think, what did you like, what did you not like, anything I can improve on? I love getting constructive critisizm because it helps me become a better writer as this is my first piece of fiction besides creative writing papers in high school-which I graduated five years ago this may...I feel so old....:(
Oh! By the way thank you so much freakybfsfan for your review! You in all seriousness lit the fire under my muses ass and helped me produce this chapter so as a thank you this chapter is dedicated to you.
Happy reading ya'll! :)
Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns everything Twilight and all its characters.
BPOV
I fought against the fire and the darkness. I raged against the dark cage that held me, and the fire that tortured me. They taunted me with their indifference. I fought endlessly until I had no strength left to care. Only then did the fire cease and the darkness ebb.
The first thing I became aware of was the burning in my arm, the second thing I noticed was, my hands felt like they were trapped in ice. I opened my eyes, and was immediately rendered breathless by the bright topaz eyes of a relieved looking Edward. Though his expression conveyed relief, I could see the tension in the way he held his shoulders and his eyes held a darkness in their depths that I've never seen before. As I looked at him, his face lit in the most beautifully sad smile.
"Edward." My voice sounded heavy with sleep and was barely above a whisper.
He leaned forward and cupped my cheek in his sculpted hand.
"Bella, love, how do you feel?" He looked deep in my eyes as though he was searching for something, or trying to decipher my thoughts.
My anger flared with the memories of all that happened to put me here in this hospital bed. I jerked my face away from his hand and felt the prickle of tears in my eyes. He nodded, returning his arm to his side while backing away, but not before I caught the flash of anger in eyes.
I could feel my anger gaining strength. I did my best to quell the negative feelings I had towards Edward right now and remember the love that we shared. I sighed and bowed my head as I closed my eyes and attempted to calm my anger.
"I don't feel any worse than I did before." My voice was rough from lack of use.
When I opened my eyes again, I saw a hand holding onto my left one that could inspire fantasies. I followed the well-defined muscular arm that it was attached to, up to the face that put every imagined concept of the beauty of angels to shame. Messy blonde hair that begged you to run your fingers through its silky locks, full lips that could tempt a nun to sin, and the golden honey eyes that were, at this moment, overflowing with relief and tenderness as well as a hint of irritation. I was positive that irritation was aimed at Edward.
For the first time since I woke up, I felt a smile tug at the corners of my lips. It wasn't a full smile, in fact it was probably the most pathetic attempt at a smile in history.
"Hey." Jaspers eyes lit up and his face broke out in a lopsided grin.
"Hey." One word, that's all it was, and yet it felt like he was saying so much more.
My eyes were held captive by the gilded depths that seemed to beckon to me and I was powerless to look away. I felt my anger melt away, replaced by another emotion, one that could lead to nothing but trouble for the both of us, desire. I knew I should look away but I couldn't, no, I wouldn't. As much as I loved Edward, despite his actions, I was drawn to Jasper as a moth is to a flame, and just like the moth, I knew that, eventually, I would get burned.
"Jasper, would you mind giving us a moment so I can speak with Bella in private." The hard voice rang through the room and I reluctantly adjusted my gaze back to the fuming Edward on my right. I could hear the struggle to be civil in his tone.
Jaspers question was written on his face. I just squeezed his hand and nodded. He hesitated looking from Edwards's impassive face to my conflicted one and back. With his mouth set in a grim line, he stood to leave.
"I guess I should tell the rest of the family you're awake." With that, he was gone, and it was just Edward and I.
Silence blanketed the room as I waited for him to speak. Edward began to pace the room the minute Jasper left and I was beginning to get dizzy trying to follow his movement. I sighed and looked down at my hands, now folded in my lap.
I noticed a flicker of light on my hand and raised it to inspect it. There on my left wrist where James had bitten me were two slightly raised crescent shaped scars. They shimmered an iridescent silver under the fluorescent lights.
I sighed again. Everything was different now. I don't even know my own body any more.
I decided to break the silence with a question that had been burning in my brain since I opened my eyes.
"How long was I out this time?" I was proud of myself. I didn't sound as pitiful as I felt.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Edward stop suddenly and whirl around to face me. His hand raked through his hair as he approached the bed.
"You were asleep for sixteen hours. We were worried that you had lapsed back into a coma because Jasper couldn't feel your emotions. Just like before. Carlisle tried to assure us that you had just fallen into a deep sleep. Still…" I could hear the pain in his voice. Without thinking, I reached out and took his hand to comfort him.
Right then I knew, I would never tell him of the hell I was trapped in while in a coma and then again while I 'slept'. No matter how much I hated his actions or how angry I was with him, he didn't deserve the added torture of knowing that, when I close my eyes I can feel the tendrils of fire lick my skin and penetrate my soul.
"It's ok. I'm back now. I love you and I'm sorry you had to go through that." I was sorry. That's how I was able to keep the contempt out of my voice and hold back from blaming him for everyone's suffering, including his own.
Edward gave me that heart stopping crooked grin and leaned in. His lips met mine in a gentle, chaste kiss. I waited for the electricity and hunger that always accompanied our kisses, but it never came. Instead, his lips just felt like those of a statue, hard, cold, unyielding. It had to be my irritation that caused the lack of reaction. Once I have made my peace and forgiven him things will go back to normal. His cool breath fanned across my face as he broke the kiss and rested his forehead against mine.
"Bella, I am so sorry." The guilt and remorse pouring from him was almost tangible.
His words gave me the strength I needed to lock my resentment away in a dark room in the deepest corner of my mind. I finally felt in control, but it was short lived.
"I should have been there sooner." Within that dark room, my anger stirred restlessly.
"I never should have trusted Jasper to protect you." My anger morphed into a living entity within its prison.
"I never should have dragged you into my world." The walls shook and the door rattled with the force of my rage trying to break loose.
"I should have stayed away from you to begin with." The plaster cracked and dust wafted into the air. The door splintered and began to give way. I tried to gain back control. Fear ran rampant at the thought of what might happen if I lost control now. I no longer felt like myself. I felt like I had a beast, a demon living within me and if I lost control, the beast would break loose and destroy all in its path.
"I love you so much, and it tortures me to know that you were hurt because of me. You could have died and it's my fault. I was selfish to pursue a relationship between us." His voice was tortured, his face was pleading, and his eyes showed nothing but love. All I could do was gape at him in disbelief, as did the beast. After a moment, he took my hand in both of his.
"Bella, please, say something."
That shook me from my shock but what came from my mouth was not what he was expecting. I was losing control. When I spoke, I did not recognize the voice but it must have been mine because it was saying exactly what I wanted to say.
"That's what you're sorry about? You're sorry you ever met me? Sorry you ever brought me into your world? Look at my eyes Edward! Look at my hand! It would have been my world too if you had just let Jasper do what I asked him to! Now I'm stuck like this! I don't belong in your world? Well thanks to you, now I don't belong in mine either! So take your sorry and shove it up your ass! If you want to be sorry then be sorry for doing this to me!" My breath came in short huffs and somehow I had left the bed and was now standing awkwardly on my casted ankle, but I felt no pain.
With my outburst, Edwards face hardened and he stood braced against the impact of my verbal assault.
"Bella, I will not apologize for doing what was best for you. I could not let you turn into a monster. You could not understand what it was you were asking for." He spoke slowly and calmly, it reminded me of an adult chiding a small child for their thoughtlessness. That just enraged the beast even more.
"Don't you dare pretend that you did this for me, Edward, you did this for your own damn reasons that had nothing to do with me." The sound that emerged from my mouth was nothing more than a growl. My body acted on instinct and lowered my shoulders, spread my feet apart and bent my knees in a half crouch.
"I did what you should have told Jasper to do. You don't know what it was you were about to give up. You're only human, Bella, you can't possibly understand." He was almost yelling but it did not faze me.
I was livid. I didn't even try to keep my anger in the nice little room I had constructed for it. More accurately, I flung the door wide open allowing it free reign, and reign it did. I saw red, I heard a roar in my ears, and my body was charged with the rage and adrenaline pumping through my veins.
I was propelled across the room, right at Edward. My right hand shot out to slap him but with his lightning reflexes, he caught it easily. Inexplicably, he did not see my left hand, balled into a fist, coming straight for his stomach. My fist made contact as an animalistic roar escaped my mouth and he doubled over falling back a few steps.
I did not hear or see the door fly open, or the others rush in. I just felt the arms encircling my waist and pulling me back forcefully as I landed a hit to the side of his face before I was out of reach. Nothing was registering in my conscious brain as I struggled to break free of the adamantium arms that held me. There was no thought process whatsoever. Just the beast, the rage.
Something invaded my red fog and it was like drifting off to sleep peacefully wrapped in your favorite blanket. Except, I wasn't the one falling asleep, it was the beast. My rage had been put down and was replaced by a torrent of peace and tranquility.
I don't know when I closed my eyes, I don't know how I came to be cradled in some ones arms while they smoothed my hair comfortingly, I didn't care. The peace was fading and the despair over everything that had happened was taking over. I began to cry, and then it turned into full-body-wracking sobs. The words that were running through my mind repeatedly were being spewed out of my mouth.
"How could you Edward? How could you do this to me? How could you?" Over and over again, I asked for answers.
Besides the sounds of my sobs, I could hear a smooth, velvety voice whispering softly into my hair. I could not bring myself to lift my head and open my eyes to the angry or pitying looks from Edward and his family. I had deduced that the arms wrapped around me, offering me refuge, belonged to Jasper. It wasn't hard to figure out. The body did not have breasts so it was not Esme or Alice, it was not big enough to be Emmett, Carlisle would be more concerned about finding out what happened from Edward, and Rose would not touch me with a ten foot pole, so that left Jasper, my hero, my sanctuary, my forbidden fruit.
JPOV
I left Bella reluctantly. I was worried about the amount of rage I could feel in her. It was a jagged emotion so I knew that she was fighting to keep it under control but I worried about Edward saying something to cause her control to dissolve. The instability of her emotions reminded me of the newborns that I had been in charge of during the war. Yet she was not a newborn. I could smell her blood, hear the beat of her heart, I felt no thirst from her. The smell of her blood has been off since the 'incident' and at first we all thought it was the blood transfusion, but that would have worn off within days and its been nearly three weeks. We are in completely new territory now, and that scares the living daylights out of me.
I turned the corner of a dimly lit and abandoned corridor and saw the rest of my family. From the looks of it, Carlisle had just come out of the personal office of Bella's doctor. That confused me because it was three in the morning and her doctor was not here.
They were speaking to low for human ears and from this distance I could barley make out what was being said.
"What does this mean for Bella?" Esme asked.
"Well, I'm not entirely certain because there are no prior cases in which to consult. I do believe however, that the venom will stay contained within the humerus. The venom would have petrified the bone, marrow, and surrounding tissue but there was not enough to continue the process. I am concerned about the burning that she mentioned. In a normal changing, the burn does not last more than seven days at the very most. I fear what prolonged exposure to that degree of pain will do to Bella's mental and physical health." Carlisle was radiating concern and he could not mask it in his voice.
The others stood in silence for a moment taking in all that Carlisle said. Their emotions ranged from the deepest concern and sympathy to rage and sorrow.
"I'm gonna kill him." The words escaped from my clenched teeth and I flexed my fists. I saw five heads turn my direction as I rotated on my heel to return to Bella's room and deal out justice to that selfish cur and finish what he interrupted in the alley.
Before I could take more than two steps there was a restraining hand on my shoulder and I turned back around to see my family. Carlisle was the one that had stopped me and, no matter how badly I wanted to punish Edward, I would listen to what he had to say first. I respected the man who had persevered in his desire to help me overcome the monster.
"Jasper, Bella is Edwards mate and he made the choice to do what he thought was best. That over-shadows any opinion that you or anyone else may have. You do not go against a mate, no matter how painful it is to see the consequences hurt a loved one." Carlisle is always the neutral voice of reason in our family of high-strung immortal beings but I could feel how much he now regretted allowing Edward to do this to Bella.
I opened my mouth to respond but shut it immediately as I felt an explosion of pure, unadulterated, blind fury. I hadn't felt anything like that in almost half a century. Dread welled up in my heart. I knew exactly where it had come from.
"Bella." The name was nothing but a breath of air as it escaped my mouth.
Five pairs of eyes widened as I turned and ran as fast as my supernatural body could go. I could hear them on my heels, feel their confusion, and fear. We were just down the hall from our destination when we heard it. There was a roar, the likes I've never heard. It did not come from a vampire but I don't think a human would be capable of such an animalistic sound. It was unnatural. Then, there was a resounding crash of two boulders hitting, but muffled and softened somehow.
I threw the door open and if my heart could still beat I would have had a heart attack. Bella's left fist was pulled back winding up to deliver a punch to a bowed over Edward and her right hand was trapped in his grip. Her face was twisted in fury and her eyes were those of a wild animal. There was no trace of my angel in this being.
I rushed to grab Bella and pull her away from the puzzled Edward. She thrashed about trying to break free and resume her attack. I delved deep into her emotions but there was nothing but an all-consuming rage. I gathered every ounce of peace and tranquility I could and forced it into her. Her struggles began to wan and we sank to the floor. I was now able to avert my attention to the rest of the room.
Everyone was standing there dumbstruck by the scene we had just witnessed.
"What the hell did you do to her?" I growled.
"Nothing! We were talking and she just snapped!" His voice was dripping with innocence but his emotions were jumping between disgust and apprehension. He knew what he did to trigger her violence, and he was disgusted with himself because of it, but he wasn't going to let on to the fact that he may have done something wrong.
"She would not have snapped without provocation, Edward. I felt her struggle for control. There is no way she would have so completely given up that fight without a reason." I sneered at him but returned my attention back to the woman in my arms, stroking her hair in a calming manner.
I was slowly lessening my influence on her emotions, testing the waters so to speak. All she felt was despair. Tears began to fall down her face and soak into my shirt and I pulled her tighter to me. Soon her crying turned into heart wrenching sobs.
"It's ok darlin'. It's ok. It'll be alright." I whispered comforting words into her hair as I held her to me and shared her pain.
"How could you Edward? How could you do this to me? How could you?" Between her sobs she garbled out the words imprinted in my mind. Yes, Edward, how could you.
The words became a mantra to her despair. I lifted my gaze to my family who, until this point, I believe were still in shock. My eyes came to rest on Edward whose stare was locked on the huddled forms of Bella and I on the floor. I reached out with my power to test his emotions. There was no guilt or concern for what he had done to Bella , only anger, jealousy, and possessiveness. He cared naught for the woman in my arms, only that she was in my arms and not his.
He must have over heard my thoughts because shock overtook him and he looked into my eyes. I raised my eyebrows at him.
"Jasper, if you knew she was having problems with her emotions why didn't you stay close to help her if she had trouble?" Carlisle's voice broke into our silent duel. I answered without breaking eye contact.
"Oh, believe me, that's a mistake I will never make again." Edward read what I was really saying in my mind. I won't be leaving Bella's side again.
"Ok, at the risk of sounding like an ass, am I only one wondering how it is that little Bella just took a swing at Sir Sparkles and isn't screaming in pain from a shattered hand? I mean, Carlisle, you said her hubris or whatever would be vamped but not her hand. From the smell of it she didn't even bust a knuckle." Emmett said in confusion. Apparently, it had not just escaped my attention in the chaos, but had escaped everyone's.
I looked at Carlisle with wide eyes then down at the angel in my arms. Her sobs were quieter than before and her hands were clutching at my shirt in desperation. My eyes focused on her hands. There was a dark bruise forming on the wrist of her right hand and her knuckles looked slightly bruised on her left hand. She was flexing and gripping with both hands perfectly so neither were broken. Carlisle would need x-rays to say for sure but I had a feeling that there would not even be a fracture.
"There's no damage besides bruising. I think the venom spread farther than you thought Carlisle." I relayed with dread.
Edward began pacing the room while he pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Alice how could you not see this?" Edward exclaimed incredulously.
I assume she replied mentally when Edward stopped suddenly facing her, his face a mixture of disbelief and anger.
"What do you mean you aren't seeing her? You saw when she would wake up the first time." He nearly shouted.
"I mean, Edward, that I cannot see her. I'll get a vision of her sleeping and the events happening around her. When she wakes up everything turns shadowy and the images become broken but not one of those pieces has Bella in it." She spat out.
"What about when she woke up before?"
Alice sighed in irritation before answering.
"I had a vision of you and Jasper arguing about what happened when she woke up after she passed out again." She said dejectedly while her mouth turned down in a frown.
"So you can't see her in any visions unless she's asleep? Wow, cool power." Once again, Emmett states the obvious conclusion that has to elude the rest of us.
"That can't be it. She didn't turn. Right Carlisle? There has to be an explanation for all this. Maybe it's her head trauma. All she needs is time and medicine and she'll be ok. " Esme pleaded with her husband to tell her that it was all a mistake.
"I don't think so Esme." My voice rang through the room and filled everyone with a new sense of dread and hopelessness.
