10
"Oh, come on!" Edward muttered under his breath, tapping the plane ticket he was holding against the palm of his hand. "What's taking so fucking long?"
"They'll let us board soon," Bella told him, placing her hand on his shoulder.
Edward knew she was right, but he was terrified that they'd be too late. After leaving Phil's office, they'd managed to buy three one-way tickets for direct flight from Seattle to Chicago, which was due to start boarding any minute. AT least he hoped it would. The flight was scheduled to depart in fifteen minutes.
Edward would be the first to admit that he hadn't expected Phil to help them so quickly. He assumed that they'd have to beg and plead for his help, but he'd passed over his credit card and cash without question. He cared about Bella, and in return, those she loved. A lump formed in his throat and he swallowed against the emotions welling up inside him. Phil counted him and Alice as part of his family.
"You need to calm down," Bella said, sliding her hand down his arm so that it rested on top of his.
Edward sighed. "I should have done more for her. Should have called her more often, gone to Port Angeles to see here. Something, anything."
"You did everything you could," she said. "You can't take care of everyone, Edward. You have to take care of yourself first."
Edward frowned. "But she needed me and I wasn't there."
"Because you were taking care of your needs," Bella argued. "And mine. If you're to blame for Alice's breakdown, then so I am."
"No, you're not," Jasper said, drawing their attention to him. He was seating across the aisle from them, his body tense and ridged. "Neither of you are to blame for what Alice is going through. I should have told you sooner, I guess, or gone to Carlisle directly and demanded that he help her. I just didn't want to see how much she was struggling, I guess."
"None of us were there for Alice the way we should have," Bella argued. "And sitting here wallowing isn't going to help, so we need to stop. We are going to get to her and we're going to stop her from doing something stupid."
"And if we don't?" Jasper asked, his voice cracking. "I just found her, B. I can't . . . I can't . . . You know how hard it was for me to let her in, to love her."
Bella sighed as she stood up and moved so that she was sitting next to Jasper, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him into her arms. There had been a time when her friendship with him grated on Edward's nerves, when he hated the man who loved his sister, but Jasper was his friend, his brother now, and he hated watching him struggle. Just one more way he and Bella had failed their families.
Edward's phone started ringing, which startled him. Digging it out of his pocket, rage filled him when he saw his brother's name and number flashing across the screen. He'd called and left over half a dozen messages, but Carlisle had only just called him back. A part of him considered letting it ring, but he couldn't so he slid his finger across the green arrow.
"Where the hell have you been, Car?" Edward snarled without a proper greeting.
"Um, at work?" Carlisle said, making it sound like a question. "Why? What's so important that you've had to harass me all day?"
"Harass you?" Edward scoffed, causing both Jasper and Bella to gasp. "Sorry, Car, thought you'd like to know that Pix ran off last night."
"She what?" His voice was soft and vulnerable. "Where is she?"
"Why do you care?" Edward asked. "I told you three days ago that she was losing it. You saw for yourself how fucked she is right now, but as usual, Carlisle's only worried about himself."
"That's not true!"
"Bullshit," Edward spat, wincing when he felt his chest tightened. His hand automatically came up to his chest, which had Bella rushing to his side immediately. He stopped her from grabbing the phone from him. "Pix needed you, Car, and where were you?"
"I . . . I was at work," he stammered. "Do you know where she's at?"
"I have an idea," he quipped. "You better hope we get to her first."
"First? You think she'd . . . she'd harm herself?"
Edward couldn't believe Carlisle was actually asking him that. What'd he think she would do? There was only so much heartache and turmoil a person could take without it being too much, before they cracked, and found themselves swimming in a sea of heartache and failure.
"Are you really that blind, Car? Do you just not see what she's doing to herself? All the nights when she refuses to sleep, when she refuses to eat, when she locks herself up in her room and paints her memories on the walls? How can you not see how much she needs you?"
"I do," he blubbered. "Tell me where she is and I'll go to her."
"Don't bother," Edward scoffed just as the flight attendant said, "Flight 2344 to Chicago is now boarding group one."
"Are you at the airport?" Carlisle asked. "You think she's going to Mom and Dad?"
"Where else would she go? She has to tell them goodbye. If we stop her, if we keep her from . . . from killing herself, do better, Car. Just do better."
"Edward —"
But Edward didn't care what else he had to say. His only concern right now was getting to his sister. Alice needed him, and dammit, he'd be there.
—WH—
Four and a half hours later, their flight landed in Chicago. As soon as the doors opened, Edward, Bella, and Jasper were off in search of a cab. They found about a dozen of them outside of the terminal, the three of them squeezing into the backseat.
"Where to?" the cabby asked, his mid-eastern accent thick.
"5800 N. Ravenswood Ave," Edward rattled off, his hand coming up to his chest once again. "And hurry."
"Yeah, yeah," the driver mumbled, but turned on the meter and pulled out into traffic.
"Do you think we're too late?" Jasper asked.
"No," Edward lied. He had no idea, of course. Alice had a solid fourteen hour head start. There was no guarantee that they'd even find her, much less stop her from doing anything. "No, we . . . we'll get there in time."
"I hope so," Bella whispered, looping her arm in with Edward's and leaning her head on his shoulder.
Half an hour later, the cabby pulled up in front of Rosehill Cemetery. They paid him and climbed out. The cemetery was quite large and had been established sometime during the 1800s.
"Wait for us," Bella said, turning her attention to the driver. "Please."
"Sure thing, no problem," he promised, but the minute the door to the cab was closed, he sped off.
"Son-of-a-bitch," Bella snarled, turning to Edward. "What an asshole."
"Welcome to Chicago," he scoffed and led the way through the cemetery, the cool, Chicago air whipping around them.
The closer they got to where his parents had been laid to rest, the more his chest hurt. He'd only been there once, a few months after his parents died. He'd just been released from the hospital after receiving his mother's heart and Carlisle had promised to bring him to say goodbye. Not that he had. He hadn't even been able to get out of the car, but the image of his parents' graves haunted him for weeks. Hell, for years.
They were two rows away when Edward spotted her laying between their parents graves, her body curled into a tight ball.
"Pix!" he yelled and started running toward her.
She didn't respond.
"Alice," Jasper screamed, pushing past Edward. He got to Alice first, dropping onto his knees. He grabbed her by the shoulders and rolled her onto her back. She was unconscious and pale — dangerously pale.
"She's fucking freezing," he muttered, yanking his jacket off and laying it on top of Alice.
"Does she have a pulse?" Bella cried.
Jasper's fingers slid along the side of her neck, his face contorting into horror. "I can't find one."
"Let me try," Edward said, falling onto his knees next to his sister. He placed his index and middle fingers along the side of her neck and waited. A second later, he felt the slow pounding of her pulse, but it was much slower than it should be. "Got it, but it's faint. Call an ambulance, Bella."
From behind him, he could hear her calling for help, crying and begging the dispatcher to make the ambulance hurry. Alice's face was cold, her tears had dried, but left streaks. Her hands were icy and her lips tinged with blue.
"Pix," he said, trying to wake her. "Pix, come on, wake up."
But she didn't respond.
"Oh, my God, we were too late, weren't we?" Bella sobbed.
In the distance they heard sirens that belonged to the ambulance and Bella did her best to direct them on where to find them. Moments later, they rolled to a stop next to them and two paramedics jumped out, rushing over to them.
"What happened?" the first one asked.
"We found her like this," Edward said, moving so they could access her condition. "Her pulse is weak."
"Yeah, I see that," he said. "She take anything? Prescription? Illegal?"
"We don't know," Jasper said. "She doesn't take anything regularly, but . . . We just found her like this."
"Okay, let's get her loaded and to the hospital," the second paramedic said.
Edward wrapped his arms around Bella and held her as they watched the paramedics loading Alice onto a stretcher, placing a warm blanket on her, and sliding her into the back of the ambulance. "What hospital are you taking her to?"
"Mercy Hospital."
Edward blew out a deep breath as they watched the ambulance drive away, leaving them stranded. "You know what's Ironic?"
"What?" Bella asked, shifting her attention up to him.
"Mercy is where our parents died," he said, quietly. "Where I got my mother's heart, where our lives changed."
"Let's hope they don't change like that again," she murmured.
Edward nodded and looked back at his parent's gravestones before following her and Jasper to the opening of the cemetery. They had to wait twenty minutes for a cab and by the time they arrived at Mercy Hospital, Alice had already been taken into the emergency room and was in one of the trauma rooms. She hadn't regained consciousness, but they'd managed to bring her body temperature up a few degrees.
"I should call Carlisle," Edward said, but made no effort to actually make the call. Instead, he leaned against the wall inside Alice's room, watching as Jasper wrapped his hands around hers, kissing her knuckles, begging her not to give up.
"I'll call," Bella offered and slipped out of the room before Edward could argue with her.
"She's got to be okay," Jasper murmured. "She has to be, right?"
"I don't . . . I don't know," Edward admitted and when Jasper shifted his attention to him, he said, "Pix . . . Alice always wore her emotions on her sleeve, you know? When we were little, she cried easier. She wasn't very good at hiding how she felt, but then she was in the accident and she changed. I don't know if it was the burns or watching our parents die, or what, but she changed."
"And you didn't?" Jasper scoffed.
"No, I did," Edward confessed. "We all did, but Pix most of all. She was a daddy's girl, I guess. All she had to do was bat her eyes at him and he'd buy her anything she wanted. God, I hated how she manipulated him."
"When we got home the other night, I expected her to lash out at me for talking to you about her, about telling her secrets, but she wasn't mad. She didn't say a word to me, in fact. She locked herself up in her studio and painted you everywhere."
"Me?"
Jasper nodded. "She worried all the time about you, about Bella, about you and Bella together. I think a part of her is jealous that you two have a seemingly easy relationship and she struggles to let me hold her hand."
"Easy?" Edward scoffed. "Our relationship isn't easy."
"Yeah, it is," Jasper argued. "Your lives are hard, but your love is easy. Alice and I . . . we struggle from one day to the next."
Edward wasn't sure what to say, and luckily, Bella walked back into Alice's room and saved him from having to defend their relationship. It bothered him that Jasper thought their love was easy, but was he right?
"I couldn't get through to anyone," Bella told them. "I left messages, but who knows when or if they'll get them."
"Thanks," Edward murmured, wrapping his arm around her.
Suddenly, Alice's body began to flair, her arms and legs thrusting in every direction. Jasper tried to hold her down, but just as quick as it started, it was finished. Then, Alice's upper body lurched off the bed, she screamed, and when she fell back against the bed, an alarm started blaring and Alice's heart stopped.