Still don't own Twilight—if that changes, I'll let you know, promise.

Chapter 11:

EPOV-

I finally calmed down when we were about a hundred miles away from Bella and what I had done finally sunk in. I fell to the ground and a strangled sob escaped my lips.

"Is she—" I couldn't bring myself to finish my question.

"She was still alive when we left, though only barely." Alice answered gravely.

What had I done? What did she do to deserve this? How was I going to live with myself if she…if she…died? I couldn't live with myself if I'd killed an innocent girl. If I'd killed Bella. Then an even worse thought crossed my mind.

"Did she start changing?" Nobody answered me. "Well, did she?" I demanded. Still no response. "DID SHE?"

"Edward—you took too much blood. We couldn't get the venom out without killing her." Alice answered, channeling a vision she had earlier while we were running away. It was of Rose and Carlisle talking through what to do now.

"He can't." I sobbed. "He can't let her be like this. Let her die." I choked.

I laid on the ground in silence for what seemed like hours, nobody talking. Jasper left me alone. Smart move.

"She's going to hate me." I said, looking up desperately at Alice. "And she has every right too. I don't even know her and I ruined her life. I hope she dies so that she doesn't have to face that every single day. So that she doesn't ever have to face me. To see what a selfish thing I did to her. It isn't fair. I hope she dies!" Alice looked at me, sympathy in her eyes.

"She lives, Edward. I've seen it."

"WHAT? YOU DIDN'T TELL ME?" I was furious.

"I think that's enough of that." Jasper said, moving to place himself between me and Alice, sending calming waves my way.

"Leave me alone, Jasper." I growled at him.

"Both of you, calm down!" Alice yelled at us. "I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to take it this way. I didn't want you to hate yourself unnecessarily. She's happy, Edward. She likes this life. She doesn't hate you for it—trust me." A small smirk played across her pixie features.

She tried to show me something, but I ignored her. It couldn't be true. Nobody could like me after what I'd done. Nobody.

We stayed in the small clearing until well into the next day. Sometime around sunrise, Jasper had taken complete control of my emotions, unable to handle my self-loathing anymore and worried about the futures that Alice kept seeing pop up as my various moods took over. Most of them involved me dead. Or at least very seriously maimed—and all away from the family.

"Now, Edward." She'd finally said, before telling Jasper it was okay to take over. "That last one was just ridiculous. What would Esme say?"

A new wave of guilt piled onto the rest and Jasper faltered a bit.

"Just do it, honey." She'd told him them, and not that I was going to admit it, but I was glad for the loss of control.

We made it back to the house around three o'clock in the afternoon.

"How is he?" Carlisle asked Jasper as we entered the house. I headed straight for his study. I needed to see her. "Not good." was his only reply.

I tentatively pushed open the door to Carlisle's study, afraid of what I'd find, holding my breath in case there was still enough unchanged blood in her body for me to lose control again. Jasper still had control of my emotions so the fact that I could still kill her now and save her from this life didn't even occur to me until later. Until it was too late.

I stood in the corner of the room unmoving, watching, praying, hating myself for the pain she must be going through.

Sometime later Alice brought in a change of clothes. Her old ones were soaked in blood and coated in mud.

"She's going to be beautiful." Alice remarked, slipping the satin dress over her head.

I growled. "She already was."

Alice left without another word.

When the waiting got to be too much I headed downstairs to my piano. How many nights had this been my solitude? The only thing that kept me sane? And now, I could only seem to play with Bella's struggling heart as my metronome, a ticking time-bomb to the end of her life. My fists came down hard on the keys and a moan escaped my lips.

Just then, Alice came running into the room.

"We have to move her. Now."

"What, why?" I questioned as Carlisle came into the room.

"I had a vision. Charlie's coming. It looks like Bella told him that you were acting weird at school and since she's gone missing, he's coming here to question her. We can't risk having her somewhere where he could hear her scream."

We quickly dug a cellar out back about a mile into the forest.

"It'll probably be better to have her wake up here, anyway." Carlisle said, coming up out of the opening. "That way she won't be accosted with the smell of blood right when she wakes up."

We carried her in the bed down into the cellar. This must be what Alice had seen the restraints for. She wasn't sure why they were there originally, only that she knew that it was important that the bed had them.

"You need to come back to the house, Edward." Alice said after Bella had been squared away.

"No, I'm not going to leave her." I responded, yanking my arm away from her reach.

"You have to talk to him or this whole thing is just going to get worse." I sighed. "And you need to shower first, or he's going to think that you buried the body. We all do." She added after a moment, glancing around.

"I'll stay with her." Jasper said.

I looked at him. I wanted to thank him, but I knew that the real reason he wanted to be there was so that he could control her when she first woke up—to keep everyone safe. I thanked him anyway and he nodded in response. The rest of us took off toward the house and showered quickly.

About an hour later we heard the cruiser pull up the driveway and Charlie and a few others got out of the car and walked up to the house.

Alice had dropped our dirty clothes back down with Jasper while Esme cleaned up the rest of the dirt and Carlisle put his study back together. It had been about a day and a half since the attack and the whole town now knew that Bella had gone missing.

Alice, Jasper, Emmett, and Rosalie had gone to school that morning, but I had refused to leave her side. Carlisle had called me in sick and Esme had made sure to stay in all day with me, just in case anyone asked where I was.

Alice had made me choke down some human food so that if it looked like I wasn't pulling 'human sick' off well enough, I could throw it up into a bowl that sat on the floor next to the couch I was laying on. Charlie rang the doorbell.

"I have a warrant to search your house." Charlie said as soon as Esme answered the door.

"A warrant? What for?" Esme asked, shocked. She really was a good actress.

"As I'm sure you've heard," Charlie started, barely holding back a sob, "Bella has gone missing."

"Yes, the children told me yesterday. That's so sad, I'm ever so sorry. I can't imagine what you're going through." She said truthfully to Charlie, looking back at me with a sad, loving look in her eyes. "I don't know what I'd do if I ever lost one of my children." The pointed comment in my direction did not go unnoticed.

"Yes, well, before she disappeared she was talking about how your boy was acting weird towards her, Edward? For no apparent reason. And our records show that he wasn't at school yesterday and the office said that he was home sick. I need to talk to him."

"Oh my!" Esme gasped. "You can't think that he had anything to do with this?" She said, disbelieving.

"Ma'am, will you please let us in so that we can search the house?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, of course." She stepped aside.

"Now where is your son?"

"He's in here, but he's been sick since last period a few days ago. He came home early, you can check with the office. I've been with him ever since."

I wanted to get this over as fast as possible and the food Alice had made me eat was sitting uncomfortably in my stomach, so for added effect, I threw it up into the big blue bowl right as he came around the corner.

"Yes, well I can see that. I still need to talk to him, though."

"Do you need anything from me?" Esme asked.

"I just need your permission, and then either you, Carlisle, or an attorney present during questioning. All things considered, I'll question him here." He added after a moment, looking at the bowl. Esme left it there for effect, even though the vile smell was burning everyone's nose.

"Oh, I don't think an attorney will be necessary." She turned to me. "Edward, honey? Chief Swan needs to ask you some questions. Do you feel well enough to talk to him?" I sat up weakly and nodded my head as Carlisle walked down the steps.

"Chief Swan, what's going on?" He asked, even though he had heard everything that had just happened.

"A couple of men came into my office and told me that they had a warrant to search the house. Can I help you find anything?"

Charlie looked dumbfounded.

"What's the probable cause that got you this warrant, if I may ask?"

If you didn't know Carlisle, this would have seemed like a perfectly normal question; however to those of us who knew him, the fear was evident in his voice. He was worried we left something behind.

"There have been some allegations made about your son here, sir. I'm just here to check them out."

We all breathed a sigh of relief, quickly enough that it would go unnoticed by the humans around us. If they had anything concrete, he would have said so.

"I'm truly sorry about what happened to your daughter," Carlisle said to Charlie, "but I can assure you that Edward had nothing to do with this tragedy. He's been home sick with my wife for nearly the past two days. Some sort of flu that's going around." He motioned to the bowl. "Very contagious." He added. Charlie took a step away from me, toward the front door.

"So your wife said." He responded after a moment. "But I still have to question him."

"We understand." Esme responded, sitting down at my feet. "Anything that will help get poor Bella found."

Charlie spent the next half hour drilling me on where I've been, what I've been doing, who I've been with, and finally, on why I was acting so weird towards Bella at school.

"Um…it's a little embarrassing." I said, glancing up at him.

He sat up straighter and hardened the look on his face. This was his daughter after all. "Go on…"

"It's just that…Isabella" I looked up at him and corrected myself "Bella—she's just so beautiful. I didn't know how to act around her." I looked back down at my hands. "I hope you find her." I finished.

"I think that's enough, Charlie." Carlisle said. "It's obvious that he doesn't know anything and he really is sick. He needs his sleep."

Just then, Charlie's men came down the stairs. "Nothing." They said in unison and walked out the door.

"Humph." Charlie said, getting up. "Well, I'm sorry to have bothered you. Let me know if you hear anything, please."

"We will." Esme responded.

"And Carlisle?"

"Yes, Charlie?"

"Keep an eye out for her at the hospital for me, will ya?"

"Of course, Charlie. I hope you find her."

"Me too." He replied, wiping a tear from his cheek as he left.

We listened to the men get in the car and then as the car left the driveway.

"I was sure it was him." One of the men said as they were leaving.

"Me too." The other agreed.

Then they were gone.

The house was silent for a moment as I sunk back on the couch.

"It's not your fault, honey." Esme said after a moment, patting my legs.

"Yes it is." I whispered. "I should have been able to control myself. Now look at all the lives I've ruined. She's going to want to kill me. And she has every right to."

Carlisle stood up. It was clear I had made him upset.

"Now Edward, you listen to me and you listen well. I have never, never heard of someone resisting their Singer for more than a few minutes, let alone a week. Bella was pulled into this life the moment your paths crossed and there was nothing that you could have done to stop it." Esme was "crying" at my feet, rubbing my legs. I couldn't stand to be around either of them anymore.

"I'm going to go check on her."

Alice and Jasper were with her when I came down into the makeshift cellar.

"How much longer?" I asked, earnestly.

"About a day." Alice said brightly after a moment. I glared at her. This was no reason to celebrate.

Alice pushed me out the door and made me go hunting. 'It's a way to pass the time.' She'd said. I stayed close and was only gone about an hour, then I was back by Bella's side.

About half a day later, her finger started twitching. I grabbed it and called for Jasper. He was there in an instant.

"She still has a while." Alice said, looking down at Bella.

"Bella? Can you hear me?" I said but got no response.

"She's still out of it." Alice replied.

A few hours later she started thrashing around, breaking through the restraints. Before I could call them, the family was there.

Bella's heart beat was quickening, pounding its way to its final beat, the sound bouncing off the walls.

"It's almost over." Alice said.

"I'm sorry." I whispered down to her.

Esme put her hand on my shoulder and gave it a comforting squeeze.

We all stood around in silence for about an hour as the drum that was Bella's heart pounded its way down. Occasionally she would let out a scream, but most of the hour was taken up by the thick lub-dub, lub-dubing of her heart.

I wasn't sure how much more of this I could taken when Alice said 'This is it!' and Bella's heart gave one last spluttering —dub and fell silent.

~.~.~

Well, there was the major happenings while she was changing. How do you think everyone will react when she wakes up? Who feels bad for Charlie? 'Cause I know I kinda do. =/

Another huge thank you to everyone who has been reading, reviewing, favoriting, alerting—all that good stuff. I can't tell you how much you guys make my day! No really, less than ten seconds of your time makes at least twenty-four hours of mine! As always, the more I hear from you guys, the more motivated I am to write, the faster you get updates. Sorry if that seems off to you but that's the truth of that matter. I'll write regardless—just faster if I have a little extra motivation. ;) Hope you guys had an amazing weekend and my heart and prayers go out to those affected by the tragedy that happened in Colorado.

Next up—Bella's awakening!