30 Days of Night

Disclaimer:

I own absolutely nothing. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and 30 Days of Night belongs to Steve Niles.

Chapter 11: The Transformation:

Edward POV

Sometimes I just wanted to throw that damn phone across the room. When I'd said that I needed to get away for a while, evidently I hadn't made myself clear enough. You'd think that moving all the way to South America would have been a clue. But not to Alice; no, Alice never really listened to anyone but herself and her stupid visions. The phone buzzed again and I stared down at it. I wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone today. I hadn't really been in the mood to talk to anyone in a while. In fact, I hadn't really been in the mood to leave the house for a week. So I hadn't. I knew I was being unfair to Alice. She was just concerned about me. I wasn't certain what her marathon calling spree was about and I didn't really care. I hadn't hunted in seven days and I was feeling rather weak, too weak to deal with any of her shit about how wrong I was to leave B…., well, her.

God, I was pathetic. I couldn't even think her name without feeling like someone was ripping my guts out. It was ridiculous. I was the one who had left her. For good reasons too. I wasn't safe to be around. I never had been. I was a monster. There was no changing that. I couldn't become human, even though I would have given anything for that. I sure as hell wasn't going to let her become a vampire, and give up her very soul in the process, just for me. I knew that I was a selfish creature, but I wouldn't let myself be that selfish. Not when it really mattered and everything about her really mattered. Our relationship never had a future under those conditions. I knew that. I had just been delaying the inevitable by sticking around as long as I had anyway. Eventually, I would have had to leave. No matter what Alice said, in my mind, it always would have ended the same way.

She was going to live a full life now. She would never have to look over her shoulder, worrying about whether or not some vampire was going to try to kill her to get to my family. She would never have to worry about the Volturi coming after her because she knew our secret. She would be safe and get married and have kids and grow old and do everything that a normal human being should. Yes, I had made the right decision. Of course I had. I sighed. Had I been human, I would have been drowning myself in a bottle of whiskey at that moment. I could try to convince myself all I wanted that what I'd done was the right thing, the best thing, for her. But I knew in my heart that I was wrong. Still, I couldn't change the past. And I couldn't go back to Forks now. It was too late. She'd probably moved on anyway. As long as she'd moved on with someone other than Mike freakin' Newton, that was fine. Well, not really. I would never be fine with thinking of another man kissing her or touching her. But I had to live with it. Leaving had been my choice after all.

All I had been doing in South America was wallowing in self-pity and I wasn't quite ready to stop yet. So I avoided Alice's phone calls as much as possible. When Esme would call, I would pick up the phone. She didn't call that much. She knew that I needed my space. But every once in a while she needed to hear my voice. She needed to know that I was still here. So I talked to her. But no one else. I wasn't ready to go back home yet. I wasn't even sure if home was the same place anymore. She had become so much a part of our lives, I didn't know what my family would be like without her. She had been the life, the energy, and the passion behind everything. Without her, I felt like nothing more than the animated corpse that I really was.

The phone buzzed again and I let it go to voicemail. After it stopped, I picked it up and looked at it. Twenty messages. "Good Lord," I muttered to myself. Something had really gotten Alice worked up. She usually stopped trying after the third call. But not today. No, something was different today. I frowned and my mind started to wander a bit. What would make Alice so eager to get in touch with me? Perhaps something had happened to someone in the family. But if so, why wouldn't Carlisle have tried calling me? Or one of the others. No, it wasn't that. Something else.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. Alice had seen something. She'd had one of her visions. But was it just about me? Was I in trouble? Did they need me at home? Was I ready to go home if they did? Or was it something else? I flipped open the phone, my finger hovering above the call button. She'd never left twenty messages before. I wondered…what if Alice had done the very thing that I had told her not to do? What if she had thought about her?I quickly hit the button and entered my password to check my messages. It was good to hear Alice's voice, even though she sounded so panicked.

"Edward! Edward, damn it, pick up your phone! I swear to God…," she trailed off at that point, mumbling something that I couldn't distinguish because of the static in the receiver. "Edward, listen, I'm going to tell you something and it's not going to be pleasant. To be honest, I'm actually hoping that you totally freak out. Maybe then you'll get off your sorry ass and come help us. I just had a vision."

The phone cut off at that point. Alice had exceeded her allotted time limit. I growled lowly, deleting that message and moving onto the next. "Stupid voicemail," I heard her mutter as the second message started. I chuckled a little. "Thirty seconds…really? Thirty second is all they give you? What if you have something important to say? Something that takes more than thirty freakin' seconds." I heard a voice that sounded like Jasper's whispering something in the background and then Alice started talking again. "Right, so anyway. I had a vision. Edward…it was bad. You need to come quickly. It's Bella."

The message cut off again. I froze, unable to move, even though the pleasant, computerized voice on the phone was asking me if I wanted to save the message, delete it, or move on to the next. Bella. Her name shot through me like fire, tingling all of the cells in my body. They yearned for her, reaching out to find her, to touch her. I didn't know what I wanted more - her blood, her body, or just her. I wanted all three. Not so much her blood anymore. I had gotten used to that. The thirst for her blood had become a low fire in my throat that wouldn't ever really go away. But I had learned to control it. The other things I couldn't control, like how my body reacted when she was around. I had never wanted anyone so much in my life. If my heart could beat, it would have skipped at the sound of her name rolling off of Alice's lips with such ease and familiarity. I deleted that message and moved onto the next.

"You seriously need to pick up your phone. This is getting ridiculous. I had a vision of Bella, Edward. I'm afraid if we don't get there in time, something really bad will happen. I think she was trying to communicate with me, Edward. It was unreal." I could hear her shaking her head through the phone. I also heard other noises in the background, but I couldn't figure out what they were. "I was just sitting on the sofa and then I saw her. It was dark and she was scribbling on a piece of paper. She wrote down three words. Barrow, Alaska and vampires."

That message ended and I felt my body stiffen. Vampires. Why would she send Alice a message about vampires in Barrow, Alaska? She lived in Forks. She wasn't in Barrow. It didn't make any sense. I moved onto the next message. "There was more," Alice continued. "The scene shifted and I saw her running. There was a lot of snow. She was so afraid, Edward. God, she was so afraid. I could see it in her eyes. There was blood everywhere and vampires. They were attacking someone behind her. But she was running." Alice paused and I could hear the tears in her voice. I heard Jasper trying to console her. She started talking again. "I think she's in Barrow, Edward. I don't know why though and I think something bad is going to happen there or it already has. We're already on our way."

The message cut off and I played the next one. "We're taking a plane to Alaska and we'll run the rest of the way once we're there. Driving would take too long. The terrain is so uneven and with the snow, well, I think most of the roads leading up that way are closed this time of year anyway." The noises made sense now. She was in a car driving to the airport. "We need you to meet us there, Edward. I don't know where you are or how quickly you'll be able to get there, but just come."

I skipped to the next message as soon as the computer voice started again. But it wasn't Alice this time. It was Emmett. "Pick up the phone you son of a bitch! Seriously. Bella is in trouble, man, and you're just sitting on your ass down there in South America wasting away like some pansy because you're too afraid to be with the girl you love. Get over it, man! Get your fucking, pasty, emo ass up here now!" I heard Esme trying to calm Emmett down, but he wasn't listening. "If you don't come help us," he growled lowly into the phone, "I'm gonna find you. And I'm gonna fuck you up, Edward. If anything happens to her because of you, I'm gonna kill you. We never should have left in the first place."

That message ended and Alice was on the next one. "Edward, Carlisle is trying to get in touch with our friends in Denali. We're hoping they'll help. I saw so many vampires, Edward. We can't fight them alone. Please….please come," her voice broke a little. "We need you, Edward. Bella needs you." I closed my eyes, trying to calm myself. My own anxiety was mounting with each message. Both Alice and Emmett had sounded so desperate.

I listened to one more message. I expected it to be Alice again, but it wasn't. This time is was Rosalie. "Edward," she said quietly. "By the time you get this, it's probably already too late. I want you to know that. Because if you're just sitting there ignoring all of these calls, it's all on you, brother. If you don't come here and help us, if we can't save her, it's all on you. She's your mate, Edward. At least have the decency to pick up the fucking phone!" She was yelling at this point. I cringed. If Rosalie was angry with me, I knew I was in trouble. She didn't even like Bella. "Barrow, Alaska," she said quietly. "If we don't see you there, I never want to see you again."

I didn't bother to listen to the rest of the messages. I slipped my phone into my pocket and ran out of the door. I couldn't go straight to the airport though. I needed to hunt first. It had been too long and I was weak. I wouldn't do anyone any good if I couldn't fight. But I didn't relish the experience. I found the closest animals I could and dispatched them without any real enjoyment. The blood was just fuel and I needed as much fuel as I could get if I was going to be strong enough to help save Bella. I smiled a little when I thought of her name. I was going to see her again. Soon. It didn't hurt so much to think of her anymore. I was going to Barrow, Alaska. And I was going to save her.

...........................

Bella POV

When Edward had told me about the process of becoming a vampire, I didn't truly understand the pain he had described. I had felt pain, I knew what it was. And I had even felt the pain of the venom once before. So I knew what that was like. I thought I had mentally prepared myself, but even with my prior experience, I didn't really understand it. I hadn't been able to fathom what that burning sensation would feel like when torturing every single cell in my body. I just knew what my hand had felt like. Now I knew and I would have gladly had that pain back in my hand if it meant that the fires burning everywhere else would stop.

It started as soon as I injected the venomous blood into my vein. I actually had to drop the needle because I couldn't seem to control my muscles anymore. It felt like someone had lit my arm on fire. I really expected to look down and see flames dancing all around me. But there was nothing there. I tried clawing at it, scratching at it, but it wouldn't go away. I started whimpering and I knew that Stella wanted to come over to me. I saw her sit up a little straighter, lean forward. But she stayed where she was. As the burning spread from the tips of my fingers to my shoulder, across my chest, down into my stomach and legs, to the very tips of my feet and the ends of my hair, the whimpering turned to screaming. I was twitching violently, my muscles firing randomly as the nerve endings went into overload. The pain was too much. My body didn't know what to do with itself. I slid down so I was laying on the floor and the cool concrete felt good against my overheated skin. But the comfort of it only lasted a few seconds.

The burning just intensified. Finally, I couldn't even scream anymore. I was trapped in silent torture. My eyes were open, but I was staring into nothing. I couldn't think. I couldn't rationalize anything. I couldn't even remember anything. No smells, no sounds, nothing registered with me at all. It was all just pain. All just that fire burning underneath of my skin, attacking all of my cells, corrupting them, piercing through my organs. My heart was beating so fast I thought it might actually burst. Sweat coated my skin. I don't know how long the burning lasted. I lost all sense of time and place. I did notice when the burning started to be replaced by something else. I started to feel a coolness replacing the burning. It started in my extremities. The tips of my fingers and toes cooled first. Like someone had put ice packs on them.

Though the coolness should have felt better than the fire, there was something disconcerting about it. I realized then that I was starting to die. The coolness was spreading, the fire retreating. Up my legs, up my arms, I felt the fires go out. Everything contracted into a little point. All of the fires receded into my heart. Just when I thought the burning would stop, it shot through my heart with such intensity that my breath hitched. I tried to pull in more air, but I couldn't. Then I realized that I couldn't hear my heart anymore. Just when I started to panic, when I started to want to take it all back, when I wanted to be anything but a vampire, everything went black.

……………………….

Stella POV

She screamed for a few hours and I swore the vampires would come. How could they not hear her? I guess they were preoccupied trying to find Beau and my husband. I couldn't stand to see her in so much pain. I wanted desperately to go over to her, to hold her, to do anything that might help lessen whatever it was she was going through. But I remembered her telling me to stay away. Neither of us really knew what was going to happen. She didn't want to hurt me by accident. So I stayed put and I watched her. The screaming eventually stopped, but I knew that the pain hadn't. She just lay on the floor, staring blankly at the wall, her face scrunched into a grimace. She stopped twitching eventually too.

A day passed. Every once in a while, I would get up and go back into the office where Lucy was waiting. I would watch out of the binoculars as Eben and Beau hid under the wreck. The vampires were still looking for them. But for some reason, they couldn't find them. Either that or the vampires knew exactly where they were and they were just waiting until Eben and Beau got cold enough and had to resurface on their own. I couldn't stay away from Bella for long though. I hated to see her in so much pain. I hated what she was doing to herself. At one point, I actually thought about shooting her. My hand went down to my gun. If I put a bullet in her head, would it stop? Would it put her out of the misery she was in? Or would it only make things worse? I didn't know. Ultimately, I couldn't do it. She would be so pissed if, thinking I was helping the situation, I turned her into a brain damaged vampire.

I had to remember that Bella wanted this. She wanted to be a vampire; she had told me so before. Granted, she wanted it under different circumstances. But it was still her decision. She had made her choice. I couldn't take it away from her. I could only hope that when she woke up she still remembered who I was, or who she was. John Riis had seemed to be able to hold onto himself for a while, before he lost everything in the thirst. Maybe Bella could too. Maybe she wouldn't be a monster. Lucy brought me out some Twizzlers that she found in the desk and I absently ate a few. She also found a bottle of rum, but I didn't partake in that. Maybe if this thing with Bella went south I would get really drunk and let myself forget for a few moments how horribly everything had gone since the day of my wedding.

You plan for things. People being late to the ceremony. The groom maybe walking out on you in a moment of panic. Missing your plane to the honeymoon. But you pretty much never plan for a vampire attack. That was one thing I hadn't even bothered to think of. I was going to have to broaden my list of worries. One thing I knew for sure, if we ever got out of here, I was never going to sleep without an axe somewhere within reach. Time ticked by slowly. I wondered how long it would take for Bella to become one of them. I wondered how I would know when the transformation was almost complete. I was pulled from my thoughts when Bella sucked in a ragged breath and her chest stilled.

She never exhaled. Her eyes glazed over. I guess I knew that she would have to die at some point. I mean, vampires don't have a heartbeat. They were technically dead. But it still took me by surprise. I wanted to run over and give her CPR. But I had to stop myself. I couldn't really be sure that this was a part of the process, but I didn't know if it wasn't either. I waited, sitting on the balls of my feet, rocking back and forth, my eyes glued to hers. Something had to happen soon. She had to wake up. Fate was one sick bitch if she let Bella go through all that pain for nothing. Finally, out of nowhere, she blinked. She wasn't breathing and she blinked. It wasn't like I was seeing things. No, she really blinked. Her eyes drifted shut for half a second and, when they opened again, they were blood red.