Chapter 12 – Is Murder Really a Crime of Passion?
Disclaimer: Jacob Black is not mine. I am not fictional. However, if I had the choice to become a fictional character, I would want to be Bella Swan, so I could make the choice to be with Jacob forever and ever... :D
The next two weeks were filled with still more silence. I was walking back in the door one afternoon, having just come back from patrols, when I heard Bella admonishing Norah.
"Norah!" she exclaimed. "How many times have I told you not to run outside without telling me where you're going?"
"Mommy!" Norah replied. "Me go see We-by!" she said, shaking her head and trying to pull Bella toward the door.
"Norah Jane," I said sternly. "Listen to your mother."
"No!" Norah yelled.
"You realize that telling her to listen to me does absolutely nothing?" Bella snapped. "If it was that easy, I would have had her listening a long time ago."
"You don't have to get all snippy with me," I replied heatedly. "That does absolutely nothing. I'm not a child."
"Seems like all you do anymore is act like one," Bella sniffed. She sat down on the couch.
"Is that all you live for anymore?" I asked her. "Just to argue with me?"
"What do you want me to do?" Bella asked. "Pretend that nothing happened? Sorry, Jacob. I'm not a computer. You can't program me to do whatever you want. You can't program me to care one day and not care the next. That's completely and utterly – "
"I know you're pregnant and hormonal," I said loudly, drowning out her reprimands, "but you are being stupid right now!"
"I'M BEING STUPID?" she roared.
"Yes you are!" I yelled back.
"Fine!" Bella screeched. "You didn't think I was stupid when we were working on having this baby!" she yelled, pointing to her stomach.
"Because you were semi-sane then!" I exclaimed. I couldn't help but notice that even when Bella was beyond pissed off, she was still beautiful. And I couldn't help but also notice that I was pretty well-matched. Even when we were both mad, we could equally counter each other.
"Semi-sane?" she asked. "Are you calling me crazy?"
"Maybe I am," I said.
"Fine!" she repeated. "I'm going to Emily's! Norah?" she asked, turning around. I looked around, not seeing Norah anywhere.
"Norah?" Bella repeated. She looked up and her eyes met mine in horror.
"Norah!" I called loudly. "Baby, where are you?"
No response.
Bella and I reacted in a split second. She shot into the hallway and I looked in all of the cabinets in the kitchen, opening and closing them. Perhaps our argument had scared her.
I heard the squeal of tires and a loud scream. I jumped up and Bella came running through the hallway and out the door.
"NORAH!" she shrieked.
I was out the door in a flash.
Sue Clearwater's blue Suburban was pulled catercorner on the road, her back wheels on the road, her front wheels in Billy's yard. She was standing over something small in the middle of the road, a horrified look on her face. My heart stopped.
"Don't touch her!" Bella yelled.
I felt like I was going to be sick. That couldn't be...
"Sue, call 911!" I said, running toward the road. I reached the road in a flash.
Norah was lying in the middle of the road, a deep gash on her forehead. She wasn't moving.
"Did you hit her?!" Bella yelled.
"She was toddling across the middle of the road," Sue replied, looking down at Norah with a dazed and horrified expression on her face. "I was looking down to grab my cell phone to call Billy because Charlie wanted me to pick him up and when I looked up, Norah was right in front of my car. I swerved, but not fast enough. I still hit her. I didn't run over her, but I still hit her!" Sue looked shocked as I looked up at her.
"Norie," Bella cried, falling down to her knees next to our daughter. "Please, wake up!"
I knelt down across from Bella and took Norah's tiny wrist in my hand. She was breathing; I could feel a pulse. I gingerly picked her up and sat her in the backseat of Sue's Suburban.
"Bella," I snapped. "Sit with her and don't move her."
Bella nodded weakly and jumped in the back seat.
"Sue, get in the passenger-side seat," I instructed. "I'm going to go ahead and get her to the hospital."
Sue jumped in the car and I ran over to it and started the engine. I slammed the door shut and swerved the car around and sped to the hospital. I ripped Sue's phone out of her hand and dialed the hospital's number.
"Emergency Center," the receptionist said brightly.
"This is Jacob Black," I said quickly. "My daughter's just been hit by a car and I'm running her in."
"Let me go ahead and get your information," the receptionist said quickly. "I'm Carlee."
"Okay," I said, speeding through a red light.
"What is your daughter's name?" she asked.
"Norah Black," I replied.
"Middle initial?"
"J," I replied, turning left onto the main road outside the reservation.
"Date of birth?"
"April 17, 2007," I answered.
"Is she conscious?" Carlee the receptionist asked.
"No," I answered. I caught Bella's eye in the rearview mirror. She looked absolutely shocked and as white as... I shook my head and focused on Carlee the receptionist's next question.
"Is she breathing?" Carlee the receptionist asked, continuing her way down the list of questions.
"Yes," I replied. "She also has a pulse."
"Okay," she replied. "When you pull into the hospital, turn into the emergency center. Bring her in and I'll have a unit waiting right there to rush her into the proper treatment center. Try not to jostle her around too much."
"Okay," I replied, hanging up. I threw Sue's phone back to her.
It took us about five more minutes to get to the hospital. I tried to pick Norah up from the backseat, but Bella stopped me.
"I've got her!" she snapped. I was smart enough to not argue.
Bella picked her up and we headed toward the emergency room doors. The unit was waiting for us when we walked in. Bella sat her in the huge bed and we followed the unit toward the ER.
"Hi," a woman with long red hair said, extending a hand to each of us. "I'm Leanne. I'll be registering your daughter here today," she said brightly. "Can you tell me what's happened?"
I repeated the story that I had told Carlee the receptionist. Leanne kept her cool and helped reassure Bella.
"I'm going to call Charlie," Sue said, looking shaken. I simply nodded. "Don't tell Billy," I warned her. "I don't want him panicking. It's not good for his heart to know things when we're not sure what's going on."
Soon afterward, I felt the familiar stench of vampire in the vicinity. Dr. Fang came down the hallway hurriedly, looking rather anxious.
"What happened?" he asked Bella, his eyes wide with shock.
"Sue ran her over with her Suburban," Bella spat.
"Bells," I admonished her. "That's not exactly what happened."
"I hit her with my car. She was out in the middle of the road and I wasn't paying attention," Sue interjected.
"Bella and I were arguing and didn't realize that she'd gone outside," I added. I felt horrible. Norah was probably headed to Sam and Emily's house to go see Levi. Her tiny voice adamantly insisting 'Go see We-by' echoed painfully in my thoughts.
Dr. Fang leaned over her, pressing on her left leg here and there. He frowned.
"Leanne, I want an X-ray on that leg," he ordered. The redheaded nurse nodded and wrote something down on a clipboard. "I also want a CAT scan on her head and an X-ray on her arm."
"What's wrong with her?" Bella asked hysterically.
"Bella, Jacob, let's go into the hallway," he said. He led us outside, away from Sue, and sat us down in two chairs outside the doorway.
"The biggest indicator of possibly head trauma and brain injury is that fact that she's not waking up. I'm going to have a CAT scan run on her, to check for brain swelling. I've already ordered two x-rays because I think both her arm and her leg might be broken. Do you have any idea how fast Sue was going when she struck Norah?"
"I have no idea," Bella replied. "You might ask her."
"She swerved, so I highly doubt she struck her at full force," I replied. "The speed limit outside the house is 15 miles per hour."
"Okay," Dr. Fang said, nodding. He walked back into Norah's emergency room and came back out, pushing her bed down the hall to radiology.
"Bella?" a voice called from down the hall.
Edward Cullen was walking down the hallway... well, more like strutting down the hallway. He had a cocky look on his face that I just wanted to reach over and wipe off.
"Are you okay?" he asked, kneeling down and looking up at her.
"No," Bella sniffed.
Edward wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. I couldn't help but growl at him.
"She'll be fine," he insisted.
"Did Alice see what happened?" Bella asked him.
"No," the bloodsucker responded. "But Carlisle called Alice and told her what was going on... that Norah had been hurt and was in the hospital. She's outside, parking the Porsche. She should be up here in a second."
"I think this is a family affair," I said stiffly. "Why are you here?"
"Alice and I care a great deal about Norah," Edward replied. "Bella also told us that she was expecting another baby. We were both worried about Bella, so we came up here."
"I'm fine," Bella insisted. "So is the baby."
I wanted to rip Edward Cullen from limb to limb, to get him away from my wife. But I didn't think a hospital would be the proper place to phase. Edward looked up at me with disapproval, reading my thoughts. Stupid motherfucker.
"That's good," Edward replied. "I was so worried about the you," he murmured to Bella.
"I'm sure you were," I snapped.
"Alice needs help downstairs," Edward said suddenly. He kissed Bella on the top of her head once more. "I'll be back up here with her in a few minutes." And with that, he trotted back downstairs. I tried to ignore the sinking feeling in my stomach.
Bella turned to face me.
"You're jealous," she said, a small smile on her face.
"I'd be lying if I wasn't," I replied truthfully. "He can kiss you on the top of the head, but I haven't kissed you in months, it seems."
"It hasn't been months," Bella disagreed.
I sighed.
"I'm really worried about her," she moaned. "Possible brain injury? Brain swelling? Broken bones?"
"I know," I said, looking down at my feet. I took her sighed and leaned into me.
"I feel guilty," she said. "I should have been paying attention to her, instead of trying to win an argument with you. I guess this just places things in perspective."
"Perhaps," I said, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with her.
"Part of me still wants to be mad at you, I won't lie. But the other part of me just wants to forgive you and move on and focus on Norah getting better. She needs both of us, united, not arguing and trying to one-up each other."
"I wasn't trying to one-up you. In all actuality, I was just trying to get you to forgive me for being a jerk. But I was too stubborn and cowardly to ask for forgiveness the proper way. I'm so sorry, Bells. You know I love you more than anyone on this planet. I don't think I could live without you."
Bella smiled and leaned into me.
"So you think it's been months," she said, smiling. She leaned in and kissed me softly. "I haven't forgotten," she sighed. "I probably never will. But I already have forgiven you. That's what husbands and wives do, right?"
"Bella!" a shrill voice echoed down the hallway. Damn Alice for being so chipper. I didn't have the chance to answer Bella's question.
"Alice," Bella said, grinning.
Edward was glaring at me. He was jealous. It was written all over his face.
"Maybe I am," he said, his voice too high for human voices to hear. Alice glared at him.
"Edward told me what Carlisle had told you guys. "I'm sure she'll be just fine."
"I really hope so," I said. "It hurts to see her in there, looking so small in that big bed..." I trailed off, looking down the hall to see Norah's bed being pushed back down the hallway by the same redheaded nurse.
"I just took a look at her CAT scan," Dr. Fang said, showing us the scan of Norah's head. "There's a little bit of swelling at the back of her head. It looks like she hit that pavement pretty hard. However, her brain is pressing against her skull in a matter that is concerning to me. We're going to have to remove a small bit of her skull, so her brain has room to swell. When the swelling goes back down, she'll be fine."
"You're going to remove part of her SKULL?" Bella gasped.
"It's fairly routine for some head injuries," Dr. Fang said. I simply gaped at him in shock. WHAT. THE. HELL.
"I've just had Leanne go upstairs to get Norah's room ready in the pediatric wing. She'll be here until after the surgery and until she wakes up and we're sure that she's completely okay. But I'm almost positive that she'll make a full recovery."
"What do you mean, almost positive?" Bella asked, looking stricken.
"I'm not going to lie to you, Bella. There's a small risk that she won't wake up. But there's overwhelming evidence that she will. Her pulse is steady, she's breathing on her own... everything seems to point that she will make a full recovery. But the longer that she's out, the higher the risk that there could be brain damage. I'm not quite sure exactly how hard she hit the pavement."
Bella was shaking.
"Bells, honey, sit down," I said, leading her over to a chair. "It's not good for the baby for you to get so upset. You should call Emily. She doesn't know what's going on. I'm sure she can make you feel a lot better... calm you down, distract you."
"I don't want to be distracted!" Bella exclaimed. "I just want my baby to get better!"
"I know," I said, nodding. "And so do I. And she will. I just don't know how else to calm you back down and you being upset isn't making things easier on Norah or the baby or me. Now, please, Bells. Just call Emily, okay?"
"Okay," Bella said, sighing. She picked up her cell phone and dialed Emily's number and put the phone to her ear. "It's ringing," she replied.
"We're going to go ahead and take her to surgery in a few minutes," Dr. Fang said. "I'll be doing the surgery personally, so you have absolutely nothing to worry about. I have more experience than anyone else in this hospital," he insisted.
Although I knew he was right, the fear of having my daughter's head cracked open seemed almost rational. I wanted her to be fine. I wanted her to be okay. And most of all, I wanted to kill Edward Cullen for kissing my wife's head and confusing her. The last thing I needed to top this day off was Bella to choose Edward Cullen over me again.
But I guess that was a rather irrational fear. I knew Bella loved me. We had a beautiful little girl together and we were expecting another baby. Things would be okay. They really would. I just had to keep my head on straight and not cause any more drama.
But Norah would be okay. She really would. I had nothing to worry about. Norah would be just fine and then Bella and I would be there as she woke up. Everything would be absolutely wonderful. I just had to keep thinking that.
Okay, we're taking a slight detour. Irina isn't here yet! But don't get too comfortable! She's not too far off! *wink, wink*
But anyways, this chapter came a little out of nowhere, but it was needed, I think. :) Hopefully you guys can see why.
Thanks for reading!
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xoxo
