Author's Note: Man has it been a long time since I last updated… I'm sorry. I know I say it every time but every time I'm sincerely sorry. Summer has been insane. Thank you soooooo much for all the reviews on the last chapter! I hope you enjoy the chapter and review!!! I know I sound like a robot but PLEASE review!!!! They really help a lot. =]]
Love,
Mel =]
28. Waiting
Ronan Philip Dwyer Cullen
Never Say Never- The Fray
Even with my precise vampire vision, I didn't see Carlisle run to the blanket. He just seemingly appeared there, ripping the blanket off of Ava's distorted face and turning her over as she began coughing up blood. I ran for a napkin off of the kitchen table and bent down next to her on the opposite side of Carlisle. I began wiping off her perfectly plump lips. I smiled. I just wanted to kiss them, over and over and over again. I would never leave my Ava's side again. Hell, I'd be her official stalker for all eternity, whether she liked it or not.
Carlisle's stethoscope came out of no where, navigating her blood-trickled purple shirt until it reached her heart, and his eyebrows furrowed. I know he had to use it to keep up his façade at the hospital, but he had supernatural hearing. Why was he using a stethoscope? I felt the energetic presence of my family around me, watching with awe as Ava's face twisted into painful expressions, her eyes closed all the while. She screeched again, causing me to immediately put my hand on her cheek. I could already feel the temperature of her skin dropping. Was that normal?
Carlisle shook his head and looked up at us. My stomach dropped.
"Carlisle, what's the matter?" I demanded, almost angrily. I just got my Avs back. I couldn't be losing her again.
He looked at me skeptically, as if he were trying to find the answer in my eyes. He shook his head. "Nothings the matter… I don't think…"
Another silence filled the cottage as he stared at Ava, listening to her wild heart beat. I was becoming fed up. "What do you mean by 'I think'?"
Carlisle ignored me and put the stethoscope back to Ava's chest, shaking his head. "Remarkable."
My head was about to blow off with frustration. What happened to communication? Before I could explode, Alice answered my question, "It should only be a couple of hours now."
We all turned to Alice, completely astounded. Hours? Days maybe, but hours? "Impossible," I breathed. "How the hell…"
"I don't know," Carlisle kneeled, staring at her. "She must have pierced the heart precisely; perfectly in the pulmonary artery. The venom is spreading extraordinarily fast; that's the only rational explanation I can think of."
I put my hand through her blood-encrusted hair, trying to now figure out how she managed to give herself such a large blow to the head.
"The only reasonable hypothesis we came up with was that the sting of the venom must have stunned her and caused her to fall back and hit her head on the counter," Edward answered from behind me.
I nodded, watching her face twitch uncomfortably as she moaned quietly. I held her hand. "I wish there was someway I could comfort her."
Carlisle put a hand on my shoulder, smiling. "It's only a matter of time, son. The good news is she's still with us," he shook his head. "I'm so sorry, Ronan. I'm sorry I put you through this, us through this. It's probably the most horrible I've felt in my entire existence…"
I heard the rest of my family begin to shuffle away, in-depth conversations about Ava's rapid transformation filling the small living room, leaving Carlisle, Esme and I watching over Ava.
I shook my head, putting my hand to Ava's cheek again. I just couldn't take my eyes off her… "No, Carlisle. Thank you for saving her. Again."
He put a hand on her arm, his face somber. "I don't know if I'd be able to live with myself if I didn't. I was just returning a favor saving her, Ronan. She saved us. This entire family. We were becoming what I feared most. We seemed to be constantly in fear, hiding and running from everyone and everything. We were falling apart at the seams; the faith we had in ourselves that convinced us weren't monsters was beginning to evade us. I don't think we'd be a family anymore if it weren't for Ava. And for that, I feel like I owe her my life." Esme nodded as she watched Ava intently.
"Ronan, I don't know what I would do without this bond that we all have," she told me, "It makes me feel alive."
I nodded as we watched Ava suffer the excruciating pain of the venom- her face twisting into tortured expressions. I let my fingers trail down her other arm until they reached her open palm. She squeezed her hand shut over mine.
We lay next to each other in her bed as a warm breeze wafts through the window, the smells of nature and Ava surrounded me, making me feel as though I was back in Florida. She wasn't at all restless the night before; she only smiled in her sleep, her fingers intertwined with mine all the while. I took a deep breath of the rich air, moving closer to my love…
"We have to leave. Now." Alice came from out of no where behind me, her voice urgent.
I shook my head. How could we move Ava while she was in this excruciating condition?
Esme spoke for me. "Alice, why now? The Volturi can't be that close if they're recruiting…"
Her face went blank again, so Edward informed us, "The authorities. They're coming to do a search for Ava. Her mother received the video."
"Of course." I muttered.
"She's already in enough pain for movement to affect the magnitude. We can move her." Carlisle told him, taking the now screaming Ava into his arms. "Let's go."
This was all going much too fast for me, like we were on some Japanese game show that kept on throwing new obstacles into our faces. One minute Max Newton exposes our secret to Forks, then the Volturi's building up an army to eliminate us, then Ava's dead, then she's transforming into one of us, and now we're running from the police? No, it's worse than an obscure game show. It's a freaking daytime soap.
"Carlisle, I got her," I tell him, and he hands over her convulsing body. Oh, yeah, movement won't affect the pain. Yeah, right.
Then, we're out the door, running deeper into the thick Northwestern rainforest, with my soon-to-be vampire girlfriend struggling in my arms.
***
I'd been pacing the clearing we'd come to for hours. It was close to midnight I could imagine and rain poured down on us as I cradled Ava in my arms. She'd been screaming for mercy for a few of those hours now, and her heart rate was unbearably quick, pounding against her rip cage so hard it echoed off the trees around us.
"It shouldn't be long now," Edward told me, putting a hand on my shoulder. "You might want to put her down so she doesn't claw your face off when she wakes up." He smirked.
I looked down at the rain-soaked soil, shaking my head. "She would rip my face off if I put her down there."
Emmett came beside me. "Ronan, my boy, in my day, I woke up in many discomfited places, usually not even remembering how I got there…" Rosalie gave him a disgusted look, smacked his shoulder and he let out a booming laugh in return. I rolled my eyes. "Anyways, man, you're gonna want to put her down. Or she's gonna rip your face off. No joke."
I grimaced. I couldn't imagine my Ava being a ravaging newborn vampire. I sighed and laid her in the driest place I could find, even though she still became splattered with dirt as the rain continued to pelt down in the clearing. Her hair was soaked, a dripping mess around her as she clawed at the ground and whimpered. I turned around and took a deep breath. It would be over soon. It was only a matter of time before her pain was over and she'd be back in my arms again.
"They're talking about us on channel seven," I hear Renesmee announce, and I immediately rip out my pod phone and flip to the television setting, scrolling to channel seven.
Authorities continue to search the perimeter of the actual residence of the Swan-Masons at this hour, but all that is evident is that the family has fled and kidnapped seventeen year-old Ava Jameson.
As many of you know, this afternoon many of us received a very mysterious emergency text from a local teenager's phone of one extraordinary boy, something that is, by some, classified as supernatural. The boy has been identified as Ronan Swan-Mason, and according to Sharon Jameson, brought her daughter out for a walk in the woods behind their newly renovated estate, where Max Newton, another teenage resident that attends Forks High School with the family, followed them. Denise Richards is at the scene with Max now, Denise?
In the background of new reporter, the outside of our cottage is surrounded by police with LifeLasers that can detect human life up to two hundred feet away. I sighed. They would never find us, since our kind comes up as negative on those scanners.
Yes, thank you, Kory. Authorities have searched the home, only to find it perfectly in order, Thank God Esme bleached the kitchen floor where Ava's blood pooled, but definitely inhabited, when the Swan-Masons are recorded to have their residence in the Redwood Apartment Complex. I'm here with Max Newton, the boy to capture Ronan's extraordinary abilities on camera. So, Max, can you explain to me what you saw today?
My hands clench into fists as Max's triumphant face fills the phone's screen.
Yes, Denise. What I saw today was something that can only be explained as supernatural. The Swan-Masons aren't who they say they are. There true identity has been hidden from us all along, for they're really the Cullens, a family that, if you go back about a hundred years in Forks High year books, you'll find were never pictured, but lived among our grandparents. It may sound crazy, but my grandfather went to school with them and encountered one of them using their superpowers as he wrote about in his journals. Yes, it may sound crazy, but folks, I have proof. On this pod phone here.
His expression was suddenly saddened. I shook my head angrily.
All I want now is for them to be brought to justice for taking my close friend, Ava, and for them to be locked up and tested on. They're dangerous, but their abilities must be further explored.
Denise nods, and Max continues. And the scary part of this story is that there are more of them headed towards Forks, and these supers are the reason the Cullens are fleeing. "The Volturi" they referred to them as? I think the police there should also follow out a search. These creatures need to be brought to justice.
I closed my eyes, putting a hand to my head. The world felt as if it were falling in on me. How the hell would we get out of this?
Denise nods again. Thank you, Max. Well, we've sure had one strange day here in Forks. If you have any information regarding the Cullens, report it to the hotline number below, but be discrete. This family is said to have paralleled senses.
One can read minds!, Max chimes in.
Denise tries her hardest not to roll her eyes. Scientists are on the way to take samples from the cottage for testing. For further updates throughout the night, text "News" to 6644 for further content. Now back to Daniel with the weather…
I close my pod phone, nearly smashing it on the ground. This was it. We could run, but we couldn't hide from the Volturi. And now that their secret residence was also revealed? We were more than dead. The entire town of Forks was dead. The exact replica of Alice's vision was unfolding right before us.
I looked over at Renesmee, who was buried in Jacob's shoulder, shaking, and Edward put his arm around Bella, who simply shook her head. Jasper took Alice's hand and they stared into each other's eyes, trying to comprehend their doomed fate. Carlisle closed his eyes and looked down, defeated.
"What? Is that it? Are we just giving up?" Rosalie growls, glaring at us around the clearing as Ava begins to shriek again.
No one responds to her anger. We are all fully aware of our destiny.
She shakes her head, obviously in some deep denial. "No. We've dealt with them before and have been able to work things out. I know this is bad, but we can't just give up…"
Yes we can, Rose, I want to say, we're dead this time. But she'd figure that out soon enough. She throws a look of desperation towards Carlisle.
"We can't just give up." She says again. "We can't just wait here to die," she pleads.
Carlisle shakes his head, his eyes focused on the ground as he speaks. "Yes, we can continue to run. We can run from the Volturi for as long as we want. But sooner or later, we're going to get tired of running. Sooner or later, Rosalie, they're going to corner us, and there will be no negotiations, no 'Nice to see you again, Carlisle'. They're going to kill us. We could try to fight back, but we're immensely outnumbered."
Rosalie's face dropped as she realized the inevitable. "No."
Emmett put his arm around her. "That's why we need to spend these last few days we have together as a family, babe. Trying to run away would be like a mouse on a wheel. We'd get no where."
She nods, and with that, all hope is lost.
"Emmett's right," Esme said, "We need to spend this small amount of time we have left together, not running from our destiny."
I nod, and put an arm around my adopted mother, and she hugs me back. I don't think anyone on this planet could love as much as she does.
Bella came over next and hugged the both of us, followed by Edward, and soon the rest of our family was joined in a group hug. Even if we did die, this kind of love never would. Our bond would last for eternity.
We held each other in silence for a long time, letting the fact we would be no more in a matter of days sink in; trying to deal with the inevitable.
"I love you so much," Esme breathed to us, squeezing me tighter.
I take a deep breath, keeping myself together, "I love you too, Mom."
The silence was almost unbearable as I aloud myself to think; where do we go from here? Where to our eternal souls venture to after this cruel world? I shivered; realizing there was, indeed, utter silence. Silence. With no shrieking in the background of it all…
"Ronan," Carlisle calls me urgently, staring in the direction I put Ava in the relentless down pour.
I look in the direction he's looking, to find brilliant crimson eyes staring menacingly back at me.
Oh. My. God.
Suddenly, she was in a crouch, barring her teeth at my family and me, who reacted instinctively to the threat, barring our teeth and ready for action as well. I, however, remained standing, staring in awe at my newborn vampire girlfriend.
She looked like a goddess fugitive. Her skin was an angel-like pale white that glowed as the sky flashed with lightning. Her copper red locks were matted down on her soaking, blood-encrusted purple shirt and near waist length, and crouched in her dark skinny jeans and black stilettos, she looked like a super model posing for a sexy photo shoot. My breathing increased as I watched her eyes dart from place to place. It was completely ludicrous; my body wasn't even required to breathe.
Carlisle came out of his crouch, stepping towards Ava with caution. "It's okay, Ava…"
Her eyes continued to dart madly when she said, "Get away from me," in the most alluring voice I'd ever heard, making me want to take a step back…
Carlisle's eyes widened and his step faltered, but he shook his head and continued slowly towards her. "Ava, I know all of this is overwhelming…"
She looked straight into his eyes this time, saying in her smooth, mezzo soprano voice that made me want to fall over, "Back. Off."
Carlisle looked back at her, eyes wide and expression blank, and ever so slowly, he took a few steps backward, not looking away from her gorgeous face.
My mouth fell open. What the hell was he doing?
Ava even looked surprised at his willingness when her eyes widened, but she composed herself quickly, looking back into his eyes.
"Now sit," she commanded like she would a dog.
Carlisle kept the same expression on his face, and obeyed. I glanced next to me at Bella, who looked just as confused as I was.
I looked back over at Ava, who had an amused smirk playing her features, making her even more intoxicating. I cleared my throat, "Ava, honey…"
Her wild, scarlet eyes focused intently on mine, and instantly, she was all I could see. The outside world was non-existent, and her eyes were brilliantly bright, even in the dark night. They were absolutely mystifying; I just wanted to explore their depth, their beauty. I felt my face go slack.
"Stop talking," she commanded, and I closed my mouth immediately. Anything…
I shook my head when the perplexing infliction of her eyes suddenly evaded me, and I looked over at Bella, who was in a slight crouch glaring at Ava. She was shielding us. I looked at Carlisle, who was getting off the ground slowly, also confounded about Ava's influential power.
After exchanging a look with my confused family, I took a step closer to Ava. "Ava, there's no need to do that." I held my hand out to her as I inched closer. "It's just me."
Even through the baleful glare she was throwing at me, I saw bewildered confusion behind her new eyes. This was all brand new to her; she ought to be scared and disoriented. "I know your scared, Avs. I'll make sure you're okay."
She looked even more confused and frightened now as her eyes searched mine frantically. She shook her head and looked around at the rest of my family in the same manor. "Who the hell are you people?"
