27. There are no words for this
I sat up, and just had a second to glance Bella fallen back onto my chest, eyes closed, before she was gone.
I blinked and saw she was in Edward's arms, and oddly the blonde was in her mates. They ran side-by-side up the staircase, blurred rather, and out of view. My mind felt sluggish, trying to understand what was happening. I lurched off of the couch, listening to their fast yelling conversation.
"Edward, the baby, he's panicking," Rosalie moaned.
Edward's reply was remarkably calm, fast and efficient, but I could hear the panic there. "Yes, I know. I can hear it."
I ran to the sound of their voices, wishing I was as fast as them, or I was in wolf-form and faster. Panic was starting to surge in me now, gripping me.
"What's happening, Edward?" Emmett boomed. His panic seemed tinged with anger.
"I don't know!" Edward yelled back, just as I flew into the doorway from where their voices sounded.
Inside it was like a hospital. There was a small stretch bed, sheets unruffled and pristine. Edward stood on one side of it holding Bella, and Emmett on the other, holding his wife who was puffing and holding her bulging stomach with one hand. She was moving around in his arms too. It took a few moments to realize she wasn't moving spasmodically like that, but the baby inside her was moving her. Bella's head was lolled back, her limbs hanging like a puppet.
Bella and Rosalie's hands were grasped together, suspended over the bed. It looked like they couldn't figure out which of the females was to occupy it.
Then Bella twitched, gasped, and her eyes opened. She looked up and around, looking dazed, but her words were not. "The baby, you need to deliver it. It needs to come out, now! NOW!" She yelled. Her croaky voice was jagged in my ears.
Emmett set his wife on the table, and Edward carefully put Bella on the ground beside the bed. She kneeled there, looking shockingly skeletal next to the large bulge in the blonde's stomach.
"Emmett, get Carlisle on the phone," Edward ordered.
"I'm not leaving R..." Emmett started.
"GO!" Edward commanded.
The big guy stood for a second, gave his wife a strong look, and then pushed past me. Rosalie watched him go, clutching her stomach with both hands now. Bella clung onto the blonde's wrist with both of her bony hands; her eyes seemed to be glaring with concentration.
"Get him out, Bella, get him out," Rosalie screeched as a bunch of tremors racked her body. It looked like she was being electrocuted. "He's hurting himself," Rose said, all worried and lovey-dovey like, not seeming to be too largely affected by the punches that threw her body around.
"Edward, you need to give Rose a C-section," Bella said.
"With what?" he asked, more panic in his voice. "I can't cut her skin."
"With your teeth, god damn it, I need to focus! Jacob, hold Rose down?"
"What?" I asked, mind slow.
"JUST DO IT!"
I followed her instruction, holding the blonde down. She didn't even seem to notice or care rather. Instead she watched as Edward ripped off the lower half of her shirt, eyes flickering to that and then back to Bella.
I kept my eyes on Bella's face not wanting to watch whatever Edward did. I heard a sound like the screeching of pretesting metal being torn. The blonde thrashed hard under me, and I heard the crunching wet sound of the blonde's arm colliding with Bella.
She flew across the room, landing in a heap. Edward was immediately above her, and then the blonde screamed. It was ear-splitting, bloodcurdling, and then I was flung away too. I landed heavily against a book shelf, feeling my skull fracture then rapidly heal. My vision blurred, and when I tried to stand I fell.
I could only vaguely see the outline of someone standing over the blonde. It was too big to be Edward. Emmett's blurry hands were out of view. I closed my eyes, trying again to stand. My vision was slightly less swirling when I was standing, and Edward was back on the side of the blonde, Bella hanging next to him. She had blood flowing from her mouth, and one of her arms hung limply. Her face was zombie-like, but she grimaced, showing broken teeth. She was bleeding under her shirt. The smell of her blood was foul, like rust.
Emmett's head snapped towards Bella with the sound of a sharp intake of breath. "Edward..." he snarled.
"Jacob, get him out of here, NOW!" Edward yelled.
I saw the big guys tense for a second then I flung myself at him. For his part, he didn't struggle much, but it still felt like I colliding with a wall. We tumbled into the doorframe, and I scrambled to my feet to throw him out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
I turned back and almost spewed. The blonde's stomach was still moving and jumping around, but now a large slit down the middle was spewing blood from it.
"The placenta's detached," Bella whispered, it sounded a little gurgled past the blood in her mouth.
"Edward, get my baby out now," Rosalie yelled.
"Jacob, hold Bella up," Edward commanded.
I run to her side, looping my arm around her. I threw her limp arm over my shoulder and she screeched before quickly biting off the rest of her wail. The side of her torso that leaned against me gave too much; it felt squishy except for one sharp point that jutted at me through her shirt. Her ribs were broken, and one had burst through the skin. I felt like hurling.
Edward was standing over the blonde, his hands in the fleshy chasm in her bulging stomach that I knew was not her own flesh. By the outer rim of the incision I could see that, her flesh was bloody but clear and almost crystalline.
I looked away quickly, back to Bella. Her eyelids were fluttering, but they blazed all the same. Her jaw was clenched tight, as was the one fist around the blonde wrist.
Then a cry burst out in the room, and the sound of something wet slicking across and letting go of something it clung to. I turned to see Edward holding the baby up in the air.
"It's a boy," he said.
"Give him to me," Rosalie said, her voice no longer panicked but so full of love turned to see her face. It was as just as her voice sounded, and she reached up, arms and hands almost as bloody as Edward's. Her smile was almost breathtaking, and so out of place in this scene. I felt like I was in one of those gory horror movies that used too much tomato sauce. I felt sick to the bone.
"Henry," Rosalie sighed, smiling and kissing his bloody forehead, "so handsome."
I could hear the babies heart now, fluttering, almost as loud as my own, much louder than Bella's sporadically beating one. It sounded like a hummingbird.
The door opened, and the big guy stood there, looking into the room with awe.
"Are you..." Edward started.
"I'm fine now, can I see my son?"
Rosalie grinned brightly at him, and lifted the baby up.
The bloody child thrashed, then thrashed more, it's hummingbird heart suddenly spluttering, then it fell limp in the blonde's arms. The heartbeat stopped.
Rosalie gasped, so did Emmett.
"What? Bella, Edward, what happened?" The panic was back, louder and more forceful.
Emmett took the baby and the blonde rounded on Bella, yelling, grabbing her shoulders and shaking. "What happened? Bella, help me, help him. Save him!" Cracking sounds accompanied the blonde's movements, and Edward slammed his arm on the blondes, roughly pulling them off Bella.
"Stop that! You're hurting her!" Edward yelled.
Bella's eyes wheeled, and she lifted one arm, wincing. "Bring him to me," Bella said.
Emmet brought the limp baby closer. Bella placed her hand on the baby, closer her eyes. She exhaled loudly, and convulsed, and fell back...
And the baby's heart started again...
And Bella's heart stopped.
Edward gasped, grabbing Bella out of my arms. The blonde's eyes were wide and worried as she looked at Bella. Her husband mirrored the expression.
"Emmett, get Rosalie out of here!"
The big vampire obliged, giving his wife his son and scooping his wife into his arms, running out of the room. Edward threw Bella on the bed, gently for the speed he used.
"Jacob, do you know CPR?"
"Yes," I almost yelled. I launched into action, hands to her chest. I was trying to remember what they'd said about rhythm, something about it has to be to the tune of 'Staying Alive'?
"Get her breathing," Edward ordered.
I obliged. Before, I might have been happy for the chance to put my lips on Bella's. Now I was just panicked, worried I was making mistakes. There was nothing sexual about pressing my lips to hers. They were unmoving and unresponsive, and they tasted like blood.
I pressed at her chest again, heard the sickening squelch of her heart moving to my demanding hands. I kept this up for a couple more beats, and was about to force more air into Bella's lungs, only to have my hands knocked out of the way roughly. I heard a crunch. "Move," Edward ordered late. I felt the pain in my hand lessen as my fingers healed themselves.
Edward had a massive syringe in his hand. Inside it was something that wasn't quite translucent. It looked oddly silvery, almost milky, as it swirled in the barrel, but only at the edges of the swirl. Well, that's all I could tell before he plunged the syringe into the flesh where my hands had been
"My venom," Edward explained. He'd injected it straight into her heart.
"Keep her heart beating," Edward ordered, moving away. I moved robotically to continue what I'd been doing, watching Edward in between breathing into Bella's lifeless lungs. Forcing Bella's heart felt different, like the blood was thicker there.
Edward moved about Bella. He pulled off her thick sweatpants to bite at as many intervals along them as possible. I was disgusted to see him lick the wounds after he did so, until I saw the crescents marks heal moments after his tongue travelled over them.
Edward then moved to rip the sleeves off the long sweater Bella wore. It was more of a dress than a sweater; it went half-way to her knees. I was kind of glad she still had it on. How many times had I dreamed of Bella naked? But now I had no such wish. I wasn't a necrophiliac, and what I was doing kind of felt like I was desecrating a corpse.
I missed a beat in my pounding, stood there for a moment, overwhelmed by the hopelessness of the sudden situation. That's what we were doing, vandalizing her memory, because despite my breathing, and the glug of her protesting heart under my hands, there were only two people here; me, him and a corpse.
Edward all but threw me out of the way; the glaring, manic look he shot me was stabbing, coupled with his push it sent me sprawling to the ground.
"Get out of here then! Go," he ordered. "She'll survive, you stay with me Bella. You promised you'd survive! Come back!"
I scrambled to me feet and backed out of the room. All I could hear was that wet slap of her heart being forced to beat, and his crazed yelling to his dead wife. I think he'd finally snapped.
I moved away sluggishly when I was out of the room. I couldn't force my feet to move faster.
So this was what it felt like... the ocean of grief. Bella was gone; she'd left me here with only a broken and battered body. No proper farewell, no slow departure with eyes rolling back into her head, no final touching words to hold dear. No, she'd gone, chucked me off the boat, the shore so far away I couldn't even see it.
I felt empty, I'd lost my purpose. Keeping Bella alive had been my cause for so long... now I had nothing. It was all over.
I shuddered at the noises coming from upstairs, a dead heart being forced to thud and the frantic, raving calls of Edward. I wondered if he'd keep that force up for three days, keep the venom pumping through her to change her body. Would she change, become a vampire vegetable?
Just the staircase seemed a mile, but then I was in the living room, hearing the she-devil cooing to her little demon spawn. She was too enthralled by her baby to notice me, as was the ten-minute old murderer's father.
Already killed someone and not a day old... Sam was right; it couldn't be allowed to live. It was an abomination, a creature formed by the death of another.
The blonde and her mate would try to kill me after I killed it. Maybe I would let them. Hopefully I could at least take her out, while Dad seemed all happy now; he wasn't the one forcing Bella to sacrifice herself for their child.
Killing him might be the kinder option though, than to leave him grieve after his dead wife and child. I might kill him just for that mercy.
I wouldn't kill Edward though. I didn't have enough compassion for that. He could find some way to knock himself off, after he gave up on reanimating his dead wife.
I tensed, watching the back of the chair I could see the blonde's golden hair sticking out from. I was waiting for the perfect chance. I'd get the baby first, and then deal with the parents. Could it be stuck back together like the other vamps? Probably not, it's stolen enough from Bella that it shouldn't be fully vamp. Its thrumming heart vouched for that.
Rosalie cooed again, and lifted the bundle into the air.
I lunged.
I guess I'd paused too long. A wall of solid marble muscle ran to me, seizing my body and throwing me. I phased mid air, and was wolf by the time I crashed into one side of the hallway.
Emmett was standing over me, and picked me up and threw me again in the time it took me to whip my head around and bite deeply into his arm. He was pulled along with me, and we tumbled through the hallway, rolling across the porch. His steel hand pushed me as far away as possible, but I wasn't letting go of his arm. Not until I had a shot at his neck.
I rolled onto the lawn, and Emmett somehow brought his feet up to my chest, and kicked off me, shooting into the air with the sound of crunching bone and protesting metal. He shouted in pain, I yelped. The lower half of had arm ripped off, snapping where my teeth had clenched. I spat it out. The venom burned in my mouth.
My ribs stung in a thousand different places. He'd broken a bunch of my ribs. I rolled back to my feet, spring and running, eyes up to the sky. Breathing was painful, and my legs wanted to give out, but I knew he was still up there.
He was airborne for too long. I whipped my head around to try and see where he'd landed, and just caught sight of him in a tree before he launched at me. I just dodged in time, rolling out of the way. His foot clipped my hip with another crunch. My leg gave out as I tried to stand up again.
Emmett jumped on my while I was down. I brought my good leg up and kicked me away. I limp/ran at him, snapping at his other arm. He out of the way, my teeth connected only with his shirt, ripping most of it away in my teeth. He ran back away, across the lawn.
He snarled at me. I growled at him.
Then he ran. I tensed to dodge. Maybe if I could get him from behind...
And a little bolt of white stopped him half-way to me. The big guy flew through the air. I tensed as the vampire turned to me, and gasped as I saw Izzy stare back, and then run in front of me, arms held aloft. She was defending me?
Emmett stood, shaking off some leaves, and glared at her, eyes flickering to me in between.
"Emmett, stop it!" Izzy yelled.
"No, he wanted to kill my kid!"
"I won't let you kill him. He's grief-stricken. He wants revenge. He'll get over it."
"Why are you defending him? He wants revenge, that's not going to go away!" he tensed again.
Izzy's fists clenched, and she snarled at him. "Don't you lay another finger on him!"
"Why?" Emmett growled.
"Because he's my mate!"
...WHAT!
Guess we'll check out that vegetable theory
I was in a stupor, nothing touched me. My mind was reeling.
But even in that state I couldn't be so un-noticing.
From upstairs I heard a new sound, an unforced, steady heartbeat...
...And then an ear-splitting, piercing, shriek of pain.
On with the readings...
