Chapter 35

Rose POV

Her big, deep brown eyes looked up into my light golden ones with such panic and worry, but also trust as I ripped open the door to the rust bucket of a car before it was even at a full stop. She looked like a blind man seeing the sun for the first time.

And then what little life she had was gone. The recognition in her eyes gone.

They weren't closed, but rather they were unfocused, and rolling back.

I quickly pulled her from the car and lay her on the side of the road, propping her legs up on the seat.

She was somewhat floppy; her skin was paler than usual and from all the swelling around her mouth and airway I could hear her struggling to get any air in. Once her feet were elevated, she gained a little more colour in her face, but the effect was minimal.

This was catastrophic. Her blood pressure had dropped dangerously. This was the worst-case scenario.

She was actively dying.

I threw my phone at the wolf who was standing there next to where I knelt in the mud and barked at him to call Carlisle and put it on speaker. I didn't have any experience with treating a dying human, and knowing the theory was nothing compared to the practice.

I ripped the bag of supplies I had thrown together in my haste to leave and ripped it open.

Medical supplies fell all around me, and instantly I grabbed the adrenaline auto-injector and administered another dose to her upper thigh. I counted ten painful seconds before dropping the empty device beside me, and silently prayed to the God I had never believed in to be merciful.

I'd never had a prayer answered before but if there were a time for it to start, it was now as I tried to save this fragile human woman.

Finally, a full thirty seconds after I had thrown my phone at the dog, I heard Carlisle's voice.

I counted out Bella's weak heartbeats and waited for him to tell me it was improving, she would be alright.

Before he could even voice what I knew was happening, her heartbeat begun to flutter, and stutter.

And then there was silence.

Half a second later I was ever so carefully trying to pump her heart myself. The balance between enough pressure to push the blood without crushing her heart was next to impossible.

"I need you to start mouth-to-mouth, Jacob." I heard Carlisle instruct. "Rose, you keep going, you're doing well." I heard the wind rushing past him.

"How far away are you?" I nearly screamed. If anyone could save her it was Carlisle.

"I'm too far Rosalie, but you're handling this will, you're doing perfectly." He tried to encourage me.

"Where is Jasper?" I asked. I couldn't be the last one to see Bella, to try desperately to save her. Jasper needed to be here.

"I don't know, he and Edward split off from us. I'm on my way but you need to get her heart beating on its own." The phone line was beginning to crackle. Either he or I was in an area of poor coverage. Probably both of us in this hell hole of a town.

"What do I do?" I screamed.

Frustrated.

Helpless.

And then the phone line was dead.

I was on my own.

I kept going, never once pausing from the compressions I was performing, but it felt so useless. If her heart wasn't beating, there was nothing we could do.

There was no defibrillator, no drugs, no miracles.

I tried to force my brain to remember every scrap of medical knowledge I had read in the last seventy years. Nothing seemed helpful.

My eyes were tearing uncomfortably, tears I could never shed. But tears that could force me to realise how helpless I was.

I had one card to pull out. There was only one situation in my entire existence where I had even considered the possibility.

But I didn't have the strength then.

Did I have it now?

"Don't kill me but stop me if I can't." I growled at the boy kneeling beside Bella's lifeless head.

"What are you doing?" He asked, taking the first break from breathing for Bella.

"I can't think of anything else to do, I have to change her." I said as I finally stopped the compressions.

I quickly took a deep breath, repeated that prayer for mercy and strength, and I allowed myself to perform the one action I had sworn I never would.

I gently tilted her head back and exposed the large veins and arteries of her neck.

Her pale skin had a slight grey to it, but the vessels below stood out in a macabre rainbow. Reds, blues, greens, purples. They should have been supporting her life. But it felt empty under my hands.

There was no pulse, no life, and I knew I had no time to waste, nothing to lose.

The skin of her neck was surprisingly cool on my lips but offered no resistance to my sharp teeth as I allowed myself to bite down.

And then for the first time, I experienced the sweet and all-encompassing taste of human blood. Her blood began to pool in my mouth, causing my venom to flow freely. I saw red. Every instinct, every fibre of my being screamed at me to drink my fill.

She was dead anyway.

Hunting animals was a waste. A waste when there was this ambrosia to drink.

I cursed the full feeling in my abdomen from the filthy animals I had consumed earlier.

I felt a deep growl emerge from my chest as I sensed the wolf sitting close enough to me, I could feel the heat rolling off of him.

I shifted my gaze from the pale skin beneath me and glared at him.

As I continued to growl and enjoy my first taste of human blood, I saw the extreme disgust on his face.

He began to tremble.

He was going to phase.

I panicked and it was enough to break the grasp of the monster over me.

I was no longer seeing the read haze.

I allowed myself to pull away from her neck and took a deep, cold breath, before latching again.

This time I was more prepared.

The taste, while exquisite, wasn't such a shock.

And instead of drinking my fill, I allowed myself to instead push as much venom into Bella as I could.

I pulled away again. Sat back on my heels. And forced myself to breath deep, clear breaths of fresh air. Clear my head.

I looked down at Bella, expecting to see a large gaping wound at her neck where I had ravished her, but instead she had quite a neat wound, a perfect imprint of my teeth with a bit of blood, but already I could see it scabbing over and sealing my venom inside of her.

There was a little blood pooling under her skin, if she survived it might be a bruise. But of course, no matter what the outcome of my bite, in the best outcome her heartbeats were severely limited.

Yet still her heart remained stubbornly silent.

I swore and jumped back into the compressions I had abandoned only a minute before.

I kept to the perfect beat of one hundred and twenty beats per minute.

Ten compressions. Twenty compressions. Thirty.

And a break for the boy to breath for her.

The blood on her neck was scabbing further and the scent of fresh blood was fading, and the burn in my throat was screaming, wanting more, knowing I couldn't have it.

I forced myself to stop breathing.

The burning lessened somewhat.

Ten more compressions. Twenty. Twenty-five.

I paused again.

Was I hearing it? Or was it a figure of my imagination? I allowed myself to pause for a moment more, to see if I could hear it again.

And there it was, the sweet sound of a human heartbeat.

It was weak and thready, and a little more irregular than I wanted, but it was there.

It was self-sustaining.

Maybe not life sustaining, but it would start to work the venom through her body and give her the best chance at recovery.

I allowed myself to sink down into the mud as I felt the rain start to fall over us and listened for the gasp of her breath.

It wasn't a startling gasp, there was no power behind it, but a weak wheezing was far more air movement than she had been able to make in the last four minutes.

I could have sobbed in that moment there as she continued to breath in the laboured manor.

Her heartrate was also beginning to pick up, and even out. It was almost at a normal human rate now and seemed to be ever accelerating.

I knew my venom must have reached her heart and the change was beginning.

Looking at the wolf, Jacob, where he sat by her head again, I could see the tears streaming down his face as he sobbed.

She was alive. She had survived.

I just had to hope there was no permanent damage.

My thoughts were broken by the ringing of my cell phone, which I now realised had been lying in the mud beside me. My knees were caked, and the shoes I was wearing would be ruined.

Carlisle was calling, he must have been back in service.

Before the first ring had even finished, I was answering and quickly flicking it to speaker phone. I wanted to avoid smearing any more mud over me, and especially my face and hair.

"Rose, how are you doing?" He asked. No greeting or pleasantries. Direct and professional sounding.

"I bit her. She was gone so I bit her and now she's back." I responded, my voice completely monotone. No inflection or tone or emotion. Keep it in, let it out later.

"Are you okay?" He asked, now the genuine emotion was coming through from him. No matter what faults the man had, caring for those he considered his family was not one of them.

"I'm fine. I nearly lost control but I'm fine. I'll talk to you later about it." I answered quickly, not wanting to spend time on this right now. It seemed wrong. This was for later.

"Hold the phone closer to Bella so I can hear her heart please." He asked, willing to leave my comment where it was. I was sure I would be interrogated later about exactly what happened.

For the next five minutes I aided Carlisle with checking Bella out, all the while he was running closer, ready to aid when he arrived. Eventually, Bella's heart rate was increasing and her breathing easing as the swelling in her face began to drop. She was looking more human and less like she was on deaths door.

Well one way of looking at it was she was definitely dying and would not be human for long. Maybe another three days.

Another three days of suffering and burning, only to be trapped in an unchanging granite body once it was over. Forever alive and present, but never adaptable.

One more Cullen to be pulled from a traumatic life and left to forever live that moment.

Finally, Carlisle gave us the instructions to get Bella back to our place, where he was not too far from now. I suggested running, but Carlisle insisted it would be an easier journey for Bella if Jacob drove us, and while I hated the thought of sitting in the car with the teenage mutt, I had already left her in incurable pain, I refused to be responsible for anything further.

The memories of my own change were fresh in my mind. That festering hole of emotion I tried to ignore had opened itself up again. I felt the burning in my veins as if I were going through it right now. The depths of hell could not compare to the pain and suffering inflicted by Carlisle's wrongly delivered mercy.

But there was something odd about Bella's lifeless body as we drove.

She wasn't writhing in pain. She wasn't screaming or groaning. Or reacting at all.

I tried to force myself to believe she was simply internalising the pain, and it was not a reflection on me and my actions.

Bella had said so herself many times before, she was the type to suffer in silence.

But was it even possible to suffer through this in silence?

I certainly hadn't been able to. I screamed so much and cursed Carlisle and was convinced I was in hell to suffer for eternity, even when they all reassured me it would be over soon. It was a never-ending torment for those three days I burned alive.

The only other pain that had ever come close to my burning as I turned was witnessing Emmett go through the same all those years ago.

When I ran for his life holding him and begged Carlisle to save this strange man.

And then sat with him for those three days as he tried to hold back the screams, but with every touch of my hand, his soul tried to escape through screams.

That burned at my soul.

And I knew that by forcing him to go through that, I was damning myself to hell. How could anyone inflict that on another person. And here I was, once again posing as the figurative judge, jury, and executioner. Deeming it the only way to save Bella. By ruining her.

I urged the boy to drive faster as I sat in the back seat with Bella. She was so small and fragile looking, and now that the swelling in her face had gone down even further, she looked almost childlike.

I knew we were physically the same age; in fact, she was nearly a year older than me. But lying there, with her head in my lap, curled up on the back seat, she looked tiny. So young. She had the whole world ahead of her, but for reasons out of her control she was here, slowly losing her humanity and about to embrace the life of a vampire.

I held her small hand in mine, the hand where she had been bitten, and hoped my cool hands would be soothing in the red and inflamed looking skin.

Carlisle was home by the time we pulled up, and he went to help me get Bella out of the car.

"It's okay, I've got her." I mumbled as I smoothly pulled her from the car and made my way to the house, pausing only for Carlisle to open the door.

I carried her straight to Carlisle's study where Esme had laid some towels on the leather lounge in preparation and placed her there gently. Esme stood in the background, like she also wasn't sure what to do. She had planned to help get Bella ready for prom and take photos to send Bella's Mom, and here she was seeing her look like a corpse.

As I slid my hands out from underneath her, Bella let out a gasp, and for a split second her deep brown eyes looked up into mine, before she slammed them shut and I heard the snap of her teeth together.

"Carlisle," I said, looking to the family patriarch, "That's the first sign of life she's shown since she lost consciousness."

"That's good, it means she's here, she'll be okay." He responded, laying a hand on my shoulder gently. I was thankful I no longer jumped at every touch from the men I lived with. "I think her mind is protecting itself by internalising, she's still in a traumatic event."

"So, I really saved her?" I asked, my voice uncharacteristically light.

"You did Rosalie, you saved her and gave her a second chance at life. You did so well." He rubbed that hand still on my shoulder, and for the first time in a long time, I initiated a hug. Only briefly, but a comforting embrace, nonetheless.

After letting go of me, he gave Bella a quick examination and assured me she was well on the way to her change, and I had done well.

Of course, I had left her with quite the scar on her neck, but after the transformation it would only be noticeable to other vampires.

In fact, I was impressed by the rate at which the wound I inflicted had sealed itself. It was an angry looking pink now, and other than the dried blood and venom around it, it could have been weeks old.

If my body was able to produce adrenaline and experience the crash after the burn, I think I would have collapsed then and there. It was all too much, and I needed to get out of here.

I needed Emmett, I needed to run, I needed air. And maybe I needed to hunt.

"Go Rose, I'll look after her now." He smiled at me, so warmly and fatherly. So much respect that I never gave him was freely offered to me. "Esme and I will get her cleaned up and comfortable, and you go look after yourself."

And I was out.

I didn't even bother with the door.

I just stepped out of the large window, leaving it cracked open behind me, and then took off for the forest the moment my feet touched the ground.

I allowed my body onto auto pilot, and let my instincts guide me to Emmett. To my comfort.

…

We were the last ones back in the house that evening, and as I was still caked in dried mud, I had Emmett run inside to open our bedroom window so I wouldn't spread the mud.

I showered, changed, and stood in the middle of the room for a minute.

Would Jasper hate me?

Would they all judge me?

Had I really done the right thing?

Would Bella hate me?

How could I have changed this, so this wasn't the outcome?

My thoughts were broken by the sound of a piercing scream through the night.

It was 8pm.

She should have been at the prom.

She should be having fun with her friends. She was meant to graduate in four days.

I stepped towards the door that would place me just feet from where I had left Bella in Carlisle's study.

I listened, she wasn't there, she was further down the hall in her room. Of course.

I couldn't make myself open the door. I couldn't face her in this pain.

She screamed again. I heard someone wince downstairs. There were heartbeats downstairs.

Wolves.

I listened again.

There was also a human. Surely no one had invited Bella's father here.

My suspicions were confirmed when I smelt him. He had been just on the other side of the doorway not long ago.

Why on earth had anyone allowed him to be here while this was happening. He didn't need to see any of this, witness this, be in this much danger.

I heard Emmett approach our room and stand on the other side of the door, a silent check for if I was happy for him to come in. I couldn't refuse him and opened to be pulled straight into his arms.

"Hey, you stop with that guilt Rosie," He pressed his lips into the top of my damp hair. "You just saved Bella, she's the baby of this family and you saved her life. So, you stop with this guilt."

"Jasper probably hates me, he was planning on changing her and I've taken that from him." I whispered back.

"You really think Jasper would hate you for saving Bella and letting have eternity with her instead of helping Charlie bury her?" He asked back.

Of course, it all sounded so logical when he said it like that.

But all I could feel was guilt.

And anger.

Why did I have to do that? Why did I have to be the one to change her? To bite her?

"Are you mad because you bit her and tasted human blood for the first time? He asked.

I just nodded once.

"And you're mad because your morals won't allow you to taste that again, but your instincts want it more than anything else in the universe? And you feel guilty to admit you liked it?"

I froze.

"I know I'm onto something, and I know nothing I say will help you stop being mad or guilty, and you just need more time to process all of this, but I need you to know you are the only one thinking this lowly of yourself."

"I also feel horrible that I've subjected her to this pain." I said in a quiet whisper.

I heard her groan in pain, and I let out a small groan in sympathy and self-pity.

"Alright, come with me, you need to see her, and then you need to go see Charlie. He wants to talk to you."

And I was being pulled down the hallway to Jasper and Bella's room.

I didn't even have to wait for the charade of knocking, as the door was propped wide open.

Bella was in the centre of the bed, dressed in a pair of sweatpants and a black t-shirt. Clothes she would have chosen for herself. In the large bed, her small body looked even smaller, her hands were beside her and twisted in the sheets, and her legs were bent at the knees and resting to the side.

Her hair had been pulled off of her face but escaped strands had plastered themselves to her sweaty brow, and her eyes were scrunched up and hidden from site.

Her mouth was perpetually open in a silent scream.

Jasper sat at the top of the bed, gently wiping her face with a cloth, I assumed it was cool and damp, trying to be some kind of comfort, and the other hand was gently resting on her cheek, which she seemed to have turned in towards him.

Jasper looked up at me with a face full of pain and I expected to feel the sting of an emotional slap.

Instead, I got thanks. Gratitude. Love.

"Rose," He whispered. "Are you okay?"

I just shook my head and let my mouth open and close like some kind of fish. Mute. Stupid.

"Thank you, you saved her." He whispered again.

He didn't sound angry at all. Sometimes Jasper sounded the scariest when he was quiet. But all I could hear was his pain. He was in pain seeing Bella in this state, but he wasn't angry at me. I had nothing to fear.

I darted to the side of the man who was closer to a brother for me than anyone else, and delicately sat in front of him, keeping most of my weight off of the bed, and away from Bella.

Jasper briefly let go of Bella's cheek and grabbed my own. He swiftly and brotherly kissed my forehead, and sent another wave of thanks to me, before returning his hand to her.

I don't know how long I sat there and sobbed.

Emmett had left the room, and I found myself holding Bella's hand.

She hadn't made another noise since I had heard her scream, and Jasper let me know she had only made a few noises, she was definitely keeping it all in.

I apologised to her again and again, and just began to talk to her. I told her I was sorry what felt like a hundred times, I told her how terrifying it was to see her look like death, and I told her of how I wanted to get to know her better and spend some time together getting to know each other more than the surface relationship we had.

I finally had everything off of my chest and decided to leave her be with Jasper.

I squeezed her hand ever so slightly before I stood and was shocked when she squeezed back.

Jasper nearly laughed, the ghost of a smile ever so slightly appeared.

"She's surprisingly strong already." He spoke.

All I could do was nod.

Downstairs, I heard Charlie say he wanted to go home, but he was looking to see me first, and then say goodbye to Bella.

I slowly made my way downstairs, not wanting to frighten the human man more than he surely already was.

Downstairs I saw he was sitting with Esme, Carlisle, and Edward in the dining room, and I could see Alice, Bree, and Emmett were on the other end of the long room, by the television. I could smell the dogs had been here some time in the recent past.

I slowly approached the man I had never spoken to before and gave him a tiny closed lipped smile of reassurance.

He looked at me, and while his eyes were full of pain, he smiled genuinely as he stood from his place beside Esme, who had clearly just fed him.

"Rosalie," He began, as he walked towards me. "Thank you, thank you for saving my little girl." He finished as he finally stopped in front of me and grabbed my hand. Holding it in the both of his.

"You saved my little girl, and I will always be grateful for that." He repeated, squeezing my hands.

"I didn't do anything that anyone else in this room wouldn't have tried to do." I responded, my voice sounding far away.

"I know, but you were there, and you did what you could. Thank you." He finished.

I stood there in shock as Edward guided the human out of our house and to his car.

Finally, Emmett came to my side, and held me tightly in his arms.

"She'll be okay, it'll all be okay." I finally said.

A.N.

Hmm, Bella is finally undergoing her change, how will the cover this up with her missing prom and only days away from graduation?

I have one chapter and an epilogue planned and then we have come to the end of this very, very long road. Can't wait to hear what you think of this one.

xx