Author's note: This chapter is in third person, but it's what happened while Bella was with Alessandro to when she was out of it.
Edward stopped running and closed his eyes to concentrate.
"Do you hear that?" He asked opening his eyes.
"Yeah," Alice said. "Growling and screams."
But by the time she had finished her sentence, Edward was already running. They all ran after him, barely able to catch up, he was fast already, but with this new motivation, he was even faster.
"Edward! Edward, slow down!" Alice said barely loud enough for Edward to hear, but with so much authority she might as well have been yelling. He slowed, but not by much.
Edward kept smelling for Bella's scent, and listening for her screams. 'Scream, Bella, that's all I ask.' He soon crossed a track that seemed familiar. Memories of a sunny afternoon flashed through his head. Oh, shit. He stopped to talk to Carlisle and everyone about what he just found.
"I know exactly where she is." Edward said his voice shaking with rage.
"Whoa! Look at these tracks!" Jasper said kneeling.
"What made those? Wolves? Bears?" Emmett asked.
"No, those look like they could be wolf tracks, but they're too big. But it's defiantly not a bear." Alice said back.
"What makes you say that?" Carlisle inquired.
"They're too big. Whatever made these tracks, it's gigantic. But look, the front paw prints are different than the back ones. Like it's a new animal, but they are both the same thickness, and they both had the same amount of pressure on them. See how they go into the ground at the same level?" She pointed to the prints in the ground.
The prints were huge. Emmett took his size 13 shoe and stepped into the print. The print was still bigger. "What the hell is Victoria up to?" Emmett asked.
Just then there was more screams, they were being formed into words, but the density of the forest stopped them from reaching their ears. Alice pushed Edward forward; they all ran a short distance forward, then waited for another yell. And another did come, crystal clear.
"I love you Edward!"
They all didn't move, shivers running up and down their spines. Waiting for another scream, a yell, anything. But nothing came.
"Edward." Alice grabbed his hand and held his face with her other hand, "Edward, concentrate, find Victoria's voice. Listen to her thoughts, find out where she is."
Edward closed his eyes; he soon found Victoria's voice, clear as a bell. 'Alright, this little "die silently" thing is starting to piss me off. I'm going to make you scream one way or the other, you are going to scream.' Edward could see Bella through Victoria's eyes. She was battered and bruised, a horrible sight. But she never spoke a word all she did was shake her head "no". That was the biggest mistake Bella could have made.
Edward snapped his eyes open. "We've got to hurry." Before another word could be said, he was off running.
The trees became blurs as he ran by, but he knew exactly where he was going. He soon broke through the trees into the clearing, hitting Victoria and taking her to the ground, he began to hit, bite, kick, and punch Victoria. Grabbing her arms and tarring them off with one fatal swipe at her shoulder. Emmett came to restrain Edward, and Jasper and Alice came to finish Victoria off.
"LET GO OF ME DAMN IT! EMMETT I'M GOING TO FINISH HER!" Edward was yelling and struggling against his brother, but Emmett held him tight in a massive bear hug.
"Edward, calm down, we need your help with Bella. I'm not going to let you come near her if you're acting like this. Calm down, you took care of Victoria, now go to Bella. But you're not going near her like this. Calm the fuck down." Emmett whispered into Edward's ear.
Edward took a deep breath to calm himself. Once Emmett was sure that he was done ranting, he let go of his brother and took up his spot on the other side of Bella. Edward brought Bella up into his arms, rocking back and forth, sobbing into her lovely brown hair, taking in her sent.
"Oh, wake up Bella! You need to be awake. Come on, sweetie." Edward said laying her head on his lap.
Carlisle was checking for other wounds, when he found the one on her leg. It was really bad. He looked up to see if Bella was responding to Edward. Her eyes were still closed.
"Edward, I'm going to start to press on her leg, to see if she responds to pain." Carlisle lifted the hospital gown up to show the wound on her thigh. Edward hissed and looked away.
"Edward, calm down. You got her good; we need to take care of this." Emmett said to his brother.
Carlisle began to press on Bella's leg. Nothing. No twitch, scream, her eyes didn't even open. He pressed harder. Bella's eyes shot open.
"Bella! Bella you're alive, I'm here for you, baby! Bella?" Edward said looking into her eyes. They were glazed over, staring at nothing.
"Bella? Bella wake up." Edward said, shaking her shoulders slightly.
"My Guardian Angel? I'm coming!" she whispered. At that moment Edward's heart dropped into his stomach.
"Dad, can't you do anything? What is she talking to?" Emmett said, panicked by her words. Carlisle looked as confused as the others, in all his years in the medical field; he had never experienced this kind of thing.
Bella extended her arm to the sky, reaching for something. Edward grabbed her hand and held it to his lips, then his heart.
"Okay. I'll follow you angel."
"No Bella, don't follow, I need you here. I need you with me, you can't just leave." Edward cried, as Bella's eyes closed. "Carlisle, do something!"
"Alice, honey, run home, get my medical bag in my office and ask Esme for some towels, lots of towels."
She asked Jasper to come with her, she didn't want him to be alone and she needed help carrying the stuff that Carlisle needed. "We'll be back soon." And with that, they were off.
"Carlisle, what's going to happen?" Edward said his chin quivering.
"I don't know, I'll do the best I can."
"I was going to come back. I wasn't going to stay away forever." Edward said, brushing the hair out of Bella's eyes. He knew how she hated it when hair would get into her face.
"I'm sure she knows that Edward." Carlisle said.
"I just needed to think about things. I never thought that anything bad would happen. I guess I was kind of stupid for thinking that, if there was a way to choke on rice, she'd probably find it." He chuckled a little. "I was going to ask her to marry me. I want to be with her, always. Would that be okay, Dad? Would you have let me marry her?" He said, looking up to Carlisle.
"It was okay with me from the beginning. I've always considered her apart of our coven. I would love to make it official, if that's what would make you happy."
"Yeah, it would have. But now, she's gone." Edward started to sob again.
"Don't think that way, don't you dare. She's still here. She is still breathing; don't treat her like she's already dead. Carlisle will fix her. You kids are going to be happy together." Emmett told his brother, giving him hope.
Alice and Jasper returned with towels in tow. Plugging her nose, Alice carried everything over to Carlisle, then left to start the fire. "Emmett, hold this towel firmly to her shoulder, keep pressure there, and the bleeding will eventually stop. I'll switch you spots when I'm done putting stitches in her leg. It will take a while. But we'll get it done once I get the bleeding to stop." He said taking a needle out of his bag with a little vile, putting it in Bella's arm, giving her morphine to ease the pain. He began pressing a towel to her thigh.
Bella's eyes fluttered open again, she screamed as she felt all of the pain. She looked at Edward to Emmett and finally to Carlisle. The look in Emmett's eyes told Edward 'I told you so.'
"Oh, Bella, I thought I had lost you." He looked up to the stars, "Thank you Jesus."
"Was' that?" she slurred, looking behind Edward.
"Alice and Jasper are taking care of Victoria. Don't worry about it; I need you to focus of getting better." Edward's voice grew tense when he said Victoria's name.
She nodded slightly. "I'm tired."
Edward glanced at Carlisle for a moment, nodded once then turned his attention back to Bella. "That's okay, honey. You can go to sleep now, I'll be right here."
"Mmmm." She sighed, closing her eyes. "Where's Alessandro?"
"Who the hell is she talking about? Dad, how much morphine did you give her?" Emmett asked.
"We'll ask questions later. She needs sleep, I need to stitch her up, and you need to hold that towel to her shoulder. We all have jobs to do Emmett, the least you can do, is do yours in silence, I need to concentrate." Carlisle said in an even tone.
Emmett looked at Edward and gave him a wink. Edward shook his head and gave a silent laugh. Carlisle told him to check for any more things that might need a stitch or two. There was none, but many bruises. He traced the outline of one on her cheek, deep in thought.
"I've been thinking, Emmett. About those tracks we found. They were leading away from the meadow, like it was running away; I found some traces of blood farther off. What if it's alive and is still out there? I want to know what Victoria was up to."
"We could have just asked if you hadn't started ripping her arms off." Emmett chuckled, poking fun at his brother. But then he turned serious. "I've been thinking about it too. Look at those chains over there." Emmett pointed. "I'm guessing that it wasn't a Pomeranian she was keeping restrained. Look at those things! They're thick, and there are three separate chains hooked up to the trees. She was afraid of it, probably using it to scare Bella, when she was standing there scared shitless." He rolled his eyes and added sarcastically, "Good plan."
"Yeah, it doesn't make sense does it? Why would she risk her own life for a scare tactic?" Edward whispered.
"I don't know." Emmett said shaking his head. "We could have asked if you…" Emmett couldn't finish his train of thought because he was laughing too hard.
"Oh, be quiet!" Edward said, laughing a little bit too.
Carlisle and Emmett switched places so Carlisle could work on Bella's shoulder. He told Emmett to throw the bloody towels into the fire.
"How are we going to explain this?" Edward asked. It was a bit hard to come up with excuses. Especially for this.
"We planted a rock for the broken window. Some kids these days get so rowdy." Carlisle laughed a bit. "Charlie didn't know that Bella was in the hospital in the first place, but all the nurses have already seen her. So we'll just say that I checked her out, she went hiking with you, Emmett, Jasper and Alice, when you guys were attacked by a bear. Bella's not that coordinated, so we'll say she fell and the bear came after her, but thankfully, you guys ran it off by making yourselves look big and throwing stones at it. Wow, I have heroes for kids. How lucky am I?"
They chuckled a bit more. "Do you think she'll be able to walk a bit tomorrow? I mean, no hikes, just walking around. We could get her a wheel chair or something?" Edward asked.
"It depends on how she's feeling. Why what's going on?" Carlisle asked.
"There is this pow-wow going on in Beaver, My friend is there and I wanted Bella to meet her."
"The Quileutes will be up there. They won't be happy about you showing up."
"It's out of there boundary, I have every right to be there. It's also like a fair. We can be there."
"Okay, ask once she's awake tomorrow. Alright? I need to pay attention to what I'm doing."
"Come on Dad, you could do that with your eyes closed." Edward said.
"Yeah, but I want to be extra careful. She means a lot to me too."
Once Carlisle was done stitching Bella up, He gave, Edward the nod to carry Bella off to the house. "Don't run with her though, I don't want her stitches coming undone."
Edward took Bella home and laid her on the hide-a-bed in his room. He grabbed the blankets and put them around her frame, tucking her in. Edward lay next to her all night and all the next morning until she woke up at 10:00. "Welcome back, baby." He whispered.