27. Visitor

Carlisle came home not long after. It was immediately apparent to him that there had been a scuffle. Everyone was gathered in a circle around where Bella and I held each other on the floor. I could have scooped her up and tried to run at any point, but I wouldn't have made it past them, and I knew it. Finally managing to stop shivering in her arms, I did scoop her into mine, but only so that I could deposit her back onto the couch. I couldn't let her go, and sank down to kneel on the floor with my head in her lap while she combed her fingers through my hair.

"What happened?" Carlisle asked.

"Your idiot son tried to run off with Bella! Look!" Rosalie brandished the scalpel and syringe at him before whirling to glare at me. "How dare you, Edward? It's bad enough that you won't support her decision to keep your child, that you call her baby a demon or a thing, but this is way past unsupportive. What were you going to do? Cut her baby out of her and pray that she lived long enough afterwards for you to change her? You should have been praying that she didn't rip you apart in a newborn fury. If she didn't, I would have!"

"Rosalie," Carlisle chided her sharply. "We are a family; we do not hurt each other."

"Oh, but it's perfectly fine for him to force her to abort her baby!"

"I never said that."

"There comes a point, Carlisle, when your passivity becomes enablement."

"And there comes a point when support and encouragement become goading and badgering."

"She's not!" Bella protested. "Carlisle, I want my baby."

He shook his head. Edward should not have been stopped.

My head snapped up at those words. "Now? Now you agree with me? Now that it's too late?"

"Your methods were wrong, son," he said before turning his eyes to Bella's. "But his aim was not. Bella, the fetus is killing you. However much longer you can hold on is not going to be enough to deliver a living baby. Your heart is dying; it is working too hard. You have been trying to hide it, but I would be willing to bet you have been having chest pains."

She didn't need to answer; the expression on her face told us all that he was right.

"And trouble breathing at times?"

Bella pulled her lower lip between her teeth, but not before I saw it begin to tremble.

He gestured with the papers in his hands. "You can lie to yourself, but your body cannot lie to me. It is only a matter of time - and not much of it - before your arrhythmia degenerates into cardiac arrest."

If I wasn't already past the point of terror, his words would have pushed me there. Regardless of whatever else happened at the demon's birth, her heart had to remain beating in order for her to make the change. "So give her digoxin," I said. "Blood thinners. Beta blockers. Or any of the myriad other medications you give heart patients."

He sighed. "I brought some home with me, but treating the symptoms will not cure the disease."

"Her baby is not a disease!" Rosalie exclaimed with a snarl.

"No. But cardiomyopathy and pre-eclampsia are. Bella, your body already is not getting the nutrients that it needs, and now your heart is having a hard time moving what little I am managing to get into you through your system. I will give you what I brought, but I do not know how much good they are going to do. The best thing for you - for the whole family, Bella - would be for you to allow me to remove the fetus."

"No!" She pulled away from me and hugged her knees to her stomach protectively. Her head shook back and forth with a vigor that I was sure was fueled by fear just as my strength earlier had been.

"Bella, I am trying to understand your decisions, but I have to admit that I am failing."

"Carlisle!" Esme gasped. "You know how Rosalie and I have longed for a child! How can you not understand her need to have a baby of her own?"

"Dearest, you and Rosalie have always wanted children. Bella has not."

"I do now," Bella said.

"Why?"

A growl erupted from both Rosalie and Esme's chests at the same time. They both began shouting at him and their accusations of chauvinism and a lack of understanding of the women he'd lived with for most of a century made me stare at them in surprise. I'd heard Rosalie rage at him on many occasions, but Esme? Certainly they had argued before, but never like this.

He listened without comment for a full minute before holding his hands up and silencing them with a single word. "Enough."

They visibly attempted to control their anger toward him as Jasper did everything he could to remove the negative emotions we were all broadcasting. I refrained from commenting. I'd made my arguments and had them rejected. If Carlisle could succeed where I had failed, it was surely to be without my interference - especially after what I had just tried to do.

"You mistake the meaning of my question. This whole family is well aware of your feelings on the matter, Rosalie, myself included. If this was either of you risking your lives for a child, I would not wonder why. If necessary, I would sacrifice my life for any of yours, so please, believe me when I say I understand.

"Esme, dearest, I wish it were possible for me to give you a child. I have done so in the only way of which I am capable," he gestured toward myself and my siblings, "though I know it is not the same thing. But I reiterate, it is what you have both always wanted."

He turned to address Bella, who was still wrapped protectively around the demon within her. "Bella, what I wished to know was why you are choosing to sacrifice everything you have ever claimed to want for something which you never have. The fetus you carry endangers all our lives. If you had any wish for a child, you should not have agreed to marry Edward. Jacob Black could have given you many children, or any other human man could have. You have always claimed to want my son, and to want eternity to spend with him. With us. This," he pointed at her growing stomach, "will cost you all of that. Why the change?"

"I haven't changed. I still want those things. I still want to be a member of this family, and I still want Edward." Bella brushed a hand along my cheek. "I always will."

"Then help me to understand why you are giving them up."

"I'm not."

His forehead furrowed. "You truly believe you will survive?"

"Yes, I do." Despite its roughness, Bella's voice rang with her conviction. "I can't explain why I believe that I'll survive, but I do. I can't live without Edward and wouldn't want to, and his baby is the same. I can't give him up. His baby is as necessary to my life as oxygen. More, because when Edward changes me, I won't need to breathe anymore, but I'll still need him." She caressed her swollen belly and stroked a thumb across my cheek at the same time.

"Bella," I moaned. "How can you see so much, and yet be so blind? You're right. This... fetus," though I couldn't bring myself to say the word baby, I forced myself not to say demon or thing, "is exactly like me. But you have never seen me for what I am. I'm a monster, Bella, a vampire. Whether I'm alive or not, whether I have a soul or not, it doesn't change the truth. I am a demon, a killer, an unnatural creature that shouldn't even exist, and the very fact that I do is a death sentence for you! Bella, Bella, please. Bella, I'm begging you. For once, just listen to me!"

"I'm not the blind one, Edward. You are."

"No, Bella, no. I see far too clearly what I've done to you. Carlisle sees it too, and he has science to back him up." I took her face in my hands, trying desperately to convince her to see reason. "Maybe you think I'm just afraid, or that I'm lying to myself or to you, I don't know. Maybe you're just too good to even be capable of seeing the evil around you. Maybe you think the existence of vampires and werewolves proves that magic rules our world, and not science or Fate or even God, but just because you believe you can survive this doesn't mean that you will. You could believe you can fly too, but that doesn't mean you'll sprout wings, no matter how angelic you are."

Bella smiled sadly and shook her head. "No matter how I try to tell you that you're not a monster, you continue to believe it, but that doesn't make it true. I've seen the magic, Edward. You are living proof that it exists. How can you tell me not to believe in it?"

"It's not magic, Bella. It's not. Disbelieve me if you wish, but what about Rose? She will tell you that what we are is far from magical."

"It does not matter. Our baby is a gift, and all it will take is his birth to prove it. Well, you'll see soon enough. I just wish you would at least try to believe with me until then."

"Bella, numbers don't require belief," Carlisle argued for me. "Good and evil, God, angels, demons, and the existence of souls, these are things that cannot be proven. I can prove to you that you are dying. I can prove that the only way to save you is to remove that which is killing you. I am a man of faith, but I am also a doctor. Please, Bella, let me take the fetus. Let me save you."

"No."

I dropped my hands from her face and turned to sit on the floor with my back against the couch. "You are the most stubborn creature to have ever existed."

Bella chuckled weakly as she ran her fingers through my hair. "It helps that I'm right."

Carlisle sighed and pulled the medication he had brought from his bag. "At least let me do what I can, then."

Bella eyed the syringe in his hand with distrust and shook her head. "No. No more tests, no more medication. It's not helping anyway. After he's born, then you can change me. And if - " She swallowed hard. "If something should happen to me before then, you'll just have to do whatever you can to save him instead. Right now, all I need is a little rest. Rosalie?"

I scooted over to make room and my sister slid her arm around the exhausted girl to help her climb the stairs up to the bed where she'd been sleeping since our return.

Bitterly, I muttered, "How did you know, Alice? You and Jasper left. Why did you come back when you did? You can't see it."

"No, but I can see you. And the farther from it that I am, the easier it is to see everything else. I saw you getting the scalpel and the medicine. I saw the look on your face. I know you, Edward. It didn't take any vision to know what you were doing."

"Then you should also have known not to stop me! And Jasper, you know what a danger the... fetus," I said the word with a sneer, "will be. Why did you interfere?"

"I know how accurate Alice's visions are. She said you needed to be stopped, so I stopped you."

"Alice?" I glared at her.

"Jasper stopped you for all our sakes'. The fetus scares me, but when I saw you planning to kill it, well, it seemed to me that you were planning our deaths."

I frowned, seeing in her mind an image of our house replaced by a pile of charred rubble.

Jasper studied my emotions for a moment before asking, "Are you going to cause any more trouble?"

I shook my head.

He nodded and held his hand out to my pixie-faced sister. "I'm still thirsty. I only managed to catch a deer before we headed back. Coming, Alice?"

After they left, Emmett muttered something about finishing the book he'd been reading, and he left, too. Carlisle folded Esme into his arms, and they walked from the room murmuring words of apology to each other. I was left alone to sulk on the floor of the living room by myself.

I rested my arms on my knees and leaned my head back against the couch. There was nothing else for me to do. I had tried reasoning, pleading, arguing, bribing, and had even resorted to force to try and save the girl I loved. I was out of arguments, those I had expected to stand with me - or at the very least, not stand in my way - had actively betrayed me, and my only plan of action had been thwarted. Once before, my enemies had become my allies, but now my allies had turned against me.

Jacob could have given her children, just as Carlisle had said. They would have had the wolf gene, but none of the Quileute women suffered any ill effects from carrying their babies.

Maybe I did have another action that I could take, I realized. I could enlist Jacob's help. The mutt's friendship with my Bella had long been a thorn in my side, but their relationship was my own fault.

If I wasn't above attempting to forcefully remove the demon from her, was there anything I wouldn't do to save her? I doubted it. Reaching out to the dog I had once hated seemed a much less drastic step than the one I had just attempted, and had the added benefit that mixing my future with his would be completely invisible to Alice. Whenever Bella had decided to go see him, she had disappeared.

Although that alone could tip her off. Well, I wasn't ready to decide to go, but I could make plans until then.

If I simply showed up on the reservation alone, would they bother to stop and talk or just rip me apart first? Jacob had believed I would kill her on our wedding night. If he saw me, I had little doubt he would not wait for me to explain myself. If I called first... no. This wasn't exactly something that could be discussed over the phone.

I didn't bother answering the house phone when it rang, certain that it would be Charlie. I heard Bella talking to him, and wished he'd waited a while longer; she needed the sleep he'd interrupted. Her lovely voice was rough with exhaustion and the constant vomiting. I ached to be able to care for her, to make everything better, to protect her from the death which I so clearly saw coming for her - for us - but despite all I could do, I was powerless.

The tiny, so-breakable, human girl who held my heart also held complete control over my entire family right now. I was one of the most powerful creatures on the planet, a predator more dangerous than any that had ever been born, with a mental gift that gave me an unparalleled advantage, but Bella's stubborn, irrational determination left all of my abilities useless.

Alice and Jasper didn't stay out for long. After they returned, I focused on my sister's mind and tried desperately to come up with another plan of action. Changing the future was never easy; it was hard to muster the determination required when I knew that I was not truly acting. I concentrated, focusing on the fact that if I were to come up with a viable plan, I would act on it right away.

I would fly to Florida and bring Renee to see her daughter. Maybe Bella would listen to her mother. Renee's clear eyes would be able to see what Bella's were somehow missing, and she would argue my case for me, surely. The image I saw in Alice's mind following that decision had been of grey-cloaked vampires watching our house burn.

Fine. If not Renee, then Charlie.

Same end result.

The Denali clan? They had personal experience with the consequences of the creation of an immortal child. But no. That decision led to Charlie and Renee wearing black and sitting in a church. My family was nowhere to be seen.

I kept making decisions, the various options wildly running through my mind, but each plan I conceived of ended badly. Alice ended up storming into the living room at one point to yell at me. Ignoring her words, I continued to watch her mind and make plans.

Perhaps if I went to the Volturi directly. If they didn't hear about it secondhand, maybe I could convince them to help and not to punish. The images following that decision had resulted in Jasper coming downstairs to yell at me. He'd felt Alice's fear, though she refused to tell him what it was from. Despite her silence, he knew I was at fault, for he'd heard her yelling at me earlier, he'd been feeling my whirling emotions as I made my plans, and when I'd seen her wearing a dark grey cloak, we'd both felt a stab of terror. Though I was unwilling to sacrifice my sister to the Volturi in my attempt to save Bella, that was beside the point when Charlie and Renee still ended up in the same church as before. There was no reason to take such a useless action.

And if I did nothing? If I simply stood by and watched her die? If I took no actions because there were none to take, what did Alice see as the result then? The future returned to the blur Alice despised. I guessed that in doing nothing, the creature would be born as planned, and the demon and what it would do to my family was unknowable.

And me? I wondered. When Bella died, what would become of me?

Though no image formed in my sister's mind, I could imagine own future only too easily and saw myself, my face twisted with pain as I stood on a mountainside. No, not a mountain. Throwing myself off a cliff - no matter how high - would only result in a dent in the Earth when I landed. At most, I would need to reattach a limb or two, but the fall would do me no true harm. The image in my mind wasn't of a mountain, but of a volcano. If the Volturi were not an option for my death, and I knew that throwing myself into a fire wouldn't do much good unless I were torn apart first, I was certain the Earth's molten core would be hot enough to end me.

I took a shuddering breath as I imagined that death far too clearly.

Twice in my existence, I had felt a burning pain and had believed myself to be in hell. The first time had been during my transformation, when I'd burned for three days from Carlisle's venom, three days which had felt like years. The second time had been while I'd writhed under Jane's stare, and those seconds had felt like a century. But those experiences had been pleasant when compared with what I'd felt when I'd believed Bella to be dead. Carlisle's venom could have been a warm bath compared with the agony I'd felt when Rose had told me that Bella had thrown herself from a cliff. Jane's ability could have been a the heat of a gentle summer's day when compared with the knowledge that Bella had killed herself because of me.

And that had been before we'd been married, before she'd promised herself to me for eternity, before I'd experienced the gift of her love.

As I sat on the floor and tried - and failed - to use Alice's visions to change the future, I understood that no matter what I did, Bella's death was as certain as my own. The fire that raked through my veins in anticipation of her end could have been the real thing. I imagined that if Jane had smiled at me at that very moment, I wouldn't have noticed.

The rising sun found me sitting in the same position. The pain I felt never faded, yet it was but a taste of what was to come. I could barely stand to look at Bella, but when Rose placed her on the couch I was leaning against, I only needed one glance to see that the girl I loved was thinner, weaker, and that much closer to death. She smiled at me, but it didn't touch the worry in her eyes.

I groaned; the worry wasn't for herself, but for me.

"Bella?"

She looked up as Carlisle held out the phone to her.

"It's Charlie."

"Oh." She took the phone and attempted to clear her throat before placing it to her ear. "Hey, Dad."

"Bells, I gotta tell you, I'm goin' outta my mind over here."

She sighed. "I told you last night: I'm alright."

"You don't sound alright!"

"It's nothing, Dad, really. I'm just tired."

"Look..." He harrumphed and hummed, and I thought I could hear him shuffle his feet before he spoke again. "I mean no disrespect to Carlisle. He's a great surgeon, best doctor this town's ever had, but you need to be in a hospital! I made some calls last night, and there's this place in Seattle that specializes in unusual diseases. They said we should bring you in right away."

"I thought Carlisle explained that to you, Dad. It's better for everyone for me to stay put."

"You don't have a cold, Bells. Wouldn't it be better to seek out whatever help you can get? I've been doing some reading, and some of these South American diseases are really dangerous! Why that boy had to take you to someplace so remote is beyond me. What was wrong with Hawaii? Or the Bahamas? Wouldn't you have rather gone to Disney World than some jungle?"

"This isn't Edward's fault, Dad," she said firmly.

I heard a high moan escape me at those words and dropped my head into my hands. Of course it was my fault! I felt her gentle fingers comb through my untidy hair and held back another moan.

"I know, I know. It's just... I'm worried about you, Bella."

"I'm feeling better, really. I know it doesn't sound like it, but I am."

"Listen, there's no reason why I shouldn't come over there. The station makes sure I'm up to date on vaccines, and all of them are there, so it can't be that bad, right? I'll just come for a quick - "

"No! Charlie, you can't! They've all already been exposed, and - and Carlisle's worried Rose might have it now. So you can't come anywhere near us. He's all set up here, okay? They're taking good care of me, really, but when Carlisle told you no visitors, he meant it."

I heard Charlie's frustrated sigh.

"I've got to go, okay? I'll talk to you again tomorrow."

"Bella - "

"Tomorrow, okay?"

"Call me if anything changes, alright?"

"I will."

"You promise?"

"I promise, Dad."

"Anything at all."

"Sure, sure. Don't worry, 'kay?"

After she hung up with him, Bella curled into a ball on the couch and closed her eyes. Her jaw clenched, and she kept swallowing, and I thought it looked like she was trying desperately to keep down the breakfast that Esme had prepared for her.

My mother had been trying different recipes, experimenting with various foods and herbs that were reported to help with nausea. The previous night, she'd found a website devoted to cancer patients and the foods that had worked for them to combat the chemotherapy-induced nausea. She, Rose, and Bella had high hopes that she had found some things that would work. Despite the fact that she had kept this meal down longer than any other so far, I didn't dare to entertain the same hope.

Unable to sit still any longer I stood and began to pace behind the couch where Bella sat. My hands were pulling at my hair, and I could tell - even without Jasper's help - that my restless energy was making everyone nervous. They needn't have worried; all of my plans were fruitless. There was only one potential option available to me now: Jacob. Trying to convince myself that I should go now, I watched Alice's mind for any indication that I would be going to see him, but her blurry images of our family included me in the living room as I was, staring at the girl I loved while she wasted away.

"This is not happening!" I moaned to myself as I paced. I repeated the words, but knew them to be lies each time I said them.

Edward! Jasper thought to me. You're not helping matters.

I ignored him and my feet continued to take me back and forth. Abruptly, the future went blank, and Bella clutched at her stomach. I gasped and stopped my restless pacing, wishing desperately that I dared to take her into my arms as I wondered if the demon was about to tear its way free. According to her measurements, she wasn't what would be considered full term for a normal healthy baby, but there was nothing normal about the creature within her.

After a few minutes of panting, she relaxed and fell back against the couch cushions. Her face was covered in a fine layer of sweat. Whatever it was doing inside of her must have been causing her pain.

"Bella," I moaned. "Bella, please. Won't you please let Carlisle take it?"

She clenched her jaw and shook her head. After a few moments of deliberately steady breathing, she opened her eyes and looked around the room at my family. "Carlisle? How early can a baby be born and survive?"

"Although it is rare, some babies can live when born as early as twenty-two weeks into gestation, but that is with the help of a neonatal intensive care unit."

"And how far am I measuring now?"

"Your growth yesterday indicated a fetus at approximately twenty-five weeks, but... Bella, I have no way of knowing if that size truly relates to the fetus's physical development."

"So if you delivered him now, there's no way to be sure he'd live."

Carlisle shook his head slowly. "It most certainly would not. What I brought home was to help you through surgery. I am not set up for the care of a premature infant, and there is nothing which I can bring home to change that fact. Even if you delivered at my hospital and the fetus's growth did accurately reflect development, we would need to fly the baby to another hospital with the kind of specialized equipment such an early delivery would require."

"That scenario isn't exactly feasible if you want to avoid the Volturi's involvement," Jasper said with a growl.

"Then I'll just have to hold on until he's ready," she whispered. "I can do that."

"I do not think you can," Carlisle disagreed. "I can hear your heart struggling from here."

She shook her head. "I'm fine. I can do this. I'll be fine."

"For another day or two? Maybe so. But, Bella, I doubt very much that you can survive for much more than that."

"But each day gives him a better chance, right?"

Carlisle sighed unhappily and pressed his lips together, but nodded in assent.

...hear me comin', but that's fine by me...

"Jacob," I gasped, feeling relieved as I recognized the mental voice. I wouldn't have to seek him out. He had come here to see Bella on his own. The fire that had been raging through my veins faded slightly with the dawning hope that he could save her as he'd always done before.

...Oversized ego of his'll make him wanna fight me all by himself when he sees my plans to kill him and his coven...

My relief turned to fury as he got closer and I saw and heard what was in his mind. He was coming here with the intention of killing my family!

Gonna just stroll in there, see Sam's precious evidence for myself and then challenge Edward to a duel... Parasite'll probably get a kick outta the theatrics...

"What about him?" Bella asked with a frown.

...Finished with him I'll take down as many of the others as I can before they can kill me... Sam even consider that provocation enough... Nah. Wouldn't wanna offend his bloodsucker BFFs. Just say I got what I deserved...

"He's here." My fury evaporated. He thought I had changed Bella. How I wished that had been true! Though Bella was still alive, he didn't know it and was coming to take revenge by himself since, apparently, the others weren't going to.

Alice joined the rest of our family in the living room at my announcement. Well, at least this explains why the future disappeared!

Briefly, I wondered what had made him decide to come today, of all days. I decided I didn't really care what his reasons were. When he saw what Bella's condition was, heard what her plans were, he was sure to try to talk her out of it. He'd see the dangers! He'd never agree to what she had planned! My long-time enemy would surely be my ally in my fight for Bella's life.

As had always happened when Bella saw the mutt, her heart gave a jolt that told me that despite becoming my wife, Bella loved him still.

Rose hissed angrily. "What gives him the right to come to our home?"

"He's here to see Bella."

Jasper frowned at me. "Are you sure about that, Edward? He feels angry enough to commit a murder or two."

"That won't be necessary when he sees that Bella isn't quite dead, yet."

"Edward - " Esme began.

"It's just a matter of time and you all know it!" I growled at her before looking back at Bella. "And Jacob will know it too."

"This isn't any of his business," Rose said with a scowl.

"You're just afraid he'll be successful where I've failed."

"No. I'm afraid he'll add to her stress and she needs to be kept calm. And besides that, he's dangerous. I don't think I need to remind you what happened the last time Jacob Black was here."

"Jacob wouldn't hurt me," Bella disagreed.

Of course he wouldn't. That honor was left to me, to Bella's husband.

Jacob had saved her when I had endangered her. He had never betrayed her as I had done when I'd left her. He told her the truth when I had lied to her again and again. He had soothed her hurts instead of caused them. He could have given her a real child, unlike my own killer spawn. Maybe he still could! Maybe... maybe I could convince her at last that being with me was wrong. She wanted a child, and she deserved a man that could give her one, not one that would steal it away by force. He deserved her when I never had.

"How many of his pack are with him?" Jasper was already thinking how best we could defend our house from the pack. Do we have enough time to take precautions?

"It's just him," I muttered.

Rose narrowed her eyes and her lips pulled back from her teeth. "He shouldn't be here."

Carlisle nodded. Rosalie is correct about one thing at least, Bella needs to be kept calm. This visit is sure to upset her, and I am not sure how much more her heart can take.

Without a word, he strode for the front door. Like me, he heard the change in her racing heart.

Damn it! Bella was my wife! I hated that, no matter what her words or actions, her body remembered her feelings for him. I hated knowing that she'd chosen death by choosing me. I could smell her hormones, and they reminded me of the way she'd smelled on our honeymoon - warm and sweet, like a girl in love.

I wished desperately that I had changed her already. I wished that, rather then get her pregnant, making love with me had resulted in her change as Carlisle had been afraid that it would. I even wished that I had bitten her that first night! I would have stopped myself from draining her, and then we could have made love again after her change. Again and again and again and again.

I had to hold back a sob as I wished for the future Alice had always promised me of Bella and I together for eternity. Since none of those were possible, I found myself wishing that she had chosen him, instead. Even if it would have meant that she was not with me, at least it would have meant she would live.

The front door opened at the same time as Jacob's feet landed on the porch.

"Hello, Jacob. How are you?" Carlisle asked, his voice not betraying any of the worry that we'd all been feeling for the past week.

...too bad Edward didn't answer the door with his fangs out. Carlisle's just too human or something. Still planning on killing him if I can, but...

At any other time, I would have laughed. I didn't have fangs. Could he have been any more absurd?

"I heard Bella made it back alive."

At the sound of his voice, Bella's heart stumbled and Carlisle glanced anxiously back in her direction.

"Don't let him in here!" Rose hissed at our father.

"Er, Jacob, it's not really the best time. Could we do this later?"

...really wanna postpone the death match 'til it's more convenient?

"Why not?" Bella demanded. My Bella was fearless and stubborn, and she had never believed the wolves to be any more a danger to her life than I was.

But I was!

Somehow, she had to be convinced to leave me and go with him instead. He had always saved her before; he would have to be the one save her now, since I was incapable of doing so. I clenched my teeth together, trying not to scream. The fire in my veins returned, and I felt my face twisting with the knowledge that I was losing her. Even if I knew it was better for her to be with him than killed by the demon which I'd put inside her, the very idea was unbearable. But either way I was going to lose her and, as I had always known was the case, for Bella to live, I would do anything.

Unaware of what I was trying to resolve, Rose whispered to Bella, "The wolves would consider the creation of a new vampire of any kind to violate the treaty. We can't trust them."

"Are we keeping secrets from Jacob, too?" she asked after considering Rose's answer for a moment. "What's the point?"

...maybe all new vampires sound hoarse...

"The pack already distrusts us, Bella," Rose explained. "They're not going to understand any more than he does." She jerked her chin at me.

Bella glanced at me and sighed sadly before calling, "Come in, please, Jacob."

...Bella be thirsty? "Excuse me," he said rudely to Carlisle. Jacob edged around my father and turned his back on him as he strode toward the living room where the rest of us waited. ...guess there's plenty of leeches 'round here to kill without him...

Rose was right: I didn't understand. It was obvious that the creature growing inside of her was a vampire. How did they not see what a threat to our family it was? Even putting Bella's certain death aside, we always strove to live in a manner that mimicked and protected the humans around us. The creature killing Bella went against everything it meant to be a Cullen. If it was just Rose, I might have understood, maybe even Esme. But Emmett? Jasper and Alice, too?

They all stood in a circle around me and Bella, hovering protectively as they waited for the werewolf to enter our living room.