Chapter 8

The noise was driving Alice mad.

Sitting on the porch that was slick with rain though the sky was clear and blue, Alice listened with a face like thunder, her heart so heavy it felt as though it might burst. She could hear the nightmare in the room upstairs, full of tears so strong that they were verging on hysterical. Tears that Alice had never heard before— not from Bella, so steady and so calm. Bella, who always took everything in stride. Bella, who had accepted their family with such ease, such willingness, and who, it seemed, they had finally, truly broken.

She had never felt like a monster before— not like Edward, who hated what he had become in his immortal life and not like Carlisle, who thought himself damned. Not like Jasper, who had embodied the very worst of their kind and who had killed so indiscriminately that his ghosts could fill cities. She had always thought herself better than that— kinder than her nature, and gentler than her instincts— but she wondered now if she'd been wrong. Perhaps they'd all been wrong. Perhaps they really were the beasts they fought so hard against, destined to destroy innocence at every turn. How stupid they had been. How foolish. How cruel.

Upstairs, the girl continued to weep.

That weeping, Alice knew, would be a good thing, in the long run. It was a release— a way for her to rid herself of the feelings, of the trauma, of the last few days. She would not yet know just what had happened to bring her back to the world— would not know how they had pulled her, lifeless, from the sea, or how her ribs had been snapped in an effort to bring her back. She did not know how they had cared for her, so tenderly and carefully these last few days. She did not know that they hunted her pursuer, or that they were readying themselves to fight, but Alice suspected that she knew enough, knew too much, of what had happened to lead her here.

She would remember her tumble from the cliff, just as she remembered the sorrow that had come before. She would remember Edward's parting words, remember the way he'd left her, alone, on the forest trail. She would remember her father's worry before he'd been taken— the worry any father would have for a grieving child— and she would remember the way he had looked on the floor of their home, lifeless and pale. Alice knew she could imagine it over and over again, like a bad film. The blood, the gore…

And she would no doubt remember her own scream, terrified and breathless, as the awful truth of it came crashing down around her like a landslide.

Her father was dead. Her family had left her. Lord only knew what had happened to her mother, who hadn't answered any calls in weeks. Alice had checked— had found her cell phone in her bedroom back at Charlie's, and had skimmed through voicemails and calls, finding nothing from Renee.

The tears and the noise were only a reminder of Alice's betrayal— of the abandonment that Bella had suffered and the violence caused by their own carelessness.

Alice shook her head, burrowing her face in the her knees, and sighed, forcing herself to listen to the sounds from the house that Esme was trying to soothe. She did not need to see to know what was happening— the gasping cries, the breathless sobs… she could hardly breathe as it was, and yet, she struggled still. The noise hurt Alice more than any words could— it would be better, she thought, to have her rail at them. To have her scream herself hoarse, to banish them from her life for good, because at least then, they could grovel.

And Alice would— she would beg on her knees to be forgiven, to be let back in, once she'd been so harshly and sharply evicted.

In the bedroom, she heard the beeping monitor begin to chirp. She knew Carlisle would be alarmed— he had been so meticulous, so careful to keep all of her levels just right while she slept, and Alice wondered only briefly how big this train wreck really was. The monitor chirped and beeped once more before it was cut short, and she heard, again, the gentle voice of her mother.

"Oh sweetheart… it's alright now, darling. It's alright…"

The noise made Alice feel shaky.

The racing heart, plainly evident through the hiccups and the sobs, reminded her of the sickroom, just as frantic, just as terrible as it had been when Carlisle had worked so diligently to bring her back. The sound frightened Alice, recalling those terrible memories that were etched in her mind as if carved in stone. She would never forget it— the look of her, dead on the sand, and then so poorly that Carlisle had forced a tube down her throat. There had been no noise like these ones then— no wailing or desperate, terrible cries— but still, there were sounds that harkened back to that uncertain time just days prior: her pulse throbbing, too fast and too weary. Her starved lungs screaming for air, bubbling in a mire of seawater that had nearly killed her. The blueness of her lips, the terrible paleness of her blanched, dead face…

She trembled again, trying to block her ears, when she felt Jasper's warmth behind her, his hands strong and steady. He eased her sorrow, relieved her fear, but not even he could take it all away for with each new sound came a new pang of worry. She knew he could feel it, writhing in her like a living thing, but he touched her anyways, wrapping her in the comfort of his embrace.

"She's alright, Alice," he soothed and Alice knew by the sound of his voice that he shared her worry. Their worry for the girl. Their terror that they might, once again, lose her…

"Carlisle is with her," he went on, and she began to feel the tendrils working, easing their way through to fight her nerves. "He's not concerned… not for her body."

Only for her mind, Alice thought bitterly, and the terrible wrongs we've done.

"We've done this, Jas."

"Yes."

"We must answer for it."

"Yes," he said again. "Yes, I think we must. But there are other hurts, Alice— ones that we cannot claim."

"We left…"

"And we'll own that mistake," he said at once. "We'll take whatever blows come in return, because we did."

"She called out for her dad."

"She was only half lucid," he returned at once. "Not thinking clearly."

"It doesn't matter."

"I think it does."

Alice pursed her lips.

"She'll grieve," he went on. "We all will. But she won't be alone this time, and we won't let anything else hurt her."

"We can't make promises."

"No," he agreed, and though she could not see him, she could feel the icy resolve, the immovable confidence. "We can't make any promises. But I'll do her one better, Alice— I'll make her a guarantee."

She glanced, then, at his hard, unmoving face. She loved everything about her husband— his empathy, his skill, his heart— and she knew all-too-well the strength his stubbornness. When Jasper said a thing, he meant it, and once that thought was voiced, it was as good as true. If he made his sister a promise, that promise would be kept. If he gave her a guarantee, that pact was as precious to him as gold.

"And what might that be?" she asked, resting her cheek on his shoulder. She felt his fingers in her hair, soft and soothing. "What guarantee can you give her?"

"I can guarantee that we will do everything in our power— everything on the face God's green earth— to make sure that our mistakes are never repeated again."

Alice scowled.

"I'm not going to hurt her," she returned.

"No one is," he said. "She won't ever be alone again… not unless she wants to be."

As the crying died down, so too did Alice's tension. There was a breath of relief, so deep and so strong, and Jasper sighed, his lips buried in her hair.

"You don't own all of her hurts, darlin'," he finished, and Alice turned it over in her head. "We might own some of them, it's true, but I think there's someone else who deserves that particular burden of responsibility."

Alice scowled.

Ten calls. Ten voicemails, left in varying degrees of rage, on that old burner phone he had taken with him to South America. In the first one, she'd pleaded. In the second, she'd commanded. By the third, she was irate, and there had been many similar calls that followed. Shouting and yelling, crying and blaming… every bit of the sordid tale recited in terrible, vivid detail, so that he would not miss a thing.

Alice had never been vindictive before, but she certainly was now. As she reached again for her phone, her thumb hovering over the familiar number, she sighed, pressing it again.

This time, it went to voicemail after only one ring. Her eleventh message gave him only two, short words.

"She's awake."


Emmett was not accustomed to feeling useless.

Standing like a statue, like a gargoyle, at the door, he waited, immovable and untouchable as he listened to the outpouring of grief from within. He had heard it rolling like a storm, her frantic heartbeat, rising by the second, and her terrible, awful cries. When her composure had broken, falling to pieces as her tears rose to the surface, so too did his own, and when Carlisle had asked them for privacy, he'd been almost unwilling to give it.

She was his family, too. His family, so newly risen from the dead. His family, finally waking, and finally talking.

"I'm sorry, Esme," she'd cried, and he'd listened with a furious, raging guilt. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

It had taken every ounce of self-control not to put his fist through the wall.

From within, the noise drove him to absolute madness— the same madness which had sent Alice to the yard, in a bid to escape it. He could see her there now, wrapped up in Jasper, as they listened to the rise and fall of noise. He could see her anger, her complete and utter outrage at sounds that came from that sad little girl, their girl. Their sister.

He took his only comfort from his mother, who had pressed that child so closely to her heart that there was no room left for him. There was not even room for Carlisle, for all his hovering, and though Emmett felt a prick of jealousy, there could be no real contempt. Esme had always been a mother first, even when her children were too old to need her, and it would be a fool indeed who tried to come between her and this pitiful, wounded creature now.

"Hush, my darling…" Esme's whisper carried through the hall. "There, now… deep breaths, sweetheart. It's alright."

Slowly, as if the girl were coming back to herself, Emmett heard the infinitesimal decrease in her heart rate, the slow, but steady return of breaths. He was sure this heartache hurt her in more ways than one— her ribs, still broken, would not thank her for such abuse— and though he had no memory to empathize with the pain of it, he thought that he could imagine.

Through the crack in the door, he watched as Carlisle reached out to press his fingers to the pulse point at her throat. He'd turned off her monitor, the beeping so incessant that it grew tiresome, but he concentrated now, his hand coming up around her arm. Carlisle had no need for tools to check her blood pressure— his grip, sensitive and strong, could do just as well.

Emmett felt his ire rise when his father reached back for the discarded oxygen, carefully and gently placing a mask over her nose and mouth. The anger tasted acrid, bitter on his tongue, and he longed to run, to hit something.

Violence, he knew, would only be a temporary fix for the agitation that had made its home in his heart. The urge to track, the urge to hunt, was powerful, but it would not be enough to stifle his anger or his disappointment.

He knew that he could not leave now— not when he was so desperate to soothe the terror in that room— and though he wanted nothing more than to take action, he forced himself to pause, to wait.

Hunting the assailant was satisfying to him— it gave him a purpose, an outlet. There was nothing else for him to do at the house, not when she had been in that medicated, untouchable sleep, and his own obsolescence had infuriated him to reckless temper. Emmett had not been content to wait for a change that might happen, like his mother and his sister. He wanted to act, to do something to take away the suffering, and without Carlisle's knowledge and skill, there had been nothing for him to contribute at the house.

He and Jasper made a good team— they hunted and they tracked with focused, careful determination. He had made himself as useful as he could by volunteering to eliminate the threat. He could do nothing for her in sleep— not while she didn't know him, or care— and so he did his part by seeking out the offender, the killer, who had taken away so much.

He liked the rush of danger. He liked the excitement of action. He liked to serve his family, and he liked to protect— especially Bella, who was so completely and utterly defenseless against them that it was almost laughable.

And so when the crying came to an end, the sound of her anguish finally coming to a close, Emmett moved again, peeking his head inside the room.

He could see the toll it had taken on Esme, and on Carlisle, too, as they watched, and waited, for another round to start.

Emmett had seen Bella sleeping before. He had observed her, giddy with amusement, as she rambled nonsense from dreams that he would never know. Edward, too, had liked to watch her, for it was only in her dreams that he came close to hearing her truest, most intimate thoughts. Fantastical they might be, but honest, and unguardedsomething that she struggled to share with him while she was awake, and which drove Edward absolutely mad.

And so, had he not been so used to the sight of her slumber, Emmett might have mistaken this quiet, sombre calm for more of the same. She certainly looked the part— her eyes shut, her body still— but this time, it was pure exhaustion that immobilized her, not real sleep. Her body was tired— he had known it would be, after all she had endured— and she craved sleep as if she had been starved, despite her days of quiet, unnatural slumber. This tiredness looked heavy, as if she bore the weight of the world and more, and though Esme was whispering, smoothing away the whisps of hair at her temples and her cheeks, Emmett knew there was no way she would sleep, so tormented and so sad.

Her cheeks, pale again after the flush of waking, were stained by the salt of tears. Her hands, so limp and soft before, were clenched around the sheets now, making wrinkles in the linen. The nasal cannula had been discarded now that her nose was blocked from crying, and it had been replaced by that flimsy plastic mask, beneath which her breath hitched on every inhale as if, even now, she were in danger of more tears. Emmett did not know where they would come from— surely, she had none left?— but this question did not stop him as he took one step, and then another, towards the bed. Esme did not move as he came a little nearer, did not spare him so much as a passing glance, but that did not stop him either as he reached out to stroke the thin, delicate hand around the sheets, carefully prying the grip away to engulf it in his own.

It was the first time he had touched her since she'd come back to them and he was at once consumed by the softness of her, the warmth. He recalled what it had been like to hold her in his arms— her feather-light frame, her constant movement, even when she tried to be still. She could not help the thrum of blood through every vein beneath her skin, or the steady, quiet breathing that shifted the very air around her, and both of these things had fascinated him, intrigued him. He had spent so much time in the vicinity of humans throughout his many years that they had somehow ceased to marvel him, but he had never dared to touch one, to hug one.

He had certainly never loved one, and as he held that small, pale hand, he felt again the stirrings of life between his fingers.

She was impossibly weak, this tiny little thing, even when she was at full strength. It had amused him, piqued his interest and his curiosity as much as it had bothered Edward, who would fret and worry over her many frailties. He did not like that she was so vulnerable, that a careless swipe of a hand or a brief and uncontrolled squeeze could crack her skull or shatter her ribs. She was a danger enough to herself. Emmett had shaken with unabashed laughter whenever she would trip over her own feet, or over nothing at all, and it had all been more than worth it to him, when he'd caught sight of Edward's absolute despair.

But now, watching this suffering, there was nothing at all funny about her many human weaknesses.

Had she been as durable as them, her leap from that cliff wouldn't have done a thing to hurt her. She would not have drifted, unconscious and half-drowned, five miles out to sea. She would not have needed any intervention— no breathing tube, no CPR— and her ribs would be whole, and intact. She would not be wearing an oxygen mask to meet her most basic needs, and she certainly would not be crying for a sorrow she could not control.

The tremble of her body and the moisture in her eyes made him angry— not with her, but with all of them for the careless damage they had caused.

Emmett hadn't wanted to leave her— hadn't dared to raise his hand in support of his brother when he'd asked, demanded, their cooperation. Not even when his wife had fought him, had grown so angry that it was a miracle she hadn't hit him. He had not agreed to this, his own, selfish interests driving out all of the reason, the sense of Edward's argument, but still, he had complied. He had followed his family's wishes, as they all had, and had walked out as if she had meant nothing to them, as if she hadn't mattered. As if, as Edward had told her, they were simply incompatible, her natural human failings simply too tedious, too great a liability, to keep in their company for even a minute longer. Emmett had expected their departure to be more climactic, more troublesome. He had expected Edward to spend hours convincing her that what he said was true, and so when he'd come back not half an hour after he'd set out, it had been shock, not anger, that had risen in his heart.

"Done already?" Emmett had asked, watching his brother's resignation, his sorrow. "You're sure she bought it?"

Edward had hissed at him, his pale face wild and feral.

"Yes, I'm sure," he'd snapped and he turned away, trembling. "I'm sure she bought it. There's no doubt in my mind."

He was pulled from his memory with a violent jolt when, beneath him, still trembling and weak, the girl began to cry again. The sound was softer this time, and muffled, and though she tried to hide it with her clumsy hand, she could not wipe the tear fast enough to stop him seeing. It leaked through her fingers, rolling down her cheek, and Emmett caught it with the pad of his thumb.

When he spoke, his voice was hardly louder than whisper.

"Hush now…" She turned to him, her eyes wide. "You're alright, kid. It's alright."

And then, though he did not know why, or even how, she did something he did not expect. Emmett was used to her withdrawal— a natural human instinct that marked him as a danger, as a threat. He supposed he was, in a way, more intimidating than the rest of them, by the sheer force of his size alone. Little Alice, though just as dangerous to any human, had the upper hand when it came to making friends, for she was sweet where he was gruff, small where he was large. Before they'd left, he had overcome that barrier just a little, earning her trust in bits and pieces over that long and happy summer she'd spent among them. Emmett had envied the way she'd grown close to Alice— had watched that blossoming friendship with somewhat bitter eyes— but it had only made his successes all the sweeter, his triumph all the greater, when she had finally invited him in.

So when she struggled, her breath shallow as her ribs ached and smarted, Emmett could only watch in alarm. Carlisle reached for her, urging her carefully, gently, back to bed, and Esme gave a quick and worried "no", but she fought them, struggling pitifully against their guiding hands, to rise. She stared at him, her wild eyes searching his hands, and then his face, and when she reached for him, so slow and so trembling, he knew at once what she wanted, and he would not deny her. He caught her as she fell, lurching drunkenly towards him with sudden, urgent force, and he felt her wrap her arms about his neck, her face pressed into the soft cotton of his t-shirt.

"I've got you," he said, and he felt a chair against his legs. When he sat back she came with him, all of her frail weight coming down in a rush. "Easy, doll. I've got you now. It's alright."

Beneath the tears, beneath the terrible, quaking tremors, Emmett heard her whisper, so soft and so faint that he almost missed it altogether.

"Are you real, Emmett?" she asked, and he felt a burn like fire in his chest. "Are you real?"

When he spoke, his throat was tight.

"Yeah, honey. I'm real…"

"Are you sure?" Her fingers touched his chin, his face. "Are you sure? I've thought it so many times— felt it so many times— I need you to be real. Oh, please, be real…"

Her voice broke, then, and her arms lost their feeble strength as she collapsed. The burn in his chest erupted into total, furious grief, but he held it back, kept himself in check. She was crying now— really crying— and he could not stem the flow, so he simply let himself hold her, feel her, as the floodgates broke and the dams were overrun.

"I'm real, honey. I'm real. And so are you."

"Please don't leave me," she begged, and this time, it was fury that rose like a snake in his heart. Fury at himself, fury at his brother. "Please don't go, Emmett. Please don't leave."

He had never spoken a truer, easier word in all his life.

"Never."

A/N: Thanks for sticking with me. We're coming to some changes soon, and I hope they'll come easily. I had a hard time getting this chapter out on paper, and I won't lie... I'm still not completely satisfied with it. I couldn't decide whose POV would work best, so I settled for a split halfway through.

Some of you have been asking about Bella's POV, and I'll let you know now that I'm undecided about whether or not I want to include it. My original vision for this story was to focus more on the family, but I'm starting to wonder if I need her perspective to break up some of the repetition. We'll see how the next chapter ends up, and go from there.

XO