A/N: Please see the end for a note of explanation.
Chapter 17
In the vastness of the world outside the darkness of the night abated into the early light of morning. Esme could see it above the trees as it spread across the sky like ink— a blood-red dawn with crimson fingers reaching, stretching ever closer with each tick of the mantle clock. The nighttime storm had passed, leaving in its wake a wintry-white silence that penetrated even here and she focused on it, her eyes closed against the budding, cold light. She could feel the stillness, could almost sense the sombre peace that had come with the springtime freeze, but beyond that peaceful exterior there were other sounds, closer and more pressing. Outside, the air was calm and still, as if the world itself had been tucked in beneath a blanket of new snow, but inside, where she was waiting in the aftermath of the fight, there was chaos.
"You need to move, Edward," she heard Carlisle murmur and she cracked her eyes open just a little. Around the living room, perched here and there on window sills and upturned furniture, her children sat with eyes downcast. "I need to see…"
"She can't hear me, Carlisle! Bella, love, open your eyes…"
"I'm not concerned with that."
"She's going to hurt herself…"
"Watch out."
"Carlisle!"
"Edward, move."
"Love, please… oh, Bella please… Carlisle, hold her!"
"Move!"
"Don't touch me!"
"Edward!"
"Bella…"
"Get out of my way!"
"Oh no…"
The impact of Carlisle's fist against Edward's hard, unyielding shoulder made Esme flinch, and though the room was already ruined, the crack against the floor where his body recoiled made Esme cringe. Carlisle's frustration was so strong and bitter that she could almost taste it. She could hear it in the angry rush of air between his teeth as he drew in a sharp, scolding breath, and again in the low, irritated rumble that warned their son away. His patience had grown thin and while she could not bring herself to return to that room either to soothe or to placate, she thought that if she closed her eyes, she would see the scene as if it were displayed before her in a painting. She could see the set of his jaw, so uncommonly stubborn and fixed that she wondered at Edward's audacity, and if she pictured him with enough detail, there would be fire in those coal-black eyes. He was furious, she knew, and stricken and sad, and all of this had melted together to make a tinderbox precisely poised for an ill-fated spark.
She felt the sizzle in her own bones— the ominous threat of violence, though the enemy had been neutralized— and she knew that her family felt it too when they heard Edward's answering moan. He seemed not to understand his father's direction, nor did he care to figure it out, and Esme listened with reluctant resignation as the chaos raged on. She could hear Edward's frantic scramble— the way he shot up from the broken floor where Carlisle had shoved him, how he ran on feet as light as air back to that dark, bloody bathroom— and when she heard her husband's angry hand slam down hard enough to break the tile, she knew that Carlisle had had enough.
"You are in my way, Edward, and so help me, if you do not move…"
"Carlisle, please!"
"Go!"
"I won't."
"If you do not, then I will move you." The threat was harsh and biting. "There is no time for foolishness, Edward, not if I'm to get these bones set…"
"Oh love…"
"Go and get him, Emmett," murmured Alice, who was perched on the edge of an upturned armchair with a face as dark as a thundercloud. "Before Carlisle throws him out."
Emmett, his face white with anger, was away without a word. They listened all together to the unparallelled noise, the terrible, horrible din that accompanied the Change.
With every passing minute, the sound grew more insufferable. With each new second, her voice rose in a terrifying crescendo. Esme had heard these sounds before— had heard the way those pleading words morphed into incoherent prattle, and when that prattle failed, turned instead to wordless screams. Limbs, broken and swollen, railed against the hard tile floor in a desperate bid to ease the sting. She could hear the scratching of those broken, weak fingernails in the grout between the tiles. There was new blood and old, all mingled together as she scraped her hands against the splinters, and though she heard Emmett's quick interference and the terrible crack of a bone put right, the shrieking girl seemed to notice none of it.
"Pass me that brace," she heard her husband growl, and at once there came the sound of the broken door slamming and the quick, sharp roughness of velcro. "Just to keep it steady, until it knits…"
"Downstairs," grunted Emmett, and with less effort than Esme had expected, she heard him snatch his brother's arm to lead him away. "Just… go, Edward. Just go."
There was no complaint and at once, Esme let her head hang low.
Failure. Loathsome, black, undeniable failure glowed in Esme's heart like a simmering coal. It burned her, that scorching, hateful lump, and it struck her dumb, and when she turned her head away to hide her shame and her defeat, she heard a savage, angry hiss.
"It's not your fault, Esme."
Esme did not reply.
"It's not," Jasper insisted, and when she felt his hand, squeezing sharply over a fresh, seeping bite, she did not pull away. "This won't help anything now. What's done is done. There's no point dwelling on it any further."
Oh, but there was.
In the minutes— yes, mere minutes— that had passed, Esme felt as if she'd aged a lifetime. The memory of the fight was burned in her mind like an etching on glass, and the sound of Bella's first, terrible scream was recorded forever in her memory. She could see the creature's savage face— that same face that she had destroyed with such single-minded relish not an hour before— and if she dared to turn her head to peer through the far window, she knew she would see the simmering lilac ashes that marked the pyre. The enemy was dust, now, and may her soul be damned to hell, but it seemed too feeble, somehow not enough.
She had failed, and that was the plain and simple truth of it. She had sent Edward on to fight, had traded his able protection for her own feeble guardianship, and in the end, it had not been enough. She had not been enough, and the shame of it was heavy.
"You did not do this," growled Jasper again, and this time, Alice peered up with consternation. "You did not fail, Esme… and even if you did, we all share in it."
"You did your job."
"Obviously not." There was a laugh, short and shallow, and it sent a shiver down her spine. "Obviously I did not do my job. None of us did, in the end."
"I was supposed to prevent this."
"We were supposed to prevent it," said Rosalie. She stood by the window, her arms folded tightly over her chest. "We were, Esme… you may not have been able to stop her, but had we done what we'd set out to do, she would never have made to you in the first place."
Esme said nothing.
"We all failed," she continued, "and we're going to have to find a way to live with that."
"She's going to have to find a way to live with it," Esme shot back, and at once, as if on cue, there was another crack of bone and a shrill, grating shriek. "We'll go on, just as we always have. It's she who will have to figure out a way to live with it."
In the stillness of the house, Emmett stood motionless in the broken, ragged doorway.
In what had once been the bedroom where his sister had convalesced, there was now instead a great and terrible ruin steeped in the scent of blood and tainted by the bitter tang of fear. Emmett had watched this house as it was built— had overseen the laying of these floors, the construction of its rooms and peaks. He had chosen the lumber, had laid the foundation deep in the ground with his own two hands. He had seen these pieces before, each wall, floorboard, and joist, but as he stared at them now, taking in the wreck and the ruin, he was not in awe. There was no love here as there had been the first time he'd laid hands on the plaster and the wood— not in this room, which could hardly be called a room at all— and he took it all in with a sigh, his gaze roving over every splinter and crack.
The ornate window on the western wall had been shattered by the force of Esme's battle with the enemy. The delicate hardwood, which had been refinished just two years prior, was torn up in a great strip down the center of the room. The room was dusty with plaster from where bodies and fists had cut through walls like a knife through butter, and what was left of the floorboards were littered with glass from shattered windows and bulbs. The bed was in pieces, thrown haphazardly to one side, and the dresser was upended with its contents strewn and ruined. Not one surface was unmarked, not one item undisturbed, but beyond this superficial damage, just behind him and reeking of violence, was the bathroom, with its sink cracked in half, its marble tile shattered, and a thick, dark stain that had spread across the floor.
He could see the pattern of violence here as if he'd borne witness to it himself. He could see where the creature had come in, where her fists had made great fissures in the solid wood of the door. He could see the very spot where the hardest blow had landed, and he understood the severity of that force when he found splinters of wood lodged in the plaster of the ceiling twelve feet away. He imagined how she'd leapt, how she'd found her target and taken her chance while Esme lay sprawled in the yard, and he could see where her fist had cracked the sink. He could see where her knees had landed in two near-perfect circles on the broken tile floor, and where, with what must have felt like the greatest of triumphs, she'd made her mark, biting hard enough to leave an imprint of 32 perfect teeth on Bella's throat. Blood had flowed liberally from that wound and the smell of it pained him, but as he took in the great, sticky pool, and the fine red mist that had landed on the wall, he felt hot, sickening disgust well up in his chest.
He started with the bedroom, turning his back on the worst of the mess as he tried to gather his thoughts. Emmett could not sit idle— it did not suit him, and he did not quite know how— and though he knew that any of his family would have taken up this task with him had he asked, he thought it best that he work alone. There was nothing for him to do downstairs— only Esme and Edward remained behind, the former eaten up by guilt and the latter skulking at the foot of the stairs. His wife was gone, fled back into the trees with Jasper to clean up what was left of the mess they had made, and so too was his sister, gone to Seattle to make their arrangements. There would be questions, he knew, about Bella's absence, and even more speculation about the ruin of their house. There would be a fire once the screaming stopped, or perhaps a demolition, and before the town even knew that Bella was missing, the good doctor and his family would be long gone from Forks. They, as always, would disappear into obscurity, their names and faces lost to time until their lives would come full-circle and the charade would begin again.
The house would be lost, Emmett knew, for there could be no lingering evidence of the violence that had happened here. They would keep the land, perhaps rebuild when there was no one left in Forks to remember them, but it would not be this house. Not now that it had seen such terrible, reckless violence. Not now that it had been so wholly and violently tainted.
But still, Emmett began to clean.
Though he knew it didn't matter, and it would make no difference in the end, he could do nothing in service to his family but tidy away the evidence of the night's brutality. He could not help Bella, who cried out from his parents' bedroom, and he could not soothe Esme, whose own guilt had consumed and enraged her. He could not placate Edward, who had been banned from the sickroom, and he could not assist his wife or brother, and so he did what little he could do, and it started with the window.
Shards of broken glass that clung to the frame were smoothed by his own, strong fingers before he nailed up boards to keep away the cold and damp. He swept the glass, piled the ruined flooring off to one side, and he disassembled the bed, which was beyond repair. He righted the dresser, wiped away the plaster dust, and by the time he'd disposed of the debris and replaced the broken lights, it was all he could do to turn himself to that bathroom, from which the smell still emanated like a bad perfume.
He found the bleach in the kitchen, beneath the ruined countertop that had cracked beneath the force of a blow. He found rags there too, and an old silver bucket, and when he made it back to that bathroom he felt his rage run hot. The smell was still strong and he could taste it on the air, and in a furious temper he upended that bleach onto the shining white marble, not caring that it would mark or that the smell would turn so sour. The sticky, brown mess turned once more to liquid ruby and he brought his cloth down with a vengeance, and with a meticulous care that was not his norm, he ran that cloth over every inch of tile, grout, and wall until it gleamed white again, his nose burning from the smell of it.
He could not fix the sink. He could not fix the tile. He could not fix the wall— not without supplies— and he could not mend the window, but this, at least, he could do. He could rid the house of the terrible smell and he could put the ruined bedroom somewhat to rights, and once that was done he was left again in silence, his face tight and his chest heaving.
His fingers reeked of bleach.
Turning away from the room was easier than turning towards it had been, and when he closed the door behind him with a trembling sigh, it felt right to latch it shut. At once, the smell was dissipated— he was grateful for that, at least— and he took a deep breath. In that same moment there came another sound, more frantic and more tremulous.
"No, darling.. You'll hurt yourself. Try to keep calm, Bella…"
There was a shuffling from the end of the corridor, a quick and urgent scuffle. Another shout, and then another louder still before a muffled thump and a defeated, keening cry.
"You'll hurt yourself," said Carlisle again. "Just relax, darling. All will be well… everything will be alright."
Emmett froze in the hallway, his eyes fixed on that closed, unmoving door, and he felt at once filled with a choking pity and a terrible, tremulous fury. Carlisle spoke softly and his words were gentle and kind, but there was no reasoning with the madness that had taken her, no way to reconcile the writhing agony with anything even remotely resembling alright.
Before he could stop himself— before he even knew what he was doing— Emmett had made his way down that hallway and had turned the knob of the door, letting it swing open to reveal what he had often imagined, but had never seen.
All he could do was stare.
In all his years, through each great span of experience and learning, Emmett had never before been privy to the violent details of the transformation. He had never witnessed the destruction, had never watched the contortions of muscle and bone, had never felt the savage, ruinous pull of limbs against their bindings as a body turned itself inside out. He had never heard the savage shrieks, the senseless, furious wailing that would do nothing to extinguish the fire. He had never watched as soft, supple, human flesh turned to granite-hard stone, had never heard the sizzling fight of blood and venom in every artery and vein. Human bodies clung to life even when their owners did not want it and there was no exception for the Change, no sudden release of vitality that would make the passage easy. It was the way of things, he knew, as he'd been told several times. It was always the way of things— there was no hope of winning, no hope of humanity's triumph, and yet the fight would go on anyways until the venom won out. They were tenacious, those delicate and transient humans, but as Emmett gazed in shocked dismay at the scene on the bed, he had to wonder whether or not tenacity would be enough.
"Jesus." The word fell from his lips and made their father frown, his fingers clamped resolutely on her straining, thrashing arms. Beneath him she writhed, her eyes wide and terrified, and when she pulled against the hands that held her, Emmett was surprised to see that she had the power to move him. Already she was strengthening, muscle hardening over fragile human bones, and though Carlisle did not lose control, Emmett saw him redouble his grip as he focused on the butterfly wings of the pulse at her wrist.
"So soon?" Emmett asked, and Carlisle gave a short, stiff nod. "I didn't think it happened so quickly."
"It comes in stages," he said, and when he released only one of those pale, slender arms it shot out at once, raking fingers over the healed, oblong wound at her throat. Her nails drew blood, gouging deep enough to leave a scar, but Carlisle only tutted and pulled it away again, pressing a damp cloth to her neck stem the flow. On instinct Emmett held his breath, refusing to lose himself to the eternal, nagging thirst, but when he dared to breathe again he felt his nose wrinkle and Carlisle gave a short, hollow laugh.
"She won't tempt you now," he said, and Emmett took another step closer. "There is still blood, to be sure, but only for a little while longer."
"Yeah…"
"You can sit with us, if you'd like," said Carlisle, but Emmett could only stare. "There's nothing more for us to do now but wait."
"Wait," repeated Emmett and on the bed, the girl's back arched. Her feet kicked at the mattress, her blankets were thrown to the floor, and though she tried to move herself away from Carlisle's gentle touch, he pushed her back down before she could fall.
"How long, do you figure?"
"Three days," said Carlisle. "As is the norm. Maybe a little less, perhaps a little more."
"More?"
"Rosalie took three and a half," he admitted. "Esme almost four. You were the quickest— two and three quarters, if my memory serves."
"Why?"
"Severity of the injury," Carlisle replied. "That's my best guess, anyways. The more the venom has to fix, the longer the process takes. Yours were deep wounds, but they were only torn flesh and muscle. You'd lost a lot of blood and that was your real danger, but the rest of it healed quickly enough."
"Her leg…"
"Is set, and already healed," said Carlisle. "That's what I wanted to ensure earlier. The more I can do for her now, the less her body will have to do for itself and the shorter this process will be."
"And will it be like this? All three days?"
Carlisle sighed.
"More than likely," he replied. Softly, and with only mild hesitation, he smoothed his hand over her damp, pale forehead. The touch was gentle, his fingers cool and soothing, but the very feel of it sent her into another furious revolt and he pulled back with a hiss.
"Pressure," he said, though he did not release her hands. "Pressure is painful until the skin hardens."
Emmett looked away.
"Is there nothing you can do?" he asked, and he felt Carlisle's irritation in the hot, steely stare he received. "I only mean…"
"I know what you mean."
"I don't mean to offend," said Emmett at once, and when the girl's hand broke free again with nails poised to scratch, he reached out to relieve his father of this burden, at least. He caught her before her nails could reach, stopping yet another pointless bloodshed, and when he pinned her arm down to the bed as gently as he could he was surprised by the feel of her. Already her warmth had begun to fade, body heat succumbing to the cooling drip of venom, but there was a vibrant, frantic rush of life beneath his palm, in every capillary and cell. Bella had always fascinated him— her constant movement, her ever-changing colour and warmth— but this was something in a realm all its own and Emmett paused, surprised. He could feel her pulse as Carlisle did, that hammering heart forcing life and change, but already there was resistance. Her skin, while not yet firm, was smoother, and he could feel the threatening ripple of muscle that would soon outmatch his own. She pulled against him with startling force and he understood at once what had moved his father's grip, and only when he felt the threat of a break, the bone in her arm flexing further than it ought to, did he loosen his hold.
"You didn't offend me," said Carlisle and with a sigh, he sat up straighter. His hand did not leave her, not for even the barest of seconds, but when he reached over to the familiar black bag on the floor by his feet, Emmett saw a collection of empty vials and syringes. "I'm sorry. I suppose my temper is a little short."
"I know…"
Carlisle upended the bag on the end of the bed.
"Morphine, ketamine, propofol, fentanyl… none of it has done a thing," said Carlisle. "Believe me, I've tried. I tried with you, too."
"That was almost ninety years ago."
"It's a delicate balance," said Carlisle, "and one that is not easily struck. We've had so few opportunities to study the Change, and I still don't understand all of the mechanics."
"I know…"
"Pain comes in many forms," he continued, "and each of those has its own treatment. Inflammation, nerve pain, bone damage, organ failure… the list is endless. I have no way of knowing just what the source is at each stage and without knowing that, there is only so much I can do. I tried morphine, same as I did with you, but the venom burns it off as quickly as I can administer it. Fentanyl is much the same. Ketamine is given with a sedative, which I'd hoped might at least let her rest, but so far, no luck."
There was a moment of silence between them— even Bella, still pulling wildly against the hold they had on her, did not cry out— and when Carlisle spoke again, Emmett could hear his frustration.
"She's been given enough opiates and sedatives to kill her three times over," he said, "but still, nothing. Touch hurts her. The pressure of her own body on the bed hurts her. Every movement and every twitch hurts her, and there's not a thing in the world that I can do about it."
"She'll be alright…"
"In three days," Carlisle sighed. "Three very long, very tiresome days. That is the only thing that makes this even the slightest bit bearable."
"I've never seen it before. The Change."
"I know. Neither has Alice, but I daresay you both remember."
Indeed, he did. He did not recall much from his human life— only the barest details of a house and a sparse outline of his family— but he did recall the fury of the bite. He recalled the sting of it, as if liquid fire had set him ablaze, and he recalled the madness of it, too, the torment.
"Can she hear us?"
"Perhaps. By most accounts, it comes and goes."
"I don't remember hearing anything."
"And yet Esme says she heard almost everything," Carlisle sighed. "I suppose it's different every time. I like to think she can, even if she can't reply."
Emmett was not sure how it could be possible as he stared down at the broken, trembling creature in the bed. Her voice was raw with the noises she made, her face lightening to an eerie deathly white, though the flash of colour on her cheeks was still high. Her eyes saw nothing, in one moment closed and the next open so wide that he thought they might burst, the whites vividly red with the breaking of blood vessels. The very breath she drew seemed to serve no higher purpose than to fuel her cries, to give rise to the terrible, wrenching shrieks that were her only protest against the inferno. When she screamed it made his ears ring, and when he was forced to hold her hand a little tighter to stop her clawing at herself again, he thought he could hear her furious, frustrated rebuke. She thrashed against him, her strength growing but not yet enough to match his, and with a terrible jolt she pulled too hard and he felt the crack of bones between his fingers. He released her with a curse and a savage, terrified hiss, and though he was sure he'd felt the bones give, was sure he'd heard the break with his own, able ears, she seemed not to notice. He watched in disbelief as her hand came up again to claw at her throat, the original bite marking searing point from whence her torment originated, and when she drew more blood Carlisle only sighed, carefully and softly pulling her broken fingers away.
"Jesus," said Emmett, though there was no rebuke, no admonishment from his father for this failure. "Jesus Christ, Carlisle."
When she was just a little girl, almost too small to remember it at all, Bella had gone camping with her mother in the woods. It had been the beginning of autumn beneath a cloudless sky of crystal blue and they had walked together, a mother and her child, through the lonely wilds of northern California. The trees had fascinated her— Bella had always loved trees— and she had walked with her face to the sky, her eyes peeled wide to take in the colours.
Autumn had always been her favourite season, and never more so than when she saw the changing of the colours. Bella had been raised with trees, had grown up playing in their roots, and their branches, and their leaves, and she was fascinated by the shifts of autumn, the transformation from vivid, verdant green to the rusty reds and ochres that heralded the end of summer. Summer was a time for play— a time when the young could be foolish and the old could reminisce— and though she hated to mark the end of that joy, she looked forward to the chapter still to come. There was a change in the fall, a change that did not happen at any other time, and with that change came solace. She knew the winter would come soon and that when it did there would be nothing left but barren branches and rot, but still, she delighted in the colours, and the breezes, and the smells.
They walked together with their packs on their backs— Bella's filled with her pajamas and her bear, her mother's with their rations and their tent. Her water bottle was heavy— Bella could feel the weight of it pulling back against her shoulders as they moved— but she did not let it slow her, and it did not make her stop.
"Leaves are changing, Mama," she had said, and her mother had beamed her agreement. "That one's green."
"And there's another," Renee had laughed. She was always laughing, even when there was no joke. "What about that one there?"
"Yellow!"
"Good girl. Any red ones?"
Bella had scoured the forest floor.
They had laid their camp in a clearing, pitching their tent by a stream and making their fire near the treeline. They had frolicked in the water and fed peanuts to a chittering, fluffy squirrel. They had chopped wood for their fire, cooked their dinner on an iron pan, and had built a great castle of sticks and mud, christened by a large, brown leaf for a flag. They had tried fishing together, though they had caught nothing, and they had watched the wild birds, and by the time the sun had set and the fire had burned down to simmering coals, they had laid down together on a blanket outside their tent, peering through the canopy of leaves to the brilliant twinkle of the stars beyond.
"Find the spoon," her mother had said, and Bella had been so entranced that she'd hardly noticed her mother's yawn. "Find the dipper, baby, and wish him goodnight."
And so they lay, side by side together, as Bella whispered her greetings to the stars and Renee, her body curled up tight, fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
Had Bella known then what she knew now, the mistake might not have been made. Had she known that the circle of stones was too close to the trees, she would not have turned her back. Had she understood the dangers of the flames, the reckless chaos in the lingering heat of the coals, she might never have let her guard down. Had she known that she would not be able to stop it, she might have made a different choice.
But she had known none of these things, and neither, it seemed, had her mother, and because of this foolishness Bella had watched the world burn.
It had started with a spark— just one, lonely little flare from a simmering blood-red coal deep in the heart of the dwindling campfire. She had heard it spit, had seen the flashing gleam from the corner of her eye as it rose, and wavered, and then rose some more before the wind picked up for the barest of moments and it blew, like a little dandelion seed, and collided with the trunk of an old, weather-beaten evergreen. She had not noticed the smoke at first. She had not noticed the smell. Only when there was another flash, brighter this time, and a arc of orange flame did she finally turn to see, and by the time she'd risen and cried out, the spark had grown far out her control.
Her mother had risen from her sleep with a jolt. She had shouted at Bella, though those words were lost to time, and Bella had simply stared, dumbstruck by the beauty of it and the brilliant, scarlet terror.
She remembered the heat, and the light that bore down on her from the crackling, glowing tree. She remembered how sharp her mother's fingers had been, how Renee's long nails had dug, sinking in to the baby-soft skin of her arm. She remembered the panic and she remembered the pull, and as they ran, stumbling blind and dumb through the undergrowth of the forest, she remembered the glow and the blistering rain of sparks and ash as the fire took another tree into its hellish, heated embrace. She remembered the frantic beat of her mother's heart, throbbing against her cheek as they ran out onto the road, and she remembered the shouting and the fear. She remembered her mother crying, trailing ashen fingers over her soot-stained face, and the shaken apologies, the quaking and terrified I love you. The fire raged behind them, scorching the skin on the back of Bella's neck, but her mother's arms had held her, had protected her from the violence of it, and the danger.
As Bella replayed this memory she wondered if, perhaps, she'd gotten it wrong. Perhaps there had been no escape from the burning canopy of the trees. Perhaps there had been no road to run to. Perhaps they had fallen, and perhaps they had lost, and perhaps they had felt the bite of those flames after all. Perhaps she had died and this was her penance, and until the fire burned itself out there would be no reprieve for there was no one near enough to hear her scream.
She did not know where she was, though she felt sure that she ought to remember. She did not know the voices that spoke, did not understand the words or the cadence or the tone. She could make no sense of the sounds, could hear nothing but the fierce shouts that came from her own parched lips, for there was no comfort here, and the fire had grown too strong.
There was no light, though that night on the side of the interstate had been brilliant with its crimson glow. There was no sweet heartbeat against her cheek as her mother held her close. There were no tears, and there were no sweet words, and though she tried to shout, tried to scream that the trees were burning, she could not hear and she could not be heard, and so those voices would never know.
The trees were burning, and so was she.
Down so deep that she could not reach it, Bella felt a ferocious heat like a sun as it burned her from within. There was acid in her blood, combustible gasoline in every vein and artery, and she felt the corrosion of her flesh and bones. She would be burned, and she would be melted, and she would be dust in the wind at dawn, and with each new burst of terrible, scorching heat, she felt the eruption of each porous cell like a supernova beneath her skin. They boiled, and they swelled, and they blew up into gaping black holes, and then the fire went deeper, leaving her to writhe, and to cry, and to beg.
Sometimes, when her words failed most keenly, Bella was sure that she felt fingers on her bubbling skin. She would feel them on her forehead, brushing furiously over the ruin of her face, or sometimes on her arms that throbbed and blazed. She did not like the touch— in fact, she pulled herself away— and though the fire cracked her bones and the fingers dug in deep, she could not find the words and so they could not know.
"Soon," the voices would say, and then there would be water, or a breath on the apple of her cheek. "Soon, darling. It will be over soon."
Soon, the voice promised, and she clung to that word with a fierce and desperate hope. Soon, soon, soon.
"She's going to be beautiful."
Beautiful. The word reverberated off the walls like an echo.
"She was always beautiful, Alice."
"You know what I mean. Even for what we are, she's going to be lovely."
The second voice said nothing.
"I'm going to change her clothes," said the first,and Bella felt a quick, soft touch on her wrist. "She's torn up the sheets again and she could use a wash."
"Thank you."
"You should go."
"Not yet…"
"She deserves privacy, Edward."
"I know."
"It'll just be for a moment."
"In a minute."
"Don't make things difficult, please."
"I'm not."
"Yes, you are."
"She's only just calmed."
"I know." The first voice grew sharp before it muffled. "That's why I'm doing it now. Carlisle says there's no guarantee that she won't start up again."
There was movement, and a quiet shuffle of feet.
"Thank you." There was another touch, now, softer, and more tentative. She felt the pad of a finger on her cheek, burning white-hot, and when she let out a sound to protest, it disappeared at once.
"Work quickly."
"I will."
"Call me when you've finished."
"I will."
"Thank you, Alice."
"You don't need to thank me."
"No," said the second voice. "No. Perhaps I don't. But she can't, and so I'll say it for her until she can."
Her throat was burning.
In the ruin of the world where there was nothing more than ash and smoke, the girl knew nothing but the ache, felt nothing but the terrible scorch that ravaged her. There had been a man, she knew, and that man had known her. She'd had a name. She'd had a place. There had been a kindness done, though she could not remember what, and a terrible, grievous wrong, but as the fire took her mind, laying waste to it as it had to the rest of her, she could not remember.
There were no more voices. There were no more names. There were no more faces, or feelings, or sorrows because there was only the fire, and the ashes, and the smoke.
And her throat was burning.
She had wanted to die. She had wanted so desperately, so urgently to die. She had wanted to close her eyes and she had wanted to sleep, but she had not imagined it like this, had not understood it like this. She had not wanted it to hurt. She had not meant for it to sting. She had not meant for it to linger, or for the fire to drive her mad, but her throat was burning, and her mind was bare, and she could not remember her name, or her people, or her place.
She could not remember…
She could not remember.
She could not remember, but her throat was burning.
A/N: A few things:
First, a big thank you must go out to everyone who has waited so patiently for this new chapter and for all of you lovely readers who have given me the time and space I need to get this story finished. I'm not sure you realize how important your kindness is, but when things get a little rough, it means the world.
Those of you who follow my Twitter feed already know this (and some of you might have guessed from some other notes on my older stories), but your girl struggles with a little something called ANXIETY. Those of you who are in the same boat know how miserable it can be, and how it can absolutely and completely shut you down. About four times per year (once per season), it seems to come on much more strongly than usual, and because of family stress (illness), financial/work-related stress (hello Ontario teacher strikes!) and the general ups and downs of life, it flared up quite badly after Christmas. I try to do the best I can no matter what's going on outside of my writing, but this time it got to me and I needed to take a break. I can't promise it won't happen again, as I'm almost positive that it will, but for those of you that care I CAN promise that there will be no stories left unfinished. I don't care how long it takes, or how many times I have to rewrite a chapter, whenever I'm able I will do my best to put out new content.
And now, on to the chapter...
Much like the neglected mental health line in New Moon that inspired this entire piece, I always took issue with the version of Bella's change that S. Meyer wrote in the books. The change is described as a terrible, almost violent transformation, and yet somehow Bella was able to break that rule too. I have SEVERAL strong opinions about the way the author builds up her world with rules and expectations, only to tear them down so as not to inconvenience her protagonists (for example: Bella is bitten but not changed; vampires can't have children but suddenly Edward can; all newborns except Bella are bloodthirsty and uncontrollable; humans pose a danger to the immortal world but yet Bella and Charlie are both allowed to know the secrets; the change is torture, except for Bella's, as she is calm and serene throughout). So once again, for my own satisfaction, I have tried to rectify one of those errors. I thought a lot about what the change might look like, both from an inside and outside perspective, and I hope I was able to convey some of the helplessness that the family might feel (especially Carlisle, who cannot help, and Emmett who has never seen a change before), as well as the confusion and descent of Bella herself. Some of it might come off as confusing, but that's exactly how I intended it to be, because there is no way in hell that someone can undergo that kind of trauma and come out of it intact and unscathed.
Thanks again for reading. As always, let me know what you think and stay tuned for more!
