Chapter 2: Flames
"Apocalypse" by Jackie Evancho
I was vaguely aware of quiet conversations taking place around me. It was too difficult to follow what was being said. I was much too distracted—I was engulfed in flames, I was sure of it, and my heart was beating much too fast. The flames must have burned all the way through my legs and arms, because they weren't burning anymore, but my torso was still in the fire. The pain was beyond description. All I knew was that I wanted it to stop. I would welcome death, if it ended the burning.
"How much longer, Alice?" An anxious female voice was asking. Esme? Her voice sounded a little different. So gentle.
"Fifteen minutes," Alice answered. Her voice reminded me of delicate wind chimes. It was more musical than ever. Wait—the burning would last fifteen more minutes?! Please, no! Make it stop!
"You're sure?" A familiar male voice asked. Carlisle. His voice was warmer, clearer… Still burning. Fourteen minutes and thirty-seven seconds. How did I know that?
"Positive," Alice replied. "She's so much clearer than she was when she was human…" Alice trailed off and someone nearby sobbed softly. Esme, again.
"What do you think she'll do?" Esme asked.
"I have no idea," a new male voice surprised me. Jasper? His voice was so rich and beautiful… "She chose this, but none of the newborns I dealt with had met their mate. They didn't have that kind of attachment to deal with. They certainly never experienced the loss of such a love." He was talking about Edward. Edward… As if the flames weren't painful enough.
I clenched my fists. Everyone froze. I realized I had been hearing even their subtle movements. I could tell that everyone around me had gone completely still. No one even breathed for a moment.
"She can hear us now," Alice said. Her melodious voice sounded relieved, but there was an undercurrent of something I couldn't make out.
Esme gasped. Someone came closer to me and I felt someone's hand on my forehead. My head wasn't burning like my torso was, but I was still shocked when the hand didn't feel cool on my skin. "Bella, honey? Can you hear us?"
I couldn't bring myself to answer Esme, though I wanted to. I tried to open my eyes, but I couldn't make them budge. I felt the flames constrict and concentrate. The heat no longer engulfed my entire torso, but it flared to inferno in my chest. My heart started beating so fast it sounded like a constant hum—a roar, a feral howl straight from hell. I fought back the urge to scream in agony, and I squirmed beneath Esme's hand.
"Oh, I know it hurts," Esme whispered. "Just a little bit longer. Just twelve more minutes, Bella. Shh…" I felt Esme's hand stroke my hair soothingly. It didn't really help.
"Careful, Esme," Jasper warned. I heard him walk a little closer.
"She's fine," Alice said confidently. "Bella won't hurt her." Me hurt Esme? Are you kidding? What kind of sick joke is that? The fire withdrew again, pulling more heat into my heart, away from the rest of my body.
"Of course she won't." That voice really shocked me. Why was Rosalie defending me? Why was there not even a trace of her distaste for me in her voice? No one challenged her comment either. Perhaps they too were stunned by the compassionate tone in her voice.
"We're all with you, Bella," a deep male voice that could only belong to Emmett spoke next. He moved closer to me too, his steps sounding heavier than all the others. I felt his big hand covering one of mine. His hand, like Esme's, was not as cold as it was supposed to be. It felt softer too. Not being able to see was really troubling me. Thinking of Emmett as warm and soft felt wrong in so many ways. I tried to reach for his hand, trying to get a better feel of it. I could only lift my hand an inch before letting it drop.
Everyone stopped breathing again.
Emmett quickly withdrew his hand, but he didn't back away. Esme did. Her hand left my hair and I heard her light steps take her somewhere behind Emmett. I heard several pairs of feet moving—most of them backed away from me, but one pair moved closer.
"Three minutes," Alice announced.
"Bella?" Carlisle's voice came from about fifteen feet away. "The pain is going to get worse for a minute," he warned. "Then it will stop." Worse?! Oh, no…
Less than three seconds after Carlisle spoke, it hit: The fire was only in my heart, but it burned more viciously than ever. It violently objected to its containment in such a small part of my body, and it burned with a vengeance. I tried to shrink away from it, but I could only ball my hands into fists again. I fought back the urge to scream. My heart rate skyrocketed and I could almost picture it shooting off fireworks. Spouts of the fire in me exploded upward, leaving my body for good. The fireworks came harder and faster until, all of a sudden… it stopped. My heart stopped, but I wasn't dead. I knew I was a vampire. I opened my eyes and everything was so clear.
Jasper and Emmet were on either side of the bed. Carlisle, Esme, Rosalie, and Alice were standing fifteen feet away, watching me warily. There were only six… My still heart broke. I started to cry, but no tears came. Strangely, no sounds came either. My body was just shaking with anguish. It wasn't right. I sobbed harder. A wave of calm washed over me and I remembered Jasper. I looked at him more carefully and gasped.
Jasper's scars were the first thing I noticed. Though they had once been nearly invisible to my eyes, it was impossible to ignore them. They peppered the majority of his exposed skin—his hands, his wrists, his neck was the worst, his jaw—there were a few scars on his face, the most prominent one just above his right eye. Even with all those scars, he was astonishingly beautiful. His honey-blonde curls framed his chiseled face perfectly. His amber eyes were deep and soulful. I turned to look at everyone else again.
They had all been beautiful to my human eyes, but this was an entirely new level. Each one of the Cullens was breathtaking in their appearance. Carlisle was only rivaled by the sun itself. Rosalie was unbelievably gorgeous. Esme was lovely. Alice was exquisite. Emmett was still frightening in his size, but handsomer now. The one who had always been the most beautiful to my human eyes… I only knew the entirety of his beautiful soul, and even that was beyond my reach. A dry, silent sob shook my body again. I decided I should try to sit up. How did I not get a head rush from that? Within the same millisecond I decided to sit up, I already was sitting up. I tensed. Jasper hit me with another wave of calm. I looked back at him and he moved slowly, reaching for me cautiously, laying a reassuring hand on my shoulder.
"It's okay, Bella," he said. "The speed and strength take some getting used to, and you're stronger than all of us right now." I nodded, understanding. There was a moment of tense silence while everyone stared at me expectantly. Oddly, Rosalie was the first one to crack.
"Please say something," she said anxiously. I wasn't sure what to say, but everyone seemed to want the same thing. They were all visibly on edge. I had to ease some of their tension if I could. They had lost Edward, too. I was all they had left of him. That thought intensified my grief so that it nearly overwhelmed me, but I fought it down quickly. I had to be strong for my family.
"Bella, how did you do that?" Jasper asked sharply. He looked shocked, alarmed... What did I do? I tried to ask him that very question and failed. My lips moved, but I just couldn't force any sound out, my throat tight and my chest heavy. Weren't vampires supposed to be immune to illness? I was instantly fearful. I looked at Jasper in alarm he could surely feel. It was Alice who suddenly gasped, everyone turning to her.
As soon as Alice's eyes refocused, she looked at me with a pained expression. "She lost her voice. She can't talk."
"What?!"
"NO!"
"Are you kidding me?!"
"Oh, Bella…"
"How could that be?"
"….!" I automatically looked at Carlisle, as did everyone else. He was silent for a moment, deep in thought. He walked toward me at human pace, wary of causing me any more alarm.
"I never thought it possible for vampires," he began thoughtfully. "I've seen it in humans, but even those cases were rare. I saw it more often a couple centuries ago… "Try speaking again?" He asked gently. "Just try saying our names?" I nodded and opened my mouth to speak… and nothing. Still no sound. Carlisle frowned sadly and laid a comforting hand on my shoulder.
"Sometimes, when someone is severely traumatized, they can temporarily lose their voice," he explained. "It often seems to be caused by nothing more or less than intense grief. The only cure is in the relief of the cause, I'm afraid. Your voice will only return when you can overcome your grief. There is a chance, of course, that this is some adverse reaction to your transformation, but that seems highly unlikely to me. I've never heard of the conversion having any such side-effects, and I've certainly never seen such a thing myself. Jasper?" Carlisle turned to him.
"She's grieving, certainly," Jasper said, looking at me with probing eyes. His stare was intense, and I realized he was focusing his gift entirely on me. He frowned. "At first I wondered if she'd become immune to my sense, like she always was to Edward's, but that's not the case. I can feel several emotions within her—grief, despair, fear, anxiety, confusion… Something's off. That's what I was asking you about before," he said to me. "A moment ago, when Rosalie asked you to speak, your grief intensified. I was about to help, but you reined the emotion in yourself. I've never seen a newborn control their emotions like that. It wasn't just that one time either. Since you opened your eyes, you've been keeping all your emotions at bay for the most part. I helped you a little, but it wasn't really necessary. I don't doubt for a moment that you're in much more pain than you're letting come through—you're containing your emotions, and I can't understand how you have that amount of control."
I looked around the room for something to write with, like I used to when I had a really sore throat as a human. I realized the bed I was on was in the middle of Carlisle's office. I saw a notepad and paper on his desk and I got up to get it. I was across the room in less than half a second. I looked back to the spot where all the others stood, my eyes wide.
"It's alright," Esme said. "You're fine. What were you going to do?" I picked up the notepad and pen, taking them back over to Jasper. I stood so he could see the paper as I wrote.
I could tell you were all upset. I knew you'd all feel worse if I started falling apart.
Jasper stared at me incredulously, as did everyone else. They had all moved closer to where Jasper and I stood, so they could see what I was writing.
"Bella, you have every right to be going to pieces right now," Alice said exasperatedly. "We all have." I raised my eyebrows at her. "You've been asleep, so to speak, for three days. We all had our turns during that time. Esme was the worst of all of us." Esme nodded in agreement. She did look like she would be crying, were it possible. "We're the ones trying to help you through this. You're a vampire, Bella! You saw Ed—" She cut herself off abruptly. "Victoria changed you, expecting you to suffer. It's okay to be upset. It's okay to grieve. Don't you try to put our needs before yours. Not now." Everyone around me nodded in agreement. I shook my head.
What happened with the newborns? Did anyone else get hurt? Is the pack okay? Did the Volturi come? What do my parents think happened to me? What does everyone in town think? Why are we still in Forks? Are we going to leave soon?
I was distracted by something on my hand—the scar from when James bit me. I quickly looked over the rest of my body. A small part of my mind noted the fact that someone, probably Alice, had put me in a long sweater dress and ballet flats, but that wasn't what I was looking for. There were no other scars on my body. None at all. Victoria's bites had left no mark, the long scar down my left arm was gone…
Why do I still have the one bite scar when all the others are gone?
"We aren't entirely sure why you retained that one mark," Carlisle said, "but I do have a theory: Vampire venom has remarkable healing power, and it enhances physical attractiveness, usually healing any and all surface imperfections. When a human is changed, the bites inflicted to start the conversion never leave a mark. The venom prevents that. You are the only human any of us have ever known to be bitten prior to changing. James bit you and you didn't change, nor did you die. The scar was still different than any others you had—it was colder than the rest of your skin, and it had a very subtle gleam in the sunlight, hybrid skin you might say. If you feel it now, it feels just the same as the rest of your skin, aside from being slightly raised."
I felt the scar, as Carlisle suggested. It no longer felt cold at all. The scar, along with the rest of my skin, felt warm and soft. I looked back up at Carlisle inquiringly.
"Compare it to getting your teeth whitened as a human," Carlisle suggested. "If one tooth is, for whatever reason, much whiter than all the others, then when all of your teeth are whitened, the tooth that started out whiter will still be whiter. Perhaps the scar James gave you remains distinct because it was already so like vampire skin to begin with." I nodded. Though it still surprised me, I could see Carlisle's reasoning. I shook that thought from my head and I pointed at the other questions I'd written on the paper.
"All the newborns were destroyed," Jasper informed me, "and no one else was harmed. Seth and another one of the wolves found you, and they put together what had happened—the rest of the pack saw it in their pack mind and Jacob changed into his human form to tell us what they'd seen. Emmett and Alice went up the mountain to get you while the pack made other plans. Jacob just asked that we focus on taking care of you while they hunted Victoria." Panic instantly flashed through my entire body. Jasper calmed me with his gift, and he countered the argument I was about to write down before I could even write one word of it.
"I understand you're scared for them," he said quickly. "We all are, believe it or not, but none of the pack will allow what she did to go unpunished, nor will we. Victoria killed Edward and changed you without your consent. She will pay for that Bella." I wanted to argue, but it was pointless without my voice. I would get nowhere.
"A few members of the Volturi Guard did come," Alice said, moving through my list of questions. "Demitri, Felix, Jane, and two others. They arrived shortly after Emmett and I got you back down to the main clearing. They questioned us about the fight. We told them Victoria had created the army to fight us and to get to you. We told them almost the whole truth from there, just leaving out the wolves—we fought and destroyed all the newborns, Victoria killed Edward and bit you—they didn't linger long, seeing that you were changing and needed tending to." I nodded, fighting down the agony that was ripping at my insides as she spoke.
"As for your parents and all the other humans in town," Carlisle said gravely, "the story is not a nice one, I'm afraid. They all know that Edward is dead, and they think that you are too—we staged a car crash with his Volvo, making sure the car exploded and burned, so the lack of bodies could be explained." Carlisle appeared to be in physical pain. He looked sick. It seemed have the same effect on everyone else too. Jasper looked absolutely miserable, feeling his own pain and the pain of everyone else. I swallowed my own urge to sob. I couldn't bear to make poor Jasper feel even worse, but deep inside me, my already broken heart was ground down into coarse powder.
"As for our choice of residence," Carlisle said once he'd collected himself, "that is related to what's happening with the pack. Only a couple of the wolves stayed behind in La Push. Three more boys turned into wolves while you were unconscious, so the reservation isn't vulnerable. All the others left to pursue Victoria, Sam and Jacob both among them. Their mental connection to each other can be maintained over vast distances—they'd only ever stretched it over three hundred miles previously, but they surpassed that mark yesterday and the connection is still intact. The faction of the pack that left has been updating the group in La Push, and they've been calling us every day to keep us posted." My confusion must have shown on my face. Carlisle looked at me like he was surprised that I was missing some very obvious point.
"If the pack can corner Victoria, they're going to try to force her back this way," Carlisle explained. "In that event, the wolves still in La Push will not go to intercept her, bound to protect their land. If Sam, Jacob, and the others can force Victoria back this way, we will go intercept her and fight her with the wolves. That is why we must stay here, at least for now. The wolves need a definitive location to herd Victoria to, if they can manage it." Anxiety and fear twisted my empty stomach.
"Bella, we'll be fine," Jasper said, sending another wave of calm my way. "Edward faced her alone. She won't stand a chance against all of us together."
"Any more questions?" Esme asked, trying to change the subject. I shook my head.
"Then we should probably take you hunting," Jasper said. "You must be unbearably thirsty." That one threw me. Things like thirst and hunting hadn't even crossed my mind. Once I thought about it, I noticed my throat felt raw, dry—there was a steady burning that wouldn't let up, but I wouldn't call it unbearable. I shook my head again. Jasper looked thunderstruck.
"What?" He asked incredulously, "You aren't thirsty?" Head movements really weren't the best form of communication. I started writing again.
I am thirsty, I think. My throat is burning and it feels really dry, but it's not unbearable. I didn't even notice it before you mentioned it.
Jasper's eyes were wide with disbelief as he read my written response. His eyes flashed back up to me and he looked me over appraisingly. After a moment, his eyes settled on mine in a way that told me he wasn't looking me in the eye, but at my eyes.
Wait, what do my eyes look like? They aren't gold like yours, are they?
I had only seen one of the newborns up close: Riley. The young male that had come up the mountain with Victoria. His eyes had been bright scarlet, brighter than even the reddest eyes I'd ever seen on older vampires. Were mine that red too? Jasper shook his head slowly.
Alice and Rosalie both darted off. When they came back into the room, about seven seconds later, Rosalie was carrying an enormous mirror I vaguely remembered seeing in her room before. All those human memories… They were there, but it was as if they were shrouded in fog. I remembered everything, but the images in my head were muddy and discolored. I remembered Rosalie telling me that she thought about her human memories often after her change, so she could hold onto them. I would have to follow that example. I didn't want to lose one minute of those precious human memories. I didn't want to forget one moment I had with Edward… Rosalie and Alice held the giant mirror up in front of me then, and I tensed in shock and alarm. Jasper tensed too, and he stepped a little closer to me.
My eyes were even brighter red than Riley's had been. It looked like hot magma was swirling on the surface of my eyes. They were a frightening, glowing crimson. It wasn't just my eyes either. My entire body looked so different! I could still see a little of my old self, but it took close inspection to notice. My dark, long, heavy hair was even more voluminous and it was shinier than before. Pale as my skin had been as a human, it was a couple shades lighter. All of my scars except the bite scar from James were gone. The curves of my hips and bust weren't larger, but they were slightly more defined. I looked pretty, I had to admit it. I even looked graceful, standing still as I was, but the eyes…
"Drinking animal blood will dilute the color faster," Carlisle said soothingly, sensing my distress even without Jasper's help. "Your eyes will gradually fade to a dark red, then to amber, then gold. As long as you don't slip up, the color should dim to amber fairly quickly. It will take a few months for the color to become as gold as ours." Months? And only if I don't slip up? I had no intention of ever feeding on human blood, of course, but the thought still troubled me. Then I remembered Jasper.
Jasper was still tense beside me, waiting for me to snap, ready to intervene if necessary. I reined in my anxiety as well as I could. That didn't seem to make him feel any better. If anything, he was looking more disturbed by my behavior every second. I didn't know what to say to him, not that I could speak at all. I jotted down another note, trying to lighten the mood around me.
The thirst is bearable. The color of my eyes isn't. Let's go hunt.
Emmett laughed. Rosalie smiled at me. Jasper's expression didn't change.
"Jasper and I will go with you," Alice said. "We'll show you what to do. Come on." Alice flitted over to the largest window in the office then, and she pushed it open. She gracefully leapt out and landed lightly on the ground two floors below. I was sure I looked like a deer caught in the headlights. Jasper finally smiled, amused by my reaction.
"It's okay, Bella, it's easy," he said. "Running, jumping, hunting—those things are instinctual. They all come naturally." I was still looking at the window warily. Jasper laughed softly and took one of my hands, pulling me closer to the open window. "Watch me now," he said. I watched very closely.
It certainly looked easy. Jasper simply stepped out of the window like he was stepping out of a bus. He fell to the ground and easily landed on his feet with a light thud. He and Alice both looked back up at me expectantly. I dropped the notepad I was still holding on the floor and took an unnecessary deep breath, then I stepped out into the open air.
'Easy' was an understatement. Though I was sure I was falling through the air quickly, it felt like everything was moving in slow motion. The ground came up to meet me at a snail's pace. It was ridiculously easy to plant my feet on the ground just right. For a fleeting moment, I felt happy and excited. I looked around for Edward, to see what he thought of my feat… Then I remembered there was no Edward, and I felt like I'd been stabbed in the chest, and I couldn't breathe.
"Bella!" Jasper's voice whipped. He was right in front of me, his hands on my arms. A wave of peace and tranquility washed over me, and I was able to breathe again. I tried to get control over my emotions, looking up at Jasper apologetically.
"What happened?" I frowned at him. "Oh…" He said, realizing his mistake, "Right. You can't answer that." He let go of me and stepped back.
"She'll be fine, Jazz," Alice said confidently. "She's going to bag her first mountain lion today. I can see it." Alice smiled encouragingly at me. I tried to smile back.
"Okay, next lesson," Jasper said methodically, almost sounding like Carlisle. That made smiling a little easier. "Jumping over the river."
"Me first!" Alice called. She was already running toward the wide river. It had to be about fifty feet wide at the point she approached, but she easily cleared the distance. Alice pushed off from the ground just a foot away from the water and she soared through the air, throwing in a midair spin for effect. She landed on a tree branch on the other side of the river, turning around to smile back at me.
"Ladies first," Jasper said, gesturing for me to go ahead of him. I didn't miss the slightly taunting smile that flickered across his face. I faced the river and took off running. I got there much faster than Alice had, my newborn strength making my quick bounds so effortlessly long and powerful. I was still about three feet away from the water's edge when I bent my knees a little deeper and pushed off from the ground. I was flying.
Forget fifty feet, I flew double that distance, soaring past Alice's tree perch. I landed on a tree branch too, about twenty feet above the ground. I heard Alice and Jasper both running after me, speeding along the forest floor. They both came to an abrupt halt when they reached my tree and they stared up at me. Jasper looked impressed. Alice beamed at me. When I didn't move for a moment, Jasper smiled.
"We don't need to go over how to get down again, do we?" He asked. I felt a strange need to growl at him, but I couldn't muster up such a sound. I settled for hopping easily to the ground and sticking my tongue out at him. Alice snickered.
"Okay, focus," Alice said. "Hunting is really simple once you give yourself over to it. It's all instinct. Just let all your senses take over. For starters, close your eyes and smell. What do you smell here?"
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, smelling the air around me. The strongest scents were from my immediate surroundings—the trees, the dirt, the moss, the rocks, the ferns… Alice smelled wonderful, but not in a way that made my thirst flare. She smelled like violets and sunrise, lightly-sweet and invigorating. Then there was Jasper… Something about his scent was so comforting an intoxicating—sandalwood, rain, and something else… something lush and green, like aloe. Sandalwood, rain, and aloe. It was fantastic.
The next smell that I noticed was foul by comparison, but my mind registered it as edible. It smelled like pitch, resin, and salt. It vaguely reminded me of the smell of hot, freshly-poured asphalt. The heat was what made it appealing. I automatically focused my hearing in the direction of the smell—there was a soft, thrumming heartbeat. The sound of thick, wet blood washing through the animal's veins made my throat burn a little more in anticipation. I had to go get it. My body tensed without my really thinking about it, and I was off.
As I ran, I focused on little else beyond my prey. My mind had much more room than it did as a human, so my mind still wandered a little. I remembered the first time Edward ran with me—I had been worried about him hitting trees, but I could finally see what he meant about that not being an issue. Though I was tearing through the woods with incredible speed, I could make out the delicate curve of every leaf on every tree. Hitting them was truly not a worry at all.
When the memory of Edward clawed at fragmented pieces of my cold heart, I shook it from my mind and tried to remain focused on the hunt. That was when I realized I couldn't hear Jasper and Alice behind me anymore. I heard nothing to tell me they were even in the forest with me, not until—
"Bella!" Alice suddenly screamed from somewhere far behind me. The moment I heard her, the wind shifted, and I smelled something far more appealing than pitch and resin. It smelled like warm rhubarb compote and fresh strawberries. It made my mouth water. I started to change course, my thirst having escalated to a full-blown bonfire in my throat. A second later, I realized what I was smelling a human.
Instantly, my mind was warring with my instinct to feed. The blood smelled so good, but I couldn't have it. No, I wouldn't have it. It was a human! It was a person, maybe someone I knew! I was not going to kill them!
I held my breath and turned around.
I ran even harder than before, back in the general direction of the house. I had to get away from that human scent. After a few seconds, I heard Alice's voice again. She gasped. "Jasper, this way! She's over here!" A second later, I could hear them running toward me. I didn't stop running. Alice and Jasper were somewhere ahead of me, coming toward me. I would either pass them or run right into them. I wasn't going to stop running. Just as I expected, a few seconds later, I ran into them—technically, Jasper ran into me.
Jasper tackled me and pinned me to the forest floor, pinning my arms above my head. I felt the urge to throw him off of me, and I knew that would be very easy for me to do, but I fought the instinct down with some effort. "Jasper, it's okay," Alice said, coming into view a little behind him. "Look, she isn't even fighting you. She isn't breathing. She came across the scent of the human I saw, but she held her breath and ran away."
"How?!" Jasper growled back at her. "How did she break off mid-hunt like that?" He spoke to Alice, but his eyes never left my face. He looked more disturbed than ever. It seemed I was going to be a perpetual disappointment to him. "Bella," he growled lowly at me, "How did you do that? Why did you do that? Alice saw you crossing the scent of a human—you were completely in your hunting mode and you smelled a human! Alice and I had fallen too far behind you, we couldn't have stopped you—How?"
"She can't talk, remember?" Alice said gently. "And you're still holding her arms." Jasper blinked. He looked down at me thoughtfully for a moment, then he released me. He moved off me and stood up, his eyes never leaving me. While Jasper and Alice watched me, I scraped at the earth beside me with my hand and clawed away the top layer, giving myself a clean canvas of fresh dirt to write in. I sat up slowly, watching Jasper closely. When neither he nor Alice moved to stop me, I used my fingernails to scratch what I wanted to say into the dirt.
I could hear that I'd lost you two. I heard Alice call my name, but I'd already caught the scent of the human. I realized it had to be a human, and I knew I had to stop. I had already begun running toward them, but I couldn't stand the thought of hurting someone, so I held my breath and ran away.
Alice was looking down at me in wonder while Jasper looked… sick.
"That's it?" He spoke so softly, I wasn't sure if he was really asking me or talking to himself. His expression was pained as he looked down at me. I didn't understand why he looked so hurt, so disgusted… then it clicked. I clapped my hands together to reclaim his attention, then I clawed another message in the dirt.
You didn't hunt the human either, Jasper.
Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. I suddenly felt guilty and ashamed, his emotions, not mine. "I didn't smell the human!" He snapped. "I was never close enough! You'd left us far behind, Bella. I didn't get anywhere near the human. Worse is the fact that I hadn't given myself over to the hunt as thoroughly as you had. I was too concerned with finding you, but that probably wouldn't have helped me, because I wasn't focused on restraining myself! If I had come across the scent that you did, that human..." He clenched his jaw, not finishing that sentence. "Yet here you are, telling me you kept yourself from hunting the human because 'you couldn't stand the thought of hurting someone.' You're a newborn! You're as newborn as it gets! You're barely two hours old—you shouldn't have this kind of control!"
I felt immense self-loathing that did not belong to me as Jasper towered over me. Raising an arm in case he lashed out, I planted one foot so I could jump up quickly, his presence too threatening to ignore. I knew simply running from him wasn't an option when he was so close, but—
"No, Bella!" Alice scolded. I blinked, as did Jasper. Jasper looked over my defensive position then, and the terrible emotions quickly left me.
"I'm so sorry," he said softly. "Please forgive me. I lost control of my power, I'm sorry." A wave of calm hit me and I relaxed a little.
"Well, at least you drew one newborn reaction out of her," Alice said kindly to Jasper, trying to make light of the situation. "She was going to attack you." Jasper frowned at her, not finding relief in that fact at all. I clapped my hands together again, and I drew my finger through a fresh patch of dirt.
I'm sorry I nearly attacked you, Jasper. I was worried about all the newborn problems you all warned me about, but maybe that's what's making the difference? I chose this. Not in the way it happened, but I chose it. I prepared myself for it ahead of time. Maybe that's making it easier for me. I'm really sorry it's upsetting you.
Jasper came forward and stepped in what I'd written. "Don't apologize to me, Bella," he said softly. "Please, don't." He extended a hand to help me up. Though I certainly didn't need the assistance, I accepted it, laying my hand in his and letting him pull me to my feet. I felt his chagrin and sadness when I took his hand, followed by several similar emotions when he didn't immediately let go. "If you had attacked me, it would have been well deserved. I forgot myself, and I was much too harsh with you. I'm very sorry for that. It's true that I am very surprised and confused by your behavior, but I'm not upset with you. My own insecurities are to blame here. You're handling everything remarkably well, and I think your theory may have something to it.
"It could very well be that your prior understanding and preparation is helping you now. For that matter, another factor aiding you may be what happened to…" Edward. I knew the word he hesitated to say. I felt peace and love come through our joined hands while his eyes looked into mine apologetically. I swallowed the sob that tried to break through my composure and nodded, encouraging him to continue. "Perhaps losing him is somehow strengthening your control," He said. "Similarly to how he made himself think of Carlisle when he first encountered your scent, perhaps his memory gives you strength." I nodded again. I thoroughly agreed with that theory. Edward had been so afraid of turning me into a vampire, into a monster. I always argued that I would be fine. I would never forgive myself for breaking that promise to him.
For a long moment, Jasper and I stared at each other. For some reason, neither of us stepped back. Neither of us broke contact. He was still holding one of my hands and I wasn't pulling it away. He'd stopped feeding me emotions. We were just standing there. We finally broke apart when Alice spoke.
"Well, my vision changed," she said brightly. "I don't see you catching your first mountain lion anymore." She spoke as if she'd already forgotten why her vision changed. She was speaking and acting like there had been no human, like nothing had happened at all. "There's a herd of elk nearby if you want to try for that instead?" She asked me. Something changed then. Something big. I was unaware of what had caused it, but it was like a switch flipped somewhere inside me.
I thought of Edward again. I thought of how mountain lion had been his favorite animal to hunt. I thought of how he moved somewhat like a lion. I remembered that first run, again, the meadow, our first kiss, the first time I saw him… He'd looked at me with such hate-filled eyes... I remembered him stopping the van, the first time he brought me to meet the rest of his family, now my family, the baseball game, James… Edward leaving me, the Cullens leaving me… Laurent, the wolves, Jacob, Volterra and the Volturi… Victoria… All the cloudy human memories flooded my mind and the emotions Jasper had been waiting for finally flowed free. I couldn't stop them.
Suddenly, I was back on the ground, as was Jasper. I had my arms tightly wrapped around my torso, almost too tightly. I was physically hurting myself with my own newborn strength, but I embraced it. The physical pain distracted me from some of the emotional pain. I realized that was the reason Jasper was on the ground too. I could see a shadow of the immense pain I felt reflected in his face. He was fighting it, trying to force it away from himself. "Alice, go get help," he managed to gasp, still curled up on the ground in agony. Alice was gone before he got the whole sentence out.
Seeing the pain I was inflicting on Jasper with my emotions only made me feel worse. I tried to get control of them again, but to no avail. The dam that had been keeping my grief in was broken, and there was nothing I could do but let the water flow out. I was helpless to save myself from it, so I was helpless to spare him from it. Thankfully, others came to pull him out of the flood. Alice returned three minutes after she left us. Carlisle, Esme, Emmett, and Rosalie were all with her.
"Emmett, Rose, get Jasper out of here," Carlisle instructed calmly, always the cool voice of reason. "He needs to get away from Bella." I watched as Rosalie helped Emmett lift Jasper onto his broad shoulders. He flinched at the physical contact. Jasper was clearly struggling to control his power. Instead of guarding himself of my emotions, he was doing all he could to contain them, protecting everyone else. His physical contact with Emmett was making that task even more difficult. It made me feel absolutely wretched. I flinched when Jasper hissed, feeling the new emotion. Emmett took off quickly after that, Rosalie following behind him.
Carlisle bent down and lifted me into his own arms. "You'll be okay," he spoke soothingly, though his expression was pained. "Letting yourself grieve may help you. You might get your voice back, if you can work through this. I'm afraid Jasper won't be able to help you very much." I turned my face into Carlisle's chest and shook with my disturbingly quiet, dry sobs. I felt him turn and start running then, carrying me back home. I heard Esme and Alice running along beside us.
I couldn't stop looking through all those memories. Each memory was another blow, another stab to my shattered heart and anything else that was left of me, but I couldn't make the flood stop. I almost longed for the burning again. The flames really weren't much worse than the flooding water. Burning wasn't much worse than drowning. Either way, everything hurt.
I was too far gone in my grief by the time Carlisle got me home. I was only vaguely aware of him carrying me up to what used to be Edward's room.
"His room?" Esme asked. "Do you think that's wise?"
"I think it's the only way. She needs him right now. Any part of him we can give her."
"I suppose so. Oh, Bella…" I heard Esme sob softly.
Carlisle put me down on the bed in Edward's room. I instantly curled up on my side, holding myself a little too tightly again. "We're all right here for you, Bella," he said softly, stroking my wind-blown hair lightly. "We'll help you get through this. If you need us, just make noise any way you can and we'll be here." I tried to nod my understanding. I wasn't sure if I succeeded or not. Either way, Carlisle leaned down to kiss my forehead gently, and then he was gone.
I wasn't really sure how long I stayed like that, silently sobbing on the bed. Though my mind certainly had the capacity to keep precise track of time, the effort seemed pointless to me. I didn't really want to know how much time was passing. It only reminded me of why Victoria had done this to me. I didn't use my sharp vision to look out the windows at night. I didn't try to learn the smells of the house and the other vampires in it. I didn't use my acute hearing to listen to what anyone in the house was saying, and I still couldn't speak. After a long period of time, one conversation finally caught my attention. It was coming from outside. Jasper, Emmett, Rosalie, and Carlisle were talking on the front porch, down on the first floor. I assumed Esme and Alice were hunting.
"Carlisle, it's been a week," Jasper was saying concernedly. "She didn't really get a chance to hunt that first day either. After she stopped herself from hunting that human, everything turned into a downward spiral…"
"There was nothing you could have done," Carlisle said wearily, his tone suggesting he'd already repeated those words several times. "We were all surprised she held out as long as she did, you especially."
"It's not just that one incident, Carlisle," Jasper continued. "I couldn't go anywhere near her for the first three days! Even when I could get close enough to try affecting her, I was scarcely able to calm her enough that she wasn't breaking herself in two with her own strength!"
"Stop complaining, Jasper!" Rosalie snapped. Jasper growled at her and she hissed back. "At least you did a lot to help her while she was human. I was wretched to her."
"Can't stop belittling the troubles of others, can you?"
"That's enough, you two," Carlisle scolded firmly. "Lashing out at each other won't help."
"It's okay, Rose," Emmett said comfortingly. "You know Bella's never been one to hold grudges. She's quick to forgive. We'll fix all this." That was too much. I was upsetting my family. I had to say something.
"Of course I forgive you, Rosalie."
Rosalie, Jasper, Carlisle, and Emmett were all standing around my bed three seconds later. I blinked and sat up slowly, as surprised as they were that I had spoken.
"Bella?" Rosalie asked tentatively. "Did you say something?" I looked at her and nodded. Carlisle smiled involuntarily at my mute response.
"Try speaking again," he encouraged. I decided to try repeating the same line.
"Of course I forgive you, Rosalie," I said to her, then she was on the bed hugging me.
"Thank you," she said ardently. "I'm so sorry for how I treated you." She pulled away from me and I looked at Jasper next.
"You really did do so much for me, Jasper," I said to him. I blinked at the sound of my bell-like voice. It sounded strange to me, but there was more I had to say. "Carlisle's right, there was nothing you could have done to stop what happened in the forest. I felt terrible seeing how much I was hurting you with my emotions. Honestly, I'm glad you couldn't get close to me again—I'm glad you didn't stay close enough for me to keep hurting you. Are you okay now?" Jasper smiled warmly, if a little incredulously at me.
"Of course I'm okay," he said. "You're still hurting some, I can feel that, but you have no idea how good it is to hear your voice. Relief is overpowering anything else right now."
"Bella!" Alice's cried from downstairs, arriving with Esme close behind her. "You're talking!" She and Esme came running into the room. They both hugged me fiercely, nearly knocking Rosalie out of the way in their haste. Alice was beaming and Esme looked like she'd be crying tears of joy if she could.
"I'm so glad you're okay," Esme wailed, refusing to let go of me for a good minute or so. "It's been so long. We thought—"
"I'm fine, Mom," I said softly. Esme literally squealed with delight at the name. "Fine enough, at least. I could really use a shower and a change of clothes, though. Then I think I need to hunt." Everyone around me nodded in agreement and I climbed off the bed, only to be grabbed by Emmett. He pulled my clean off the floor into a fierce bear hug.
"We're gonna take care of you, little sis," he said, "you'll see." Jasper and Carlisle took their turns hugging me once Emmett put me down, then Alice and Rosalie dragged me off to one of the large bathrooms in the house.
The girls gave me some privacy so I could shower, but I could still hear them going over what clothes to give me and what to do with my hair. Apparently, it would take a little work to break them of the Bella-Barbie habit. I pulled off my dirty clothes and I looked myself over in the mirror for a moment.
Standing naked in the flattering light in the bathroom, I once again had to admit I looked pretty, even with my hair as messy as it was. My skin looked flawless, save for the one scar on my right hand. My eyes looked much better. Odd, considering how they would have looked after a week of sobbing as a human. Carlisle had told me the red color would dilute faster if I only drank animal blood. He hadn't factored in not hunting at all for my first week as a newborn vampire. My eyes were a dark, dim, muddy red. They weren't black with my thirst. I guessed that all of my own blood had to be completely cleared out of my system before I would see that color variance.
When I got out of the shower, Rosalie and Alice lost the last of their patience with me and barged in. Once they'd wrestled me into another sweater dress, this one a pretty plum color, Alice darted off to talk to Jasper about something while Rosalie attacked my hair, blow-drying it impatiently. My long, heavy hair took a long time to dry, and there were some things vampires just couldn't speed up. I was grateful that she kept the styling simple. She just let it hang down, only pulling a few strands away from my face and securing them to the back of my head with a jeweled barrette.
"Where's Alice?" I asked Rosalie when she'd finished. She smiled at me.
"She probably decided her newly durable doll didn't have enough clothing to choose from," she said. I groaned. "None of that now," Rosalie said. "You know how much she loved it before. Now it's a coping mechanism for her. You have heard of retail therapy, haven't you?" Rosalie's voice was playful; she really wanted to make amends. I smiled at her and rolled my eyes. She laughed.
I was ready to go, but for some reason I felt the need to go back to Edward's room before I went hunting. It wasn't until I was in the room that my goal became clear to me—I pulled open the top drawer of the nightstand by the bed and pushed aside a loose sheet of paper lying inside. I grabbed the little black ring box out of the drawer and opened it. The engagement ring Edward had given to me glittered inside. His mother's ring. The ring he'd intended for me to wear forever, that I'd only ever worn for a few seconds. I pulled it out of the box and slipped it onto my left hand. A perfect fit, just as it had been on that wonderful day I'd spent alone with him. It was strange to think it had been less than two weeks ago.
"Bella?" Jasper was suddenly standing behind me. "Are you okay?" I turned to face him and his eyes zeroed in on the ring on my finger. "Oh," he said. He stepped forward and took my left hand, squeezing lightly so he didn't bend the metal. "He'll always be with you," he said softly. "He said he would love you forever, and he will. Whether or not you can see him doesn't change that." I threw myself at Jasper and hugged him tightly. He shifted uncomfortably after a moment.
"Bella?" He said, "Too tight… Ow."
"Oops!" I gasped, pulling away from him quickly and locking my arms behind my back. I remembered him warning everyone about getting trapped in a newborn's arms. I was too strong. I would have to be more careful. Jasper smiled wryly at me.
"No harm done," he said kindly. "Are you ready to hunt? Alice told me I should be the one to take you."
"Sure," I said. "Um… Give me just another minute? I'll be right down."
"Of course," Jasper said, smiling and leaving the room quickly. I listened to his footsteps as he walked down to wait for me in the living room.
I looked at the ring on my finger again, twisting my hand from side to side so it glittered in the light of the room. I sighed and turned to put the box back in the nightstand drawer. Picking up the paper I'd brushed aside, I froze, momentarily forgetting how to breathe. It was a note... in Edward's elegant handwriting.
Dearest Bella,
I am so very sorry for the pain our parting has caused you. I'm glad you are on the mend, even if the process is slow. Please be well, my Bella. That is all I can ask of you right now. I am sorry things had to be this way, but I assure you, you will be okay. Take care of my family, Bella. Know that they all love you dearly, and that you all belong together, even in my own absence. Now go hunting, Bella. You need it.
Forever yours,
Edward.
P.S. I love you.