Bella's body, streaming with red, started to twitch, jerking around in Edyth's arms like she was being electrocuted. All the while, her face was contorted in pain. Her arms were thrashing but her legs weren't moving.

Edyth and Royal were frozen for the shortest half second, and then they broke. Edyth whipped Bella's body into her arms, and, shouting so fast it was hard to separate the individual words, she and Royal shot up the staircase to the second floor.

I sprinted after them.

"Morphine!" Edyth yelled at Royal.

"Alice—get Carlisle on the phone!" Royal shouted.

The room I followed them to looked like an emergency ward set up in the middle of a library. The lights were brilliant and white. Bella was on a table under the glare, skin ghostly in the spotlight. Her body twitched now and then. I felt nauseous as I watched the blood that was coming out of her mouth and her nose. Royal held Bella still, yanking and ripping Bella's bloodstained shirt out of the way, while Edyth stabbed a syringe into her arm.

I couldn't look anymore. I was afraid to have these memories in my head.

"What's happening, Edyth?"

"She must be going into cardiac arrest."

"Why is she bleeding so much?"

Somewhere in this, Bella took a sudden, rasping breath of air.

"Edyth" she choked, "Ed…."

"She's hemorrhaging!"

Alice darted into the room, bags of blood in her hand. She handed them to Royal and backed away, her gold eyes wide and burning.

Royal hurried to set up the blood, he grabbed a clean needle from the nearby table, but in his haste he ripped the bag and fresh blood began to drip down his arm.

And then Royal lost his focus. I saw the expression on his face shift, saw his lips pull back from his teeth and his black eyes glint with thirst.

"No, Royal!" Edyth roared, but her hands were trapped, trying to prop Bella upright so she could breathe.

I launched myself at Royal, jumping across the table without bothering to phase. As I hit his stone body, knocking him toward the door, I felt the needle in his hand stab deep into my left arm. My right palm smashed against his face, locking his jaw and blocking his airways.

I used my grip on Royal's face to swing his body out so that I could land a solid kick in his gut; it was like kicking concrete. He flew into the door frame, buckling one side of it. Then Alice was there, yanking him by the throat to get him into the hall.

And I had to give to Blondie—he didn't put up an ounce of fight. He wanted us to win. He let me trash him like that to get him out of the way so we could save Bella.Hmm that was weird.

I ripped the needle out of my arm.

"Alice, get Royal out of here!" Edyth shouted. "Take him to Jasper and keep him there! Julie, I need you!"

I didn't watch Alice finish the job. I wheeled back to the operating table, where Bella was turning blue, her eyes wide and staring.

"CPR?" Edyth growled at me, fast and demanding.

"Yes!"

I judged her face swiftly, looking for any sign that she was going to react like Royal to the blood spilled all over the floor. There was nothing but single-minded ferocity.

"Get her breathing! I have to get the venom."

I tried to get Bella in a neutral position so I could perform CPR, as I tried to align her spine, she let out an agonized cry of pain.

"Her spine," Edyth choked in horror.oh god her spine "It's broken."

"Hurry up and do what you need to do!" I snarled.

And then I bent over Bella's head. Her mouth looked clear, so I pressed mine to hers and blew a lungful of air into it. I felt her twitching body expand, so there was nothing blocking her throat.

Her lips tasted like blood.

I could hear her heart, thumping unevenly,keep it going. I thought fiercely at her, blowing another gust of air into her lungs. you promised. Keep your heart beating.

She coughed back at me, her eyes blinking, rolling back into her head.

"You stay with me now, Bella!" I yelled at her. "Do you hear me? Stay! You're not leaving me. Keep your heart beating!"

Her eyes wheeled, looking for me, or her, but seeing nothing.

"Jul…lie…" She breathed, "S…sorr…"

And then, with a last dullga-lump, her heart faltered and went silent.

She missed maybe half of one beat, and then my hands were on her chest, doing compressions. I counted in my head, trying to keep the rhythm steady. One. Two. Three. Four.

Breaking away for a second, I blew another lungful of air into her.

I couldn't see anymore. My eyes were wet and blurry. But I was hyperaware of the sounds in the room. The unwilling glug-glug of her heart under my demanding hands, the pounding of my own heart, and Edyth's ragged, panicked breathing.

I forced more air down Bella's throat.

"What are you waiting for?" I choked out breathlessly, pumping her heart again. One. Two. Three. Four.

"Her heart has to be beating. I could crush her ribcage. I need you to get her heart beating again." Edyth's voice was urgent, broken.

One. Two. Three. Four.

"Get her heart beating." She snarled as I breathed for Bella again.

One. Two. Three. Four.

Another breath.

Bella's heart gave a weak, tentative thud.

"Move your hands, Julie."

I looked up from Bella's white eyes, still pumping for her. Edyth had a syringe in her hand—all silver, like it was made from steel.

"What's that?"

Her stone hand knocked mine out of the way. There was a tiny crunch as her blow broke my little finger. In the same second, she shoved the needle straight into Bella's heart.

"My venom," she answered as she pushed the plunger down.

I heard the jolt in Bella's heart, like Edyth had shocked her with paddles.

"Keep it moving," she ordered. Her voice was ice, was dead. Fierce and unthinking. Like she was a machine.

I ignored the healing ache in my finger and started pumping Bella's heart again. It was harder, as if her blood was congealing there—thicker and slower. While I pushed the now-viscous blood through her arteries, I watched what Edyth was doing.

It was like she was kissing Bella, brushing her lips at her throat, at her wrists, into the crease at the inside of her arm. But I could hear the lush tearing of Bella's skin as Edyth's teeth bit through, again and again, forcing venom into Bella's system at as many points as possible. I saw Edyth's pale tongue sweep along the bleeding gashes, but before this could make me either sick or angry, I realized what she was doing. Where her tongue washed the venom over Bella's skin, it sealed shut. Holding the poison and the blood inside her body.

I blew more air into Bella's mouth, but there was nothing there. Just the lifeless rise of her chest in response. I kept pumping her heart, counting, while Edyth worked manically over her, trying to put her back together. All the king's horses and all the king's men...

But there was nothing there, just me, just her. Working over a corpse.

Because that's all that was left of the girl we both loved. This broken, bleeding corpse. We couldn't put Bella together again.

I knew it was too late. I knew she was dead. She had to be. Even Bella couldn't survive this. Everything came crashing down on me. I had been so stupid. I could have had Bella as my best friend. Always in my life. But that hadn't been good enough for me, and still it would have been more than enough. If only I hadn't been so blind. Now she was gone and there was no point anymore.

"Go, then," Edyth snapped, and she hit my hands out of the way again, taking my place this time. Three fingers broken, it felt like.

I straightened them numbly, not minding the throb of pain.

Edyth pushed Bella's dead heart faster than I had.

"She's not dead," she growled. "She's going to be fine."

I wasn't sure she was talking to me anymore.

Turning away, leaving her with what was left of Bella, I walked slowly to the door. So slowly. I couldn't make my feet move faster.

This was it, then. The ocean of pain. The other shore so far away across the boiling water that I couldn't imagine it, much less see it.

I felt empty again, now that I'd lost my purpose. Saving Bella had been my fight for so long now. And she wouldn't be saved. She couldn't be saved. She had wanted to stay human just a little longer for she'd be leaving behind before she would go join her vampires forever. Now we all lost her. It was all over.

I shuddered at the sound coming from behind me as I plodded down the stairs—the sound of a dead heart being forced to thud.

I wanted to somehow pour bleach inside my head and let it fry my brain. To burn away the images left from Bella's final minutes. I'd take the brain damage if I could get rid of that—the screaming, the bleeding, the unbearable sight of Bella's dead body.

I wanted to sprint away, to take the stairs ten at a time and race out the door, but my feet were heavy as iron and my body was more tired than it had ever been before. I shuffled down the stairs like a crippled old woman.

I rested at the bottom step, gathering my strength to get out the door.

Royal and Alice stood in the living room, somber, silent. They watched as I slowly trudged my way out the front door.

I stumbled on my way down the porch, landing in a heap on the cold ground.

Then I couldn't hold it back anymore. I burst into violent tears. Deep, painful sobs broke through my chest as every moment I had spent with Bella from that first time on First Beach to now replayed in my head. At one point, it had almost seemed like the saddest romance movie ever. It was a tragedy now. A horror movie.

I was barely aware of the footsteps at the edge of the forest.

"Bella didn't make it." Seth said. He wasn't asking.

I could hear steps coming toward me, but I didn't look up. Then someone knelt down in front of me, placing steadying hands on my shaking shoulders.

"Go away." I sobbed.

The hands moved to my face, pulled them up. Liam looked down at me, his face full of sorrow and concern.

"I'm so sorry, Julie. I'm so, so sorry." He said softly.

The sobs broke through my throat again, and my arms wrapped around Liam's waist. Desperately gripping onto some sort of comfort, if that was even possible. I sobbed into his chest as he put his arms around me and held me.

Seth joined us a second later, putting a hand on my shoulder.

My pack was here to comfort me, help me, in this unbearable and agonizing moment. There was nothing but my sobs breaking through the dead silence. Seth's hand gently squeezing my shoulder.

And Liam.

Liam's arms tight around me, keeping me from falling into nothingness, from drowning in that ocean of pain. Holding me there, comforting me. Trying to assure me that somehow, someday, it would be okay.

And then, from upstairs, there was a new sound. The only sound that could touch me in this wretched moment.

A frantic pounding, a racing beat…

A changing heart.