AN: Here we are again! I'm really glad so many of you are enjoying this story, your reviews really make me feel all the good feelings :) Someone asked about Beau's powers, to which I say: All in good time my friends, all in good time *evil grin*
Chapter 3: Phenomenon
I woke up the next morning to an entirely new sensation, at least since coming to Forks: complete well-restedness. For the first time in over a week, I wasn't tired. It didn't take long to figure out why - the hammer of raindrops was conspicuously absent. I jumped up and looked out of the window, half believing it was a trick. Then I groaned.
It wasn't raining, but it had snowed again in the night. The whole world was buried under a blanket of white. More worryingly, yesterday's rain had frozen, the trees decked with crystals and the driveway a sleek sheet of ice. I dressed in my warmest clothes, trying to recall how much tread there was on my boots. I could already guess that I was going to have an interesting day, balance-wise.
Charlie was already gone, and Beau was fairly buzzing with excitement when we both got downstairs.
"It's not a snow day, worse luck," he said around a mouthful of cereal, not sounding overly glum. "They'll have cleared the parking lot and all the sidewalks by the time we get there. But that means plenty of drifts to work with."
I heard what he didn't say: plenty of ammunition.
"Will we be okay driving?" I asked. This was my main concern. "There's bound to be ice, right?"
"Oh yeah." He frowned, like that hadn't occurred to him before. "I think we have some snow chains in the garage."
In the end, we didn't have to go looking. As soon as we stepped outside, I spotted the thin web of silver chain links that crisscrossed the tyres of the truck. Charlie must have got up God knew how early to put them on. I felt a lump rising in my throat; I wasn't used to someone looking out for me like that.
Beau had no such issues. "Good old Dad. I'll have to make him something special tonight to say thanks."
It was Beau's turn to drive, and he went carefully despite the chains. We made it to school without issue, the truck never swerving an inch. Beau patted the dashboard affectionately, like the car was a well-behaved pet.
"That's my favourite girl," he said. My brother wasn't obsessed with cars, but, to my intense embarrassment, he was among that regrettable proportion of teen boys that treated their vehicle like it was sentient.
"Don't let Edythe hear you say that," I teased as we hopped out. He scooped up a handful of the snow I hadn't seen collected in the truck bed and flung it into my face, then strode away across the blacktop, cackling.
Cursing his long limbs and wiping snow from my eyes, I circled around the back of the truck to catch up with him. My boots were not proving to be as grippy as I would have liked; at the back corner, I almost fell and had to pause to get my balance.
A sudden shriek of metal broke through the excited hum of teenage voices. I looked up and registered several things at once. Not slow motion, but adrenaline pushing my brain to think faster, see more, in the split second it comprehended what was happening.
The first thing I registered was Edward. He stood by his car a few spaces over, the small, slight form of his sister Alice beside him. His eyes were wide, horrified, staring at me and just turning to the source of the noise.
Tyler's dark blue van, hurtling sideways across the parking lot, wheels locked and brakes shrieking. Headed straight towards me.
I also realised instinctively that the adrenaline surge wasn't enough to get me out of harm's way. I was going to be crushed between the side of the van and the back of the truck. I closed my eyes and hoped it would be over quickly.
Something slammed into me, but not the unyielding sheet of metal I had been expecting, and from entirely the wrong direction. My body flew for half a second, then hit the ground, my head cracking against the blacktop. I lay there, stunned, my brain trying to catch up with what the hell was happening.
A melodious voice swore from somewhere above my head. Blinking, I finally focused on the slim, pale form of Edward Cullen, looming over me as I lay on the pavement behind the tan car in the next spot over. His hands were pressed against the side of the van, fitting perfectly into two large dents in the passenger door. Then I saw what had provoked the cussing – the van hadn't stopped, but was curving around the truck bed, heading for my sprawled-out legs, seemingly determined to cause me some kind of injury.
Edward pulled his hands from the side of the van, one going under the edge of the chassis while the other arm slide around my waist. He heaved just slightly, and the van tipped up onto its far tyres, the whole passenger side off the ground. Edward swung me gently but firmly in the little bubble of space between the vehicles; as soon as my legs were clear, the van dropped with a sickening crunch, all the windows shattering as it bounced back to four wheels.
There was a moment of complete silence, such a counterpoint from the brief surge of horrible noise that it was almost jarring. Then the screaming started.
Dimly, as if through water, I heard several voices calling my name. The only one I recognised was Beau, frantic, nearly shrieking, his voice cracking. But the most part of my attention was focused on Edward. And all his attention was on me.
"Bella," he said, low and urgent. "Are you alright?"
"I-I think so," I stammered, trying to sit up.
"Careful," he warned. "I think you hit your head pretty hard."
The words made me aware of a throbbing pain centred just behind my left ear.
"Ow," I moaned, almost surprised by the sudden awareness of pain.
Edward's smile was grim. "That's what I thought."
I squirmed again, and this time he let me up, moving to sit as far from me as he could in the limited space. The movement drew my attention to the dent in the tan car, the exact size and shape of his shoulders where he had braced himself to hold up the van.
Which was completely impossible.
I tried to stand, but he held out a hand to stop me.
"Sit tight, they'll have us out soon," he reassured me. Sure enough, I could hear someone shouting at us to stay put, yells about getting Tyler out, the authoritative bark of teachers arriving on the scene and the distant wail of sirens.
I groaned. Attention, my old nemesis, had well and truly found me.
"Does your head hurt?" Edward asked, his low voice somehow gravely and smooth all at once.
I ignored the question in favour of asking my own. "How did you get over here so fast?"
His eyes were startled for just a fraction of a second, then his face smoothed. "I was right next to you, Bella."
I shook my head, wincing when it made the throbbing flare. "No, you were by your car, all the way over there." I gestured vaguely in the direction of his vehicle.
"Bella." His eyes had turned intense now, pleading, like he desperately needed me to believe what he was saying. "I was stood right next to you and I pushed you out of the way."
"No!" I insisted stubbornly; this was starting to feel like an argument with my brother at his most moronic.
"Bella, please." He was really begging now, and it was all just too much – the voice, the eyes, the complete sincerity. I was muddled and unable to hold form.
"Fine," I conceded. "But will you promise to explain later?"
"Fine," he echoed, abruptly annoyed.
We studiously avoided looking at each other while a team of EMTs and teachers moved the van far enough to get stretchers in. I could see Beau right at the front of the curious crowd, pushing forward and barely held back by more staff members. My twin's face was insensible with worry and he barely seemed to register Edythe's white hand on his arm, trying to calm him.
The EMT in front greeted Edward by name, obviously a friend of his mother's, and he quickly took control of the conversation: he was fine, but I had hit my head badly. As soon as he said the word concussion, the medics were all over me, and my protests were ignored. I thought I might die of embarrassment when the neck brace came out.
Beau was at my side as soon as he could reach me, snapping at the man trying to keep him back.
"She's my sister!" he yelled. "Bella, are you okay? Did it get you, did it-"
"I'm fine, Beau," I shouted back, thoroughly annoyed and tomato red. In my peripheral vision I could see Edward climbing calmly into the front seat of the ambulance they were about to load me into.
To make matters worse, Charlie showed up at that exact moment. Two frantic, overprotective Swan boys was a force I hadn't been exposed to before and I felt instantly overwhelmed. So did the poor EMT who Charlie turned to for details when I would only insist that I was perfectly fine.
"Hop in, son," one of them said kindly to Beau once they had me settled, pulling him in as Charlie yelled that he would follow in the cruiser. "There you go, hun, your brother's here to keep you company."
"Thanks so much," I muttered.
The sarcasm in my tone seemed to finally settle my poor brother's nerves. His tense shoulders slumped, and he huffed a weak laugh. "Hush, you. Jeez, I leave you alone for two seconds..."
I pushed against his arm, and the shove was weaker than I liked.
"Stop, nothing happened," I grumbled, then paused and decided to try out the new lie. "Edward pushed me out of the way."
Beau glanced at the untidy bronze mop just visible in the front seat.
"Sure he did," he mumbled, a strange note to his voice that confused me. He knew I was lying, which wasn't a surprise. But it was more, like he might actually have a sense of what had really happened. Had he noticed the dents, pushed so close to the action as he had been?
We rode the rest of the way to the hospital in silence. Once we got there, they let Beau stay with me in my little corner of the ER. A nurse checked my vitals, then walked away without bothering to close the pastel curtains around the bed. Well, if they weren't going to give me any privacy, the brace had to go. I yanked at the Velcro, ignoring Beau's protests and batting away his interfering hands. I tossed the offending object under the bed and gave him a look that dared him to tell on me. Thankfully, he was distracted by a flurry of activity as another figure was deposited on the bed next to mine. Tyler was half-concealed by bandages wound around his head, blood already soaking them through; the nurse began unwinding them to check the damage more closely. I glanced at Beau, fearing the red menace would set off a fainting spell, but he was holding firm. His friend looked a lot worse than me, and his concern was apparently overpowering his weak vasovagal system. Oddly, I wasn't as bothered by it as I normally would have been either.
Despite the state he was in, Tyler was looking at me with just as much frantic worry as my family. "Bella, are you okay? I'm so sorry, I was going too fast, hit the ice wrong. Beau, man, I'm so sorry."
"It's fine, Tyler," we replied in unison.
"Man, you look awful," Beau added, mercifully trying to deflect the attention from me.
Tyler, however, wouldn't be deterred. "How did you get out of the way so fast? One second you were right there and then..."
Second verse, same as the first. "Edward pushed me out of the way."
"Edward? As in, Edythe's brother, Edward? Huh." He frowned, the movement making some of the shallow cuts now exposed across his cheeks and forehead weep small drops of crimson. "I didn't see him. It all happened so fast, I guess."
"Super fast," Beau agreed.
"He's here somewhere," I added, thinking of how Edward had strolled almost casually into the building under his own power. "They didn't strap him down, though."
They came to take me away for x-rays then, and Beau waited with his friend, giving me a much-needed moment to myself. I knew I wasn't crazy; something about both Beau and Tyler's reactions to hearing the story Edward had fed me made me even more certain that I was right. But then, what I thought I had seen made absolutely no sense. I grappled with the conundrum while the machine whirred over my head.
I had been right about my injuries. Barely more than a bad bump, not even a concussion. I wanted to leave, but the nurse said I had to talk to a doctor first, and Beau was stubborn in his insistence that I wait. He redeemed himself by keeping Tyler distracted. Unchecked, I could tell that the other boy would have spewed a near constant stream of apologies and promises to make it right. Even with Beau running interference, he got plenty out. I closed my eyes in an effort to ignore him.
"Is she asleep?"
My eyes pinged open at the sound of Edward's smooth voice. He was stood at the end of my bed, his lips twisted into a smirk.
"Edward, dude, I'm so sorry," Tyler started, but was effectively halted by Edward's raised hand. I wished I could do that.
"No blood, no foul," he said with an amused flash of brilliant white teeth. Beau made a strange choking noise but shook his head at my raised eyebrow.
Edward perched on the edge of my bed by my feet. "What's the verdict?" He was talking to my brother instead of me, which irked me.
"There's absolutely nothing wrong with me," I insisted before Beau could answer. "but they won't let me go."
"Give it a minute, Bell," Beau said, not for the first time.
I ignored him, focused on the infuriating boy facing me. "How come you aren't trapped on a gurney like the rest of us?"
"It's all about who you know," he said, flashing his teeth again. "But don't worry, I came to spring you."
Then a doctor came around the corner and my jaw dropped. That was becoming an irritating pattern.
She was young, blonde and completely gorgeous. She looked like a doctor on one of those hospital dramas, where everyone is too pretty to be real and people kept sneaking off for clandestine trysts in on-call rooms. There was the air of an ingénue about her, old school Hollywood glamour wrapped in a pristine white lab coat. The perfection of her face was slightly – just slightly – offset by her pale skin and the dark, tired circles under her eyes. This could only be the famous Dr Carine Cullen, Edward and Edythe's adoptive mother.
She smiled warmly at Beau and patted Edward lovingly on the shoulder, but she was all business, focused on me.
"Bella, it's lovely to meet you at last," she said, that same musical quality to her calm voice. "How are you feeling?"
"Fine," I sighed, hoping this would be the last time I had to say it.
"You're x-rays look good." She had them up on a light board, examining them carefully. "Does your head hurt? Edward said you hit it pretty hard."
I glared at her son behind her back. He smiled angelically and my traitor brother tittered behind his hand. I swung my fist at him, but he dodged it.
"It's okay," I insisted, deciding to throw a bone of truth to make him feel bad about laughing. "It was throbbing a bit back at school, but that's stopped now."
My words backfired; Dr Cullen frowned in concern and began probing gently around the edges of my hairline, her cold fingers just barely pressing into my scalp. She found the spot behind my ear and smiled just slightly when I winced.
"Tender?" she asked.
I shrugged, projecting nonchalance. "Not really."
She felt around a little more, then pulled away and scribbled on my chart before signing it with a flourish.
"Take two Tylenol for the pain and come back if you feel dizzy or sick," she instructed firmly. "Sounds to me like you had a very lucky break."
"Lucky Edward happened to be standing next to me," I added, my own subtle probe.
"Yes, quite so," she hummed, turning away from me to study Tyler's chart. "I'm afraid you're going to have to stay with us just a little longer."
"She can go?" Beau asked, sounding hopeful and concerned all at once.
The doctor smiled at him knowingly. "Yes, you're both free to go. Your father is in the waiting room ready to take you home."
"Can't I go back to school?" The last thing I needed today was Charlie hovering.
"Bell, take a break," said Beau, exasperated now. "One day off won't kill you."
I ignored him, glaring determinedly at Edward. "Does he get to go back to school?"
His answering smile was serene. "Someone has to spread the good news that we survived."
I scowled at that, then swung my legs off the bed and got up, swaying slightly. Beau steadied me and began leading me to the exit. It didn't particularly surprise me that he knew his way around the ER. If he was at all like me (and he was) he had to have spent a fair bit of time here over the years.
"See you this weekend, Carine," he called to the doctor, totally chill again now that I was out of danger. She waved absentmindedly, her focus on tending to Tyler.
Edward was already striding away from us, and I hurried to catch up, ignoring my brother's half-hearted protests.
"Can I speak with you a moment?" I said, cutting my eyes at Beau. "Alone."
Edward studied me for a moment, perhaps considering blowing me off. Beau patted my shoulder.
"I get it, I'm not wanted," he teased. "I'll hang out near the doors out of Charlie-sight, find me when you're ready."
He loped off, his long legs carrying him out of sight in moments. Edward gestured to a convenient empty hallway nearby.
"You really shouldn't keep your family waiting," he chided, his eyes turned hard and cold. It was such a sudden departure from the almost jovial mood he had been in a minute before. He was making jokes, at my expense, but still jokes. Now he looked like I thoroughly annoyed him, and he wanted nothing to do with me. I reeled internally, feeling something I could only describe as emotional whiplash.
"What do you want?" he prompted angrily when I didn't speak.
"You owe me an explanation," I reminded him weakly.
He drew himself up to his full height and somehow loomed over me while keeping a distance of several feet between us. If he was trying to be intimidating, it was working.
"I saved your life," he said, flippant, dismissive, like the act – or perhaps the life – in question didn't matter to him. "I don't owe you anything."
I seethed. "Why are you acting like this? Why am I lying for you, to my brother and your mother and anyone else who asks? What happened in that parking lot?"
"What do you think happened?" he snapped, his heated glare beginning to twist into a nasty sneer. I didn't like that at all.
It was going to sound insane said out loud; I held on to my anger to strengthen the conviction in my voice. "I know you weren't anywhere near me before it all started. Don't-" I cut him off with a raised finger when he opened his mouth to argue, "-tell me I hit my head too hard, because there is nothing wrong with it, and Tyler didn't see you either. His car was going to crush us both, but it didn't, you stopped it. You left a dent in the side, and in the other car where you leaned on it. The van was going to crush my legs, but you held it up and got me out of the way. And you don't even have a scratch on you." I trailed off, running out of steam.
His eyes were incredulous, exactly the sort of look that should be levelled on someone coming out with that kind of story. But that tension in his shoulders that I had observed on and off through Biology yesterday was back, making me think that I couldn't be entirely wrong. When he spoke, though, his voice dripped with sarcasm and derision. "You think I lifted a van off you?"
I could only nod.
The sneer grew more pronounced. "No one is going to believe you." Of this, he was supremely confident.
"I'm not going to tell anyone," I insisted, irrationally insulted.
That cracked the facade, just a smidge. The sneer slipped and there was surprise in his eyes. "Then why does it matter?" Frustration, exasperation. For as inscrutable as he had seemed at first, I felt I was getting a good understanding of Edward Cullen's mercurial moods.
"I don't like to lie. Like I said yesterday, I'm not good at it. So there had better be a good reason why I'm doing it, and I would like to know that reason, please."
It felt wrong to demand, but I didn't want to beg, so I settled for making the 'please' as terse and irritated as possible.
"Can't you just thank me and move on?"
"Thank you," I bit out between my teeth, then waited.
He sighed. "You aren't going to let this go, are you?"
"Nope."
"Then I hope you enjoy disappointment," he said with finality. He swivelled on the spot and walked away swiftly, effectively ending the conversation. Yet I somehow couldn't let him have the last word this way.
"Why did you bother?" I called after him. "If you were going to be like this about it, why say you'd tell me? Why save me at all?"
He turned back slowly, and the sadness suddenly painted across his face threw me.
"I don't know," he said, just barely loud enough for me to hear. Then he turned and kept walking.
I stood there for a moment, regaining my composure before I went to find my brother. He looked concerned when I caught up to him – had Edward passed him? Had he overheard any of our conversation? For all I knew, the hallways echoed and the whole hospital had heard us.
"You okay?" Beau asked. I could only nod stiffly in response.
"Good, because it looks like half the school is in the waiting room."
Horrified, I peeked through the window in the exit door and saw he was right; the space outside was full of teenagers. They were milling around in bunches, peering curiously at the doors. No doubt many were just here as an excuse to ditch, but I spotted our group of friends, Edythe standing slightly apart from them, near the front. Angela at least seemed to be genuinely worried, but the looks on McKayla and Jeremy's faces were a little too eager for my liking. I groaned.
"I'll head off the really curious ones," Beau muttered, like we were planning some kind of assault. "You get to Charlie and get out of here while they're distracted. I'll hitch a ride back to school and give you a full gossip report later."
I couldn't help smiling at the conspiratorial tone in his voice. It reminded me of The Great Dessert Heist of '98, when we'd staked out our grandmother's kitchen with dreams of getting an extra helping of her famous chocolate Yule log. She'd caught us, of course, but the planning part had been fun.
"Sounds good," I murmured back. "And remember, if anyone asks, I'm fine and Tyler's a mess."
"And Edward pulled you out of the way."
I glanced sideways at him; even coming out of his mouth, it sounded wrong, but I had to agree. I'd said I wouldn't tell anyone. "Exactly."
"Break on three?" He held his hand out, palm down. I rolled my eyes but laid my hand on top of his.
"One, two, three, break!" we chanted, and pushed open the door.
