Chapter 7

Bella woke with a start to screaming. She sat up quickly and looked around, ignoring the throbbing of her temple. It took a while for her eyes to focus to the dark room, but when they did she saw Keri thrashing in the next bed over. And next to her sat a beautiful pixie – like girl, who was staring at Keri with a bothered expression. The girl looked up at Bella and smiled slightly and then, as if she had just recognized her, the girl's eyes widened in disbelief.

"Wow, hi there!" The girl said over Keri's screams. Bella's eyebrows shot up when she heard the musical voice flow from her. Seeing this girl sitting near her mad her self-esteem hit a new time low. "I' m Alice Cullen." She said when Bella still hadn't responded. As soon as Alice's name was spoken, Keri stopped screaming and started smiling, as if she we enjoying an inside joke. Bella remembered that Alice was still waiting for her to say something.

"Hi Alice." Bella said, smiling shyly and half waving her hand.

"You must be Bella." Alice chimed, her expression that of someone who was meeting a celebrity.

"She is Bella. Isn't that wonderful?" Keri said, laughing. "Bella, Bella, Bella, Oh where have you gone Bella?" Keri sang, her voice hoarse from screaming. But other than that, her singing was pretty good, Bella noted.

"Would you mind talking to her again, Bella? She seems to only remember when you talk to her." A beautiful voice came from behind Bella, who had stood to meet the request of the person. She turned slightly to see who it was, though she already knew.

"Sure." She said shakily to Edward, who gave her a beautiful crooked smile that melted her heart. For a second she just stood there and stared at him, realizing the entire time that her heart had stopped.

"BELLA!" Keri said from behind her, almost screaming it as if she were in pain. Shocked out of her trance, Bella snapped around to see if Keri was in pain, but Keri was still laying there smiling at the ceiling. Bella studied Keri for a second before she turned and smiled at Bella, beckoning her over with her hand.

Alice got up to give the seat to Keri, and joined Edward by the door.

"Lean down" Keri said, giving Bella an impatient look. Bella complied and placed her ear right near Keri's mouth.

"Do you see the pixie girl over there?" Keri whispered, all traces of insanity out of her voice. She sounded like she had before she was in the hospital, which is depressed and scared. "Well, I want to tell you first off, that she can hear every word we say, but if we whisper it she will pretend she doesn't hear, because that would be weird if she could."

"Um, are you talking about Alice?" Bella said, sliding her eyes away from Keri's face and glancing at Alice's back, since now she was taking to Edward. But after a minute of scrutinizing, Bella noticed that Alice's body was tensed up in the slightest bit. She decided she believed Keri.

"Yeah, Alice. Other people would call her Mary. Her full name is Mary Alice Brandon."

"Well a lot of people go by their middle name." Bella said. Just then Alice appeared next to them and she looked extremely nervous.

"Keri, honey, I don't know what you are talking about. My name is Alice Cullen. I think." She added the last part as an afterthought, then realized we were listening. Her beautiful face started to frown. "Keri what are you talking about." Alice said, a strange desperate tone came to her voice as she grabbed one of Keri's hands into her own.

Bella looked up at Edward, who was hovering behind Alice. His face held nothing but concern for his adopted sister, and he didn't even notice Bella staring at him.

Bella looked at Keri again, who looked shocked.

"You mean you don't know?" Keri said to Alice.

"I don't know anything. All I remember is waking up, I don't even remember the pain."

"Wow, I'm sorry, Alice." Keri said. She smiled warmly at Alice, and told her that she would explain as soon as she could after she got out of the hospital.

"Come on, Alice." Edward said. He was watching Bella warily. He glanced at Alice, then glanced back at Bella. Alice followed his gaze to her, where her face froze.

Bella sighed when she realized they didn't want her to hear any of what they had just said. "It's alright, you guys. I didn't understand half of it, so you have nothing to worry about. Besides, I'm not going to go tell everyone that Alice can't remember something about pain and Edward is a mind-reader." Bella said with a weary laugh. She was exhausted, because she hadn't had a good nights sleep. When she had spoken of Edward's mind-reading, it had brought back the conversation she and Keri had. She sat there, watching how Edward and Alice were reacting to her words, and she had the realization, that maybe, just maybe, Keri wasn't out of her mind. Maybe he does read minds. As soon as she thought it, she pushed it out of her mind, only for it to keep creeping back in.

She watched Edward, as he stared at her in shock, and suddenly it was like light had been shed onto her mind. She kept staring at Edward, as he stared back. "Impossible." She whispered. She couldn't break her gaze on his beautiful face. She had to concentrate to get a few breathes in and out. He gazed back at her, and she noticed he wasn't even breathing. "Impossible." She whispered once again, the sound barely audible to her own ears. But Edward had heard, and he gave her a wry smile, which she returned with a small one. "Mind-Reader." Bella whispered. Edward cocked one eyebrow, as if daring her to question it.

"Bella, as soon as you and Edward are done having your moment, can we please discuss more important matters?" Keri said impatiently, frowning at Bella.

But Bella still couldn't unlock her eyes from Edwards. It seemed as if he was having the same difficulty. But soon he turned away, so he was facing Keri again. As soon as his gaze was away from hers, Bella suddenly realized what she had just learned.

"He can read minds!" Bella said excitedly to Keri.

Keri rolled her eyes and spoke with a note of disdain in her voice, "Well now that you're done with your epiphany, can we please move on?" Bella was hurt, but she didn't show it, instead she just nodded for Keri to continue.

"Okay great, thanks. Well, actually, I was hoping the whole Cullen/Hale coven would be here."

"Doesn't a coven have to do with witches?" Bella said nervously, she was staring at Keri waiting for an answer, when Edward, Alice, and Keri burst into laughter. Bella frowned. "Then what does it mean?" She demanded, which immediately silenced the room.

"Should we tell her?" Alice asked Edward, who shook his head.

"We don't know if we can trust her."

"Aw come on!" Keri said. "Of course we can trust her. I mean seriously, when I, a total stranger to her, came and asked for her to save me, she barely hesitated. A normal person would have called the police for harassment, or some other shit like that." Keri said.

"Harassment?" Alice said to Keri. Keri just looked away and shrugged her shoulders, mumbling about it being 'a long story.'

"I'm sorry, but I don't think we should tell her right now. I mean, do we really know anything about her?" Edward said. Keri blushed. "Exactly, she knows as much about you as you do about her. Which is not very much, is it?" Edward said. Keri sighed and nodded, and then she threw an apologetic glance at Bella, who had sat there the entire time while they talked about her.

"Fine then," Bella said, getting up to leave, "I'll be back in no more than two hours, I'm going to the hospital cafeteria to get something to eat. And I will eat as slow as I can so you have plenty of time to talk." Bella smiled at them, because she understood that they couldn't tell her, it only hurt a little that they didn't trust her. Keri looked extremely sad as Bella walked away, and Edward gave her that beautiful crooked grin, that made her stumble on her feet. He chuckled as she flushed bright red and kept on walking. Before she was out the door, the three had already started whispering to each other.