Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight, if I did Carlisle, Jasper, and Edward would be with me.
Chapter 2 – Pain
1673
Bella is 18
Bella POV
A violent fit of coughing forced my eyes open, and I realized I had been abandoned in a ditch. I tried to lift my arm to raise my self unto my back, but it felt as if I was on a bed of knives. With a wince of stabbing pain, I turned my head and saw that indeed I was in a thicket of thorns. Then all of a sudden, a dam burst and my memories of what had happened to me before flooded back into my mind. I seized in terror at what had
happened, and my sudden movements made me hiss in pain. Keep calm, I thought. After finally gathering the strength to push myself unto my butt, I held perfectly still and assessed the damage done to my body. The thorns only seemed to be on my torso and arms. My legs seemed to be fine, but I had to move them to be sure. I moved my right leg slightly, and found that only a few thorns protruding. But when I tried to shake my left leg, I fought back a scream of agony- It must've been broken. God, I've got to get out of here. Using my dirt-coated hands and unbroken (but equally dirty) leg, I gained a good foot-hold. I slowly, but surely, started pushing myself out from thorn bush. As I pulled and pushed sting, the bush itself scraped at the thorns that were imbedded in my skin, and gradually became loose enough to fall out and left long, deep lacerations in my skin. When freed, I struggled to stand up on one leg, but with no avail. How was I supposed to get help now? Then it hit me. I had to crawl. Having been taught all my life that crawling was for animals, the fact that I had to tugged at my dignity. I managed to lumber completely out of the bush, and with a lot of work and pain, I got into a crawling position. I continued dragging myself out of the ditch using my arms and pushing up with my only my left leg, because what ever had happened to me rendered the other one useless. Once I had finally, finally, gotten myself to an awkward sitting position outside of the ditch, I realized I was the road near Volterra! I stopped and looked for the familiar walls of the ancient city. They stood steadfast in the distance. I must've been on the rarely traveled road between the walls and the reservation town (the natives called it La Push).From where I was awkwardly perched, I seemed closer to La Push, so I headed out in that direction. After what seemed like hours of very agonizing crawling my arms just gave out. I couldn't take it any longer. I had to have been close enough that someone might hear me if I screamed. I tried to muster up the might to scream but, all I could manage was a hoarsely whispered,
"H-h-help." Was this it? Was my body going to just give up and die here? No. I couldn't let that happen. As I was building up my strength for another scream, my breath got caught in my throat and I heard a whoosh of air. Suddenly, a man was kneeling beside me on the dirt road. He was…beautiful, flawless. The most perfect…human I had ever seen, even with the strange all black cloak that covered his entire body.
"H-help me. P-p-please." I said in the loudest voice I could rally. I could only hope that he wasn't like James. He stood up and walked around my
body and picked me up easily carefully, like I was a porcelain doll, but I still felt a jolt in my broken leg and let out a rough scream. Then the man spoke for the first time.
"Shh. Everything will be all right." His voice, emerging from gorgeous lips, was deep a rich, like music. Then he leaned over as if to kiss me, but then shifted to my neck, and bit down, hard. There was a warm slash of pain that took the wind out of me. Then there was a heat. As he bit down, harder and harder, more and more places heated up. But then it became uncomfortable, then much too hot. It spread throughout my veins, wreaking havoc on my insides. My automatic response was to pull away from the source of the heat. But it was as if there was no blood in my arms. They were dead things at my side. The fire was inside of me. The burning grew – it rose and rose and rose until it surpassed anything I'd ever felt before. The flames pushed on through my body, growing hotter. I wanted desperately to scream, for someone to kill me now, before I lived one more second in this horrifying pain. But I couldn't move my lips; my body was exhausted, like I was resting under boulders. My mind was so wrapped up in the nauseating pain that I barely noticed that the man had stood up and was running with me so fast it seemed as if his feet never touched the ground.
3 days later...
It could have been seconds, or days, weeks, or years, but, eventually time came to mean something again. Three things happened together, grew from each other so that I didn't know which came first: time restarted, my body's extreme exhaustion faded, and I got stronger. I could feel the control of my body come back to me in increments, and those increments were my first marker of time passing. I knew when I was able to twitch my toes and twist my fingers into fists. I knew it, but I did not act on it. Though the fire did not decrease one tiny degree - in fact, I began to develop a new capacity for experiencing it, a new sensitivity to appreciate, separately each blistering tongue of flame that licked through my veins - I discovered that I could think around it. I could remember who did it, and I vowed to have my father hunt him down. My hearing got clearer and clearer, and I could count the frantic, pounding beats of my heart to mark the time. I could count the shallow breaths that came from somewhere beside me. These moved slowest, so I concentrated on them the most. They meant more time passing. More than even a clocks pendulum, those breaths pulled me through the burning seconds toward the end. I continued to get stronger, my thoughts clearer. When new noises came, I would listen. There were light footsteps, the whisper of air stirred by an opening door. The footsteps got closer, and I felt pressure against my wrist.
"Still no change?" someone asked. The voice was melodious, beautiful—the voice of the person who had made me go through this agony!
"No." the man next to me replied.
"Miss, can you hear me?" he asked. Then out of anger and frustration I snapped my eyes open. Everything was so clear, sharp, defined. I could distinguish the individual grains in the dark wood ceiling above. In front of it, I could see the dust mites in the air. They spun like little planets, moving around each other in a celestial dance. The dust was so beautiful that I inhaled in shock; the air whistled down my throat, swirling the mites into a vortex. I could taste the room around me - how strange- taste the lovely dust motes, the mix of the stagnant air mingling with the flow of slightly cooler air from the open door. The fire was still burning through my veins and it was a
agony. I nodded one fast, jerky bob to answer him. I then gave him a cold glare. He looked slightly startled at the glare but continued
talking,
"I'm sorry for what you're going through but it had to happen." He paused, choosing his words carefully.
"You are … very… valuable." I looked at him with an expression that was a mixture of confusion and rage. He stopped talking and left the room realizing that he was upsetting me. So I closed my eyes again, and listened to the man's breathing. Twenty-one thousand, nine hundred seventeen and a half seconds later, the pain changed. Fortunately, it started to fade from my fingertips and toes. Slowly, but at least it was doing something new. This had to be it. The pain was on its way out...but the fire in my throat wasn't the same as before. I wasn't only on fire, but I was now parched, too. Dry as a bone. So thirsty. Burning fire, and burning thirst... The fire inside my heart also got hotter. How was that possible? My heartbeat, already too fast, picked up - the fire drove its rhythm to a new frantic pace.
"Aro." the man watching me called. His voice was low but clear. I couldn't imagine how Aro would hear. The fire left my palms, leaving them blissfully cool. But it retreated to my heart, which blazed as hot as the sun and beat at a furious new speed. Aro entered the room, with someone at his side. Their footsteps were so distinct; I could even tell that Aro was on the right, and a foot ahead of the other person.
"Listen," the man told them.
"Ah," Aro said.
"It's almost over, Felix." My relief at his words was overshadowed by the excruciating pain in my heart. My wrist were free, though, and my ankles. The fire was totally extinguished there.
"Soon," Felix agreed eagerly.
"I'll get the others." a new voice said. The voice was high, reedy, and it came from in front of me. I wanted to see who the newcomer was but the pain was too much. I no longer was able to open my eyes. Then the fire ripped still hotter through my chest, pouring in from my elbows, and knees. I heard the swish of wind as the newcomer (Male or female, I didn't know for sure.) darted away. And then - oh! My heart took off, beating like hummingbirds wings, the sound almost a single sustained note; it felt like it would grind through my ribs. The fire flared up in the center of my chest, sucking the last remnants of the flames rest of my body to fuel the most scorching inferno yet. The pain was enough to stun me, to break through the numb state I was in before. My back arched as if the fire was dragging me upward by my heart. No other piece of my body broke rank as my torso slumped back to the table. It became a battle inside me - my sprinting heart racing against the attacking fire. Both were losing. The fire was doomed having consumed everything combustible; my heart galloped toward its last beat. The fire constricted, concentrating inside that one remaining organ with a final, unbearable surge. The surge was answered by a deep, hollow sounding thud. My heart stuttered twice, and then thudded quietly again just once more. There was no sound. No breathing. Not even mine. Was I dead? For a moment, the absence of pain was all I could comprehend. And then I opened my eyes and gazed around me surprised by the amount of people in the room. There was the brawny man, the one called Felix, sitting next to me and Aro, a woman by his side, and a small girl. They were all so unbearably gorgeous. They mostly wore long cloaks ranging from light gray to deep black. Then there were the people who wore normal clothes, more muscular, strong looking men. I breathed again and tasted the delicious air. I heard the sound of the others, breathing again now that I did. The brawny men were in the front to protect the others, I assumed. I crouched down and pressed against the wall so fast it shouldn't have been possible, much less visible by me. Some instinct to defend had been triggered, and I automatically searched for any sign of danger. Then I focused on Aro's face. I gritted my teeth just thinking of the hideous torture he had put me through. I then spoke for the first time,
"Who are you? What have you done to me? and..." I looked around the unfamiliar room.
"Where am I?"