Chapter 15 – Playing Devil's Advocate
A/N – Very graphic depictions of injuries in this chapter, along with an all time high of angst. You have been warned.
The sheer force of the scream almost drove Alice to her knees. It caused a powerful series of tremors to shockwave throughout her body, her entire skeletal frame shaking so violently that she was sure something would fracture. She flinched sharply as another high-pitched wail, more animal than human, vibrated throughout the forest, reaching an almost unbearable crescendo before tempering down to minute whimpers and gasps. Alice knew that scream all too well. She had heard it before, resonating straight from the pits of her innermost nightmares. Bella.
Alice waited for the next bombardment of screams, her body stiff with tension despite her trembling but when her ultra-sensitive hearing failed to pick up any sound from Bella, she felt the bottom of her stomach drop out in response. The petite vampire stole to her feet, uncaring of what would become of Charlie and Renée's bodies. They could regenerate for all she cared. Right now, getting to Bella was her top priority.
'Get to Bella, get to Bella, get to Bella.' It was the single most concrete thought zipping through Alice's mind. The mantra seemed to grow louder, more frenzied as Alice ran, reaching a fevered pitch as the smell of Bella's blood strained the air heavily in front of her. She desperately fought to ignore the smatterings of blood here and there; the odd glob of rusty red glistening atop a tip of a lush green leaf, the almost careless streak of bright red slashed along the body of a tree trunk. But most of all, Alice really wanted to ignore the distinctive "drip drip" sound that was paces in front of her. That and the dark pool of purplish-red that seemed to mutate and puddle before her very eyes. The spiky haired vampire clenched her teeth; if her principal vision looked like a disaster area, she did not even want to comprehend what her peripheral vision above her would look like. Dumb with terror, looking up was the last thing Alice wanted to do but her eyes betrayed her, following the oozing smudge up the tree trunk. Dread encompassed her tiny frame, seeping and clogging every pore, paralyzing her muscles to rigidity as her eyes noted the way the smudge of blood grew steadily thicker, runnier, fresher, wider, until...until…
"CARLISLE!"
Carlisle was already scant seconds behind Alice, having only paused to check on the other Cullens. However, the few seconds it took the doctor to sprint to where Alice was now standing stock-still was enough for the pixie vampire to work herself into a right mess. Her entire ballerina-esque figure was quivering so vividly that had she not been a vampire, Carlisle would have surmised that she was having an epileptic fit. Her arms and shoulder muscles were straining against her chalky pale skin, stretching so taut that they stood blatantly defined against the snugness of her shirt. Veins on her neck bulged, threatening to explode from the confines of her granite hard skin, despite the lack of blood pumping through them. Alice's fingers clenched and unclenched themselves, uncaring of the damage her crystal hard nails were inflicting on her palms. Only her face remained motionless, frozen in a portrait of horror and disbelief. Her mouth hung open, lips painting an "O" of terror, her eyes mute with panic as they affixed themselves to the horrifying scene perversely displayed above them. If Alice could have vomited, she would have been retching so aggressively that it would have abused her throat to the point where, rubbed so raw from the action and bile, blood would have joined the spillage. And Alice would have gladly welcomed the pain with open arms. Anything but the way the vision received from her eyes transformed into a sea of agony so encompassing that she wished fervently for death.
"Oh dear gods," Carlisle breathed out. He stumbled as his eyes traced Alice's visual footprint, reached out to a nearby tree to steady himself and then snatched his hand away so fast that one would have thought his fingers encountered molten lava. Carlisle stared wordlessly at the still warm liquid that stained his fingertips a lipstick red. It pooled in the grooves of his skin, intent on lingering. Almost absentmindedly, he lowered said hand and swiped his fingers on his pristine white shirt, his face twisting with confusion, his actions seemingly uncaring. However, when he began rubbing his fingers more vigorously against his shirt, the compulsion to get Bella's blood off his hands grew obsessive and he rubbed harder, quicker, angrier, until he tore the hem of his shirt to tatters.
It was only Alice's guttural choke of dread that forced his focus back to reality. Enraged at his sudden loss of composure, he bit down a curse as he lunged forward, swerving haphazardly in front of Alice, in vain attempt to shield his daughter from the ghastly sight.
"Alice…"
Carlisle did not get a chance to finish and was rudely cut off as Alice, suddenly seemingly aware of his presence, pounced on him. She had her father by the collar and shoved up the trunk of the tree so fast that Carlisle did not even see her move. He coughed in pure reflex as Alice's claw-like grip meandered up to wrap menacingly around his Adam's apple.
"Alice-" the doctor wheezed. He made no other attempt to confront her however, having already caught a disturbing glimpse of the wild look burning from the core of his daughter's midnight black eyes. The look dared him to antagonize her, a dare he would not reciprocate.
"Fix it," Alice hissed. She was one step away from losing her grip on her sanity. Hysteria, bordering on possible psychosis, coupled with the very grim knowledge that despite Carlisle's skills as a healer and doctor, she might just lose Bella anyway. All of this simply served to push Alice right past her comfort zone. The beast within her roared, vying for revenge, for blood. And she was hanging by a loose thread, ready to give into the primitive part of her that was howling, rattling its cage, begging for release.
"FIX IT!" Alice screamed. She forcefully tore herself away from Carlisle, the combination of too much adrenaline and unadulterated fear rendering the petite vampire unable to speak civilly. Her lips were pulled back over sparkling white teeth, twisting into an ugly snarl. Her eyes seemed blacker than black, twin pools of endless rage and terror born from a deep-seated helplessness that promised hell to come should Bella not make it through this ordeal. Her body was already lowered in a defensive crouch position, knees bent and ready to spring forth to unleash untold and unspeakable carnage. Monstrous growls emanated from Alice, louder than a series of trains rumbling underground.
The sight of his daughter so uninhibited, so inhuman, as if she had shed her last vestige of humanity to become this…thing, caused a very real and tangible sliver of fear to lick down the length of Carlisle's spine. He held up his hands in a useless gesture of comfort, knowing that in the state Alice had worked herself into, she could not be reasoned with.
"I will, Alice. I promise," he tried, hoping against hope that something would penetrate through the livid fog that had clouded Alice's better judgment. "But you have to let me attend to Bella." He scanned Alice's face for some blip of recognition to her words. "Alice? Will you let me go up to Bella? Alice do you understand me? Bella needs you!" Precious seconds were ticking by, each one not in favor for Bella's very fragile state. Carlisle wanted to get to Bella, but he could not do it without Alice's permission. Making a sudden rash move might very well get him killed.
Alice's vision swam, her beast so close to the surface that she could feel the pinpricks of its claws, ready to jump forth and tear through her last barrier of self-control. She could hear Carlisle speak, but his voice sounded as though he were talking from the end of a very long tunnel, his speech distorted and near unintelligible. Nevertheless, as Alice struggled with herself, one word, one name, wrestled through the warbled message: Bella. Bella…Bella…yes. Bella. The brunette was Alice's everything. With that thought, it was enough to anchor the pixie vampire, though her beast did not give in so easily. It wailed and hollered, causing chaos within Alice. Hands gripping either side of her head, Alice's fingers tousled messy strands of hair into an alarming state of disarray. It was a visible struggle to quell the roar of her beast but she managed to force her head into a terse nod, not trusting herself to speak lest her inner demon emerge from her parted lips. She squashed the tempting call to curl into a ball at the base of the tree; the invitation to fall apart at the seams was so delicious. She rebuked the feeling but keeping a wary eye out on Carlisle's movements. She watched as the doctor assessed the tree in front of him before springing gracefully upward, only to latch onto a protruding branch. He swung with the agility of a gymnast before using the momentum to propel himself onto the tree trunk. There, he scaled up the few feet that was needed to reach where Bella…where Bella hung, impaled by two spiked branches.
Deep down Alice knew she should be up on that tree, knew that Carlisle would need her help. But her feet remained stubborn, muscles refusing to respond to her brain's commands to move. Instead, her eyes played torturer, taking in every miniscule detail of Bella's current state. Charlie, though recently one armed thanks to Jasper, had been fueled by such pain and loss of his mate that he managed to throw Bella at such a speed that she did not merely hit a tree but fell cruelly onto its erect branches. One twisting limb of wood wound its out from the back of Bella's shoulder only to poke out from the front, its gnarly stump shimmering a sickly red that dripped consistently. The material of Bella's shirt around the wound boasted a border of a sharp red that contrasted deeply with the white of the cloth. It blossomed, the every growing circle of red spreading wider and further. The second branch was considerably thicker and it jutted out from an uncomfortable angle from above Bella's stomach. The smear of blood seemed even worse there, encircling nearly half of the front of Bella's shirt.
Alice's eyes drifted down to Bella's denim covered legs; a portion of the jeans covering the girl's left leg had been torn open at mid thigh. Sticking out was an inch of sickly yellow-white bone, its edges jagged and tipped with red. Some parts of the edge of the bone were splintered, as though it had been brutally snapped off. Which it probably had. He skin around the bone arched upward, as if trying to reclaim the jutting bone, to shove it back under the skin where it belonged. Instead, the bone cut through the layers of muscle, peeling back layers of skin like yawning petals of a flower as the skin was forced to split and tear, spilling back from itself before molding upwards to wrap around the protruding bone.
The entire sight made Alice pray zealously for some human reaction. She wanted to pass out, to vomit, to fall to her knees, collapse under the hideousness of the way Bella hung like a butcher's slab of meat. But she was a vampire and could do nothing more than to stand there, helpless and useless unless she got her act together. Jaw clenching so tightly, Alice feared it might just fracture under all the pressure, she willed herself to move, launching her tiny body onto the tree and shimmying up so fast that she was simply a curious smudge that seemed to appear and disappear with each blink of an eye. Alice almost lost her footing when she reached to where Carlisle hovered; the scent of Bella's blood was so overwhelming that it completely erased all forests' smells, forcing both vampires to inhale nothing else but the blood, its iron rich taste icing the air like a lining of treats. Despite her thirst being somewhat immune to Bella's blood, venom began pooling in the petite vampire's mouth, dripping off the roof of her mouth onto her tongue. It was a purely physical reaction to the blood and Alice swallowed her mouthful of venom with a gulp of annoyance and growing trepidation. If Bella's blood was causing such stimulation to her vampire nature that would mean that…
"Alice, Bella had minutes left." Carlisle's voice was clipped, urgency seeping through in waves. "If we're lucky," he added despairingly. He began rattling off her extensive list of injuries even as his slightly dimmed honey colored eyes walked itself through what the doctor saw as a medical minefield that had become Bella's body. "The bone on her thigh severely severed her femoral artery; she's losing too much blood. Puncture wounds through the sternum and right shoulder with both entry and exit wounds bleeding. A few of her ribs are broken; note the contusions on her chest. I think one of them may have punctured her lung, I can hear the blood pooling in her left lung. If she were conscious, hemoptysis would cause her to cough up the blood. The bite on her wrist, there's still a whiff of venom leaking from her blood, probable concussion…goddamn it she's bleeding out from everywhere!"
Alice had never heard Carlisle sound so helpless and frankly, it was wearing on her last nerve. She watched as he swallowed sporadically, trying to keep his thirst at bay. It was obvious to both Alice and the doctor that Bella's newly acquired injuries made her previous injuries look like a walk in the park. "I don't care!" the petite vampire barked out furiously. "Do something!" Alice was fast losing her hold on her self-control. Perched on a sturdy branch, she scrutinized Carlisle's weathered face, fraught with tension and grim with the reality that he was going to lose this patient.
Carlisle huffed in impatience. "Damnit, Alice, look at her!" He waved a jerky hand at Bella who hung limply, thoroughly unconscious and barely breathing. The doctor could hear the sluggish beat of her heart, growing slower and more muted with each passing second. He was bewildered that she was even alive but chalked that up to her rapid regenerative healing ability. But even that was not going to be enough to save her. There was too much of Bella to heal and from previous experience, it did not work fast enough. For Bella to make it through, her ability would have to almost instantaneously close up her critical injuries and replace all her lost blood. And it could do neither. A punishable through passed through the doctor's mind: had Bella simply been hurtled straight into the tree, she would have died upon impact, the force most likely shattering her bones. However, fate deemed itself to be merciless, giving Bella's parents the last laugh as Charlie's throw proved far to accurate in ensuring that Bella felt every last drop of pain humanity had to offer before the Grim Reaper finally swooped in to collect its quarry.
"Change her." Alice's voice was painted with desperation, notes of despondency singing loud and clear. "Change her," she repeated, as Carlisle swung incredulous eyes round to settle onto Alice's big golden ones.
"It won't work, Alice," Carlisle began. "She's immune to our venom remember? And even if I could, the venom won't get to her heart in time for the transformation to take place. She'll die before it happens."
"She's dying now!" Alice's scream of frustration reverberated through the forest. Gnashing her teeth together, Alice wanted to regress back into her primitive nature where her bloodlust made things simple. Kill or be killed. Nature of the beast. Instead, she gnawed viciously at her lips, valuable seconds trickling by, each one draining what seemed like a hugely selfish portion of Bella's life force. She could hear the unsteady "glug glug" of Bella's heart, so faint that even with her enhanced hearing, Alice had to strain to hear it.
Her heart! Inspiration struck like a thunderbolt and a plausible idea implanted itself into Alice's mind. She somersaulted backward, landing lithely onto the leaf blanketed forest floor and blurring to the direction of the house without so much as a backward glance.
"Alice!" Carlisle's shout fell on deaf ears. "Alice where are you going? ALICE!"
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Alice ran as if her life depended on it. Or rather, like Bella's life depended on it. Which it did. She bolted through the tattered remains of the front door, near flew up the stairs as she skipped three steps at a time, whirl winded into Carlisle's office and started a fanatical rummaging of the doctor's drawers. She ripped each closet door off its hinges, yanked all the drawers out of its sockets, indifferent to the mess she was making. Desperation swelled as she was unable to find what she was looking for. In a split moment, she considered tipping Carlisle's desk and all its contents upside down when a glint of plastic and silver caught her eye.
A tray full of wrapped, empty syringes lay silently side by side, mocking her for not discovering their obvious and unconcealed location. With a half growl, Alice grabbed a handful and launched herself out the window. She dropped hard onto the ground below, a loud thud! following her descent, a tiny crater opening up in wake of Alice's sudden body weight combined with vampiric strength. Alice paid neither distraction any mind as she stampeded back toward the forest, coming to a screeching halt in front of Esme and the other. Her eyes took in the impromptu campfire, courtesy of Renée and Charlie's remains and the way her family all stood in the direction of where the smoke was blowing. She took a precursory sniff; Bella's blood coated the air. Hence the reason for her family's current stance.
"Get over here!" Alice commanded, her voice husky with impatience. She tossed each of them an empty syringe, bouncing irritably on the balls of her feet as each vampire caught the item with a confused look on their face. Alice stamped down the urge to slap them all silly. "I need you to stand here to smell Bella's blood. I need you to use the syringe to suck the venom from your mouth."
Emmett opened his mouth to question Alice's antics but the spiky haired vampire cut him off with a ferocious, "Don't ask questions, just do it!" she shouted. Every second lost meant placing higher stakes on Bella's life.
The Cullens moved from the security of the smell of smoke to where Alice stood. Immediately, Jasper began growling, the last glint of gold having all but erased by the smell of blood that waft through the air. However, he followed Alice's instructions, ripping the plastic wrapping from the syringe and sticking the needlepoint into his mouth. He pulled at the plunger, sucking up the silver-hued venom from his mouth into the syringe. Alice ground her teeth together as she watched the remaining members of her family follow suit. She wished they would all hurry the hell up. Rosalie was the last to finish but the second she did, Alice had lashed forward, whipping the syringes out of their hands and bounding deeper into the forest without so much as an explanation.
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Carlisle was startled to the point where he nearly fell out of the tree as Alice suddenly appeared opposite from him. So intensely concentrated he was on Bella, the doctor had tuned out all other sounds but the pathetic thump of Bella's heart. He frowned at the syringes in Alice's hands. "Wha—"
"I'm going to inject all of this venom straight into her heart," Alice stated matter-of-factly. "Then you and I are going to administer our venom via bites to her neck and wrists." Carlisle opened his mouth to protest. "Don't!" she warned. "It's a long shot but please, please," she whispered brokenly. She had to fight to the finish, try everything even if it meant playing the devil's advocate. This much venom running through Bella's veins might very well kill her. But she was already at the point of death, almost knocking on death's door. Alice had nothing left to lose.
"Do it," Carlisle ordered. Bella had seconds from the way her heart sounded; it tried to inflate with each pump of what blood there was left in the girl's body but halfway, it would deflate, unable to gather enough strength. Carlisle watched as Alice stabbed two syringes into the side of Bella's left breast, depressing the plunger until the venom rushed out of the vials and into Bella's heart. Flinging the now empty ones over her shoulder, she repeated the process, sticking the remaining three venom-filled syringes into Bella's chest and plunging the venom deep into Bella's body. That done, she pulled the empty syringes out and tossed them from the tree. Without another word, she lowered her head to Bella's neck, pulled back her lips and sank her stone hard teeth into Bella's jugular. A small spurt of blood sprayed from the gaping wound into Alice's mouth but Alice refused a swallow. She mixed the venom that leaked into her mouth with Bella's blood and spat it back into the wound, using her tongue to block the flow of blood, forcing the venom-induced blood back into Bella's body. From below her she could hear Carlisle's teeth clamp down onto Bella's wrist, tearing open a neat line as he too injected his own venom into Bella.
Alice pooled more venom in mouth and fed it into the wound. She did this a few more times and was completely unprepared when Bella twitched then jerked forcefully, a scream ripping out from the bowels of her throat. Alice tore her mouth away from Bella's neck, not noticing Carlisle do the same. A piercing scream caused both vampires to wince but it was the way Bella's body shuddered and convulsed that turned Alice's stomach inside out. She heard an ominous creak from the tree but ignored it in favor of restraining Bella.
"Bella, Bella, it's ok!" Alice struggled despite her vampiric strength and Carlisle's help. She made a desperate grab for one of Bella's flailing arms but the movement caused her arm to snap back, shattering through the thick branch that impaled Bella. The thinner branch that protruded from Bella's shoulder, groaned under the sudden weight of independently holding Bella's weight and splintered off from the tree.
"NO!" Alice shot forth to seize Bella's falling body but failed. Carlisle managed to latch onto Bella's wrist but in doing so, wrenched the girl's arm from its socket. Another gut churning scream vibrated out from Bella at this act and Carlisle made the mistake of letting go.
"NOOOO!" Alice's face was a mask of horror as she watched Bella tumble downward, gravity aiding her weight until the brunette's body made a sickening thud as it came into contact with the ground. "BELLA!"
Alice followed Bella's descent, only she was impervious to the fall. She tucked and rolled, faltering at Bella's all too quiet body. Beside her, she heard Carlisle's soft landing but her eyes, ears and heart focused on nothing but Bella. Bella who was deathly still, chest unmoving. There was no sign of a pulse on the side of Bella's neck, no rhythm of a thumping heart. No sound of Bella breathing. No blood filtering down her veins. Alice heard nothing. Nothing that would point to Bella being alive.
Alice threw back her head and screamed. "NOOOOOOOOO!"
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