Chapter Fourteen
Jasper POV
Bella slept next to the couch like the day before and woke up to a wail of agony from Dana. She sat up groggily and looked at her suffering friend. She was curled into a ball and wailing with her eyes shut tight.
"What happened?" Bella questioned, sleep still evident in her voice.
"The pain is leaving the rest of her body and is heading straight for her heart which just gets more painful," I said in a tight voice. I could feel her agony as if it were my own, but I would never complain; I deserved this, and I welcomed every stab of fiery-hot torture, wishing I could take the pain from the innocent I had inflicted it upon
"Does that mean she's almost done? Should I leave?" Bella went to get up but a small yet strong hand pushed her down again.
"You're fine," Alice said handing Bella a tray of breakfast. "She'll still be changing for a few hours more. Now eat."
"Alice is right," I said when she didn't start on her toast and omelet right away. "Once the pain starts to leave, it does mean the change is almost finished, but the pain leaves excruciatingly slowly. Take it from us, been there, done that."
"Though I don't remember," Alice said with a smile. That was true. She was lucky, I remembered my change in vivid detail.
"Oh," Bella said and started on her breakfast.
Her news yesterday had cheered me considerably and I felt relief from Dana as she heard that she could still see her only friend, albeit in a couple of months. Alice had told me that if we do this right, Bella could come and see her friend in sixty-three days. I had appointed myself her trainer and teacher, I would never let her out of my sight and I would never let her do anything she would regret. Namely, biting the only friend she had.
When Bella finished her breakfast Alice whisked her plate away to the kitchen. Then she came back and sat next to Bella.
"We'll have to leave soon so I can take you home before Edward comes back from his hunt," Alice said.
"I thought you said Dana wouldn't be finished changing for a few hours still," Bella protested.
"I did, but we're avoiding Edward," Alice explained. "He'll come to your house and stay with you all night, come back in the morning, shower, change, and pick you up from school. When he gets here, me Jasper and Dana won't be. That way he can't hear our thoughts."
"Okay that solves the problem of home, but what about school? You still have to go to school."
"True, but it's easy to focus on trivial thoughts at school and I won't have to try as hard to block him."
"Oh. Well, do we have to leave now?"
"Now would be good, Dana is in good hands," she smiled at me. I grimaced back. These "good hands" would have killed this girl, given the chance.
Bella and Alice left soon after that.
I sat and kept Dana company.
Edward came home not long after Dana started wailing again. He came into the living room.
"Where's Bella?"
"At her house. Alice took her. Dana's almost done." I winced in pain but it was softened by Dana's relief at the impending end.
Edward said nothing more and left the house.
Alice came back soon after and sat with me for two more hours, until, finally, Dana opened her eyes.
A/N: R&R