The Walkers (Twilight Fan Fiction)

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

Although I had been granted a small taste of the speed and strength of the Walkers, the one thing that I had not been given was their healing ability. The day after my introduction to the Under Passage, I had awoken to the worst physical pain in my life. My body ached in places I didn’t even know I had, my muscles burned and throbbed, and the massive bruises seemed like they had gotten even darker overnight.  I felt like I had been hit by a freight train, and after failing to stand on my own, I had decided that school was going to be impossible.

Surprisingly enough, Renee believed my “I have cold” excuse, and she wasted no time in calling the school and sending me straight to bed. What was even more interesting was she didn’t hover, didn’t consistently ask if I was okay, and didn’t even try to take me to the doctor. She simply asked if I needed anything and then left my room. It was so reminiscent of our days back in Phoenix. In the days before Forks, and before Edward, whenever I had an issue that I didn’t want to discuss, my mom would leave me to resolve my own problem. That’s how I liked it. Seeing a brief appearance of “Old Renee” made me sigh in contentment.

I spent almost a solid week in bed, but I wasn’t alone. Collin would visit me every morning after Phil had left, and he would come before bed and stay with me throughout the night. His presence had changed over the course of the past couple weeks. He had gone from being a complete nuisance to somewhat of a comfort. When we were together, he made me feel different, as if everything that had happened in Forks didn’t matter.

After the fourth day of my bed rest, my strength had almost fully returned, and I was able to walk around the house with no difficulty. I had wanted to go to work at Pages, but when I called the store, Nora insisted that I rest.

“You need to stay off your feet, Bella,” she explained, cutting me off when I tried to reassure her that I was okay. It wasn’t necessarily that I was anxious to work; I just didn’t want to feel useless, even if all I was doing was reading large, boring texts. When I confided this to Nora, she laughed. “Don’t worry. These books and I aren’t going anywhere.”

Two more days trickled by slowly, and my strength returned entirely. Collin seemed to think I was ready, and I nervously waited for the start of his “hands-on” training. What would it entail? Would it be hard? Would I get hurt? Would I be different afterward? Was this truly the path that I wanted?

On the morning of the sixth day, my alarm clock went off unnaturally early. I groggily sat up in bed and glowered at the blinking, red lights across my room, noting how dark it was with the curtains closed. Why was my alarm going off at six in the morning on a weekend?  I fumbled through the darkness and switched it off, but before I could think about going back to sleep, there was a slight tap at the window.

I turned on my desk light, pulled back the curtains, and found Collin grinning wickedly from outside.

“Wake up, sleepy-head,” he said cheerfully, when I opened the window. “Put on something you can move in and meet me outside in ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes?” I rubbed my eyes and stared at him incredulously, the haze of my dreams clinging to me and making the outside world seem like a giant, black blob. Collin’s presence outside my window was strange to me; he had been inside my room before I had fallen asleep the previous night. Why had he left?  Judging by his sneaky expression, I realized he was probably behind my early morning wake-up call. “Hey, did you set my alarm?”

“Of course I did.” He smiled proudly and laughed when I glared at him. “Come on, get dressed. If you’re not outside in ten minutes, I’m coming in to get you.”

Since Collin had started spending his nights in my room, I had been getting less sleep than usual. He told me stories about his past, and I would stay up asking him questions. I stifled a yawn while I stood there, glaring out the window at him. “I can’t just leave at six in the morning, Collin. What am I supposed to tell my parents?”