Little Edward

Chapter Twenty Seven

Little Edward

Chapter Twenty Seven

Jasper

We weren't prepared for the day that the Volturi attacked again. 

They didn't physically attack us. They didn't even really attack us as a whole. But they hurt us in the weak link in our armor.

Through Bella. 

Garrett and I had been sitting with her, just thinking about the cards that life had dealt us in the last few decades. I held Bella's right hand and Garrett held her left when suddenly a raw, agonizing pain shot through me. Bella was the projector, and I could feel every inch of her anguish. 

"Carlisle! CARLISLE!" I roared, leaping out of the seat with a strong push. My adoptive father was in the room within seconds, holding his head to Bella as he tried to diagnose the pain.

Before this, all I'd felt from Bella and Emmett was nothingness. I hadn't felt absolutely nothing, but just that hollow feeling that demands to be felt. It was one of the most hated emotions for vampires, because without a beating heart or a body that was really alive, how much emptier could you become?

But now, Bella was not empty. She was alive with fire. Fire that consumed her, fire that hurt her, fire that burned her. 

She was burning.

And there was nothing we could do about it. 

"It's the Volturi, it has to be, every piece of evidence points to them, we oughta storm Volterra, kill 'em all, wouldn't be too hard, almost got away with it last time, le-" Garret's frantic voice was cut off by Alice ushering him out of the house. I felt her pain and I felt her helplessness and knew that she had to do something to assist the cause, or else she would explode. This was her way of helping. 

"Can she hear us?" Esme questioned shrilly, and that was when that deafening high-pitched shrieking began. Maybe it came from Bella. But no, her mouth wasn't moving. Did the others even hear it?

No, everyone was scrambling and moving about, only it was in slow motion. Why was there so much noise? I crashed to my knees, as the sound began to dominate all my senses. What was happening? 

A worried face crossed my vision. Who was the pixie-like girl in front of me? Should I know her? All I knew was that this screeching had to stop, and it had to stop now. I was deaf to anything but the maddening noise. 

"Jasper."

The name startled me. How had it overridden the barrier that had surrounded me? Who was Jasper? Why was everything hurting?

"Jasper, you need to calm down. This is Bella's overflowing pain, and you need to control it before you end up like her."

Who was Bella? Who was Jasper? Who was I? I didn't know, I had no clue, I wanted it all to end. No, no, no, no, no. Why was everything spinning? And why wouldn't that goddamned screamer just shut the fuck up? 

Why couldn't everything just stop?

Then, a sharp pain hit my cheek, and slowly, very panfully slow, the sound of the noise was muted to a dull ringing in my ears. 

Alice stood before me, staring at me in horror. "Jasper, you can't let that happen. Holy god, we thought you would never respond!" 

My mind whirled. "Alice, I was only out of it for a few minutes!" 

Then I realized where we were. In the same room where Bella and Emmett rested, but as Carlisle and Garret were leaned over Bella, no one else was here. When it had been morning when the Volturi had attacked Bella's mind, a quick glance out the glass wall told me it was around midnight.