Alissa Swan

Part 39

I was driving to the ballet studio. I looked at my phone, but didn't open it up.

1 NEW MESSAGE: EDWARD CULLEN: Alissa, where are you?

1 NEW MESSAGE: EDWARD CULLEN: Please answer Alissa.

1 NEW MESSAGE: EDWARD CULLEN: I'm worried about you. Please tell me where you are.

1 NEW MESSAGE: ALICE CULLEN: Alissa, did you get off the phone with James? What are you doing?

1 MESSAGE: CARLISLE CULLEN: Alissa, everyone here is worrying about you. Please tell one of us where you are.

I hated that I had to not answer them. But again, I couldn't not save Edward. I had to. He was my life.

I arrived at the ballet studio. I arrived in the room, hearing the calming sound of my mother's voice.

"Mom?" I asked the air.

She kept talking.

I started to panic, since I realized that since she was here, James was probably about to kill her. "Mom!"

She kept talking. James appeared with a TV, playing a video of me and my mom. She was talking to me.

I sighed in relief. Nothing happened to her. I looked at James, glaring. "What do you want from me?"

"I want your blood," he told me. "So, I pulled you here to get it. And don't worry, it won't be painful. It will be a fast death. As fast as I can make it. And if you don't want to die, it's okay. Edward can."

"No!" I yelled. "Don't kill him! Kill me! Please." I walked over to him.

He picked me up and threw me against a glass case of trophies. I screamed in fear and pain.

I heard James scream in pain too. I looked over at him, and Edward had just threw him against the glass case at the other side of the room.

James pinned Edward against a wall. "You're alone," James said. "Because you're faster than the others. But not stronger."

Edward was still pinned against the wall by his neck. "Strong enough to kill you," he tried to say with James' hands around his neck.

Edward threw James, making James hit the glass case on the other side of the room. Edward quickly ran to me. "I'm sorry," he said as he picked me up and tried to jump up, out of the balcony exit doors.

James pulled Edward back down, making me go back to the already broken glass case. James threw Edward into the top window.

James ran over to me. He picked up my hand, looking directly at Edward with a grin, and bit it.

I screamed in pain.

Edward came down on James, sending him flying.

I still moaned and screamed from the pain and knowing that the vampire venom was traveling through my veins.

I watched, still moaning and screaming, as Edward grabbed James' ankle. He swung James around, knocking him into all the mirrors. Edward threw James away from the direction of me. I moaned, and Edward bit off a piece of James' flesh.

I watched as Carlisle appeared. He put a hand on Edward's shoulder.

Edward turned to Carlisle and Jasper, Alice and Emmet, who were jumping down from the balcony.

Edward stepped out of the way, and let his siblings lunge at James.

I screamed again in pain, and Carlisle ran toward me. Edward quickly followed. Carlisle worked fast to assess my wounds. He focused on a massive bleed on my leg, although my hand hurt the most. I screamed once again.

Carlisle applied pressure to my thigh. "Her femoral artery has been severed. She's losing too much blood."

"It's on fire!" I yelled in pain. "My hand!"

"Venom," Edward said, realizing what had happened. He looked concerned.

Carlisle was still working on me. "You have to make a choice," he said to Edward. "Either let the change happen-"

"No!" Edward yelled. He wasn't going to let that happen to me, and I loved him for it. He wanted me to be safe and happy.

I faintly saw Alice appear beside Edward. "It's going to happen," she said. "I've seen it."

My sight was getting blurred.

"It doesn't have to be that way," Edward replied, looking at me.

"Alice," Carlisle said, "find me a tourniquet. A rag. A shirt."

Alice held her nose and avoided the blood as she ripped the sleeve off her blouse and kneeled to help Carlisle.

"It's burning!" I moaned again, still in terrible pain.

"What's the other choice?" Edward asked Carlisle, demanding an answer. He continued looking at me.

"Tighter," Carlisle said to Alice, "above the knee."

"Carlisle." Edward wasn't going to stop. I loved him so much at that moment.

Carlisle turned to Edward. "You can try to suck the venom out."

"I-I won't be able to stop," Edward said, scared.

"Find the will to stop," Carlisle said. "But choose, she only has minutes left."

Edward looked at me. I was thrashing in pain. He took my hand. I tried to pull away, scared of what he'd do to me.

"It's alright, Alissa," Edward said to me. "I'll make it go away." He started to suck the venom out of my hand.

We looked at each other the whole time he did it. My eyes started out wild with pain, but subsided.

"Stop," Carlisle said eventually to Edward. "Her blood is clean, you're killing her." He looked at Edward.

He couldn't stop. I looked at Edward forgivingly, as I lost consciousness. He disappeared into the blinding light. It felt as if I was underwater, like my dreams.

I started to float away. Suddenly from the darkness, Edward reached out a hand. A brilliant light flared.

Death was peaceful. Easy.