A F T E R D A R K | PAUL LAHOTE - 1

45

I was stood by the hallway leading into the living room as Bella held the phone up to her ear. As the days passed she was looking so much better, becoming stronger again but the baby was still taking almost everything she had left. It was a win/lose situation — while we were getting Bella back and finding a way to help her the baby thought it was all for them.

Another week had been and gone and that meant we'd have to feed Charlie another lie of why Bella still wasn't home, of why I was spending so much time with the Cullens instead of him or Paul.

"Well, you sound better." I heard Charlie say to Bella.

"l am." Bella replied, "l feel much better."

A small smile rested on my lips as I leaned against the wall watching Bella talk with Charlie. A gentle hand tapped my shoulder from behind and I turned to see Esme smiling at me. Silently she gestured me to follow her and I glanced back at Bella before heading off to wherever Esme was taking me.

She guided me into a small room downstairs I hadn't been in before and shut the door behind her. Inside, Carlisle was stood with his arms crossed.

My brows furrowed as I looked between them, "Something wrong?"

He nodded before sighing, "Yes."

His answer took me by surprise. I wasn't actually expecting him to say yes and be as blunt as he was. My lips opened and closed like a goldfish before I finally stuttered some words out, "What—what is it?"

"We're running low on the blood supply I had laid out for Bella." Carlisle told me, "She's drank almost all of it."

I put my hands into the table and leaned on them while I processed, "Okay.. well how low is low?"

He licked his bottom lip anxiously, "One bag."

My eyebrows shot up into my hairline, "One bag?!" I repeated, "How has she managed to drink all of that?"

"She was malnourished." Carlisle told me, "Her body needed it in order to keep on running."

Like always when I was nervous I chewed on my nail, "What do we do?"

Carlisle looked to Esme and folded his arms, "The earliest Bella can deliver is tomorrow."

My eyes widened to the size of sources, "You're going to make Bella deliver tomorrow?"

"She can't have this child naturally Sophia." Esme told me, wrapping her arm around me and rubbing my shoulder comfortingly. I would forever be grateful for her maternal instincts and while her time as a mother to her own child was short lived she never lost that side of her. Esme wasn't my mother-in-law and if you wanted to talk technicalities she was my Aunt but I felt as if she was a second mom to me, "It would always be a C-section."

I ran my hands over my face in despair, "What is something goes wrong? Bella loses too much blood? What if she dies before you have the chance to turn her?"

"These were always risks." Carlisle told me, "I've thought of every possible scenario."

"What if Bella isn't—"

"—She is." Esme interrupted me softly. While Carlisle had thought of every possible scenario I had imagined it happening. I could hear my sister laughing in the living room, Edward talking to her and by the sounds of things they had finally made up, "Bella is the strongest she can possibly be right now."