CHAPTER NINE
ᴀ ʟɪᴛᴛʟᴇ ᴘɪᴇᴄᴇ
"Alice! Elide!"
Edward's scream came from Carlisle's medical room, where Bella still silently lay. It was a pained call that barely passed his lips, sending us both bolting toward the front door where he reluctantly stood, for we could sense it too. The baby was born. Bella was out of the way. The wolves were coming.
"Are they really doing this?" I asked, fists closing at my side.
Edward simply nodded from where he stood between us. Blood coated his hand, pinged his crumpled white shirt. He couldn't look at the crimson colour. What he must have thought about himself- what the pack must have thought- she couldn't comprehend. This was a man who was broken, and they were coming to batter him down even further.
"We're outnumbered," I stated, fear making my words simple.
Alice shared my glance. "By a lot."
"I won't let them hurt my family," Edward said.
He began to sprint forward, leading us to meet the pack halfway.
There must have been at least eight of them, even without Jake and the Clearwater siblings, all large and all growling with snarling teeth. The greeting left no room for compromise. It was Sam, with his dark, chestnut coat and huge paws, who met Edward first, barrelling down on top of him, only to be pushed away by two feet.
In the heat of it all, I couldn't recognise the wolf I was fighting. They pounced forward, gliding over my body as I rolled out of the way, taking fingers nails into the dirt, stiffening the landing. The snapping wolf turned in an instant, prowling forward so slow that I worried. It was in that same moment, that another one of the pack pounced down behind me, forcing my knees into the ground, flattening my body under its weight.
I cried out, readying to push back and throw out a hand, but the weight was suddenly lifted. In the wolf's place, stud a grinning Emmett, his sleeves rolled above his elbow and fists clenched into a fist.
"Oh, thank God."
"Don't thank God," he said as he began to turn away and head back into the fight, where Esme, Carlisle and Jasper now helped. "Thank me."
With a hardened resolve, I followed him, joining Alice in the very centre of the fight, arms brushing before she jumped upwards, swinging against a branch, landing squarely on the back of a slim, grey wolf. Elsewhere, Edward had pulled back, eyes widened dramatically, head searching frantically behind us all, toward the house, as if he expected someone to appear. For a moment, I expected Bella to emerge from the doorway, like an angel fresh from death. But Jacob's earthy scent flooded my nose as he came bounding forward in wolf form.
His snarl sent each head of the pack snapping his way. He growled again, and the Cullens pulled back to stand beside him as the wolves retreated to stand guard by the tree line. Sam padded forward to meet him, back arched and shoulder blades rigid and ready to send him pouncing forward. Jake held his head up, black eyes gleaning, snarl deepening. Then Sam recoiled in a sudden and sharp movement, paws staggering backwards until he reached the line of his pack.
"What's going on?"
"Jacob imprinted," Edward spoke for him. "They can't hurt her. Whoever a wolf imprints on cant be harmed."
"He imprinted... on Renesmee?"
Edward merely nodded. "It's their most absolute law."
The look of fear, of confusion on his face, could not be described. Everything about this situation was unique- even for vampires. Everything about his expression said he blamed himself.
As the pack gradually dropped back, I pulled myself away from the group only to find Seth, curled in on himself in wolf form by the windows. Blood matted a small spot on his fur, turning the faun coloured strands a deep, muddy brown. He winced as I drew closer, placing a hand to his neck.
"Seth," I whispered as he turned his nose toward me. "You need to shift back, while you can. Then Carlisle will be able to check over you."
He did as I asked, turning himself away as Alice came from behind, handing him a blanket, which he pulled over his shoulders. His wound was on his torso, a deep, purplish bruise that stretched from front to back. The blood was minimal against his skin, dispersed from various cuts that would be healed within the day.
"Are you alright?"
He rubbed his hand against his face. "Yeah, just landed funny."
"Thank you. I would have been hit, had you not jumped in," Alice said as she crouched beside us.
"When did this happen?"
No one answered my question. Seth brushed the comment away with the wave of his hand. "Ah, don't mention it," he said. "Seriously, I won't hear the end of it from Jake."
"I take it you haven't heard the development?"
He shook his head rapidly, eyes widening. "Oh no, I heard it alright. He won't be hearing the end of that from me," Seth said. "I'll make sure of it."
Alice and I let out a laugh.
"I'm sure Edward will support that thoroughly."
☾
Bella was completely still as she lay against the table. Her skin was still sickly pale, her eyes glued shut, and wrists thin to the bone, cheeks just as hollow. The only difference was the tiny streaks of crimson that painted her body and the ragged shape of bite marks that littered her limbs. There was no lift of her chest and the sound of her heart beating was faint enough that if the rain fell too heavy against the window and the wind blew too hard, it was undetectable.
For as long as I could remember, Bella had always been quiet. It was only in those pressing moments, usually when she was trying to protect everyone but herself, that her voice would raise. But this silence... was too much. It was as if she lay in a grave. She was visited as frequently and as solemnly as if it was one.
I could only imagine the pain she would be going through, having to process it in secret without hands to throw and a voice to scream. It was like burning, the sensation clawing up your throat, melting the skin. I'd felt like I was screaming, yet no sound had left my lips, otherwise, I would have been found. I didn't need to reach my hand out to touch her cold skin or to feel the pulse of the poison-like venom that corrupted her body. I could feel it in my memories well enough to imagine the sound, the sight.
"I remember it all too well- the change," I said as Alice eventually pulled me away from the room and pulled me toward the sitting room, which the rest had recently abandoned. "Waking up from the pain haze with the shock of trying to comprehend so much information, so much detail all at once."
Her eyebrows furrowed as she pulled me down to the cushioned chair. Her pain, no doubt, came from the lack of knowledge of her change, rather than the pure memory. It was funny how that worked.
"I remember looking in the mirror and feeling normal but enhanced and then pinpointing everything that'd been smoothed or fixed or whatever," I said.
Alice shook her head softly, her eyes glazing over. "And the hunger. I knew I would never have a problem with that, but everyone else... it was a struggle, it seems."
"Yeah. There was always hunger. But everything else piled on top of that too. The fear helped, strangely," I said, then reached out to place my hand on hers. "Still no memory of it?"
"Not even a glimpse."
Her lips thinned and I moved to change the subject, though even that seemed to be a depressing take on conversation.
"I worry about Charlie. It's been a week since she called. What will he think? You heard him last time."
Alice's shoulders slumped. "I know what you're thinking. You can't go to see him."
"I know. I don't want to give him false hope."
"She'll wake up."
"I know," I said, though my heart didn't truly believe it. "She has to. Renesmee yearns for her."
Renesmee. The child who grew quicker by the day. The child that Jake had imprinted on. I tried not to think about it- the mere thought could send the creeps racing up and down my back. No one spoke of it either, fearing that if Bella still held some sense of being, she would hear it.
"They'll have time," Alice said, taking my hand which rested on hers, interlocking it with her fingers. "Come here. You shouldn't worry."
"I know."
My head fell against hers, dark hair falling to block my eyes from glancing anywhere but directly into hers. She smiled, the expression sending not a single crease into her perfect skin. I felt a hand reach below my jaw, moving a lock of hair, guiding it behind my ear.
"And you know that I love you."
"I do," she said slowly, a grin widening her lips.
Before I could lean in further, a shift came in the air. Alice froze in the same instance that I did. That heartbeat had shifted, stuttered and then stopped altogether. It was an overwhelming sense of silence that ensued- but only a sense. The quietness held weight, the feeling of a presence suddenly filling the room we'd just lift.
"You felt that, didn't you?"
"Yes."
☾