Exactly that—I was bewildered. I couldn't understand, couldn't make sense of what was happening.
My body tried to reject the pain, and I was sucked again and again into a blackness that cut out wholeseconds or maybe even minutes of the agony, making it that much harder to keep up with reality.
I tried to separate them.
Non-reality was black, and it didn't hurt so much.
Reality was red, and it felt like I was being sawed in half, hit by a bus, punched by a prize fighter,trampled by bulls, and submerged in acid, all at the same time.
Reality was feeling my body twist and flip when I couldn't possibly move because of the pain.
Reality was knowing there was something so much more important than all this torture, and not beingable to remember what it was.
Reality had come on so fast.
One moment, everything was as it should have been. Surrounded by people I loved. Smiles. Somehow,unlikely as it was, it seemed like I was about to get everything I'd been fighting for.
And then one tiny, inconsequential thing had gone wrong.
I'd watched as my cup tilted, dark blood spilling out and staining the perfect white, and I'd lurchedtoward the accident reflexively. I'd seen the other, faster hands, but my body had continued to reach, tostretch___Inside me, something had yanked the opposite direction.
Ripping. Breaking. Agony.
The darkness had taken over, and then washed away to a wave of torture. I couldn't breathe—I haddrowned once before, and this was different; it was too hot in my throat.
Pieces of me shattering, snapping, slicing apart___More blackness.
Voices, this time, shouting, as the pain came back.
'The placenta must have detached!"Something sharper than knives ripped through me—the words, making sense in spite of the othertortures. Detached placenta —I knew what that meant. It meant that my baby was dying inside me.
"Get him out!" I screamed to Edward. Why hadn't he done it yet? "He can't breathe! Do it now!""The morphine—"He wanted to wait, to give me painkillers, while our baby was dying?!
"No! Now—," I choked, unable to finish.
Black spots covered the light in the room as a cold point of new pain stabbed icily into my stomach. Itfelt wrong—I struggled automatically to protect my womb, my baby, my little Edward Jacob, but I wasweak. My lungs ached, oxygen burned away.
The pain faded away again, though I clung to it now. My baby, my baby, dying___How long had passed? Seconds or minutes? The pain was gone. Numb. I couldn't feel. I still couldn'tsee, either, but I could hear. There was air in my lungs again, scraping in rough bubbles up and down mythroat.
"You stay with me now, Bella! Do you hear me? Stay! You're not leaving me. Keep your heart beating!"Jacob? Jacob, still here, still trying to save me.
Of course,I wanted to tell him. Of course I would keep my heart beating. Hadn't I promised them both?
I tried to feel my heart, to find it, but I was so lost inside my own body. I couldn't feel the things I should,and nothing felt in the right place. I blinked and I found my eyes. I could see the light. Not what I waslooking for, but better than nothing.
As my eyes struggled to adjust, Edward whispered, "Renesmee."Renesmee?
Not the pale and perfect son of my imagination? I felt a moment of shock. And then a flood of warmth.
Renesmee.
I willed my lips to move, willed the bubbles of air to turn into whispers on my tongue. I forced my numbhands to reach.
"Let me... Give her to me."The light danced, shattering off Edward's crystal hands. The sparkles were tinged with red, with theblood that covered his skin. And more red in his hands. Something small and struggling, dripping withblood. He touched the warm body to my weak arms, almost like I was holding her. Her wet skin was hot—as hot as Jacob's.
My eyes focused; suddenly everything was absolutely clear.
Renesmee did not cry, but she breathed in quick, startled pants. Her eyes were open, her expression soshocked it was almost funny. The little, perfectly round head was covered in a thick layer of matted,bloody curls. Heririses were a familiar—but astonishing—chocolate brown. Under the blood, her skin looked pale, acreamy ivory. All besides her cheeks, which flamed with color.
Her tiny face was so absolutely perfect that it stunned me. She was even more beautiful than her father.
Unbelievable. Impossible.
"Renesmee," I whispered. "So... beautiful."The impossible face suddenly smiled—a wide, deliberate smile. Behind the shell-pink lips was a fullcomplement of snowy milk teeth.
She leaned her head down, against my chest, burrowing against the warmth. Her skin was warm andsilky, but it didn't give the way mine did.
Then there was pain again—just one warm slash of it. I gasped.
And she was gone. My angel-faced baby was nowhere. I couldn't see or feel her.
No!I wanted to shout. Give her back to me!
But the weakness was too much. My arms felt like empty rubber hoses for a moment, and then they feltlike nothing at all. I couldn't feel them. I couldn't feel me.
The blackness rushed over my eyes more solidly than before. Like a thick blindfold, firm and fast.
Covering not just my eyes but also my self with a crushing weight. It was exhausting to push against it. Iknew it would be so much easier to give in. To let the blackness push me down, down, down to a placewhere there was no pain and no weariness and no worry and no fear.
If it had only been for myself, I wouldn't have been able to struggle very long. I was only human, with nomore than human strength. I'd been trying to keep up with the supernatural for too long, like Jacob hadsaid.
But this wasn't just about me.
If I did the easy thing now, let the black nothingness erase me, I would hurt them.
Edward. Edward. My life and his were twisted into a single strand. Cut one, and you cut both. If hewere gone, I would not be able to live through that. If I were gone, he wouldn't live through it, either.
And a world without Edward seemed completely pointless. Edward had to exist.
Jacob—who'd said goodbye to me over and over but kept coming back when I needed him. Jacob,who I'd wounded so many times it was criminal. Would I hurt him again, the worst way yet? He'd stayedfor me, despite everything. Now all he asked was that I stay for him.
But it was so dark here that I couldn't see either of their faces. Nothing seemed real. That made it hardnot to give up.
I kept pushing against the black, though, almost a reflex. I wasn't trying to lift it. I was just resisting. Notallowing it to crush me completely. I wasn't Atlas, and the black felt as heavy as a planet; I couldn'tshoulder it. All I could do was not be entirely obliterated.
It was sort of the pattern to my life—I'd never been strong enough to deal with the things outside mycontrol, to attack the enemies or outrun them. To avoid the pain. Always human and weak, the only thingI'd ever been able todo was keep going. Endure. Survive.
It had been enough up to this point. It would have to be enough today. I would endure this until helpcame.
I knew Edward would be doing everything he could. He would not give up. Neither would I.
I held the blackness of nonexistence at bay by inches.
It wasn't enough, though—that determination. As the time ground on and on and the darkness gained bytiny eighths and sixteenths of my inches, I needed something more to draw strength from.
I couldn't pull even Edward's face into view. Not Jacob's, not Alice's or Rosalie's or Charlie's orRenee's or Carlisle's or Esme's... Nothing. It terrified me, and I wondered if it was too late.
I felt myself slipping—there was nothing to hold on to.
No!I had to survive this. Edward was depending on me. Jacob. Charlie Alice Rosalie Carlisle ReneeEsme...
Renesmee.
And then, though I still couldn't see anything, suddenly I could feel something. Like phantom limbs, Iimagined I could feel my arms again. And in them, something small and hard and very, very warm.
My baby. My little nudger.
I had done it. Against the odds, I had been strong enough to survive Renesmee, to hold on to her untilshe was strong enough to live without me.
That spot of heat in my phantom arms felt so real. I clutched it closer. It was exactly where my heartshould be. Holding tight the warm memory of my daughter, I knew that I would be able to fight thedarkness as long as I needed to.
The warmth beside my heart got more and more real, warmer and warmer. Hotter. The heat was so realit was hard to believe that I was imagining it.
Hotter.
Uncomfortable now. Too hot. Much, much too hot.
Like grabbing the wrong end of a curling iron—my automatic response was to drop the scorching thingin my arms. But there was nothing in my arms. My arms were not curled to my chest. My arms weredead things lying somewhere at my side. The heat was inside me.
The burning grew—rose and peaked and rose again until it surpassed anything I'd ever felt.
I felt the pulse behind the fire raging now in my chest and realized that I'd found my heart again, just intime to wish I never had. To wish that I'd embraced the blackness while I'd still had the chance. I wantedto raise my arms and claw my chest open and rip the heart from it—anything to get rid of this torture. ButI couldn't feel my arms, couldn't move one vanished finger.
James, snapping my leg under his foot. That was nothing. That was a soft place to rest on a feather bed.
I'd take that now, a hundred times. A hundred snaps. I'd take it and be grateful.
The baby, kicking my ribs apart, breaking her way through me piece by piece. That was nothing. Thatwas floating in a pool of cool water. I'd take it a thousand times. Take it and be grateful.
The fire blazed hotter and I wanted to scream. To beg for someone to kill me now, before I lived onemore second in this pain. But I couldn't move my lips. The weight was still there, pressing on me.
I realized it wasn't the darkness holding me down; it was my body. So heavy. Burying me in the flamesthat were chewing their way out from my heart now, spreading with impossible pain through myshoulders and stomach, scalding their way up my throat, licking at my face.
Why couldn't I move? Why couldn't I scream? This wasn't part of the stories.
My mind was unbearably clear—sharpened by the fierce pain—and I saw the answer almost as soon asI could form the questions.
The morphine.
It seemed like a million deaths ago that we'd discussed it—Edward, Carlisle, and I. Edward and Carlislehad hoped that enough painkillers would help fight the pain of the venom. Carlisle had tried with Emmett,but the venom had burned ahead of the medicine, sealing his veins. There hadn't been time for it tospread.
I'd kept my face smooth and nodded and thanked my rarely lucky stars that Edward could not read mymind.
Because I'd had morphine and venom together in my system before, and I knew the truth. I knew thenumbness of the medicine was completely irrelevant while the venom seared through my veins. Butthere'd been no way I was going to mention that fact. Nothing that would make him more unwilling tochange me.
I hadn't guessed that the morphine would have this effect—that it would pin me down and gag me. Holdme paralyzed while I burned.
I knew all the stories. I knew that Carlisle had kept quiet enough to avoid discovery while he burned. Iknew that, according to Rosalie, it did no good to scream. And I'd hoped that maybe I could be likeCarlisle. That I would believe Rosalie's words and keep my mouth shut. Because I knew that everyscream that escaped my lips would torment Edward.
Now it seemed like a hideous joke that i was getting my wish fulfilled.
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