Twenty-one thousand, nine hundred seventeen and a half seconds later, the pain changed.
On the good-news side of things, it started to fade from my fingertips and toes. Fading slowly, but at least it was doing something new. This had to be it. The pain was on its way out....
And then the bad news. The fire in my throat wasn"t the same as before. I wasn"t only on fire, but I was now parched, too. Dry as bone. So thirsty. Burning fire, and burning thirst...
Also bad news: The fire inside my heart got hotter.
How was that possible?
My heartbeat, already too fast, picked up-the fire drove its rhythm to a new frantic pace.
"Carlisle," Edward called. His voice was low but clear. I knew that Carlisle would hear it, if he were in or near the house.
The fire retreated from my palms, leaving them blissfully pain-free and cool. But it retreated to my heart, which blazed hot as the sun and beat at a furious new speed.
Carlisle entered the room, Alice at his side. Their footsteps were so distinct, I could even tell that Carlisle was on the right, and a foot ahead of Alice.
"Listen," Edward told them.The loudest sound in the room was my frenzied heart, pounding to the rhythm of the fire.
"Ah," Carlisle said. "It"s almost over."
My relief at his words was overshadowed by the excruciating pain in my heart.
My wrists were free, though, and my ankles. The fire was totally extinguished there.
"Soon," Alice agreed eagerly. "I"ll get the others. Should I have Rosalie... ?"
"Yes-keep the baby away."
What? No. No! What did he mean, keep my baby away? What was he thinking?
My fingers twitched-the irritation breaking through my perfect facade. The room went silent besides the jack-hammering of my heart as they all stopped breathing for a second in response.
A hand squeezed my wayward fingers. "Bella? Bella, love?"
Could I answer him without screaming? I considered that for a moment, and then the fire ripped hotter still through my chest, draining in from my elbows and knees. Better not to chance it.
"I"ll bring them right up," Alice said, an urgent edge to her tone, and I heard the swish of wind as she darted away.
And then-oh!
My heart took off, beating like helicopter blades, the sound almost a single sustained note; it felt like it would grind through my ribs. The fire flared up in the center of my chest, sucking the last remnants of the flames from the rest of my body to fuel the most scorching blaze yet. The pain was enough to stun me, to break through my iron grip on the stake. My back arched, bowed as if the fire was dragging me upward by my heart.
I allowed no other piece of my body to break rank as my torso slumped back to the table.
It became a battle inside me-my sprinting heart racing against the attacking fire. Both were losing. The fire was doomed, having consumed everything that was combustible; my heart galloped toward its last beat.
The fire constricted, concentrating inside that one remaining human organ with a final, unbearable surge. The surge was answered by a deep, hollow-sounding thud. My heart stuttered twice, and then thudded quietly again just once more.
There was no sound. No breathing. Not even mine.
For a moment, the absence of pain was all I could comprehend.And then I opened my eyes and gazed above me in wonder.
20. NEW.
Everything was so clear .
Sharp. Defined.
The brilliant light overhead was still blinding-bright, and yet I could plainly see the glowing strands of the filaments inside the bulb. I could see each color of the rainbow in the white light, and, at the very edge of the spectrum, an eighth color I had no name for.
Behind the light, I could distinguish the individual grains in the dark wood ceiling above. In front of it, I could see the dust motes in the air, the sides the light touched, and the dark sides, distinct and separate. They spun like little planets, moving around each other in a celestial dance.
The dust was so beautiful that I inhaled in shock; the air whistled down my throat, swirling the motes into a vortex. The action felt wrong. I considered, and realized the problem was that there was no relief tied to the action. I didn"t need the air. My lungs weren"t waiting for it. They reacted indifferently to the influx.
I did not need the air, but I liked it. In it, I could taste the room around me-taste the lovely dust motes, the mix of the stagnant air mingling with the flow of slightly cooler air from the open door. Taste a lush whiff of silk. Taste a faint hint of something warm and desirable, something that should be moist, but wasn"t.... That smell made my throat burn dryly, a faint echo of the venom burn, though the scent was tainted by the bite of chlorine and ammonia. And most of all, I could taste an almost-honey-lilac-and-sun- flavored scent that was the strongest thing, the closest thing to me.
I heard the sound of the others, breathing again now that I did. Their breath mixed with the scent that was something just off honey and lilac and sunshine, bringing new flavors. Cinnamon, hyacinth, pear, seawater, rising bread, pine, vanilla, leather, apple, moss, lavender, chocolate.... I traded a dozen different comparisons in my mind, but none of them fit exactly. So sweet and pleasant.
The TV downstairs had been muted, and I heard someone-Rosalie?-shift her weight on the first floor.
I also heard a faint, thudding rhythm, with a voice shouting angrily to the beat. Rap music? I was mystified for a moment, and then the sound faded away like a car pa.s.sing by with the windows rolled down.
With a start, I realized that this could be exactly right. Could I hear all the way to the freeway?
I didn"t realize someone was holding my hand until whoever it was squeezed it lightly.
Like it had before to hide the pain, my body locked down again in surprise. This was not a touch I expected. The skin was perfectly smooth, but it was the wrong temperature. Not cold. After that first frozen second of shock, my body responded to the unfamiliar touch in a way that shocked me even more.
Air hissed up my throat, spitting through my clenched teeth with a low, menacing sound like a swarm of bees. Before the sound was out, my muscles bunched and arched, twisting away from the unknown. I flipped off my back in a spin so fast it should have turned the room into an incomprehensible blur-but it did not. I saw every dust mote, every splinter in the wood-paneled walls, every loose thread in microscopic detail as my eyes whirled past them.
So by the time I found myself crouched against the wall defensively-about a sixteenth of a second later-I already understood what had startled me, and that I had overreacted.
Oh. Of course. Edward wouldn"t feel cold to me. We were the same temperature now.
I held my pose for an eighth of a second longer, adjusting to the scene before me.
Edward was leaning across the operating table that had been my pyre, his hand reached out toward me, his expression anxious.
Edward"s face was the most important thing, but my peripheral vision catalogued everything else, just in case. Some instinct to defend had been triggered, and I automatically searched for any sign of danger.
My vampire family waited cautiously against the far wall by the door, Emmett and Jasper in the front. Like there was danger. My nostrils flared, searching for the threat. I could smell nothing out of place. That faint scent of something delicious-but marred by harsh chemicals-tickled my throat again, setting it to aching and burning.
Alice was peeking around Jasper"s elbow with a huge grin on her face; the light sparkled off her teeth, another eight-color rainbow.
That grin rea.s.sured me and then put the pieces together. Jasper and Emmett were in the front to protect the others, as I had a.s.sumed. What I hadn"t grasped immediately was that I was the danger.
All this was a sideline. The greater part of my senses and my mind were still focused on Edward"s face.
I had never seen it before this second.
How many times had I stared at Edward and marveled over his beauty? How many hours-days, weeks-of my life had I spent dreaming about what I then deemed to be perfection? I thought I"d known his face better than my own. I"d thought this was the one sure physical thing in my whole world: the flawlessness of Edward"s face.
I may as well have been blind.For the first time, with the dimming shadows and limiting weakness of humanity taken off my eyes, I saw his face. I gasped and then struggled with my vocabulary, unable to find the right words. I needed better words.
At this point, the other part of my attention had ascertained that there was no danger here besides myself, and I automatically straightened out of my crouch; almost a whole second had pa.s.sed since I"d been on the table.
I was momentarily preoccupied by the way my body moved. The instant I"d considered standing erect, I was already straight. There was no brief fragment of time in which the action occurred; change was instantaneous, almost as if there was no movement at all.
I continued to stare at Edward"s face, motionless again.
He moved slowly around the table-each step taking nearly half a second, each step flowing sinuously like river water weaving over smooth stones-his hand still outstretched.
I watched the grace of his advance, absorbing it with my new eyes.
"Bella?" he asked in a low, calming tone, but the worry in his voice layered my name with tension.
I could not answer immediately, lost as I was in the velvet folds of his voice. It was the most perfect symphony, a symphony in one instrument, an instrument more profound than any created by man...
"Bella, love? I"m sorry, I know it"s disorienting. But you"re all right. Everything is fine."
Everything? My mind spun out, spiraling back to my last human hour. Already, the memory seemed dim, like I was watching through a thick, dark veil-because my human eyes had been half blind. Everything had been so blurred.
When he said everything was fine, did that include Renesmee? Where was she? With Rosalie? I tried to remember her face-I knew that she had been beautiful-but it was irritating to try to see through the human memories. Her face was shrouded in darkness, so poorly lit...
What about Jacob? Was he fine? Did my long-suffering best friend hate me now? Had he gone back to Sam"s pack? Seth and Leah, too?
Were the Cullens safe, or had my transformation ignited the war with the pack? Did Edward"s blanket a.s.surance cover all of that? Or was he just trying to calm me?
And Charlie? What would I tell him now? He must have called while I was burning.
What had they told him? What did he think had happened to me?As I deliberated for one small piece of a second over which question to ask first, Edward reached out tentatively and stroked his fingertips across my cheek. Smooth as satin, soft as a feather, and now exactly matched to the temperature of my skin.
His touch seemed to sweep beneath the surface of my skin, right through the bones of my face. The feeling was tingly, electric-it jolted through my bones, down my spine, and trembled in my stomach.
Wait, I thought as the trembling blossomed into a warmth, a yearning. Wasn"t I supposed to lose this? Wasn"t giving up this feeling a part of the bargain?
I was a newborn vampire. The dry, scorching ache in my throat gave proof to that. And I knew what being a newborn entailed. Human emotions and longings would come back to me later in some form, but I"d accepted that I would not feel them in the beginning.
Only thirst. That was the deal, the price. I"d agreed to pay it.
But as Edward"s hand curled to the shape of my face like satin-covered steel, desire raced through my dried-out veins, singing from my scalp to my toes.
He arched one perfect eyebrow, waiting for me to speak.
I threw my arms around him.
Again, it was like there was no movement. One moment I stood straight and still as a statue; in the same instant, he was in my arms.
Warm-or at least, that was my perception. With the sweet, delicious scent that I"d never been able to really take in with my dull human senses, but that was one hundred percent Edward. I pressed my face into his smooth chest.
And then he shifted his weight uncomfortably. Leaned away from my embrace. I stared up at his face, confused and frightened by the rejection.
"Um... carefully, Bella. Ow."
I yanked my arms away, folding them behind my back as soon as I understood.
I was too strong.
"Oops," I mouthed.
He smiled the kind of smile that would have stopped my heart if it were still beating.
"Don"t panic, love," he said, lifting his hand to touch my lips, parted in horror. "You"re just a bit stronger than I am for the moment."
My eyebrows pushed together. I"d known this, too, but it felt more surreal than any other part of this ultimately surreal moment. I was stronger than Edward. I"d made him say ow.His hand stroked my cheek again, and I all but forgot my distress as another wave of desire rippled through my motionless body.
These emotions were so much stronger than I was used to that it was hard to stick to one train of thought despite the extra room in my head. Each new sensation overwhelmed me. I remembered Edward saying once-his voice in my head a weak shadow compared to the crystal, musical clarity I was hearing now-that his kind, our kind, were easily distracted. I could see why.
I made a concerted effort to focus. There was something I needed to say. The most important thing.
Very carefully, so carefully that the movement was actually discernible, I brought my right arm out from behind my back and raised my hand to touch his cheek. I refused to let myself be sidetracked by the pearly color of my hand or by the smooth silk of his skin or by the charge that zinged in my fingertips.
I stared into his eyes and heard my own voice for the first time.
"I love you," I said, but it sounded like singing. My voice rang and shimmered like a bell.
His answering smile dazzled me more than it ever had when I was human; I could really see it now.
"As I love you," he told me.
He took my face between his hands and leaned his face to mine-slow enough to remind me to be careful. He kissed me, soft as a whisper at first, and then suddenly stronger, fiercer. I tried to remember to be gentle with him, but it was hard work to remember anything in the onslaught of sensation, hard to hold on to any coherent thoughts.
It was like he"d never kissed me-like this was our first kiss. And, in truth, he"d never kissed me this way before.
It almost made me feel guilty. Surely I was in breach of the contract. I couldn"t be allowed to have this, too.
Though I didn"t need oxygen, my breathing sped, raced as fast as it had when I was burning. This was a different kind of fire.
Someone cleared his throat. Emmett. I recognized the deep sound at once, joking and annoyed at the same time.
I"d forgotten we weren"t alone. And then I realized that the way I was curved around Edward now was not exactly polite for company.
Embarra.s.sed, I half-stepped away in another instantaneous movement.Edward chuckled and stepped with me, keeping his arms tight around my waist. His face was glowing-like a white flame burned from behind his diamond skin.