CHAPTER SEVEN
ᴀ ᴠᴀᴍᴘɪʀᴇ's ғʀɪᴇɴᴅ

Never in all my time spent un-living, had time passed this slow. Days passed like years, a week a century, and the lies grew heavier, even for all our strength. And through it all, Bella only got weaker.

She was skeletal, put simply. Her ashen skin was the colour of the bones it drooped upon and no blood could warm her body for it looked as if it had all been drained from her veins. Her heartbeat was faint as if hidden behind thick, insulated walls. Sometimes I was convinced I could hear the baby, its heart fragile but moving. If it was true, the faintness worried me. If I was imagining it out of hope, I worried still.

Two weeks had struggled by since I'd last fed. It must have felt longer for the rest of the Cullens. Edward's talk with Jacob had been successful. But Jake's own conversation with Bella had failed as I'd expected. Her resolve was as hardy and unmovable as a fortress, her thoughts locked in to be even more so. The baby would not be harmed, she demanded at least once a day. Rosalie was more than pleased. In the short time, she'd become a lap dog, waiting on Bella's beck and call, snapping with teeth when she needed to.

The lack of sustenance was messing with my head. If Rosalie's sudden switch of judgement wasn't bothering enough, then the hunger and the threat from the wolf pack was.

We could sense them surrounding the house as close as they dared. There would be multiple at once, at each hour of the day. I grew to know Jacob's scent the minute I detected it- Seth's too, as he'd followed in abandoning his pack too. They would stand by the treeline sometimes when we felt our weakest.

Esme would go to see them, parcels of homemade food wrapped lovingly by her hands. Seth was always eager, Jacob hesitant but grateful, but Leah, the newest of the recruits, would turn her head and refuse. Esme never gave up though, and sometimes Alice and I would accompany her if only to feel a hint of sun and a waft of the breeze.

"Want to play a game?" Seth asked one day, as we caught him alone.

"I don't think Jacob would like that."

"Oh, he won't mind," he said as he began to run backwards, readying to shift. "We won't leave the vicinity of the house."

"Okay."

His eyes switched to the vampire beside me. "Alice?"

"I'll watch," she said with a smile as she placed herself down by a tree, drinking in the golden light.

The game was no more than the usual game of chase the ball. The only difference was that we played as vampires and wolves. Seth's animal form was slimmer than Jacob's which allowed him to be faster where he failed to match in strength. I would throw the ball and he would run to catch it before it hit the ground. It was within reason, of course. He refused to stray too far.

I never did know what made Seth so comfortable with us. It was obvious he saw us as friends and the more time Alice and I spent with him, I did too.

It was rare he would step inside though unless Esme had coaxed him in with food or Jake had dragged him in. The house was ironically Jacob's territory, no matter how much he hated it. But this time, it was Bella's croaky voice that beckoned him in with us, the whisper of her voice meeting our ears from where she sat inside under a heap of blankets and Jacob's arm.

We were met with dull faces when we reached the living room.

"I wanted you to be here," Bella said and reached her arms out, grabbing a hand in each hand.

"What is it?"

"I was listening to Jacob just now and he had an interesting thought," Edward said, his face as blank as a cold stone. "Perhaps we're going about this the wrong way. We haven't really addressed that angle. We've been trying to get Bella what she needs and her body is accepting it about as well as one of ours would. Perhaps we should address the needs of the ... fetus first. Maybe if we satisfy it, we'll be able to help her more effectively."

At the word fetus, Rosalie let out a snarl. She refused to call it anything but a baby. But from the rest of the room, there was no reaction. Nothing but confusion, anyway.

"I'm not following you, Edward," Carlisle said, voicing all of our thoughts.

"Think about it, Carlisle. If that creature is more vampire than human, can't you guess what it craves- what it's not getting. Jacob did."

Rosalie's eyes seemed to light up. "Of course," she muttered. She didn't look at Jake. "Carlisle, we have all that type O negative laid aside for Bella. It's a good idea. I'd say we should start with the traditional way."

"Wait, hold on," Jacob protested. He stood up, not looking anyone in the eye. "What are you talking about? Are you- are you talking about making her drink blood."

The mere idea of it was repulsive. My mouth flooded with the taste of it, my nose the scent. I would have felt sick if I could. But still, there was that underlying feeling of hunger that was beginning to come to head.

"It was your idea," Rose said with a scowl.

"It's just..."

"Monstrous? Revolting?"

Jacob didn't answer Edward.

"But what if it helps her?"

"What are you going to do, shove a tube down her throat?" Jacob said as he folded his arms across his chest.

There was a difference between tasting blood as a human to drinking it as a vampire. The hunger masked the repulsion to the idea of it, making the scent and taste into something appetising. But as a human- the substance was too familiar to ingest. Too wrong.

"If it'll help the baby," Rosalie said. "Her condition- both of their conditions- are deteriorating rapidly. We don't have time to waste."

"I can talk for myself," Bella said suddenly. A scowl had taken over her expressions. "I can do it. Practice for the future, right?"

Rosalie grinned. "Don't worry about anything at all. It's going to be fine I have a good feeling about this, Bella. I think the baby will be so much better."

"Well, I'm starving so I'll bet he is too," she said slowly, placing a hand across her stomach. "Let's go for it. My first vampire act."

Carlisle and Rosalie disappeared somewhere as soon as her last words left her lips. Bella curled into herself as Jacob's arm wrapped around her frail shoulders again. Without meaning to, my hand found Alice's.

"This was your idea?"

"Don't blame me for this one," Jake said, forcing a smile onto his face for Bella's sake. "Your vampire was just picking snide comments out of my head."

"I didn't expect to see you again."

She smiled at him faintly. A clanging sound rang in from the kitchen and Edward let out an involuntary hiss as he went to scold his sister. With him, returned Rosalie, empty-handed, and then Carlisle, in his white hands a red cup with a lid and straw. Bella's eyes shuffled down to the drink. The bold, metallic scent filled the room.

"We could try another method?" Carlisle said when he saw her hesitation.

"No. I'll try this first. We don't have time."

Edward tried to offer comfort. "Bella, we can find another way."

"Plug your nose," Rosalie said once Bella had shaken her head.

"I'm okay," she said.

Bella took one, haggard breath and then brought the straw to her lips and drank. Her eyes closed, her nose twitching. The room was silent, awkwardly so. Only Jacob's short breaths filled the void, his agitation and disgust almost a noise themselves.

Her eyes fluttered open and her dry lips pulled away.

"It tastes good, too."

Rosalie broke the silence. "That's good. A good sign," she said as she wrapped an arm around her shoulder and took the empty cup.

"How's your stomach? Do you feel nauseated?"

"No, I don't feel sick," Bella said, her voice a little louder than normal. "That's a first."

"Excellent!"

"I think it's a bit early for that Rosalie," Carlisle said, his eyebrows furrowed.

Then Bella's eyes suddenly widened. "Does this screw my total? Or do we start counting after I'm a vampire?"

"Your record is still clean."

☾

Can't quite believe what I just wrote but ok-