Edward POV

“Why didn’t you tell me?!” I roared, my anger flaring inside me.

“Because there was nothing we could do about it!” My ‘sister’, Alice shot back. She had known. She had known this thing would happen to Bella. That this monster of a disease inside her blood- in my Bella’s blood- would attack her.

“You know my visions aren’t set in stone. I didn’t even understand what I was seeing. I just knew I had to get her to see a doctor.” Alice’s pixy voice broke. “Please, Edward, it’s hard for me too.” If a vampire could cry I think Alice would have done so right there.

I remembered when she had told me. She hadn’t called or contacted me that day at all. It was Alice who told me she was in the hospital. She didn’t tell me why. She pretended she didn’t know.

I rushed to be with her. Knowing her fear of that place- her irrational fear of needles and blood. Carlisle must had found something wrong with her. I couldn’t imagine what. Bella was young and strong. Beautiful as her name described. My ivory skinned human girl.

It wasn’t that hard to find her. I’d been to that hospital often enough with her. The hospital receptionist I talked to was only too happy to help me. My inhuman, never-aging looks never let me down in situations like this.

The first thing I noticed was her smell had changed. Her floral scent was gone. She smelled like any other human now. She had only smelled like this once, when she had been beaten by James and she had needed a blood transfusion. Something inside of me clenched at those memories. If my heart had been beating, I suppose it would have been that.

She lay in the bed looking small and fragile. She slept with Charlie sitting at her side, a crimson IV bag running into her veins. The blood didn’t bother me. I couldn’t think about anything but Bella and how much she meant to me. The idea that she could be ill was unintelligible to me.

Charlie looked up at me. He hadn’t noticed me come into the room. I was shocked at how much he seemed to have aged from the last time I saw him. His eyes were tortured, his hair in disarray and I noticed white strands for the first time.