The Twilight Saga Collection part 2(193)

“It’ll work out, you know,” she said after a quiet minute. “I believe that.”

That made me see red again. “Is dementia one of your symptoms?” I snapped.

She laughed, though my anger was so real that my hands were shaking around hers.

“Maybe,” she said. “I’m not saying things will work out easily, Jake. But how could I have lived through all that I’ve lived through and not believe in magic by this point?”

“Magic?”

“Especially for you,” she said. She was smiling. She pulled one of her hands away from mine and pressed it against my cheek. Warmer than before, but it felt cool against my skin, like most things did. “More than anyone else, you’ve got some magic waiting to make things right for you.”

“What are you babbling about?”

Still smiling. “Edward told me once what it was like—your imprinting thing. He said it was like A Midsummer Night’s Dream, like magic. You’ll find who you’re really looking for, Jacob, and maybe then all of this will make sense.”

If she hadn’t looked so fragile I would’ve been screaming.

As it was, I did growl at her.

“If you think that imprinting could ever make sense of this insanity . . .” I struggled for words. “Do you really think that just because I might someday imprint on some stranger it would make this right?” I jabbed a finger toward her swollen body. “Tell me what the point was then, Bella! What was the point of me loving you? What was the point of you loving him? When you die”—the words were a snarl—“how is that ever right again? What’s the point to all the pain? Mine, yours, his! You’ll kill him, too, not that I care about that.” She flinched, but I kept going. “So what was the point of your twisted love story, in the end? If there is any sense, please show me, Bella, because I don’t see it.”

She sighed. “I don’t know yet, Jake. But I just… feel… that this is all going somewhere good, hard to see as it is now. I guess you could call it faith.”

“You’re dying for nothing, Bella! Nothing!”

Her hand dropped from my face to her bloated stomach, caressed it. She didn’t have to say the words for me to know what she was thinking. She was dying for it.

“I’m not going to die,” she said through her teeth, and I could tell she was repeating things she’d said before. “I will keep my heart beating. I’m strong enough for that.”

“That’s a load of crap, Bella. You’ve been trying to keep up with the supernatural for too long. No normal person can do it. You’re not strong enough.” I took her face in my hand. I didn’t have to remind myself to be gentle. Everything about her screamed breakable.

“I can do this. I can do this,” she muttered, sounding a lot like that kids’ book about the little engine that could.

“Doesn’t look like it to me. So what’s your plan? I hope you have one.”

She nodded, not meeting my eyes. “Did you know Esme jumped off a cliff? When she was human, I mean.”

“So?”

“So she was close enough to dead that they didn’t even bother taking her to the emergency room—they took her right around to the morgue. Her heart was still beating, though, when Carlisle found her. . . .”

That’s what she’d meant before, about keeping her heart beating.

“You’re not planning on surviving this human,” I stated dully.

“No. I’m not stupid.” She met my stare then. “I guess you probably have your own opinion on that point, though.”

“Emergency vampirization,” I mumbled.

“It worked for Esme. And Emmett, and Rosalie, and even Edward. None of them were in such great shape. Carlisle only changed them because it was that or death. He doesn’t end lives, he saves them.”

I felt a sudden twinge of guilt about the good vampire doctor, like before. I shoved the thought away and started in on the begging.

“Listen to me, Bells. Don’t do it that way.” Like before, when the call from Charlie had come, I could see how much difference it really made to me. I realized I needed her to stay alive, in some form. In any form. I took a deep breath. “Don’t wait until it’s too late, Bella. Not that way. Live. Okay? Just live. Don’t do this to me. Don’t do it to him.” My voice got harder, louder. “You know what he’s going to do when you die. You’ve seen it before. You want him to go back to those Italian killers?” She cringed into the sofa.

I left out the part about how that wouldn’t be necessary this time.