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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.
