Chapter 34: Turning point

BPOV

I screamed in fear and pain as his hard, sharp teeth sunk into my neck. I tried to fight back against
him, but I was too weak. He easily held me down, and proceeded to drain me from my blood. I had
never imagined getting bit by a vampire being this scary. Sure, I had plenty of nightmares about it,
and the last year I had spent many sleepless nights wondering how it would feel if Edward would
come back and change me. I figured it wasn’t going to hurt so bad, that it would be over in a few
seconds, maybe minutes. I was so wrong.

“Stop it!” I yelled, feeling how tears ran down my cheek. It hurt real badly, like something I’ve never
felt before. But besides the deadly sharp teeth that were deep in my neck, there was something
underneath it that started to bubble to the surface, a burning sensation.

My voice was almost out of strength now because of all the screaming, and as the seconds passed, I
felt how my strength slowly got sucked out of me, literarily.

I was almost out of it when I heard it; that loud, menacing growl. It rang in my ears, and almost
instantly, I felt how Smith was thrown off me. I was left on the cold ground alone, but I felt oddly
warm; too warm. Painfully warm. Warm, like I was burning from the inside out.

The growls and loud crashing sounds slowly faded around me and suddenly, the only thing I could
hear was my own screams.

“Bella!?” Someone called in the background, the voice of an angel, but I couldn’t answer him. If I
could’ve, I would’ve begged him to kill me; anything to make the pain stop. But I couldn’t manage to
stop screaming long enough to say the words, those two words I sought; Kill me.

“She’s changing!” A woman’s voice yelled, her tone terrified. I recognized the voice, but I couldn’t
remember who it belonged to. I heard footsteps around me and then suddenly, a pair of cold hands
touched my shoulders, momentarily easing the burn beneath my skin, but his touch also brought
pain. Even though the touch was gentle and careful, it hurt terribly. I screamed even louder, and I
heard how an anxious voice tried to sooth me, even though panic hid just beneath it.

“Bella, I’m here. Don’t worry, it’s going to be okay.” The angel voice said again, and I realized it was
Edward who spoke. I tried to call out his name, but it just came out in screams, bloodcurdling
screams.

“We need to move her now.” The female called again, and without a protest, I felt how the cold arms
wrapped around me, and then wind blew hard in my face. My screams were muffled by the wind, but
the pain still remained. It was almost indescribable how much it hurt; like my bones were burning to
ashes underneath my skin.

I didn’t realize that we had stopped running until Edward laid me down on something. I tried to open
my eyes to see what happened around me, but they remained shut.

“She’s in so much pain! Can’t we do something?!” Edward exclaimed, but I didn’t hear if he got an
answer. His voice was strained, pained. Like he suffered as much as I did.
That’s when I decided to stop it all. I had to control myself and not show that I suffered, because if I
didn’t, Edward would suffer too.

With as much effort as I could afford, I stopped screaming. I stopped listening at the panicked voices
around me, stopped to notice the touches that returned over and over again, and instead focused on
remaining still and quiet. I shut my limbs down, turning them stiff and still, and shut my lips together
so that there was no way any sound could travel through them. I breathed as evenly as I could
through my nose, and after a while, everything around me seemed to fade away.

At that moment, it felt like it was just me there, in a black pit together with a destructive fire that
shattered everything in its way. I was slowly turning to ashes, inwards and out, and there was no way
to stop it, no way to ease it.

I didn’t know how much time it had passed when the pain suddenly started to get worse. My heart,
which was the only thing I focused on hearing, started to beat even faster, racing in my chest in a
painful way, and the burning sensation worsened. I didn’t understand how that was possible;
everything in my body had surely turned to ashes now, what was possible left to burn?

The sound of my heart beat strongly in my ears, the pulse escalating more and more for each second,
and my head felt like it was going to explode in any second.

Make it stop, I pleaded to myself. Make the pain go away. Release me from the agony. Please…

Those were my last thoughts before my mind faded into the darkness and I lost my consciousness
completely.

*Later*

Everything was silent. No beating hearts, no fast breaths. Everything was still, peaceful. Time passed,
and soon I became aware of my body. It felt heavy and unmovable, but there was no pain in my
limbs. More seconds passed, and soon, things became more vivid, clearing before me. My
environment started to slowly sound again, like tuning up a radio. Voices, breaths, heartbeats, I
heard them all except my own. I did not hear my own heart beat, I did not hear my own breath
sound and no sound exited my mouth. It was like I was dead, listening to my surroundings in silence.

I knew I could open my eyes if I wanted to. I knew I could move my arms and legs and see what was
around me. But for some reason, I was afraid to move. Instantly, like a knee-jerk reaction to the fear,
my mouth parted slightly and let in a sharp intake of air, tasting the room for potential threats. There
were two smells that were different than the others scents around me. One of them was sweet
smelling, and filled up the area I was in, and I immediately knew that whoever smelled like this was
the same as me. It also made me very confused. I didn’t know if I could trust the ones who smelled
like this. Something deep within me told me I was safe, that one of them was going to hurt me but
nervousness and unknowing made me fear them as well.

The other scent put me on edge. The scent made my throat dry up, the fire-like feeling returning, and
suddenly, all I could think about was blood. My instinct told me that this was food, but something
else in my mind told me to resist. I swallowed, the taste in my mouth feeling different, and I
concentrated on the other scents, any other scent than the mouthwatering one I just had
encountered. I wasn’t sure why, but I knew I didn’t want to hurt them.

It was the sudden touch that made me open my eyes in chock. Acting on instinct only, I cringed away
from the unknown person’s hand that had grabbed mine, and then flipped off the bed. A strange,
unfamiliar hiss exited my mouth, as a warning to stay away from me, and I entered a defensive
crouch, flashing my teeth in warning. My eyes had analyzed the room in the extremely short time
that had passed, and confusion filled me up, making me scared.

The room was small and white, no furniture decorating the small space except one bed, the one I had
been lying in. 4 people were standing before me, 3 of them pale and I instantly recognized them as
the sweet smelling ones. The other one was short, female and rather pale as well, but her scent
smelled more like a mixture between the first and the second one. All of them stared at me as I
hissed at them angrily, and I noticed that all of them had yellow eyes that studied me carefully.

But it was the man that had touched my hand that caught my attention. He was beautiful no matter
how you looked at him and he had reddish-brown hair and pale skin just as the others. Even though I
didn’t recognize him at all, there was something about him that was familiar. All of them were
familiar actually, when I thought about it. The reddish-brown haired man stared at me, his eyes
worried, scared and …sad. Yes, they were sad.

“Bella, calm down. It’s safe, everything’s fine.” he spoke, his voice velvet smooth even though it was
clouded with his emotions. Confusion filled me for a brief second, not understanding why he called
me Bella, but then I suddenly realized why; that was my name.

“She is confused. It happens sometimes with some transformations.” The other pale male explained,
and my eyes flickered to him. He looked older than the others, and he had dark, curly, short hair and
an almost…fish-like face. It was hard to explain, really.

The other male growled quietly at the fish-like one, and guilt and shame entered his face. The pale
girl that stood beside him looked rather mad as well, but remained quiet.

“Don’t speak or I’ll rip your throat out! This is all fault Smith, always remember that.” The name he
said made me freeze in my movement. Smith… why did I recognize that as well?

“Smith…” I murmured quietly, watching him with curiosity, and dug through my head after the
resemblance I felt to the name he spoke. All of them looked back at me, and some hope flickered in
the eyes of the boy with reddish-brown hair.

I looked back at him, wonder filling my mind. Why did I recognize him so much? When I looked at
him, I felt…I felt good. I felt safe. If I had a heartbeat, it would be as fast as a hummingbird’s wings.

“What’s your name?” whispered almost gently, staring at him with fascination. Who was he? It felt
like I already knew him, but I didn’t know anything about him. I wanted to know things about him,
and it bothered me that I didn’t.

His butterscotch eyes met mine, and after what felt like seconds, he finally answered. “Edward.”
That one word made my mind explode. Memories, thousands of them, flooded through my head,
and I gasped in surprise.

“She’s remembering!” The small, pixie-like girl exclaimed, but I almost didn’t hear her, I was too busy
concentrating on the images that crowded my mind, overwhelming me.

I watched the 4 of them, smiling as I did, and spoke in a breathless voice. “I remember. I remember
everything!”

Edward, who I now recognized and remembered everything about, smiled relieved to me, and then
ran towards me in his vampire speed and grabbed me into a kiss. The kiss was sweet, but not as
gentle as I thought it would be. There was a new sort of edge in it that I never had felt in my human
life. I grabbed his hair and brought him closer to me, deepening the kiss further and he stroked my
cheek as he brought me closer to him by holding me by my waist.

It ended too soon, and even though I didn’t need to breathe, I was gasping for air when his lips
released mine.

“I’m so glad you’re okay. I was so worried.” He said, hugging me to his chest.

“What happened? You…you didn’t scream at all, and then you just became still and never moved
until a few minutes ago.”Mia spoke up, and looked up from Edward’s chest to stare at her. Her
yellow eyes met mine, and I frowned.

“I don’t know exactly. Everything hurt, like I was on fire. I tried to concentrate on being quiet and still
rather than screaming and then… it all disappeared. It was like I lost consciousness, because when I
was aware again, I had already… already turned…” I trailed off, and then my eyes traveled to Smith.
His face was ashamed, filled with guilt and sorrow, and even though I knew he wasn’t going to hurt
me, I stiffened in my place. The image of him, attacking me there in the dark forest filled my mind,
and I tried to shake of the fear that slowly came creeping up my back. He had turned me. I was a …I
was a vampire now, and I would never be human again. This fact excited me as much as it scared me.
I did want to become a vampire. I wanted to spend eternity together with Edward, never leaving his
side. But the way I turned… I wish I could’ve done it differently. I wanted to be ready when I turned,
not taken aback and forced.

“Bella…” Smith began, but his voice trailed off. He looked crushed, and I understood why. He didn’t
want me to turn, even if it was his fault that I did. He wanted me to stay human, and probably
would’ve made me stay human if I hadn’t tripped there in the forest and cut myself on that rock. He
had been battling his hunger for so long, and that night, he for once lost.

Edward growled at him, his anger still very clear. He was blaming him for what had happened.

But before he could say anything, Alice’s clear voice spoke. “You need to leave now. I’m surprised
Bella hasn’t taken a bite out of me yet. She’s a newborn, and she needs to feed.”

Her reminder instantly brought back the sizzling feeling in my throat, and in a weak and lost attempt
to make the scorching pain in my throat go away, I placed my hand against it, hoping my cool
temperature would chill it down.
“Of course, how horrible of me to forget; you must be so thirsty. The Lewis’s are with mom and dad,
right?” he asked Alice, and I realized why I recognized the room. It was the same room I had been
taken to when I passed out…how long ago was it?

Alice nodded. “They left last night so their scent wouldn’t be so strong for her.” Then, she turned her
eyes towards me, studying me carefully. “Tough…I don’t really think it was that necessary.”
All of them turned to stare at her like she was stupid, and I frowned at her in confusion. What was
she talking about? What if Rick and Mick were here when I woke up? If I caught the scent of them I
might’ve kill-

I stopped my thoughts before they could get any worse, and instead waited for Alice to answer. Her
human phase was annoyingly slow now when I was a vampire. I wonder if all vampires found humans
that slow…

“What I meant is…she’s incredibly resistible to temptation of blood. I’ve been standing here for so
long now, waiting for her to attack me, but she hasn’t even thought about it. And I got this vision of
you two hunting…” she trailed off, staring at Edward, whose eyes widened in surprise. I stared at him,
wondering what he was seeing in her mind. Edward turned to me, and his eyes were wide with
astonishment.

“Incredible…” he murmured, and smiled at me widely.

“What?” I asked, starting to get annoyed. What was it that they weren’t telling me?

He gave me a small kiss on my forehead. “You have an amazing self-control. Alice saw us running
passed a few humans, and you completely ignored it.”

Smith looked at me, and his expression was puzzled.”Can this be considered to be your gift?”

I looked at him, and for some reason, I felt a little disappointed. This was my gift? Having incredibly
good self-control? Not half as exciting as any of Smith’s gifts… But on the other hand, this might help
me better in living by the vegetarian-diet. I’m refusing to feed on humans, and my so called ‘gift’ will
help me with that, then I’m more than happy to keep it.

Alice shrugged, a sudden sly grin entering her face. “We’ll see about that, won’t we?” she gave
Edward a small look, and I saw he nodded so slightly, answering something in her mind.

I didn’t really understand what she meant about that, but at the moment, I wasn’t really in the mood
to know. I was in the mood to hunt.

*Later*

Together, Edward and I ran through the dark woods, hunting some elk and deer that we could find.
He taught me the things he had been absent to learn, and I was fascinated by his gracefulness to do
it. My kills were messy, even dirty. In one year, Edward had mastered the ability to hunt so perfectly,
not even a single stray of his hair got ruffled as he killed the deer he fed on. I tried to study him as
thoroughly as I could, analyzing his every movement to see what I did wrong, but it always ended up
with me, studying his marvelous looks. I had never known that hunting was so … so beautiful as it
was. The way his body moved around the wet moss as he tracked his prey, the way his beautiful eyes
studied its every move…it was fascinating.

Eventually though he caught me staring and if I had still been human, I would’ve blushed. Luckily for
me, I wasn’t. No blood travelled to my cheeks to reveal my actual embarrassment, and instead I just
gave him a playful grin.

When I finally was full, almost feeling gluttonously so, we began to travel back. Running was also one
of the vampire perks I actually enjoyed. The speed, the excitement to race each other side by side…it
was really thrilling. And I wasn’t at all clumsy like I used to be in my human life. I could run without
tripping on anything: in my case, that should be considered as a miracle. We did eventually pass the
human scent as Alice had promised, and as her prophecy had said, I ignored it. It was hardly easy; I
had to stop breathing and focus on anything than what I wanted, but I did it. We ran away from the
scent, a little faster this time, and when we were so far away none of us could detect the it anymore,
we started to slow down.

“Aren’t you the least happy I’m a vampire?” I asked as we had stopped to run. He looked at me, his
face first surprised. Then, it became gentle and loving, and he enfolded me into a hug.

“Bella,” he murmured into my hair. “I was never unhappy with you becoming a vampire.”

“Then why were you against it when we discussed it at the Lewis’s house? If you don’t have any
problem with it, why didn’t you say yes to it then?”

He sighed. “I…I didn’t want you to suffer what I had to suffer. The pain of the turning, the thirst we’ll
have to live with the rest for eternity, every day…I didn’t want that you if that meant that you were
going to get hurt. Of course I wanted you to turn and be a vampire as well, making us inseparable. I
can’t say I haven’t thought about that for the past year. But for all the things you’d have to give up
for me…I could never be that selfish.”

I stayed quiet for a minute. I was feeling almost relieved that he actually did want me to be a
vampire, but the part about him being selfish bothered me. “Edward,” I finally said. “You wouldn’t
have been selfish if you would’ve been the one to turn me. All the things I actually get for becoming a
vampire, it outweighs the things I would lose. Sure, I will never be able to sit in a porch in twilight,
surrounded by my grandchildren whilst being old and grey. But if I wasn’t sitting in that porch
together with an old and grey you, I don’t want it at all.”

Edward held me for a while, quiet in thought, and then chuckled quietly. “You are truly amazing, you
know that?”

I smiled, and hugged him back tightly. I felt how he shifted uncomfortably away from me, and I
looked up at him, releasing my grip from him. What did I do?

He gave me a crooked grin, and then grabbed my hand. “Ow, take it easy or you’ll crush me. At the
moment, you’re a little stronger than me.” his explanation made me grin. Stronger, you say…?

It took me half a second to wrestle him down to the ground, laughing as I did. I felt how he playfully
tried to fight against me, but he was too weak. I was the one in control now. Holding him down to
the ground, I laughed, enjoying this maybe a little too much, and then lowered my head to his level
and gave him a light kiss on his mouth.

“Come on, let’s get going.” I then said, and was about to rise from the ground when Edward grabbed
my arms and then spun us around so he was on top of me, pinning me down to the ground.

“Hey!” I complained, laughing. He grinned at me, and growled at me playfully.

“I said you were a little stronger than me. I can still fight against you. And besides, before we leave I
want to do something you forgot.”

I raised my eyebrow. “And what is that?”

He smiled slyly, and then lowered his head until out lips met. The kiss he gave me wasn’t rough, but it
wasn’t as gentle as his other kisses as well. It was somewhere in between. He stroked my hair as our
lips moved in synchronization and when he moved away, I was gasping for air I didn’t need.

“You forgot to give me a proper kiss.”

I chuckled and then, with help given by Edward, got up from the slightly wet moss we had been
laying on. The sun was almost about to rise in the east as the realization hit me; I remembered I
didn’t have to sleep. Correction: I couldn’t sleep. The thought was almost strange for me. I wasn’t
going to be able to sleep anymore, to dream anymore. In a way, it saddened me, but as I told Edward
before: All the things I get for becoming a vampire outweighs the things I would lose.

Edward took my hand and both of us were just about to run back to the house, following our old
trail, when I suddenly detected something else in the coming wind from the west. 5…no, 6 vampires
were coming our way, and they were moving fast.

Fear filled my muscles, and in direct instinct, my body coiled into a defensive crouch.

“Relax, Bella. They won’t hurt us.” Edward reassured me, and patted my arm soothingly. I slowly
straightened out of my position, but I was still on edge. Who were these vampires? The Volturi??

I waited nervously for the 6 vampires to appear, and when I finally saw them, I became taken aback.
There were 4 females and 2 males, and to my surprise, all of them had yellow eyes. There were two
dark haired vampires; one male and one female, and both of them had a slightly olive tone in their
chalky skin. The male running next to them was taller than the rest of them, and he had long, sandy
blond hair which he had tied back into a ponytail. The other three females were all blond. The one
who ran next to the tall male had long, pale blond hair, and she was holding the tall man’s hand in a
firm grip that made their affection for each other rather clear. The other female next to them silvery
blond hair cut in a short chin length and she looked the most unhappy by the 6 them. But it was the
last woman that made my eyes go wide. She had long, curly, strawberry blonde hair, and even
though she looked slightly older than the rest of them, she was still as beautiful. Her gentle, yellow
eyes found mine, and her gaze turned surprised, almost chocked. As they stopped to run, her eyes
remained glued to mine, and I was sure she was as surprised as me to see each other.

“Unbelievable…” She murmured, her voice exactly as I remember it from 6 years ago.
“It’s you.” I said, my voice filled with the shock I felt. The beautiful vampire with strawberry blonde
hair smiled gently, and chuckled.

“I never thought I would see you again, let along in a place like this.” She said, and then shook her
head, still smiling. “How rude of me, you don’t even know my name. I am Tanya, and these are my
sisters and brothers in the Denali clan.”

Playlist: Criminal Love – Memphis High