Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,268

in so many places. I could make it worse.

I heard my own voice, rambling the same words over and over again. Her name. No. Please. Again and again like a record skipping. But I wasn’t in control of the sound.

I heard myself screaming Carlisle’s name, but he was already there, kneeling in the blood on her other side.

The words pouring from my mouth weren’t words anymore, just mangled, heaving sounds. Sobs.

Carlisle’s hands traced from her scalp to her ankle and then back again so quickly, they blurred. He pressed both hands to her head, seeking ruptures. He pushed two fingers tight against a spot three inches behind her right ear. I couldn’t see what he was doing; her hair was saturated with crimson.

A weak cry broke through her lips. Her face spasmed with pain.

“Bella!” I begged.

Carlisle’s calm voice was the antithesis to my raw screaming. “She’s lost some blood, but the head wound isn’t deep. Watch out for her leg, it’s broken.”

A howl of pure rage ripped through the room, and for a second I thought Emmett and Jasper were in trouble. I touched their minds—they were already gathering up the broken pieces—and realized that the sound had come from me.

“Some ribs, too, I think,” Carlisle added, still preternaturally calm.

His thoughts were practical, impassive. He knew I would be listening. But he was also encouraged by his examination. We were in time. The damage was not critical.

I caught the ifs in his assessment, though. If he could get the bleeding under control. If a rib didn’t puncture her lung. If the internal damage was no more than it seemed. If, if, if. His years of trying to keep human bodies alive gave him a plethora of insights into things that could go wrong.

Her blood had soaked through my jeans. It covered my arms. I was painted in it.

Bella moaned in pain.

“Bella, you’re going to be fine.” My words were pleading, begging. “Can you hear me, Bella? I love you.”

Another moan, but no—she was trying to speak.

“Edward,” she gasped.

“Yes, I’m here.”

She whispered, “It hurts.”

“I know, Bella, I know.”

The jealousy surfaced then, like a fist punching through the center of my chest. I wanted so badly to break the tracker, to rip him into long, slow strips. So much pain and so much blood and I’d never be able to make him answer for it. It wasn’t enough that he was dying, that he would burn. It would never be enough.

“Can’t you do anything?” I snarled at Carlisle.

“My bag, please,” he called coolly to Alice.

Alice made a tiny choking sound.

I couldn’t force my eyes away from Bella’s bruised, blood-spattered face. Under the gore, her skin was paler than I’d ever seen it. Her eyelids didn’t so much as flutter.

But I reached out to Alice’s mind and saw the complication.

I’d yet to truly register the lake of blood I was kneeling in. I knew, somewhere inside, my body was probably reacting to it. But wherever that reaction was, it was so deep below the pain that it hadn’t surfaced yet.

Alice loved Bella, but she was not physically prepared for this. She hesitated, teeth clenched, trying to swallow back the venom.

Emmett and Jasper, too, were struggling. They’d pulled the shattered pieces of the tracker—and I could only vehemently hope that those pieces were still somehow able to process pain—out of the room. Emmett was watching Jasper closely for a break. Emmett himself was in admirable control. His concern for Bella was deeper than his usual carefree frame of mind allowed for.

“Hold your breath, Alice,” Carlisle said. “It will help.”

She nodded and stopped breathing as she darted forward and then back, leaving Carlisle’s satchel next to his leg. She’d moved so carefully that she didn’t even get blood on her shoes. She retreated to the destroyed emergency exit, gasping for fresh air.

Through the open door drifted the faint sounds of sirens, looking for the car that had raced so recklessly through the city streets. I doubted they would find the stolen car parked in the shade on a quiet side street, but I didn’t really care if they did.

“Alice?” Bella gasped.

“She’s here.” I babbled the words. “She knew where to find you.”

Bella whimpered. “My hand hurts.”

I was surprised by her specificity. There was so much damage.

“I know, Bella. Carlisle will give you something. It will stop.”

Carlisle was suturing the tears in her scalp so quickly his movements were blurring again. No bleed could escape his eyes. He was able to repair the larger vessels with