Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,270

reaching a frenzy, but she didn’t trust herself enough to act.

Alice saw that I was drowning. She saw my futures spinning out into a thousand different kinds of despair. On the outer edges, she even saw me doing the one unimaginable thing I hadn’t yet consciously considered. The thing I was sure I was too weak for. Until I saw it in her mind, I didn’t realize that version even existed inside my head.

Now I could see it.

Killing Bella.

Was it the right thing? To stop her pain? To give her, in her total and perfect innocence, a chance at a different destiny than the inevitable one I knew I was facing? A different kind of afterlife than the cold, bloodthirsty one she was burning toward now?

The pain was too much, and I couldn’t trust my thoughts, spinning out of control because Bella was screaming.

I turned my eyes and mind to Carlisle, hoping for some assurance, some absolution, but I met something entirely different.

In his mind, a coiled desert viper, sand-colored scales sliding across each other with a dry, rasping sound.

The image was so unexpected that I froze again with shock.

“There may be a chance,” Carlisle said.

There was just a glimmer of hope in his head. He saw what Bella’s suffering was doing to me now; he, too, feared what forcing her into this life would do to both her and me in the future. And yet, the sliver of hope…

“What?” I begged him. What was the chance?

Carlisle started stitching her scalp again. He had enough faith in this idea that he thought it might be necessary to finish repairing her wounds.

“See if you can suck the venom back out,” he said, calm again. “The wound is fairly clean.”

Every muscle in my body locked down.

“Will that work?” Alice demanded. She looked ahead to answer her own question. Nothing was clear. No decision had been made. My decision was not made.

Carlisle didn’t look up from his work. “I don’t know. But we have to hurry.”

I knew how the venom would spread. She’d felt the first burn just a moment ago. It would climb slowly up her wrist, into her arm. Then faster and faster.

There was no time for this.

But! I wanted to scream. But I’m a vampire!

I would taste the blood and I would frenzy. Especially her blood. Only the burning she was feeling now was stronger than the flames in my throat, my chest. If I gave in even a tiny bit to that need…

“Carlisle, I…” My voice faltered in shame. Did he even realize what he was suggesting? “I don’t know if I can do that.”

Carlisle’s fingers moved the suture needle so quickly it was all but invisible. He’d moved to the back of her head, on the left now. There were so many wounds.

His voice was even but heavy. “It’s your decision, Edward, either way.”

Life or death or half life, my decision. But was life even in my power? I’d never been that strong.

“I can’t help you,” he apologized. “I have to get this bleeding stopped here if you’re going to be taking blood from her hand.”

Bella thrashed as a new wave of pain rocked her, jerking her twisted leg.

“Edward!” she screamed.

Her blood-filled eyes snapped open, and this time they focused sharply, boring into my own. Imploring, beseeching.

Bella was burning.

“Alice!” Carlisle snapped. “Get me something to brace her leg!”

Alice darted out of my peripheral vision, and I could hear her ripping boards up from the floor and snapping them into usable sizes.

“Edward!” Carlisle’s voice had lost its control. Pain bled through. Pain for me, pain for Bella. “You must do it now, or it will be too late.”

Bella’s eyes begged, desperate for relief.

Bella was burning, and I was exactly the wrong person to save her. Absolutely and literally the worst person in the entire universe for this task.

But I was the only one here to do it.

You have to do this, I ordered myself. There is no other way. You cannot fail.

I grasped her twisting hand, smoothing her clenched fingers and holding them still. I stopped breathing and bent to press my mouth to her hand.

The skin on the edges of the wound was already cooler than the rest of her hand. Changing. Hardening.

I sealed my lips around the small gash, closed my eyes, and then began.

It was only a trickle of blood—the venom had already begun healing the wound. Just a few drops to start with. Barely enough to wet my tongue.

It hit me like an explosion. A