Breaking Dawn

And then Rosalie lost her focus. I saw the expression on her face shift, saw her lips pull back from her teeth and her black eyes glint with thirst.

“No, Rose!” Edward roared, but his hands were trapped, trying to prop Bella upright so she could breathe.

I launched myself at Rosalie, jumping across the table without bothering to phase. As I hit her stone body, knocking her toward the door, I felt the scalpel in her hand stab deep into my left arm. My right palm smashed against her face, locking her jaw and blocking her airways.

I used my grip on Rosalie’s face to swing her body out so that I could land a solid kick in her gut; it was like kicking concrete. She flew into the door frame, buckling one side of it. The little speaker in her ear crackled into pieces. Then Alice was there, yanking her by the throat to get her into the hall.

And I had to give it to Blondie—she didn’t put up an ounce of fight. She wanted us to win. She let me trash her like that, to save Bella. Well, to save the thing.

I ripped the blade out of my arm.

“Alice, get her out of here!” Edward shouted. “Take her to Jasper and keep her there! Jacob, I need you!”

I didn’t watch Alice finish the job. I wheeled back to the operating table, where Bella was turning blue, her eyes wide and staring.

“CPR?” Edward growled at me, fast and demanding.

“Yes!”

I judged his face swiftly, looking for any sign that he was going to react like Rosalie. There was nothing but single-minded ferocity.

“Get her breathing! I’ve got to get him out before—”

Another shattering crack inside her body, the loudest yet, so loud that we both froze in shock waiting for her answering shriek. Nothing. Her legs, which had been curled up in agony, now went limp, sprawling out in an unnatural way.

“Her spine,” he choked in horror.

“Get it out of her!” I snarled, flinging the scalpel at him. “She won’t feel anything now!”

And then I bent over her head. Her mouth looked clear, so I pressed mine to hers and blew a lungful of air into it. I felt her twitching body expand, so there was nothing blocking her throat.

Her lips tasted like blood.

I could hear her heart, thumping unevenly. Keep it going, I thought fiercely at her, blowing another gust of air into her body. You promised. Keep your heart beating.

I heard the soft, wet sound of the scalpel across her stomach. More blood dripping to the floor.

The next sound jolted through me, unexpected, terrifying. Like metal being shredded apart. The sound brought back the fight in the clearing so many months ago, the tearing sound of the newborns being ripped apart. I glanced over to see Edward’s face pressed against the bulge. Vampire teeth—a surefire way to cut through vampire skin.

I shuddered as I blew more air into Bella.

She coughed back at me, her eyes blinking, rolling blindly.

“You stay with me now, Bella!” I yelled at her. “Do you hear me? Stay! You’re not leaving me. Keep your heart beating!”

Her eyes wheeled, looking for me, or him, but seeing nothing.

I stared into them anyway, keeping my gaze locked there.

And then her body was suddenly still under my hands, though her breathing picked up roughly and her heart continued to thud. I realized the stillness meant that it was over. The internal beating was over. It must be out of her.

It was.

Edward whispered, “Renesmee.”

So Bella’d been wrong. It wasn’t the boy she’d imagined. No big surprise there. What hadn’t she been wrong about?

I didn’t look away from her red-spotted eyes, but I felt her hands lift weakly.

“Let me…,” she croaked in a broken whisper. “Give her to me.”

I guess I should have known that he would always give her what she wanted, no matter how stupid her request might be. But I didn’t dream he would listen to her now. So I didn’t think to stop him.

Something warm touched my arm. That right there should have caught my attention. Nothing felt warm to me.

But I couldn’t look away from Bella’s face. She blinked and then stared, finally seeing something. She moaned out a strange, weak croon.

“Renes… mee. So… beautiful.”

And then she gasped—gasped in pain.

By the time I looked, it was too late. Edward had snatched the warm, bloody thing out of her limp arms. My eyes flickered across her skin. It was red with blood—the blood that had flowed from her mouth, the blood smeared all over the creature, and fresh blood welling out of a tiny double-crescent bite mark just over her left breast.

“No, Renesmee,” Edward murmured, like he was teaching the monster manners.

I didn’t look at him or it. I watched only Bella as her eyes rolled back into her head.

With a last dull ga-lump, her heart faltered and went silent.

She missed maybe half of one beat, and then my hands were on her chest, doing compressions. I counted in my head, trying to keep the rhythm steady. One. Two. Three. Four.

Breaking away for a second, I blew another lungful of air into her.

I couldn’t see anymore. My eyes were wet and blurry. But I was hyperaware of the sounds in the room. The unwilling glug-glug of her heart under my demanding hands, the pounding of my own heart, and another—a fluttering beat that was too fast, too light. I couldn’t place it.

I forced more air down Bella’s throat.

“What are you waiting for?” I choked out breathlessly, pumping her heart again. One. Two. Three. Four.

“Take the baby,” Edward said urgently.

“Throw it out the window.” One. Two. Three. Four.

“Give her to me,” a low voice chimed from the doorway.

Edward and I snarled at the same time.

One. Two. Three. Four.

“I’ve got it under control,” Rosalie promised. “Give me the baby, Edward. I’ll take care of her until Bella . . .”

I breathed for Bella again while the exchange took place. The fluttering thumpa-thumpa- thumpa faded away with distance.

“Move your hands, Jacob.”

I looked up from Bella’s white eyes, still pumping her heart for her. Edward had a syringe in his hand—all silver, like it was made from steel.

“What’s that?”

His stone hand knocked mine out of the way. There was a tiny crunch as his blow broke my little finger. In the same second, he shoved the needle straight into her heart.

“My venom,” he answered as he pushed the plunger down.

I heard the jolt in her heart, like he’d shocked her with paddles.

“Keep it moving,” he ordered. His voice was ice, was dead. Fierce and unthinking. Like he was a machine.

I ignored the healing ache in my finger and started pumping her heart again. It was harder, as if her blood was congealing there—thicker and slower. While I pushed the now-viscous blood through her arteries, I watched what he was doing.

It was like he was kissing her, brushing his lips at her throat, at her wrists, into the crease at the inside of