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A L E X A N D R I A
I sit up, swallowing the saliva that felt like needles going down my throat. My teary eyes glancing around the room. I see everyone, minus Charlie.
"Where's Dad?" I wince at the sound of my voice, sounding so small. My eyes pin Isabella's, her figure leaning in towards the foot of the bed.
"He's at work." She tries to give me a smile, "How do you feel?"
"Like shit." I try to smile back, hoping it looked genuine.
Hearing a soft laugh, I turn sideways. "I'm so glad you're back." Leah says, her brother pushing Paul away to take his place. "Holy shit! You're back, we have so much to talk about." Seth glances at Paul, looking away upon the taller man's glare.
I laugh.
"She seems fine." Emmett says, earning a shove from Rosalie. "What? She doesn't look like she wants to kill us."
"Emmett!" Edward warns.
"It's true." Jasper looks at me. "I don't sense any kind of negative emotion."
"I'm sorry." I turn to Carlisle and Esme. "I didn't mean to cause any trouble."
I feel the compassion in his eyes as he walks toward me. "It's over, don't worry about that."
"What about the Volturi, won't they want revenge?" I ask looking around the room to see their expressions of affection and optimism.
He shakes his head. "Aro let us go. He told Charlie they wouldn't go after him or us."
I nod. Pulling the blanket off, I go to stand. Paul rushing to my side to steady me. "I'm okay." I smile at him.
I grab his hand as I stand. "Carlisle." I walk toward him. "What happened back then?" I motion to our intertwined hands. "How could that happen?"
He glances down at our hands. "I've read about this, but never really believed it could happen." He continued, "Your bond, your powers all mixed together and it destined the encounter."
I glance at Paul. "The imprint?"
"The imprint had been suppressed long enough, with what happened, it had been neglected from both sides. In actuality, this was bound to happen if you look at it from that perspective."
"Imprint?" Bella asked, looking at our hands.
"Yea, I imprinted on her when we met." He looked sideways, recalling the slap from Bella, before meeting my sister's eyes, "It's one of the reasons why I flipped out, she's a lot younger. It felt wrong."
