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DEATH WASN'T PEACEFUL LIKE HER books had made seem. Instead, it hurt a lot and was relatively uncomfortable. There wasn't any white light, no warm welcoming ambiance, no visions of dead relatives calling out to her, and no big breaded man meeting her big pearly white gates. Instead, it was dark, it was quiet... so unbelievably quiet and unfamiliar.
"Not yet, Bailey." an unfamiliar voice whispered. "Not yet."
"Do I know you?" Bailey asked the voice, seemingly floating in this endless void of nothingness.
"You will..."
Bailey opened her eyes to bright light. She was in an unfamiliar room, a white room. The wall beside her was covered in long vertical blinds; over her head, the glaring lights blinded her. She was propped up on a hard, uneven bed—a bed with rails. The pillows were flat and lumpy. There was a continuous beeping sound somewhere close by.
She opened and closed her dry mouth trying to moisturize it with some saliva as she spoke. "'The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.' Albert Einstein."
"Bailey?" it was Bella. She was sitting beside Bailey's bedside. Her eyes were puffy and red from consistent crying. "Bailey!" she threw her arms around her sister and the crying began again.
Bailey stiffened up at the sudden physical contact. Her eyes were wide as she blinked, allowing Bella her few seconds before wiggling away highly uncomfortable.
"I thought you would never wake up again. It was too close... too close..." she sniffled.
"We were almost too late," this time Edward had spoken. Bailey wasn't surprised to see him. Wherever Bella was, he was sure to follow. "We almost didn't get to you one time."
"I calculated your arrival time using the speed which I saw during the baseball game and the distance of the airport to the dance studio. It's was all based on rough estimation but I was right in the end; I'm always right." Bailey nodded, proud of her accomplishments.
"You shouldn't be happy about this!" Bella scolded. Her sadness turned to anger very quickly. "You were reckless! You could have died!"
"That was a possibility yes. But it's like you said, we couldn't be guarded forever. I weighed the alternatives and chose the best course of action. You make it seem as though deciding to die was an easy task; it involved hours of self-reflection. I almost didn't do it." Bailey admitted. "Anyway, I was only mirroring your own actions. At least I had a carefully planned out strategy. You, Bella, went in there blindly without any sort of preparation!"
"I—"
"He had you all tricked, just like I thought he would. You were all concerned that he was coming after Bella and I, concerned for the humans... idiots. Edward, you said it yourself that he thought of this all as a game, and yet none of you even thought to play along? To understand your opponent? We were never the targets. He admitted that much. He wanted thrill, he wanted excitement, he wanted a challenge—he wanted Edward's fury. I just played his game better than him."
