The Shadow and The Seer (Jasper x Alice fanfic)

19. The Reckoning

   Hi again!
First post of the year, I think??? Kind of got stuck for a second on writing, but got through it!
Thanks for reading!
-rednight73
Warning: This might be gruesome, but I don't really think so? 🤔

Chapter song: The Box by Roddy Ricch
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Bella couldn't so much as twitch a finger as they laid her in the cold, padded box. It seemed like an eternity since she'd woken in a viciously strange agony that'd chased her heartbeat away. Ever since the dark angel had attacked her, she'd merely been sleeping and waiting to follow the death's siren call to the other side. Awareness of outside forces had disappeared.

But once the fire in her bones began, sensation from the tips of her toes to the roots of her hair returned. Her hearing caught every whisper of the nurses just outside her door.

She'd heard Jasper tell her not to scream right after her heart stopped working. Bella had very much wanted to reply that his order was impossible to disobey since movement was no longer an option. But the visit did tell her through the tremors of knives through her body that there would be an end to it all, that she hadn't died all the way.

Being a vampire already sucked.

Yet even as Bella Swan was placed into her coffin, the worst thing yet to happen was still her father's last words to her. His grief and love had shrouded and destroyed and made the dark angel's deed all that more horrendous.

   Time ticked forever and she dreaded what the morticians would do to her. The ghosts had always bitched and moaned about being forced out of their shells and out into the open air by the chemicals, but Bella feared that she'd be stuck since she could feel her new fangs with her tongue.

Wait... Bella realized with a thrill that she could actually move her tongue. Somewhat of a twitch from her fingers still seemed impossible though.

   "Hey Bells." A hard slap in the wood startled her. It was a big, boisterous voice and filled of such laissez faire of her situation that it nearly drove her into a fucking blood rage. "We are getting out of here." Her wooden cage was tilted to the side and she rolled stiffly where her nose wacked the unforgiving surface.

I'm literally a fucking stiff. How charming. Meanwhile the pain had merely dulled to a low roar. A finger finally twitched as she kept being jostled. Better.

"I know everything kinda sucks right now, sweetheart. But you'll feel better soon, I promise." Esme's honey-sweet voice halted any of Vegetable Bella's ill-will.

Her right hand had full movement. She scratched the wood hard. It cracked and splintered and gave way until sweet cool air hit her face in merciful relief. Her throat began a terrible burn.

"Let us get you to one of my summer houses, baby, before we let you out. I have something that'll make you feel better."

   Bella had full control of her upper torso nearly two hours later and it seemed as though the screams that had been suppressed were making up for lost time. They spilled out of her throat into hysterical sobs. Her eyes twitched and began to severely itch from tears that would never again fall. She was opening her mouth for another scream and oblivious to all when the lid to her box finally opened.

   "Crikey! We have ourselves a real beauty here." Emmett tried a shitty Steve Irwin impression as she fell onto a concrete floor. "Weighing approximately 120-"

   CRACK! "Bella, there is food here when you're ready. We are right here if you need anything, okay, sweetie?" Esme somehow managed to be heard over Bella's enraged shriek and Emmett's cursing. But the shriek suddenly was cut short when a scent wafted and permeated throughout the small garage.