Honeybee

Chapter Nineteen~Impasse

Chapter Nineteen
Impasse
Elizabeth Cullen
Phoenix, Arizona. March, 2005.

It had been a terrifying situation.

After leaving the ballet studio, we had gone back to the hotel in an effort to cover our tracks. Alice managed to construct the perfect accident, of course. A loose carpet in the stairwell, combined with Bella's imperfect balance, resulting in a shattered second-story window and an injured Bella on the ground below. Carlisle and I were on the scene immediately, working to stabilize her while we waited for an ambulance. It was perfect, not a single flaw to cause any scrutiny.

Carlisle and I worked to get Bella admitted under our care the moment we reached the hospital. Thankfully, we always travel with our documentation, and there wasn't much fuss once they saw our credentials. However, since she is seventeen, they placed her under my care as a pediatrics case. I got an emergency room doctor to start her on blood transfusions and ordered x-rays while we waited for a room to open up.

Alice sat in-between Edward and I in the waiting room, Carlisle on my other side holding one of my hands sweetly while I filled out Bella's admittance forms. Alice relayed the video James had filmed to Edward and I mentally as we waited, and it was traumatic even coming secondhand through her memories. James' easy death at the hands of Emmett and Jasper wasn't fair. He deserved to suffer for all he had done.

My sweet Alice, it had broken my heart to learn of her human life. A couple, blessed with a healthy daughter with an extraordinary talent to see into the future, regarded such a gift as a curse from hell and sent her to an asylum for the rest of her life. Who knows what had happened to my baby there? Her lack of any substantial memories made me question when they had placed her under the asylums care. Was she a small child? Perhaps a young teenager?

I did not want to think of the most likely explanation. Electroshock therapy was very common in those days, I had seen the effects of it first hand, and so if she had received any amount of long sessions it could easily explain the amnesia. I was horrified to think of anyone harming her in such a way, and prayed that was never her fate.

James had claimed that Alice was protected by an old vampire in the asylum, and after James had caught her scent, her friend changed her in an effort to save her from James. Though, I couldn't understand how a vampire could 'befriend' someone and leave them to their own devices in such an awful place like an asylum in the 1920's.

I had finished Bella's papers by that point, and handed them off to Carlisle before putting my arms around Alice tightly. Knowing her, she would make all of this new information into something good, a positive out of a negative in her own special way.

"I'm okay, Mom, really." Alice assured me, though she clutched onto me just as tight. "You and Dad have given me so much. You have truly been amazing parents to me and have given me an equally amazing family. I'll be okay, I promise."

"I love you so much, Alice." I swore to her. "Your father and I are so proud of you."

"Your siblings equally so." Edward nodded, putting his arm behind her.

"Thank you." She smiled sweetly, kissing Edwards cheek and mine before excusing herself to call Charlie Swan.

"Dr. Cullen?" A nurse asked as she approached us.

"Yes?"

"We're ready for you in the X-ray lab. I'll show you the way whenever you're ready." She smiled politely as Carlisle returned.

"Will you go and get me some sets of scrubs? I'm sure she'll be here for a few days and I want to look professional." I asked Carlisle quickly.

"Of course, Honeybee." He nodded, kissing my head sweetly. "I'll go get us both some sets."