((A/N: As you may know, this is the sequel to Held Captive. I wrote a trailer to this story back on October 18th, so if you want to check it out, you can if you haven't already. It will give you an idea about what is going to happen. But if you don't like spoilers, then by all means, you may begin reading the story. If you haven't read Held Captive or We Have Each Other, and That's Enough, I recommend that you do so. (We Have Each Other, and That's Enough is the original story, and Held Captive is the spin-off.)
To those who had read the trailer before, I fixed the grammatical errors and added one or two modifications.
This story is Rated M for mentions of rape and abuse, language, substance abuse, attempted rape, minor character deaths, child psychopathy, unsolved crimes, all other types of mayhem, and eventually lemons. If any or all of that offends or bothers you, please do not read this.
Otherwise, feel free to enjoy the story, and no flames please! Oh, and I do NOT own Twilight.))
Bella's POV
I was laying down in the room that belonged to me and Carlisle, gazing unseeingly out of the window. The blanket was drawn up to my neck. My knees were hunched up to my stomach.
It was Thursday morning, January 25th. New Year's Day seemed as if it was a long time ago. A very long time ago. Quite a bit has happened in the last twenty-four days.
First, Mom and Phil had came to visit me on the second. JC had to go to Leah's house until they left in the evenings. Neither of them had any idea that vampires or vampire-hybrids existed and we had to keep it that way. JC felt sad that he was unable to meet his other grandmother and his step-grandfather. Not for a long time, anyhow. But he understood why he couldn't.
"Can you try to get a few updated pictures of them for me?" he had inquired.
"Sure, baby. I can do that," I had replied.
I was so happy to finally see Mom and Phil. The last time I did was seven months prior, before graduation.
When Charlie and Kate brought them to the mansion, Mom practically knocked me over after she ran to me. We cried as we embraced each other.
"I missed you," I groaned.
"Bella, I missed you," she returned. "I'm glad that you texted Carlisle when you did. Otherwise, I don't know if you would even be here."
"Me too, Mom."
Not wanting to ruin their visit, I decided not to tell either her or Phil about all of the things that I had been forced to endure when Edward and his friends had kidnapped me right away. It would only make things worse for all three of us.
It wasn't until the day before they would be going home when I told them almost everything. I did not mention anything about JC or the fact that Edward was a vampire. My heart broke to witness their devastation and terror. I wished that I never had to tell them that I had been physically, psychologically, verbally, emotionally, and sexually abused for over two months. They both cried stormily for a good while, and I did also just by watching them.
However, they were proud of me for trying to avenge myself on Edward's friends.
"I don't blame you for doing it. You had had enough," Phil stated.
They were grateful to Carlisle for being here for me too.
"Bella needs you more than ever now. I know that you will be successful in helping her to heal from all of this," Mom told him.
He nodded. "I will do my utmost to do everything that I can for Isabella. You have my word," he vowed.
Mom smiled a little. "I believe you. You have been there for her long before she was kidnapped. Plus, you helped us to find her, even though Bella actually helped us to find her."
We had to laugh at this.
Knowing that I had Carlisle made them feel a little better. Of course, they would always be haunted by what Edward and his friends did to me.
All too soon, it was time for Mom and Phil to return to Jacksonville. I nearly cried, but chose not to. I didn't want to make their departure sadder than it needed to be.
"Please recover as soon as you are able to, honey. You try not to show it, but I know that you are in so much pain. I don't want you to be in this type of pain anymore. It destroys me," Mom whispered as we hugged one another.
"I will do what I can."
Then Phil embraced me. "Take care of yourself, sweetie. Make sure that you talk to Carlisle if you need to."
"You don't have to tell me twice. I already plan on doing just that."
Once they had left, I missed them more than ever. I didn't know when they could visit again, except for when Mom was off for Spring Break.
I didn't have a lot of time to miss them after the following Monday. Carlisle and I had resumed JC's schooling, which kept us occupied. I was relieved for the distraction. It took my mind off of things.
We also had our therapy sessions once or twice a week. So did Tanya. Only she and I had our sessions in private. Everybody left the house, and we had a one-on-one talk. I sat with JC when he had his sessions. Unfortunately, he never felt like speaking, no matter how much Carlisle encouraged him to. He was too upset to talk.
"Bottling up your emotions will only hurt you more," he pointed out.
JC had given no response.
This caused me to worry about him more than ever. I tried to help him, to reach him in some way. However, he had built a wall around himself, one that I couldn't tear down.
My depression came back with a vengeance a few days ago. Since then, I haven't been able to get out of bed unless I had to cook. In fact, I was in so much distress that Carlisle had to take over his schooling.
I haven't eaten much lately; I had no appetite. My stomach was either hurting or I was nauseous. JC didn't appear to have much of one either. That was saying something because he was nearly always hungry.
This explained why I was laying down now. I had fixed breakfast earlier and decided to come back to my room.
As soon as I was under the blanket, I was hit by an onslaught of memories. I curled into a ball as if to protect myself, but they just kept coming. One was of Edward slapping me in the face, then dragging me into the room I had been forced to share with him. The next was of him brutally beating and raping me afterwards. I was sobbing as I pleaded for him to stop.
Tears ran down my cheek. My stomach felt queasier than it had at breakfast. I wished that I didn't have these flashbacks. I wished that I was thinking of something happier instead. Like all of the things that happened on Christmas or New Year's Eve. Or the time that JC had called Daniel a penishead. Now, that was hilarious. But remembering that made me think of Daniel...and those assholes Brad, Jerry, and Victor.
I knew that they were likely suffering in hell for the torment that they put me through. This did little to comfort me, however. All of them, especially Edward, still plagued me even though they had been dead for over a month.
For how long I stayed in my head, I wasn't certain. But the next thing I knew, I heard the door opening.
"Sweetheart?" Carlisle murmured.
I turned to him. I noticed that he was carrying a tray of food.
"Hi," I whispered.
JC appeared behind him. "Hi Mama."
"Hey, baby."
I sat up as he came over to embrace me. Then he moved away to tug my hair gently. "Carlisle told me that you still aren't feeling too good. We decided to bring lunch to you."
A grin spread across my face. "Thank you. It was sweet of you both to do that for me. You didn't have to. I would have made lunch eventually."
Carlisle chuckled. "We know that, Isabella, but I chose to give you a break from cooking." He placed the tray on my lap. "I made Progresso's chicken noodle soup for you. I noticed that you haven't been able to eat heavier foods lately."
"Thank you," I repeated.
Carlisle's POV
As I watched Isabella eat her soup, I gazed at her closely. She was thinner and paler than she had been over the last three days. Her face was drawn and there were shadows under her eyes. This was not unexpected; she had trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep. She had begun to have nightmares a couple of days ago..terrible nightmares. So terrible, in fact, that I did not like to mention anything that happened in them. It broke my heart and caused me to grow furious at the same time.
She was not the only one. JC was also having bad dreams, but his had been plaguing him for weeks. He never had them on the same nights that Isabella did as of yet. We encouraged him to tell us about what happened in his nightmares, but he kept refusing to.
I found my comforting either Isabella or JC every night. Isabella would join me if I had to wake up JC if he was in the middle of a bad dream. He would cling to her as he grasped one of my hands. He often wept, but did not at other times. But even if he didn't, JC still preferred for Isabella to hold him. They had a very special bond, those two.
"He always loved me more than Edward since he was born. This was before he had even learned of the abuse," Isabella explained once. "Things may change now because he likes and loves you more than he loved Edward. He told me so."
"Well, I'm happy to know this," I remarked with a laugh. I did feel quite pleased to know that our son loved the both of us equally.
Isabella's therapy sessions were coming along. I have had five with her already. In the first, second, and fifth ones, she talked about what was bothering her. She mostly cried during the third and fourth sessions. All she wanted was for me to hold and love her. I was glad to be there for her however she needed me.
JC was in his own rut too. He appeared to feel less interested in his schooling. Well, maybe not, but he was distracted on some days more than others.
When he wasn't spending time with me or Isabella, the rest of our family, or taking naps, he was pretty much alone. It did not concern me until he began to isolate himself more than usual. JC had also grown quieter, and that was saying something.
"...Not that he never had his quiet moments, you understand. He had them often, but when he didn't, he was nearly always talking and laughing," Isabella told me once.
"He's in a lotta pain. Plus, he has all o' this fear, misery, rage and hatred inside of him. It's no wonder that he doesn't wanna talk," Jasper said to us about three weeks ago.
Because of this, Isabella and I agreed to make him do certain household chores to keep him occupied. We included him in more activities as well. It seemed to take his mind off of things for a bit.
Still, this did not help JC to open up for his therapy sessions. He didn't even allow himself to cry. He only shrugged if I asked him questions, or glared at his boots.
Isabella and JC were not the only ones who were suffering. Tanya was having a very complicated time in dealing with her own troubles. Out of the three of them, it was hard to figure out who was more depressed.
Tanya visited us about once or twice a week because of her own therapy sessions. Now that she and the rest of our Denali cousins had moved to Hoquiam, they were not around as often as they used to be.
Now that my family were permitted to be on Quileute lands, they were allowed to "live" there. My old residence had been built there, but my children and I had to leave it after Jacob Black's great-grandfather Ephraim formed the old treaty with us. It did not take long for my cousins to renovate the old mansion. After that, they bought new furniture and other wants and necessities. They were still going to keep their mansion in Alaska, just in case.
Of course, this meant that unless Tanya called me to ask for a session, I did not see her very often at all. Eleazar, Carmen, Irina, and Kate complained that she would lock herself in her room for hours or days at a time. They practically had to unscrew her door's hinges and beg her to speak to me to make her leave it.
Tanya was not only full of sorrow. She was very, very angry and guilt-ridden. She believed that she was the cause of Isabella and JC's pain and misery.
"I ought to suffer worse than Bella is if I'm not already. I deserve to. What happened to the both of us is my fault in the first place. If I had never agreed to have sex with Edward...if I had managed to convince him not to bring Bella to Scotland...none of this would ever have happened. Besides, this is likely my punishment for having sex with countless men over the years..." she had whispered in her first therapy session.
"No, Tanya," I had interrupted her in a quiet, but firm voice. "You know that none of that is true. You know that you didn't deserve to have your limbs torn off by Edward, or to be gang-raped by him and his friends either."
Everybody in our family was horribly worried about her, Isabella, and JC. Charlie was beside himself over everything that had happened to his poor daughter.
"If only I were at home that night! Bella would never have been kidnapped, and she wouldn't be going through this! If I knew the words that would turn this all around, I'd say them," Charlie sobbed the other day. Kate was rubbing his back.
I exhaled deeply, relieved that Isabella was upstairs. It would have made her feel worse to see him in this condition. "Yes, that is likely true, unless Edward had a plan to do something to you before taking her from us. As far as knowing the words that would change everything, we all wish that we knew them."
He did not say anything about this. He just melted into Kate's arms.
JC was troubled over how depressed his mother had become. If he was not doing his chores or schoolwork, he would take to peeking at her outside of our bedroom. He would watch her for more than an hour until I asked him to do something.
Alice, Jasper, Emmett and Rosalie were also highly upset about what Edward and his friends had done to Isabella. They blamed themselves for not going to Seattle with her. Jacob did too; he wished that he had reconsidered deciding to not accompany her.
None of them agreed with me when I told them that this was not their fault. They did not know that Edward was planning to hurt her.
Leah also worried about Isabella, but her main concern was JC. She fretted over how much he was closing himself off, as well as his rage-filled, distant aloofness.
"I had no clue of how to make things less terrible for him. I hate seeing him like this," she groaned.
"Me too, sweetie. Just keep being there for him. It will help him to recover in the end," I stated.
JC knew that they were imprints by now. He understood what it entailed, and why their bond was strong.
"That explains why we became friends so quickly," he remarked.
Overall, things had gone downhill for us since the week after New Year's. None of us had any idea of how to fix or deal with the situation.
Anyway, back to the present.
Isabella managed to finish her soup. She smiled a little at me and JC.
"Thanks again. It was delicious...and easier for me to swallow," she added hoarsely.
I gave her a brief kiss. "You are very welcome."
JC embraced her tightly. "Do you want or need anything else, Mama?" he queried.
She shook her head. "No, honey. I'm fine. I will let either you or Carlisle know if I change my mind."
"Okay. I'll see you later then, I guess."
"That will be good. I'd like that."
JC's POV
I followed Carlisle out of his and Mama's room. At the door, I turned to see her laying back down.
"Do you think she will feel better tomorrow?" I asked him.
He sighed. "I don't know, son. I wish that I could give you a straight answer to your question," he responded. "Let's go...the dishes cannot wash themselves."
We headed downstairs to the kitchen. He put the tray on the counter and gave me the bowl and spoon that Mama used.
I thought of her as I cleaned them. She had been like this for four days, never coming out of the room unless she had to fix our meals. She didn't join Carlisle in giving me my schooling anymore either. I wished that everything would go back to the way it was before. I felt like I hardly ever saw her now. I really missed her.
Carlisle told Grandpa that Mama was suffering from a cute depression. I heard him say so when I was in my own bedroom yesterday. There was nothing cute about her depression to me. Not all all.
Mama had been nice and plump for as long as I could remember. Now she was becoming skinnier. She hasn't really been eating; a lot of foods made her stomach ache. Her face almost looked as pale as the moon did too.
I watched her as she was in her bedroom sometimes. I didn't let her know that I was; it would probably make her upset. Carlisle would find me there and ask me to do something else.
"She is going through a very difficult time right now. Please try not to bother her," he said on Tuesday.
"Fine. But I wasn't bothering her. She doesn't even know that I'm here," I muttered in irritation.
He narrowed his eyes at me. "Don't ever use that tone with me, Jacob Carlisle. Do you understand me?"
I felt surprised and nervous because he didn't call me by my full name that much. "Yes, sir. I apologize."
After that, I went downstairs to put on my coat and hat. Then I sat outside in the yard for a bit.
Maybe I was depressed too. It seemed like forever since I had been truly happy. Once New Year's Day had passed, everything changed.
For one thing, I had began to think of Edward more than ever. I kept remembering the times that I had seen or heard him beating up or...or raping Mama. I couldn't stop imagining his friends doing the same thing either.
I had horrible dreams about it almost every night. There were even nightmares in which Edward beat her until he...Forget it. I didn't want to think about it.
I still couldn't believe that they had kidnapped her, or that they hurt her repeatedly for two months. Why would anybody want to do that to Mama? Mama! She never deserved it; I knew this for a fact. Mama was kind to everyone, and she was very loving. She was caring, smart, and fun too.
Edward had no right to take her away from Carlisle just because he wished that she was his soul mate. I hated him for that! I hated him for letting his friends join him in torturing Mama too. They were nothing but cruel, selfish animals!
Why didn't he just leave her alone? Why did they have to choose to hurt her? I hoped that they were suffering in hell. I hoped that their punishments included the things that they had done to Mama. They deserved it for all eternity! I bet they wouldn't like the tables being turned on them!
Carlisle gave me therapy sessions once or twice a week. I tried to tell him these things during our time together, and about how upset it made me, but I couldn't. I would get a lump in my throat every time I did. Not because I was about to cry, but because I was angry. The lump feel like it was choking me, so I wasn't able to speak.
"JC, you know that you will have to start talking eventually. I would appreciate it if you did," he told me in my last session.
"Yes, sweetheart. Please tell us about what's on your mind," Mama added.
But I couldn't. I just sat there until they gave up.
I heard that Aunt Tanya wasn't doing so good either. I believed it, but since she had moved, I didn't see her or my other aunts and Uncle Eleazar that often.
Truthfully, none of us were happy anymore. My entire family was worried and miserable. Everyone seemed to be crying and whining and bickering over this and that.
Our friends were even concerned for us. Jacob was upset about not being with Mama when she had gone to Seattle before she had been kidnapped by Edward. Leah worried herself crazy over us. Her brother Seth and their mother, Miss Sue, were just as concerned. The rest of the wolf pack and Mr. Billy were too.
Speaking of Leah, she, Mama, and Jacob had finally explained what they meant by me being her imprint. They told me that I was her soul mate. But, since I was only a child, Leah would be more like my sister and best friend for now. She was always going to be my protector, and I would be hers.
This made everything clear. I understood why Leah and I had been close from the second that we met each other. I didn't have a problem with any of it. Leah was always nice to me. We had lots of fun together. We gave each other cards and simple presents. She did whatever she could to make things better for me. I did the same for her.
I hadn't been able to tell her about how I was feeling deep down inside yet, but I think that she knew it already. She would comfort me by holding me if I was in one of my quiet moods.
I wished that I could tell her how much it meant to me. I wished that I could tell Mama and Carlisle same thing when they comforted me after one of my nightmares. Perhaps I will one day.
Sighing tiredly, I came back to earth. I washed the tray that Mama had used before going to the dining room. Carlisle was waiting for me.
"You did an excellent job, son. Please sit down...we have to do your History and French lessons. After that, we will be done," he said.
"Okay. That sounds good," I mumbled.
He frowned in worry. "Is everything all right, JC?"
"Yeah."
"Are you sure?"
I nodded.
He stared at me for a long minute. "Very well, then. Let's begin with your History..."
(A/N: PLEASE REVIEW/LEAVE A COMMENT! I hope that you liked this first chapter. Things will pick up in the next chapter. Please stay tuned!)
