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Bella's sixteen now
"Bella, this is your fourth procedure this year, you're still so young," the doctor warned me, his eyes pitying. "I don't think your body can take much more of this."
I cocked my head to the side curiously, balanced on the edge of the exam table. "What's the worst that can happen?" I asked carefully, my voice monotone.
"Well, the damage done to your cervix already, if I invade again it might render you infertile for the rest of your life. At worst, you could suffer from infection, organ failure, and die somewhat painfully. Your body isn't equipped to deal with such a traumatic procedure so many times. It's beginning to take its toll," he sighed, shaking his head.
I could die? That was the worst he could come up with? I sort of hoped it would kill me. Maybe then all of this would end. There was nothing waiting for me in the afterlife either. I'd just been going on with the flow of whatever happened, existing just barely.
I was nearing sixteen and this was my fourth abortion this year alone. I knew the doctor was right. After every procedure, my chance of getting an infection and getting sick increased. My immune system was weakening. I was becoming anemic and it was getting harder and harder to eat and keep food down. The doctor brought that point up next.
"Your body is already beginning to shut down. You've been losing weight at an alarming rate and your body is showing signs of malnutrition. You're also beginning to present signs of severe anemia and your body is decreasing production of important antibodies and other fluids.
"If I don't have the abortion, I'll be killed anyways," I said calmly. "Please don't concern yourself with these details doctor and just do it," I gave him a cold smile. "I don't want my guardian getting angry with you over this. I'm sure you have your own problems to deal with, don't let a stranger interrupt that."
He seemed to hesitate a moment but rethought it in the face of the threat Aro presented to him. The Volturi's influence was international. To make an enemy of them was to turn the whole world against you. People just bowed their heads and did as they were told when the Volturi was involved.
"Alright then take off your clothes and get ready, I suppose you know the drill by now," he said awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck as if nervous.
"Don't worry doctor, everything will be fine I assure you," I breathed. "Just do what I tell you and no one will complain."
He nodded and left the room for my modesty. As if I had any. My fourth abortion this year and it was only June. This didn't count the numerous others I had the years before. My first reaching back to the age of eleven.
You could say I was intimate with the hospital staff too. Not just for the numerous abortions, but Caius had a cruel temper. I was often admitted for concussions, fractures, broken bones, head trauma, and stitches.
At sixteen I was a plethora of internal trauma like nobody else. I stripped out of my clothes and changed into the thin cover. The floor was cold on my feet but these days I was numb to pretty everything. It was an acquired talent after years of physical and sexual abuse. You either went numb or you went crazy.
Sometimes I wondered if I wasn't both.
When the doctor came back in I wrapped my arms around my stomach. "Do you think there's still time to do a menstrual extraction?" I asked carefully, concentrating on the developing life inside of me. I was a murderer. A serial killer even. How many unborn babies had I killed now? I couldn't even remember. I hadn't wanted to count them.
"I'm afraid you're a bit too far into term for it to work," the doctor claimed, rubbing his eyes. "We're going to have to use a D&C," he said. I shook my head.
"Couldn't we do a suction aspiration instead?" I asked. "You've said yourself there's already a lot of damage done to my cervix right?" I added softly. I felt nothing for whoever had impregnated me this time, but I loved every child my body harbored. It was amazing that my body could even create life when I myself was so dead inside.
I was angry about the special birth control I'd been put on that left me with a period only four times a year. It was harder to know if I was pregnant or not with it. Its effectiveness was lost on the fact that I rarely actually took them because I hated pills.
"I'd rather not have to put you under an anesthetic if I can help it after all of your present medical conditions Bella," he sighed.
"I don't care. At twelve weeks the fetus can cry and feel pain. I'll not have you hacking him or her to pieces with that knife," I replied. Usually I was more or less a zombie at home. I didn't care what happened to me. But whenever it came to abortion I had opinions again. It was never something I would condone, but death had to be better than letting be born around Aro and his family.
I would suffer alone.
I'd been doing it for years.
"If it's all the same to you, this is my fucked up body and I'll do whatever I want to it," I said narrowly, daring him to contradict him. He gave in after a few more moments of silence.
"Alright then, I'll go prepare the anesthetic, far be it from me, your doctor, to try to keep you alive," he drawled sarcastically.
I lay back on the bed and let myself drift off into the zen area of my mind I usually retreated to. Before I knew it, I was unconscious to the scent of strawberries. I hated that smell now, it made me wanted to wretch.
When I woke up, I was no more sore than I usually was. Still I felt empty inside somehow, hollowed out. Just another piece of my soul carved away. I cried for the loss of life while the doctor went to fetch me a bottle of water and I forced myself to sit up, curling up on myself.
"Now, do you remember the rules?" he asked, handing me the water bottle and a little paper cup of antibiotics.
I nodded silently, wiping my eyes. "Drink a lot, rest, no swimming, baths, exercise, heavy lifting, or sex for two weeks. Take all of my antibiotics and wear fitted bras until I'm sure I'm not lactating anymore. Trust me, I could get a license in this myself by now," I said.
"Alright, he's outside waiting for you," he said bitterly. "Here are the pills I want you to take. Come back in two weeks for your check up please," he said, passing me the bag. He looked apologetic, sad even as he let me go, but there was nothing he could do really. Nothing anybody could do.
I dressed myself again and headed back outside to the waiting room, facial expressions gone. Aro sat in the uncomfortable waiting chair like a king and flowed to a standing position with downright scary grace when he saw me leaving.
His silvery hair was pulled back with a clip and he was dressed smartly in a black suit with red tie and kerchief in the pocket- ever the businessman. "I trust everything went well Isabella?" he questioned, pulling me along with him outside.
"I'll need a new doctor soon, he's getting attached as well," I answered calmly.
This was why I preferred to think of him as just "the doctor." It let me put my own space between us. After enough visits, they got too worried to act with the proper discretion the Volturi demanded. Silencing one golden hearted doctor was cake for him and I didn't want any more of them being destroyed. This was my own burden.
"Ah, I'll file for the transfer after your check up then," Aro clucked, guiding me outside. "When we get home I want you on bed rest for the next two weeks. I called Heidi and she'll be home to act as your personal maid if you should need anything. The only time you should leave is for the bathroom or a shower," he instructed briefly.
"We've also stocked up on sorts of natural juices and water and plenty of fresh produce to eat. After our last consult with the doctor though, I expect you to improve your protein and calorie intake via any means necessary. It reflects upon me badly when my own daughter looks so malnourished," he shook his head, unlocking the doors to the black Rolls Royce gleaming in the parking lot.
"Thank you father, I apologize for the inconvenience," I said solemnly, staring out the window. "I'll have cake when I wake up then after we get home," I added as he sped toward the sprawling manor resting alone for miles.
I was helped all the way up the stairs and then left to change into pajamas and told to go straight to bed. I didn't mind. I had two weeks off. Killing the babies was painful, but was it so wrong of me to feel relieved afterward because no one could touch me for two weeks?
These days I took peace however I could get it.
While I was in the middle of pulling on the silky pajamas I kept on hand for spending days in bed, burly arms wrapped around my waist and lips climbed from my neck to my ear to speak. I shivered, repulsed by the touch and tried to twist away.
Instead I was thrown onto the bed with Felix's body hovering over mine.
I gazed at him coolly. "Doctors orders, no sex for two weeks, you know that Felix," I chided, voice flat. "Father will kill you if he finds you in here like this," I added. I was not above using anything at my disposal to be left alone anymore.
"Relax princessa, I'm not going to touch you," he whispered, his breath hot on my face as he leered down at me. "After all, that's what you're after right?" he asked with a sadistic grin.
I felt my blood run cold at his words.
The implication was there but I feigned ignorance. I was a practiced liar by now after all. I pretended an innocence I had lost so long ago. Innocent me did not know what he was talking about, could not fathom the venom laced in his speech. The young child that had been shattered to pieces didn't know how to deceive, how to be cutthroat.
My eyes widened, and my lips parted as my breath shortened. I gaped up at him stupidly. "What are you talking about Felix?" My eyes filed with crocodile tears. I was surprised they weren't black. "Do you think I enjoy killing an innocent life every time this happens?" I asked, my voice cracked and mangled.
"I don't know about enjoying it, but it certainly doesn't seem to be stopping you any now does it?" he hissed, a snake's tongue darting out, tasting for my lies and finding them sitting bittersweet in the air.
My tears dried to salt on my cheeks and I looked up at him as I would a particularly boring stone sitting in my path. My tongue traced my lips, wetting them to distract from my falsehoods as golden eyes narrowed in on the tiny pink muscle of flesh. His expression was hungry and he pressed heavily against me until I could I could feel the entire length of him slowly crushing the air from my body.
I sucked in an uncomfortable breath and spoke, my chest pressed up against his tightly as I tried to keep my lungs inflated.
"If I could stop it I would," I whispered. "You've felt me already, disintegrating in your very hands. Becoming a murderer so many times over that it's killing me inside. Literally." I glare up at him and watch my words land blow for blow and he eases up the pressure on my fragile frame and I suck in much needed air.
"I don't believe you," he spits, eyes dark. "The pill is nearly one hundred percent effective and yet it fails time after time to prevent your pregnancy." He was cutting closer to the truth and I wondered just how long these thoughts have been brewing in his mind.
Aro doted on me like a perverted father. He found nothing suspicious despite the years I'd been under his care. I'd been in Felix's sight only in recent years, and yet he's picked up on my game so soon. I draw up my mental walls and hood my eyes carefully, staring at him carefully. I analyze everything.
When had he become so smart? I expected Demetri before I did him. His brother was the one praised for intelligence and strategy. We played chess sometimes and I gambled my body on a single game.
Had I been too consumed with watching the immediate threat that I did not see the shadow rising behind me? Felix was a physical man; a beast in human form. In a past life he was most likely a barbarian- pillaging and raping as he pleased. He destroyed because he could, because it was fun.
"When I first saw you, I thought maybe you were just another broken doll for my uncle to play with," he whispered, his body moving over mine, giving in to the temptation. "Empty little glass eyes, porcelain bruised skin, always doing as you were told," he listed, aggression licking over his body as lust overpowered rational thought.
Every breath I took brushed my breasts with his chest. Every adjustment of my leg stroked along his groin for but a second. Whenever my chapped lips went dry and my tongue darted out to nourish them, his eyes followed and his lips parted, his breath hot and heavy. An acrid taste of desert air.
Was it rape if I brought it on myself? Was it wrong for me to push him into temptation when he came too close to my secrets? I didn't want this; didn't want him, but I sang to him anyways out of self preservation. I picked the lesser of the two evils. Or perhaps I jut picked the more familiar evil. Better the devil you know than the one you don't want to face right?
"But maybe not everything as you were told," he rushed, his body grinding down against mine, shaking as he held his body back. How strong was his mind? How tenuous the grasp? I shifted as if uncomfortable and the entirety of my scantily clad silk body brushed against his over sensitized one.
He buckled when I meant to break him.
"It's suspicious you know, how many times you become pregnant and need an abortion," he panted, trying to string his words carefully into coherent sentences as I pressed at the strands of his will. "Then none of us can touch you for two weeks every time. I don't think you meant to- at first." His concentration broke at the end as he stumbled, too late to notice the soft feel of my knee massaging against his leg. A hypnotic, ghost of a motion. He didn't notice until the hunger inside him was thrashing with need.
"None of this is my fault," I spoke dreamily, my words soft and husky. He was paying attention not to the words, but the way my lips moved. Dark tendrils of shadows curled up slowly on my heart. Where did one draw the line between rape and seduction? I was slowly chipping away at his resolve, at his ideas.
Like a whore I used my body to get what I wanted. Because I was receiving something in return, did that mean I was consenting? The idea churned venomously in my gut, charring my insides black with the notion. I lay my body still and halted my efforts. I would not lose myself over this too smart man I had underestimated.
"Let it go Felix," I sighed tiredly. Suddenly I felt too drained, my body drawn and numbly sore.
"That doll's head of your still has a few nasty ideas doesn't it bitch?" he whispered. "I know what you're up to little Isabella. You don't care how many lives you take, or even if it kills you right?" he asked, his voice flat so that it sounded more like a statement.
He knew.
I couldn't answer before the door burst open and Aro was upon us. Felix's eyes were wide with fear as the old man glared down at him hatefully. No words needed to be exchanged. I sat up in the bed and finished dressing myself, looking idly over Aro's shoulder at Felix's stricken face. It was his own fault, whatever punishment was to be doled out. He was too smart for his own good. But at least now I knew. I was going to have to be more careful for a while.
They left without a word and I tucked myself into bed after finishing a second water bottle. He had touched too close to the matter at hand. Yes I hated killing the children, the tiny unborn lives growing inside of me, but I was dead. I was not meant to create and harbor life within my body. I was willing to exchange the damned little life that wouldn't survive anyways, for two weeks of freedom.
Did that make me evil too?
Fact of life.
The survival instinct was always stronger than the maternal instinct.
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