Chapter Three
When Izabella opened her eyes, all she could see was white.
It was peaceful and almost like heaven, but the blinking and beeping machines ruined the make believe.
Where was she?
Had they taken her to experiment on her?
The last thing she remembered was standing amidst the fire. And maybe being gently cradled against someone's chest? She wasn't sure about the last part. Maybe she'd dreamt about everything and she was still sleeping in her tiny crawling space.
"Oh, you are awake!"
She tried to sit up in haste and in the process ripped many long plastic things that were connected to her arm.
"Hey, easy. Easy."
She raised her head slowly to look at the man who'd elicited such scared reaction from her.
And lowered her eyes again.
She knew she was definitely dreaming now. She had never seen such beauty in a man. When she'd been captured, they'd passed her along like a half burnt cigarette that everyone took a drag from and snuffed again. But never in all days of her captivity had she imagined that she would witness the human incarnation of 'Malek' himself.
The first thing that had hit her in her brief almost inspection was the color of his eyes-the dark green color reminded her of the leaves of the trees of her secret meadow. His hair was copper with thousand shades of red and gold-the color of the apex of the temple when the sun first rose in the east.
She closed her eyes, her fists tightening in the sheets. He was coming closer. Even though his footsteps made no sound, she knew.
Was she going to wake up now?
And why was 'Malek' speaking in a language she couldn't understand?
She opened her eyes a tiny bit at the corner only to see him kneeling at the bedside, gently untangling the tubes.
She relaxed slowly. Nothing was going to happen to her if this was a dream.
Bad things only happened when she was awake.
And just like that, she felt his fingers on her wrist.
She screamed.
It had been so long since she'd dared to oppose someone's touch on her skin. In all her days as the militant slave, she had felt like the chattel and nothing else.
They'd taken everything from her, even her voice.
The sound of her own terrified scream was comforting in a way.
"Hey, hey. Calm down," the man said.
Many people had come running, and some of them had syringes. She hated needles. She'd gone to the medical clinic once when she'd been severely ill, and they'd given her three injections. Father had grumbled about the money the whole way.
She tried to crawl back in her bed, but it was a narrow bed and sadly there was no space left to crawl back.
Malek raised his hands. "It's okay. See, I'm not touching you."
Even though she couldn't understand what he said, she somehow had this weird sense that he was trying to calm her down.
"I'm Edward," he said.
Edward? Why did the name sound so familiar?
"I carried you out from the wreck." His hands made numerous movements in what looked like an attempt to explain something to her.
"I don't think she understands you, Dr. Cullen." It was one of the men who stood at some distance from her bed. "Let me try."
"Dr. Cullen-" he pointed towards Malek, "-Edward, he saved you. He was the one who found you in the debris and carried you out," he explained in his barely understandable Kurdish.
"Edward?" her pronunciation elongated the middle part of his name, so it came out like "Edw-aa-ard".
"See. She knows me." He turned towards the onlookers and dismissed them with a wave of his hand, but not without giving a knowing glance to a woman standing in the back.
He didn't move from his place until everyone was gone.
"We could have escaped the drama had I introduced myself in the beginning. See, sometimes I'm such an idiot." He smiled, and Izabella felt as if the air was deserting her body slowly. His skin was pale and luminous, and if she concentrated enough, she was sure she could see the dark blue veins beneath.
"Now, I'm going to hook you up on saline again," he said pointing towards an inverted bag of water hooked up on a pole. "Try not to scare me, will you?"
He came slowly towards her, every step a carefully calculated movement that made her feel like a damaged animal.
His motion was precise and unhurried, and he had the saline flowing in her in a blink of an eye. She hadn't even noticed the sting when needle had pierced her skin again. She was awed by his smile and the kindness that was the present in his eyes.
Halo- she could see a halo around his head.
"So, won't you tell me your name?" he asked as he sat on the side of her bed.
She looked at him in confusion and maybe after a moment he remembered that she didn't understand his language.
"Edward." He pointed towards himself and then towards her.
Was he asking her name? But hadn't father said that she wasn't supposed to tell her name to anyone?
She wanted to tell him, but father would be so angry.
But, father was…dead, wasn't he?
"Izabella," she muttered monotonously. After all, what was there in her name? She'd already lost everything.
"Bella. Perfect. I'm gonna call you Bella." He frowned for a moment. "You don't have a problem with Bella, do you?"
Bella…
She shook her head.
Iza was dead. No one was ever going to call her Iza again…