Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight. All characters are property of Stephenie Meyer. The only thing that I own is the plot. Excuse me for my suckish attempt at making a disclaimer...
Chapter 3: Pain
You know that old saying, 'When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade?' Well, I don't. I throw them back and tell them to kiss my ass and make your own goddamn lemonade.
Sometimes, I'll try something different and actually accept the lemons—but I end up making grape juice instead. Then I'm left to stare at the mess I made, pondering on how the hell I ended up doing that.
This situation wasn't any different. I was given an opportunity that I had a few ways to go at, and I had made the choice without thinking. In my haste, I had been given the lemons, but I had thrown them out and somehow made apple juice instead. And right now, I didn't even seem to care if I made drugs with it.
I didn't know this girl. I wanted to know what she had to do with me and what connection she had with that guy out there—but I knew that I wouldn't be getting my answer within the next ten minutes. Hell, I didn't even know if I'd ever get my answer. I'd either never see this girl again, or end up dead. I hoped it wasn't the latter.
We turned the corner of the alley that I had been stuck in for the past week, not stopping until we finally reached the front of my truck. She signaled me to sit down, and I complied—I didn't want to make the wrong move. She looked down, breathing rather heavy—her shoulders moved up and down with each deep, raspy breath that she took. I wasn't much different.
I closed my eyes shut, squeezing them out of the pain that now was shooting down my neck and into my collarbone. I could still see the faint light from the street light across the street, and even though my eyes were closed, the light was bothering my eyes. I felt a headache threatening to form in my skull.
She looked up again, her breathing finally starting to regulate. She looked away from me to the left, and then finally behind her shoulder, looking at the street behind us for a few moments. I adjusted my legs so that they weren't at an odd angle—I wanted to be as comfortable as possible. I didn't know what this girl wanted.
"What's…what's your name?" she asked, still sounding out of breath.
After hesitating, I thought what the hell, and then spoke up. "Bella," I said, realizing that my voice was hoarse. I cleared it and said my name again. A nod was her response. She checked behind her shoulder again.
My adrenaline was still racing in my veins, but the pain in my neck was too much to bear. I could feel each beat of my heart in my neck. My pulse wouldn't seem to slow down, no matter how many times I willed it to.
She looked back at me, and then looked me up and down—probably to see if I was all right. "Shit," she muttered, pulling off her very expensive-looking white scarf and balling it up. She started to push it toward my neck, and realization crashed over me just then that I was bleeding because someone almost slit my throat. Shock? Probably. At any rate, that looked like a really nice scarf and I didn't want to ruin it with my blood being all over it. I already caused this girl enough trouble; I didn't need to ruin her clothing.
"N-no," I stuttered, cringing away from her hand.
"Shh," she hushed me, putting one hand on my shoulder gently like we've been friends for the longest time.
That didn't help my situation.
I tried cringing away from her grasp, but she had me pinned against the front of my truck. I mentally swore and stiffened as she wiped from my collarbone and up slowly. I cringed a little because, as gentle as she was, it still stung. Razor cuts hurt like hell, and this wasn't any different. She gently wiped across my neck, all the time that I tried getting away from her. She huffed in frustration and kneeled closer to me, stopping her clean-up attempt.
"Look, I may have a gun, but I'm not going to hurt you," she said, looking at me straight in the face—or, at least I thought she was; it was too dark out to tell. "Believe me, that's the last thing I'd do."
How could I be so sure of that?
I leaned my head back and let her continue, but I had to laugh at her guess. I really wasn't that afraid of her—just a little wary. She seemed like the type of person that you don't piss off, or else you were in deep shit—definitely not the person to mess with. I already had enough injuries on me and I knew I would be too tired to fight back—but, then again, I really didn't think that she was going to hurt me. My earlier fears of both of them trying to hunt me down passed. Nothing took its place besides that small amount of wariness I couldn't seem to shake off. I knew in the back of my head that the man probably was the one after me, but for some reason I didn't worry about that right now. I wanted to find out why. Or at least who he was.
Forcing myself to recover from my slight shock, I found my voice and spoke.
"I don't see why you'd waste a nice scarf on me," I said truthfully. Her hand froze in mid-stroke, slowly falling onto my lap. She stayed silent for a moment, looking at me. I don't know why, but I was waiting for her to yell at me to shut up or leave or something. Maybe shoot me if she had the chance. I should just let her do what she wants with me so she could leave. I bet she had a life to tend to. Aren't we the lucky ones? I thought.
To my ultimate surprise, she started laughing.
"I had a feeling you would be different from the rest," she said.
I felt my forehead crease in confusion.
"'The rest?'" I repeated, saying it like a question. Who was 'the rest?' I had a close idea, but I could be wrong. I hoped I was wrong.
I killed her laughter, replacing it with a sigh. She hung her head and seemed to forget about the scarf. With whatever light behind her, I saw the silhouette of her hair, and, more importantly, the color. She was a natural blonde—but I had a feeling that no good blonde joke could apply to her in any way possible. Sure, she had a really good fashion sense, but she definitely was anything but stupid. Besides, there are a lot of rules for dumb blondes—and I'm sure one of them was 'never give a blonde a gun. Enough said.'
"Bella…" she started to say, speaking my name hesitantly, like she didn't know if it was a good idea to know it or not. "Do you know who that man is?" She spoke her words slowly and seriously, trying to get the message across to me.
"No." Obviously. I couldn't even recognize his voice, let alone see his face.
Oh, God, his voice. It was so clear, so smooth. I still heard his voice echoing in the back of my head, making my skin crawl. Bite your lip and smile, he had said. I have many holes to fill—and I'll find them all. His words made me sick—and it didn't help that he spoke of death like he was talking about the weather.
She sighed again, through her nose this time. "I'm not going to say much, but I will say this: you're not the only one he's done this to."
I stiffened. So I was right—he was a psycho murderer. He killed for the thrill of it—or, at least, that's what it seemed like. The earlier thoughts I had of him being specifically after me were floating around again. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't shake the feeling off. But why me? Who wanted me hurt?
Scratch that. Killed was the word that made more sense here. Somebody wanted me dead, and I needed to know who.
This girl seemed to have the answers I needed—but she didn't seem like the persuasive type. How was I going to carry this out? I wasn't even a persuading type, let alone a persuasive type. I couldn't persuade a dog to walk, let alone get questions out of a girl that could hold answers to why a really messed up dude would want my blood spilled. And as much as that was a happy thought, I couldn't make the questions pouring into my head stop.
Well, this was going to work out quite smoothly for me.
I opened my mouth to speak, but she stopped me.
"I'm sure whatever you're going to ask me, I'm not going to be—"
"Thank you," I blurted out before thinking first.
She stayed silent for a few seconds and eventually dropped her scarf into my lap from…I guess surprise. Well, she wasn't the only one.
"…What?" She said quietly, as if to herself.
"Thank you…" I said, more slowly this time, "…for saving me. Even though I don't know you—and you don't know me"—I really hoped she didn't—"I'm still grateful."
She still stared at me, dumbfounded. Did she speak English? I was sure she did, because that's the language that she's been speaking. What was the big deal? I said thank you for not letting Sir Creeper slaughter me with a switchblade. It's not hard to respond to that, even thought those weren't my exact words.
"No," she said, "thank you."
Okay, that definitely wasn't in my dictionary for responses to 'thank you' in this situation.
"Huh?" I managed to choke out.
"Nobody has ever said thank you to me," she murmured softly. "So, thanks, I guess."
This confused me further. So the guy that tried to kill me has done this before, and apparently I'm not the only one she's spoken to. Why wouldn't they say thanks? She saved their life—at the moment, at least.
That thought sent a shiver down my spine.
A few more awkward moments passed, and it felt like, with each passing second, I was getting closer and closer to her. I felt like I knew her somehow. I didn't know exactly where; but the weird part was that her face was still consumed by darkness—so how could I know her without a trace of identification? Well, besides her hair. That doesn't narrow it down in the least bit anyhow. I didn't know a ton of people to begin with, so that was also a little creepy. I haven't heard her voice before, yet it sounded familiar. To say this was confusing would be an understatement. It was so bizarre it almost scared me—not that I wasn't already terrified. This didn't do much for my disposition, either, and I was still shaken up by the whole situation.
Bad mood or not, I couldn't bring myself to be rude to her—not after what she did for my pointless life. I looked down at the scarf in my lap, studying it carefully. It was white, but I wasn't a fashion expert so I had no clue what fabric it was. Lack of fashion knowledge or not, it looked expensive; was she rich? Or did she just have a lot of friends that were?
Pointless questions aren't going to get you anywhere, a voice in my head said. You're probably never going to see her again. Just take it slow.
What was I going to say?
She hesitated before speaking to me again. "Bella…" she said. "I know you don't want to listen to a stranger, but you have to trust me on this. Promise me right now that you'll do what I'm about to ask you to do."
She waited for me to respond, so I just nodded.
"You have to leave."
Leave?
"Wait…why?" I asked, stuttering slightly.
"You have to leave here. Go somewhere else." She sighed in frustration and gestured to the pile of metal behind me. "Can't that thing take you somewhere else?"
I shook my head. "Broke down a few days ago. Why do you want me to leave?"
"Do you want to get killed?"
I didn't say anything.
"Then you should leave. Go to a different side of Seattle. Go somewhere. Just…" She paused. "Be careful of where you're going at night."
I tilted my head back in frustration, but that irritated my cut. I winced and tilted my head forward again. The girl sighed.
She looked behind her, then at the sky.
"Who are you?" I finally asked. I readied myself for the answer.
She looked at me again, not answering for a few moments. "I'm Rose," she said, taking a breath and releasing it hotly through her nose. "Listen, Bella, whatever happens, you cannot tell anybody that you saw me tonight. Or him. You can't. You don't know….The things that would happen…" She trailed off, looking down.
"I wasn't going to tell anybody," I said honestly. I sat up a little. "Just…tell me what I should do…"
"Please," she said, remorse in her voice, "watch after yourself. Please." She handed me her scarf and stood up, offering me her hand. I took it halfheartedly and pulled myself up, using the truck to hold myself up. She stilled me with her hands and looked at me again.
"Who was that?" I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
She sighed again. "That, I can't tell you." She returned her hands to her sides. "Take care of yourself, Bella."
And with that, she turned around and jogged away.
In my daze, I couldn't think for at least fifteen more seconds. When I finally realized what had happened, I ran to the end of the alley despite my fatigue and looked around the street.
She wasn't anywhere to be seen.
"Fuck!" I screamed at nobody in particular. I made my way back to my truck, almost limping there. My leg hurt from running.
I leaned against my truck, my breath still raspy and heavy. I punched the hood of the truck, a small dent forming into it. After lying there for a few more moments, I wrapped the scarf around my neck gently, knowing that I needed to stop the bleeding—I was already lightheaded enough to begin with. I opened the door of my truck and collapsed against the seat—it suddenly felt comfortable as my head lay on the small backpack that I had used as a pillow just hours before. I fell asleep without warning, the pain in my neck slowly ebbing away with each second that I drifted into sleep, darkness, sweet oblivion.
I dreamt of the girl with the gun.
Holy shit. What was that, three months? o.o I'm sorry guys. I had writer's block and I just recently got back into the groove of writing again... I know my buddy Izobella Snow helped me out with that :)
THANK YOU to ALL who reviewed and sent me an alert. I've never received so many in my life and I thank you for it :) So this is what I'm going to do. The person who inspires me the most in a review (excluding you, Snow...I already send you the chapters LOL), I'll give you a preview of the next chapter. Does that sound fair for the wait? :D
-Khaos
