Chapter 4: The Dream

Bella's POV

My heart broke for my daughter. Broke into a million pieces. She needed help. She was in pain. I don't know to what extent she is hurting but I know that it is a lot. It also hurts to know that if she had just been with us, her real family this whole time she would not be hurting so much. No, she wouldn't be hurting at all. She would have been shown and given the care and love that she deserved.

It was all my fault. All my fault. I could have prevented this. If I had put my daughter before my own desires that day she would not have disappeared without a trace. Edward and I would have raised her. She would have been happy.

"This is all my fault!" Jacob slammed his fist down as soon as we had gotten home after taking Nessie home. He nearly shattered Esme's brand new table. "If I had just kept a better eye on her that day then none of this would have happened!" Jasper had to send him a wave of calm to help him relax. It only seemed to work fractionally.

"Jacob it is not your fault!" I shouted toward him. "It's my fault"

"Bella it is not your fault either" Edward said. "You could not have known what was going to happen that day. None of us could have known that. Not even Alice saw it coming"

"But if she were with me, with us, none of this would have happened" I said with sadness coloring my voice.

"Bella it does no good to blame yourself. Jacob you should not blame yourself either" Edward said. "We don't know what happened. But for now, I think it is more important that we focus on the present. What we need to right now is help Nessie. We need to earn her trust. We need her to know that she can count us for anything. She has never had a stable, loving family or a place to call home"

"So what should we do?" I asked, my heart breaking once more just thinking of my little girl. Well she is not so little anymore, but I will always see her as my little girl.

"What I suggest we do is adopt her" Carlisle said. "What is evident here is that she is not doing well in the foster care system. Her foster family does not seem to care about her wellbeing. And from what I'm understanding none of her other foster families have really cared about her either. She feels alone and abandoned. So the first thing we should do is get her out of that environment. I also suggest that she goes to therapy. I'm afraid that therapy might be the best option for her right now. It will help her overcome her issues as well as her drug addiction"

"I think he is right" Esme said. "I think that adopting her is the best thing for her right now as well as getting her into therapy"

"I agree" Rosalie said. "I want my niece back and I want to help her"

"I also agree" Alice said.

From there on the whole family agreed that adopting her was the best thing that we could do for her right now. As well as getting her into therapy.

"I also think that for now it's a good idea to keep an eye on her while she is at home. Make sure that she does not do anything else reckless or dangerous. We might also be able to learn more about her that way. That way it will be easier for us to be able to help her" Carlisle said.

"You mean stalk her?" Edward said, it came out more like a question.

"I think that Carlisle is right about that" I said. "I think that keeping an eye on her while she is at home is a good idea. That way we know what she is doing and/or planning. We can't take any risks. Especially after today" I said.

"So it's settled then" Emmett said. "We spy on her to keep her safe and to learn more about her"

"I will go tonight" I said.

"So will I" Jacob said.

It was dark by the time that we left. Jacob and I chose to walk all the way to her house because a car would cause a lot more suspicion. When we got to the house it didn't take too long to find Nessie's room. Which was on the second floor of the house. She was still awake when we saw her. For now we would have to remain hidden in the tree that conveniently grew just outside of her window.

Nessie was watching a movie. I also saw in her arms a small, stuffed, russet-colored wolf. The very same stuffed animal that Jacob had made her for when she was a kid.

"She still has the stuffed animal I made?" I could hear the happiness in Jacob's voice.

"I guess so" I said. She took that toy everywhere with her. So it was no surprise that she had it with her the day she went missing. Eventually Nessie turned off the TV, the light and went to sleep. Once I was sure that she was completely asleep I carefully opened her window.

I spotted a diary on the nightstand beside her bed. I picked it up and placed it in the bag that I had brought with me. I was sure that her diary would reveal important information that we needed.

"No" Nessie mumbled in her sleep. She must be a sleep talker like I used to be. "No. No. No"

The urgency in her voice had me worried. What was she dreaming about? An idea suddenly came to me. When she was little I was able to see her dreams by holding her palm up against my cheek. Should I do that right now? Or was it a major violation of her privacy?

Apparently Jacob had the same idea for he said "I think that we should see what she is dreaming about. It might be important"

I sighed. "Yes Jacob. I think you're right"

I grabbed her hand and held it up to my face and I definitely was not prepared for what I saw next.

Nessie's POV

After the Cullens left I ate dinner. It was leftover lasagna from last night. I tried the best that I could to not think about everything that had just happened with the Cullens. It was all way too weird. How did they find me? I mean, how could they have even known where I was?

I tried asking them those questions but they gave me no answer.

After dinner I went upstairs and took a shower. When I got up I realized that my foster parents had gotten home. They didn't bother to say anything to me when they saw me, but I didn't care.

I went to my room and got out my diary. It wrote in my diary often. It was a place where I felt free to write my most private and my most intimate of thoughts. Then I started to read for awhile but ended up giving up on that idea.

So instead I settled on watching a movie. I went and got one of my most valued possessions. A stuff russet-colored wolf that I have had for as long as I could remember. That toy meant more to me then you could possibly imagine. That wolf went everywhere with me. It was the only things in my life that never changed. It might seem silly that I, a 16 year old girl, could love a stuffed animal so much, but I do.

I started to get really tired so I turned off the movie, all of the lights in my room, and snuggled underneath the blankets. Sleep overcame me quickly.

I was 99.9 percent sure that I was dreaming. How I was sure that I was dreaming you ask? Well I was back in one of my old foster homes. It was a foster home that I lived in when I was 10 years old.

Only it didn't seem like a dream. More like a memory. Something about this felt all too real to me.

I was sitting on the couch when I heard a door open and then slam shut. I jumped a little. It was my then foster father Joseph.

"You!" he shouted, pointing at me. "In my room! Now!" he ordered.

Then it all came crashing down on me. This was no ordinary dream. It was a memory. A memory that I had successfully managed to suppress for the past six years.

"No" I said. "No. No. No"

"In my room now!" he ordered. "Or else" he said threateningly.

I obeyed. No matter how much I wanted to I couldn't change the course of the dream. I couldn't change the outcome of the dream.

My 10 year old self was really scared.

"Take off your clothes now!" he ordered as he started to do the same.

My 10 year old self was confused by his odd request. I hadn't suspected anything wrong.

"Now!" he ordered.

I was so scared by his tone of voice that I obeyed almost instantly. Again, thinking this was an odd request of a 10 year old foster girl,

I took off the jeans and shirt that I had been wearing.

"All of your clothes" he said in a menacing way.

All I had left on was my underwear at that point. I took those off too. If only I had known then what he was about to do. But I couldn't have known. I was only 10 years old. I was just an innocent, naive little girl.

As soon as I had taken my underwear off he grabbed me and threw me onto the bed. My head smacked the frame of the bed with a loud thud. I screamed out in pain.

He forcefully spread my legs apart. I screamed from the pain.

Then he hit me.

"Don't scream. I'll only make this worse for you" he said.

I had been too scared to say anything so I just nodded.

A few seconds later I felt something enter me forcefully. It was his penis. I screamed out in pure pain and fear. I felt something tear inside of me. Something I would later learn was my hymen, also known as my virginity.

He then hit me again. He covered my mouth to prevent me from screaming again.

I woke up when I heard myself scream. The memory, the pain, everything that I had managed to suppress for the past six years overwhelmed in that instant. The pain seemed to be never ending. As if it was making up for time that I didn't feel it. I needed to end it and I needed to end it now.

I ran downstairs to the kitchen. I opened a drawer and took out a knife. I held it up to my chest. It hovered just over my heart. My mind caught up with my actions just then.

No. I couldn't just end it all. No, there had to be another way. There had to be something else I could do to rid myself of the pain. Suicide was not the answer.

I put the knife down on the counter and went to the bathroom. I held onto the edges of the sink and tried to control my breathing. I washed my face. I did everything that I could think of to calm myself down. Breathing seemed to do the trick. I felt my heart rate begin to slow down.

Once I was fully composed I went to the kitchen I saw something that surprised me. The knife that I had left on the counter had been completely destroyed. Mangled, twisted, and bent to the point where I could barely recognize it for what it used to be. When I looked in the drawer I saw that all of the rest of the knives had met the same fate.

Please Review