A/N: Thanks so much for all your wonderful thoughts! I got some of you with that last update, huh? Though some of you sort of knew something was up with B. ;)
Most characters belong to S. Meyer. The rest belong to me. Mistakes are mine too.
In the Mist - Chapter 10
He woke before I returned.
"Bella?"
For a few moments after Emmett's departure, I'd remained out in the rolling mist, absently watching it coil around tree trunks and shrubbery like jungle vines. Silent and still, I waited with minuscule, vain, and quickly fading hope that Emmett would reappear within the mist and grant my one desire.
"Bella?"
Instead, he called my name from within the dark cabin; louder now, tinged with a note of urgency threatening to become something more. As the front door was yanked open, I hid in the shadows while Edward rushed into the nebulous mist, his pale, bare chest heaving in the darkness.
"Bella, where are you?"
He raked a hand through his hair, his other hand fisted tightly against his stomach, at-the-ready with the sharp tip of the knife he gripped vaguely glinting through the vaporous haze. Meager moonlight caught the steel and gently traced its angles the way it would follow a star's pointed edges. As I watched him holding the knife in anticipation of some outward danger, a thought struck me, startling me more for its clarity than for its novelty:
There are so many ways for a man, whose time has been deemed borrowed, to die.
I waited barely long enough for his growing panic to lead him sufficiently away from the cabin. As he took a step closer to the vine-like, innocuous mist, I moved around him, hidden within that same, enigmatic mist because I knew all too well how quickly it could turn – how swiftly it could deliver thoughts, ideas…madness. He took a step closer.
"Edward?"
Edward spun around, and his stiffened broad shoulders fell. As he took me in by the door, obvious relief marked his features and a long gust of his breath mixed with the fog of night.
"Bella, Jesus…where were you?"
"I was in the bathroom, bandaging my scrapes."
His eyes narrowed, flashed down to my bandaged thigh and back to me. "I called out for you."
"I'm sorry. I didn't hear you."
For a few moments, we remained perfectly still, studying one another. My eyes fell to his right hand, still gripping the knife – the long, sharp, and glinting knife.
"Why do you have a knife?"
"I thought I heard…I…" He raked a hand through his hair.
So many ways. For example, a gangster who'd lost all his family, who'd been locked up in Alcatraz for years, and who'd escaped The Rock only to find out his girl and his one-time-best-friend-and-partner-in-crime had betrayed him; a gangster who was the object of a statewide manhunt - such a man might definitely lose all hope. Such a man's suicide would never be questioned.
As the mist encroached from the woods, I took a step toward Edward; a small, demure smile playing on my lips, gazing up at him with total, female innocence. Another step as he watched me, his intense green eyes almost glowing in the dark of night.
"Bella, get back inside," he hissed. "I thought I heard someone out here."
He'd disappear into the woods…fall off the side of a cliff...deep into the bay...
I laid a warm palm on his arm, squeezing it lightly, my touch a gentle…yet persuasive caress. Standing close, I angled my head upward.
"Give me the knife, Edward," I breathed, my breath also meant to guide…to sway as I wrapped my other hand around the one gripping the knife.
His hold on it tightened.
"No. I've got to go check-"
"There's no one out here; I promise you. There's no one around but us. You and me. Nothing and no one else. Give me the knife."
He swallowed, his breaths long and deep. The mist touched him.
"Edward, I'm cold. Let's go inside. There's nothing out here but woods…and the damp mist. Take me back inside the cabin. Please." Carefully yet firmly, I pushed my fingers through his, loosening his grip.
"Please…"
Once I gripped the knife, I dropped my other hand from his arm and weaved it within his, walking backward toward the cabin as I pulled him with me…guiding him, his eyes firmly on mine.
"I should've never brought you into this," he said, his voice rough and angry with himself.
"But you did, and I'm here now...and it's your job to take care of me."
His eyes narrowed, jaw squared tightly as I led, and he followed.
"I'll take care of you," he said hoarsely, nodding vehemently. "I'll never let anyone or anything…"
He trailed off as we crossed the threshold into the cabin, and as he kicked the door closed, I made my way to the small table and lay down the knife, exhaling imperceptibly, frowning at the gas lamp left lit on the table.
"Why is the gas lamp on?"
"In case I had to go searching the woods for you."
A gas lamp was a basic accessory – even a necessity in a cabin; a gas lamp in a wood cabin, one which could fall off the table, shatter and set the cabin ablaze in a matter of seconds.
"Switch on the lights if you'd like," I said as I lowered my head to the lamp and blew it out.
"It'll be a couple of more hours 'til the sun's out."
I nodded, keeping my back to him.
"And another hour or so 'til the radio stations are on."
"Yes. No pointing in going anywhere yet. Not until we know…" Until I could figure out a way to cheat…my brother.
Edward made no reply.
When I turned around, Edward was still by the door. His back rested against the heavy frame, hands at his sides, eyes on me as I made my way back to him. He reached up and slid his arms around my waist, pulling me against him, and I placed my hands on his forearms.
"You know, when I woke up and you weren't there, for a few seconds," he grinned crookedly, "I thought you'd gotten wise and left."
I snorted. "I don't know that I appreciate the wording, but I told you, I'm here now."
"Yes, you did say that." He nodded slowly. "And you said it's my job to take care of you."
"Yes."
"Strange..." He quirked an eyebrow.
"What is?"
Yet again, he said nothing for a few seconds. Instead, he silently stroked my hips. The sensation his touch engendered in the dimly lit cabin was almost all-consuming.
"Bella, I've been thinking."
Curving my hands around his shoulders, I pulled him off the door, guiding him toward the bed at the end of the room. All the while, his hands stroked my hips.
"What have you been thinking, Edward?"
"The things you said to me at the warehouse, about…Kate…about…the women in my past."
My feet stilled halfway to the bed.
"What about them?"
For a handful of moments, he watched me silently. When he broke our gaze, he pinned his to a spot just beyond me as he spoke.
"When you're in the slammer, Bella, stuck in there with no company, no distractions, and no hope…well, what you do have a lot of is time…time to think…time to reason…time to remember. I spent a whole lot of time thinking, Bella."
"What did you think of?"
His eyes panned back to me. "I thought of the things I'd done, the things that had gotten me locked in the slammer…and the things that hadn't." He sighed. "You know, I've never cared what anyone thought about me – not since…well, not since Janey."
I cupped his cheek, encouraging him.
"All those women…I did use them, and I knew it."
"Edward…"
"I was angry at them," he sneered. "I was angry that they'd let me use them, that after what happened to Janey…they'd still allow themselves-"
"What happened to Janey wasn't their fault, Edward. Being female in a man's world, it's not an easy thing. We live by rules made for us, not by us, rules meant to make a man's world easier not ours. And if we try to speak out, we're called horrible names. If we break the rules, we're beaten, raped…murdered.
He swallowed thickly, cradling my face. "I don't ever want anyone to hurt you."
"Don't worry; no one can." It was honest, more or less.
"And that includes me."
"You won't hurt me, Edward."
He wrapped his hands around the nape of my neck. "You said it took a man willing to see beyond himself to understand what a woman wants."
"Yes," I breathed, "it does."
"I want to see beyond myself, Bella, but I want to know…I need to know what you want. Tell me here and now…" he gritted through his teeth, his grip tightening – but not painfully; rather, with all the urgency spelled out in his heated gaze, "tell me everything. Why are you here with me?" he asked in a rush. "Why did you leave with me? What were you searching for?" He paused. "What did you want from me?"
Fisting his hair, I pulled his mouth closer to mine and breathed into him.
"I wanted your soul."
Perhaps, before what happened next, had I been honest about what that originally meant.
A/N: Thoughts?
Almost done. ;)
Chapter Song Rec: Iris - Cover version, by Kina Grannis (Or…from Bella to Edward ;) ).
And I'd give up forever to touch you
'Cause I know that you feel me somehow
You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be
And I don't want to go home right now
And all I can taste is this moment
And all I can breathe is your life
And sooner or later it's over
I just don't wanna miss you tonight
And I don't want the world to see me
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's meant to be broken
I just want you to know who I am
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"See" you soon. :)