I am SOOOOOO sorry! I honestly can't believe that it has been this long since I updated. I went on vacation and then I got home and my computer decided to stop working. So I just got it back today and tried my best to pop this one out before I had to go to bed for school tomorrow. I really hope that you like this.
3 Months Later
The past three months had flown by. Once I was home and got used to the house and the area, I started to get a grip on things. There were so many people that visited me, I was losing track of everyone. The memories were coming back slowly – very slowly. Occasionally, I would meet someone new and I would remember a little bit about my past as a kid, but that was about it. The bad memories had mostly stayed away so far. I had avoided the park and tried not to think about the situation.
After I got settled, Kate brought me a bunch of pictures to see if I could identify my captor or any of his features. When I turned the third page, I had a complete breakdown. His face was there, staring up at me, and I remembered. It was short, like the others, but it was enough. When Kate showed the picture to my family, dad lost it immediately. We almost had to take him to the hospital. By his reaction, I knew. I knew that it was Dmitri. The guilt that consumed Dad over the past few months was overwhelming. Kate assigned everyone their own counselor to help with the emotional stress – and she stayed as mine.
Now six months into my pregnancy, I was a balloon. My body structure had filled out, so I wasn't so malnourished looking, but my stomach still looked huge on me. The doctor had confirmed multiple times for me that indeed my son was okay despite everything.
Edward's mom, Esme, had come to Forks for a while to visit us. Not long behind her were Alice and Jasper. Edward and Rose's siblings. I was confused at first. They were cousins, but they were married. Edward explained that Alice was adopted at age nine and Jasper was adopted too. Jasper was adopted from a family member on another side of their family, but still, there was no blood relation between the two.
The introductions went the same as all of the others. Lots of tears, but in the end it all turned out good. Alice had been wonderful and Jasper was quiet, but when I got really really upset, he would come and sit by me and calm me down.
Today was a day that I wasn't quite sure that I was ready for, but that I was excited for all the same. It needed to happen regardless so I decided to plan it and be excited for it. And here it was. The baby shower. Being six months along, left me with only three months to get all of the things I needed and to get everything ready.
Kate and I had spent hours over the phone and in person talking about this and if I was ready, both emotionally and physically. We talked about my options. It was too late to get an abortion (not that I wanted to anyway) but there was still adoption on the table. Kate told me that no one would judge me if I gave up the baby and that I wasn't obliged to keep him by any means. I also talked to both Alice and Jasper about this. We talked about the ups and downs for being adopted and how it impacted their life. I didn't rush in to any decision about this. I did all of my homework and thought about it for weeks. In the end, I decided that no matter how he was conceived, the value of my child didn't falter a bit.
As I lay in bed and reflected on all of this, I realized that I needed to get up and get ready for the shower. Alice and Rose had taken me shopping for maternity clothes and a full wardrobe. I pulled on some maternity jeans and a long white and black polka dotted top. I wasn't too worried about makeup, but I put a light coat of blush and some mascara on just to brighten up my face and make me look less tired. Waddling down the stairs in my slippers, I saw that Rose and Alice were already here.
"Good morning, Bella." Alice chirped. She always kept things light and made me forget for a second about everything that had happened to me. "You look gorgeous! Renee made blueberry pancakes, would you like some?"
"Thank you Alice. And sure, I'll take two." I took a seat at the table next to Rose.
"How are you feeling today, Bella?" She asked.
I shrugged. "I'm okay. I'm nervous but excited too. I just don't know what to expect." I had invited Angela, Kate, Esme, Rose's mom Jan, my grandma, and then obviously my mom and Alice and Rose. It wasn't big, but I didn't know a lot of people. It was enough.
Everyone pretty much arrived at the same time. The house went from quiet to bustling in a matter of minutes. Even though there were only eight people, the stack of gifts was enormous. Everyone gave everyone hugs and got settled.
"I guess I should start tackling this mound." I said, smiling and sitting down next to the gifts. I started with the smaller boxes – because the bigger ones looked intimidating. Most of them contained little blue and green and yellow onesies. There were also a lot of bottles, diapers, toys and bibs. The bigger bags and boxes contained the more bulky objects. Mom had bought almost all of it. There was a crib, a stroller, a car seat/ carrier, a changing table and then a bunch of accessories for them. It was almost overwhelming, all the stuff I got, but at the same time I was so thankful. There were so many things that I never would have dreamed that I needed.
After I finished opening everything, I sat back and shook my head. "Thank you all so, so much. I never would have survived without this."
"Of course, Bella." Angela said.
"It's time for food!" Mom called from the kitchen. We all traveled into the kitchen and snacked on sub sandwiches and pasta salad. We all talked about positive things, like naming the baby and the nursery. Emmett and Edward were coming over later today to take everything out of Emmett's old room and start assembling the crib and other large furniture. The color Emmett had his room painted was perfect so I left it. It was a light but strong blue.
After a few hours, everyone started to leave. Once everyone was gone, Mom found me.
"Bella, I have a doctor's appointment today. I don't want to leave you all by yourself, so you can come with me or I could call someone. Rose can come back..."
"Mom, I'm an adult now. I know that it's hard to leave me by myself, but I'm okay. All the doors will be locked and there is an officer that patrols the street every thirty minutes. I will be okay. Just go." I convinced her. I was a little nervous being alone, but it wasn't the first time and I had to learn how to be by myself. Eventually, mom left and I had the house to myself. I took this time to look through the crazy amount of baby clothes that I had got. I was sorting them into sizes when I came across one that stopped me. It was a little green onesie with an alligator on it. As I stared at it, it grew. Everything around me went dark and I was suddenly in a dark, damp and cold place. The only thing that I could see was a neon sign with an alligator on it shining through a small window.
Two sets of footsteps approached and a door opened. "She's back there." A gruff voice said. "You have thirty minutes, any longer and the price doubles." The door closed and one set of footsteps walked away, but one got closer. I tried to hide in the darkness, but the person turned on a dim, yellow light. He stalked towards me, unbuckling his belt. He got on top of me and I fought, trying as hard as I could to get away. His weight was too much and all that I could do was lie there and sob. It didn't end until the first man came back.
"Time's up." He snapped and the man in the room. But he didn't come back alone. He had another customer with him. As he chanted off the same instructions to the new man, I tried to get away, but there was no escape. This went on for five more men. Eventually, the man in charge – Dmitri - came back and took his own turn, and then he turned off the light and locked all five locks on the door. As I lay on the damp floor, I looked up at that alligator and sobbed. It began to shrink back down and my surroundings returned to the safety of my living room. I couldn't breathe. The sobs and screams that were coming out of me seemed distant as the awful things replayed in my head. All of my self-worth was gone. I was sickened by every inch of my body. Somehow, I made it into the garage. I searched for something...anything to get rid of this dirty, tainted body with. I eventually stumbled along a razor blade in Dad's toolbox. I sobbed until I couldn't breathe, holding the blade over my skin. I took a deep, sob filled breath and brought the razor down on my skin. A red stream appeared just as the door to the garage flew open.
"Bella?! Bella, no!" Edward ran over to me and grabbed the razor, throwing it across the garage. He grabbed my wrist and held it to stop the bleeding while he held me and let me scream and sob. "Shh, its okay, Bella. You are okay. It's all over. You are safe, you are safe." He chanted these things to me until I could breathe, then he carried me into the living room. Without taking his eyes off of me once, he called Kate. He took fifteen seconds to tell her to get back over here fast and give her a short explanation of what had happened. As soon as he hang up, he took me to the bathroom and I sat down on the edge of the bathtub while he got out all of the supplies that he needed to bandage up my wrist. I held it tightly, embarrassed at what I had done and sickened by what had led me to do it. I still wanted to puke at the images that continued to rush through my mind.
Edward turned to me. "Bella," He held out his hand. I hesitated. "It's okay, Bella, I just need to make sure that you are alright." I cried as I handed him my wrist. He inspected the wound to see if it needed stitches. Luckily, it didn't.
As he cleaned and bandaged my cut, he sighed. "What happened, Bella? What did you remember?"
I took a deep breath. I still was crying and I wasn't sure if I could even try to verbalize all of the terrible things that happened. "He...he sold me." I sobbed. Edward's breathing stopped, but his strong and safe demeanor didn't falter. "They got thirty minutes...no breaks between." I tried to continue but I got too worked up.
"Shh, Bella, it's all over, now. You are safe." Edward told me. Just as he applied the tape to the bandage, the front door opened.
"Bella?! Edward!?" Kate called.
"We are in here, Kate." Edward answered. She scurried in and hugged me.
"Are you alright? Do we need to take you to the hospital?"
"I fixed her up, it wasn't as deep as I thought." He explained for me.
Kate sighed. "Bella, come for a walk with me? It'd be good to get some fresh air." I nodded and stood up. Kate and I walked out back for a while before we started talking. "Alright, Bella, what happened? What went wrong?" She sat down on the picnic table and I followed her lead.
"I...he..." I started lightly crying again.
"Did you have a flashback?" She helped me along. I nodded, trying to push the images out. "What was it about?" She didn't push anymore than that. She let me cry, knowing that I would eventually come around and tell her.
"There was an alligator light...cold, dark room...he...he sold me." I choked out the words. "They each got thirty minutes, there were seven in a row and then he took his turn." I managed to get it all out before breaking down again. Kate whispered something under her breath and then she hugged me. She knew there were no words that would make it any better, so she just hugged me until I calmed back down.
"Bella, sweetheart, nothing, nothing that anyone can or has done to you can deplete your worth. You are so beautiful and so amazing. The things that have happened to you don't make you any less valuable – to anyone." Kate said. When she stopped, I realized something. Getting up, I ran inside to Edward.
"Edward!" I called. He came out into the living room from the kitchen. "Edward, you can't tell Mom about this. Please! She will feel so guilty for leaving me alone and it is not her fault. I don't want her to be hurt anymore."
"Bella, honey, she needs to know. She needs to be able to keep you safe. She will be okay, I promise."
"No, Edward. I am an adult now. I don't need a babysitter. I can take care of myself. What I can't deal with is someone feeling so much guilt about me when it is not their fault." I knew that it was mostly a lie. I wouldn't survive a day without someone helping me along, but I needed him to help me with this. Right on cue, Mom came in and stopped. I shot Edward a look and covered up my arm.
"Hello Edward...Kate? What are you doing back so soon?" Mom asked.
"She forgot her purse." I answered for Kate. She looked at me with a look that clearly stated 'you need to tell her the truth', but I ignored her.
"Well, it is a good thing that you remembered before you got all the way to Seattle!" Mom smiled. "Edward? I thought you and Emmett were going to put everything in the nursery, what happened?"
I spoke up once again. "Emmett got delayed. He'll be here soon."
"Oh, well, it's good to see you both." Mom said, coming to give me a hug. As I brought my arm up to give her a hug back, she caught my hand. "Oh my goodness! What happened?"
Here we go. "I was trying to open a box of stuff and my hand slipped and my arm got scratched. Edward got here and insisted that he bandage it up. It's really not anything more than a scratch though. I'm just fine." I lied.
"Those boxes! I swear, they really don't want you getting into them do they!?" Mom shook her head and hugged me. Edward sighed and I let one single tear escape. Mom went into the kitchen to start on dinner and the three of us went in to the living room. As soon as we sat down, I heard the garage door open and Emmett's jeep pull in. His car door shut, but he didn't come in. After a minute or two I went to see what was going on. Emmett was crouched down by the back of his jeep. When I closed the door he looked up.
"What...what happened in here?" He asked, he couldn't see my wrist yet.
"Nothing Emmett. It's fine." I said. "Are you okay?"
"Am I okay? Are you okay? I come home to find a razor stained with blood and drips all over the place. What on earth happened?" He came around the car and then he saw. I could almost see his heart sink. "Bella."
"I'm so sorry, Emmett." I whispered as he came over and hugged me.
"No, Bella. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. You don't deserve to be in this much pain." He hugged me for a long time. "What...what happened? What went wrong?"
"Talk to Kate. I can't bring myself to say it all again."
"Okay."
"And Emmett," He stopped just before turning the handle. "Mom knows nothing. I had to lie to her so that she wouldn't feel so guilty. Please, you can't tell her, okay?"
"Bella..."
"Please, Emmett. She will feel so bad for leaving me alone that she will never do it again. It's not her fault." Also, I was ashamed. I was ashamed that I had been tossed around like a rag from person to person. I didn't want my own mother to look at me and see that.
"Listen Bells, Mom is a tough lady. She will be able to take it, but what she won't be able to take is if something happens to you. She needs to be able to keep you safe." He opened the door to the garage. "You stay with Edward, I am going to talk to Kate and then I'm going to talk to Mom."
"Emmett, please…" I tried to stop him.
"Bella, it's going to be okay. I know how to talk to her, I've had to do things like this many times. It will be okay." Before I could complain, he had already taken me in to Edward and asked him to stay with me and then walked away with Kate.
I sat curled up next to Edward lightly crying the whole time. I felt so disgusted by my body, I couldn't wrap my head around it. After a good amount of time, Emmett and Kate came back. Emmett's face was racked with pain and when I saw him I started sobbing. I felt so unworthy and hated myself for making everyone go through all of this.
Emmett came around the small couch and wrapped me up in a huge hug. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry." I whispered.
"Bella, it's not your fault. You are the victim here, not the perpetrator." Emmett whispered back through tears. I heard footsteps and my stomach dropped.
"Oh gosh, what on earth is going on?" Mom said. "Bella, baby, what's wrong?" She came over and brushed some hair out of my face.
"Mom, I think I need to talk to you alone." Emmett said, wiping his face. "Let's go in the kitchen."
"What happened? Is everything okay?" Edward pulled me into hug, taking over Emmett's place so that he could go tell her what happened. They were gone for a long time. I heard mom crying from the kitchen, which made me cry even more.
"Bella, sweetheart, you are okay. Don't worry about Renee, okay? She is a tough lady, she is okay. You can't' blame yourself for any of this." Kate said sweetly.
"I just hate myself so much. Even if I couldn't stop it, all I am a piece of paper, scribbled on so many times that you can't even see the white any more. What I remembered was just one night; eight times in one night. Think about what that adds up to in a week…a year…now I was gone for fourteen." An extra few tears fell as I verbalized this. Kate and Edward were quiet for a while, but I saw a few tears slip down Kate's cheek.
"Bella, you are so much more than that." Edward said. "You made it out. You fought through all of that pain and survived it. Not many people can say that. Your paper is still untouched. It's the monsters that did that to you whose paper is black. They are the ones that should suffer all of this, you didn't do anything wrong."
I just shrugged and looked at the grey rug. Its nondescript color reflected my heart. I fell quiet and listened to my mother cry quietly from the kitchen. I hated Dmitri so much for making me go through all of this, I wanted to see him suffer as much as me and my family were now.
"Are there any leads in the case?" I breathed, almost afraid of the answer. Kate looked up with a little more intent, but it was a very serious look
"The detectives have really been going through the evidence files from Dmitri's death and they think that they have reached a conclusion that there wasn't enough physical evidence at the scene of the fire to determine if it was really Dmitri or not. The build and size of the bones found are relatively accurate, but there isn't enough to tell one way or not. Though based on your recognition of him in the picture is enough to reasonably assume that the body is not Dmitri's. That being said, they have expanded their search to a small city in Mexico where he had been stationed with the National Guard at one point. They have a high human trafficking rate there, so with this new information, it's looking more and more like a better place to look." Kate explained. I tried to take it strongly. I basically knew all of it already anyway; this just confirmed all of our theories. "The detectives have been searching for Dmitri's friend that said that he was home, but they haven't found him. His parents said that he moved out of state, but didn't say where." Nodding was all that I had energy for. The crying from the kitchen stopped and mom and Emmett came into the living room. Mom came over to me and took my hand, taking me with her back to the kitchen.
"Mom, I'm…"
"Shh, Isabella," She whispered. "Do not apologize. It's what you always tell me, so I'm telling you. It's not your fault; even if you feel guilty, right?"
I took a very deep breath and nodded.
"And Bella, never feel like you can't tell me something." She said, taking my hand that was bandaged. I didn't look at it. "You don't have to hide things from me. I can take it, but you just have to tell me. I would be more upset if you didn't tell me and then something happened that was worse, all because I didn't know, okay? It's safe to talk to me." Mom then pulled me into a huge motherly hug and I felt a little relieved. "I'm so sorry that you are hurting so much, baby. I love you."
"I love you too, Mom." We broke the hug and she wiped my tears away. "You are so beautiful, my little sunshine."
When dad came home, the whole process started over again. Finally, I got claustrophobic in all of the drama and went up to my room to call Rose. She helped me through so much and I just needed someone to talk to. She never overreacted when I was present. She stayed strong when I needed her to.
The phone only rang twice before she answered. "Hey, Bella."
"Hey." I sighed, exhausted, even though it was still afternoon.
"What's up, Bella. You sound upset. Did something happen."
"Yeah; a lot of something's." I proceeded to tell her about my day and all of the horrible things that I remembered.
She took a deep breath, composing herself so that she could talk to me.
"Bella, you go through so much, yet everyday you keep moving. You will be okay. All of this will always stick with you, but you will overcome it. You have to show those men that they can't hurt you. They can knock you down, but you can always get back up."
"I know, I just feel so dirty and worthless."
"Bella, going through all of this makes you that much more valuable. You are so much stronger and tougher. You keep getting hit with all of these things, and you get through them."
"I guess, I don't feel stronger though, I feel like sh!t."
"I know, hun. But it will get better. I promise."
Just then, my baby kicked, reminding me of his presence. I sighed and moaned, it was a bit of a harder kick.
"What's wrong, Bella?"
"Nothing, just my little reminder that I'm not alone is calling my attention a little harder than usually."
"Yeah, I feel you there." She sighed. We were quiet for a while, but then I realized something.
"Wait what?"
"Sh!t." Rose cursed under her breath.
Okay, so I have a lot of things to say so stick with me. First I would like to thank dolphingirl0206 for adding this story to Pregnant Bella and Dadward. I love that community and it is great to be a part of it. Also, thank you for everyone who came from there and those that stuck with me. I know it's been a while since I updated and I'm not sure how this chapter is. I really wanted to upload it so I didn't do my usual proof read and edit. Sorry if it is bad, I will fix it later if I need to. Please review, I love your feedback.