Disclaimer: SM owns twilight.
A/N: I know... I know... It's been too long. My bad. RL is taking it's toll. Anyway, back to our story. I was meant to write up a summary, but can't face it, sorry. As usual, please leave a review. Be kind.
"Oh God, what now?
I have ruined this, I have broken you down.
Your fingers are weathered, your eyes are full of glass.
The raindrops collide with the tears at your mouth.." (Kyla La Grange)
Edward sat the edge of the bed. In the darkness, his mind reeled. There was no going back to some pretence of normalcy. The frail girl sleeping next to him, had forever tipped his balance. He was drowning in the anger, with no chance for coming up for air. No break. No intermission. No time out. He was lost in his own wilderness. The monster wanted out. And it wanted blood.
He was in awe of her. How could anyone survive what she'd survived. He couldn't imagine it. The images he'd conjured while she told her story only fuelled his anger. He needed to hunt, bite, kill. No, he needed more. He yearned to bathe in this man's blood.
For four long years he had trained himself in the art of avoiding his true nature, of not thinking about his own being, of being dead in places of his own self. Bella had shattered all of it in less than a week. Her story had destroyed his control in less than an hour. The wolf was restless.
She slept beside him, peacefully. Or as peacefully as his own magic allowed. Her fever had finally subsided. He ran his finger over the mark he'd given her. He wondered if she wouldn't be better off without it. Bella wanted a normal life. And he had stripped that option away without even consulting her. He'd abused her. He was no better than her abuser. He'd placed her in greater danger. Edward's eyes roamed her healing skin, and his heart hurt. Soon she would be something different, but he had already failed. He hadn't prevented her getting hurt.
"Who does this to their own child?" He mumbled into the night.
He replayed her story in his mind. As a very young child she had been living on the streets with her mother. They moved around quite a lot and her mother kept her hidden to avoid drawing attention from the authorities. She couldn't even remember a time before the streets. She knew she had a father, a town where she came from, a last name, family… But her mother told her her father and his family had nothing to do with them, that she'd had to escape in order to have her. It was Bella and her mother against the world. Sometimes her mother would get odd jobs and they'd squat on the premises. Those were good days. On worse days, they slept in cardboard boxes in any alley that promised some comfort. Then, their luck changed...
"When I was six or seven, she got a permanent job in Mr. Lee's laundry. We lived in the room above, I went to school... Mr. Lee and his wife were kind to me. That's when she met him. The first time I saw him, I recognised what he was... But, mom, she never saw it. She thought he was the way out of the streets, out of poverty... And in a way she was right, Phil was her saviour. And he even wanted to adopt me. I was eight when I became Marie Dwyer." She'd grimaced saying the name, as if her body recalled some past pain.
Just recalling their conversation made Edward want to punch something. He grabbed the edge of the bed. The wood creaked under his grasp. He knew one thing in his heart. He would find and kill this man. The wolf howled. It wanted blood.
"For a while, we were the perfect family. Phil was a perfect gentleman. He paid for my education, the best boarding schools, tutors, summers abroad. I had everything I ever wanted. Except I was to never come home. Mother never wanted me around. Maybe she realised what he was. Maybe she just waned me safe… or out of the way. I'll never know. I grew up surrounded by teachers and tutors and chaperones. She never came to see me. Only Phil. Every birthday he'd show up at school, take me out to lunch, then drop me off at school. He didn't even bother talking to me. It was like he was parading me to his friends. I gave up on asking if mother would ever come to see me. He paid for everything and for a long time I thought that was normal. After all, he had adopted me,I was his daughter."
"I didn't see it until it was too late... After my college graduation, mother got sick. They told me it was cancer. I had to come home and help take care of her. I... It was too late... It wasn't cancer, she'd just been abused for too long. He had her hooked on heroin and pills and god knows what.I can still hear her scream. He beat her every night. I still don't know... Maybe he killed her. She didn't last long after I came home. He locked me in. After she died, I wasn't allowed to leave. Phil said I owed him. He said he owned me. I was bought and paid for."
She'd lost her breath then. Edward had had to coax her back from her panic.
"I can't...you see, it was hell, he raped, cut and burned me... Every day, until the day I escaped. He was drunk... He left the door open... And I... I stabbed him, stole any money he had in his home safe and checked myself into a hospital. But even then, I wasn't safe. He owns the police, judges, doctors. There's a plethora of goons to do his bidding."
Edward had reassured her, told her he didn't care about what she'd done to get away. He'd held her as she cried herself to sleep. He'd mumbled his ancient incantations to ensure she rested peacefully. He was more sure than ever, he would rip this man's heart and feed it to her. In his fantasy, she was a creature of power, relishing on her enemy's demise. Would Bella ever become that?
Now, the wolf howled incessantly inside his mind, it wanted out... Fight, bite, kill... No mercy, only violence. He could hear the ancient clan drums... The chains around his soul slipping... His skin burning as the frenzy unfolded. The stones in the meadow called to him. The wolf in his chest glowed bright. He bit the inside of his mouth to keep from growling. He wanted to taste this man's blood. He wanted to bathe in it. Rip this man's insides and feast on them. There was no prayer, no incantation that could restrain the wolf. Kill. He closed his eyes for a minute and his nostrils flared.
Edward didn't have to open his eyes to know his sister was in the room. Hiding in the shadows. Concealed in a dark corner like the proverbial nightly creature coming to haunt with nightmarish visions. Her true form always in the dark confines of where she chose to hunt. Guilt ate away at his anger. But nothing he could have done four years before would have prevented her from changing. He knew that.
"What are you doing here?" He hissed as he finally looked in her direction. There was no shadow she could hide from him. No darkness that could conceal her from him. They both knew it. Her heartbeat was his heartbeat, forever linked by the stones in the meadow. Her sin, his sin. His pain, her pain.
"We were worried." Alice said simply. Her face dismembered into a hundred deadly shadows. She was more creature then. At night, her form was not definitive. She didn't ever bother with camouflage. Only her violet eyes shone eerily. She was nightmare incarnate.
"We?" Edward sat up, peered out the window, Jasper sat on the roof, just outside the glass. He leaned against the tiles, looking towards the sea. A roar built in Edward's chest. He'd wanted some privacy. But privacy he had given up long ago.
"We actually do care about Bella, about you." Alice stepped into the light coming from the window. A beautiful pixie gaining form. Illusions, always illusions. Smoke and mirrors. And only he was to blame. His irritation grew.
"You are not supposed to be here, Alice. Bella shouldn't have invited you in, and even if she did, you will not use that invitation to stalk her in her sleep, nor will you invite your new pet to fuel your fantasies..." Edward motioned towards Jasper, who just shrugged and shook his head without even looking at them. "And please act more human around, you know, humans!"
"First of all, brother dear, I am not stalking your girlfriend! Jasper is worried your petty human friends are going to want to hurt Bella, since, you know, they have a tendency to prey on her." Alice waved her finger at him. "Secondly, Jasper is more your pet than mine, seeing as you're the alpha dog!" Alice blended back to the shadows sensing her brother's anger spike. "And last but not least, we're only here because, in case you haven't noticed, there's an actual surge in weird energy caused by your monumental hickey, and it's better I feed on it, and not... You know, whatever is killing your little human hikers in the woods." Alice bent over Bella's sleeping form, her eyes shinning as she touched Bella's wolf mark. A moment passed. Bella sighed in her sleep. A greyish mist seemed to flow from Bella to his sister. Edward looked away. He hated watching her feed. Alice giggled. "There, she'll sleep better now. No nightmares to haunt her." She side-stepped around him as she licked her lips. "I'll be outside with Jazz."
"I better not see you in this room again." Edward warned quietly.
"Don't worry, I'm quite sure this is the last night Bella will want to be here anyway." Alice giggled.
"What on earth?"
"Jasper said something about Tanya and Mike, you should talk to him."
"You two better..."
"Don't worry, we'll be on our best behaviour. And leave before dawn." Alice brushed the tips of her fingers against his shoulder. "Now sleep, brother dear." And just like that his frenzy subsided, and he felt drowsy. He cursed under his breath. Alice was always stronger after feeding, and he'd been starving himself for a whole week. The last thing he heard before slipping inside the sheets and into Bella's warmth was his sister's giggle.
...
Bella sat on the floor of the porch. She sipped a cup of tea, one of her books on her lap, a warm blanket around her shoulders. Time seemed to stand still. She couldn't focus. A minute dragged it's way around the clock. She read the same line over and over. She couldn't remember it. She read it again. And again. The chain linking her heart to his stretched and stretched. Until she couldn't quite feel his frenzy. Until she truly felt alone, and the wolf in her neck didn't burn. And then anxiety took over. Why couldn't she feel him? Had something happened? She felt her breaths begin to run into one another, she was running out of air. She stood up and looked where he had ran up the road. He'd said he was just going out for a jog... Maybe someone had ran over him... What was happening? Why couldn't she feel his anger? Was he blocking her? Why? She tried pushing and pulling on it like the day before with no success. He was blocking, that much she was sure. Why?
She tried closing her eyes, counting her breaths to calm herself from the building panic inside her brain. It felt useless, her heart was at her throat.
"Just the person I wanted to see." When Bella opened her eyes, she gasped.
Tanya Denali was giving her the stink eye.
"Do you know what that poor excuse for policeman did to my poor brother?" Tanya was bending over her, a frown on her face. "He had to go to the hospital for stitches and a broken rib." Tanya yelled.
"Broken rib?" Bella's voice was almost a whisper she couldn't breathe. "I don't understand..." Bella was confused. She remembered Jasper had punched Mike on the face... Jasper's eyes had turned black... She tried a last desperate breath but it was useless... Help me!
"You better leave my cottage by nightfall, bitch!" Tanya hit the wall just above Bella's head. "And don't even ask for your money back." Tanya's hand hit the wall again. Closer to her head. "I already k ow, you must have stolen it. Desperate little girl, aren't you? I know you're running from something, bitch!" Tanya's hand was suspended above her face, ready to strike. Bella flinched.
Help me!
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Jasper's sing-song sounded like heaven to Bella. He leaned against her door seductively. His erotic vibe crushing her chest. Bella understood it was more for Tanya's benefit, but she still felt it at her core. Her mind wandered to dark warm places, Edward's naked skin covering hers. The way his fingers kneaded her hips…
"You fucking coward! You almost killed my brother!" Tanya turned to face Jasper. But Bella watched in awe as her demeanour changed instantly. Her anger completely replaced with drunken lust. It was Jasper's own brand of magic. She'd seen it at work before, at Emmett's party.
"I did no such thing, darling." Jasper chuckled. "You look ravishing today, Tanya." He took a step towards her. Tanya's eyes became vacant. "Absolutely edible, I think." Jasper brushed his fingers on her arm. Tanya giggled like a little girl. Jasper towered above her. His golden hair shining. Wildflowers filled the air. He licked his lips expectantly. "I feel like tasting you today, darling." Tanya giggled again.
For some reason, it made Bella feel bitter, jealous. She stood up, took a step towards Jasper. Half her brain screamed at her to turn around and run, the other half needed to touch him. Jasper smiled that jaw-dropping golden smile at her. Something moved inside her. Then he smirked and his eyes became darkness again. He leaned into Tanya's ear and licked the lobe. "I'm going to fuck you right over this railing. So hard, you won't even remember your name." Tanya giggled again as if he'd paid her a compliment and she was queen at the Prom. Her eyes completely empty.
Bella took another step forward but someone pushed her against the wall. She felt his warmth, smelled his sweat, felt his skin burn her. Edward kissed her hungrily. He wore nothing but his running shorts. His hair flew wildly around them. She lost herself in that kiss. Her arms embraced him and pulled him closer. He pushed harder against the wall, letting her feel every inch of his need. He broke the kiss to lick the mark on her collar. It ignited with searing pain. "I told you to keep him out of your mind." He snarled. Bella looked at where Jasper had been standing over Tanya, only to discover she was alone with Edward. "Fuck, I want you so bad, right now!" He kissed her again. "I always want you." He gathered her legs, and she straddled him. He smiled against her lips. "You smell like sex, babe."