IMPORTANT:

I fear I must do something I rarely do: give you a warning. If you've ever at all had any strong inclinations to end your life (or cut, this may apply) and feel reading about it from a first person perspective would cause you to harm yourself, then please don't read. If you don't want to read about this type of subject matter at all because of whatever reason then please forget this exists. Although it's short, it's not without purpose for those who can continue with no issues.

XXV

Damned Damsel

Minutes expired. The floor, icy at first, had grown warm, but my naked back became chilled and numb. I lay there with my feet flat and knees up for so long I felt I'd become part of the construction. I stared at the ceiling, tracing every bump along the smooth surface in the dim lights with nothing except my thoughts to keep me company. I heard a faint, smooth and soft noise begin to invade my small silence. I thought for a moment I knew what it was, but I couldn't stand that thought. Edward... dragging bodies. It was probably right.

I covered my eyes when tears formed, catching them before they could roll down my cheek. Never had death been so immediate. It never touched me until I came here. It happened to other people. Not me. I couldn't be so foolish to think it would never happen. We all die, but I never imagined it would border supernatural or be so close to when I felt fully alive. College life had just started it seemed, and I thought I would do great things with my degree. I'd always imagined my life as successful. I would design and build until I was old and could only draw jagged lines on paper.

No.

I would die. I'd be lost. No body. No funeral. I would disappear without a trace. I wondered how many women before me had felt the same despair same inside those walls.

An urgent breath of tears begin to overwhelm me once more. I didn't stop them. I allowed them to fall. I allowed myself to cry. It felt better to do so.

I didn't want to die, but I didn't want to stay Edward's "pet" and satisfy him with my blood, either. I didn't want to feel the overwhelming sting of fresh venom as it coated my tender veins anymore. He would run my body into the grave. He would take until I had no more to give. Edward would kill me. My thoughts lingered on those last words. He would drink me dry then feed me to the furnace below the floors, just as he'd done with the other girls.

If I stayed, if I accepted that fate, then it would become reality. It would devour me.

My only other option involved an escape. I could slip out a window if he only left me alone for a short while. I'd run through the trees and find somewhere to hide, but that idea dissolved just as quickly as it surfaced. The moment he found me missing, he'd track my scent. He'd find me like some monster from a nightmare. He would drag me back into the house and continue to torture me with closed spaces and endless schemes to keep me alive.

Alive. The word meant nothing as I sat up, feeling the stiff, rigid tile still eating away at my back as though it had burned a memory. I stood with some help from the claw-foot tub. It kept me steady, kept me from sinking onto my knees from the weight of certainty because even if I were to escape... even if he never found me, I would still fall victim to him. His venom still coursed through my veins, and no matter how far away I ran or hid in the shadows, he would follow.

Without his help to hold off the effects, I would turn into a monster the same as him. I would crave blood, never sleep or dream anymore. I wondered if I were still enough, if I could feel the venom cutting through my body, but I felt nothing except the cool air against my wet cheeks and the hair clinging to them.

Maybe Edward had been wrong. I didn't feel different. Maybe weaker from the inactive days and nights, the horrible food, the rigorous beating I'd been subjected to, the blood drained... replaced with toxins from his mouth. No. He could've been wrong, but when I stumbled to the mirror hanging above the sink and counter, I knew he wasn't. I couldn't feel it, but I saw it staring back at me from the eyes of a poor girl, the same sickly face that found me in Royce's room. Shadows formed against her cheeks. Her hair, once shiny and fluffy in the L.A. sun, had grown dull and flat. While her skin remained smooth, it no longer blushed. Her tan had faded into something less. She looked like a vampire that hadn't eaten, that had been barren without a drop to help cure the effects of starvation.

I hated that stupid girl. Why couldn't she just say 'no' to Jake Black? Why couldn't she resist the charm he oozed? Stupid girl. Foolish, gullible girl. It was her fault I was trapped here with a monster, with my life hanging by a thread. My breaths were heavy, aching. They burned my chest.

She mocked me. She reminded me of the pain and regret souring inside my mind. If it weren't for her, then life would be normal! Stupid girl. Stupid, stupid girl! I hated her! I swelled with anger, my body flitting with rage. I wanted to be rid of her! I wanted to pound the mirror until only one of us remained! Without another thought I sneered, drawing my fists back and bringing them onto the mirror. Flesh met glass with a tremendous noise and I gasped at the force I'd given it, feeling a pointed bite against the meat of my fist.

I'd fractured the mirror. Many sets of noses, lips and eyes were scattered across the glass as I drew back and pulled out the tiny shard buried in my skin. A small bead of blood took it's place, and I discarded the tiny piece into the sink.

I sucked the metallic droplet between my lips, drawing it from the tiny opening and muttering 'ouch' over and over again until it dawned on me.

I lowered my hand and stared at the split girl, studying the sharp points of the fragments, noting their piercing potential. I knew then I still had one more option. I'd thought of it earlier, before giving myself to the floor. I could spill my blood and the venom so I wouldn't turn. I could escape Edward, and the only reminder he'd have of me is that single bag in his refrigerator. He would lose. I would die, but I would be free.

I stepped to the door, pressing my ear against the wood to listen for any noises that suggested he'd heard the incident. Nothing. No sound. There was a good chance he was still in the basement.

I stole the chair from the corner of the room and anchored the high back under the door knob, securing its position against the edge of the tile. Perfect fit. It wouldn't stop Edward from coming inside the room, but it would keep him from just walking through the door. He wouldn't stop me that time. Back at the sink, I leaned over the counter and began to pick at the fragments, hoping to free a large enough shard. It was no use. It would need to be split again. I balled my hands then slammed the side of them into the glass again as hard as I could. Another bee sting. I cursed, but didn't bother pulling it out that time because I'd achieved my goal through the noise. I'd broken it.

I began to chip away with my nails, the edges clipping my tender fingertips and every time it happened I drew back, only to begin once more. Urgency and panic began to claw at my chest, causing my heart to race with the fear of being caught. The pads of my fingers were raw and bloody. I couldn't do it anymore, and just as that thought passed a palm-sized shard and smaller piercing fragments tumbled into the sink, clanking like broken bells. I cringed at the sound, but picked up the larger piece with shaky fingers, holding it carefully. I stared at it's razor-sharp end, knowing it would slice through my skin efficiently. The pain would be tremendous. I knew that. Although I didn't know how great. I'd never contemplated searing my own flesh until that moment.

I turned away from the broken mirror, staring at the glass and my wrist. I knew nothing of suicide or how to do it. I'd never heard Dad talk about it because I don't think he ever went to calls like that. Maybe sleepy, small towns didn't experience such pain and measures. The only thing I knew was I had to cut vertical, though I was never sure why. I never questioned. I pressed the pointed edge of glass to my wrist, intending to bury and slice, but I hesitated.

Tears blurred my vision at the already pressing pain on my skin. It would be more, and I feared that more than death.

That very moment, a knocking penetrated the room. "What was that?" Edward's asked. "What was that noise?"

The urgency grew. It was then or never. It was the monster or me. "Nothing," I responded, pressing the glass into my skin, and puncturing. I hissed. Tears and blood fell, spilling over.

"It was not nothing." The knob rattled. The door pressed against the chair. "The fu... open this door, Bella!"

I said nothing. I tried to take a deep breath through my nose and out through my mouth, hoping to work through the mentality of pain and the wolf huffing and puffing at the door. You have to. You have to do it now!

The glass felt unbelievably cold as I pressed it back to the puncture I'd already made. Blood still perked swiftly from the small hole.

The door shook with violence, nearly ripping the chair from it's secure place between the knob and tile. "Open this fucking door!" he yelled, and it sounded as though he were inside the bathroom!

My breaths were quick and shallow until panic froze me. I tightened my grip on the jagged glass and bore weight into my flesh. Vertical. Cut vertical.

"Bella! Open this door!" Edward screamed through the wood and pounded! The room shook! It would break!

I closed my eyes. My mouth fell open as the pain seared the flesh on my wrist, and I let out a cry. Warmth gushed from the open wound, and spilled over the sides. I opened my eyes to see red spattering on the floor. I'd done it, but the cost was an unbearable burn. Blood flooded my palm and my hand grew weak. My entire forearm seared and already I felt I would fall over.

The pounding on the door stopped, but it continued through my chest as my heart pumped the blood through my veins and out of my body. That was it. I'd done it. I would die and be at peace. I would be rid of him. There was nothing he could do to stop it now.

Tears pricked my eyes and I squeezed my lids together for an instant, breathing harshly through the open, silent air as the glass slipped from my hand and clanked to the floor. An explosion sent the chair into the clawed tub, disintegrating its joints when it hit. Edward stood behind what remained of the door. He had plowed through it with a swift kick, separating the metal hinges from the now-splintered wood.

As soon as he saw what I'd done his expression changed from angry to something else entirely. His eyes became wide, his lips parted, baring his teeth as he rushed to my side. He picked up the towel from the side of the tub and throwing it under me, catching the steady lines of red.

"What have you done?!" he said through gritted teeth, as though he were about to foam at the mouth.

"It's too late," I said in a whisper, beginning to shake, feeling my knees weaken.

He brought my arm to his lips and dragged his languid tongue over the fresh wounds, the tip finding it's way into my split, vulnerable skin. The sting intensified, causing my mouth to drop once more with an cry. My voice filled the room, impaled the walls! His tongue flicked out, and passed once again, full and wide over the opening. With that exposure I gasped, wanting to push him away. "Burns doesn't it?" he said as he picked up the rag sitting on the counter and draped it over the searing heat, pressing on it as he held my forearm.

The burn moved toward my shoulder. I cried out.

"You deserve every amount of pain you feel right now," he said. "You've forced me to do this! Goddammit, Bella!"

His voice seemed more harsh than the cuts I'd made, or the fresh venom from his tongue. I wanted to curl inside myself and never resurface. I simply wished to fade away, to no longer exist inside the confines of the life that had been chosen for me. The sting had become so unbearable. My arm would burn into ash and fall off! Darkness began to take me, and I felt the weight of my body slipping into a hole, but I was caught and held against fleshy ice. Was that death? Was it so easy? Part of me tried to hang onto the antique glow of the bathroom, but the more dominant, the more reasonable said 'let go'. A faint pulse swished through my ears, and I did it. I let go, slipping far away into a world without dreams, without daylight.

Good news is, another update isn't far behind this one. I'll try to get it out this week or next Monday, depending.

Thank you Livie and Sharon for reading the rough drafts and bearing with me while I sort-out the words. It means so much. My husband is owed thanks, too. He read this chapter, looked at me and shook his head, saying I obviously didn't know a damn thing about breaking stuff.

He was right.