EPOV

Bella continued to surprise me. I'd been so scared to touch her, to taste her skin on my tongue, but she gave me the strength to let go of my fear and let myself feel her. Our souls were so connected that hurting her would hurt me, something that scared the shit out of me. Bella had come into my life and turned everything around, made living easier. If she left me, I'd be lost. She was everything to me: the reason my heart beat, the joy that filled my soul, and the air that helped me breathe. She was everything good in the world, my hope for a better life than God had given me.

"Edward."

At the sound of her voice, my attention shifted from the bottles lined up under the bar. She was perched up on the far end of the bar, a sketch pad in front of her and a shot of vodka sitting in front of her. I knew she needed one, needed something to calm her nerves, but she hadn't drank it yet. Marcus, Renee, and Garrett were due in ten minutes, and I knew she was terrified of facing them. There wasn't any doubt in my mind that she was telling the truth, that she really was the long, lost Isabella Swan, daughter to Renee and Charlie Swan, but Marcus had been so cold, so harsh toward her. What would he do when the truth came out? Would he welcome her into his family or push her even further away?

"Yeah?" I responded.

"Turn to the left, just a hair," she said, smiling.

"Are you drawing me?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at her.

Her cheeks darkened as she smirked. "Maybe."

"You're not giving me a giant head and tiny body, are you?" I worried, thinking about the caricatures I'd seen when I was little. It was the only time my parents had ever done anything fun with me. A fair had come to the area and my school had given us all student passes. We rode every ride, threw darts at balloons, tried to win a fish, and stuffed our faces with fair food. Of course, just before we left, I watched as my father bought off a dealer standing next to the front gates.

Bella laughed, the sound searing straight through me. The sound of her laughter, knowing that I was the one making her happy, was amazing and perfect. "Of course not!"

"Hmm, I don't think I believe you," I groused, walking over to her and trying to look at her drawing, but she brought her sketch pad up to her chest. "Bella!"

"Not until I'm done with it," she teased. "Trust me; the wait will be worth it."

I narrowed my eyes at her. "I believe you."

The sound of someone pushing against the door to the bar pulled our attention away from each other and Bella and I both turned toward the thick, heavy hardwood. Looking at Bella first, I climbed over the bar and walked over to the door, turned the lock, and pushed it open. Marcus, Renee, and Garrett were standing there, appearing awkward and uncomfortable. I almost laughed as I pushed open the door further, letting the three of them inside.

"Sorry. We don't open for another four hours. If I leave the doors unlocked, people tend to trickle in and demand drinks," I explained, locking the door behind them. "They don't always want to take no for an answer."

"Yeah, I suppose I can see why that'd be a problem," Marcus said, shifting his eyes around the bar until they landed on Bella, who picked up her shot of vodka and drained it before slamming the glass down onto the bar. "Hey."

"Hey," she echoed, closing her sketch pad and sliding off her stool.

"Can I get y'all something to drink? Beer, whiskey, scotch?" I asked, walking over to Bella and wrapping my arms around her waist. "Water?"

"No, thank you," Renee chirped. "This place is . . . nice."

"It's a dump, but most people who come in here aren't looking for anything more. All they want are a few drinks and a place to forget real life," I said, sitting on the stool and pulling Bella down onto my lap. Marcus narrowed his eyes at us, but I didn't care. She was terrified and needed reassurance that everything was going to be all right, even if it was bullshit. There wasn't any way to guarantee that everything would be okay. Life sucked, and shit happened.

"I guess I can understand that," Renee said, smiling as she walked over and sat on the stool two down from us. "There's been a time or two that I've wanted to do that, as well."

Garrett cleared his throat, pulling our attention to him. "Not to be an asshole, but I've got shit to do this afternoon, so can we get to the results of the test?"

"Of course," Renee murmured. Marcus nodded as he walked over and stood next to his mother, his hand coming down to rest on her shoulder. The room was tense, thick with unspoken anticipation and expectation that would change lives. And make no mistake: lives were about to change.

Garrett placed his bag on one of the tables close to the door and dug out a manila folder, slipping two pieces of paper out. He placed one on the bar in front of Bella, who tensed when he leaned toward her, and one on the bar in front of Renee. "With an accuracy of 99.993%, she is Isabella Marie Swan."

One of Renee's hands flew to her mouth and she scrambled to her feet, reaching for Bella with the other hand, but Bella was off my lap and several feet away, cowering against the wall before anyone could even blink. I saw the look of fear and shock on Renee and Marcus's faces, even the small amount of concern on Garrett's, before I pushed myself off the stool and walked over to Bella, kneeing next to her.

"It's okay, love," I whispered, slowly reaching out and placing my hand on her back. Her head turned and she looked at me, sorrow and heartache filling her eyes. "They aren't going to hurt you."

"How do you know?" she whispered, barely speaking loud enough for me to hear her.

I didn't know, but I knew that she needed to sit down and talk to them — really talk with them — so I heard myself saying, "They loved you once. They might still."

Her eyes flittered over my shoulder to where Renee, Marcus, and Garrett were no doubt watching us, watching her have a breakdown. "They don't know me, the person I am now at least."

"But we want to know you," Marcus said.

Bella pushed herself up the wall, and I kept my hand on the back, knowing she needed me to keep her centered, just as she did for me. "Yeah?"

"Of course we do," he replied. "There's not a day that's gone by that we didn't think about you, pray that you'd be found, wonder where you were."

Bella's eyes flittered to Garrett, and I knew she was uncomfortable discussing anything she'd been through with him there. "Thought you said you had a busy afternoon."

He shifted his eyes from Bella to me before he nodded and turned to Marcus, holding out his hand. "You know where I'm at, if you need me."

"Yeah, thanks, Garrett," Marcus said, gripping his hand tightly. "I'll be in touch."

Garrett shifted his eyes over to Bella once again before he turned and walked over to the door, unlocked it, and let himself out. Reluctantly, I left Bella standing there while I walked over and relocked the door.

"Well," Marcus said, clapping his hands together and causing Bella to flinch backward. "Sorry."

"It's okay," she murmured. "I'm just a little on edge right now."

"Isabella," Renee whispered and Bella turned to her. She reached out. "Can I hug you?"

"Um," she replied, her eyes flittering over to me for a brief second before she nodded. "I guess."

Slowly — almost to the point of being dramatic — Renee took the handful of steps to where Bella was standing, her arms wrapping around her. For a moment, Bella's arms simply hung loosely at her sides, but then she surprised me by hugging her mother back. The sound of their muffled sobbing echoed through the bar, and I found myself feeling out of place. I had never felt the love of a mother's embrace, only the hatred that came with ruining her life, with being the cause of all her failures. Turning away from them, I tried to stifle the envy I felt in that moment.

"I thought we were never going to see you again," Renee cried, and when I looked over, I saw that she had her hands on Bella's face, her thumbs wiping away the tears that fell down her face. "You're beautiful."

"Thanks," she whispered. "I thought you'd sent me away."

"We would have never sent you away," Renee said, a motherly tone lacing her words. "When we realized that you were missing, that you'd been taken, we were heartbroken."

"So heartbroken that you never found me," Bella groused, pulling herself out of her mother's hands. "So heartbroken that you left me in the hands of a monster."

"We didn't know where you were," Renee lamented. "The police, the FBI, everyone was searching for you, but it was like you'd just disappeared."

"Don't I wish," she muttered.

"What do you know about Phil Dwyer?" Marcus asked, causing everyone to look over at him.

"He's a monster. That's all I needed to know," Bella murmured, her arms wrapping around herself and her eyes flittering over to me, pleading with me to hold her. I walked over to her, my arms slipping around her. "He told me that you sent me to his art institute, that you didn't want the burden of raising an artistic child anymore. He said . . ." Bella shook her head. "He forced me to paint for him, so he could sell my work."

"We suspected that he had something to do with your kidnapping," Renee murmured with a shake of her head. "But the police cleared him, said he had an air-tight alibi." She shifted her gaze over to Bella. "Did he hurt you?"

Bella's eyes grew wide, and though she gave no indication of the abuse she suffered at the hands of the man that kidnapped her, Renee's hands flew to her chest. "Oh, my God." She reached for Bella, who pushed back into me. "If we'd known where you were . . ."

"You what? You would have saved me? You would have stopped him from putting his hands on me?" Bella asked, her tone laced with resentment.

"Yes," Renee insisted.

"You should have stopped him from getting to me at all," Bella snarled.

"Don't blame Mom for what happened to you," Marcus said, sliding his arm around Renee's shoulder. "It's not her fault any more than it's yours."

"Isn't it?" Bella asked. "She was supposed to pick me up that day. She promised that we'd go to the art store so I could buy some new paints. She fucking promised me, Marcus!"

"And I would have if I hadn't gotten called into a meeting," Renee wept, shaking her head. "I told them I had to be out by three, but they wouldn't stop arguing. It was ten after before I could leave, and when I got to your school and you weren't there, I thought Dad had picked you up. When I got home and you weren't there, and he hadn't seen you, I just knew something horrible had happened. We called the police, but you were never seen again. Not until you walked into the hospital room."

"The old man saw me, he knew me," Bella murmured. "For two years, he'd been coming into the diner, being an asshole, trying me like shit. Two fucking years of putting up with his attitude! The sad part is, I looked forward to him coming in because while he may have been a cranky bastard, he actually saw me as a person and not just . . ."

"We haven't seen Dad in six years. He just left for a business trip and never came home," Marcus said. "It wasn't until you brought him into the hospital that we realized he was here in Vegas."

"And you live here?" Bella asked.

"No, I'm a student at UCLA," he replied. "Starting my junior year in the fall."

"You're only nineteen," Bella said. "How can you already be in your third year?"

"I graduated a year early," he explained.

Bella nodded, almost like she was unsure of what to say.

"What about you, Isabella?" Renee asked, drawing her attention away from her brother. "Did you go to college?"

Bella's shoulders tensed, and I placed my hands on either side. "No," she whispered. "He wasn't particularly concerned with my education after he took me. All he let me do was paint."

"Oh," she murmured.

Before she or Marcus could say anything else, the sound of the backdoor being opened and Alice, Emmett, and Rose coming in trickled out from the back. The four of us turned as the three of them walked into the front of the bar, freezing when they spotted us. Renee's eyes flittered to each of them, stopping on Alice and eyeing the tattoos on her leg, arms, and shoulder.

"Hey, guys," I said, clearing my throat.

"Hey," they mumbled together, their attention still on Renee and Marcus.

"Um, we should go," Marcus said, wrapping his hand around the top of Renee's arm.

She frowned as she looked from Alice to him and then to Bella. "Yes, I suppose we should." She paused. "Can we meet for lunch tomorrow? Please? I'd like to sit down and talk with you more."

"Um, I can't," Bella murmured. "I start a new job, so . . ."

"Of course," Renee replied, sadness filling her eyes. "Maybe we could do dinner or something instead?"

Bella stared at her for a long moment before nodding. "Yeah, maybe."

The smile that spread across Renee's face could only be referred to as pure happiness, and once again I found myself struggling with envy. My mother never looked at me like that, she was never anxious to see me, to have dinner with me. Hell, I doubt she even noticed I was gone, not until it came time to pay her next bill off. "So, listen, here is my number," Renee said, scribbling down her number on the back of a small, rectangular card. "Give me a call when you're ready. Okay?"

Bella nodded before taking the card from her, her eyes filling with tears.

Marcus cleared his throat, pulling her attention to him. "I want to apologize for . . . Well, how I've behaved over the last week. I just . . . I've missed you, and I didn't want to get my hopes up just to be disappointed again."

"Guess I can understand that," Bella murmured, biting her bottom lip.

"Yeah, so, um, look, here's my number, too." He quickly scribbled his number on the back of an old receipt, and handed it to her. "Call me sometimes. Or text me, or whatever. Just . . . something, okay?"

Though I could tell Bella was resistant to accept his number, seeing as he was such an asshole, she nodded and took the paper from him. "Yeah, sure."

Taking a deep breath, he gently tugged on Renee's arm and led her over to the front door. Emmett rushed over and unlocked the door, letting them out. Bella collapsed in my arms, her sobbing echoing throughout the silent room. Shifting my eyes to Emmett first and then to Rose and Alice, I saw the concern etched on each of their faces, but more than concern, I saw understanding. We'd all been through Hell, that much I was sure of.

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