My body heaved with sobs as my brain ran these pictures through my head again, the restraints making the strain on my body more and more prevalent. Eventually, my splotchy vision gave way, and I was submerged into blackness.
EPOV
If someone would have asked me last week "What is the worst thing that could happen right now?" I would have described this situation exactly. I would have told them that my worst nightmare was that Dmitri would come back and take Bella again, undoing every ounce of recovery and then some.
Now, Bella was handing me her child, and that nightmare was spinning into a reality. As she begged me to take Ollie and leave her alone with these two predators, I was overwhelmed with the most fear that I have ever felt. Walking away from Bella was the absolute hardest thing I have ever, and probably will ever, do.
We got in the car and everyone was bawling. Kate managed to put the car in drive and get us down the street so that the children were out of harm's way. As soon as we were far enough away, I handed Ollie to Kate and jumped out of the van.
With every step that I sprinted, the ground seemed to fall away beneath my feet. As I got closer, my blood boiled hotter and hotter, and my desire to rip that sick pedophiles head off itched in my fingers. As soon as the house came into view, a sound rung out. I took me a few moments to realize that what I just heard was indeed the sound of a gunshot coming from inside.
She was dead.
Bella was dead.
The only woman who I would ever have the capacity to love had just been gunned down, and now, I was going to go to jail because there was no chance in hell that Dmitri was going to walk away from this one unscathed.
As I approached the open door, confusion broke through the fiery anger. Felix laid dead on the ground, two gunshot wounds to the chest and gun by his side. My brain swarmed itself searching for an answer, while my body forced itself through the door.
"BELLA!" I screamed out, begging for her to still be alive. Never in my life have I been so relieved to hear her broken sobs. In what looked to be a very nice living room, sat Dmitri with a hole in his forehead and Bella, rotating between throwing up and sobbing.
Sitting and pulling her into my lap, I tried to quickly assess her for any physical damage. She appeared to be unharmed with her clothes fully intact, so I let myself fall out of doctor mode and back into boyfriend-who-thought-his-girlfriend-had-been-murdered mode. We sat on the floor – both in violent tears – for about a half of an hour, until the police arrived and took over the room.
Once Bella had Ollie in her arms, she looked better – still not good – but better. As she rocked him back and forth on the ground, you could almost see her trying to undo all of the unraveling that had just been done inside of her head.
'What happened?' Kate mouthed to me.
'He's dead. I don't know what else happened.' She nodded in understanding, her face prefect reflection of the mix of relief and fear that I was feeling.
My eyes watered over as I knelt down and relayed the messaged that the police had given me for her. Her deadpan stare frightened me more than tears would have. I glanced up at Kate in hopes that she could break this silence. Bella still wasn't acknowledging that anyone was speaking at all. At this point, Ollie had begun to stir and cry.
"Would you like me to take him?" I asked cautiously, seeing her struggle. She reluctantly handed me her son, whose cry turned into a mild whimper upon entering my arms. The utter defeat that washed over Bella's face cut deeper than anything so far. There was no life left in her eyes at all, and knowing Bella, I knew what was going through her mind. Shaking her head, she started walking away back towards the house. "Bella! Bella, wait!" I reached for her arm to try and stop her. The look in her eyes when she turned back practically stopped my heart.
"DON'T touch me!" She snapped, pulling her arm away and continuing on. Paramedics swarmed her, shooting me many suspicious glares. My body was frozen, staring after her in fear. I loved her more than anything or anyone else on this planet, and seeing her in so much pain broke me in ways that I didn't know a person could break.
"Edward, are you okay? Do you want me to take Ollie?" Kate asked quietly as she came up next to me and rested a hand on my shoulder. Nodding with tears in my eyes, I handed him over, burying my face in my free hands. "No matter what happened, we'll get her through it just like we got her through everything else. She is not going to be okay for a long time, but she will be eventually."
"I can't lose her again." I whispered.
A few paramedics came up and started making sure that the rest of us – especially Hope – were unharmed. I shrugged them off and scanned the area for Bella. The ambulance that they had taken her to was now empty, and she wasn't in the other huddle of paramedics either. My eyes were drawn to movement up around the front porch.
"No!" I didn't take time to think anything through, I just ran for her. I wasn't completely sure why she was going back in, but I knew that in her current mindset, it wasn't going to end well if she wasn't stopped. I was three steps from the door when a bug burly officer stepped in front of me.
"Sir, you can't go in here right now." I tried to get past him, but another officer grabbed my shoulder.
"Sir, this is a crime scene, we need you to stay out here." Looking at them both frantically, I shook my head.
"Just get her out! Bella; get her out of there!" As soon as the words left my tongue, I loud, helpless cry came from inside. Both officers looked at each other and ran in, along with about four paramedics. Before I could get my head together and follow them in, the medics rushed back out and grabbed one of the stretchers. I fell to my knees on the porch as the strolled her out to the ambulance; her wrists and ankles restrained to keep her from hurting herself any more than she must have already did.
"Edward? It is Edward, right? We're going to take Bella to the hospital now. We don't think that she is physically harmed in any way, but it is the only safe place for her right now." One of the medics that I was speaking to earlier informed me.
"What…what just happened?" I almost didn't want to know, but I couldn't keep myself from asking.
"There was a syringe on the floor next to the body. We aren't sure what is in it, but she attempted to inject herself with it. It doesn't look like she managed to get any in, but we will run some blood work and monitor her closely at the hospital just to be sure. Has she had any issues with drugs in the past?"
Unable to breathe, I nodded my head and then immediately shook it. "He used to drug her," I whispered. "to keep her from remembering anything."
The medic nodded silently, helping me up and giving me all of the information about the hospital that they were going to take her to. I took all of the information in and relayed it to Kate and Maggie.
"I'm going to go to the hospital now." I said flatly, trying to not have a complete meltdown.
"I'm driving." Kate demanded. "You are in no shape to be navigating the roads."
Maggie stood up, still holding Hope tightly against her chest. "Is it alright with you guys if I stay here for now? I don't mean to be insensitive, but I need to be here when my parents get home. This…today…I…"
"Of course, Maggie." Kate said. "But please call someone and have them come sit with you. You don't need to be alone either right now."
"Mom and Dad are on their way. I will come by the hospital later."
With that, we were on our way, speeding off to find my broken angel. Ollie sat peacefully in the back, completely unaware that his beautiful mother was falling apart piece by piece. At first, the silence felt good, but with every block we passed it got heavier and heavier.
"Have you called anyone?" Kate finally asked. In the mess of everything, calling home never even crossed my mind. Dreading the coming conversation, I pulled out my phone and dialed Charlie. Throughout the fourteen years that Bella was missing, Charlie and I had had many long talks about various serious topics. He was one of the only men in my life – besides my own father – who I could completely lose it in front of. Out of all of the conversations that we had, this was probably going be one of the hardest. The phone only rang once before he answered.
"Chief Swan, what can I do for you?" He sounded extremely tired, and much older than when I had spoken to him last.
"Charlie, it's Edward. Are you available to talk for a little bit?"
"Talk? About what? I'm pretty swamped looking for that sick bastard. We just called in a handful of extra detectives from Seattle. The entire town is crawling with police, but so far there isn't a trace of him. I swear I am going to rip his mother fu…"
"You can call off the search." I said quietly. At first I wasn't sure if I actually said it or not, because the line was completely silent.
"Shit. What…" He swallowed, and I knew what he was thinking, mostly because it was the same thing that I had thought back at the house. He had to ask, but really didn't want to know the answer. "How bad is it?"
"She's being taken to the hospital in an ambulance now, but…"
"I swear to you I am going to murder that son of a bitch." He cut me off again, the tears in his eyes audible in his voice.
"You're not going to have to."
"What do you mean, Cullen? Is he…? How?"
"Bella." I almost smiled. Underneath all of the terror, I was so proud of her. "The gun you gave her."
The phone fell silent again as he took it all in. A muffled sob broke the silence, and then I heard him tell someone else in the background, which was followed by a round of applause from everyone in the precinct.
"Did he hurt her?"
"I don't think so. Not physically at least. She's an emotional wreck though. She…she tried to inject herself with the memory stuff that he gave her before. They think they caught her before any got in, but they are taking her to the hospital for monitoring. I'm…I'm so scared, Charlie. I can't lose her again."
"Me either, man. I will go home and get Renee and we will be down there as soon as possible. Keep us updated."
"Of course."
We hung up and I took a second to compose myself as much as possible before calling Emmett. As soon as I found his contact, we pulled in to the hospital parking lot.
"I will take care of Ollie, you just go." Kate told me as I anxiously fiddled with his seatbelt. Giving her a quick hug, I sprinted into the hospital frantically searching for someone who could tell me anything about Bella.
"She's being evaluated by our team of doctors. When they are done, I will let you go and see her." The nurse that was helping me told me. "Would you like me to escort you to our private waiting center until then? This might take a while."
As a doctor, I knew that by 'a while' she meant a good hour or so, so I reluctantly accepted. By this time, Kate and Ollie had already caught up to us, so I took the little man in my arms and held close the only part of Bella that I had at the moment.
Today had started as such an amazing day. I woke up with the love of my life wrapped up in my arms, and spent a good part of the day basking in the sun with her on the beach. Today wasn't supposed to end with a near suicide attempt – or at least the mental equivalent – and it most definitely wasn't supposed to end in the hospital with Bella in emotional shreds because of Dmitri.
The dead silence in the room provided me with an opportunity to review all of my current fears. I was afraid that Bella hated me because Ollie stopped crying when I held him. I was afraid that the injection worked before they caught her and she wouldn't be able to remember anything again. I was afraid of what he said to her that made her fall apart like this. I was afraid that even though it was clearly self-defense, Bella would be haunted by shooting those two evil men. I was afraid that she would try to kill herself again, and that no one would be there to stop her. I was afraid that all of Bella's emotional progress had just been discarded and that she would have to start from the beginning. I was afraid that…
"Edward." Kate cut off my thoughts. "Don't do that to yourself. I can see it in your face; you're looking over all of the worst possible outcomes of this. Focus on what is, not what could be. Freaking yourself out about this isn't going to help you or Bella in anyway. Call someone or talk to me, but don't internalize all of this."
Simply nodding, I shifted Ollie to my other leg and pulled out my phone, which still had Emmet's contact pulled up.
He answered on the first ring. "How did it go; the meeting with Maggie? I have been pacing all day, worrying about her. What happened? How did Maggie react? Did she meet Hope?"
I decided to tackle the questions in the order of least likely to give him a panic attack to most likely. "Well, from what I saw, Maggie seemed to be fairly pleasant about the situation, and she didn't really meet Hope, but…"
"What's wrong? I can hear it in your voice, something bad happened. What was it?" He demanded.
"Dmitri showed up."
The string of words that flowed out of his mouth made me want to cover Ollie's ears, even if he couldn't hear or understand them. The phone line got a little choppy, but I could still hear Emmett yelling in the background…except for now tears were audible in his distant voice.
"Edward, it's Rose. What the hell just happened?" She sounded so terrified that I almost didn't even want to tell her. "What's wrong?"
"Put it on speaker for Emmett to hear. I need this to come from me." The sound opened up and I knew that that was my queue. "He and Felix showed up today at our meeting and demanded Bella at gunpoint. She insisted that I left with Ollie and everyone else and demanded our safety. I ran back as fast as I could, but by the time I got back, Bella had shot both of them with the gun that Charlie gave her before we left. She killed him, Emmett; he's dead."
"Dead." Emmett whispered in disbelief.
"Like for real this time?" Rose asked quietly. I hadn't realized that this was in fact the second time that we had thought Dmitri to be dead. This sudden realization made me nervous, and I scoured my brain trying to make sure that I didn't miss something.
"I saw his body. There is no way that he could have faked it this time."
"Whoa." They whispered in unison.
"How is she?" Rose asked. "Seeing him couldn't have been easy on her."
"I'm not really sure yet, but not well. She was a mess when I got back to her, and it just got worse. Right now we're at the hospital waiting for them to finish analyzing her. It's pretty bad this time. She tried to inject herself with something that he brought…probably the drugs that he used to wipe her memory with. They stopped her, but I don't know if they caught her in time."
"I'm coming down there." Emmett said in a protective whirl.
"Emmett, you have a wife and two brand new babies to look after. Your parents are coming down, and Kate and I are here, you need to stay with your family. I will keep you updated as much as possible." As soon as I said this, a man in a lab coat walked in. "I gotta go I'll call you back."
Standing, I shifted Ollie's weight to the other side. "How is she?"
"Isabella has suffered some serious emotional trauma. Although she doesn't appear to be physically damaged in any way, we won't be able to tell if she actually injected anything until the blood tests come back. Right now, we gave her some medicine so that her body could rest. Depending on how her body responds to it, it could last anywhere from a few hours to a few days. I will walk you to her room."
Even while unconscious, a small frown creased her forehead. Pressing my lips to the line of worry, my eyes began to water.
"I love you, Isabella Swan. Please be okay." As I whispered these words, I lost all of my composure. Holding myself up on the bed railing with one arm, I covered my face with the other and sobbed. Someone, I'm assuming Kate, slid a chair up behind me so that I could sit.
I stayed like that for hours, during some of which I must've fallen asleep. When I woke up, Bella's hand was still firmly positioned between mine and my head. The only thing that was different was that it was slightly darker and Renee and Charlie were sitting in the opposite corner, holding Ollie.
Yawning and sitting up I could feel the dried tears plastered to my cheeks. Renee shot me a defeated smile and a sigh and I nodded; words weren't needed to express our feelings, in fact, the heavy silence in the room did them plenty of justice.
Many more hours passed, and Bella was still unconscious. The hours turned into days, and she still hadn't awoken. Despite our urging worries, her doctors assured us that it was just the medication and that she was okay. Finally, after three agonizingly long days, her monitors broke their steady rhythm. She was waking up.
Thank you all for your continuous support. I have decided to carry out the story for a while longer. Sorry that there wasn't much advancement in this chapter, I just felt like it was necessary to break from Bella's point of view for a while and show things from a different perspective. If you want me to keep doing this throughout the story, let me know. I'm considering flipping to some new POV's…maybe Charlie or Alice or someone who hasn't gotten a lot of attention so far. Idk, tell me what you think.