Hola chicos! Can you believe it's been a month already. Here we are with the next installment. Also I have a rec!

If you're reading SS, it's safe to say you enjoy a story with an intricate plot . . . and the story I'm rec'ing has JUST that, and more. A unique plot that's to die for! It's called Resent by dearlybeloved'93 here on FFN. Check it out. You may just love it!

Thanks to my amazing beta PunkyBumpkin, because really she does SO much for this story. And to my readers, you guys make it worth it. Also, I don't thank my Twilighted beta enough, content1, you're awesome, and thank you for all that you do.

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or any of its characters. No copyright infringement is intended.

Stolen Souls

Chapter 26

Bella.

He had called her Bella.

Bella.

He knew her fucking name—knew a part of her that I didn't.

Bella.

Rage blanketed my stare—overtook me and became venom in my veins, poisoning me, seeping out around me, fogging the air that I breathed. A suffocating cycle I found myself in and intended to obtain release from.

It wasn't the position I had found them in. It wasn't the look of actual serenity that was on her face, a look that wasn't something she had ever graced me with. It wasn't even the look of worship in his eyes, or the nurture in his touch as he combed his hand over her hair.

It was that name; it was screaming inside my skull, pulsating viciously, drowning everything else out.

He knew her in a way she would never let me know her.

My fists, my jaw, my thoughts . . . my world clenched, and every muscle in my legs constricted—coiled—preparing to spring; there was no rational thought. Predator—prey. And I was going to tear him apart.

..xx..

When I finally came to, it was a blow to the face that did it.

The red that had clouded my vision twitched as my mind tried to grasp what was in front of me. The pulsating ring of that venomous word flowing—pumping—throughout me vibrated, like a glass before shattering, and slowly let other sound seep in. I realized that there were more people in the room than just Jasper and me; when throughout it all he was the only concrete, tangible thing in the storm and I had wanted him just as fucking broken as I felt.

But now my vision let in colors: hues of browns and blacks and purples becoming a bleeding background on walls and the floor and skin. Different faces in masks of disgust, fear, and anger—mirrors of my own. I knew those looks well because they bruised every thought I had had.

The bouncer, the one from the front entrance, was now in the room. He had Jasper in a lock, growling threats down his ear and throat. Jasper looked dreadful: swollen eye, blood caked, yellowing patches of skin in between an array of purples—the Jackson Pollack of faces. I could only imagine what I looked like, because this was not the first time Jasper and I took to blows, especially when we were younger, and he always came out looking the better of us two.

The second that thought crossed my mind, everything stopped: all the bleeding colors, all the sounds seeping in, and all the faces condemning me.

If the bouncer was in here, this was more serious than I realized. What if I became banned from the club? Instantly, like the hope of things I still was not ready to address, my arms fell, along with my adrenaline. My back straightened—as much as it could—and I breathed deeply, calming the rest of my body along with my mind.

However, the second that the adrenaline left, the pain kicked in. And everything hurt, magnified to a degree unimaginable. The last time I had been in a fist fight was senior year of high school. Although the circumstances were different, every muscle echoed those stinging pains from before, putting a very different meaning to the term "muscle memory." This time, though, I was glad that the bouncer didn't have pepper spray with him or that the police were not involved. At least I hoped they weren't. Abruptly, a memory I hadn't thought about in years overcame me.

"Your father's here," the officer said. The blue of his uniform matched his eyes, down to the starch creases of order and discipline. The way he sucked in breaths through his teeth wasn't even contemptuous anymore, it was simply how he breathed. After spending over three hours with him breathing that way, it became a metronome to the passing of time in here.

My eyes scanned the room again: nothing special—grey walls, floor, ceiling, and a table pushed up against the wall with three metal chairs where I sat across from Officer Starch. It wasn't anything like the movies, where I expected to have this glass window in the room and people watching me. I didn't know if all the rooms were like this or if those were only for the "special" criminals.

"So are you gonna let him in?"

He glared for at least a good minute before deciding to get his fat ass up and go answer the door; his chair groaned, or more likely sighed in relief once he was off it.

"Wipe that smile off your face, kid," he sucked out before leaving the room. My dad immediately came in. The good doctor looking worse for the wear, probably just coming off another extra five hour day on top of the thirteen he regularly put in. He didn't say anything until the door closed.

"What the hell were you thinking, Edward? Your mother is worried sick. I've spoken with my lawyers and they've informed me there isn't anything they can do. You will be charged as an adult and it will go on your record. I've tried speaking with Jane, but it was also out of her hands. They will be pressing charges. He said you attacked him without provocat—"

"Bull, fucking, shit. James knows what he did. Fuck him for thinking he could get away with this," I cut my father off. Because I'd take whatever punishment came to me; I didn't care at this point. But nothing was a bigger lie than James saying that he had no reason why I would come after him. He damn well fucking knew, and he was lucky that his mom just happened to be home—an oversight on my part—and called the cops. Yeah, it didn't look good for me that I'd gone to his house and sought him out, but he knew I had it out for him ever since he came between us, ever since he changed her and took her from me. The accident was just as much his fucking fault as it was mine, and he didn't even seem to fucking care.

"This has to stop, Edward," my father said, coming to stand over, his nostrils flaring. He'd been pushed so far past his limit these past couple of months and I couldn't even find it in me to care. All my efforts went to her; nothing else mattered anymore. And James got what was coming to him. "You are going to get yourself together, or so help me . . . You're lucky that it was only a couple of broken ribs and a nose from what I've been able to ascertain. But this," he slammed his hand into my chest roughly, "is over, Edward. It is time you grew up and realized what you're doing to your mother because of this. You will to fix this, if only for her sake. This road of self-destruction ends now, Edward." His knuckles drove into my chest, emphasizing his point before he stood up and made his way to the door. Disappointed eyes washed over my face, assessing each of my injuries, which were nothing compared to James'.

Before he left the room, he left me with the words that did, in fact, reach me and make more than enough of an impact to alter my behavior from then on. "So that you are aware, I will not bail you out anytime soon; spending some time in jail is just what you need."

I didn't want this altercation to end with spending a night in jail, flailing around trying to get air to burning skin to squelch the pain. The burn from the pepper spray made far worse by open wounds from my throbbing split lip, cheek and knuckles. I couldn't go home and get a shower; even when I did finally make it home intent on bathing in milk for an entire day, my dad made sure that didn't happen. The entire ordeal was not something I had any intention of repeating—but most especially with a body that was ten years older, and as much as I hated to admit it, too old to have the crap beat out of it.

Raising my hand in surrender, I backed off of the wall and away from the bouncer as he pulled Jasper with him. He said some things to me that flew in one ear and out the other. All I was focused on were the glaring blue eyes that drilled into me from inside a lock between the massive boulder's forearms, telling me that they weren't done with me in the slightest.

Well, neither am I, mine said back. Neither am I, Jasper.

The words "stay here for five minutes, then leave," however, did pierce the frozen glares and my subconscious. My body automatically acknowledged the demand with a nod.

It was his pushing Jasper that jolted my feet into action. As they left the room, my eyes followed them only to land on her.

Bella.

Suddenly everything came flooding back. It was as if the past moments were a complete out-of-body experience, as if my brain checked out at the door the second I stalked through it.

Yet seeing the wilting mess in front of me was enough to snap anyone out of any stupor.

It was as if they were two wilting saplings alone in a desert through a storm, all thin, quivering limbs, dying out and searching for any shelter or source of survival. The first, with arms practically as thin as twigs trembling in frailty, searched out that second sapling. How had I not noticed how thin she was; was she always this thin? The second sapling closed in on itself as if preserving the only thing it had left. Both were quaking and swaying, too frail to survive the storm, too strong to give in to the force of their imminent destruction. Both needing the other to withstand the torment but not knowing how to bridge the black river that ran from them—dividing them—and both too afraid to.

I didn't know what the fuck to do, but it was a scream that finally chopped that first struggling tree down, brown hair spilling like dead leaves on the ground, with no way to ever find its way back to the vibrant foliage they may have once been.

When the little one slapped her—Bella—I felt it through the ache in my own muscles to somewhere deep in my soul. That slap's sting left a mark worse than any physical pain ever could, and there was not a doubt in my mind that it was the type of scar that would take years to heal and disappear . . . if it ever would.

She kept pleading through dying limbs and broken branches, haggard breaths, and tears that didn't only seep from eyes with the little one to please forgive her—to understand that she loved her beyond anything and she had never meant to lie and hurt her.

The words resounded with me heavily, because it wasn't but months ago that I had stumbled through those same words with Tanya. I knew what it meant to make a choice that hurt another so profoundly that it destroyed you as well; even if that was never your intention, that was what had occurred. The weight of everything around me came crashing upon me, dropping my shoulders and eyes, my breath and understanding of things that still escaped me. But one didn't need to know the how, or the why, or the when, or who; emotion was a universal language, and it was suffocating the air around me.

Just as it was destroying them.

When the little one raised her arm to slap her again, it was my own soul that answered. My hand shot out and captured her wrist.

"Don't."

There was more feeling in that one word than I had put in the millions I'd used before it. No matter what I saw or felt or believed, it wasn't what was important in that moment. I saw it now, clear as fucking day.

That fragile sapling was barely weathering the storm; she wouldn't survive another slap. She was hanging on by the very last root in the dirt that was anything but life-sustaining, and hadn't supplied nutrients to flourish for years.

I knew now, more than ever, that I had it all wrong.

"Don't touch her again."

The little pixie one glared up at me in a frozen stare before she yanked her arm out of my grasp. Callously she turned her stare back to her.

"Twilight's my sister." My eyes widened as the little one's words echoed through my memories. With fresh eyes I was seeing everything. Everything.

Sisters.

She had lied to the little one about something. About the death of someone, two people. I couldn't remember the names, but I wondered about the significance of those people. Not only that, but the little one was dating Jasper. She had to be equally as hurt at what we had walked in on. Things had just become so much more complicated.

Jasper.

He had some serious fucking explaining to do. He got on my ass about coming here, but it turned out he was doing the same damn thing. He was the epitome of hypocrite.

The pixie one got up and turned her back from her—Bella—before leaving silently, as if she had never been there to begin with; just the freezing draft of her despise lingered.

I made a move for her—Bella—and then I couldn't help it. "Bella." It slipped from my lips like the ribbon holding a flying balloon. The twitch of her shoulders was the only acknowledgement of the name. Somehow, without even picking her eyes up off the floor she moved out of the way. Receiving the message loud and clear, I pulled my hand back to my chest and watched the ribbon float off away from me.

"What the hell is going on?" It was just a whisper. "I told you never to come back," she had said at the exact same time, eclipsing my barely spoken words. The only thing that distinguished the words was the confusion behind mine and the reproach behind hers.

Immediately, running on strength that was reserved somewhere deep—which shocked the hell out of me considering what I just saw—she got up and went to the door, her eyes never picking up off the floor, right next to where I was certain she left her hopes and heart.

The irony of déjà vu to this situation was beyond fucking disgusting.

"I'd . . . I'd tell you not to come back, but obviously you don't listen to me. So just . . ." She picked her head up and looked at the closed door, her hand slowly closing around the knob. Her frail body concaving with the deep breath she took before speaking again. "I don't know . . . please? Just . . . just forget I ever existed—forget all of this. Please . . . . Go home to Tanya, Edward."

With a soft shake of her head, she opened the door and ran from the room, even though she had no need to. I wouldn't chase her.

It wasn't just the ache in my limbs or the tremendous exhaustion that accumulated from watching dying saplings try to weather a storm and fail; it was that I felt the weight of everything come down on me. I don't think I'd be able to ever move again the same.

She was right; I didn't listen. Well, fine, what other choice did I have now? She wanted me to leave her alone, so I would.

I had already tried with her. I'd tried harder with her than any other relationship I had in my life. What more could be done?

I wanted to rub my eyes, but when I tried to find them I discovered that my face was more swollen than I expected. With a sigh, I focused on the one area of this mess I would get control over.

..xx..

He was waiting for me outside of my car, arms crossed, blood caked in his ear and hair, smeared across his face.

Good.

Everything about him seeped disdain and anger, and I knew we were well in for a round two in no time.

"How fucking long?" The words were out of my mouth before I had time to think about them. The smug look on his face as he waited for me was enough to get my anger to find purchase wherever the release allowed: my fists, my breathing, my words . . . everywhere. I stalked towards him with only one purpose; the cars blurred into the dark night around me. The only thing I saw was that condescending smile, like a red flag in front of a bull.

"Grow up, Edward."

"Don't you fucking dare; you know what she means to me!" He fucking had the gall to laugh.

"Do I? I happen to have no fucking idea what you're doing here. As far as I was concerned, you were doing your own thing. Every time I tried to talk to you, you had better things to do."

"Don't bullshit me, Jasper; you weren't even the slightest bit surprised to see me here. Look at you." I threw my arm up in his direction. "You're still not all that fucking surprised."

"You're right; I'm not shocked. This is just like you. Of course you'd be idiotic enough to put everything that matters into danger and not give a shit about anything but yourself."

With a shove I gritted out, "Fuck you."

"I'm sorry, aren't you married?"

My body responded by diving for him. All I could think about was wiping that fucking smug look off his face; the way his hands were in her hair, the way he held her . . . I wanted to wipe all of it off. I wanted to wipe the floor with his face. I didn't even care that I had known him practically all my life.

But Jasper was always one step ahead of me, of everyone, especially in a fight; it was as if he trained for this type of thing, putting himself in the position of advantage always. When I dove, he moved at the very last second, grabbing onto my shoulders in a lock before pinning my face down onto the car.

The steam from my breath against the window pissed me off more than anything, but all his weight against my back caused a serious lack of words. He pushed more, telling me that I needed to calm down otherwise whatever this was was going to be a million times worse.

His words didn't make sense, but my arms were sore; I was burning rage and had no outlet. The situation wasn't going to get any better for me anytime soon. And, regardless of what my behavior lately might have implied, I was not an idiot.

I don't remember what he said to me to get me in the car. I don't remember what I said to him after I slammed the door to his car and fumed in the parking garage of my place. I don't remember what he said to keep me from taking another swing at him. I don't remember what he said when he entered my home. I remember glares and slamming, blood pulsing in my ears and ringing. I remember teeth grinding, the deep calming breaths he took when I took a cheap shot and shoved him. But of words, I don't remember a single one.

Because every single word before "she's a seventeen-year-old sex slave" didn't matter.

I'd like to say that those words stole the breath from my lungs, that I was shocked and fell to my knees with the weight of the truth. I'd like to say that I was the sort of man who, when faced with the disgusting realities of the world, made a difference. Who acted out of an intense desire to right a wrong or become emotionally destroyed because I was but a man, and I couldn't right every wrong. I just could not . . . I was not that man. There was a part of me that knew it—all of it—somewhere where I didn't want to accept it. And so, when faced with the vicious truth, I was the type of man to deny it.

All of it.

Seventeen days. How very fitting. And I detested that fucking number.

The first day I yelled. The second day I screamed. The third I drank. That third day turned into the eighth. The ninth day I broke things: glasses, a table, bottles that piled up around the house, even a TV. On the tenth day I started back at the first day.

I was most certainly the type of man who found more comfort in denial and destruction than I did in the beep of a heart monitor after a flatline or the smell of sterility in an operating room. Jasper called relentlessly. Who knew ignorance was my pair of scrubs, and I wore them quite faithfully.

By the thirteenth day my mind replayed everything Jasper had told me, a never-ending cycle of the poor excuse of a man I was. My selfishness knew no bounds. Even now, when I should have focused on what I could do for her and her situation, I focused on what I hadn't done . . . what I did.

On the fourteenth day I realized I had raped her. I replayed every conversation I had ever had with her. She didn't enjoy sex; she never wanted to have sex with me. Yet she had. On the fourteenth day everything came crashing down. She was seventeen. She was fucking seventeen. She was taken from her home, somewhere in Washington, and was working for the Russian mafia—supposedly. She and her sister. She was forced to have sex for money. She was forced to have fucking sex for money. Money that I highly doubted she ever saw a penny of. On the fourteenth day I finally realized what sort of man I was.

I was that man. The one that had sex with a seventeen-year-old sex slave for money, money she never saw and sex she never wanted to have.

God.

For the next three days, I stewed in a bath of alcohol, cigarettes, misplaced tears, anger, guilt, and regret before I finally picked up the phone. To have said that Jasper was shocked was an understatement.

This time when he talked, I listened. It all hit me on so many levels. The age. The sex. The legality. The morality. Each tier was bad, but the one that superseded it was worse, and I was climbing an uphill battle. When I told Jasper as much, he told me that he intended to get them out, Bella and her sister Alice.

He did know things about her, so much more than I had ever imagined. And he shared everything he knew with me. I offered to go to the police; I decided to turn myself in. His head shook tersely as he told me that none of that mattered now; what mattered wasn't what was in the past, but what we did with this knowledge in the future. He had plans, and ideas, and hopes, and goals. Disgust built inside of me, bubbling like the vomit that came up on more occasions than I cared to remember the past two weeks from the copious amount of alcohol in my system. All I had done was dwell on the fact that she was seventeen. All I had done was try to get her to date me and sleep with me. God. I had thought she was at least in her twenties. Closer to my age than not.

Jasper had said that I needed to come to terms with it; he said it took him a while too. But that time wasn't something we had. So while he spoke, I listened. It was the very least I could do, and I needed to start somewhere. He said something needed to be done, and I agreed. But what?

That was where I found myself for the past couple of days. What could I do? What could I possibly do . . . what could anyone do? They had crooked cops on their side; they had years of skirting the law. In fact, they were above the law. I was a doctor, and Jasper an office man. We were privileged, private-school-bred elite; what the hell did we know about anything like this? How the hell could we even have a clue what they were going through, and even then how to get them out of this problem?

It was impossible. Each night I kicked off covers that were suffocating me in their fine Egyptian cotton, flailing over right and left without being able to find sleep. All I could think about was how impossible this was, how incredulous. How I couldn't do anything; even Jasper, who was the less privileged of the two, had no experience with anything like this.

Sure, he may have thought he knew a thing or two because of his job, but we were both way in over our heads. Which brought me to the next most logical thought: this was going to kill us. There was no way we would make it out of a situation like this alive.

I needed to reconcile the fact that there was no way I would survive. Not too shockingly, that did not seem to bother me.

Sickeningly, like some form of reverse irony, it was when I was willing to accept that I would give the ultimate sacrifice for her that the answer to all of this came to me. I wanted to punch something, because the answer was so fucking obvious, it was absolutely disgusting.

If you couldn't beat them, you'd join them.

..xx..

"I like you. Turn around, go home. She not here anyway." He stared at my still slightly swollen face and scars with hesitation. With wiser eyes, I watched him. I knew now what he was, with his arms crossed over his huge chest. The tattoos clawing up his neck rippled along with each shake of his head.

I had been so blind before.

"I don't care then, Felix. Do this for me." He pushed off the wall next to the gold doors that he was always guarding. And part of me was disgusted with what I knew about him now, even if I wanted to believe he was a good person. Being a "good person" was probably pretty subjective in a place like this.

He towered over me, breathing down my face, glaring. When he wanted to impress, he was quite good at it. "You fucking dead man. Are you sure?"

"Yes. Take me to Aro Arlovski."

Thanks for reading!

This updates question: So a lot of people thought that in last chapter Emmett was making a stupid mistake, yet this chapter ends the exact same way. Do you still feel it's dangerous? Who will get there first? And do you think it'll make a difference if it were say Edward that went to Aro first or Emmett?

(lame questions, I know. HAHAHA)

I want to thank those who are reading and supporting this endeavor!

Please leave me some love and let me know what you think, it makes all this hard work worth it! Thanks! Xxooxx