URGENT A/N: I don't know what the hell is up with this website becase I one hundred percent most definitely posted this last night - hell, I even have reviews for this chapter! So, sorry if you've already read this and sorry if you got an alert but didn't read the chapter :S

Previously…

He was silent for a very long time then, as I continued to cry to myself. After a while, I whispered, "Edward?"

There was no reply. I glanced at the screen to see that he had hung up seven minutes ago. Then I burst into a fresh flood of tears.

Not a moment later, though, there came a knock at the door. I knew that he could pick the lock if he wanted to. Hell, he had a fucking key! But this was his way of letting me choose whether I wanted him in my life or not.

I whimpered, but got out of bed and padded along the corridor all the same. I hesitated, but then unlocked the door and opened it, falling into his arms. Edward gently pushed me inside and shut the door behind us, but then he just held me and let me sob into his shoulder, stroking my hair and whispering "I'm sorry" over and over.

The ironic thing was that his arms had never felt so safe.

~VTN~

Just gonna stand there and watch me burn

But that's alright because I like the way it hurts

Just gonna stand there and hear me cry

But that's alright because I love the way you lie

I love the way you lie

-Love The Way You Lie, Eminem ft Rihanna (A/N: I'm really not a rappy kind of person but I like the chorus to this song and it fits the chapter sooo… yeah :L)

Victim of a Teenage Nobody

Chapter 27 – Completely Vulnerable

Edward POV

I held Bella until her tears ran out and she was just crying tearlessly into my chest, gripping me so tight that I worried that she was going to cut off my bloodstream. I wrapped my arms around her, stroking her hair and whispering in her ear. I wondered what was going to happen now. Now that she knew. I wondered why she had let me in. Why she was letting me hold her and whisper apologies.

"Come on," I whispered into her hair, trying to let her go so that we could move.

She just clutched me tighter.

So I gently bent down and picked her up. She held on tight and then said, "What are you going to do to me?"

Her words broke my heart in two. She was scared of me. I should have been thankful that the message I had tried to break to her so many times had finally gotten through. But I wasn't. It just made me love her more. "Nothing," I replied hoarsely, and it was the truth; I doubted I could do anything to her now even if I wanted to.

I had tried. I had nearly done it. I had done as Aro had advised; put seven of them in the coffee and left the other to go in the cupboard so that it looked like she had done it herself. I had even given her the fucking coffee! But when she had lifted it to her mouth, it had dawned on me what was about to happen. She would take one sip and that would be it. She'd never come back. I'd never see her smile or blush or laugh ever again. I'd never feel her lips move fluidly against mine, or her body squirm under mine as I tickled her, or run her hair through my fingers ever again.

And I couldn't let that happen. So I had pushed it away from her and fucking kissed her for all she was worth. I hadn't been expecting to go on and make love to her but when she fucking looked at me like that… and the relief that she was alive had knocked down the barriers I had carefully built up. Plus, at that stage, there was nothing more I wanted to do than claim her as mine. And I could hardly marry her on the spot so there was nothing else I could do.

It wasn't until afterwards, when she was in the shower, that I realised what had just happened. I had told her that I loved her; I had led her into that false sense of security. Even if I bloody couldn't kill her if I tried, it was still a false sense of security; there was no doubt about that.

So what had I done?

I had gone and disposed of the evidence and then gone and prattled on to Cody for a few hours, telling him what an idiot he had for a father, and how I had let him down. How I could have had the money by then to make him completely better but I hadn't had the guts to go through with it. He had lain there, listening, unmoving and uncritical. I deserved a complete eating out, but all he had been able to do was lie there and listen.

So now I was right back to where I had started. No, that was a lie. I had started on the complicated as hell side of the line. And now I had crossed onto the fucking insanely incomprehensible side. That bloody invisible line had been floating about on the periphery of everything for a while, and now everything had come crashing down and that bloody line had cut through everything like a knife through butter.

"I'm not going to do anything to you," I repeated in a whisper, before carrying Bella back through to her bedroom. I held her in one arm, like a baby, and pulled the sheets back before carefully climbing in and holding her close to my chest.

She was close to sleep now, dangerously close. Teetering right on the edge of unconsciousness and her words were almost incomprehensible when she whispered them. Almost, but not quite. "I wish I had never met you."

I swallowed back the lump in my throat but I couldn't hold back the tears anymore. I nodded in agreement though she was long gone now. "I know," I croaked. "I wish you had never met me too."

I lay there while she slept in my arms, wondering where we would go from here. Suddenly, my phone started vibrating in my pocket. I sighed and gently dislodged Bella from my grasp before leaving the room and answering the phone. "Hello?" My voice was wary.

"Edward." It was Aro. "How'd it go?"

I hesitated. "I couldn't do it."

"What?" He sounded disappointed – but not surprised.

"I did it. I put the pills in, like you said, but…" I raked my hand through my hair. "I can't do it. I couldn't let her… I had to… spill it."

"You love her." Aro's voice was certain.

And what use was denying it anymore? "Yes."

"What's the other thing?"

"What other thing?" I shut my eyes, praying that he wouldn't try too hard to get it out of me. To get me to tell him that Bella knew what I was doing.

"Edward." He laughed slightly. "You're too much like your father for your own good. I could tell when he was hiding something and I can tell when you hide something too."

I felt my mouth fall open. "You knew my father? What…? How…?" Questions came quicker than I could word them.

Aro laughed again. His laughter trailed off into coughing; probably because of the smoking he did. My father had always called it disgusting. Yeah, well, no more disgusting than murdering your own wife, Dad. "Edward," Aro said again, "I knew your father better than you did."

"But… how did you know him?" I questioned, baffled. Surely if Aro and Dad had been such great friends then I would have seen him around?

Aro sighed. "I can't… Edward, I can't tell you until you have nothing more to do with your uncle. He's a bad piece of work."

"What the fuck?" I almost-shouted. I had to work to keep my voice down, remembering that Bella was asleep in the next room. "You fucking work for him!"

"So do you. It doesn't make you a bad person does it?"

"Yes it does!" I hissed. "Doing that kind of work for anyone makes you the lowest of the low, the shittiest of the shit!"

"So you think you're a bad person?"

"Fucking hell, of course I do," I admitted. "Anyone who can kill a person is a soulless disgusting… ugh."

"But you can't kill her," Aro pointed out.

"Not killing her will only kill Cody," I returned. "Whatever I do, whichever way I turn, someone gets hurt."

"That happens when you work for James." He sounded upset.

"Well if you don't like it, then why don't you fucking walk away?" I demanded; he was there by choice. I was sure that if he wanted to walk away, James would let him. He wasn't much good for anything now that he was so old.

"Look, you don't work for James through choice. Have you ever considered the fact that maybe I don't either? Edward, I'm with James because I'm fulfilling a promise. I don't break promises, especially not to my best friend."

I laughed once. "What kind of friend would make you promise to do that kind of shit for a shithead like James?"

Aro took a deep breath before saying, "One who lost his son to said shithead because of lack of evidence. Look, Edward, I have to go. But I'll speak to you soon; I'll help you get rid of this Bella girl." Then he was gone.

I stared blankly at my phone. Had he been trying to say that Carlisle had made him promise to work for James? No, that was impossible. Carlisle had barely spoken to James when he was alive; they didn't get on. Ever. But what did he mean by lack of evidence?

Suddenly, I heard a shriek from Bella's room. I pushed the door open hurriedly; worried that someone had broken in through her en-suite bathroom window. But of course she was having a nightmare. After what she had just been through, who wouldn't?

I went to her side, ready to shake her awake, but just then she shrieked, "No! Edward, get away from me!"

I froze. She was dreaming about me.

"No," she whispered, "don't… don't kill her… me…"

I watched sadly as she thrashed about on the bed, and wondered if I'd ever gain her trust again.

Bella POV

It was dark. Horribly, horribly dark. A pale hand stretched out in front of my vision and pushed open a door that I hadn't seen. Then as the angle that I was watching from spun, I watched as the man approached a bed, a huge blood-covered knife in his left hand.

The man was familiar but unrecognisable, partly masked by the darkness. His face was twisted and he looked evil. I felt my heart start to race with panic.

He got to the bed then and pulled back the sheets, revealing a sleeping girl.

I waved frantically at the girl, yelling and screaming for her to wake up, though what use that would do I didn't know. But the man didn't turn and the girl didn't wake. He lifted the knife above her chest, and time slowed down as I realised that I was trapped and unable to reach them. At the same time as I realised that she wasn't just a girl… she was me.

And just as the man's arm whipped down, the angle spun again and I was inside of the other me in the dream; the one about to be killed. My eyes snapped open and caught a glimpse of a pair of beautiful emerald green orbs, but then I realised what was happening and I watched my death approach without even attempting to prevent it.

I jolted awake, gasping and panicked.

"Hey," a smooth velvet voice murmured beside me, "it's okay." His arm snaked around my waist and pulled me flush against his still-fully-clothed body.

I whimpered into Edward's chest, shaking all over. It was the same dream as the one that had been plaguing me for weeks… only this time the killer was different.

"Bella?" Edward whispered, sensing me freeze in his arms. "What's wrong?"

I pushed myself away from him and looked into his eyes. The exact same shade of green. The killer. I immediately looked away. It was dark, and I presumed the middle of the night since there were no tell-tale signs of a breaking dawn coming through the crack in the curtains.

Edward was silent as I sat there. And, as I sat there, everything slowly came back to me. The coffee, the 'I love you', the sex, the burning, the phone call… and then crying myself to sleep in his arms. Leaving myself completely vulnerable.

And he had the nerve to ask me what was wrong?

I pushed his arms away from me and curled into a ball, suddenly very, very scared that Edward was going to whip out a knife and stick it through my chest, just like he had done in the dream that I had just had.

"Bella…" His voice was laced with pain, and guilt.

"Just…" I sighed. Everything hurt. My head was still spinning, my heart was still aching and my entire frame was still shaking.

"Tell me what's wrong. Please," he begged. He didn't move closer, but I could tell that he wanted to.

I lifted my eyes above my knees to meet his gaze. His eyes smouldered at me through the darkness, expressing things that no words could say: love, regret, pain… self-hatred. I bit my lip and whispered, "What do you think is wrong, Edward?"

He was silent for another long moment, leaving the careful distance I had put between us. But then he shuffled forward slightly, and took my hand, prying it away from where it was wrapped around my knees. "Bella," he whispered while shaking his head, "I told you not to trust me."

I pulled my hand back. "Jesus! You shouldn't 'trust someone' because they're well known for cheating, or because they have another family in another state, or because they're addicted to some kind of illegal something!" I couldn't meet his eyes as mine welled up again. "Not because they…" I bit my lip, unable to finish; we both knew what he had been doing. "That's completely beyond not trusting someone, Edward."

He ran a hand through his hair and sighed heavily. "I'm not… it's not… like that. I…"

I interrupted him. "And when you fall in love with someone, you do trust them. I can't help it, Edward."

"But…" He stopped, picking up on what I'd said. He moved closer still, so that he was very in my face. "You can't help it? Not you couldn't help it?" He suddenly looked exasperated. "You mean you still trust me?"

I couldn't lie; not to him. Not even when I knew that telling the truth would make him angry. I took a deep breath, and then nodded. I still trusted him with my life. And now I saw how ironic that was.

"You're so… ugh! Why do you have to make everything so difficult?"

I stared at him. "I make things difficult?"

"Your instincts are completely backwards. You shouldn't have picked up the phone when I called. You shouldn't have opened the door when I knocked. You shouldn't still love me. And you definitely shouldn't still trust me." He raked his fingers through his wonderful hair again, and then looked up at my face. "You make it so difficult to walk away."

"No!" I gasped, my hands automatically flying out to grab his shoulders. I lost my balance and accidentally pushed him over, falling on top of him on the bed. I didn't bother moving. "Don't… God, please don't go anywhere. I can't… you can't…" I shook my head, unable to word my feelings.

Edward sighed and lifted his eyes to the ceiling.

I took a deep breath and whispered, "I'd rather die than stay away from you."

That caught his attention. His eyes whipped back to me. "You don't know what you're saying," he growled.

"Yes," I insisted, "I do." I reached over and pressed my hand over his chest, feeling his heart beat against my palm. "And you do too."

"No I don't. I'm not scared of you."

"And I'm not scared of you," I lied.

Edward sat up and looked down at me. "What did you dream about?"

I blinked. "What?"

"What did you dream about?"

My mouth opened and shut a few times before I said, "How is that relevant?"

"You said my name," he told me icily, looking away again. "You said that I was…" His fists clenched. "You were trying to stop me from killing you, Bella. That seems fucking terrified to me."

I swallowed, hating myself for talking in my sleep for a split-second. Then I pulled myself together again. "You wouldn't do that," I said, trying to sound sure.

Edward smirked sarcastically. "Wouldn't I?" He reached into his back pocket and drew out something I couldn't see in the dim light.

I reached over and flicked on my bedside lamp and then watched as Edward pressed something and the object in his palm became a shiny, sharp blade. I gasped quietly.

"Yeah." Edward's eyes were dark. "That day when you came back here and I was waiting in your bedroom?"

I nodded, panic and bile rising in my throat.

"You have no idea how close you came to meeting this knife."

I shivered and a breath whooshed out of my mouth as my eyes stung. I shook my head. "Why are you telling me this?" I croaked.

He shrugged. "You wanted answers."

I buried my head in my hands, trying to control my breathing so that I wasn't hyperventilating. "Go away," I whispered after a moment.

"What?"

"Just go away!" I yelled, snapping my head up to look at him. "Please. I can't take this."

Edward nodded, finally seeming satisfied. "That's the reaction you should have had ages ago." And then he dropped the knife on the bed and left my bedroom, pulling the door shut behind him.

I sat there, shivering and convulsing, for a moment. I didn't hear him leave the suite and, for some insane reason, I was glad. I still wanted him with me.

Hesitantly, I reached out and took the knife in my hand. It was heavy and it felt red-hot in my grasp. Powerful, even. I cringed away from it and dropped it into one of my top drawers, hiding it. Then, I turned over and shut my eyes, begging sleep to take me so that I wouldn't have to lie awake and panic anymore.

~VTN~

I awoke the next morning to see sun seeping in through the gap in the curtains. It was late morning and it was nice to have a lie in for once; I didn't have school until the afternoon.

I lay there for a long moment, just thinking about what I had to do today. But an uneasy feeling hovered over me like a little black cloud that refused to leave. I frowned and wondered why I felt so nervous and edgy. And then I remembered. Edward, the dream, the coffee… I sighed and sat up before pulling my drawer open just to check that it hadn't all been a horrible dream. It hadn't; the knife still sat there, the sharp creases in the metal grinning sadistically at me. I shivered and slammed the drawer shut again.

Then I sighed and pushed my hand through my hair. Why did I feel bad about telling Edward to leave me alone? Why did I regret it? I wondered where he had gone. And then I remembered that I hadn't heard him leave. So I pushed my duvet aside and slid out of bed, pulling my tank top down where it had ridden up. Then I ventured outside of the bedroom.

Edward was sat up on the sofa, watching me as I came out. I was surprised; for the first time in all of the time that I had known him, he hadn't run away.

"Hi," he said, his eyes gauging my reaction to finding him there.

"Hi," I replied. My voice sounded tired and wary. I cleared my throat and hovered in the doorway.

"I didn't think it was… in your best interests to leave you alone," he explained, answering the question I couldn't ask.

I nodded and then made my way over to the kitchen counter. I filled the kettle and flicked it on. "Coffee?" I offered casually, but I couldn't make myself meet his eyes.

He stood up and made to come over. "Sure I'll make it for you."

"No!" The panicked response had left me before I could stop it. I froze, my hand held too tightly around the handle.

Edward watched me for a moment and then groaned when he realised. "Sorry."

I pursed my lips and nodded, turning to make the two coffees myself. Once I had made them – it took a while with shaking hands – I turned and handed one to Edward. His thumb brushed mine as I passed it over and the buzz of electricity flared up at me. We both glanced up simultaneously, him still gauging my reaction. I blushed and went to sit on the sofa. He hesitantly came over and joined me. "So what now?" he asked.

I looked over at him. I stared at him for a long moment, thinking about things and wondering how to proceed. He was leaving it down to me, letting me decide whether I still wanted him with me or not. Call me stupid, but I just couldn't let him go. "So we…" I had been about to say 'forget last night' but it didn't seem the right thing to say. I cut myself off with a sigh.

Edward sighed as well, taking a gulp of his coffee.

"Why were you sat outside my hotel last night?" I asked after a moment's silence.

He turned and looked at me.

"I mean, I pay you enough to have a place of your own. And… Jacob said that he's seen you outside before too, so don't tell me that it was just last night. And… I know that you have an apartment Edward; I've seen it," I explained. "So… why?"

Edward circled the rim of his mug with his index finger. "It's… um… a long story."

I put my coffee down on the table and curled my legs up underneath me, turning to look at him stony-faced. "Edward," I said in my best no-nonsense tone. "I have no idea what the fuck happened last night. All I know is that you tried to put something in my coffee and you carry a knife around in your back pocket. I don't have a clue why and I don't think that I really want to know why. But I do want to know what on earth is going on in your life that makes you seem so miserable all the time. I've tried to get you to tell me so many times, but you always stop yourself just before you get anywhere. I'm not going to let you avoid it this time; it's the least you can do."

He stared at me for a long moment after my little speech. Then his coffee joined mine on the table. "If I asked you to come somewhere with me, would you?"

"Yes," I answered truthfully. "Why?"

He sank back into the sofa. "Then you better get changed. This is something I can really only show you."

~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~

Hmm… so another cliffhanger? Well sorry but that's what happens when the shit hits the fan guys ;) Sorry :P

Can you guess what Edward's going to show Bella? I'm sure that most of you can ;) But quite a lot in this chapter, huh? Bella knows quite a lot now, and she's stolen Edward's knife ;) And you got some more info about Aro… quite a lot of info about Aro actually :L That was pretty generous :L Can any of you guess what the deal is there? ;)

Now… xXEternallyDazzledXx is running a one-shot contest and I agreed to pimp it ;) You have to write a one-shot based on a song (find the list of songs on her contest profile- link on my profile) and the closing day for entries is the 15th August – extended from 19th July. So, again, if you're a one-shotter then check that out. Also, Sian (xXEternallyDazzledXx) is writing a fic that is just amazing and I'm gonna be rec'ing it this Wednesday on the Twific Tidbit site that I think I've told you about! Please check the site out and let us know your thoughts! :)

Also if you're hosting an O/S contest ever, then please feel free to send me a PM and I'll post links to all contests on my profile for you guys :D So if you want to enter one then check out my profile too :)

I think that's everything :)

Oh, regarding previews – if you haven't been getting a preview then check that you can receive PMs. You can do this by signing in and making sure that 'Personal Messaging (PM)' is on 'enable' :) If that's not enabled then I can't send you a preview :S Oh, and make sure that you're logged in ;)

That really is everything :) Oh, I'm getting a Blackberry phone in the next few days if you care about that? :L Laura got one and I got jealous (because my 4YO phone is broken and her practically new one is absolutely fine *scowl*) so I persuaded my parents to let me get one too :D Woo hoo :D

Okay so… preview for review! :D

Thank you all!

-Steph