Previously, in Chapter Thirty-five ...

The gun safe cracked open, drawing me from my thoughts. I found the box containing my father's gun and pulled it from the shelf. Placing it on the bed I popped the box open and carefully removed the heavy object, running my fingers over the smooth metal. Edward was rifling inside the gun safe, the sound of a box of bullets rattling in his hands, but I ignored it. I drowned it all out with one thought and one thought alone. I imagined the look on my uncle's face when he drew his very last breath while on this earth.

Then I truly smiled.

Pre-read by my girl, Jonesn. The peanut to my butter, the apple to my pie. Beta'd by AliCat0623, who I can annoy simply by mspeling evry thng I wreyte. Love y'all.

Chapter Thirty-Six: The Storm Part II

Pale Death beats equally at the

poor man's gate

and at the palaces of kings.

~Horace~

The black Mustang tore down the narrow road, the headlights almost drowned by the rain that tore down from the heavens above. Amy Winehouse played on the radio, her soulful voice filling the dense air.

"Can you do this?"

I nodded, turning my face and shooting Edward a half smile that caused his eyebrows to raise and his lips to curl in surprised amusement. His face was wet with rain water. It dripped from his hair, trailing down his face, running down his high cheekbones. He smirked, those pink lips turning up at the corners. Shaking his head and pressing his foot harder against the gas, he ignored the skid of the tires against the slick surface of the wet road.

"More secrets to hide."

I shrugged, no longer concerned with secrets and lies. Aro's death was a secret I would gladly keep for the rest of my life.

Edward slowed down once we grew closer to Merle's Lounge. The lights were out, as they were all over town, but apparently the drinkers were pretty important because just as we rolled past, the lights flickered and a man emerged from behind the old shack of a building.

"Generator."

I nodded, searching through the dark windows of the car and the thick sheets of rain water for any sign of Aro's truck, but there was none. He wasn't there.

"Do you think he's gone home?" I asked, chewing on the edge of my bottom lip.

"I don't know," Edward hedged warily, just as the deep sound of the rise and fall of a siren filled the air.

"What is that?" I gasped, turning in my seat to look all around, yet seeing nothing.

The sound became familiar, but made no sense. It was September in Dixie Alley, in the heart of one of the deadliest places to live if you were wary of tornados.

"Is that the tornado siren?" I asked, already knowing the answer to my question. "It's not tornado season."

"The storm warnings must be getting worse," Edward guessed, fiddling with the radio and getting nothing but static. "The power's out. None of the stations work. Maybe the town is using the fire station's tornado siren to warn everyone of just how bad this storm is getting."

I nodded at his response as we rolled through downtown Mayhaw. The town was dark and silent, the American flags jutting from each of the red brick buildings whipping in the cold wind, tangling themselves around the poles they hung from in a sopping mess of red, white, and blue.

"This 'not having a plan' thing probably wasn't our best idea," I confess, shaking my head at my own stupidity.

"Not to worry," Edward grinned as I quietly side-eyed him. "I always take care of things, don't I?"

I opened my mouth, but the only sound to come out was a gasp as he jerked the steering wheel of the car, pulling into a dark alley where a very familiar van sat.

"Your grandmother's van won't look suspicious if it's spotted near Aro's house," Edward explained with a shrug, never cutting the engine. "You've got your keys on you?"

"Yeah," I responded, fingering the keys in my pocket, the ones I just used to open my old house.

"I need to ditch the 'Stang," he continued. "Meet me somewhere."

"Where?"

"Anywhere."

I thought about it a moment, tugging a wet strand of hair between my fingers.

"There's an access road leading from the woods, along the banks of the river, and under the bridge," I told him in a rushed whisper. "Meet me there."

With a curt nod and a lingering kiss I left him, darting from the car and into the rain, fumbling with my keys a bit before sinking the correct one in the lock. The old van fired up instantly, the vehicle shaking and sputtering as I watched Edward's headlights disappear behind me. I waited an agonizing ten minutes before I pulled from the alley, following the path I knew he had just taken.

He was waiting for me just where I instructed him to wait, the dark muscle car hidden beneath the wide bridge next to the muddy waters. The waters were rising causing me to chew on my lip worriedly as I thought of Edward's prized possession, but he quickly shushed me, content that the waters would never rise high enough to reach his car. I nodded, watching as he shook the water from his mussed hair, giving me the stomach-clenching grin that made me melt.

Edward insisted on driving, and I let him, choosing instead to stare through the dark windows as we travelled through town, my body softly trembling as the inevitable drew near.

"Baby, are you okay?"

"Cold," I lied, giving a soft sigh as he immediately turned on the heat.

Truth was, I wasn't cold at all. I was burning hot, the thought of murdering my kin quick on my mind. I knew I could do it, there was no doubt in my mind, but still I was nervous to take a man's life, to live with that knowledge forever.

I wasn't frightened of killing Aro, per se. No, I was more worried about my mind, concerned that I would mentally shut down once more. If I did then what next? Would I ever return to reality? Would I return from whatever world I traveled to after Alice's death?

The shaking diminished once Edward's warm hand found mine. His long fingers threaded through my short ones, giving me a reassuring squeeze. There was a lopsided, excited grin on his face that reminded me of a kid at Christmas, and I couldn't help but shake my head and scowl at him, remembering Jasper's words from so long ago.

He's just looking for an excuse to kick someone's ass over you.

~DSDW~

Aro Swan lived at the end of an old dirt road on family property, handed down through generations of Swans. The road winded through pasture after pasture, with dark woods bordering the rolling hills. Rusty ancient barbed wire hung tiredly from wooden beams lining the road, jutting from the soggy earth. Mud sloshed up from the road, spinning through the tires and slinging on the sides of the car before being washed away by the downpour. I stared through the windshield, my palms sweating, anxious of the impending danger we were about to put ourselves in. As we passed the old wooden barn with the brown rusted tin roof, I knew we were close to the house and there was no turning back.

There was no turning back.

The house loomed ahead. There were no vehicles in sight other than Aro's old yellow Case tractor that, for some reason, wasn't parked in the barn. The rocking chairs on the front porch pitched back and forth in the wind, as though invisible ghosts sat on the porch watching as we crept up the drive.

"He's not here," I breathed, my voice edged with mutual relief and disappointment. "What now?"

"Now we go in," Edward replied, glancing at me as he shifted into park and cut the engine. "We go in and see if we can find anything that key will fit."

"The key?"

"Yeah," he confirmed, nodding in my direction. "The key you found in Alice's room. That key may fit something linking Aro and his brothers to our fathers' deaths. With that evidence we can take the entire family down, along with anyone else involved in their deaths."

My finger found the chain hanging from my neck as he nodded to my chest. Slipping one finger beneath the chain I pulled it from where it rested, tucked safely beneath my shirt. I fingered the cool metal between the pads of my fingers.

"Is that the same key that was in your grandmother's safe?"

"Yeah," I replied thoughtfully. "I never thought it was important. Alice loves … loved this key. She wore it all the time. She was wearing it the last time I saw her."

Edward and I gazed at one another for a long moment, an unspoken question hanging in the air: how Alice's necklace could be hanging from her vanity if she wore it the night of the overdose. I had to assume it was returned to my mother the night Alice traveled to the emergency room. The staff there would have removed it before working on her. They would have returned it to her responsible party. Maybe Mamma returned the necklace to Alice's room after her death.

Maybe.

Edward and I slipped from the vehicle cautiously crossing the soggy front yard. I climbed the steps with Edward on my heels, my feet slipping slightly against the slick, wet surface. My hair clung to my face in large, soaked clumps which I shoved away as I grasped the doorknob and twisted it in my cold hand.

Inside was eerily quiet aside from the occasional clap of thunder in the distance, the sound so harsh that it shook the dusty old windows on the wooden clapboard house. A gust of wind billowed in behind us, rustling the checkered curtains on the windows. The sudden flutter of movement caused me to jump, sending my heart racing in my chest as my hand pressed over the rapidly pulsing organ.

Mason jars filled with nuts, bolts, and screws rattled against the thick panes of glass with each clash of thunder. The white walls lit up as lightning streaked across the sky.

The house was clean but musty, smelling of death and despair, as though no one had lived and breathed the dry air inside the house for years. I wondered how often Aro stayed in the house, where he spent most of his time.

Water pooled on the blue-painted wooden floors as Edward and I slipped from room to room, pulling open drawers, shuffling through cabinets and closets, searching for something the old brass key would fit into, but there was nothing. There was no safe, no trunk, nothing.

"Is there a cellar?" Edward questioned, standing near a window and gazing outside for any sign of my uncle approaching. I sat perched on my knees, stooping on the floor in Aro's bedroom, searching beneath his bed.

"No. The only person in my family with a cellar is Nana," I mused aloud, glancing up at his face.

"The key was your Nana's. Do you think whatever it belongs to is at her house?"

"There's only one way to find out."

~DSDW~

The metal gate in front of her home was open, the gate held back with a concrete block half-wedged into the earth. A shudder ran through me as I noticed a dead chicken snake hanging from the fence, belly up, his body whipping in the violent wind, sleek and black.

The key was exactly where she always left it, as much of a cliché as that was. It lay hidden innocently beneath the rug sitting in front of her front door. I held the key up like a prize, flashing Edward a grin.

"She must still be in Birmingham," I guessed with a shrug, shoving the key in the lock and entering the house.

"Your grandmother is superstitious, huh?" Edward asked, nodding above the doorways.

I shook my head in confusion, noticing the horseshoes for the first time. My eyes wandered from room to room, noticing that a horseshoe hung over each doorway. I searched my mind for the meaning, the symbolism of the horseshoes.

"Brings good luck," Edward explained, gazing at a photograph hanging in the den. "And the snake on the fence brings rain."

I nodded in understanding, but honestly didn't understand anything at all. My grandmother was no different than any old Southern woman. She held her beliefs, but I never thought her to be superstitious.

"This house is bigger than Aro's," Edward said, shaking the rainwater from his hair, the droplets peppering my grandmother's wooden floors. "It'll take longer to look around, which gives us a greater chance of being caught. You know the house better than I do. How about I take watch from the den while you look around?"

I nodded in response, smiling as he left a lingering kiss on my lips and slipped into the adjoining room. I stood there for a moment, watching as he stood near the window, the light from each streak of lightning illuminating his figure as he stood silently behind the curtains. One hand held the curtains slightly to the side, the other slid the button on his flashlight off, leaving him encased in complete darkness.

It felt strange leaving him there. An uneasiness crept over me, but I quickly shook it off, retreating upstairs to begin my search.

I started in my grandmother's closet, rummaging around through the hope chests that she kept there. One was engraved with my name, Isabella, and then Mary Alice, which caused me to dry-swallow. Kate's was also there, although the wood was marred with her Christian name, Katherine. Makenna's chest was there as well, and unexpected tears welled in my eyes at the sight of her name. I wiped them away with the back of my hand, trudging on.

My chest was filled with unexpected, breathtaking items. I recognized my grandmother's wedding dress from the black and white photographs hanging in the den above the fireplace, although the photo didn't do it justice. Instead of being white it was a pale blue, edged in fragile lace, the material silky, and the size much smaller than my robust grandmother.

Ignoring the flood of emotions I felt, I continued to dig through the chest, through the silk flowers and brooches, chunky costume jewelry, monogrammed pillowcases faded with babies breath and time, stacks of letters with a recognizable name that I stored in the back of my mind for later.

I searched the closet for what seemed like hours, although it was probably just a matter of minutes. There was nothing in the closet that required a key.

"This is pointless," I muttered, shoving my quickly drying hair from my eyes.

A large clap of thunder shook the house, the sound of breaking glass causing me to shriek. Pressing my hand against my pulsating heart, I crawled out of the closet, flashlight in hand. The beam landed on something shiny, the reflection flashing back at me.

A portrait of my sister lay on the floor, the glass shattered from the force of its fall. I picked it up, staring into her dancing eyes while the shards fell from the frame.

"Are you trying to tell me something, Ali?" I asked aloud, half expecting her to appear.

But there was nothing. The house was eerily quiet, so quiet in fact, that I began to worry about Edward who I abandoned downstairs.

I placed the picture back on the floor just as I found it, somewhat sorrowful to leave it there as though I were leaving my sister behind as well.

I returned downstairs, mindful to keep my flashlight beam trained on the ground to prevent anyone from seeing it outside the old house. The carpet running down the stairs was covered in red clay mud, my own footprints, and I cursed silently below my breath.

"Edward?" I called, my voice a dead whisper inside the house, the words caught up in the howling wind outside and the shutters banging noisily against the house.

There was no immediate answer. A thrill shot up my spine, the fine hairs standing on the back of my neck, and goose pimples rising on my arms. I entered the den and trained my flashlight beam near the window, but Edward was gone. Only a scurry of muddy footprints remained in his wake.

A loud banging sound caused me to jump, sending my heart into a frenzy. I crept into the foyer, finding the door wide open, the billowing wind flinging it against the wall. I grasped the door in my hand, stood in the doorway, and stared out into the darkness squinting against the stinging rain blowing in on the porch.

"Looking for this?" a familiar voice smirked.

For a moment I thought he was my father. The two men resembled one another in such a striking way. I blinked several times, focusing on the man through the darkness, finding his evil, simmering eyes.

Aro stood in the foyer dressed in black. Water dripped from his clothes, puddling the dirty floor below him. He held Edward's arms behind him, pressing my boyfriend against his chest. In his other hand was a gun, the butt of which was sunken in Edward's throat near his Adam's apple. Edward's eyes were pleading, darting from me to the darkness behind me, as though he was silently directing me to go, to flee, leave him behind with my psychotic uncle.

Well, fuck that.

"You don't want him," I tisked Aro with a frown. "Let him go. It's me you want."

"That's where you're wrong, my dear," Aro laughed, his dark eyes dancing maniacally. "I want you both. Dead."

"Yeah, well. Ditto," I scowled, the thought of my sister's smiling face in the shattered photograph upstairs flashing through my mind.

"Step away from the door, Bella."

I narrowed my eyes, thoroughly insulted by the tone of his voice; soft, soothing, and condescending, as though he were speaking to a child. Then I remembered he probably thought I was crazy as everyone else believed me to be.

"Or what?"

"Or I'll shoot your boyfriend in the head," he smiled, removing the gun from Edward's neck and tapping it against his temple in emphasis.

"Don't you listen to him, Bella," Edward commanded through gritted teeth, his eyes darting to the door once again.

"Maybe I didn't make myself clear enough," Aro suggested with a grin.

Aro removed the gun from Edward's head, then pistol whipped him. I watched in a horrified stupor as Edward's eyes rolled in the back of his head, his body slowly slumping against my uncle's. Aro stepped back, causing Edward to fall to the floor. My uncle hovered over him, the gun drawn on my prone boyfriend's body. The gentle rise and fall of Edward's chest alerted me that he was unconscious, but not dead, bringing me bittersweet relief.

"Step away from the door, Bella," Aro demanded, taking a large step over Edward's body.

The wind picked up, as did my willpower. The door beside me flung violently, the thick piece of wood barreling towards me. As the door came at me I jumped back on impulse, my uncle watching me with his narrowed eyes, his lithe body creeping forward like a wild animal ready for attack. He reached the door, but not soon enough, for as it slammed shut my feet left the ground, and I was flying.

I darted through the rain, wind, mud, and muck, my shoes slipping and sinking deep into the earth. The suction of the red clay gripped my shoes, holding me back, but still I ran. I tossed my useless flashlight to the side as I ran, knowing I needed both hands to be free just in case, just in case he reached me.

I saw Nana's storm house ahead, the homemade concrete shelter dug into the side of the hill, the open doorway a black void into the tiny space that beckoned me. If I ran into the shelter I'd be trapped with no chance of escape, but I knew that storm house was where I belonged. Something deep within me willed me forward, closer.

I stumbled inside, taking a chance of glancing behind me to find my uncle just yards away, a sickening grin twisted on his face. He knew he had me, he thought he had me.

He was wrong.

The dryness of the dark room worked to my advantage. I removed the gun from the waistband of my jeans, holding it behind my back. I thought about wrenching the wooden door shut, but it would do no good. There was no need, because he was there.

Aro stood near the doorway, blocking the small amount of light blessed by the moon as it occasionally peeped out from behind the dark, rolling clouds. As he stood there I held up my gun, clasping it in my hands, relishing the coolness of the sleek metal between my fingers. I felt strong, I felt brave.

I felt like myself again.

"You thought you could just drive out here and shoot me, huh?" Aro laughed, the sound chilling as it erupted from his throat. "You stupid little bitch. You didn't even realize I've been following you all night."

Aro stepped forward, causing my heart to seize in my chest. I hesitated, and in that moment he had me, dragging me from the storm house across the muddy backyard, laughing and taunting me as he did so. Once we were close to the house he released me, tossing me to the ground.

"You'll never kill me. You're a pussy. Just like your old man was."

He glared down at me and spit on the ground, the rain water dripping down his face. He resembled my father so much in that moment, the dark eyes and thick hair, that I found myself momentarily stunned, tears filling my eyes. How had he turned into this monster? How had he turned into this man who took so much from me, took so much from himself, killing his own brother, killing his own niece? My stomach twisted and I felt the need to retch, because I knew I was next.

I was the next to die if I didn't fight back.

I gripped the gun firmly in my hand, the mud it lay in embedding beneath my nails. I held it up, grasping it in both hands, and pointed it directly at his head. My pose was unwavering. The safety was released by the slip of my thumb. I was ready for this to end. I'd been ready for such a long time.

"You won't do it," he barked in laughter, his features twisting in a sneer and he glowered down at me, a look of condescending pity drawn on his face. "You're too much like your father. You're weak. You think with this more than this."

Aro slapped the area above his heart with one hand before tapping his temple with the other.

"You want to talk about my father?" I asked, blinking away the rain and the tears, swallowing down the knot lodged in my throat. "Let's talk about my father. My daddy was a good man who made some terrible mistakes, but he didn't deserve to die. Tell me why you did it, Uncle Aro. Tell my why you murdered my father."

The smirk left his face, replaced with a grimace of pain as the man thought of my father. The lightning etched the sky behind him, the wind blinding me as the rain pelted against my tender face. Aro stepped forward, hovering over me, uncaring that his dead brother's gun pointed at the area directly between his eyes.

"You took everything from me," I whispered as he remained silent, glaring down at me through beady black eyes. "I lost my father, I lost my mother, I lost my sister, I even lost my fucking mind for a while, but not anymore. I'm back, mother fucker, back for revenge. You'll pay for your sins with your life. I doubt anyone will miss you."

"You're right," he mused aloud with a wicked grin, his lips curling into a sneer. "No one will miss me. I'm not Charlie. I'm not a monster with a heart of gold. I was the kid living in his shadow. Everything we worked for, everything, was his. I was the oldest! Do you know what it was like, living in Charlie Swan's shadow? Knowing that my father wasn't really my father? Always made to feel like I was never good enough for Ma? Never good enough for Pa?"

"I can't believe Nana treated you any differently," I argued, the gun feeling heavy in my hands, waning just a bit. "Nana loves everyone, unwaveringly. Your father, your biological father, was her one true love. If anything, I'm sure you were the most special of her children."

"Most special?" he laughed, the cackle menacing and broken behind gritted teeth. "I'm the bastard child of a man who never loved her. He used her and never acknowledged my existence. I was a mistake. Charlie was the first-born Swan. Papa Swan doted on him. He was everything I wasn't."

"So you killed him?" I demanded. "You killed him out of jealousy?"

"Jealousy?" he scowled. "Jealousy? Is that what you call it? Ha! You're in for a rude awakening, little girl. I killed him because he was a traitor, making deals with the devil himself, Edward Sr. Fucking Cullen traitor. I was against it from the beginning, so your beloved daddy went behind my back, making deals with the Cullens to share territory. Your father would have ruined everything. Think of the money we would have lost, just giving territory over to the Cullens."

"So you killed him for money?" I accused, shaking my head in disdain, my soaking hair clinging to my forehead.

"No, I killed him because he got in my way," he sneered, sliding the safety off his own gun as he took another step forward, standing directly over me. "I'm the king, not Charlie. I was meant to rule, not him. He got in my way. Edward Sr. got in my way. Alice got in my way, and now you are in my way."

"I had so much hope for you, Bella," he whispered, his face contemplative and edged with regret. "You're the smartest of the brood. I told myself that if I ever had a kid I'd want it to be just like you. I financially supported your mother after your father's death. Even after the whore ran off, I supported you girls. All you had to do was stay the fuck away from the Cullens, but you couldn't do that, huh? You're too much like your father, too much like your mother. A Cullen whore. And I had such high hopes for you. You could have ruled one day, but no. Such a waste."

The unmistakable sound of a click resonated in the air. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and expelled the air from my lungs.

Opening my eyes I spoke my last words to Aro.

"You're wrong," I told my uncle, smiling as the rain poured down, dripping from his dark curls and spattering down on my body below. "I'm not in your way. You're in mine."

My father's gun made a clicking sound of its own. The hammer tapped against the cool metal. The gun no longer felt heavy in my hands. If anything it felt light, weightless, and I was lifted in that moment. The troubles that followed me suddenly melted away.

I pulled the trigger.

I imagined killing him a million times, in my daydreams, in my nightmares. But the image my mind conjured never prepared me for the actual act. In my dreams the bullet travelled in slow motion. He would fall silently to the ground.

In reality the bullet flew fierce, faster than the blink of an eye. Aro's body flew backwards as his forehead shattered before my very eyes, the blood and brain matter seeping through his cracked, split skull. Aro's eyes were round, gaping at me in stunned shock, his own gun dangling from his fingers before it fell to the ground.

Those dark eyes, my father's eyes, locked on mine as he staggered backwards, his limp body slamming against the side of my grandmother's white farm house.

As he slumped down, his mangled head left a bloody trail, a violent reminder of life and of death, dwindling down the side of the stark white building. His gaze drifted from mine as his head fell to the side, his body slumping into a sitting position. The shock was gone, replaced with a blank stare as the rain languidly began to ebb.

My stomach convulsed, my heart chasing it in return as I turned to vomit on the muddy, red clay ground.

The wind picked up. I smelled the freshness of the dampened magnolias, their blooms long wilted from the summer heat as the petals fell to the earth; the freshness of the scent intermingling with the smell of a recently fired gun. I breathed it in, the gunpowder, the flowers, the red clay, and the rain. I felt alive for the first time in months, alive for the first time since I met Edward.

Edward.

I pulled myself from the ground, my mud-soaked jeans clinging to my legs like spiders clinging to a web. I stumbled to the back porch, ignoring the dead man for a moment before I paused, then gazed down at him once more before gingerly picking his discarded gun from the cold ground.

"Just in case," I muttered.

I fired another round, hitting him in the chest this time, the bullet ripping through his long dead heart. His pale body jerked then fell, sliding to the earth, his scruffy face submerging in a deep puddle. I watched him for a moment before leaving him there, satisfied that there were no bubbles erupting from the surface of his watery grave.

Then I stepped inside my grandmother's house to reclaim my life.

I reclaimed my new life with Edward.

Will this couple get their HEA? Of course they will. Right? Only a few more chapters to go. I'm partly excited to end this journey and begin another one, and of course I'm saddened to end it as well. It's been a blast.

As usual, I heart you all.

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