Damn, my head hurts. The thought breaks through the blossoming pain behind my eyelids. I start to tense up, remembering, before forcing my body to relax. It won't do me any good if he realizes I'm awake before I can even start to plot in my mind. I realize my arms are bare—he took my, well, Will's, jacket. Thinking his name brings my brother's face into my mind. What I wouldn't give for Will to be here right now. He'd have a plan in ten minutes and be executing it in fifteen. The thought sends an ache through my chest. If for no other reason, I am getting out of this alive for him.
And Emmett. The traitorous voice in my head adds. I mentally roll my eyes before surveying my current damage, desire to survive stronger than ever. My mouth feels dry and like I tried to shove as many cotton balls as possible into it. My head hurts, I feel dizzy. Probably a concussion, then? I travel southwards mentally. My arms are tied tightly behind my back, and my left arm is screaming in protest. I'm pretty sure it's broken, or at least a nasty sprain. My legs are sore, my right ankle feels kind of hot and swollen. Probably a sprain. I strain to hear past the ringing in my ears, but I get no audio feedback. I try to slowly open my eyes, but only my left one cooperates. A black eye. Great. I scan the floor, looking for shoes before raising my head.
I'm in a dimly lit motel room. The walls are a chintzy olive green, and the carpet is—or was—a light blue, but years of stains of God knows what have made it a sickly beige color. I'm sandwiched between two beds with scratch navy blue covers. I'm facing an ancient TV, and there's some kind of nightstand behind me. I feel around as quietly as I can, to see if I can figure out if there's anything I can use to undo my bindings. I can't tell what's tying me up, my hands are numb. I look to my left. The windows have the heavy drapes pulled over them, the only light is coming from a small sliver of exposed window above the curtains. On my right, there's a small bathroom. Linoleum floors, almost too-white walls.
Great. I'm going to die in a cheap motel. I force myself to shake the thought out, though it makes me even dizzier. I hear the sound of a card being slid into a slot and the lock on the door clicks. I quickly drop my head and close my eyes.
He comes in whistling. I want to see what's going on, but I'm not going to chance any sudden movements. His footsteps make their way across the room, stopping to study me for a moment before entering the bathroom. The sink turns on, and I hear a glass being filled. He comes back into the main room. I have no warning when the icy water splashes onto me and I sit up and gasp.
"Had a feeling you'd be awake by now." He smirks.
"Y'know what they say, a girl needs her beauty sleep." I croak out. He laughs.
"Lindsay always said you had a sense of humor." I glare up at him.
"How's she doing?" I ask, hoping to distract him.
"Not sure. I left her as soon as you left." Bradley pulls out a chair from the table in the corner and sits on it backwards.
"So you never liked her?"
"There's never been anyone other than you." His eyes are so intense it hurts to look at.
"NP?" I ask. Keep him talking, Raquel.
"Ah, I should've explained." He rubs his hand over his face, eyebrows furrowed. "Bradley's my middle name. Nathan Bradley Peters. NP."
"Why go by your middle name at all?"
"I couldn't end the game early! Where's the fun in having a secret admirer when you can figure out who it is so easily?"
"Maybe it's when you don't terrorize the object of your… affection." Disgust colors my tone. His face turns red, and he stomps over to me, picking my chin up in his hand so I'm forced to look at him.
"You will treat me with respect, got it?" His eyes have no emotion.
"Mmhmm." I can't open my jaw. He smacks me across the face and takes a seat on the bed closer to me. My face turns to the right, the ringing in my ears even louder than before.
"I did all of this shit for you! I wrote you love notes, I sent you gifts. Red is your color by the way," I resist the urge to vomit when he winks. "I did everything right! And you weren't even grateful. You women are all bitches. There's such a nice guy in front of you, and you all go for jerks! You aren't even that pretty, you should've been happy anyone liked you, let alone me. You should've been begging me to give you attention!" He starts to pace, agitation riling him up.
"And then, not only do you leave me before I could confess my love to you, you start dating that asshole, Emmett what's-his-face! What does he have that I don't? We're meant to be together, Raquel, can't you see that?" His voice takes on a deadly soft tone.
"Respect. Respect for women. Respect for me and my boundaries." I say, glaring up at him.
"What?"
"You asked what Emmett has that you don't. He has respect. Integrity. Human decency." I almost laugh at the last two words and their irony. I shouldn't have spoken like that, but I felt the need to defend Emmett. Almost as though I couldn't bear to have someone slander him.
"I respect you! I stayed a distance from you! You girls are all teases! You want everything, but when a man gives it to you, you claim you don't want it! Make up your damn mind!" His pacing increases in tempo. Suddenly he comes right over to me and pulls out a knife, holding it up to my throat.
"I could just kill you here and now and leave you like the nasty bitch you are for everyone to find you. I should." I can feel sharp pressure as he presses it into my jugular.
"You would do that," I swallow, trying to make my voice less harsh. "to the girl you love?"
I look down, praying my manipulation will work.
"Oh, sweet cheeks, I would never." He looks down in shock, dropping the knife. "I didn't mean it. I just get angry, you know." He leans down so he's face to face with me. I reach behind me, rubbing my wrists on the corner of the nightstand, hoping to fray the material.
"Hey, look at me." His voice is soft. I shake my head, pretending to cry a little.
"I said look at me!" He grabs my face roughly. The force nearly tipping my chair. He looks back to see my attempts to free myself.
"You shouldn't have done that." Fury coats every word. He pulls the chair away from the small table, turning it so my back is against the wall under the television.
"I'm sorry!" I plead. "My arms hurt, that's all. It's too tight." I wince for effect.
"Well, if you had come easily, I'd be able to trust you, now wouldn't I?" His voice is mocking. He gets up and crosses to the table, where he has some pancakes, probably from the shabby reception room. Complimentary breakfast, my ass. He begins dousing them in syrup before using his fork to pick up pieces to shovel into his mouth. While his focus is on his food, I begin working at the bindings again. I can feel the material beginning to give.
He finishes his breakfast, and the rest of the day passes slowly. He's reading the paper when he looks up suddenly, acting like he saw something. He gets up and stalks towards me, knife in hand.
"Did you tell anyone where you were?" His voice is an unsettling whisper.
"No. How could I? I don't know where we are."
"Stop the attitude!" He shouts, his arm swinging. I don't realize what's happened until I see the blood dripping on the knife and look down at my arm, where a decent-sized gash is open, blood trickling out.
"Then why is there a silver Volvo out front? Your friends come to spring you, huh? Think you can get away that easily?"
"It's a common car." I gasp, the knife slicing into my other arm. "I don't know anything, I swear!" My tears this time are genuine.
"And I don't believe you!" A cut to my thigh. At this point I realize that there is no other choice. I won't be able to reason with him. His mind is made up. He's going to kill me, one way or another. I get my hands free and wait for a moment where he turns his back. He gets up, beginning to pace away from me, and I take my chance. I push up from the chair and bolt to the door, opening it and stumbling out into the decrepit hallway. I run down the carpeted hall, hearing him shout and curse behind me. I see an exit sign and follow it, throwing open a door revealing a cement staircase. I fly down the steps, ignoring the blood droplets that will inevitably lead him to find me. I get to the bottom of the stairs and feel the adrenaline rush wearing off. I feel confused and disoriented. I open a side door, and end up on the sidewalk outside of the hotel, I begin to stumble away, my legs turning to jelly. I trip over the lip of the sidewalk, landing in some spongy grass. I know I need to get up, I need to get help. But it feels like I'm in quicksand, my muscles completely refusing to cooperate with me. The evening sky is alight with some of the most beautiful colors I've ever seen, and I'm not sure if it's because it might be the last one I see or my senses being sharpened by adrenaline. I hear the side door slam open and stumble up to my knees, crawling my way towards the Volvo. I don't know if it's Edward's, but at this point anyone is better than the monster after me. I make it a few feet farther when he grabs my legs, pulling me like a sack of grain back towards the hotel. The skin on my arms is rubbed raw from the sidewalk, and my wrist screams in protest every time he goes over a crack. He gets me inside the stairwell and drops me. He circles me until he's at my head, grabbing me under the arms and hoisting me up the stairs. He's sweating from the effort, the smell making me nauseous. He pulls me down the hall back to the room before throwing me onto the bed closest to the door.
Nathan leans against the door, panting from exertion due to carrying me up the stairs. He glares at me.
"You really just don't get it, do you?" He crosses his arms over his head. "We were supposed to have a happy ending, just the two of us."
"That was never going to happen." Now that I know I won't get out of this alive, there's no reason to hold my tongue. "I would never date a cowardly, spineless, creepy bastard like you. I'd rather die."
He pushes off of the door angrily, stalking towards me. "You really mean that?"
"Every last word." I look him straight in the eye, sure that this is the beginning of the end.
"Well, have it your way then." He pulls the knife out of his boot, climbs onto the bed, straddling me. I strike out, but I'm nowhere near full strength, and he easily subdues my arms, pinning them to my chest. He raises the knife in his right hand.
He doesn't know I've faced death before. I've died before. But eventually, I will come back. I will find Emmett again. But him? When he dies, wherever he goes, that's where he will remain for eternity. A pathetic, weak, obsessive guy unable to move on or grow.
I suspect he thinks I'll take it all back or close my eyes and recoil, but I won't. I repeat what one of my former selves said.
"If you're going to kill me, you're going to have to look at my face when you do it." The words reverberate with an intangible power. In this moment, I feel like I can see my past selves in my mind, I feel connected with these people that are both family and strangers all at once. I barely notice it when the knife sinks deep into my stomach. When he pulls it out, all I feel is warmth and a serenity. I can feel the comforter around me dampening with blood. Nathan grabs his things, and without sparing me a second glance, walks out the door, whistling the same tune he was this morning.
In a futile attempt to save myself, I push down on the wound. All I do is curl myself into a fetal position. The quiet of the motel room brings a sort of morbid peace with it. I close my eyes, thoughts coming slower now.
It's okay to let go. The voice is simultaneously mine and not, a chorus from my past lives, ready to accept me into their masses. I move my head, trying to nod. I begin to feel like my body is sinking, my soul rising.
The door to the motel room bursts off its hinges, but I'm too gone to care that the stalker is back.
"Oh, no you don't! Carlisle! She's in here! You do not get to give up on me, Raquel! Do you hear me? Not when I've finally found you." My brain refuses to process that Emmett's voice isn't in my head, that his hands stroking my hair aren't figments of my imagination.
"I swear to God, Raquel, if you die right now, I will follow you to the afterlife and drag you back here." Cool hands are touching me, gently opening my eyes and probing the wounds.
"Emmett, can you handle it?" Carlisle's voice is businesslike.
"It'll take too long for any of the others to get here."
"Then apply pressure here." Freezing hands cover mine and press hard on my stomach.
"Raquel? Can you hear me?" Carlisle asks. My mouth moves, but no sound comes out. I open my eyes to slits.
"Raquel, we're going to get you out of here, okay? We need to move her, now." Carlisle says the second part to Emmett. A second pair of hands covers Emmett's.
"You carry her." I'm airborne, wind whipping past me. I always thought your ascent to heaven was supposed to be calm, full of light and angels singing welcome songs. My head goes foggy for a bit, and when I come to again, I can feel a car beneath me, going way too fast to be safe.
"Em…mett?" I manage to breathe out.
"Raquel, angel, please don't try to talk. Especially not while you're bleeding." I ignore him. One hand is stroking my hair, the other pressing on my stomach.
"Nath…an Peters." I whisper. And then I pass out again.
"Is she going to be alright?" Will's voice is uncharacteristically melancholy and anxious. It's also right by my head. There's a persistent beeping, like the rhythmic nagging of an alarm clock. I open my eyes.
"Isn't there a rule about how many people you can have in a hospital room?" I huff out, the words garbled by the dryness in my throat. Five pairs of eyes stare me down.
"I also think there's a rule about not staring at the patient, making them uncomfortable."
My mom throws herself at me, tears refilling the tracks already on her cheeks.
"Oh, my baby! I'm so sorry!" Sobs wrack her body. I try to reach down to pat her head, but my left arm is in a plaster cast and my right arm has an IV line running through it.
"What do you have to be sorry for?" I ask, genuinely confused.
"The stalker was back and I should've known. You were acting strange, but I chalked it up to a boy." Emmett smirks from the back of the room, wiping over his mouth with his hand when my dad turns to glare at him.
"Mom, that was on me. I should've told you my suspicions, but I didn't want to be the reason we moved again. I didn't want to be paranoid." My dad steps over and kisses my head.
"Your paranoia was warranted. We should've been more diligent."
"No, Dad. You guys were good. I'm the one to blame here. I should have told you. But anyway, all's well that ends well, right?" My parents glare at me with matching expressions of fury.
"Not when you're in the hospital after almost dying because a stalker tried to kill you and almost succeeded. You are incredibly lucky Emmett heard you scream. And that Dr. Cullen was with him, young lady." My dad is angrier than I've ever seen him.
"What happened to him?" I ask, my eyes straying to Emmett, whose fists are clenched so tightly I'm sure he's going to break the armrests of the chair he's sitting in.
"He was found a few blocks from the motel. Apparently, he got beaten up pretty badly. He's in custody now." Emmett offers from the corner. I mouth thank you at him, and his eyes spark.
"Let's go find the nurse and doctor, shall we?" Rosalie picks up on how I'm looking at Emmett, clearly needing to speak with him, and she slings an arm around Will. "And you two need to eat. She's not going anywhere." My parents look like they want to protest, but Rosalie gives them a look that has them following her out the door. Emmett's beside me before the door completely shuts.
"Hi." I say.
"I'm sorry." His voice is pained.
"Oh, not you too!" I groan. "What do you have to be sorry for?"
"I was so caught up with the tracker and protecting Bella—I didn't check my phone. I had no idea that there was any danger…" He trails off, fist clenching. I reach over with my bad arm and bonk his hand, sending a small wave of pain up my arm. "If I had known, you'd have been safe. Esme and Rosalie could've kept an eye on you."
"It was my fault. I should've told somebody else, too."
"You got that right. I almost lost you. Before I had a chance to make everything up to you. I know you'll probably want your space, but I just wanted to be here when you woke up." He gets up as if to leave.
"No! Stay, please. I want you to." He reluctantly sits back down.
"When I was bleeding out there, on the bed—"
"Don't remind me."
"About the bleeding or me and you on a bed?" I tease. He laughs.
"Both."
"Well, I was thinking. And one of the last thoughts I had before you burst in was that even if I died, I'd come back. And I'd come back to find you." I take a deep breath. "This doesn't mean that you're completely forgiven for everything. Not even close, mister. But I don't think I can stay away from you. Nor do I want to." He grins and leans closer to me. The beeping accelerates.
"Cute." He sits back up, smirking.
"Do you find everything I do cute?"
"You bleeding wasn't cute."
"Let me guess, that part was sexy?" His laugh booms, almost delirious in its relief that I truly am okay. Mentally, at least.
"No. Very terrifying. I wasn't sure… But I didn't. Alice almost didn't see you in time." His eyes get a far-away look in them.
"See me?" I'm confused.
"She can kinda see the future. Or its possibilities. She and Edward have mental conversations. It's frustrating. We can only hear Edward's half. She saw you in a motel and sent all of us on a wild goose chase to find you." He shrugs, like it's nothing.
"She can see the future?!" I'm stunned. "Wait, all of you? Including—"
"Everyone but Edward. And Jasper. He's new to this and well, if he had found you…" he makes a sucking sound with his mouth. "Edward's still with Bella. She broke her leg, bled everywhere, and got bitten. Edward sucked the venom out."
"But she's okay?"
"Yes, and the tracker has been… dealt with. Focus on yourself for once, would you?" He ruffles my hair.
"And Nathan?"
"When Carlisle brought you here, I may or may not have taken the Volvo for a joy ride. And I may have practiced some boxing moves with that creep before turning him over to Charlie. I didn't want to let him live, but…" He looks off. "I didn't think you'd like it if I committed another murder."
"Yeah, I'm the only person you're allowed to kill. Even then, it's iffy." He chuckles, grabbing onto my casted hand.
"I am sorry about that." He looks down at our hands.
"I know. But you saved me this time around, that has to be worth something, especially since I smell irresistibly good." I gently remove my hand from his and awkwardly stick my hand under his chin to get him to look at me. "How did you do it?"
"I'm not sure. I had trouble with Bella bleeding everywhere, and I think of her like a sister. You smell a thousand times better to me. I guess I lo—" I cover his mouth with my hand.
"Please tell me you were not about to say you love me for the first time in the hospital. Where I just got stitched up from a stab wound. And before you've everything up to me." Emmett looks almost bashful.
"Of course not. I was going to say I guess I lugged you to the car without breathing very much. You smelled kinda funky for a while. They gave you a blood transfusion. Or two. Or more. I lost count after a few. Did you know your blood type is AB positive?" I roll my eyes, but grin despite myself.
"How bad is it?" I gesture down at my body.
"Not bad at all." He says, obviously checking me out. I whack him with my cast. "Twenty-seven stitches, a concussion, broken radius, sprained ankle, bruised knuckles, scrapes all over your arms, a black eye, and some internal bleeding from the major stab wound. They got it all under control, though. You'll live. Probably." I'm starting to feel tired, likely from my extensive list of injuries. Emmett notices and pushes a button for the nurse.
"Thank Carlisle for me. Thank you, too. You'll stay, right?" I ask as the nurse comes bustling in.
"You ready for some more morphine?" I nod before turning back to Emmett.
"I'll be here. Ready to take you on a date once you're out of here." The nurse adds something to the IV bag hanging above me.
"Who said I want to go on a date with you?" I mumble, the drugs dripping into my system alarmingly quick. Emmett laughs. The nurse also chuckles at my response on her way out.
"Is that a no?" He teases. I can hear the smile in his voice.
"Ask me again when I wake up." It comes out slurred. My eyes droop closed.
"Will do, angel, will do."