Chapter 3: Suffer

Edward's POV

Pain. Suffering. That's all that my existence has been for over a decade now. It was all my fault though. I deserved every minute, every second, of the torture that had been inflicted on me.

Losing Bella was the hardest thing I have ever experienced in my eternal life. Even though I knew that was a very real possibility that she would die giving birth to our child that didn't prepare me for her death one bit. I'd been holding onto the very last shred of hope that she would pull through. But she was only human. Her body just wasn't compatible with the baby. I tried to tell her that but she just wouldn't listen to reason. The baby was a monster just like me.

Or so I thought. When I heard my unborn daughter's thoughts for the first time I realized just how wrong I was. Our baby loved Bella and didn't want to hurt her. She was good. Pure. Just like her mom. It was then that I truly understood why Bella was so willing to sacrifice her own life so that our baby could live.

I thought that maybe true happiness was within sight. For a moment I believed that Bella would pull through and survive this as a vampire. Of course fate would not be so kind to me.

As soon as Nessie began to make her way into this world Bella's heart gave out. The pain and destruction of a half vampire baby ripping it's way out of her womb was too much for Bella's frail, human body to endure. I reacted as quickly as I could. Biting her every where I could and injecting her with my venom. All to no avail.

After that we had to move the very next day. The wolves, especially Jacob, were hellbent on killing my daughter as they thought she was a souless monster. Jacob wanted revenge for Bella's death and in his eyes Nessie was the only one responsible for that. So with these imminent threats we all agreed it was better move right away. We relocated to Alaska.

I held my daughter close to me the entire way up there. She was all that I had left of Bella now and I was determined to give her the love, care, and protection that she needed. My beautiful baby girl.

I failed. I failed my daughter as a father and there wasn't a day that went by that I wasn't reminded of my failure. It was all my fault that she'd disappeared. Not a day went by where I didn't think about what I did all those years ago.

It had been a few weeks since we'd moved to Denali. Since I wanted to be alone to bond with my daughter I'd purchased a place of my own that was close to the main house. It was perfect.

Ever since she was born we had never been apart. Not even for a second. Spending quality time with my daughter and bonding with her helped me cope with the loss of Bella a little easier. I'd spend every second holding her, playing with her, reading to her. Enjoying every moment of her expedited childhood as much as I could. Her accelerated growth rate was unprecedented.

I had begun neglecting my own needs though. I had ignored my thirst for so long now. As much as it pained me I knew that I needed to feed.

I had just finished reading Nessie a bedtime story and was about to put her down for the night.

"I love you daddy," she whispered as her eyes fluttered closed.

"I love you to baby," I kissed her forehead.

I watched her until her breathing evened out. I could stand there all night watching her sleep and I would be happy.

The burning in my throat demanded to be felt. I couldn't ignore it anymore. I needed to go hunt.

I looked at my sleeping little girl again. I didn't want to wake her up when she'd just fallen asleep. I didn't want to bother any of my family or the Denalis either by asking them to come watch her while she slept.

"It'll be just a few minutes," I told myself. My daughter wouldn't even know that I was gone.

I left the house ever so quietly. I went to the forest to hunt. I returned to the house twenty minutes later. I went to check on Nessie and that was when I made a horrific discovery. She was gone.

"Nessie!" I called out to her hoping that she was just hiding somewhere.

There was no reason to panic. She couldn't have gotten very far. I followed her scent into the forest. I realized that she must've woken up and noticed that I was gone. Then she must've decided to go look for me.

I followed her scent as far into the forest as far as I could before her scent suddenly vanished. I called out for her over and over again. I immediately called my family and told them what happened. Together with the Denalis we were able to cover a wide range of area but she was gone. My daughter was gone.

It was all my fault that she was gone. If I wouldn't have left her alone she would still be here with me. It was my fault that we searched for years to no avail. It pained me to not even know what happened to her. I hoped that she was alive and well. I hoped to God that one day she would return to me.

I'd lost Bella and then I'd lost my one and only daughter. Bella probably hated me now, wherever she is. If she knew how badly I failed to protect our daughter she'd want to come back to life just to kill me herself.

I took a deep breath. My phone rang. I answered right away when I saw that it was Alice.

"Hi Alice is everything okay?" I asked her. We'd just saw each other a little over an hour ago before she left for the mall. She never called me when she was at the mall.

"Something is wrong Edward," she sounded slightly panicked.

"What's wrong? What did you see?"

"That's the problem. I didn't see anything!"

"Alice I don't understand what you're saying. Can you explain?"

"Carlisle just called me ten minutes ago. Apparently there's a problem with some of our bank accounts,"

"What's going on?" I asked her. "If there's a problem with our finances wouldn't you have seen-"

"That's the problem I didn't see anything! The bank called Carlisle to tell him that there was some suspicious activity going on. All together there's over a million dollars missing,"

"That's impossible. Someone would have to know our family's account numbers and passwords. Nobody else knows,"

"That's what makes this so strange. That and the fact that I didn't see anyone make the decision to steal our money. Carlisle is going to call a family meeting later to discuss what we're going to do about this,"

"What are we going to do about this?"

"We're going to track down whoever stole that money. We're going to find whoever stole our money and send that person to prison. At least that's what we're going to discuss doing later on. But it's the most likely course of action we're going to decide on,"

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