28
"You can't be serious?" Bella yelled, throwing her arms in the air. "You honestly, cannot be serious?"
"I am," Garrett said, placing his hands on his hips.
Bella pressed her lips together and looked at Edward, who was avoiding her eyes, and then to Emmett, who also was looking at anything other than her. "No, no, no, I can't . . . Just no!
"Do you want to stop him or not?" Garrett asked, waving a hand in the air. "Hiding hasn't gotten you anywhere."
Bella shook her head once again, wrapping her arms around herself. "You don't know what you're asking. I can't . . . I can't do it."
"You can," Edward whispered, taking the few steps between them. "We have to take this fight to him, so to speak." He brought his hand up, cupping her face. "Do it for her."
Bella felt the tears in her eyes, the tears she had been fighting for last two days, since her world was destroyed in an instant, fall down her face. "E."
"I know, sweetheart," he whispered, pressing his lips against her forehead. "I know, but I'll be right there, by your side.
Bella shook her head again, but heard herself saying, "Fine, whatever. Not like it's going to help. He's not afraid of anything."
Yanking herself out of his arms, Bella hurried out of the room and into the kitchen, stopping when she found Jasper sitting at the table, his laptop open and a full pot of coffee next to him. Two days and her world was falling apart, yet she was supposed to be strong enough to talk to the press, to let the whole world know that Isabella Swan was still alive and that Marcus Volturi had killed her only child, her one hope for a world that wasn't full of pain and heartache, and he had stolen that hope from her.
"Want some?" Jasper asked, tilting his head toward the coffee.
"Got anything stronger?"
He smiled, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. "I wish."
"Me too." Bella walked over and sat at the table, pulling her legs up to her chest. "Are you going to tell me that I need to be brave, too?"
"Nope," he quipped, his eyes not leaving the laptop screen.
"Why not?"
"Because all you've ever been is brave, B." Jasper shifted his eyes back to her. "You got out alive. You gave birth alone. You raised Charlie by yourself."
"I got her killed," Bella cried, shaking her head. "He killed her because of me."
"He did," Jasper admitted. "And we will kill him in retaliation."
"Yeah?" she sobbed. "You didn't kill him for what he did to Al, J."
Jasper frowned and leaned back in his chair. "Not for a lack of trying."
Bella tightened her arms around her legs as the door to the kitchen opened and Edward came in. He looked from her to Jasper and back before walking over and sitting at the table next to her, his hands cradling her face.
"The police called," he whispered.
Bella tensed.
"Said there wasn't enough to I.D. all three bodies, but . . ."
"But?"
Edward frowned. "But dental records for Charlie and Renee . . . Sweetheart, they're a match."
Unable to keep the bubble of emotions inside of her any longer, Bella crumbled against him. A part of her had hoped and prayed that the people in her parents' car wasn't really her parents and daughter, but Marcus Volturi had taken the only person Bella loved more than anything in the world, and he wasn't going to stop until she was his again.