16
After Charlie and Carlisle finished their lunch, Bella swooped the small girl into her arms and carried her into the living room, where she found Charlie and Renee sitting stiffly while Jasper and Edward stood next to the front door, whispering furiously. Alice was seated on the base of the stairs, pain and sorrow etched in her features. Riddled with guilt, Bella wanted nothing more than to ease the pain of her best friend, but how could she when she, too, knew the horrors Alice had suffered?
Bella cleared her throat, drawing everyone's attention to her. Feeling her cheeks warm, she said, "I, um, need to do some shopping. We left everything behind."
Edward shared a look with Jasper before walking over to Bella. "Give me a list and we will take care of it."
"Okay," she whispered, hoisting the small girl up on her hip. She shifted her eyes to her parents, finding them watching her with longing. "Can you take her for a few? Give me a few minutes alone with them?"
"Yeah, of course." Edward put his hands out for Charlie, who leaned toward him and allowed him to pull her from Bella's arms. "Al can show us to your room."
Bella simply nodded and waited until Edward, Jasper, and Alice had the little girl upstairs before she walked over and sat across from them, aware that Carlisle stood by the kitchen door. "I'm sorry."
"You're sorry?" Charlie asked, his brow wrinkling.
"Yeah, I, um." She paused and shook her head, trying to keep from weeping like a toddler. "I can only imagine how hard this must be for you. Us just barging in on you after so long."
"You think we're mad that you're here?" Renee asked, and once more Bella nodded. "Oh, honey, no! We're just . . ."
"We missed you, Isabella," Charlie whimpered, his lips trembling. "It's hard to sit here, knowing that you went through so much pain and suffering, and we weren't there to . . . For Fuck's sake, honey, we weren't there to save you."
"But you were," Bella cried, wrapping her arms around herself. "You were what kept me going, Daddy. You and Mommy and Carlisle — I never stopped fighting because I knew you would never give up on me. I just . . . when Edward rescued me, I knew it wasn't safe to come home, and I had to think about my baby. She was born on June nineteenth, at 2:33 in the morning. My water broke just after two, and she was in a hurry. I called Edward, but by the time help got to me, she was there. So beautiful and perfect and I knew from the moment I held her in my arms that I had to protect her, keep her safe from . . . from her father."
"We wanted to protect you, too," Renee sobbed. "Keep you safe, but we failed, didn't we?"
"Momma, no!" Before Bella realized what she was doing, she was on her feet and rushing around the coffee table, throwing herself into her parents' arms. As they held her for the first time in eight years, Bella let the walls around her crumble, allowing them to soothe her, love her, and in that moment, that beautiful, bliss free moment, Bella wasn't afraid of Marcus Volturi or what he would do to them when she found them.