22
"Mommy! I want to go outside!"
Bella closed her eyes as Charlie demanded, for the hundredth time in the last two hour, to go outside, that she was bored, that she hated it here. It was taking every bit of control she had not to react in she would regret. She had never raised her hand to her daughter, though there had been plenty of times when she felt the urge to. Charlie was too much like her father at times, and it made it very difficult for Bella.
"Mommy!" Charlie screamed again.
"Stop," Bella snarled, scrambling off the couch, feeling Edward, Carlisle, and Alice watching her. "Just stop, Charlie. I said no, and I meant no."
Then, Bella turned and walked past her daughter and went into the kitchen, hoping to find a moment of peace, but Emmett, Rose, and Kate were seated at the table, each of them with a laptop open, though their eyes snapped to hers when she stepped into the room.
Feeling her shoulders tense, Bella blew out a heavy breath and tried to decide if it was worth dealing with them, or if she should go back to being terrorized by a six year old. She wasn't sure which would be worse, to be honest.
"Everything okay, Swan?" Emmett asked, cocking an eyebrow.
"Just peachy," she murmured, pushing away from the kitchen door and walking over to the backdoor, pulling the curtain back and looking outside.
She almost expected to see Marcus standing in the middle of the yard, hands on his hips, smirk on his lips, cruelty filling his eyes. Of course, he wasn't there. He was too smart to leave himself that open.
"Have to say, B," Kate said, causing her to turn toward her. "You look like shit."
"I know."
Kate leaned back in her chair. "That's all you have to say? Just you know?"
"What am I supposed to say? You're not wrong," Bella countered, crossing her arms in front of her. "You look good, though."
"Do I?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "Is it the scar? Does that make me look good, B?"
Bella closed her eyes. "Why'd you come help me, Kate? You haven't hidden the fact that you hate me, so why are you here?"
Pressing her lips together for a moment, Kate stood up, closed her laptop, and looked at Bella before saying, "Because if you hadn't left T to die, she would have been here to help you, B. For some reason, she loved you enough to die for you."
"I tried to get her out, too," Bella murmured, sliding to the floor and pulling her knees to her chest.
"Not hard enough." Kate turned and walked out of the kitchen, leaving Emmett and Rose staring at the two of them.
Closing her eyes, Bella tried to keep the tears from falling. Kate wasn't wrong, of course. Tanya Denali had put herself in the hands of the devil to save Bella and Alice and all the little girls like them that found themselves being raped and tortured, used and abused, thrown away like they were yesterday's newspaper. Tanya Denali had given her life because Bella hadn't been strong enough to kill Marcus Volturi when she had the chance.