~ oOo ~
Soooo...it's my 21st birthday today, and as a treat
I thought I'd give you all a bonus update!
I'm very aware that I'm going to be incredibly
unpopular after this chapter, but please, please
remember two important things:
- I promised a Happily Ever After, and I meant it
- and I love these characters more than most real people
We've far surpassed 700 reviews now, which is just
mindblowing. I honestly cannot beleive the amazing
reaction to what was originally just a dream in my
teenage head! Thank you all so, so much for your
support.
Also, thank you to my wonderful dream team duet,
SunflowerFran and annaharding
You're both beyond amazing and I'm endlessly
grateful for all you both do!
Um,
*** TISSUE WARNING ***
and a
*** DON'T READ IN A PUBLIC PLACE WARNING ***
Enjoy!
~ oOo ~
Summary: When two little girls were allowed to walk
home from school one bright spring day nobody could've
predicted the events that followed. The way two families
were torn apart by the vendetta of a deranged man.
Nearly twelve years on, we'll watch as the two girls stolen
away from their homes at eight years old fight to take
back their lives. If only it were as simple as escaping. AU
Pinky Promises
Chapter Twenty-Five
Edward grimaced at the sound of harsh retching coming from the bathroom upstairs, audible even from his spot on the living room sofa. In the past week, it had become a familiar sound, with Bella and Rosalie both catching a debilitating stomach bug. With their immune systems struggling, the pair were battling valiantly to fight off the infection, and finally, Bella was starting to seem a little better. Edward berated himself for feeling a twinge of relief when he heard Bella murmuring reassurances to Rosalie a few minutes later, hating himself for feeling relieved that it wasn't Bella – this time. It disgusted him that he was prioritizing Bella over Rosalie, even if only slightly, but there was nothing he could do about it. Not since he'd realized his feelings for Bella ran deeper than he could ever have predicted they would.
In the almost two months since he'd played the keyboard for Bella, Edward had wrestled with himself over and over, even going so far as to book a flight back to Italy. His plans had been foiled by Rosalie when she'd spotted the booking receipt in the printer. It had only taken a few words from her to remind Edward that he was needed, that Bella needed him. He'd canceled the seat, and hadn't thought about leaving again.
No matter what he did, his first thought every morning was of Bella, his last thought at night a plea she'd be able to sleep through the night and get some much-needed rest.
Since the anniversary of Penelope and Tina's deaths three weeks previous, both girls had been especially somber. Bella's nightmares made a return, but she refused, point-blank to talk to anybody about them.
Much to Edward's frustration, he was very much included in the exclusion.
A few moments later, Bella emerged from the hallway, taking a seat on the sofa opposite Edward. It stung that she didn't sit beside him, but Edward forced himself not to dwell on it, or the fact that ever since the day he'd realized his true feelings she'd been pushing him away. A coincidence, of course, but puzzling in the extreme, considering there was no way she could have known about his epiphany.
"Rosalie's back in Dad's room," she offered by way of explanation when Edward glanced between her and the doorway to the stairs.
"Okay. How are you feeling?"
She shrugged noncommittally, stroking her belly through her t-shirt. She was enormous. Everybody had felt the baby within kicking at this point, and occasionally his or her movements were visible through her clothes.
Charlie had joked his future granddaughter was a footballer in the making, something Bella had smiled at but not commented on further. He was still so confident there was another little Marley in there; she wasn't so sure.
Edward huffed, leaning back against the sofa with his eyes closed, fingers playing a random beat against his thigh. In an attempt to distract herself, Bella slid forwards to grab the pad of sketching pencils and paper from the drawer in the coffee table. Sitting back, she mulled over what to draw, finally deciding to just close her eyes and let inspiration strike. In the weeks since she rediscovered her talent for drawing, she'd been busy utilizing the three-hundred page, A4 sketch pad Charlie brought home for her one day, filling the pages with stunning images of her loved ones. As she flicked through to the next blank page lots of familiar faces peered out at her, the accurate details startling even her, and she'd drawn them.
Pausing on one of her favorites, Bella's forced impassiveness melted away into wry amusement. Her fingertips brushed a lock of errant, moppy brown hair before sliding down to rest against the chubby cheeks of her beloved eldest nephew. Despite the fact that the drawing wasn't in color, the little boy's eyes popped.
Noticing a slight tear at the top of the page, Bella turned it over to ensure it hadn't defaced the picture on the other side. A silent gasp pushed past the barrier of her lips as she took in the dark eyes staring back at her. The intense, knitted-together brows shadowed a pair of shockingly realistic eyes, their gaze so penetrating that Bella had to turn the page to catch her breath. Subconsciously, her eyes flicked upwards to the owner of the eyes in the drawing, disappointed to find Edward had closed them.
"Snap out of it," she hissed quietly, forcing her mind and hands to cooperate. Putting pencil to paper, she let out a long sigh, searching her mind for something to draw, the pad resting atop her big belly. Memories of her younger years assaulted her, a specific day in particular. Before she'd even finished thinking about it, her hand was flying across the page, the quiet sound of pencil leaving its marks on the sheet breaking the silence in the room.
Minutes passed, a face swiftly taking shape beneath Bella's fingertips. Her once-awkward grip on the pencil was now far more comfortable, and it only took a minute or so for strong, sharp features to come to life. It was only when the penetrating gaze of the teenager on the page became too much and made her shiver that Bella realized Edward was watching her. He had been for quite some time, too.
His eyes were open now, following the movements of her hands as they twisted the pad and pencil in tandem to achieve the best angles. "What're you drawing?" Edward asked softly.
"I, er…" Blinking, she refocused her wandering mind, dropping her eyes to the page to catalogue her work. The portrait jumped from the page. The landscape drawing wasn't her best, but it was enrapturing. Bella remembered the memory it stemmed from well. All five of the Swan and Hale kids, as well as Edward, were playing in Tugwell Park, just a short two-minute walk away from Charlie and Peter's houses. They'd been there for hours when it began to rain, soaking them to the bone within minutes, so they'd had to run home. They'd hustled as fast as possible towards Peter's house, where Charlie and Peter were putting together Heidi and Pippa's twin beds, but they were dripping wet and soggy by the time they got there regardless of their haste.
They'd been corralled into the kitchen to get dry, towels handed out as well as Rosalie's hairdryer. As Bella helped Rosalie tie her hair back once it had been dried, she'd glanced over at Archie and Edward, the pair stripping off their shirts at the time. At eight years old, and used to her brother strolling around shirtless, she was unperturbed by the boys' naked torsos. She caught Edward's eye, grinning when he tossed her a playful wink while using the towel he had draped around his shoulders to dry his scruffy hair.
It was that moment Bella had drawn, Edward's brows furrowed in concentration as he stretched up to scrub his hair dry. A shiver rippled through Bella's body, which of course, Edward noticed. He always noticed.
"Are you okay? Cold?"
"A little," she murmured, wanting to get away from Edward's watchful eyes for just a minute. "Please, can you grab my blanket from the car? I left it there after my doctor's appointment."
Always willing to help Bella, Edward rose quickly, striding to the door separating the living room from the hall. "It's in your dad's car, right?"
Bella nodded, thankful that Charlie had decided to go with Peter in his van today. A few moments later, she heard the soft click of the front door closing behind him. Sighing heavily, she leaned her head back against the sofa, letting her tired eyes slide shut. She was thirty-four weeks pregnant, and feeling it, too. The baby had caught up with his or her weight now that Bella was eating a better diet and she'd ballooned in the past month. Carl-Roman had commented that she was a bump walking around with a Bella attached, and everybody was inclined to agree; including Bella. She was sick of being pregnant, but couldn't bring herself to wish her due date closer. After all, with the baby still inside her, he or she was safe and growing steadily.
Sleep was becoming harder and harder to come by, her growing bump wreaking havoc on her back, so she'd taken to napping in fits and starts during the day. Marley had finally started getting better at sleeping in her own bed but still wouldn't take naps in the daytime, so Bella often left her with Edward while she rested. Not that Edward or Marley seemed to mind. They'd only grown closer, the pair as thick as thieves at this point.
Daily, she wondered how Marley would cope when Edward went back to Italy, though he hadn't mentioned any plans to leave just yet.
It's funny, isn't it, how hindsight is twenty-twenty?
If Bella hadn't been so tired, and she'd managed to keep her eyes open, she'd have seen the shadowed figure of a tall, thin man as he moved down the hallway into the entrance to the living room. She'd have been able to scream before he took the first of six silent steps towards her. Someone might have heard those screams before the chloroform-soaked cloth was pressed tightly over her mouth, a bony hand clasping her wrists together where they lay atop her sketch pad.
When her eyes did fly open at the shock of the chemicals seeping into her airways, they were just inches from the sickening, narrowed hazel eyes of her tormentor. There wasn't time, and she lacked the strength to fight him off.
Only seconds later, she slumped backward.
Blackness engulfed her, the open pad falling to the carpet.
At the top of the stairs, Marley huddled into a ball, whimpering the same words over and over around her thumb firmly ensconced in her mouth.
"Bad-man. Bad-man. Bad-man."
~ oOo ~
"What the…" Rousing slowly, Bella groaned and inhaled a shallow breath, gasping at the chill it sent through her body. Wherever she was, it was freezing.
A moment was all it took for her to realize that she was blindfolded and bound at the wrists and ankles, completely at his mercy.
It was during that first, interminable amount of time when she could see nothing, hear nothing but the steady, far-off sound of water dripping, that Bella deeply regretted asking Edward to get her blanket. Thoughts of him flooded her mind, an endless reel of his facial expressions, the sound of his voice, his laugh, the feel of his arms wrapping her up protectively in the motel to save her from the inferno he started.
Oh, Edward…She sniffled. The first of many tears to come slid over her cheeks from beneath the blindfold, wetting the scratchy material.
A loud, amused chuckle echoed around her. She jumped. "Oh, you're awake! Finally! I've so been looking forward to seeing you again."
A harsh shudder ripped through Bella's body. "Wh-where is he?" She stuttered. The biting cold was getting to her. An ache was spreading through her body, chilly air nipping at her skin wherever it could reach.
"He? Who's 'he?' Your little friend you made me kill, you mean?"
Kill…
Bella's heart skipped a beat before taking off at a terrifyingly, agonized sprint. Without her sight, she couldn't read his expression, couldn't see his eyes to know if what he was saying was true.
He can't be dead. Not Edward. He can't be dead.
The words became a mantra in the next, excruciating minutes as she listened to the scraping of metal on what she assumed was concrete; it certainly felt like she was sitting on concrete. Then, there was an ominous click.
Thanks to a bear that had wandered too close to the ranch house one day while she, Rosalie, and Emmett were working in the barn, she knew exactly what that sound was.
A gun.
Bella shuddered, trembling violently against the cold, hard floor. Her awkward position, on her side with one arm going dead beneath her weight, wasn't comfortable in the slightest. Her stomach ached, its weight largely unsupported. She'd had to use a pregnancy pillow when sleeping for the past few weeks, but she doubted Garrett would've thought to steal it for her.
"How are you even here? How did you know I'd be there?"
Garrett laughed. It was a sickening sound; one that sent an unpleasant shiver down her spine. "It was easy. A friend helped me out getting me over here, and it was easy enough to get one of my men in once we'd disposed of the guard on duty." Garrett tutted. "Shame he had to die, really. Got a wife, apparently. Never mind. They'll be finding his body soon."
Bella's heart raced in time with his heavy footsteps.
"Once he got the bug planted it was just a matter of biding my time until you were alone. And it was just too poetic that your neighbors, the Joneses, are away, freeing up their van."
He leaned in close, hot, foul-smelling breath washing over her face; Bella heaved. "Apple red, just like the first time."
Flashes of memories filled Bella's mind.
An unseasonably warm, February day.
The exhilaration of being allowed to walk home without an adult.
The quiet rumble of an engine; nothing to worry about, so they thought.
The reflection of a candy apple red van in the windscreen of the parked car ahead.
"Up we get."
A shrill scream burned its way from her throat as his bony fingers suddenly yanked her from the ground by her upper-arms, shoving her onto what felt like a plastic chair. Her weight was uneven thanks to her stomach, so she stumbled backward and hit it painfully hard. He then ripped the blindfold from her head, the fabric pulling at the hairs tangled around it as he did so. She was torn between wanting to keep her eyes shut, and needing to have them open to be able to watch him. Sitting upright was slightly more comfortable except for her arms, which were bent at an awkward angle against the back of the chair. Bella visibly shivered, wincing at the pain that shot up her spine.
"Oh, you poor thing. You must be frozen. Pardon my manners."
Bella's heart pounded, eyes widening at the soft cooing coming from Garrett's mouth, his mood swing startling her. She was out of practice at keeping up with him. He walked behind her, boots loud on the concrete. She listened intently to his footsteps, counting how many it took before the creaking of a door bounced around the room. His strides were longer than hers, so she added some extra to compensate for her shorter legs. He returned a few moments later with the dark red blanket Edward had gone to fetch from the car.
Bella's blood ran cold.
For him to have the blanket, he must've done something to Edward. And while she thought about it, to get in the front door so quietly he must have taken the key from him, too.
"Here we go, darling. We don't want you to catch a cold, now do we? Your mother won't be happy with me if I let her precious daughter get sick before we meet up with her," he continued in his low, crooning tone as he draped the blanket around her shoulders, loosely knotting it over her bump. She jumped when his fingers brushed her, feeling sickened to have any part of him that close to her precious, innocent baby. He didn't seem to notice, stepping back with an almost adoring tint to his smile.
"Wh-why are you doing this?" Bella whimpered, shoving the mention of her mother from her mind. She knew instinctively that it wasn't his bitch of a wife, Chloe, he was referring to.
His eyes softened. "Oh, darling. Don't you know we were always meant to be this way? You, and me, and your mother." Garrett sighed, pulling a worn photograph from the pocket of his dirty black jeans. "My Penny…so beautiful. You look just like her, you know."
"Where are w-we?"
"I've waited forty years, but we'll be together soon. You, too." His lips pulled up into a sickening grin as Bella's breaths grew frantic, shooting pains rippling over the surface of her bump. "I knew you'd be excited to see her again. It's been…what, sixteen years? Seventeen?"
Bella's spine tightened, a cool breeze stealing its way through the darkened building. Thanks to the lack of light, Bella's eyes could only see ten feet or so away before the blackness swallowed up the rest of her surroundings. It was disorientating only to be able to see a gray circle around herself, the single, other living thing within it being the man responsible for twelve years of torture. She couldn't even see where the power cord for the lone lamp ended; it disappeared into the shadows. The air was damp and smelled sour, like sweat and mold.
"She-she's dead. She's not c-coming back, you idiot," she gritted out, tears stabbing at her eyes.
Garrett flipped. He let out a roar of anger, his eyes ablaze and maniacal when he turned them on Bella. She immediately knew that he was about to hit her with another mood swing.
"You stupid little girl! You think I meant for them to die? For her to die? It was supposed to be him!"
It took a handful of seconds for Bella's mind to grasp what he was insinuating, but when it did, she was forced to ponder, was it his fault Mum and Auntie T died? Was it an accident, or something more sinister? How could he have done it? The police put the driver in prison, and he was killed in a riot a few weeks later. Nobody had been in the car with him – there were too many witnesses, and they'd caught the car on a traffic camera a mile back.
Puzzled, cold, and cringing with every pain in her mid-section, Bella attempted to refocus on Garrett as he paced agitatedly.
"Goddamn moron was supposed to check first…should have just done it myself. At least I didn't have to pay him after he screwed up. He deserved to die after he killed my Penny."
Curiosity peaked; Bella listened intently to his mumblings. Hoping, praying, that he'd say something she could use.
"If that idiot hadn't gotten so drunk my Penny might be with me. That bastard should never have had her. I suppose it's all working out well now. We'll be together again soon, and we've got our daughter, even if she is a spoilt brat. Hiring that moron as a hitman might just be the best thing after all—"
A feral, keening wail erupted from Bella's slight body, echoing harshly in the dark somewhere he was holding her captive. Too wild to care that she wouldn't get far with her ankles tied, Bella threw herself from the chair in Garrett's direction, her body hitting his full-force, side-on. She wasn't crazed enough to forget about the bump jutting from her middle, though the pain emanating from it was making her a little disorientated.
Suddenly, it all made sense.
"You killed them! All along it was you, you sick, messed up bastard!" She screeched, pent up pain and loss rising and spilling over in torrents as she beat him with her head, knees, and feet, jabbing her elbow hard into his stomach until he finally regained his wits enough to shove her back to the floor. She hit the ground with a sharp cry. Something within her tore; a pain so intense she almost passed out spreading through her veins.
Panting, Bella mustered the energy from somewhere to continue screaming at him. "You ruined lives! You killed my mum! How could you do that?"
Garrett growled and pushed her away. "Shut up! Shut up, just shut up!"
Within thirty seconds, he had Bella tied to a pillar just out of the circle of light cast by the lamp, looping a rope through the cable tie binding her hands, securing it around the base. He kneeled in front of her, hissing when she spat at him with a furious glower, tears tumbling over her cheeks.
It hurts so much, she thought desperately, only now realizing what she'd been unable to grasp with the distraction Garrett presented. The baby…Oh God, something's wrong with the baby. Please, don't let anything happen to my baby.
"Don't you think I know I killed her? Don't you think I regret it every damn day?"
"Get the hell away from me. You're a murderer!"
"He wasn't meant to kill Penny or the Hale woman! God," two bony, calloused hands tugged hard at more-gray-than-brown hair. "It wasn't supposed to be them."
"She would never have been with you. Never! She loved Dad. You're a psychotic asshole and Mum would have hated you," Bella spat her words, losing her fight but running purely on adrenaline and anger.
Garrett neutralized his expression before rising up to tower over Bella. His frustration amplified when she refused to cower as she always had before. He wouldn't be getting that reaction again. Instead of lashing out verbally, as she expected, Garrett turned from his panting prisoner and slipped into the darkness. By the time she realized that he was returning with another sedative soaked rag, it was too late to fight.
Seconds later she slumped against the concrete post at her back, Garrett's smug smile the last thing she saw before her world went black.
~ oOo ~
A frigid breeze slithered into Edward's bones, dragging him coughing and spluttering into consciousness.
Sharp, stabbing sensations began at his temple, spreading through his head. He made to move, pausing when nausea smacked into him full-force. Tiny black spots infiltrating his sight, Edward slowly pushed himself up to a sitting position with fawn-like awkwardness, gazing around unseeingly for a few long moments before it came back to him.
As his heart beat a frantic tattoo in his suddenly aching chest, Edward managed to rise to his feet, stumbling into the front door. It swung open to deposit him face-first on the hardwood, hallway floor with a thump followed by an anguished groan of pain. He didn't need to see the living room to know he'd failed in protecting Bella. Inches in front of his face were dirty footsteps, the mud prints far too large to be hers, never mind the 'no shoes in the house' rule Charlie enforced.
Half-formed memories rushed in. The distant barking of a dog, a woman, carrying her baby inside after closing her car door with a slam, then quiet footsteps. Something sharp against his lower spine, a muffled huff of laughter, and the heavy impact of something metal hitting his temple.
"No. No, no, no, no, no…" Edward began whispering his desperate litany even as tears spilled over his cheeks, blood from the gash on the side of his head mixing with the salty moisture as he dragged himself through the hallway into the doorway to the living room. His cream t-shirt was stained with his blood and tears, drops hitting the floor silently as his veins ran ice cold. It took almost a full minute for him to make it, but as soon as he did he fell back onto his haunches, a choked roar scorching his throat on its way out. His eyes found the empty sofa.
"Ed-wood? Ed-wood!" Marley flew down the stairs; her small body hitting Edward's so hard that he fell into the hard doorframe. He muffled his grunt of pain into her hair, rocking their bodies side-to-side as she sobbed into his chest. "Bad-man. Bad-man. Bad-man."
It took him a few seconds to realize what she was mumbling. Bad-man. The bad-man had been there. Marley loved everyone. To her, everyone these days was a hero. Only one person could be the 'bad-man' she mentioned.
It killed him to realize that, despite his promises to never again let Smith get close to the girls, Marley had been close enough to see him.
Distraught as he was, and distracted by Marley's misery, Edward missed the sound of a truck pulling up outside.
"Edward? What the hell's going on? Why are you…" Charlie trailed off, not finishing his question about the blood pouring from Edward's head because the look of horror on the younger man's face when he met Charlie's gaze said everything. His cheeks were ashen, tears soaking the beard he'd let grow at Bella's suggestion. She liked it, she'd said. So he'd kept it. And now she was…she was gone.
"I'm s-sorry, Charlie." Swaying on his knees, Edward collapsed into the doorframe, rasping, "he's got Bella. Smith's got Bella."
Within minutes, police were swarming the street, blocking off all entrances and exits. Charlie, Peter, Edward, and Marley were corralled outside, where an ambulance crew tended to a comatose Edward while Marley clung to him. He soon woke, disorientated and in pain, and very much adamant that he be allowed to help. Rosalie, who'd been awakened by his roar of distress and Marley's footsteps thumping down the stairs, was carried next-door to Peter's house where she waited with Heidi, Pippa, Mary, and Roy, who'd arrived home amidst the commotion of Riley's arrival.
He swept in like a king, cutting the over-confident officers off before they could shoo him away, assuring them he was in control and up-to-date. The few agents he'd brought with him were efficient and got to work immediately while Riley searched for Edward, Charlie, and Peter, finding them just as a police officer escorted an irate Archie through the police tape. As soon as Charlie spotted Riley, he was looking to him for help.
"How did this happen? I thought you were keeping a lookout for him?"
Riley winced, knowing Charlie had every right to be angry. "Honestly, I don't know. All we can do right now is find Bella, then we'll get you answers. People will pay if mistakes were made, Charlie, I promise you that."
The despairing father nodded, returning to the hastily erected marquee with Riley hot on his heels. Riley pointed out, to the argumentative ambulance crew, that Edward was needed on site as he was the only witness, and so he was allowed to join them beneath the gazebo in a wheelchair. Marley remained on his lap, still shivering with fright at having watched from the top of the stairs as Garrett stole her mother away.
The men formed a protective group around her, all of them determined to get Bella back.
~ oOo ~
Darkness shrouded the rescue team without shame, casting an eerie glow over their work as they utilized borrowed torches and lamps to keep up the visibility levels. Nosy, but sympathetic neighbors supplied the congregation with hot drinks to ward off the chilly autumn evening, as well as biscuits and hastily put-together sandwiches. As expected, journalists flocked to the scene as soon as news broke that one of the recently rescued Swan-Hale abduction victims had been snatched away once again, this time from her home.
They were particularly interested in the body of a police officer being removed from the scene. It had quickly been deduced that Smith was responsible, though questions were being raised about how the poor man's death had gone unnoticed for more than twenty-four hours. A preliminary check of Charlie's house had revealed a hidden listening device in the kitchen, as well as another in the living room.
Charlie, Peter, Archie, Edward, and Marley watched the mayhem unfold around them through the portable screens Riley's men set up, unable to comprehend that this was happening all over again. The only saving graces were that he hadn't taken Marley, and the gun Edward remembered hitting his head hadn't been used to kill him, just render him unconscious. Dodging all of the journalists' attempts to speak to them, Charlie and Edward stayed in the center of the gathering, Archie nearby poring over security footage with one of Riley's agents. Peter ventured over to tell the camera crews to keep out of the police and agents' way. He was frustrated, guilty for being glad Rosalie was unhurt, and determined to help in any way he could.
As a steady stream of police officers and FBI agents entered and exited his house, Charlie found himself pulling at his hair. He was going insane. It had been over two hours since he'd returned from work in a jovial mood, only to discover Edward bleeding heavily over his hallway, Marley in the midst of a panic attack, and Bella, gone.
Again.
I only just got her back, he cried silently, heart breaking all over again when he thought of the fact that, this time, Bella was all alone and just weeks from giving birth.
"Sir! I've got something!" A sudden cacophony of sound broke out amongst the ranks, a sea of people moving aside for Charlie, Edward, and Riley as they made their way through the crowd towards the man waving his arms in the air.
"What've you got for us, Ben?" Riley grit out, growing more and more frustrated with every passing moment.
"Do you remember those trackers you had me develop a few weeks ago? You said they needed to be incorporated into something the girls would have on them at all times, right?"
Riley nodded jerkily, gesturing for Ben to get on with it.
"Well, I didn't want to say anything right away because I wasn't sure if they were online and working yet, and I didn't want to get anyone's hopes up, so I've been trying to get them activated. I've just had a call from my guy though and he says they're working." With a gleeful grin, he added, "I put them in the lockets."
Riley frowned, but Charlie and Peter's eyes lit with new hope. "That's why you wanted to see Rosalie's replacement before Pete gave it to her?" In their hurried escape from the motel fire, Rosalie's locket had been lost. She and Bella had a matching pair, each one containing a photo of their respective mother. Peter had replaced it on the anniversary of Penelope and Tina's death. At the time, the men had been confused as to why Riley's tech specialist had wanted to see it, but now it all made perfect sense.
Ben grinned. "Yup." His fingers began shooting over the keys of his laptop a mile-a-minute, a map appearing on the screen seconds later. In the next few minutes, he showed them the two flashing dots on the screen – one lilac, for Rosalie, and one pink, for Bella.
Rosalie's was right where it should be.
All eyes shot to the pink dot. It was blinking like a beacon.
As Riley barked orders at the agents close by, Charlie turned to Ben, asking him to zoom in. At his side, Edward inhaled sharply when he realized where Garrett had taken Bella, a fractured plan taking shape in his mind.
Five minutes, and a couple of miles later, a mixture of Sussex Police, FBI agents, and news crews brave enough to risk Riley's wrath by following, surrounded the derelict storage facility Bella's dot now occupied. Leaping from the back of Riley's sleek black car like a man possessed, Charlie was intent on running straight into the building to rescue his daughter. A pair of strong, unrelenting arms stopped him in his wake.
"You can't go in there, Mr. Swan," a deep, gruff voice informed the irate father.
"Like hell,I can't! That's my baby girl in there!" He struggled ineffectively against the six-foot-five behemoth he belatedly recognized as Roberto Rodriguez, one of the dark-haired brothers on Riley's security detail. Alberto, his almost identical brother, appeared a moment later at Riley's back, Edward following unsteadily with his hand tugging his hair back from the white dressing on his head.
"Charlie, please, calm down," Riley urged. "We don't want to alert him to our presence if we can help it. We'll have a better advantage if he doesn't see or hear us coming. You understand? We just want to get Bella out of there safely, but we can't do that until the armed unit arrives. What if he's armed? What if he hurts her because we're not prepared?"
The fight drained from Charlie's body as he sagged, Roberto hesitantly releasing him. The last thing Charlie wanted was for Bella to get hurt. And the baby… Oh God, the baby. She was just weeks from delivering. They had to be okay; both of them. They just had to be.
"All right." He huffed, reaching up to yank at his hair. "All right, but let me do something before I go mad."
Amidst the chaos outside the red brick storage unit, nobody thought to keep an eye on the young man all but crippled by the pain splitting his head in two, blood almost seeping completely through the dressing he'd allowed a paramedic to apply before he raced off to follow Charlie, Peter, and Riley, leaving Archie with the children and Rosalie. Edward watched the comings and goings from the floor, where he sank to his haunches when he realized that even though they knew where Bella was, they weren't going to go in until more officers had arrived; until protocol could be followed.
It didn't help that all he could picture was Marley's face when he'd pried her from his chest, handing her to Archie. It wasn't safe for her to go with him, but she hadn't understood, and she'd fought so hard to hang onto him. He'd hated leaving her, especially when she was so upset and had shrieked his name at his back until they'd sped away in Riley's Mercedes.
It was that look, the abject misery on Marley's face, which spurred him into action. Adrenaline coursed through his veins as he pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, leaning against a low brick wall for a minute or two to catch his breath.
Nobody was watching him.
As he staggered around the crowd towards an old, half-open fire exit door, Edward mused that it was probably their fear of upsetting Riley that kept the others from running inside without 'proper back up.'
It wasn't fear of anything that pushed Edward's feet forwards into the building, despite the pain each stepped caused – it was fear for Bella, and the baby she carried.
What Edward hadn't mentioned to Riley was that he, Archie, and some of their old friends had often used this building as a hangout during their teenage years. He remembered the layout fairly well having gotten drunk there many times, though without Archie to guide him, Edward did take a couple of wrong turns before he had a sudden thought. The only area with a single entrance and exit was on the second floor. The second fire exit had been boarded up years ago when the area at the back fell in during a particularly violent storm, so the only way in or out was through the doors leading into the main stairwell. It was likely that Garrett would want somewhere like that, where he could be in control of the entrances, so that's where Edward headed. He harnessed all of his energy to make his way up the cracked, dusty steps to the second floor, soon finding himself having to maneuver through piles of boxes, metal storage cabinets, and debris from a toppled wall.
Stifling a groan at a sharp ripple of pain in his head, Edward pushed on. It was just as he reached the doors hanging off their rusted hinges that he heard it.
Muffled, sickeningly-delighted laughter.
Even without having ever heard Garrett Smith's voice before, Edward knew instinctively that it was him.
What worried him the most was that in the following thirty seconds or so Smith's laughter continued with no other sounds whatsoever being heard, and he didn't know if that was because Bella didn't want to make a sound, or wasn't capable of making them.
He didn't let himself dwell on the possibility that he might be too late.
"You can do this, Cullen," he mouthed to himself, closing his eyes against an abrupt onslaught of tears. "You have to do this," Edward added.
Inhaling a deep, dust-filled, lungful of air, he slowly pressed the door open wider and slid into the dark, cavernous room.
~ oOo ~
Blinking rapidly, Bella's eyes took a while to adjust to the lack of light, residual sedatives keeping her movements sluggish as she tried to get her arms into a more comfortable position.
"Ah, there we are. Awake at last. And just in time, too. Your precious daddy has come to see us off. Isn't that nice of him?"
Bella shuddered at the tone of his voice, unable to comprehend the depravity of this man and unwilling to believe that her dad was there, that he'd come for her. He'd be in danger, and she knew he wouldn't just wait merrily for Garrett to hand her over. No – he'd come in, all guns blazing.
It's another mind-game, Bella, she assured herself as she closed her eyes again.
Shivers wracked her frame and pain gripped her spine, refusing to let go as his cheerful laughter bounced around the darkness. She bit into her lip to stifle a whimper of agony at the pain in her stomach as warm, sticky wetness seeped onto her thighs. The faintly metallic scent made her feel sick.
Hang on in there, baby. Please, please hang in there.
"I didn't expect him to come if I'm honest. After all," crouching a foot away with a sinister smile plastered over his face, Garrett chuckled, "he didn't come for you last time, did he?"
Not in the least bit inclined, or able, to answer, Bella simple quaked as her keen hearing picked up on the sounds of Garrett fiddling with the safety on his handgun. He was playing her. Trying to get her to open her eyes. But she didn't want to.
If she had, she'd have been staring down the barrel of the gun.
The laughter continued unabated until Bella couldn't bear it anymore. Only, she didn't get a chance to shriek at him to stop, to just do whatever he was going to do.
The breath she'd inhaled to do so was cut off by the sound of a trio of hard thumps, quickly followed by the thunderous boom of a trigger being pulled. Ears ringing, heart pounding, Bella forced open her eyes.
The sight they found was incomprehensible.
In the center of the circle of light were two large bodies. Garrett's torso, clad in a long-sleeved navy polo shirt, was slumped atop another. One that Bella was both horrified and relieved to see.
Edward.
Relief that he was alive was swiftly swallowed up by the horror of realizing he wasn't moving. Through the high-pitched, bell-like sound resonating in her ears, Bella just about heard herself screeching Edward's name in a desperate plea for him to come to her.
Her horror escalated tenfold when it was the other body that turned to face her. "No…" she whispered.
The gray-haired demon gazed at her, wide-eyed, as though disbelieving. Slowly and unsurely, he slid backward on his hands and knees until he was barely visible in the dim light. It was then, when she could only just make out his heavily shadowed features, that Bella turned her eyes back to Edward. She was aghast at what she found. Using one arm to slide his way closer, Edward was smearing a trail of dark red blood across the pale concrete floor, his face ashen, eyes half-lidded.
"No, Edward, stay there. D-don't move!" Fighting pointlessly against the cable ties, Bella sobbed, desperate, dismayed, and disturbed by this turn of events. Her cries only encouraged Edward. He finally flopped down beside her, resting his shaky head on her calf.
He choked something out, his breathing getting too shallow, voice too quiet to comprehend his words. He tried again, meeting her eyes. The light behind his grassy green irises was fading fast. "I s-saw your drawing," he murmured.
Bella hiccupped, her lips pulling up slightly at the crazy, crazy man. "Did you like it?"
"Yeah," Edward breathed.
"Then it's yours."
The feeling of warmth seeping into her leggings had torrents of salty tears streaming over Bella's cheeks as she tried to bend over her bump to see Edward's face up close. He heaved his head up, letting her rest her forehead against his sweat-dampened hair. "Tha-thanks. I'll put it…" He paused to inhale a gasp that made his entire body shudder. Licking his lips, he continued, "in the best frame I can find. Maybe the one little sweet made me."
"She'll love that. Pinky promise me? That you'll put it in a frame and keep it forever?" Bella whispered pleadingly, trying to keep him focused as his eyes dimmed, head lowering away from her reach.
"P-pinky promise…" Just then, he let out a gut-wrenching groan, curling in on himself and clutching at the rapidly expanding circle of crimson on his white vest.
"Edward! Don't you dare leave me!" Bella cried, tugging against her restraints even though there was no way she'd be able to break them. Looking around in desperation, she spotted Garrett. He was sitting in the exact same spot he had been a few minutes before, leaning back on his hands, staring at the crumpled heap of the man he'd shot. "Help him!" Bella pleaded, hissing at the pain in her abdomen.
It was getting worse. So, so much worse.
"Please, help him! I'll go with you! I'll do whatever you want, just save him!"
Before either of them could make another move an army of men dressed in black and armed with weapons Bella had never seen the likes of stormed in, shouting in booming voices as they swarmed Garrett. All of it was lost to Bella as it occurred outside her circle of light. No more than ten seconds later, she found herself staring into Riley's ice-blue eyes through the waterfall of her own tears.
Everything became a blur.
Somebody cut her free.
A paramedic asked her a string of questions before she was loaded onto a gurney. As soon as they spotted the sticky stain on her thighs, they rushed into action. Bella's eyes remained on Edward until a team of paramedics descended upon his prostrate form, blocking him from view.
Whisked from the darkness, Bella found herself staring blankly at the ceiling overhead, then at the black sky once they made it outside. The stars seemed to swirl and blend together, the moon looming incandescently. As she was loaded into the ambulance the pain in her midsection became unbearable, Charlie's face crumpled with fear and awash with tears as she heard words like 'placental abruption' and 'hemorrhaging.'
The last thing she remembered uttering was Edward's name as she felt cool hands on her overheated cheeks and the distant squeal of sirens lulling her into unconsciousness.
When she woke hours later, it would be with a deflated bump, and with one less heart beating in the world.
So...
Because I'm feeling generous, if you leave a review for this chapter I'll send you a sneak preview of Chapter 26 to tide you over until the next update on Sunday :)