Chapter 21
James POV
"Open the back door and both of you get the fuck in" I say to them. Lila looks up at me with her scared eyes, and then looks to her mom, who lets her know everything going to be ok.
It will be ok. Once we're away from here and we can be a family, it'll be perfect. I'll start to work, and Bella will stay home with Lila, our daughter. I'll get us a nice house, and we'll each have our own cars. I'll come home to a home cooked dinner every night, and after dinner we'll put Lila to bed, and then go to bed ourselves. I'll make love to Bella every night, for hours. Not stopping until we're both satisfied, and then we'll do it all over again the next day. I'll watch Bella as her stomach grows, swollen with my children, and I'll raise them. They'll have their mother's looks, but my smarts. I'll give them the world.
I watch as Bella gets in the car, and I shut the behind her, and keep my eyes on the door of the warehouse, making sure Edward doesn't try anything funny; and I keep the gun pointed right at Bella, for in case he does. I walk forward to the drivers side door, when I realize something.
The detective's body is missing from it's spot. I turn around, bringing the gun in front of me and turn, looking for him.
"Where the fuck are you?" I yell out into the trees, and the empty space of the drive way into the warehouse. I look to the ground, to see if I can tell where he went by his footprints, but there is none.
"Make yourself seen, or I will kill them all" I say, and turn back behind me when I hear a rustling of leaves. I look back, only to see a damn squirrel running out of the bushes. I'm so pissed off, I raise my gun to shoot the little fucker, when the loud sound of a gun going off scares me. I jump and then feel the pain as the bullet rips through me. I look down at myself, raising my free hand, and holding it to the spot where the blood is starting to bleed through my shirt right below my chest. It's suddenly getting harder to breathe, and I start to gasp, only to begin coughing. I bring my hands up to my mouth to cough into and when I pull my hands back I see specks of blood in the palm of my hands.
"Put the gun down, or I'll fucking shoot you again" I hear a voice say behind me. I turn around and look into the eyes of the man I'm sure was dead before. His crisp blue button down has a large spot of blood on his shoulder, where I shot him, but other than that he's fine. My vision begins to blur, and I start to blink rapidly, trying to distinguish who's where. I can see the outline of what must be Masen standing behind the detective, and as I feel myself start to slip away, all I can think of is that I'm not going to be the only one to die today.
I'm taking one, if not all of these motherfuckers with me.
EPOV
I wanted to do nothing but run to them, drag them away to safety, but he had the gun up to Bella's head, and I didn't doubt for a second that he would shoot if he saw me going towards them. I can hear him yelling for them to get in the car, and I cringe thinking about how my daughter must be feeling. I can hear her sobs clearly from where I stand and my heart is breaking for her. She must be so scared, wondering why her daddy isn't helping her.
I can't stand thinking my daughter is depending on me and I'm not doing anything about it. I start to make my way to the door, to run out and do something, but the feel of someone grabbing my shoulder has me jumping up and almost out of own damn skin. I turn around, and am met by Aro, who is breathing heavy.
"What th-" I start to say, but he holds his fingers up to his mouth and whispers to me that he got a signal, and the police are on their way. He starts to edge towards the open door of the warehouse, and that's when we hear James.
"Make yourself seen or I will kill them all." I watch as Aro pokes his head out, and then he lifts the gun. The gun goes off, and I bring my hands up to my ears, blocking out the loud sound. I start to inch near Aro as I hear James coughing and breathing heavy, and when I come out, I see he's been shot just below the chest.
"Put the gun down or I'll fucking shoot you again" Aro says, and I watch as James looks at us both, and shakes his head. He's blinking his eyes rapidly, and I can see his chest heaving from here but he's still standing. My eyes dart to the car, where Bella and Lila are sitting in the back. I can't see Lila, but Bella is watching from the dirty window in the back, tears streaming down her face. I start to walk towards her, but the sound of James calling out to me has my head snapping up towards him. His gun is now pointed at me, and he is wobbling on his feet, probably from his wound which now has the whole front of his shirt covered in blood.
"I've been waiting to have you like this, Masen. To have your life in my hands. It feels good." he says. His eyes are glossy, and I can tell he will be passing out soon from his injuries, so I know all that needs to be done is to stall. I look back at Aro, who still has his gun pointed at James, and I make eye contact with him, hoping he understands what I need to do.
"Look at me!" he yells, and I bring my eyes back to his. Even in pain, the look of madness is still plain on his face. But as long as that madness is focused away from my girls, then I'm fine.
I raise my arms, and look to him, wondering what he plans on doing to me. I can see by the sheen of sweat on his forehead that its getting harder to keep the gun held up at me, and I know it won't be long now.
"I killed him, you know." he starts, and I furrow my brow, wondering who the hell he's talking about, when I see him take another deep breath and continue his rambling.
"Jacob… I killed him. He told me to watch Bella, and we were going to try to get him out of jail, but when I saw her for myself… I fell in love…" he says, looking to the car at Bella, but her eyes are on me.
"So, What happened?" I ask, trying to waste time until he looses it, and passes out. He looks back to me, and gives a lazy smile.
"He thought she was his. He had plans when he got out. He wanted to kill her, he had it all planned out. But I couldn't let him hurt her…. So I made it so that he wouldn't get out."
"But he did anyway."
"Yea." he says, bringing his hand up to touch his wound. He sucks in a breath as he touches the tender area, but then nods his head. "He came for me. He wanted to kill me, but I had to turn it on him. I got him out of my way, just like I have to get you out of my way." he says. My heart starts to beat faster at his words, but I stay calm. He's about to continue his ramblings when the sound of sirens in the distance has us both looking towards the road.
"It's over James." I say, but his head is still turned in the other direction, looking towards the road where the sirens are getting closer. Faster than I can see it, James snaps back around, and points the gun back at me. The bang of the gun quickly sounds off in my ears, and I feel as my body is thrusts back from the hit.
The next thing I hear is Bella screaming "No!" before my head hit's the pavement.
BPOV
I can hear the sirens through the windows. I know this will all be over soon if they can just stall. I see Edward talking to James and he's talking about how he killed Jacob. As I'm listening to him explain how things happened with them, I'm shocked. I was happy someone had killed Jacob, and it turns out that the person who did it, is probably worse than Jacob would have been.
Maybe.
"It's over James." I hear Edward say, and I watch as James turns his whole body quickly towards Edward, and fires the gun.
My heart stops in that moment.
All I can think about is how everything I once knew is over in less than a second.
No more loving husband. No more hearing Lila call for her father when we walk into a room. No father for our new baby. My hand rests on my stomach as I turn my head, not wanting to see the damage caused to my husband, but when I look, I see him on the ground eyes closed.
And Aro is on top of him.
I step out of the car as the police cars and ambulances pull up, and I walk over to Aro. I lean down, shaking him lightly and telling him to get up.
"Aro. The police are here." I say, but there's no movement.
"Aro?" I shake him once more, and that's when I notice the blood seeping through his shirt in the back.
"Aro!" I cry out, and grab his wrists, checking for a pulse, and I feel my heart sink when I find none.
"Ma'am. Please, we need to get through." I hear someone say behind me and I turn around, vision blurry from the unshed tears pooling in my eyes, and I see that it's a paramedic. I take a step back, and watch as they turn Aro over, and move him onto a stretcher. Two men work on him as they wheel him away, while two others start to check Edward.
"He's Ok, Just knocked unconscious from the fall" I hear one say, as they load him onto another stretcher. The tears fall when I hear that Edward is Ok. Aro saved him. I look over to the ambulance where they just loaded Aro into and I can see them still working on him as the driver starts it, and then starts off down the road, sirens blaring.
I look over towards the police cars, and see them leading a bloodied James in hand cuffs to the police car. His eyes meet mine as the office puts his hand on top of James' head, and the look he gives me is enough to make me want to run past everyone and kick the shit out of him.
"Mommy?" Lila calls from James' truck, and I run over and scoop her up.
"It's Ok, baby. We're Ok." I say as I hold her to my chest. Her little hands hold me tight to her, and her legs wrap around my waist, not wanting me to let her go. And that's Ok with me, because I have no intention of doing that.
The paramedics start to wheel Edward into the ambulance and I run over.
"Please. I need to go with him" I say and the man nearest to me nods his head, and calls for a police officer, and tells him we're going with Edward.
"Ok. I'll need to ask you a couple of things later ma'am" the officer says and I nod my head, and wait for them to get Edward situated in the back of the ambulance before I step up, with Lila in my arms and take a seat.
The engine starts, as does the siren and we start barreling down the road. My eyes stay on Edward as we speed down the road, and about 5 minutes into the trip to the hospital, I see Edward's forehead crease.
"He's coming to." one of the paramedics say, and I reach my hand out and grab his. I grip onto him tight, not wanting to believe that this day could have ended much worse than it did. I could have lost him. I could have lost Lila.
I'm shocked out of my thoughts by the vibrant green visible through the slits of his barely opened eyes as he grunts and look up at me.
"What happened?" he asks and I watch as he tries to lift his hand to his head, probably feeling the pain from the fall.
"He saved you. James shot at you and Aro jumped on you." I say, and he blinks a couple of time, before fully opening his eyes.
"Is he Ok?" he asks, and I don't know what to say. I know the paramedics were working on him before, and I hope they were able to save him.
"I don't know" I say after a while, and he shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath. He opens his eyes back up, and holds his hand out to me, and I bring my face closer, letting him cup the side of my face. I close my eyes and nestle my face into his hand, enjoying the feel of his skin on mine, especially after feeling like I'd never feel it again.
"Are you and Lila Ok?" he asks, and I nod my head as Lila turns hers to give a small smile to her dad.
"What about bug?" he says, and I smile and bring my hand to my stomach.
"I feel fine, Edward." I say. I lean forward, and press my lips to his softly, needing to feel them on mine at that moment. "I love you" I whisper to him as I pull back slowly.
"I love you too" he says, smiling up at me.
The ambulance stops and the back doors open and Edward is pulled out quickly and rolled into the emergency entrance. I follow behind him, but once he goes behind the doors, I'm told to wait in the waiting room for him.
"Are you hungry?" I ask Lila as I put her down on the row of seats right in front of the television that is playing Dora. She shakes her head, and I sit down next to her, wrapping my arms around her and watching TV as I wait to hear something from her.
"Bella?" I turn around and see Jasper standing there, and I jump up and run over to him.
"Oh Jasper." and that's when I remember what he's doing there. "Is Alice alright? Where is she?" I ask, and he smiles and nods his head.
"She's doing good. Nothing is broken, but she'll be sore for a while. What are you doing here?" he asks, and I tell him what happened with Edward and James and Aro.
"I've never wanted to kill a person so much…" he says, talking about James and I nod in agreement. But as much as I knew James deserved to die, I'm glad he wasn't killed today. He needs to be brought to justice for all of the lives he took, and tried to take. I move towards Jasper, and place my hand on his shoulder and he relaxes under my touch.
"He'll get what he deserves."
*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0
Holding out the black shirt and black pants for Edward and seeing the look on his face was difficult. I was already dressed in my sleeveless black dress, and I know at that moment, it hit him where we were going.
It's been one week since we went through all of that with James, and today we have something else to deal with from that day that none of us thought would happen.
After waiting for a couple of hours in the hospital, Edward was finally released. When I saw him walk out of that door, I couldn't help myself. I jumped up from my chair and I ran to him, arms wide open and tears sliding down my face. Our bodies crashed together and I wrapped my arms around him, gripping him to me, enjoying the feel of him in my arms when just hours earlier I had thought I'd never feel it again.
"It's Ok, baby. I'm here." he has said, and it took me a moment to realize that I was now sobbing into his chest. We stayed standing there in the hallway of the waiting room, him stroking my back and my crying into his chest for a couple of minutes. When I finally was able to calm myself, I pulled away from him and together we walked over to where Lila was sleeping on one of the giant chairs. I leaned down to pick her up, but Edward stopped me with his hand on my arm. I looked up at him and saw him staring down at me with a small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he shook his head.
"I got her." he said, and I smiled and took a step back and watched as he lifted his daughter from the chair, and held her close to his chest as he turned to make his way out of the room. When the nurse told me Edward would be released soon, Jasper left to get his car and pulled it up to the doors so he could take us home.
We walked out of the room and down the hall where at the end, we could see Jasper's car waiting for us on the other side of the automatic glass doors. We reach the doors and they slide open, and Edward continues on to the car.
"Wait. I have to go check something." I tell him as I reach the doors. He nods his head, and I turn around and walk back into the building, and down the hall to the nurses station.
"Can I help you, hun?" one of the nurses ask, and I smile slightly and nod my head.
"Um Detective Aro, Is he Ok? I mean, I haven't heard anything about him…." I say, and the nurse looks down at her computer. She clicks a couple of things and stops then looks up at me.
"I'm sorry dear, but Aro passed away."
I'm brought out of my thoughts by Edward grabbing the shirt from me. I watch as he slides the shirt on, over his wife beater and then starts to button it. Edward has been a mess since finding out about Aro's death. He blamed himself. He thinks that if it weren't for him, Aro wouldn't have needed to throw himself in front of the bullet that wasn't meant for him.
Edward grabs the pants from me, and I watch as he steps in them, and pulls them up his legs and then buttons them and zips them up.
"Edward. Are you sure you're up to this?" I ask as he sits on the end of the bed and starts to put his shoes on. He stops what he's doing, and looks up at me.
"He's gone because of me. The lease I can do is pay my respects." he says, and then his eyes go back to his feet. Ever since Edward found out about Aro, he's been slightly different. Cold comes to mind when I look for a word to describe his behavior. There's been no laughing, or smiles from him really, he's just been like an empty vessel, only doing what needs to be done to survive, but not really interacting with anyone.
I walk out of the room, and into Lila's to make sure she's ready to go to Rosalie's. Alice was released from the hospital a couple of days ago, but since she's still sore, I don't want to leave Lila with her while she's still healing and needs her rest. Also, Rose is having a baby, so she needs all the practice she can get.
30 minutes later, Lila is at Rose and Emmett's and we are on our way to the funeral home for Aro's wake. We pull up outside of the funeral home, and Edward parks in the first spot he can find. The parking lot is pretty full, but we manage to find one towards the back of the lot. We walk up to the building, and Edward opens the door for me and I step in and walk over to the sign in sheet at the podium by the door. Edward signs in behind me, and we make out way into the room where Aro's wake is being held. The room is full and there's a line in the middle of the room, up to the casket of people waiting to pay their respects to him. We stand in line, and I look around at all of the people who loved Aro, and I feel a slight pain in my heart that he was taken from all of these people.
I feel a tap on my shoulder, and I turn to see a woman, about the same height as me, with tears in her eyes and a tissue clutched in her hands. Her long brown hair is tied back, and her blue eyes stand out against her pale skin.
"Thank you for coming. I'm Gianna, Aro's wife." she says, holding out her hand for each of us to shake.
"I'm Bella Masen and this is my husband, Edward." I say, and she stops and looks up at us, and I watch as more tears fill her eyes.
"You are the ones… " she says, and Edward sucks in a breath and grabs his hair.
"Yes. It's our fault he's in there, but please, we just want to pay our respects and then we'll leave." he says, and I look back at the woman with the tears now streaming down her face.
"Aro loved his job. I would always ask him why he wanted to do a job like this, so dangerous, but he always said the same thing.
Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds
"He loved helping people. And I believe he did the right thing in helping you."
Edward shakes his head, and steps forward. "He died because of me."
Gianna slowly shakes her head, and walks forward, grabbing Edward's hand in hers. "You live because of him. My husband died doing what he loved doing and as much as it hurts to not have him here, I know it was the right thing." she says, and smiles. She turns around, and walks away from us, dabbing at her nose with the tissue in her hand and crossing her arm over her stomach.
Later that night in bed, as I lay in bed, reading, Edward came in. the towel wrapped around his waist and his body damp from the shower, I watched from the corner of my eye as he wiped himself off and changed into his boxers. As he slid into bed next to me, I kept my eyes on my book, not really reading, but watching him. The past week he would get into bed, and not say a word to me, facing the opposite way from me, and falling asleep. Tonight he did something different.
He sat in bed, back against the headboard and stayed there for a couple of minutes, not saying anything. His hands folded and rested on his lap as he bit his lip, brow furrowed as he was deep in thought. I was about to break the silence, when I felt the bed shift, and he laid down in bed, facing me. I looked down at him, and smiled which he quickly mirrored and motioned for me to lay down with him. I close the book, and set it down on my nightstand, and then lay next to him. His arms encircled me, pulling me from my side of the bed, to his chest.
"I love you so much, Bella." he says, before placing a kiss on the top of my head.
"I love you too" I say. At that moment, I know I have him back. We've been though a lot together, and I wouldn't change any of it, even the bad parts. Edward is and has always been the one for me, and I would go through hell and back just to have him by my side.
Epi will post tomorrow... :)
Thank you all for reading!
-Ana