Author's note: This chapter contains violence and themes which some readers might find disturbing.
Informed
One week later
On Tuesday, Bella left the animal shelter early and headed down toward the Clinton Street bridge. The sun was already starting to set and she wanted to be home in time to meet Emmett, but she had to check on Mr. Greyson. He hadn't been to dine at the restaurant yet. She had handful of fliers when intended to tape up nearby so everyone would be sure to see them. She hoped Mr. Greyson didn't think she'd abandoned him when she hadn't come to deliver meals.
The restaurant was a smash hit and not only among the homeless. A couple of newspapers had written articles about Bella's (Emmett solemnly swore he hadn't influenced the paper at which he worked to do a story) and they'd also gotten floods of paying customers, people who dined and left hefty donations to cover the costs of their meals. Bella had been bewildered by the attention and concerned that these people enjoying a fad to eat amongst the homeless would be crowding out the hungry but the wait for a table was never very long. There had been a handful of incidents where paying diners had been offended by the policy, but seating was firmly first-come-first served whether or not the diners intended on paying. The staff seemed to manage the situation well. Most of them had worked with the homeless in prior occupations, and they were very kind.
As Emmett had prophesied she would, Bella had insisted on repaying him the money he'd spent on creating the place. He'd explained having access to so much cash on a reporter's salary by claiming that it was his inheritance from his parents' estate and Bella hadn't questioned it. She'd been touched and amazed by the effort he'd put into it, but she didn't see it as being something he'd done for her, but rather as something he'd done for the homeless, which seemed to mean a lot more to her.
Two young men leaning against a car hooted at her as she passed, but Bella ignored them. After she crossed the bridge a few blocks later, she stopped to tape up a flier on a pole and headed down the slope. Under the bridge was an assortment of tents, shacks and lean-tos, all constructed of scavenged material. The cops never came down here, so the structures were more or less permanent, being added to and modified as circumstance allowed. Mr. Greyson lived in a tent at the back of the bridge, a desirable location because of its protection from the wind but granted to him because of his age and his near-universal acceptance as the leader of the group, a mayor of sorts of the little settlement under the bride.
Bella called his name as she approached, what served as knocking here. After a moment, there was a shuffle and Mr. Greyson stuck his head out of the flap. "Bella, my dear," he said. "How nice of you to come and visit. Please, just a moment and I will join you."
She heard rustling inside as he pulled on his tattered suit jacket. He coughed several times and emerged a little red-faced. "Mr. Greyson, are you all right?" Bella asked, concerned.
"Quite well, my dear. Just a sniffle." He blotted his nose with a stained cotton handkerchief and gestured over to the upturned buckets near a small fire that burned in a low barrel. Mr. Greyson positioned Bella's bucket like he was pushing in a lady's chair and offered it to her with a gesture. She took a seat and he positioned his own bucket nearby, but not too near; he well knew of Bella's aversion to being touched.
"You haven't come to visit my new restaurant," Bella said. "I won't know if the marinara sauce is right until you try it." Bella always presented her charity as if the person to whom it was given was doing her a favor by accepting it.
"I apologize, but I haven't been able to get away," Mr. Geyson said, he tried to suppress another cough which shook his slight frame. Bella's concern ratcheted up a notch. He'd been too sick to walk over to the restaurant but he'd never admit to it and Bella knew he'd refuse to see a doctor. "I'm hoping to get there early next week, if my schedule permits. My neighbors tell me it's quite good and it's a beautiful place."
"I can't take any credit for its appearance," Bella said. "My boyfriend Emmett is the one who actually built it."
"You're still seeing him?" Mr. Greyson looked at her oddly.
Bella didn't notice because she was under the influence of young love, a condition similar to that of new converts to religion who want everyone around them to join as well, or new parents who are certain that everyone finds their baby as beautiful, and tales of its antics as entertaining as they do. "Oh, Mr. Greyson, he's so wonderful. He's so good to me. I never thought I would find someone like him. I thought men like that only existed in fiction."
"More apt than I'm sure you realize," he said, stroking his chin and staring into the barrel's flames. He coughed into his handkerchief. "Bella, I have some concerns about him. Your father being gone, I feel I ought to step in and express them because you need to hear it. You haven't known this man for very long, have you?"
"A little less than a month," Bella admitted. "But we spend so much time together, more than the average couple dating, that I feel like it's been much longer."
"But how much do you really know about him?" Mr. Greyson stressed.
"Enough," Bella said flatly.
Mr. Greyson had another coughing fit and one of the residents brought him a bottle of water. He accepted it gratefully and drank before he spoke. "Where was he born? Where is his family?
Bella knew the answer to the latter and didn't think the former was all that important. "His family are deceased."
"All of them? And what of that room mate of his? His family has all passed as well?"
Bella was starting to feel uncomfortable. "I don't know what you're getting at-"
"Have you ever seen either of them during the day?"
Sure she had. Emmett had spent the day at her house, the first day they'd met. "They work," she said. "They're not available during the day."
"Are you sure that's what they're really doing?" he asked.
"What an odd question! What do you mean?"
"Have you ever called either of them at work?"
"I call Emmett's cell phone all the time."
"No, their work place. Have you ever called it?"
Bella wrinkled her brow. Just what was he getting at? That Emmett and Edward weren't gainfully employed? Maybe that they were doing something illegal? "I'll call right now," she declared and pulled her phone from her pocket. Edward had refused to accept it back saying that there was no way it could be returned and so she might as well keep it until the minutes were gone and Emmett had argued that it was something she should have.
Bella called Information and got the number to the Daily Recorder and dialed it. After she navigated the obligatory phone menu to the operator, she asked to be transferred to Emmett McCarty's office.
"No listing by that name, ma'am," the operator said in a bored, toneless voice.
"What do you mean?"
"No 'Emmett McCarty' works here."
Bella felt like she'd been punched. "A- are you sure?"
"I got the company directory right in front of me, ma'am."
Bella's hand was shaking so hard that she found it difficult to hold the phone in place. "What about Edward Masen?"
There was a brief pause. "No one under that name, either."
Mr. Greyson was coughing again. Bella was getting desperate.
"There has to be... Can you please transfer me to your Human Resources department?"
The operator sounded a little miffed that Bella didn't believe her but said, "Hold please" and transferred the call. Bella couldn't look over to where Mr. Greyson was sitting, the handkerchief pressed over his mouth. She felt like the world had just been ripped away from under her feet and she was floating rudderless in the void. Please, oh please she thought.
The HR department had never heard of an Emmett McCarty or Edward Masen. The HR director was a kind and patient woman named Mrs. Cope, who seemed to understand the young woman on the other end of the line was undergoing a serious crisis and was willing to assist in any way she could by trying various spellings of each name, combinations of initials, by age group and finally, department- a department that turned out not to exist. "We don't have anyone named 'Emmett' employed here, in any capacity, Miss Swan. I've done the hiring for this company for fifteen years. It is sort of an unusual name, and we don't have such a large staff that I wouldn't remember if I'd hired someone by that name. I'm sorry. We do have one 'Edward' working here, an Edward Bryant, but he's in his late sixties and you said the names you were searching for were younger men."
Bella thanked Mrs. Cope as politely as she could, and Mrs. Cope said that she was very sorry she couldn't help her. Her tone was so sympathetic that it brought tears to her eyes. She ended the call and stared sightlessly at the ground.
"Bella, my dear? Bella?" Mr. Greyson's voice was soft and gentle. Bella realized that he'd been trying to get her attention and looked up at him, blinking rapidly to try to clear her bleary eyes.
"I'm so sorry you're hurting right now," Mr. Greyson said, "But I thought you should know that they're not all that they seem."
"Yes, thank you," Bella said automatically, rising to her feet. She wanted to go home. Home to her nice, safe little house by the sea. Where she could lock the door and refuse to speak to anyone. Where she could bury her head in her pillow for the next ten years.
"Please, allow me to escort you home," Mr. Greyson said, alarmed at Bella's pallor and stricken expression.
"No," Bella said, more tersely than she normally would. "You're ill. I'll be fine."
Bella-"
"No," she said again. "I just- I want to be alone."
He started apologizing again and Bella walked away. She was being unforgiveably rude, but she couldn't endure any more sympathy at the moment or she would break down into tears and never stop.
She'd trusted him.
She plodded across the bridge and down the street towards home, her feet on automatic pilot. Her head was full of snatches of chaotic thoughts which she was unable to weave into a narrative. She felt if she could just get home, she could lay all of her thoughts out before her, like untangling bits of string, and then she would be able to think.
If she could only get home...
The young men who had hooted at Bella on her way to the bridge were still there but Bella didn't notice them. In her present state, she wouldn't have noticed a Mardi Gras parade, let alone two young men who had her pegged as a victim and were now in stealth mode.
They hopped into their car after she passed and followed her down the street slowly, waiting for the perfect opportunity. Bella handed it to them on a silver platter by taking a shortcut through an alley. One of them hopped out of the car and the other drove around the block to the other side of the alley to cut off her only escape route.
Bella didn't hear the young man in the faded football jersey call out to her at first. "Hey, lady, you deaf?" he shouted and she spun around, startled.
"I- I'm sorry," she said, and alarm bells rang at his smirk and the way he stalked toward her. "What do you want?"
He grinned. Bella slowly backed away and began to walk faster toward the end of the alley. She heard him speed up as well, the chain that attached his wallet to his belt loop jingling. Bella broke out into a run and he did, too. Alarm segued into full-blown panic. A car pulled into the end of the alley in front of her and Bella skidded to a halt. She waved frantically at the driver and he stopped the car. At first she felt relief until the young man driving emerged from the car wearing an identical cruel and malicious grin.
Bella fumbled in her pocket and pulled out the cell phone, but the man in the jersey slapped it out of her hands before she could dial and it went skidding off across the pavement. Bella turned to run back the way she'd came, but Football Jersey tackled her. Her chin hit the pavement and her teeth came together in a painful clack. For a moment, her vision grayed out and she saw stars, bright flashes winking against the darkness.
She had never fought anyone before, never struck another human being, but now Bella punched and kicked wildly, fueled by fear and adrenaline. Her fist connected with Football Jersey's jaw and she felt an agonizing snap in her hand, the pain so severe she thought she would vomit. He chuckled. "Careful now, that almost hurt."
The car's driver captured one of her arms and Football Jersey grabbed the other. As a cooperative effort, they half-pulled, half-carried Bella to the car where they threw her down on the hood.
This can't be happening, Bella thought, feeling the hot metal against her back, the vibrations from the still-running engine. Driver yanked at the top of her dress, ripping it down the front while Football Jersey pulled up her skirt. When a hand grabbed her underwear and yanked, Bella finally found her voice and let out a terrified scream.
Emmett waited on Bella outside her house, sitting on her delivery wagon. He checked his watch again for the third time in as many minutes. She should have been home by now and Bella was never late. She was rigorous about her schedule which had caused a few situations in which Emmett was slightly exasperated with her, because she wouldn't leave until the exact minute necessary and went into high-anxiety mode if anything detained her from leaving precisely on schedule.
He jogged to his car and drove to the animal shelter, thinking perhaps an emergency with one of the puppies she cared for might have delayed her and perhaps she'd simply forgotten to call him. Bella wasn't there. The shelter's manager, Angela, was locking up as Emmett pulled into the lot. To save time, Emmett left the car running as he ran up to ask her where Bella was. Fortunately, Angela was one of the few people at the shelter who liked Bella and they had chatted about the restaurant and the fliers Bella wanted to put up before Bella left.
Emmett jumped back into his car, flooring the gas pedal and spraying gravel behind him as he sped out of the lot toward Clinton Street. He dialed Bella's cell phone and it rang endlessly in his ear. (Another of Bella's "quirks": she always answered on the third ring, whether it meant running through the house to catch it in time or standing patiently beside the phone until the third ring.) He was passing an alley when he heard Bella's scream and slammed on the breaks, throwing his phone onto the passenger seat. In his haste, he tore his car door from its hinges, and it clanged heavily onto the pavement. The men attacking Bella never even looked up at the sound.
They had her pinned to the hood of a car, pulling at her clothes and laughing at her struggles, her pleas. The man in a football jersey started unbuttoning his pants.
Rage, intense and red-hot. Emmett roared and charged. Before the sound had even registered in their brains, he was between them. He ripped off Football Jersey's head and flung the other man into the wall using all of his strength. His body broke and splattered like an egg dropped to the floor, killing him instantly.
It happened so fast, Bella wasn't sure what she was seeing. Football Jersey still stood at the end of the car's hood, but his head had apparently disappeared of its own accord. Simply winked out of existence. Blood spurted upward into the empty space where it should have been. His body finally realized that he was dead and collapsed, banging against the hood and spraying Bella with warm blood before landing on the pavement. Bella looked up from the corpse. She saw Emmett ... shocked, blinking, confused. She looked into his face, and found it twisted with rage, his lips pulled back in a snarl exposing ... fangs.
Fangs.
Bella let out a low whine of terror and tried to scramble back, her heels slipping and skidding on the surface of the hood. Fear made her crazed. She was nearly raped and then she faced a snarling, fanged monster that wore Emmett's face. A monster. She lost control of her bladder as her mind blanked out, unable to bear any more trauma. She moved purely on instinct now and instinct was telling her to run, run.
Emmett was momentarily confused by Bella's fear of him until he realized what she'd just seen. "It's me sweetheart," he said as soothingly as he could under the circumstances. "Bella, it's me!"
She scrambled to the side of the hood and flopped off of it, landing with a graceless thud. Instinctively, she had reached out with her broken hand to break her fall. It bent back and the pain was so intense, she couldn't even scream. She tried to get to her feet and her knees gave out, dropping her back onto the filthy pavement.
Emmett scooped her up, bewildered when she fought him. "Bella! Bella! It's me. Bella! It's Emmett, honey!" He may as well have been speaking Swahili. She fought him like a wildcat, kicking wildly and hitting him with her one good hand. He wrapped his arms around her firmly, pinning in her limbs, trying not to hurt her, trying to prevent her from hurting herself with that frantic flailing. She was trapped against his chest, forced into immobility. After struggling a few more futile seconds, she gave up, going limp in forced submission, trembling like a cornered rabbit.
Emmett hated to put her back on the car hood but he had nowhere else and he wanted to check her for damage. He set her down and she drew back both feet and kicked him square in the gut with all the force in her legs. It caught him off guard, concerned as he was with checking her for injuries, not defending himself. He lost his balance and landed on his ass. Her her legs flashed in front of his face as she jumped off the hood and ran like hell, trying to clutch her clothing closed with one working hand.
Defeated, he watched her dart around the car and run out of the alley. He couldn't chase after her and add to her terror. His face set in a grim line. He had a mess to clean up and an accident to stage. He needed help and there was only one person he could reach out to.
Lauren Mallory was a very happy girl.
She was head-over-heels in love with her new boyfriend, Edward and she was starting to believe he might be The One.
Her mother had once cynically told her that she could pick only one out of three: handsome, kind or rich. She wished the old bitch was still alive so that Lauren could show her that she had managed to snag a man that embodied all three.
He was handsome. All of her female friends (and some of the males) envied her and if Lauren could have articulated one goal in life, it would have been to be envied. Everyone knew Edward Masen, an Ancient, and that she had captured his attention was an enormous feather in her cap.
He was exciting. They spent every night out on the town, circulating in the vampire underground of clubs. Lauren had many friends and she was eager to show off the prize she'd landed. His appetites for drugs, blood and sex were enormous. He'd satisfy the first two at the club and then the third with her wherever the urge happened to hit him.
He was rich. Almost her entire apartment had been refurnished with his gifts and nearly every day he presented her with a new item of jewelry. Not little diamond chips, either. He'd never presented her with a stone less than three carats. Yesterday, he had given her the Porsche she had hinted she wanted, and in her favorite color, too, canary yellow.
He was skilled in bed, the most sexually adventurous lover she'd ever had. He was never jealous if she wanted to add a "snack in the sack" as long as she was willing to indulge his kinks as well.
Not that he as without flaws. She wasn't too enthralled with his taste in clothing, to tell the truth. He bought her long, baggy dresses and insisted she wear them. Lauren complied, only because the sex was even better if she did. He'd also bought her a bottle of stinky freesia bodywash which he claimed was his favorite scent. Oh, well, she supposed every relationship had its areas of compromise. His favorite sexual role play was having her play the shy virgin, which was a laugh because she'd never been shy, even when she was a virgin, a status she'd lost when she was thirteen. She'd play the virginal girl in a long dress, reeking of flowery soap. Maybe he had an Amish fetish.
She was waiting for Edward to join her tonight at O Negative. (He'd flatly refused when Lauren had suggested they move in together and she'd not yet seen his apartment.) Lauren tapped her fingers on the rim of her glass of alcohol-laced blood impatiently. If he thought she'd wait all night for him, he had another think coming. O Negative was dead tonight and she was getting bored. If he didn't arrive within the next ten minutes, she was leaving.
She saw movement at the door and craned her neck to see who it was. She sagged back in disappointment, but perked up again when she heard the big guy asking the people milling around if anyone knew Edward Masen. "I do," she said. "I'm his girlfriend."
The big guy whipped his head in her direction and came to stand by her at the bar. "His girlfriend?" he repeated in tones of astonishment. He had the strangest expression on his face.
"Yeah, I'm Lauren," she said, sticking out her hand. "But Edward calls me 'Bella'."
"I see," the big guy said slowly. He took her hand and gave it a perfunctory shake. "Have you seen Edward? I really need to talk to him."
Lauren shrugged. "He should already be here. He's late. Oh! There he is!" She pointed at the door where Edward stood, looking slightly worse for wear.
Edward spotted Emmett and his eyes narrowed. Emmett hurried over to him and they began a hushed conversation. Lauren listened intently, keeping her eyes fastened on her glass so they wouldn't catch her eavesdropping, her vampire hearing picking up bits and pieces of the conversation. "... attacked ... bodies ... Bella ..."
"Bella?" Edward said, his voice raising. "Where is she now?"
Lauren openly stared at them, confused. Edward obviously wasn't speaking of her. Who was this other Bella and why did Edward look so alarmed?
Edward didn't even bother to speak to her. He turned and followed the big guy out the door. Lauren jumped to her feet, indignant. If Edward thought she was going to put up with this treatment- Well, she would. She wouldn't risk losing him over something like this, but she certainly intended to throw a fit and get something expensive out of it to appease her.
And she would find out who this other woman was and why she shared Lauren's nickname.
Edward listened to Emmett's story as they drove to where Emmett had hastily hidden the bodies. Edward had a lot more experience with disposing of inconvenient corpses.
"You literally rip a guy's head off and then let her see your fangs?" Edward groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Christ on a crutch, Emmett. How could you be so careless?"
"Concealment wasn't first and foremost in my mind," Emmett snapped. "She was- Oh, fuck, Edward. She was terrified. I think she may have been even more scared of me than she was of those would-be rapists."
"Well, no shit, Sherlock," Edward retorted. "What gave you your first clue? When she pissed her pants?"
Emmett said nothing. His hands tightened on the steering wheel, compressing the metal beneath his fingers.
"What about me?" Edward said suddenly. "Did you say anything about me?"
Emmett's reply was full of scathing hostility. "You weren't exactly a pertinent topic of discussion at the moment." Only Edward would think of himself at a time like this.
Emmett pulled the car up to the place where he'd hidden the bodies and their vehicle. Edward was out of the car before Emmett brought it to a complete halt. He watched as Edward poked around, examining the bodies and the setting Emmett had chosen: an isolated stretch of road with a ravine. Edward considered for a moment and then laid out the plan for staging a believable accident that would explain the wounds. This sort of thing was getting increasingly difficult in this age of forensics, which was why the Queen had decreed that vampires could not kill humans.
They set about arranging the bodies and crushing and scrub trees as if the car had rolled down the hill. Emmett obeyed Edward's instructions but his mind wasn't on the work. It was on Bella. He was berating himself for not having told her. Because of his reluctance, she had to find out his secret in the most traumatizing way possible.
They finished, and Edward kicked a hole in the gas tank, lighting a cigarette as the gas gurgled out in a pool around the wreckage. "What are you going to do now?"
"I'm going to try to talk to her," Emmett said. "And keep trying until she listens to me."
"Don't say anything about me," Edward rasped, his voice low and tight. "Don't ruin it for both of us."
"Fuck you," Emmett barked in tones of astonishment at his audacity. He headed up the hill to his car. "Find your own way home, asshole."
Edward didn't reply. He flicked his half-smoked cigarette into the pool of gasoline and watched the flames shoot up into the night sky.
Bella didn't stop running until she reached her house. Sobbing gasps burned her throat as she burst in through the front door of her house, she slammed it behind her and locked it, engaging the deadbolt and the chain. She pulled a chair under the knob for good measure and ran to the back door to make sure it was locked, too.
Not that it would keep him out.
She went to the bathroom and turned the hot water knob, stripping off her ripped and muddy clothing almost frantically, wanting it off her skin. She stepped under the burning hot shower with a gasp of relief. Filthy. She was so filthy.
An empty bottle of body wash later, Bella still didn't feel clean. Her skin was bright red from the uncooled water pouring out of her shower and the vigorous scrubbing. But she was out of soap and she felt vulnerable in here, thank you very much Albert Hitchcock. She turned off the shower and climbed out, wrapping a towel around her torso. She avoided the pile of dirty clothing and headed into her bedroom.
Beautiful lay peacefully in the center of her bed. "Mrow?" he said twisting his head to look up at her as she headed for the highboy.
"Yeah, bad day," she croaked. She pulled out a pair of underwear and one of her long cotton nightgowns. The one she chose was one her mother had made for her during her short-lived interest in sewing. It was the closest thing Bella had now to being held in her mother's arms.
She was still shaking from fear. She was still in shock from what she had seen. She kept questioning it, wondering if somehow her memory could be faulty or her eyes could have been tricked. Trying to find any way to escape the idea that Emmett was a monster.
She had to hide. He would come here, there was no doubt in her mind. She had to hide. She went into the living room and crawled inside the coat closet. She could see into the living room through the louvered doors. If she remained very still, very quiet, he might not know she was in here.
She must have dozed off because she jerked back into consciousness with a start. Footsteps. She could hear someone walking in the house. A tiny whimper escaped her. She drew her knees against her chest and pressed her face against them. Don't find me don't find me don't find me.
She peeked over her knees and saw jean-clad legs walk past the closet door. She closed her eyes tightly, holding her breath, squeezing her legs and trying to make her self small and invisible. The legs stopped and his torso came into sight as he sat down beside the closet door.
"Bella," Emmett said softly. "Bella, sweetheart, I could never hurt you. I love you. Please don't be afraid of me. You know me."
Tears flowed freely down Bella's cheeks. She didn't bother to wipe them away.
"Bella, honey, please come out of there so we can talk."
"I'm not in here," she said stupidly. Then, she burst into hysterical laughter because the situation was so absurd. Her laughter turned into screaming sobs and that's when Emmett opened the door.
She was to weak to fight him. She already knew she couldn't win. She had pitted her strength against his in that alley and he had held her still like she was nothing but a struggling kitten.
He sat down on the sofa, holding her on his lap. He stroked her hair, rubbed her back in soothing circles. She remained stock still, her only motion the blinks of her eyes and the slight movement of her chest when she breathed.
"Bella? Sweetheart? Would you please look at me?"
"Are you going to kill me now?" she asked, dully.
"No! Bella, Jesus ... I could never hurt you."
"I know your secret."
"That doesn't matter," he said firmly.
"Wh- What are you, exactly?"
"I'm a vampire."
"Is Edward ...?"
That made him laugh for some reason. "Yes. Yes, he is. He made me what I am."
She expelled a breath slowly, blowing hair out of her eyes. "Do you ... kill people?"
"Not usually. It's against our laws. Yes, we do have laws," he said, in reply to her quick, puzzled glance. "We have a Queen, Victoria Volturi, and a police force which is referred to by her last name. There's a council that acts as judges, though verdicts can be appealed to the queen. There are a few simple laws and violation of them means death."
"You can be killed?" she asked quietly.
He closed his eyes. "Not easily, but yes, we can. Sunlight, decapitation, fire, all of those will do it. Not stakes or holy water, and crosses don't repel us."
"Sunlight ... That's what you were waiting for on the cliff the day we met."
"Yes."
"Why did you want to die?"
"I told you the truth. It was because I was lonely, unhappy and just going through the motions of existence. I didn't see any point to dragging it out longer. Eternity is a lot harder than most people think, especially if you're alone."
"You weren't alone. You had Edward."
He gave her a rueful chuckle. "That's almost worse than being alone. Edward isn't a very sympathetic creature. That's probably why he's survived so long. Because he just skimmed along on the surface, never getting attached or bogged down with emotions like love and grief."
"How old is he?"
"No one knows but Edward, and he's not telling. I know he's older than a thousand years because he has he title of Ancient and that grants him an automatic seat on the Council, but other than that, I'm not sure. He's dropped various hints over the years, things he's seen, but you can never be sure with him whether he's joking or not."
Bella tried to digest the idea of a thousand years. At times in her life, the weight of eighty or so years n this planet seemed to heavy a burden. She couldn't imagine such a long existence. "What about you? How old are you?"
"471 years since I was changed, maybe twenty-five in mortal years. They didn't issue birth certificates back then."
"Pity. You can never be president." It flew out of her mouth and Bella was astonished at herself, being able to tell jokes at such a time. Emmett gave a small smile and she supposed he probably didn't feel the least bit like laughing.
"I'd be ineligible anyway, having been born in England." His face grew grave as he looked down at her. "Bella, honey, please, please forgive me. I didn't know how to tell you. I was so afraid I'd frighten you off. You were so skittish at first. And then I loved you so much that I didn't think I could bear it if you rejected me."
"I understand," she said and his face began to light up. "I understand; that doesn't mean I forgive." It fell back into its grim lines. "You lied to me over and over again. Your family didn't die of the Bird Flu. You didn't meet Edward in college. You aren't an investigator." Suddenly, she remembered the shock and betrayal she'd felt earlier in the day. "I was going to talk to you about the last part tonight. I called your supposed workplace today and they'd never heard of you."
Emmett hung his head. "Yes, I lied to you. I regret it, but at the time, I felt it necessary. I couldn't tell you the truth." He closed his eyes and laid his head back. "My family died about two years after I was made a vampire. I couldn't go near them at first because a fledgling's control is spotty at best. They thought I'd been robbed and killed, my body dumped in the Thames. Things like that happened all the time down on the docks.
"I sent them money. Edward hid it for me in my things and my mother found it when they were cleaning out my possessions. I take comfort in knowing their last years were good ones with plenty to eat and money enough to rent better lodgings. They were carried off by the Sweat before I could see them again."
"The Sweat? Isn't that the same disease that almost killed Anne Boleyn?"
He nodded, glint of admiration in his eye for her knowledge of history. "I couldn't be with them to tend them in their illness and that has always haunted me. I tried to make up for it in a small way by paying to have them buried in our family's parish church. Ordinarily, they would have ended up in a rented grave, their bones exhumed and put in the crypt or catacombs to make room for someone else, but I paid to have them permanently buried near the altar in the church. The graves aren't there anymore." his voice grew wistful. "The church was bombed during the Blitz and completely destroyed. There's an office building there now."
"That's so sad," Bella said softly. she reached up and cupped his cheek. Emmett closed his eyes and nuzzled into her hand, kissing her palm.
"Bella, I love you."
She withdrew her hand and he ached from its loss. "I loved Emmett McCarty, a human, a man that I could grow old with. I don't know who you are."
"I'm the same person, Bella. A few of the details are different but inside, I'm still me. You fell in love with me once. I'll try to make you fall in love with me all over again, if you'll let me."
She looked up at him, her doves' eyes glistening with unshed tears.
"Bella, tell me what I need to do," he begged.
"I don't know," she whispered.
He leaned down and pressed a cool kiss to her forehead. "We'll find out together, then."