Hello readers. I am adding this AN for two reasons. One is that a reader pointed out that I use some abbreviations you might not be familair with. So here they are:

LUDs--Local Usage Details, they are basically a list of incoming and outgoing calls made from any particular phone

BPD--Boston Police Department

MCS--Major Case Squad

CO--commanding officer

I think thats about it on those? If there are more that I've missed, please, let me know.

The other reason is that a couple of my stories were nominated for the Indie Twilight fanfiction awards. Pina Coladas and Getting Caught in the Rain was nominated, as was She Wants To Play Hearts. If you read those, and liked them, feel free to go to the website and check out the voting lists. theindietwificawards dot com

enjoy this chapter, readers :)

I.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow he would enact step two in his beautiful plan. It was like a masterpiece of an artist, like the final symphony written by a great composer. It was his finest work ever, and he would be remembered forever for it. Not that it was notoriety he was seeking―not in the least. If it was publicity he truly craved he could have been far more graphic, gruesome, public with his killings. But it was notoriety that got men caught, sloppy men who didn't know how to keep their heads down and their ear to the ground. He was not one of those men.

Still though, he was giddy with the idea of things moving along. After waiting for so long, the idea of things finally going forward, of actually getting to start his work again after so long filled him with excitement and also a panicked need he was able to keep barely under control.

When he saw her, he was going to have to work very hard not to just lose all control and kill her right away. He needed to calm down.

He went through his apartment, into his bedroom and into the walk in closet. When he opened the doors and pushed the clothes aside he was instantly soothed. It was his one true indulgence.

Polaroids lined the walls and ceiling of the closet, surrounding him with the work he had done on seven children before Isabella Swan had ruined everything. Just looking at those photos was like taking a breath after swimming under water too long. He felt his entire body relax.

Once the screaming in his head was gone he went back to work.

Tomorrow.

II.

Police detectives should not be so damned attractive. Or good in the kitchen. Or kind or smell so good.

At least, that was Bella's opinion. It wasn't fair that the man supposed to be keeping her safe just so happened to be the most gorgeous man on the face of the planet. It made her do stupid things, like invite him to stay for dinner. She had felt rejected when he had hedged around the subject, telling her in as nice a way as was possible that he was turning down her invitation. Of course she understood why he had to say no. It would have been completely inappropriate.

But there seemed to have been a break in protocol when he had stayed with her to help cook dinner after she had called him. She had been frightened, and she had needed to call him just like he had asked her to. But once he was there, and she was calm, she felt her whole body telling her to do something to make him stay. And when he had offered to stay and help her cook she had been filled with quiet, surprised elation. She hadn't thought he would want to stay. Didn't he have a life that she was taking him away from? Wasn't there a girlfriend or fiancé waiting for him that she was keeping him from?

But he seemed unruffled at the idea of spending more time with her. So she let him into her kitchen and gave him her chef's knife―something she never let anyone touch―and they cooked.

He seemed to feel it too, she had thought, how easy and natural it seemed to be standing side by side in her kitchen making dinner, like they had done it a thousand times before. There was no need to fill the silence with idle chatter either, it was fine to remain quiet and just know they were there. It both comforted and unnerved her.

But now that he was gone, now that dinner was over, she had eaten and cleaned, she made herself go to work making the lunch she had told him she planned on bringing in. She took out another chicken breast to cook. When it was done she shredded it and went to work making what she had been informed was the best chicken salad ever to be created. When it was cooked, mixed, spiced correctly and adequately taste tested she put in a Tupperware for the night. She would make sandwiches and oatmeal cookies in the morning to bring along.

On her way out of the kitchen she passed the table she had Edward had sat at when he came to check on her. Atop it was his card, a little worse for wear since she had received it. She picked it up on her way to her bedroom. Just like his gun, just like his being there, she felt a certain amount of comfort from its presence.

She slept soundly for the first time in a long time.

"Bella, I can tell you I am sorry that you are in life threatening danger, but I am not sorry that your current situation has brought me this sandwich."

Bella laughed. Emmett―as he had insisted she call him―had not been able to stop complimenting her cooking. As he took the last bite of the chicken salad sandwich she had made him he grinned like a fool and thanked her again for lunch. He finished off the coke he had gotten from the vending machine as she revealed her last surprise of the day.

"I brought cookies, too," she admitted, almost sheepishly.

Emmett's jaw dropped.

"Tell me those are oatmeal raison," he practically stuttered.

"Try them for yourself," she said, tossing him a zip lock bag with four cookies in it. She placed Edward's own baggie on his desk by his sandwich, which he was at a slower pace but with no less enjoyment, working his way through. He smiled in thanks, chewing a bite of sandwich. She nodded happily. Bella had always labeled herself as a feeder―it was one way she knew she could always make people happy.

"God, Bella, did you put heaven in these cookies?" Emmett asked.

"Yes, actually, I did. God and I have an exclusive agreement, I can take a piece of heaven for my baked goods if I made him all the Red Velvet Cake he could ever want," she quipped. Emmett grinned.

"If I weren't already in love with a woman, I might ask you to marry me, Bella," he informed her.

The conversations they had during the lunch continued on in that same fashion. They did not discuss the case. They did not speak of danger outside of a joking manner, they did not mention the fear she felt everywhere but exactly where she was in that moment. They talked about meaningless things, like cookies and where she went to college.

For a while, she forgot why she even knew the detectives, how it was she came to be in that police station in the first place. She could just talk and laugh and eat lunch and she felt like she had never really belonged anywhere like she belonged there.

And then her phone rang.

She thought for sure it as Mr. Newton, her boss of sorts, telling her she had gone over her hour for lunch. But the number was not one she recognized when she looked at the caller ID. She picked it up and answered with her nicest phone voice.

"Hello?"

There was a long pause.

"Isabella Marie Swan."

It was not a question. Bella felt a chill run through the entirety of her body and her stomach churned.

"Yes, who is this?" she inquired. The voice laughed.

"Think about it, and you will understand. I think you know who this is."

She thought.

She noticed Emmett and Edward's faces turn from questioning to concern as the blood drained from her face. Her breath caught completely in her lungs, and for a whole moment, the world stopped. She felt her shaking her head in shock and horror and disbelief.

"You…you…"

"Yes. You remember. I don't make mistakes twice, Bella. Try and remember that, too.

The phone line went dead.

Bella vomited. Her stomach forced itself to empty and kept on heaving long after there was nothing left in her stomach to throw up. She was shaking from head to toe. She felt like she was frozen and on fire at the same time, like she was going to keep being sick for the rest of her life. She was crying without even really realizing it.

It took her several minutes to stop dry heaving, several more to stop crying and a full half an hour to stop shaking. In that time Emmett and Edward had already started working on tracing the call. It had come from a prepaid cell phone or another pay phone, most likely, they had told her. Someone so careful wouldn't risk being found, not now.

She heard their words, heard them speaking, but she could get his voice out of her mind. It was echoing in her ears, and she could hear him laughing, laughing. Every time she heard it again she felt another tremor of fear run through her.

As soon as she was able to make it to her feet, Edward led her away from the squad room, away from the eyes that had turned to her when she had began to vomit, the ones that had stayed there as she dissolved into nothing but a bundle of frayed nerves.

They sat in a conference room, Bella still shaking. There had been a silent conversation between Edward and Emmett that Bella was not too out of it to notice. Emmett would work, and Edward would stay with her.

When she had stopped shaking, Edward attempted to discreetly remove the notepad he kept and his pen to take notes as he asked her, quietly, carefully, what had been said on the phone.

She recounted the conversation. She told him every work he had spoken. It made her stomach roil to say it out loud, to have the words echo in her head again but she did it because she knew she had to.

When she was done talking and Edward had finished his notes he put down his notepad and sighed. He put his hands across the table to hers, covered them completely. The warmth of his hands atop hers made her stop her shaking immediately. She looked up at him.

"I am not going to let anything happen to you," he told her.

"I know you'll try," she said quietly. He shook his head emphatically.

"I am not going to try, Bella. I am going to make sure."

"You can't promise me that, Edward. You cannot tell me that you will make sure nothing happens to me when you know as well as I do that whoever this is, they are after me now more than ever. I know you are going to do your best, and I am thankful for that, more than I could possibly explain to you. I know I asked you to tell me everything was going to be alright, but I don't want you to lie to me anymore. I can't believe that, not after…"

She trailed off, stared into space for a moment and then got up from her chair so fast that it fell over.

She shrieked, in rage and frustration and fear.

"Why is this happening to me? What did I do to deserve this? Was I Hitler in a past life? I have lived my whole life afraid, broken because I was a victim, and I am just starting to come out of it, just starting to live a real life again, and he comes back, he haunts me. What does he want from me?"

Edward got up out of his chair as well, although not quite as dramatically.

"He wants this, right here. He wants you to be terrified, to spend all your time thinking about him, the way he spends all his time thinking about you," he replied, even though he was fairly certain it had been a rhetorical question.

"What do I do?"

"You live, Bella. That is how you win. You live because you deserve it, because you've earned it, because he doesn't have the right to take that from you."

"And if he gets to me anyways?"

"Let me worry about that," Edward commanded with a quiet sternness.

"But―"

"Bella, I am serious. I know you are scared. I know that. It's in your eyes; it's the way you move. I can see it. And I have told you that you every right to be afraid. I won't tell you not to be. But I would hate to see you let it ruin you. Everyone handles stress and fear differently. I don't want you to be reckless or put yourself in danger intentionally, but I don't want you to crawl into a hole and hope that it turns out okay in the end either. So when I tell you to let me worry about it, it isn't because I think that I can unburden your mind, it's because you deserve more than sitting at home, too scared to go outside."

Bella opened her mouth and then closed it. She was not the type of woman to be at a loss for words, but she had to pause then to gather herself. Finally, she just nodded and said, "Okay."

He promised to call her if there was anything new to tell her and she promised to do the same. He got an officer to drive her to work. They parted ways after saying goodbye and he and Emmett thanking her again for lunch.

Edward's words rang in her ears as she sat in the car on the way back to her work. They were fighting with the words of the man who was after her, but they won out in the end, and she heard them, clear as day.

You live, Bella. That is how you win.

She would do her best.

III.

The LUDs came back on Bella's cell phone a little while later, and as predicted it was a prepaid cell phone. There was no way to trace it, or figure out who the caller had been. It was another dead end in a case that was made entirely out of dead ends.

When Emmett handed over the results Edward felt himself getting angry and checked the rage before it overwhelmed him. Bella didn't need him flying off the handle and being stupid, she needed him on the ball. He had comforted her as best as he could after the phone call, but what could he really say to her? He tried his best but still felt like the things he had said fell flat. She needed more than just words of comfort. She needed the bastard behind bars or dead.

The worst thing was that he felt useless. He had run down the leads of the flower shop—a dead end of course, because no one remembered who had ordered the flowers and the person had paid cash. He looked through all the surveillance footage again, just to be sure there was nothing useful before passing on to the tech department. They could work miracles with anything digital, and he was hoping they could pull off one of those miracles in this case. The only option that had not played itself out was the old detective on the case that had yet to return Edward's call.

He tried to remain patient on that front, but it was quickly becoming a problem. Anytime he thought about Bella shaking and crying the way she had been after she put down her phone, he had wanted to murder someone. And now the one person who might have a little insight into the case was blowing him off.

Again, he checked the rage. He calmed the fuck down and cooled the fuck off, as Emmett would have put it.

"Detective Edward Cullen?"

Edward looked up from his desk. He was confronted with a huge man, six foot six at least, Native American coloring, hair cut short like a military man. Or a cop.

Edward stood and without a moment of hesitation so did Emmett.

"How can I help you?" Edward inquired.

The man stuck out his hand to shake.

"I'm Jacob Black. You called my house yesterday about the Isabella Swan case. This isn't exactly the kind of case you discuss over the phone, so I came down as soon as I could," he said. Edward extended his own and hand and shook with Jacob Black.

"I have to tell you, Mr. Black, I'm happy you came," he said, gesturing for him to sit down.

"Call me Jake and let's get into this."

Edward, giving a big screw you to protocol, told Jake all about what had been going on with the case, how it had resurfaced and everything that had happened thus far, including the phone call earlier that day. He told him about not having any evidence or leads of any sort and saw that Jake was not in the least surprised. Nor should he have been, really. He had worked the first case, all seven abductions and murders before Bella and her case when it came. He knew the deal.

"I was always afraid this was going to happen," Jake admitted when Edward finished talking.

"Oh?"

"You seem like a smart kid, so you must understand why. He is obsessive. He has thought about nothing but Isabella Swan for the past thirteen years. I am sure he has tried to take his rage and obsession on others, but she has dominated his thoughts for over a decade. And if you don't find a way to stop him before he gets to her, the nine days she spent with him a child will look like daycare comparatively."

Edward looked at him and Jake stared right back. He knew exactly what Jake was saying. He felt it down to his bones that the woman would see more suffering than any one person had ever really experienced in recent history if she wasn't kept safe. Call it intuition or a hunch or anything else, but he knew that. It made him feel sick.

"Is there anything about the case that you could tell us, anything that wasn't in your notes that might be relevant?" Emmett interjected. Leave it to Emmett to keep things on task.

"Well, I had a few ideas about him back in those days that most people didn't want to hear. They all went with a classic profile, white male, incredibly intelligent, probably in a blue collar job, child abuse in the history. But there was one part of that I disagreed with in particular. The man was just too good at keeping himself from being caught. He left no evidence, not on any of the children, not at any of the locations they were captured from. Not even Bella, who had escaped at a most inopportune time, had any physical evidence for us. He was just too damned careful. And it seems from what you've told me that he has kept up with technology and what we the boys in blue can and cannot do."

"You think he's a cop," Edward surmised. Jake nodded slowly.

"A man in a job like this, with a badge, can go anywhere; ask questions of just about anyone. Think how easy it would be to stalk someone, find out anything you want to know about someone as a police officer? You can get their records, find out their address, phone numbers, license plate, any dirty deed on record is at your fingertips, not to mention the resources of a police department, especially one in a big city, like Seattle, or now Boston."

"Fuck me," Emmett said quietly.

"Of course, no one wanted that kind of idea back when the case was at its worst. They all thought it was some psycho, not one of their own. And they had to believe that, you know? They had to stick together, and thinking that one of their comrades was the one torturing and murdering children would have been too much for the whole to grapple with. I couldn't even investigate it. But now…well, assuming your captain is a free thinking kind of man, you might be able to look into it."

"We could check transfer application, from just about anywhere, to Boston in the past seven years years—from when Bella moved here, of officers that were in Seattle at the time," Edward thought out loud.

"Might I also suggest that you check into police officers with expunged juvenile records? The kinds of things that wouldn't show up on a background test at the academy, but might be part of a pattern. You don't jump right from being a regular citizen and a good cop to abducting children and killing them in horrifically painful ways. He was not always so smart or careful, and that might be the way to get him."

"We could also look into other cases with similar MOs," Emmett suggested. "If he tried it beforehand and didn't do things quite as well as he did in Seattle, there might be some record of it, even if it's just a news article. And if you think he tried again, after Bella got away, there might be records of that somewhere as well. It's all a matter of digging in the right places, which has gotten a lot easier with computer databases."

Jake looked at Edward.

"You have a smart partner."

"Don't say that too loud, God knows his ego is big enough as it is," Edward replied. Jake responded with a wolfish grin.

"Shut it, Cullen."

Jake informed Edward that he was going to be staying in a hotel into the city for a little while, and gave him the name of the pace and his cell phone number so he could keep him updated. Edward knew it was against regulations to discuss an ongoing case, but Jacob Black was a smart man, and presented an idea that Edward hadn't thought of yet, and might not have thought of at all. He was grateful for the outside perspective.

When Jake left Edward sat down at his desk and took a long breath to try and let all the new ideas settle.

"That's some heavy shit," Emmett commented, the look on his face about the same as Edward's, unsure and stressed. Edward nodded and said nothing for a moment.

"I'll flip you for who gets to go tell the captain about this."

"You're on," Edward said, pulling a quarter from his pocket, flipping it. It landed in his left hand and he turned in onto the back of his right. "Call it."

"Heads."

Edward looked at the coin and swore.

"Have fun," Emmett practically sang after him, as Edward pocketed the quarter and got up to go have a very awkward conversation.

Edward's captain had been surprisingly okay with the idea of him and Emmett investigating the idea of it being a police officer behind the attacks. He had given him the go ahead to pull files from the 'to Boston' transfers and said he would give a call to the higher ups in Seattle to smooth any wrinkles. God knew they would be happy to have the case off their city's shoulders and onto somewhere new. It would likely be an easy process instead of the usual turf wars that came with pulling something in any other jurisdiction.

So as soon as he had gotten permission from his CO, he and Emmett set up at their computers, pulling every transfer application to Boston in the past seven years.

There were twelve hundred.

Four hundred of them actually ever ended up being transferred to the city.

Twenty were from Seattle.

But only eight of them had been in Seattle at the time of the original abductions.

Edward wrote down their names and badge numbers in his notebook and then printed their jacket and put them into separate file folders. He then made a call to the district attorney—a charming woman with whom he had a strangely plutonic yet jokingly flirtatious relationship—Tanya Denali, and gave her the general summation of his current predicament.

"Let me get this straight, Edward. You want me to call up some contacts, pull some strings, and see if maybe, on a hunch, one of these law enforcement officers has an expunged juvenile record that shouldn't even exist anymore?" she asked, her voice teasingly sarcastic.

"I think that sounds about right, Tanya. Of course, if you can't do it…" he trailed off. She laughed.

"Oh Edward, your attempts at reverse psychology are adorable. Don't worry, if any of those guys have a record, expunged or otherwise, you'll know about it. It will take me some time, but I'll get it to you," she replied.

"I appreciate it," Edward told her. "Thanks."

"You are welcome as always. But you know, now you really do owe me the drink you've been promising me for the past three years."

"If you get that information to me and it's what I need, I will buy you the whole damn bar."

She laughed again and they said their goodbyes. Emmett looked at Edward with raised eyebrows and Edward nodded. Tanya had been a public defender before she was a criminal attorney. She worked her way all the way to the top, to being the district attorney because she was damn good, and because she knew people, the right people. If Edward needed information his contacts couldn't provide, Tanya always knew someone who could. If she really felt like it he was sure she could make a few calls right now and ask one or two people for the information, but since she was trying to keep the inquiry off the radar, she would have to be discreet.

Edward had learned, through his own mistakes, that discretion took time.

So even though he was dying to know right that instant, he knew he would have to wait and that his patience would be rewarded with the information he sought. He just wished it didn't have to take so damn long.

After he made that call, though, he had other things to look into. Emmett was looking into murder cases in the Seattle area before the time of the string of kidnappings and murders. He was scowling at the screen with that same look he always got when he was concentrating on some menial task.

While Emmett checked cases before the case began, Edward looked into cases that took place after. If Jake was right, and Edward had a gut feeling that he was, about him trying to take out his fixation on someone else and failing, there would be evidence of it. And he also had a hunch that it would be still be in the Seattle area. It was his comfort zone—the only reason he left it was because Bella had left it, and he had to follow her.

So he checked the same databases Emmett was on for cases anywhere from thirteen to seven years ago with anything that might even be a closely related MO. His entire afternoon was spent going through every assault case, every kidnapping, every missing person, every murder case in the Seattle area for an entire six years. He spent hours going through it, occasionally got something that looked interesting which always turned out to be nothing, and soldiered on.

Until he found something not quite so innocuous.

It was a missing person's case from a year after Bella's case had occurred. The person in question being a ten year old boy named Scott Lloyd. He was taken from the park near his house that he played at every day after school when his babysitter wasn't looking. He had been missing for a total of eight days when he was found, wandering the streets, in a very similar fashion to Bella.

But the thing that caught his eye most was when the detectives had talked to him about what had happened—none of them seeing the connection to the other child abductions, Edward realized with a roll of his eyes—he had made mention of being kept in a basement closet very similar to the one Bella had told him about and he had seen in the Polaroid. He also made some interesting remarks about the man trying to hurt him, but not being able to and getting angry.

"Emmett!" he exclaimed when he was done reading, "come look at this."

Emmett got up from his desk and walked over to Edward's. Edward used the mouse to highlight the significant parts of the report. Emmett read quickly and then straightened.

"Well I'll be damned. You need to get this kid on the phone ASA-fucking-P," he said. Edward nodded in emphatic agreement and picked up his phone. He needed to get a hold of this kid, right now. He would be about twenty two now, but even though time went by, he knew some things could not be forgotten.

He made a phone call or two, and after ascertaining the whereabouts of Mr. Scott Lloyd, dialed his number with almost numbing excitement. This could be something, something to break the case, something to help keep Bella out of harm's way.

The phone rang shrilly in his ear and he waited for the other end to pick up. He prayed it would not go to voicemail. He hadn't had a single moment that was as promising as this one. He needed something, anything to keep him going and make him feel like he wasn't treading water in the vast ocean that was this case.

"Hello?"

The voice on the other end of the line was that of a young man. Edward almost sighed in happiness.

"Scott Lloyd?" he inquired.

"Yes, this is he. Who is this?" he asked back in his most polite sounding voice.

"Mr. Lloyd, this is Detective Edward Cullen at the Boston Police Department."

"What can I do for you, Detective?" he asked.

"I am investigating a case that occurred about thirteen years ago in Seattle, and in that investigation the case of your kidnapping came up. I was wondering if it would be alright if I asked you a few questions."

"I would rather not talk about that. Everything is in the file and my statement, isn't it?" he asked.

"It is, yes. But in my experience, sometimes people involved in traumatic events remember things differently, or remember more details after the initial report is made. Those details can be integral to a case, Mr. Lloyd," Edward explained. He heard a rather pained pause on the other side of the line.

"Detective, I'm sorry but―"

"The man who abducted you is most likely the man who committed the other string of kidnappings and murders of children in Seattle thirteen years ago, Mr. Lloyd. That man is now after someone else, and what you can tell me, what you can remember might be a clue to finding out who he is and stopping him before he tortures her and murders her. I am asking you to help me save a life, Scott."

There was another pause, this one longer, harder to bear than the first. But he sighed, and there was resignation in it, and Edward knew he had won his argument.

"Ask me anything you like."

The conversation lasted about a half an hour, and when they got off the phone, after much thanks from Edward, he had more information than he could possibly know what to do with all at once.

"Get anything good?" Emmett asked, putting his jacket on. Edward glanced at a clock and realized that it was time to go home for the day. How had a whole day passed already? How had it been so full and eventful and already be done?

"I got a shit ton of new information actually," he commented. Edward realized with amusement that he had begun swearing more now that he was around Emmett so often. "He described the room he was in, said he might be able to give enough of a description of the man who took him. He told me that he was there for a long time without anything happening, but on the last day he was there the man that kidnapped him put him in restraints and tried to cut him with a knife. He made a half an inch incision into his skin before throwing the knife in a rage and screaming about everything being ruined and about some bitch and how he was going to kill her.

"He didn't remember exactly how it happened but he was pretty sure he was knocked out with some sort of chemical and then driven somewhere with a hood over his head. But he remembers it smelled like a compost pile where he was staying, like rotting things, he said."

"So the place was near a transfer station or dump?" Emmett asked.

"Exactly. I'll call over to the Seattle PD and see if they know anything about abandoned buildings near areas of transfer stations or dumps."

"Edward," Emmett said, as he went to pick up the phone. Edward glanced up at him in a cursory way.

"It can wait until tomorrow," he told him.

"They are three hours behind in Seattle, it's only two thirty for them, it's no big deal to put in one phone call."

Emmett, in one of his moments of serious compassion took the phone out of Edward's hand.

"Edward, I understand that this case has got you by the short hairs. After seeing Bella today like she was, I can't blame you. But you need to step back for a moment. I know that's hard for you, but I am serious, you need to just breathe for a minute before you run yourself ragged. It can wait until the morning. You can call them first thing. But you've been working this so hard all day, being so stressed, I can see that you're running on steam here. Don't get yourself pulled from the case because you get too involved, okay?"

Edward looked at him for a moment, and realizing that Emmett was really just saying all that because he was trying to help him made him sigh. He nodded and rose from his chair, getting his own jacket from the back.

They walked out together, parted ways in the parking garage and drove away to separate locations. Emmett, Edward was sure, was going home to Rose.

Edward went to the gym.

Being frustrated made him want to run, just get on a treadmill and run and run and run until he could barely stand to move let alone put that much effort into it. But today hadn't made him frustrated, it had made him livid and terrified.

Being scared and angry made him want to do the same thing.

So he went and found his favorite sparring partner and they practiced beating the shit out of each other in the boxing ring. Edward wasn't the greatest boxer in the world, or even the best in the gym, but he had a mean left hook and he was quick.

When he and his sparring partner left, both a little worse for wear, he felt sufficiently defused and went home to shower and crawl into bed. He wasn't hungry, wasn't in the mood to check his email or watch television, he wanted to get clean and go to sleep so he could stop thinking, about beautiful Bella, her shaking figure, crying eyes, angry scream, heartwarming laugh and unstoppable smile.

His last thoughts before sleep was that Emmett had warned him too late. He was so far into this there was no getting out, not until it was over, whichever way it ended.

If it destroyed him, so be it.