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LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.

Chapter 15

Where bitches are going down.

That bitch told my daughter she would go to hell if she didn't go to church?

What the motherfuck?

"And s-she wanted me-e-e to wear that dress again!" Charlie continued with tears running down her face, stumbling forward into my embrace.

Stroking her back as she sagged against me, her breathing slowly calmed as she felt safe again. I had to fight to suppress my anger as the picture of what had happened remained a blurry haze. What the hell did she—that bitch—think she was doing this time?

How in the fuck did that even happen?

Where had Edward been? Had he just been standing by while that disgusting tramp hurt my daughter—again? Or had he left the two of them alone, against both mine and Charlie's wishes?

Either way, this should not have happened—would not have happened—if Edward had stuck to our agreement…to our rules. And since he hadn't for the second time, my baby girl was upset because of something his bitch of a girlfriend had done, I'd reached my limit! Screw being polite, I'm getting a lawyer!

By the time my baby girl had finally calmed down again, I put her to bed, knowing better than to hound her for details, no matter how much I wanted to know before I killed that psycho bitch. She seemed exhausted with fear and worry; so frail when she'd looked so strong yesterday afternoon when I dropped her off at her dad's.

"Mommy?" She sounded so small my heart broke for her, her hand reaching out for mine above the bedspread. "Will you stay here until I fall asleep?"

"Of course, baby!" I was fighting to keep the tears at bay, my hand trembling slightly as it folded around hers while inside my blood was boiling.

As much as I wanted to be with my girl, the drive to get out of there and tear through town like a nemesis on a rampage was getting more uncontrollable by the second. I counted my lucky stars when Charlie fell asleep soon; the upset of whatever it was that she'd had to endure had completely worn her out.

Somehow, I managed to extract my hand from the death grip she was holding it in without waking her up, my footsteps measured and quiet as I tiptoed out of the room, and closed the door behind me just in time to muffle the sound of the doorbell as it rung again.

It was her.

I knew it before I'd even opened the door to see her distraught and not-so-perfect face hovering in my line of vision. "Is she here?"

"And why do you think I'd tell you that?" I spat, barely resisting the urge to slap her right across that pretty little face of hers. She had a nerve, showing her face around my place after I'd just picked my hurt, crying daughter off that very doorstep.

"Please?" she had the audacity to beg. "I've been worried sick ever since I found her bed empty this morning. I…I…I've looked all over town…"

This time, the temptation was too big; the satisfying smack of my hand touching skin made me realize that no matter how many times my dad had told me otherwise, sometimes violence definitely was the answer.

"You have fucking nerve asking me about information on my kid when you didn't even pay enough attention to notice she was gone!" I huffed, my hands balling into fists by my side. "Yeah, she's here…but what if she hadn't been, huh? What if something had happened to her because you did something to upset her, again, after you had been given clear instructions to butt out of her life?"

"I'm sorry!" she sobbed. "I did what I thought was best, and—"

I'd had enough; the urge to do more than just bitchslap her across the face became too much to handle. I had to get her out of my fucking sight before I ended up in one of my dad's holding cells.

"Get out of my face before I do something I regret," I warned her, my voice serious enough to make her take a few steps backwards. "And don't even think you'll ever get near my daughter again. I've had it with you; running interference in my life and fucking everything up." Bitch, if only you knew how much!

"But—" She tried, but before she could even finish, I'd already slammed the door shut on her disgusting face, my mind already on the next step as I rushed up the stairs, careful to make as little noise as I could.

"Mom!" I whisper-yelled into the phone, barely allowing myself the time to think or bark out a 'hello' as I quickly explained to her what had just happened. As expected, she was as angry as I was and, judging from my dad cussing in the background, it would be best if Edward would leave town with his tail firmly between his legs if he didn't wanted to end up dead in a ditch somewhere.

And I wasn't sure I'd weep at his funeral if something like that happened.

Or even be bothered enough to attend.

The good thing about living in a town as small as Forks was that my mom was able to come to my place within a fifteen minute timeframe. Charlie was still asleep and, as peaceful as she could be, given the circumstances, I guiltily kissed her goodbye.

As much as I wanted to stay by her side and make sure I was there for her—to reassure her—when she woke up, there was something I really needed to do at that point.

Speak to the asshole that fathered her.

And maybe land a few punches.

After trekking through the town like a woman on a mission, I ended up at the hospital where I was told Edward had already left after a rather gruesome night shift. The nurse at the front desk seemed rather sorry for him, which was a sentiment I definitely did not share. I had to schelp my angry self all the way back to the residential neighborhood close to Main Street where my shop was located, which, of course, didn't exactly do wonders for my mood.

Someone—and my money was on the bitch girlfriend or the worried nurse—had obviously tipped Edward off, because I hadn't even knocked on the door before it opened to reveal a rumpled and quite nervous looking Edward.

Don't hit him yet. Remember what Dad told you: unless you belong to some intelligence agency, the likelihood of someone telling you what you need to hear increases with every second you manage to retain your rationality. First questions, then violence…

"I know," Edward broke the silence, his voice guilty, but nowhere near enough to soften my heart. "I fucked up."

"You sure as hell did!" I snapped, pushing him aside to march into his home, not wanting to stand out there on the street, screaming like we were in some botched up Jerry Springer episode. "What part of our agreement did you forget? The part where you weren't supposed to leave Charlie alone with her or the one where you were supposed to stop that bitch from pushing her values onto my kid? Did you even stop to consider Charlie in all of this? She was scared to death, Edward."

"Wait a minute, I—" he started, but I was already done listening to him, even if he'd hardly spoken a word.

"You don't get to talk yourself out of this," I growled, my anger pulsing through my veins in red hot waves. "There is no way to talk yourself out of this; not when your daughter came running to my house at seven in the morning, all by herself, crying her eyes out over something your psycho girlfriend had done to her." I waited, my breaths coming in short, angry gasps as I gathered my breath again. "And this happened after you promised me and Charlie that you wouldn't leave the two of them alone."

"But I was called in to work," Edward cried, his desperation grew since he was probably starting to realize this wasn't just a little fuck up. This…it was the thing that was going to change things forever. "I couldn't say no, not with my position still so precarious and…and there was nobody else that could go!"

"Right!" I snapped, pacing his living room like a caged lion. "So you're actually going to stand here and tell me that there wasn't a doctor in that whole fucking hospital who could take over?"

"There'd been a five-car pile-up on the 101 just outside town," he explained, his eyes asking for understanding he probably knew he wasn't going to get. "Everyone who wasn't off duty was up to their eyeballs in surgery and with Thomason being sick, I was the only one they could call to come in and help out." He sighed, the strength from his shoulders deflating as he sagged down onto his oversized couch. "I know what we agreed upon, Bella. Believe me, I know…but when they called me… I couldn't refuse and…and I thought I'd be back before Charlie woke up." Another sigh. "Angela promised me she'd call me if she woke up before I got back and that she wouldn't do anything—"

"Well, it's pretty obvious you can't trust her then," I bitched.

"It was getting late and she wanted to go to church," Edward spoke, the tone of his voice telling me he was as pissed off as I was that this had happened. "She didn't want to leave Charlie behind and I suppose she didn't think it was wrong to take her…"

"There was more to it than that, and you know it!" I spat. "If she'd just explained the situation to Charlie there's no way she would have been so upset. It was the whole situation that freaked her out—a situation she shouldn't have even been put in, in the first place—and the fact that the freak told her she'd go to Hell if she didn't go to church with her!"

If she'd at least have bothered to check before she tried to cram her beliefs down my baby girl's throat, Voldemary would have found out that Edward and I had made the very conscious decision to raise our daughter in a way that would allow her to make her own choices when she was old enough to do so. With neither of us coming from families where religion played a big part in our lives, we wanted to give her the option to choose Buddhism, Islam, Judaism or Christianity, or no religion at all, because that was what she wanted, not because of a choice that had been made for her or influenced her decision.

"She should have known, or at least asked you about it first," I was quick to admonish him, "especially when she concluded it was a good idea to try to force Charlie into that fucking dress again…after what happened last time. I mean, is she out of her mind?"

"I don't know what she was thinking," Edward agreed, his head held up only by his hands as he crumbled in front of me. "I told her…I thought she understood…She's just been raised in a very firm set of beliefs and I guess…I think she did what she thought was the right thing to do."

"But that wasn't her call to make!" I was done listening to his half-assed defense of her. "I get that as a preacher's daughter she doesn't agree with the choices we made but she's not Charlie's mom. And just like with the dress thing, these aren't her calls to make!"

"I know, I know!" Edward was quick to soothe, his quick agreement at least taking a few of the sharp edges of my anger.

"Do you?" My lip trembled, my emotions threatening to spill over as I geared up for the blow I knew was going to hit him harder than anything. Please…don't hate me. You've left me no other choice. "Do you really know what this means? Do you realize what I have to do now? Do you realize…as long as she is around, I can't leave Charlie with you, knowing she's at risk?"

"Bella—" he tried, his eyes glassy as he shook his head. "Please don't…"

"When you decided not to call me last night, like you should have done, you left me no other choice," I sniffed, wishing…praying this was all a bad dream. How did we end up here? "I have to protect my daughter, Edward. You've had your second chance and blew it."

"But—" He made a move to rush to me but something stopped him; his whole being looked so broken it would have broken my heart. That was...if there was anything left to break after he'd already ruined it so thoroughly.

"I'm not making any final decisions yet," I offered, the one small promise I could make him. "Right now, I'm so pissed off you'd be lucky if you ever caught another glimpse of Charlie in your life, but it's not up to me to make that decision, is it? No matter how much I may want it to be my decision, it's really up to Charlie. When she's up to it, I want to ask her what she wants to do, but let me say this upfront: I'm not going to force her to come visit you if she doesn't want to. Not after what happened last night."

"Don't do this, please." It killed me to hear him beg; hurt me for who he used to be and what we used to be, not for whom he was right then—but my mind was already made up. Nothing he could say or do could sway me.

"You can come visit her as long and as often as you can, if she wants to," I assured him so he knew I wasn't keeping Charlie from him out of vindictiveness or something. Even if I was pissed off, he was still her dad and I knew that Charlie loved him. "As long as she stays as far away as fucking possible."

He nodded, his meek submission kind of taking me aback. When I'd left home, I'd been prepared for an epic battle and, although I felt like I'd both won and lost a war in the meantime, it hadn't been the war I'd pictured in my mind.

How could it be that Edward reacted so differently from the last time he and I had a conversation very similar to this one? What had changed? Had he simply realized just how destructive his behavior had been? Not just to our friendship, but also to his relationship with his daughter?

Or had it been something Charlie had told him? Because I knew the two of them had a very long heart to heart about what had happened that first time she'd returned home, upset with his girlfriend.

"Can I come talk to her tonight?" he asked, still resigned and with no trace of anger or fight left in him.

"I don't know." I sighed, angling my body away from him. Seeing him like this…even in spite of my anger, it was too much. "I think right now it might be best if we all took a couple of days to cool off. I'll ask her, though, and if she wants to talk to you, I'll find out when and how she wants that to happen. Her opinion is final, though, Edward. I'm not going to force her to do anything."

He sounded so sad and broken as he answered, "That's all I can ask for."

I had to get out of there; the emotions were stifling me with the painful memories of better days as I scurried towards the door. Was this really the end of all my hopes? The more practical side of me, as well as the mama bear roaring within, pretty much agreed it was, but still…I couldn't believe it.

I didn't want to believe it.

"I'm sorry, Edward," I whispered, half surprised when his head lifted and his red-rimmed eyes found mine. "You don't know how angry I am with you right now, and how much you've disappointed me over the past couple of weeks but, for the sake of what we used to have, I'm sorry it had to come to this."

"So am I."

As I pulled the door shut behind me, I was sure the look on his face would haunt my dreams for a lifetime.

How had we ended up like this?

Thoughts?

Just a heads up: I will be traveling for work next week and unfortunately won't be able to update. The next update will be on the 20th.