Thank you Ham and Satan for holding my hand and putting up with me.
SMOwnsit.
GodsandMonsters
8
I sit with my back against a box labeled "Edward Masen Cullen" and keep my eyes on the bed.
I've counted eleven hours since Isabella broke. Eleven hours since Emmett came to the door covered in blood and dirt. With one stiff with one stiff nod, he let me know the body had been disposed of after I snapped yet another neck.
After eleven hours the only light in the room is the flickering of snow on the TV and the burning end of my cigarette. I've pulled the curtains closed and locked the doors as I poured over her work.
Her box of me. Evidence she's gathered, information she's learned. Our recordings.
I pick my phone up off the floor and pass it back in forth in my hands. My eyes travel between her and the number I've dialed.
It's all here, scattered and strewn on the floor in front of me.
A shrine she would never admit to making.
There are pictures of my victims, and papers she's written. A file thicker than a phone book sits at my feet, filled with details of each murder, labeled by name and date.
She's controlled in her research, meticulous and a bit obsessive.
I look them over, reading every inch of the work she's put into me. I read and write my own notes, and when I'm done I look at Isabella. Again and again.
I take in all of her.
She's bound. Wrists and ankles. Tied and knotted.
It's equal parts protection, and my own amusement at seeing her strapped down like an animal.
There is nothing more beautiful than seeing her that way.
To just look at her.
She's like a disease that's trickled up my spine and made a home in my mind.
She ravages my every thought, takes hold of my every dream.
She has no idea of the power she wields.
"You tried to diagnose me," I laugh into the dark room as I whittle the tip of a knife into the wooden floor beneath me and press send.
I carve the word that stares back at me from the top of a pile into the floorboards as I wait.
Over and over, harder and harder.
Sociopath.
"I wonder what went through your mind," I whisper to her as I watch her squirm on the bed. "Did it disgust you? Or did you fantasize about playing the games with me?"
I want to wake her and demand an answer, but once again Isabella is saved by the grating voice of my father.
"Edward? I didn't think I'd hear from you for awhile."
"Things changed. People were murdered. Isabella lost her shit." I tap the knife as my eyes rise to Isabella's bare legs.
"What happened, son?" Concern laces his voice. I should be angry that it's not for me, but Isabella really could use someone's concern right about now.
"She tried to murder a hooker she picked up on the street." I laugh, thinking of how angry she must have been to slice at that woman the way she did.
"What? Why would she do that? What happened, Edward?"
"Nothing happened. She went crazy. I don't know. She was fine when we went to sleep." I rub the back of my neck, wondering what I could have missed when she laid beside me in bed.
"Did you do something that would upset her?"
"Don't I always?" The chuckle escapes me before I can stop it, but I don't hide the smile. Of course I upset her. A broken lamp would upset her right about now.
"This isn't the time to polish your ego. Something could be wrong with your wife." I can just picture Carlisle's perfectly whitened teeth gritting together as he sits at his desk.
"There is alwaystime for my ego."
"Why did you call me?"
I sit back, crossing my legs and sighing out loud, frustrated with this conversation. "I don't know what to do with her." I've tied her to the bed, but something tells me that might not be enough, and I can't keep her that way forever.
"Take care of her. Show her what you should have showed her to begin with."
Silence. I gave Isabella all of me when we married. There isn't any part of me she doesn't own already.
"Am I not enough?" There's a crack in my chest as I think about it, and my grip on the knife tightens.
"Love her, Edward." It sounds so damn easy when he says it, but he's not me. And she isn't his.
"And who says I haven't?" I growl, ready to throw the phone at the sleeping woman on my bed.
"Do you love her?"
More silence.
"You have to understand, son. Bella isn't like you. Her emotions, her thoughts, she loves you. Where you see her as an object, she sees you as a lover, a husband."
"And she's my wife." I hiss at him.
I'm a lot of things, but an idiot is not one of them. I know her emotions are different than mine. It's one of the reasons I was drawn to her.
"A wife that you married because you wanted no one else to have her. You see people as possessions. She doesn't."
She sees me as a possession. Her notes, her addiction to my case, to me. It's nothing but proof that she is exactlylike me.
You can't love without obsession, and you can't live without it either.
"I've sent you something. It's for Isabella." A single name spoken and I know he's smiling.
"I got your email," he pauses and I know he's about to express his distaste of my idea.
"Good. Then we're done here." I don't have time for his whining. I'd much rather spend my time planning and watching Isabella.
"Edward?" Her groggy voice shakes me and I bring the knife down hard onto the floor, watching as it sticks and wobbles.
"Time to play." I snap the phone shut just as Carlisle begins yelling my name, and make my way closer to her.
"Oh good! You're awake." I bring my hands together with a loud clap making her wince.
"What did you do to me?" She looks up at her wrists, yanking hard at the fabric that holds them. Her milky white skin looks beautiful against the dark threads.
"You did a very bad thing, Isabella." I bite my thumb nail as I watch her, jerking on her restraints one at a time then all at once. "A very, very bad thing."
"She was me. I mean... she looked like me. I thought it was me, and I thought you were with her. I thought you were..." Her eyes are wild as she looks everywhere but at me.
"Say it, Isabella." It's intoxicating watching her, but I need to hear the words.
She needs to hear herself say them.
"Fucking her." She spits at me as she tries to rip away from her ties. I've knotted them tighter than necessary, but the marks they'll leave is already driving me wild. "That's what you like isn't it? A replica? Someone you can fuck and destroy without remorse. You're nothing but a sick bastard who's daddy didn't hug him enough, so you take it out on me."
"So you were jealous?" I ignore her daddy jab and laugh at her as I move around the pictures at my feet, watching as she glances down at me. Her face jerks back when she sees what I have.
"Edward?" Fear washes over her face as realizes what I have. I remember that look. So much fear on a face like that, in eyes so brown, and all I can think about is being inside of her.
Touching her. Fucking her. Making her beg.
"Don't like what you see?" I pull out a picture of Alice and wave it up at her.
"Where did you get those?"
"At our home." I shrug, stacking a few papers into my own file. Reading her words, her thoughts, her jealousy, it's more of a turn on than watching her struggle.
"You never lived there." Her fists ball tightly as I trace a finger over Alice's bloodied face.
"Semantics."
"You had no right!" She screams as her struggling becomes more frantic. "Stop that!"
"Do you really not know me at all, Isabella?" I ask, half grinning to myself. "And quit that before you hurt yourself. I don't feel like cleaning up any blood right now."
"Right? Because god forbid I hurt myself in your sick little fantasy." She laughs as she yanks her wrists, making the headboard shake.
"Poor little, Isabella. What it must be like to live in that little head of yours. Is daddy's girl not getting her way?"
"I hate you!" She screams and it's one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard.
"I hate you too." I touch her fingers, needing contact. "Now be quiet, I'm reading."
"Edward's sexual needs fuel his fantasies with the women he abducts and murders." I lift my eyes to hers and watch her flinch at my words. "You knew it was you I thought about when they touched me didn't you? Did you touch yourself when you read my files?"
"Please don't do this." She tugs at her bindings harder as I shuffle through her papers.
"Do you not want me to enjoy myself?" I pout and watch as her eyes turn stormy.
"You're being cruel." She enjoys it.
"You love it when I'm cruel, Isabella. You can admit that. I won't tell a soul." I bring a finger to my lips and offer her a crooked smile.
"Edward exhibits psychological disorders, perhaps stemming from a childhood trauma." I read aloud, memorizing the words she had written.
"Is that how you coped? Believing I was traumatized as a child? Did you concoct a story to go along with it? Did it make it easier to bear?" I pour over the sheets of paper, looking and searching for information I'm not even sure I want.
"Untie me."
"Where would the fun be in that?" I push the papers aside and move toward the bed, running my fingers along the smooth skin of her calf.
"Not like this." She squirms as my fingers reach her thigh.
"No, exactly like this." I watch as her legs tremble as I rake my nails across her knee.
"Edward." I reach up and stroke her face, watching as her eyes close.
I've always liked the way her skin felt against mine.
"I like you this way. Struggling. Wanting me to touch you, but refusing to enjoy it."
"You like my fear." She hisses.
"Of course I do. But I like your legs wrapped around my face more." My lips press against her knee, and it's like tasting her for the first time.
"Don't, Edward." There's a flushing in her cheeks and a smile on her face as she looks down at me.
"Are you wet, baby?" Her head falls against the pillow at my words.
"You think I like this?" She mutters, trying to pull away from me.
Two fingers slip inside of her, and a moan passes between her lips.
"I know you love it."