Chapter 9 – It All Comes Crashing Out
A/N – !Warning! There are some semi-graphic depictions of child abuse in this chapter. If the content makes you uneasy, please skip over them.
Not one vampire moved. All were frozen, perfect imitations of statues sculpted to project beautiful god-like figures. However, these statues were rooted into place by Bella's horrific confession. The words that had shot forth from the girl's pale red lips had twisted into ropes, snaking around the bodies of the Cullens, cutting off all form of movement. Had the vampires needed to breathe, they would have been fighting tooth and nail to break their paralysis in order to claw at their necks; it seemed as if multiple lumps, born of acid, had blossomed in their throats. As every nanosecond ticked by, these lumps seemed to mutate, choking their passageway and restricting air to their lungs. Fortunately, for the Cullens, breathing was optional.
It was so silent in the house that one could hear a pin drop. Silence lorded over the living room, bouncing off the walls with childish glee. It swerved around each vampire taking cruel delight in the looks of horror etched upon each individual's face before crawling over to where Bella knelt. It danced around the sobbing brunette, menacingly making its presence known by placing a heavy weight on Bella's chest and squeezing, making it hard for the girl to draw in much needed air. Bella was hyperventilating; the lack of oxygen to nourish her lungs served to make her head spin unkindly and her vision to dot over with gray spots. She wrapped both arms around herself, a last attempt to seek some thread of comfort.
Alice stood stock still, her feet having seemed to become one with the ground. A fierce rushing of air shrieked through her ears, almost deafening her in its intensity. She could not move, not after Bella's confession. Bella who, in a moment of desperation, had proclaimed her dirty dark secret to all in the room. Bella who had lied to her, to her family. Bella, who was now coiled in a fetal position on the floor, chest heaving with breaths that seemed to take a heavy toll on the girl.
Emmett was the first to break free; tearing his feet off the ground with vicious intent. He walked over to Bella in three strides and scooped her up, uncaring of how Bella flinched at his touch. He cradled Bella to his barrel-like chest, rocking her as he would an infant. Bella seemed to disappear in those trunk-like arms; she had already contorted her body into as small a position as it would go and with Emmett now carrying her, she seemed impossibly smaller.
Emmett's face was a map of sorrow: his deep amber eyes glowed with venom infused tears that glinted off the overhead light. A muscle in his jaw ticked as he fought against the tidal wave of livid rage that was beginning a slow but steady burn throughout his body. He could not, however, halt the building growl that bubbled up from the depths of his throat. It rumbled within his chest, rattling his ribs and irritating his vocal chords. He sounded like a wounded grizzly bear; ferocious and unrelenting should he come across an enemy, yet the way he cocooned Bella in his arms spoke of utmost tenderness.
"What the hell is everybody staring at!" He roared, momentarily unable to contain his emotions. His voice was laced with pain and anger. Pain for Bella and anger toward those who dared hurt the girl. Bella flinched again against him and he immediately cuddled her closer, bending his head down to whisper apologetically into her ear. "Sorry, Lil' Bit." The nickname fell effortlessly from his lips and immediately he felt some of the tension leave the brunette's body as the nickname massaged its way into her muscles, soothing out the tension. He shifted Bella impossibly closer to him when he felt her grab at his shirt, her grip frantic and strong, born from a need to be close to a source of comfort. The movement broke Emmett's unbeating heart; he wasn't sure just how deep Bella's psychological wounds were but it was frantic movements like the clutching of his shirt that proved a lifelong pattern of neglect. It suddenly made Bella's clinging onto Alice easier to understand.
Emmett's booming voice tore off the ropes of restraints off his family members. Suddenly animated, they shifted and moved. Alice shook off her parents' hands and cautiously made her way over to Bella and Emmett, keeping her movements slow and steady.
"Bella?" Alice spoke softly, terrified of spooking the girl.
"Don't hate me!" Bella cried out, though her voice was muffled by Emmett's shirt. She clung harder to Emmett, her curtain of hair sweeping over her face, concealing her panicked expression.
"Oh baby, no one hates you," Alice swore. She shared a significant look with Emmett; he nodded and almost in sync, they sat back down on the couch, flanking Bella between them, though Bella remained buried in Emmett's arms. Bella twisted slightly and reached out for Alice, blindly thrusting out her arms in the direction she thought Alice was in. Emmett immediately relinquished his hold, watching as Bella all but launched herself onto his sister. It did not escape anybody's ears that Alice had called Bella her mate; humans and vampires alike were territorial but vampires had the added edge of heightened animalistic instincts when it came to choosing their partners. This made them extremely protective of their mates, to the point where they would cut down anyone in their path should they have harmful intent toward their partner, family or not.
Bella burrowed into Alice, inhaling Alice's scent, breathing it all in with a desperation that was similar to a drug addict taking their next hit. Trembling fingers dug into Alice's shirt, clutching at the material with fanatical intensity. Though Bella's frame was slightly bigger than Alice's, she still managed to look small in the pixie vampire's arms, so curled up into herself she was. Alice made shushing noises, wanting nothing more than for the tremors to stop wrecking through Bella's body and for her tears to stop.
"Shh," Alice hummed as she rocked Bella in her arms. She nuzzled at Bella's hair with her nose. "C'mon, baby, you're gonna make yourself sick." She rubbed at the girl's back, hoping to pat away the sobs that still clawed its way out of the brunette's quivering lips.
Emmett sat beside the pair, silent and unmoving as a statue but still an imposing figure. Only his eyes, now drained of tears, flickered. They moved over the patriarch and matriarch of the household; Carlisle's face was blank with mute fury, Esme had such a cold, murderous expression clouding her face that he scarcely recognized her. Rosalie looked aghast and Jasper's eyes were closed as he mentally kept Bella's overwhelming ocean of emotions at bay. Edward had the decency to look ashamed and Emmett threw him a scathing look, which caused the bronze haired vampire to duck his head to soften the mental blow.
In his or her new positions, nobody moved. It was too hard.
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Bella's sobs had been reduced to dying hiccups. Mentally she was still distraught, her mind a turmoil of emotions. Physically, she had run out of tears; she simply did not have the strength to cry anymore. Drying tear tracks scored two paths down either cheek and her lashes still glittered with residue droplets. Her previously shaking frame was quiet, still; Bella simply huddled within the confines of Alice's embrace, eyes darting back and forth between each Cullen member.
"I was eight," she began in a breathy whisper, her voice hoarse with emotion and pain. She felt Alice tighten her hold and Emmett shift subtly closer. "I was riding my bike when I fell and skinned both my knees clean. I remember crying and screaming for my mom and her running out of the backyard looking like I just announced my death." Bella's eyes took on a misty quality as she wandered down memory lane. "Mom scooped me up, stared once at my bloody knees and ran back into the house. She patched me up, gave me an ice-lolly and told me to watch TV. A few hours later she came to check my wounds and found that they had healed." Bella's jaw clenched as the next set of memories was only to be remembered as the bookmark to where her terror would begin. "Mom stared at me like I was something that had stuck to the bottom of her shoe."
"Stop." It was Alice. Her voice was weighted with sorrow and she was shaking so hard that she jolted Bella with every tremor. "I don't want to hear anymore."
Bella turned in Alice's arms to palm the seer's cheek in a touch of comfort...
Instead, she thrust the vampire's mind eye into a vision.
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*FLASH*
"Goddamn freak!" A tall man with a thin mustache and hair a color that was achingly familiar growled at a girl cowering at his feet. He was a slim man but with an imposing air that was added on by his police uniform. He bent and yanked at the girl's hair, sneering into her face. "You don't deserve to be here." He threw her bodily into the wall, unfazed by her whimpers and a sickening crack that echoed throughout the room.
*FLASH*
"Mama!" A girl about ten, latched herself onto the leg of a woman with brownish-blonde hair.
The woman shook her off, a disgusted scowl pulling back the corners of her lips. "Don't touch me!" When the girl refused to let go, the woman bent down and slapped the girl across the face, hard enough to split her lip, sending a spattering of blood to go airborne. "I said, get off!"
The girl scooted back until her back hit the cabinet door. She drew up her knees and wrapped her arms around her legs, sobbing. Blood continued to rain from the seam that had opened on her lower lip...
*FLASH*
A girl of about sixteen huddled in the corner of a dark bus stop. She wore a hoodie with the hood drawn completely over her head. She burrowed in this thin jacket, seeking warmth that she would not find. A sliver of moonlight ignited her face for a brief second; it was enough to see the myriad of bruises that were tattooed all over her face. Her lower lip was swollen and bloody; one eye was bruised shut and blood ran freely down one nostril. Tears, scalding hot, burned down her face, washing over the colors of sickly yellow and blackish-purple before dripping off a severely discolored chin to pool onto the pavement. There was enough moonlight to reflect off the haunted eyes of this runaway girl.
*FLASH*
A young woman, barely nineteen, caught her sneaker on a jutting rock; the momentum sent her tumbling into a nearby ditch. The sudden vertigo of having hit her head against something sharp blurred her vision but not enough that she could not see two figures standing before her. Darkness crept into her gaze, forcing her to seek solace in the arms of unconsciousness but before she succumbed she caught two pairs of glinting eyes, eyes that were the color of blood.
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Alice screamed; it was anything but human. It reverberated off the walls, and pierced the eardrums in a manner that tore at the listener's soul whilst making their skin crawl and the hairs on the back of their necks of rise.
Alice thrust Bella into Emmett's arms for she could not hold onto Bella and her sanity at the same time. The images brought on from her vision drove her to her knees and the pixie vampire began dry heaving even though the action would prove futile. She clawed at the carpet, leaving deep grooves and bald patches.
"ALICE!" Esme's and Bella's articulation of the single word mingled together. Esme all but flew over to her kneeling daughter, gripping her shoulders worriedly. Bella wrenched herself out of Emmett's grasp and dropped next to Alice, her body shaking with anticipation.
The other Cullens also rushed forward, forming a perfect half circle around the kneeling trio but before they could offer their hand, Alice pushed off from the ground and bolted. She dodged hands that attempted to stop her, shouldered her way through Carlisle and Edward and ran to the front door. She yanked at the doorknob and having all but ripped the front door from its hinges, Alice bound into the darkness of night running headlong into the cover of the woods.
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