A/N: This chapter was incredibly hard to write. I've rewritten it four times and at the moment I can barely look at it. Hope you like it.

Thank you for all of my reviews and hopefully this chapter will clear some things up.

Bella wouldn't open her eyes.

Memories sang around her and she clamped her eyes so tightly shut they stung. She could feel every cut that decorated her body in some kind of grotesque illusion of art. She could feel each long indrawn breath of bitter stale air. She could feel each stone that was a frigid mockery of a bed beneath her.

She could feel…

She turned from her position on the floor and attempted to move herself into a position that somewhat appeared to be normal but the world swayed as did her head as it moved even farther down to press against her propped up knees.

There was something wet and thick welling behind her eyes and up her throat and nothing made sense. She was lost in this new found world where she appeared to be in some kind of jail cell. Well that's what she assumed it was from her brief glance that barely registered beyond the mist that coated everything. She couldn't think.

Her body felt wrong. It wasn't so much that it ached. But she was wrong. Wrong in where she was, how she sat, how she was moving, how…how—

The tears burned.

And she hated them.

The night rushed against her, a purred horror in her ear. The earth shook with each sob that seized her body but there was something there; something gripping her as tightly as she held it. It was the boy.

She moved as soon as the realization came. The arms let her go easily as if it had been hurting them to hold on.

There was a voice speaking. Hoarse and lost and sad in the silence that rang around them and Bella couldn't hear. She shook her head and attempted to focus on that haunting tune.

"Are you okay?" The boy from the night before questioned; his body leaning oddly to look at her. In a kind of hunched sprawled curious fashion.

Her answer was more an exclamation of air than actual words and slowly she leaned back to have her back resting against the stone wall that was farthest from the small iron door possibly five feet from her. The room was small. Very, very small.

The boy moved and his back cracked in a series of five pops. He pulled his legs to rest against his chest and his left hand hung leisurely from the top of his knees. His smile was a halfhearted grimace that said, 'I know.'

"Where are we?" She croaked out and the words clanked awkwardly up the spiraling walls that she couldn't see the end of.

The boy paused and the dark hollow circles under his eyes were sharp and shadowed in the dim light that came from a candle on the opposite side of the iron door.

His voice was just as gruff as if had been before. By the way he sounded Bella thought that he would be older than his younger features hinted. "A holding cell."

"What do you mean?"

His face was lost as he moved back into the flickering shadows and there was a sigh. "We're beneath some building. I'm not exactly sure which one." He moved forward, bringing his knees down and the light brought him into full view. "I didn't really have time to notice when I was being brought in." His lips curled oddly.

He continued, "I'm not exactly sure why you're here but it's not really hard to guess. Either you saw something or heard something." He cleared his throat but there was a dry rattle in his chest.

"What are they?" Her voice was lost in the silence that surrounded them. His head tilted ever so slightly and there were questions screaming beneath tightly clamped lips.

"Vampires."

Bella had remembered that. She had remembered the soft delicate croon that the beautiful woman had whispered. She had pretended…pretended so hard that it wasn't true, that it was some kind of twisted illusion that she couldn't understand. But this wasn't an illusion…this was something else entirely.

"I'm Bella," She said so suddenly she startled both herself and the boy.

He gave a crooked grin and reached out a hand, but his eyes were troubled. Green, she thought distractedly.

"Edward," He continued. "Sorry I didn't introduce myself sooner." This disturbed him for some reason.

Bella shook her head. "I'm pretty sure you can be forgiven this time. These aren't exactly normal circumstances."

That wasn't the best thing to say.

His features darkened but his smile remained in place and it twisted something deep within her.

She looked away.

"How long…" She tried to say but didn't finish.

"How long have I been here?" He guessed.

She nodded and the action made her vision swirl.

His hand brushed distractedly through his hair in a jerking motion that Bella would associate with a drug addict that needed his next fix. His hands shook. His fingers tightened in coppery locks to still the twitch.

Bella pretended to not notice.

"What's the date?" His voice grew deeper, a mere whisper of nothing.

She tried to remember but the days and the months swirled tauntingly around her. She tried to grasp anything that she could reach but she couldn't think. Couldn't…couldn't…

"I don't know."

He made a soft sound of acknowledgment and what Bella perceived to be forgiveness but there was something wrong in the sound. An expectation and hope had burned there that she had let down and it made her chest hurt and her eyes burn.

She couldn't remember the date. It shouldn't be that hard. She knew just the other day. But there were so many things that had happened…so many, many things.

Bella's fingers dug into the soft flesh of her face.

"It's okay," He whispered.

"No," She returned. "It's not." The acidic taste of the words made her retch.

He made a sound in his throat again but said nothing against her. But that made it all the more horrible.

The iron door opened without a sound and Bella started and her heart spiked. A girl perhaps Bella's age walked into the room and placed two trays of food with a small glass of water. Bella's stomach heaved.

"Hey, Edward," The girl said easily, placing the tray directly in front of him. She gave him a small smile.

His was a mere twist of his lips. "Hey."

"You're voice is still bad," She said, her eyes narrowing in concern. "They were pretty rough on you."

One by one his fingers extended until his hand was splayed out on his knee. "I guess you could say that."

The girl didn't say anything else but placed the second tray not far from Edward's. She gave Bella a sweeping glance and there was nothing but pity there. It made Bella's blood freeze.

Edward looked disinterestedly at the single piece of bread, the small cup of fruit, and the glass of water but he picked at his bread nonetheless.

Bella was surprised.

She wasn't exactly sure what she was expecting but that certainly wasn't it. Perhaps she expected them to starve them and make them dehydrate within days. But then again, Edward had obviously been there for a while considering his thin appearance and worn filthy blue shirt and his torn jeans and he most definitely hadn't starved or dehydrated.

Although, he was too thin.

"You should eat," He said, not moving his eyes from the tray in front of him. Long elegant fingers tore the bread into fragmented pieces.

"So should you."

His lips curved and the left side tilted just a bit more than the right.

She brought her knees to her chest and wound her arms as tightly as she could. The air nipped at her exposed skin and she wished—as she had before—her thin sweater was more than just for show.

She placed her forehead on her knees and bit her lip so tightly a coppery taint filled her mouth. She tried not to remember where that smell had been so strong the night before but the scream that was building—crying—up her throat informed her that she wasn't doing the best job.

Something was breaking.

Her chest ached.

She breathed deeply through her nose and tried to remember the words of a song Jessica had made her hear just a few nights ago. She had thought the song and been annoying but now she wanted nothing more than to hear it again. It was one of those bubble gum songs that while you're listening to it you're thinking, 'seriously? Someone actually wrote this?' but you can't help but like it.

Edward wasn't ripping apart his bread anymore. He was staring blankly at the food tray and his eyes were unfocused. There was a long cut that traveled from his temple to the shadows under his eye.

He turned to her but didn't see her.

Bella wondered when she would be the same.

He hummed softly and she wondered when he started. Had he been humming when she was crying? Had he been humming when she had been trying hard not to scream?

But then again, she thought, it doesn't really matter when he started or why he is. It's just humming…he's just humming.

There's something happening. She knows that it is and she needs to distract herself and move away from thoughts and emotions. She needs to stop reaching for fragmented pieces that just keep cutting her each time she grazes them.

She sipped the water not having realized she picked up the glass. Edward's gaze sharpened for a moment and long legs extended in front of him. He leaned his back against the wall and his head tilted to the side to regard her.

As soon as she started drinking she couldn't stop.

Her throat had been hurting but she had bitterly pushed the pain away… once that moderately cool water trickled down she couldn't stop drinking.

Edward pushed his water into her empty left hand and whispered, "Drink, you need it."

She accepted his offer gratefully. Once there was nothing left she placed both glasses next to each other on her tray but Edward put his back on his own.

"Don't want them to think I don't want it." He gave her a smile that she supposed was meant to be reassuring. His hand shook the glass.

She was still thirsty and she realized that she would most likely always be thirsty. This was her new life. She wouldn't be able to get out. She didn't know what they would do with her. Would they hurt her? Or would they leave her to sit here for days…and days…and days?

Her fingers gripped her shirt but she disguised the action by smoothing the wrinkles out.

They wouldn't come out.

There was a horrible pressure in her face but she pretended that she didn't know what that meant. Edward said nothing of her tears just like she knew he wouldn't.

They had said something about her last night. She was certain that there was something important in the few words that she had grasped but they were lost to her now. Oh, she knew that they wouldn't get her out of there but she was positive that they would have either calmed her or made the panic in her blood thicken to the point where her heart would silence.

Her hands were as pale as the vampire that had killed that boy. She snarled wordlessly to herself as soon as the thought came. She had been dancing around the images all day. She didn't need offhanded comparisons to taunt them into focus.

Words were clawing up her throat.

She swallowed.

"Why are you here?" She leaned her head back on the wall and the stone dug into her scalp. She wished she hadn't spoken.

His voice was hushed and forgotten. "I met some interesting people." He gave a smile and she hardly noticed that the corner of his lips were too tight and the sensual curve to taut.

She understood that he didn't want to talk anymore. It was his story and not her business.

She nodded to him and closed her eyes in an attempt at sleep but soon realized that it would be better to stare at the grey stone than to have the darkness of her eyelids. She was not safe there.

She remembered a long time ago when Renee had said that if you stared at a point at the wall, or on the floor, or even her stuffed giraffe that she had lost when they had sold their house, that eventually you'll forget the nightmare. Forget the images that had woken you up and left you restless and wide awake. She said that soon you would be waking up in the morning, not having realized you fell asleep.

It was one of Bella's strongest memories.

Renee had been wearing a yellow nightgown that had been soft on Bella's cheek when she had held her close. Her perfume had been familiar and warm and Bella had breathed deeply to try and get more of the scent.

Renee had meticulously brushed Bella's long brown hair and had told her that nightmares weren't real and told her how to forget them and Bella had nodded as seriously as any seven year old could and told her that she would be okay and the nightmares wouldn't bother her anymore.

But Renee wasn't there to carefully brush her hair and hold her close and tell her once again how to fight off the nightmare and she wouldn't be able to put on a brave face and say that she was fine and they didn't bother her.

They might not have then…but the nightmares bothered her now.