Chapter 2- Heroine, that gives me my voice

BPOV

I was dead. I had to be dead. I was flying. The wind whipping around my face, cooling the sweat and my hot skin. The hard as diamond arms wrapped around me, holding me to an equally hard chest, the skin ice cold. Of course this wasn't my angel. This one had hair so blond that it looked almost white and with bright amber eyes that held so much compassion and concern that I was instantly at ease. This was another reason that I must be dead. I was with a Cullen. It was either that or the drug, and since I could still hear the sneering jeers from the phantoms, I knew it wasn't that.

"Bella?" Carlisle's voice was sharp with concern. "Bella, can you tell me what you took? What did you take, Bella?"

I felt his hand hesitantly touch me where the needle had punctured my arm. Then I realized that he was also checking my pulse and my pupils, all at this supersonic speed of his. I said nothing. But my body started to do these pathetic little jerks, kinda like I was being electrocuted. Funny, but I couldn't feel it.

Then Carlisle said a word I had never heard him say before and he ran even faster. I knew where we were going without having to look or ask. We were going to the house. I wonder if that is where my heaven would end. I suppose it was strange but I had already accepted my death. Those damn memories of that night were still with me, clinging around the edges, but when I was here, surrounded by these people, they couldn't overtake me.

"Jasper! Alice!" I turned my head and there they were. We had already made it to the house. I had never seen a more welcoming sight, even if Alice and Jasper looked as somber as the grave. "Alice I need-"

"Everything is already set up upstairs. I even called." Alice eyes were sad, frightened and she was striding beside us up the stairs. She still talked in riddles. My body was almost humming. I might see Edward. Even though I was hoping I could see him before I left I didn't think I would.

"Jasper, I need you to keep Bella calm." Before the words were out of his mouth I felt Jaspers influx of peace settle over me. But I was already at peace. I was already calm. I knew what was going to happen and I had accepted it. Strange how freeing that it is.

I heard Alice gasp and Jasper hesitantly speak. "She is… already calm. She has accepted her death." I looked toward Jasper and saw that his eyes were sad too. And behind him the rest of the family were looking at me, some sad. Rosalie looked at me like I was lower than shit. She still didn't like me, obviously.

I felt Carlisle's step falter. I didn't know that a vampire could do that. In a second we were in a room and I was on a hospital bed. In fact, if I didn't know better, I would say that I was in a hospital. The room was equipped with all the machines of an intensive care unit and had that uniquely sterile smell of a hospital.

I suppose that I should of noticed before now. As Carlisle gave orders and asked Jasper to leave but still keep his influence over me, as he began sticking needles into my body and kept asking, 'Bella, what did you take?', I finally understood. I wasn't dead. I was dying. And Carlisle was trying to save me. Of course, with this brilliant deduction, came shame. They knew that I took that drug. That I was high, so high that I was almost touching heaven. They knew how weak I was.

I couldn't let them think that I did this before. That I wouldn't do this unless I had, too. "I never did this before. I'm sorry." My voice was softer than a puff of smoke but I knew they would hear.

Carlisle came to me and I saw the concern that had not faded and even more important, I didn't see disappointment or judgment. I loved him in that moment and knew why his family willingly followed him. "Bella, you don't need to say sorry. I don't judge. But I need to know what you took."

I knew that he wouldn't judge me but he still didn't understand. And I suddenly wanted him to understand. I wanted him to know why I did it. So the words that I had buried and hidden around everyone else rose up in my throat and demanded to be spoken. And for the first time, I spoke. "I just wanted to forget, Carlisle. It was suppose to make me forget, but…it didn't. I just wanted to forget."

"Bella, what was suppose to make you forget? What did you inject into your arm?" He was firmer now. He needed that answer.

"Heroine."

For a few minutes I floated, drifting higher and higher away from them. To where, I don't really know, but it was quiet and free. The higher that I drifted the farther those memories stayed. They couldn't follow me! I turned my back to them and started walking. It was one of the most strangest experiences of my life. I could feel the hospital bed and Carlisle and Alice touching me, but I could feel myself walking too, walking away, even though I could plainly see the white ceiling of the Cullen home.

Then I heard Carlisle swear for the second time tonight and Alice hiss. It was actually truly scary but I was still walking. "Bella! Bella, why did you want to forget? You didn't want to remember me? I would never forget you Bella." I made the mistake of looking into Alice's eyes. She looked like she was crying, even though she couldn't, and hurt was plain in her eyes. I drifted a little closer to her but not all the way.

"No, Alice. I would never want to forget you! You, all of you, are good memories. I would never want to forget you." Every word I spoke brought me closer to her.

I didn't know that I was crying until Alice wiped them away. She smiled sadly. "Why did you do it, Bella?" There was no judgment in Alice, I think she loved me too much to feel anything but that for me, but I was as far from those memories as I ever have been and I didn't want to go back. So I started walking. Alice whimpered but I didn't look back this time.

"Alice, go down to the family and stay with them." Was it strange that their voices were soft, muffled now? Alice slowly stood and walked out. I think Carlisle didn't want her to see me die. Now it was just the two of us. I would rather he didn't see me die either but I knew he wouldn't leave. Carlisle was a healer and he would try to heal me until there was no hope.

"Bella. We have missed you so much. Our family was different without you." Damn man knew what to say to make me listen. I stopped walking and turned to him. I could see him but it looked like from the end of a long tunnel. "Alice doesn't go a day without saying your name. She missed you terribly. Edward was the worst." I started walking to him. Edward was the only thing that I would walk toward him for. I needed to know how he was. "He doesn't smile or laugh. He flinches when ever anyone says your name. He cried for a week after we left. He loves you more than his life, Bella."

"I love him, too." Those words pulled me to Carlisle but I didn't fight it as I had with Alice. I needed to say them.

Carlisle smiled. "We all love you, Bella. Even Rosalie acted differently when we left."

I laughed weakly, "She was probably annoyed that everyone was moping." Apparently laughter was stronger than words. It brought me very close and I fought that time and walked a safe distance away.

"Why did you need to take it, Bella?" I jerked my head to him and walked to him. I wouldn't have turned if he had said anything else or if he had phrased his question differently. Because he knew that I had needed to take it. And that is what made me walk to him.

"I needed to forget." Simple but very true. I knew even as I settled into my body and became reacquainted with the pain in it and the memories, that I would tell Carlisle what happened. And I knew that I would of never of said a word if I wasn't high. As it was, everything had a dreamlike quality to it, so I pretended that I was brave in this dream.

"What did you need to forget?" He brushed my hair away from my clammy face. I was thankful. I couldn't do it for myself.

"It's ironic. I didn't meet the real monsters until after the vampires left." Even I could hear the smile in my voice but with how choked and watery it was, it just made me sound more pathetic.

Carlisle's face clenched. I think that is when he realized that this story was going to be bad. That he would not want to hear it, but he stayed because he knew that I needed to tell it, as surely as I had needed to take that drug.

"What happened to you, Bella?" He skimmed his fingers down my cheek, leaving behind a trail of ice. It comforted me.

I felt whatever Carlisle had given me flow through my body. It was relaxing me, making the words easier to speak. "My truck broke down on the highway. It was late. I wasn't far from home and I don't have a cell phone… so I started to walk." I felt the tears slide down my face. The room was silent except for the machines gently beeping and my voice. I don't think Carlisle was even breathing. But it felt like the whole house had fallen silent upon me speaking. Like it was listening to my story, too. "I hadn't been walking long before… a car pulled up beside me. Asked if I wanted a ride. It was full of men. They had been drinking. I could smell it, floating to me. I had never seen them before." I looked at Carlisle and his eyes were fierce and sad. I looked into his eyes and I let him see the pain that mine held. "I said no." My words were hard, defiant, undisputable. We both knew I had said no to more than the offered ride.

Carlisle's eyes were dangerous, fury ripping through him. But when he spoke his voice was as smooth and calm as ever it had been. "What happened then, Bella?"

I shrugged. "They didn't listen." There was a buzzing in the back of my brain. There was something I was forgetting, but I couldn't recall what it was. I was in a cocoon, here with Carlisle, where nothing I said would go past us. "At first they only followed me, kept asking for me to get in, then they started to… compliment me, I guess you could call it." I laughed weakly. "Nice ass, girlie. Round and plump and just lookin' for a…" I choked on the words, and shoved down a sob. "I, uh, I ran. Then I fell." That time I couldn't stop the sob.

Carlisle was right beside me, his cold hand gently touching my face. "Oh, Bella." He didn't really need to say anything else. Their was heartbreak in his voice, a sadness that I didn't think possible. I looked at him and suddenly couldn't believe what I was doing. I was inflicting pain on him and their was nothing to be alarmed over.

I looked away and swallowed the rest of what wanted to come out. "I'm being a baby. Nothing happened. I'm just… weak." There was a snarl and Carlisle jerked my face toward him, not roughly but not gently either.

"You are not weak, Bella, and I refuse to hear you speak that way. You are one of the bravest people I have ever had the honor to meet. And something happened, Bella." His fierce voice gentled and became shrouded in that black sadness again. "I look at you and I can see that something happened. I see it in your eyes. They're broken, lost."

I smile weakly, forcing my tongue to move. "They were broken before… anything happened. I…I've been lost for a while. It… that, just made me stop caring, stop looking." Carlisle wiped my face of it's tears. I had learned to cry silently. I got tired of waking Charlie with my sobs.

"Can you tell me what happened?" He whispered, as if he was afraid I would shatter if he spoke louder than that. But I wouldn't. I had proved to myself, to everyone, that I could handle a lot.

I looked into his golden eyes, freshly amber from a recent hunt, his hair ghostly pale as was his skin, and with his silent acceptance. I looked at the ceiling, painted a rustic pale red and started to tell him the things that I had only told once before, to an older experienced police officer who had that same silent acceptance of anything that came out of my mouth.

"I fell. They got me. I tried to fight. I broke two noses but I was…too weak. I screamed, I screamed for Charlie and…" And for Edward. I think that went without saying. "I screamed until my throat was raw. They kept yelling at me; 'Shut the fuck up, you bitch!', 'Toots, if you don't be quiet I'll think you want something in your mouth.'" I gagged at the memory, at the feel of all of the hands. "I kept screaming though. They hit me, punched, kicked, I think one of them even got a branch to hit me with. I only stopped when I couldn't scream anymore. They were really pissed at me then. My face was so swollen that I looked like an alien. 'She was no pretty doll to begin with but now…now she looks like a fuckin' back end of a baboon!'"

Carlisle forced me to look at him, and though I had never before seen his face so grave, he tried to smile for me. "It's okay, Bella. I'm right here with you and we're safe in the house. They can't hurt you any more."

Even before he stopped speaking I was shaking my head at him. "You're wrong. They hurt me everyday. Every day they do it again and again. At night, it's worse because I can't escape. They are always with me. They're apart of me now, and I can't get them out." I turned to him and he actually flinched at the look on my face. "It wasn't as bad as what could of happened. It really wasn't. I wasn't…raped, not really." I couldn't meet his eyes.

"What does that mean, Bella?"

I couldn't look at him, the embarrassment and shame engulfing my entire being, "They held me down and ripped my clothes off of me. They…they touched me. Everywhere. They… made me, made me, uh, touch them and one or two of them, umm," I made a helpless gesture that crudely got the point across. "They were fighting about who got to go first. The big man, he kept saying that he found me and he should go first. Another, the one with glasses, said…" I didn't want to remember but the words wouldn't stop coming, wouldn't be silenced any longer. "He said that there's three holes. Three of them could have a go and the other could watch." I was amazed how dead my voice sounded. How numb I sounded. "They fought about who would have to watch. None of them wanted sloppy seconds."

"God, Bella."

"It didn't last long though. It was strange. It felt like years but it had been less than twenty minutes. Then, then a wolf came along and scared the hell out of them." I smiled at the memory. At the long teeth and the russet color of hair. "They think that it even killed one of them."

"They?"

"The police. Even when the men were gone, I couldn't move. Hurt too much to move. I passed out and woke up in the hospital. Everyone knew what happened." I frowned. My words were becoming harder to put together in a sentence, "Or at least they think they do." I shook my head. The room was getting blurry, slowing down. "I'm getting kinda tired."

Carlisle smiled. "Yes. You should. You have had a hard day." His eyes were kind but there was worry there, too. "Just close your eyes, Bella, and know you are safe here."

I nodded, surprised that I could think of sleep after recounting my tale. The last words out of my mouth was a plea. "Don't tell anyone. Please?" I saw his contrite face before I fell asleep.

APOV

"Don't tell anyone. Please?" Her voice, broken and raw, floated down the stairs to us frozen in the living room. She didn't know that she just told us herself. She must have forgotten our hearing.

My entire family was horrified. But none so much as Edward. His eyes burned with hatred and fury, and he was already