Not really following my schedule for writing, but I really wanna finish Seducing Revenge now that I'm almost done it. I've also started writing a new fanfic. I'll start posting that after SR is done! Enjoy!


Edward's PoV

"Don't bother," I muttered in defeat, turning away from Bella and heading towards the house.

I needed to get the fuck out of here now. Hell, she gave me permission to leave! It's legit. Fuck her. I can do whatever the hell I want.

I didn't have much to take with me. Just my clothes and shoes. I got my shit together and looked at myself in the mirror. I looked sick. Well, I sort of felt sick, too.

I didn't understand how I could get so emotionally and physically attached to a person in less than a week. It was the most ridiculous and powerful sensation I've ever felt in my life. It was like my emotional well-being focussed on her. If she hurt, I hurt. If she was happy, I was happy. If she felt like having sex, so did I.

And, now that I was away from her, I felt...empty. It's cliché and it sounds kind of girly, but I didn't know how else to describe it. I was in a sort of numb state, searching for my emotional centre. It's too bad I'll never see her again.

I searched my pockets for my cell phone to call the bureau to get me back to Washington. I couldn't find it. It must have fallen out while we were in Italy...

I picked up Jacob's home phone and dialled Emmett's cell phone number. Hopefully I wasn't interrupting anything between him and Rosalie.

"Hello?" he answered in a groggy voice. He must have been sleeping.

"Hey, Em," I greeted gently. "Sorry to wake you, man, but I need some strings pulled. I don't have my credit cards or cheques or anything with me, and I need to get back to Washington as soon as I can."

"Where the fuck are you?" he asked, his voice a little clearer.

"Phoenix," I mumbled.

"What?" Emmett practically yelled.

"Phoenix!" I answered loudly, angrily even. "I'm in Phoenix, Arizona."

"Why?" Emmett asked, dumbfounded.

"I thought I had something on Bella Swan, but I was seriously mistaken," I answered flatly, giving two meanings. One was the truth and one was a lie.

"Uh, okay," Emmett replied incredulously. "Just go to the airport and say you're from the FBI. I'll make the connections."

"Thanks, bro," I murmured gratefully. "See you in the morning then."

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Emmett grumbled before hanging up the phone.

I phoned a taxi and got to the airport and on a plane back to where I belonged.

--

Two weeks passed, and I sort of got back into my old routine. Emmett assigned me to Bella's case, so I had a lot of "research" to do. I did basically nothing because although she hurt me considerably, I still didn't have the heart to put her in jail, or worse, have James's boys take her out.

So, I sat in front of my computer at home and looked up everything about Bella. I knew everything about her rocky high school career now. I knew bits and pieces of the last five years of her life, but not enough to be satisfied. I was booking an appointment with James to talk about Project R when he got back from Russia within the next couple of days. James was blunt; he'd give me straight answers.

The only thing I was worried about was my inability to control my anger. He hurt and used Bella, and I hated him for it. For the past two and a half weeks, I dreamt about killing him in very gruesome and torturous ways.

But, I needed to do this. I needed to know exactly what he did to Bella. He was the only one left that would give me answers. I knew my dad would refuse to say anything to me about it; he still hated himself because of it.

I woke up to the sound of my phone ringing. I never started doing anything until after ten in the morning. Right now it was seven.

I groaned and rolled towards my phone. I took a big gulp of water and then answered.

"Hello, Edward Cullen speaking."

There was silence on the other end.

I scowled and said, "Hello? Who is this?"

A strangled sob came through the line. I'd recognize that sob anywhere.

"Bella?" I asked hopefully. Maybe she had reconsidered.

She hung up after that. The hope that had been growing in my heart died quickly. I thought I would be able to handle talking to her, but apparently not. It hurt quite a bit more than it did before.

I laid back down and stared at the ceiling, thinking about Bella. Bella's smile, Bella's cocky attitude, Bella's uneven lips, Bella's determination, Bella's passion, Bella's love, Bella's potential...

It thought about her for three straight hours. And all that I concluded from this long, intense thinking session was that I could live without her, but I didn't want to. The final consensus was that I was an idiot when I said I could potentially love her in the future. I already loved her. My mind was just slow at processing it.

Although it was a very good epiphany to have, it didn't help much. It actually sort of made it a lot worse, to be honest. The girl I loved would hate my guts if I ever saw her again, I'm sure. And that sucked.

Yeah, definitely an awesome epiphany.

I crawled out of bed and shaved for the first time since I had been held hostage. Then I showered and got back to "work."

I was looking up Bella's Project R profile when the phone rang. I looked at the clock. Jesus, it was already two in the afternoon. I'd spent three hours on the computer already.

"Hello, Edward Cullen speaking," I answered, looking at my computer screen.

"Hello, Mr. Cullen, it's Angela Weber, Mr. McCarthy's secretary," the woman on the other end answered. "Mr. McCarthy will be available tomorrow at two-thirty for your appointment if that works for you."

My face sobered into a grim expression. "That will be fine, Miss Weber. Thank you."

"You're welcome, Mr. Cullen," replied before hanging up.

I let out a breath and put my head in my hands after hanging up the phone.

I looked back up at the profile. There wasn't much on there. Just a head shot of Bella looking very serious, the alterations made to her body, but not her mind, the names of her trainers, and that she was rogue now. No strengths or weakness, not even a date of birth. It was completely worthless.

I didn't know where else to search for information on Bella. I knew as much as I could from the internet and the FBI database. I had to go with word of mouth now.

--

My nails were digging into my thighs as I waited for two-thirty in James's office.

This was it. I was finally going to figure this out. Well, some of it at least.

The door opened and my head snapped up. A tall guy with short blonde hair and black suit walked in.

He smiled. "You must be the younger Cullen. I'm James McCarthy, head of Project R."

I gave him a forced smile. "Hello, I'm Edward Cullen, top international affairs agent."

James smirked and shook my hand quickly before sitting down in his desk.

"What are you here for, Cullen?" he asked, getting straight to the point.

"Project R," I replied. "I'm heading the Redbird case now, and I need to know what her alterations, training, strengths, and weaknesses are."

James nodded his head, looking down at his desk.

"Well, your father gave her a long surgery back in Phoenix. She mostly had brain alterations, but we also took care of her tears ducts, we enhanced her muscle mass, and we inject her bones with an advanced hardening antiserum. All of her 'physical enhancements' are just a trick of the mind. She's stronger than she was before, but barely. She just thinks she's super strong."

"So you just told her she had medical strength, and she believed, so she achieved?" I asked, surprised. I would have never guessed it.

James shook his head with a chuckle. "No, it was a bit different than that. We didn't tell her right out of surgery that she was inhumanly strong. The two week training course made her see that.

"The first week is mostly theory. We told them about the destruction foreigners were doing, had different military leaders tell them horror stories, basically anything to get them to despise most foreign countries.

"The second week was physical training. We didn't need to condition them much since we enhanced their muscles and bones already, but we still made them run four miles every morning before their sessions. Then we brought in convicts on death row for them to practice on. They killed at least ten men and women within the three hours session. Then we put them through a torture process."

"Torture?" I asked, my fingernails digging into my thighs again. I wasn't going to like this.

James rolled his eyes. "That's what they call it now, but I think it was more of a mental conditioning drill. We put them through many different kinds of pain, most of which would kill you and me, to show them that they were stronger than any other human being. After the week, they believed they were indestructible.

"With Bella, or Redbird, we had to do very intense torture sessions. She was mentally stronger than any other person there. She'd already endured minor torture before Project R, so she didn't respond as loudly to the torture we used on the boys. I tried a million different things, whips, chains, ropes, beatings. She still wouldn't respond."

By this time, I was shaking with anger. Luckily James wasn't paying attention to me. I was sure my anger was clear on my face.

"Finally I took matters into my own hands. I knew Bella's mind and body very well already, and I knew what would set her off. One of her greatest fears is dying because of drowning, so I locked her in a glass container of water for twenty minutes while I watched. She pounded on the glass so hard it started cracking. I finally got her to respond to my torture. After five minutes, she realized her body wasn't faltering. She never passed out once in twenty minutes.

"Another fear of hers is losing appendages, so I hired someone to chain her down and cut off her fingers. We sewed them back on after and they worked perfectly fine. She was starting to realize her body's strength.

"I think the most evil thing I did to her though was putting her into a building that was being demolished. She lived, obviously, but just barely. That was torture for the both of us. She loved me still, after everything I did to her, and I had strong feelings for her as well. But, more than that, she was Project R's most prized possession. She was easily our strongest and smartest agent.

"Unfortunately, she was corrupted. Her mindset began to corrode during training. She ran within hours of being done training. It was Project R's, and my own, greatest loss."

I was so angry I couldn't talk. That was a blessing in my eyes. If I had any control, I'd be strangling James already. I couldn't even comprehend his logic. Put them through torture and they'll be strong. That was so beyond twisted and wrong. My poor, poor Bella. She was so broken and she didn't even acknowledge it.

"As for strengths and weaknesses, I'm not sure. She was strong in all areas when she left, but I'm sure she's developed strengths and weaknesses since then."

I stood up abruptly. "Thank you, Mr. McCarthy. I'm sure this will help up greatly." I was surprised I had even control to use a normal tone with this sick bastard.

"You're welcome, Cullen," James replied, shaking my hand again. "Good luck. You definitely have your work cut out for you."

I nodded and turned towards the door.

"Cullen?" James said. I paused by the door, my hand already on the doorknob. "If you can catch her without killing her, I'd appreciate it. I have unfinished business with her."

I nodded and left the building as quickly as I could.


I'm gunna kill James myself. Don't be surprised if the next chapter just says, "And Mary came from Saskatchewan and slit James's throat with a swather blade. Then end. P.S. Edward and Bella lived happily ever after." (A swather is a kind of farm equipment. You can Google it.)

I made up Bella's physical advancements. I don't think you can make people's bones harder within eighteen hours, or even change a person's muscle mass in surgery, and I know for sure you can give a person brain surgery to make you stronger or react to caffeine in a violent way. But, seeing as this is fiction, and more importantly, my fiction, I can do whatever I want, and that's what happened to Bella.

Ah, the torture processes. They kind of made me want to throw up my mom's homemade pizza. That would have sucked. Imagine watching someone chop off your fingers? Or having someone watch you drown? Or being thrown in a building that was being blown up? Fuck-ing scar-y. And, James, that dink. He only had "strong feelings" for her. Gah! Bella loved him! Asshole.

Songs:
Lonely for Here – Jack's Mannequin
All That I've Got – The Used

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