Happy Friday everyone! Well, at least I hope it is for all of you. Me, well, I am sick! Down and out sick. My only comfort, is my FF stories and my lappy to write for you all.
I am really excited about this chapter and the next chapter. They are really packed! I hope you all love it. I will warn you. Some things are graphic. Not so much in this chapter (though there are memories that may be hard to read for some), but the next chapter will be really graphic. I just wanted to warn you. You will see true Mobward!
This chapter is not beta'd, so all mistakes are mine.
The beautiful Stephanie Meyers owns all that is Twilight.
EPOV
I nod to dad and turn to make my way to the door. Once outside, the chilly November air hits me, sending a chill through my think cotton dress shirt. I reach the SUV and knock on the window, "It's me." I say.
I hear the locks unhinge and the door opens for me. I step inside and slide in next to Bella. I pull her into my arms. I feel myself shaking, as I nuzzle my head into her neck, inhaling her sweet Bella smell. I feel her begin to rub circles over my back. "Sshh. It's OK Edward. Sshh." What the fuck is wrong with me?
"I should be the one calming you down." I tell her.
She pulls back from me, and looks me dead in the eyes. "I hope you understand why I need to do this, because I don't..." She lets out a huge sigh, "I don't know how to explain it to you. I need to face him. I need to show him that...that he didn't break me." She tells me, with such determination.
"I know baby. I know. I just...my reluctance to let you do this comes from me not wanting you to see me, see dad like this. Because once we enter those door," I point to the doors of the warehouse, "he and I aren't the Edward and dad that you see everyday. We can't be. You are allowed to go in there because dad feels that this is what you need to close that part of you life." I see her nod, letting me know that she understands. I blow out a breath, ready to lay it out for her. "OK. This is what is going to happen. When we get in there, you're going to see him tied up in the center of the warehouse. No one has touched him yet, well, dad punched him in the gut, but that is it. He is all yours first. Dad, Emmett, Jasper, Eleazar and Felix are already in there. Peter and I will be there too. You will never be in there alone with him, so don't ask to be. Charlie is gagged. If you want him ungagged, then you tell Emmett and he will take the gag off of him. You say what you need to say to him, if you want him to answer, then he will. If you need to hit him, you hit him. You do what you need to do. Then Peter will walk you back out here and you will leave and you will go home to mom and dads house. Dad and I will be back there later. Understand?"
She nods yes to me again. I take my hands, grabbing a hold of her face, and give her a deep kiss. When I break away, I lean into her forehead, "I love you. So fucking much." I say, kissing her forehead. "If this becomes too much for you, you let me know and I will get you out of there."
"I promise." She whispers to me.
I nod to her. I look back at Peter and nod to him too. I open up the door and hold it open for her to get out. Tucking her into my side, with Peter bringing up the back, we make our way to the door. With my hand on the door, I say, "It is going to smell pretty bad in here. You will get used to it after a bit. If it is bad, breath through your mouth."
I open the door and we walk in. I look over to her and see her flinch at the smell. Then, suddenly, her eyes land on Charlie in the center of the room. I feel her pull away from me and walk forward on her own. Peter and I look at each other, but silently follow her. As we get further in, she makes eye contact with dad. "Si OK bambina?" [You OK baby girl?] Dad asks, pulling her into his arms.
"Sì papà." [Yes dad.]
"Se questo diventa troppo per ..." [If this become too much for...] Dad begins to say but is cut off by Charlie struggling against his restraints, trying to say something around his gag.
"Emmett?" Bella asks. "Can you take his gag off for me?"
Emmett nods to her and walks over to Charlie to take his gag out. Dad gives her hand a squeeze and walks back over to where the others are standing. Peter and I have joined them as well.
She bends to pick up the chair that I toppled over, and sits it in front of Charlie. She then slides her jacket off and drapes it on the back of the chair.
Once Emmett has the gag off of Charlie he coughs out, "Bella? Oh God, Bella!"
To everyone's surprise, she leans forward and slaps him hard across the face. "Keep my name out of your fucking mouth!" She yells. "You never bothered to call me by my name when I lived in your house. It was always 'hey bitch' or 'ungrateful whore'. But, what hurt the most when when you would just call me 'you'. Like I was nothing. That hurt worse than any filthy, horrible name you could have ever called me."
Her words were like a knife into my heart all over again. Those years were...I can't even imagine what she lived through. I know what I lived through. Each night, worrying about her. Seeing her with bruises, seeing her hungry, or in cloths with holes in them. Watching her blush and cry with embarrassment when mom would buy her cloths. Begging her to let us tell someone. Watching as she always held out hope that he would come around and be her father. I look over at dad, knowing that he is thinking the same thing.
My eyes fall back onto Bella. She is sitting in the chair in front of Charlie. "For years you told me I was nothing, I would never amount to anything. When I told you Esme was paying for dance lessons, you laughed at me and told me it was her money to waste. That I was a fat, uncoordinated little shit that no one would pay money to see! Well guess what? I was accepted into NYU dance school. I am on my way to becoming a prima ballerina. When I dance, I move people." She tells him. She takes in a deep breath, and exhales, closing her eyes. "I just need you to tell me what I did? What did I do that made you hate me so much?" She asks.
Charlie takes a deep, shaky breath. He looks up into Bella's eyes. "When your mom left, I just, I was so sad. I was so angry that she left. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to take care of a little girl. Shit, I could hardly take care of me. And, she just left. Like I was nothing, like I never meant anything to her. So I drank to make it all go away."
Bella just stares at him for a moment. "Not good enough. You just told me what Rene did. What you did. You still didn't tell me what I did."
"I don't know what you want me to say Bella. I..." TWACK! She backhands him across his face.
"I said don't fucking say my name!" She hisses at him.
"Fuck! I was an angry drunk who didn't want to take care of a kid by myself."
"That still doesn't tell me what I did to you to make you hate me so much! She left me too! She didn't love me enough to stay either. I was without a mother. I didn't have anyone to hold me at night, or help me get ready for school in the morning. I didn't have anyone to do my laundry! I didn't have anyone to make my lunch! So tell me Charlie, what did I do to you?"
"I...I...you...it was just so damn hard!" He cries
Bella is out of her chair in an instant. She kicks Charlie square in the chin with her red soled, high heeled boot. He falls backwards. The sound echo's through out the warehouse. I notice his chin is bleeding where her boot made contact. "Someone, please sit him back up." She asks, not taking her eyes off of him.
Jasper rushes over and sit him back up. Bella is in Charlies face instantly. "Hard! It was hard on you? You don't know what hard is!" She yells at him. Stepping back away from him. "Hard is being hungry with no food in the house because your father used the money to stock the fridge with beer. Hard is watching other kids eat hot lunch, and having to eat a few crackers and peanut butter, hoping to find a quarter in the cushions so that you could buy a milk to dink. Hard is having your father chase you around the house trying to kick you because you didn't fold his socks the right way, or you didn't cook what he wanted for dinner. Hard is trying to hold off going to bathroom overnight because you father told you that you make too much noise walking over the squeaky floor boards and it wakes him up! And hard is getting beaten with a baseball bat, or fists, because you father is drunk and you look like your mother!" She yells out, with tears streaming down her face.
We didn't even know the half of what she went though. We knew it was much worse that what she told us, but..holy shit!
I see dad out of the corner of my eye trying to hold it together. He goes to take a step forward and I grab his arm to hold him back. He glares back at me. "Let her go. Let her get it out. I am pissed to, but we will have our time with him." I whisper to him.
"Are you crying?" She asks him. "You don't get to fucking cry! The time for crying was Rene walked out on us. You should have cried with me, held onto me. Told me that we would get though it together. But, you didn't. So you don't get to cry now!" She yells at him.
"I know I am too late, and I know that words mean nothing, but I am so sorry! I am so fucking sorry! I can't...you don't know how sorry I am. You are all that I have thought about since I got sober. I just...please. I just want you back in my life somehow. I just want to get to know you. I want to be your family again." Charlie sobs.
She just stands there shaking her head. "No." She says, calmly. "No. You didn't want to be my family when it mattered, so you don't get to be my family now. You are just Charlie Swan to me. Carlisle Cullen, is my father. Emse Cullen, is my mother. Emmett McCarthy, is my brother. Rosalie McCarthy, is my sister. Jasper Witlock, is my brother. Alice Brandon, is my sister. And Edward Cullen, is my best friend, my protector, my fiance. The other three men you see here, Eleazar, Felix, Peter, they are my friends. Friends who would lay down their life for me. Because they think that I am worth something. Me! I am worth something. I am loved!" She says to him. She looks over to where we are standing, and it takes everything in me to not run over to her and wrap her in my arms. To feel her, to tell her how proud of I am of her, how loved she is.
"I changed my mind. You go ahead and cry. Cry because you will never see me dance. You will never walk me down the isle as I marry Edward. You will never see the children we create together. You will never be in my life, and that is a shame for you, because I am worth so much!"
Her last sentence is dad's undoing, and he is running to her, pulling her into his arms. "Oh bambina, voi valete più di tutti i soldi, tutti i tesori, tutto il potere del mondo." [Oh baby girl, you are worth more than all of the money, all of the treasures, all of the power in the world.] He tells her.
"Oh God! Please! Please, just let me...FUCK!" Charlie cries. "Please, just let me hug you, he isn't your father, I am! Just give me a chance!"
Before any of us can register what his happening, Bella grabbed onto dads nine in his shoulder holster. Pulling away from dad, she takes off the safety, and cocks it into place, aiming it at Charlies head. "What did you fucking say?" She asks him.
All of us are in shock. She is standing there, holding a very big, very heavy gun like it is nothing. She isn't scared, she isn't shaking. She is standing tall, confident, and powerful. If I wasn't so worried, I am sure I would be turned on right about now.
"Bella? Bella?" Dad calls out to her. But it is as if she doesn't hear him.
"Did you really just call yourself a father? My father?" She asks.
"I am your father. You have my blood running through your veins."
"I may have your DNA, but I am a Cullen through and through. I have Esme's compassion, her heart. She taught me what it is to be a woman. I have Carlisle's morals, his passion, his drive, his desire to be something. That is more powerful than DNA Charlie." She says, not lowering her gun.
"Bella honey. Come on, hand me the gun. Tesoro, passami la pistola." [Sweetheart, hand me the gun.] Dad asks her.
"No." Is all she says, never taking her eyes off of Charlie.
I make a move to walk towards her. "Bella..." But I am cut off as she looks at me. Her eyes are hard, and void of any emotion and it stops me in my tracks. It scares the fuck out of me.
"You're a Cullen? You have a killer's morals? A killer's drive in you? So it should be easy for you to pull the trigger then!" Charlie says to her.
"I wouldn't taunt her Charlie." I tell him.
"We both know she isn't going to do it." He says, looking at her. "She doesn't have..." He begins to say, but is cut off by the sound of the gun firing off. Our heads snap to Charlie to see blood dripping from his ear where she grazed him.
"Next time, I won't miss." She says.
"Ed man! Stop her. Don't let her do this." Peter says behind me.
"What the fuck do you want me to do?" I snap at him.
"She is going to regret this. Look at her. That isn't her! She is...something snapped in her. That isn't Bella." He is right. That isn't my Bella.
"Bella. Come on baby, hand me the gun."
"I SAID NO!" She yells at me. Fuck me! She is lethal right now. I need to get that gun away from her, but I am frozen in my place. For the first time in my life, I don't know how to help my Bella.
"Are you scared Charlie?" She asks him. He just stares at her. "ANSWER ME!" She yells.
"Yes." He whispers.
"Good! Now you know how I felt all those years."
"Bellsie!" I hear Peter say from behind me. I feel him walk past me, walking towards Bella.
"Stay where you are Peter." Bella tells him.
"No." He tells her. "We made a promise to each other in the dressing room at Zafrina's. We promised that we would never let each other do anything stupid. Well, this is me stopping you from doing something stupid." He says, walking in front of Charlie. "You don't want to pull that trigger. That isn't you. You yelled, you screamed, you hit, and you kicked. You told him how you feel, what he missed out on, what he will miss out on. Now, let them take are of the rest." He says, taking a few more steps towards her. "These men had to stand by for years as that man did those things to you, to a little girl who didn't deserve it. Let them take care of him. A simple gun shot to take him out is too good for him." He says, taking a few more steps towards her. I see her eyes begin to soften. I can see my Bella coming back. "Come on Bellsie. Don't make me break my promise. I love you too much to do that."
I see her lip tremble as Peter takes another step towards her. "Come here doll." He says, opening his arms to her, and she collapses into them, as he wraps her up in his arms. "Grab the gun Edward." He tells me calmly. I walk over and take the gun from her hand and slide it over to Jasper, who bends down to grab it.
Dad is quickly by her side, whispering in her ear. She turns to look at him. "I'm sorry daddy! I don't...I'm sorry!" She cries to him, as he pulls her from Peter's arms and into his.
"No. Don't you be sorry. You did great, but now, I will take it from here. Let me do that for you." He tells her. She nods her head, that is buried in the crook of his neck.
When she pulls back from him her eyes land on me. I walk over to her and pull her into my arms. I whisper in her ear so that no one can here me. "I fucking love you so much Bella. You are so strong, and so amazing." I pull back and kiss her forehead. "Eleazar is going to walk you and Peter out. I'll be home later. You did so good. I love you so much" I tell her. She nods to me and reaches out for Peter, who takes her hand and pulls her to him.
"I'll call you the minute we get in the house. I promise Ed." He tells me .
I nod to him, giving him a slap on the back. I give Bella another soft kiss on her lips before they walk away.
We all stand still, watching as Eleazar leads them out of the door. Once they are out, dad turns to Charlie, and with the sickest, hardest look on his face, he says. "Now, the fun begins!"
Well? What did you think? Let me know. Maybe, if you guys are really good...there may be an extra posting tomorrow...maybe. Tell me what you all think.