Chapter 35

~Edward~

Orange is an extraordinary color.

I'd often sought out the hue to photograph because of the way it translated onto the printed page. Vibrant, full of life and heat, passion and energy. It would give that pop to an image that was maybe stark otherwise.

The color is abundant in nature. A shade of it can be found in almost everything organic that graces this earth. Majestic sunrises and sunsets being the most obvious that comes to mind. It also shows its beauty in flowers, fruit, vegetables, dirt, insects, leaves. Human hair can be kissed by orange as can the soft fur of an animal.

But when the orange is angry, you feel its fury and hear its roar. It singes you and makes you yell. It frightens you, captures you, panics you until you're backed into a corner, huddled underneath a mountain of crumbling debris, waiting to die until Emmett pulls you out.

My heart was beating outside of my chest cavity, back in Afghanistan, huddled in that corner with me as I stared at the ceiling of what I was trying to convince myself was my plain, boring bedroom in Kansas. The air crackled and moved with the intensity as waves of orange flickered against the surface above me. I flinched as I heard boards falling and reached instinctively out to my left, searching for Bella in the glow.

My hand came up empty.

Sitting straight up, my thoughts cleared, and I realized the fire wasn't as close as I'd imagined, but it was here somewhere, licking itself onto my bedroom walls to tease me and torture me.

The deer was at the window, braying and clicking its hooves against the wood boards.

The shed. The darkroom. Bella.

I jumped up and ran to the open window, instantly squeezing my eyes shut at the brightness that assaulted my still-healing eye. The fire wasn't close, wasn't on my property, but it was in my field.

Bella's house was lit up like a bonfire. I could see the flames shooting up out the first floor window, engulfing the porch, and looking to feast itself upon the rest of the structure.

"Bella!" I called out the window. Nothing.

The deer followed me, tripping along the way as I ran down the steps, calling her name over and over again. I told myself she wouldn't go over there in the night to retrieve things to bring back here. She wouldn't go to light a candle to see and trip on that missing piece of rug. She wouldn't—

My bare feet touched the porch as I burst out the door, still calling her name, but I stopped short when I saw a small, dark shadow standing in front of the burning house. "Bella!" I yelled louder, hands cupping my mouth, shouting over the grass.

The figure moved, raising its hands high above its head, and that's when I knew.

She'd sent that sad old house to its death.

Running across the scratchy field, I pulled up behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist, pulling her back with me. I could feel the intense heat from the fire, and her clothes were flame-warmed where I touched them as her hands came up and rested on my arms, her fingers digging into my skin to hold me there with her.

"Bella, what did you do." It was a statement, not a question. Her eyes were dancing in the light, her mouth in a tight line. There was soot on her cheek, bits of ash in her hair. My flak jacket was swimming on her, and my digital camera hung from her neck. Confusion riddled me, but I couldn't piece it all together.

"Good riddance," she said, just loud enough for me to hear. With a loud crack, the porch beam split and fell, sending embers up to catch parts not yet on fire. It was spreading fast. I pulled her further back, both of us stepping on the discarded items that lay dead in the field.

"Bella, we have to get away from here." My digital camera bumped into my wrist as I tried lifting her, but she squirmed out of my grasp and took two steps closer to the house. She stood eerily still, her hair swirling and twisting from the heat of the ever expanding flame.

"Bella, we have to go!" I went to pull her again just as she reached into the pocket of my jacket and held something between her fingers. My eyes squinted to see what it was against the brightness that stood in front of us, but I'd seen enough spent bullets to know exactly what it was.

"Is that—" She glared at me, the beauty of the orange and red lighting up the fury in her face, and I could do nothing but shut up. She rolled it back and forth but didn't answer before she threw it as hard as she could into the open flame coming out of the kitchen window.

"Fuck this house," she spit out before she bent down and grabbed something from the pile at our feet and threw that in too.

"Fuck my mother." Another blind toss into the flames.

"Fuck my sad, sorry life. Fuck this stupid town. Fuck the whole horrible world."

She became more furious with each item, circling the trash, throwing things to feed the fire. Some made it in and some fell short as she hurled and screamed. I could do nothing but watch and make sure she didn't get too close. Reason dictated that we should call the fire department, but I was frozen in place, watching her rid herself of demons she'd long suffered.

I wasn't going to take this away from her.

She stopped and stared down at something I couldn't see before slowly bending to pick it up. A broken and grotesque pale face stared back at her, one eye gone clear out of its head.

The baby doll.

"And fuck you most of all."

She threw that thing with such force, it knocked out the last remaining piece of clapboard hanging from the doorway. I swore the fire kicked up in the spot where the doll landed, burning brighter and hotter than any other part in this monstrous destruction.

Tears left streaks in the ever-growing layer of soot that covered her, but there was relief on her face. A peace I don't know I'd ever seen on her except maybe when she was developing her film. Like she'd read my mind, she grabbed the camera that hung from her neck and stared down at it. Her eyes lifted to mine, and a smile crossed her features. She took the camera from her neck and held it out to me like a dead cat by its tail.

I took it from her silently, the heft and weight of it bigger than the actual parts that made it. Bella's house held monsters. Monsters she was now burning into nothingness to release her from the ghostly arms of things that tried to hold her back.

Emmett in this camera was the arm that choked me every single minute of every single day.

With no other thought, I threw my camera straight into the flame, right on top of where that doll was burning stronger and faster than anything. Fire shot up red, yellow, and orange as a black plume of thick smoke rose to the ceiling before disappearing behind another curtain of the inferno.

I felt Bella's hand slip into mine, and we watched that house burn burn as all the things that had tortured and maimed us screamed and wailed.

Wailed and screamed. Not just the things. It was behind us now, getting louder. We looked at each other, and the blue of police lights lit up one side of her face as the orange danced on the other.

"I love you," I said, gripping her fingers tight. The blue got closer and more intense, the sirens deafening, and I couldn't hear her, but she said it back.

"I love you," she mouthed and gave me a small smile.

The cop car pulled up right behind us with a screech of its brakes.

The party was over.

Mad love to LayAtHomeMom, Hadley Hemingway, and CarrieZM for making us pretty.

Enjoy, and leave us your thoughts!

HB&PB