15
Carlisle waited until Bella and Edward were safely upstairs before he turned to Jasper, and asked what he knew everyone in the room was wondering, "Did you find the sick, son-of-a-bitch?"
"No," Jasper muttered, walking over and pulling Alice into his arms, burying his face in her hair. "Al."
"I know, babe," Alice whispered, holding him against her. "We all feel it right now."
Jasper pressed his lips against hers before he leaned away, kept his arm around her waist, and turned toward everyone else, his eyes landing on Rosalie last. "Tell me about Emily Young and Leah Clearwater."
"Emily and Leah?" Rosalie asked, shaking her head. "Didn't really know them very well. They were a few years younger than me, I think. Cousins, maybe. They lived on the reservation. Still do as far as I know."
"Who are Emily Young and Leah Clearwater?" Carlisle asked, almost regretting it immediately as Jasper looked at him with absolute revulsion. "Jay, what did you find out today?"
"Emily Young and Leah Clearwater were two little girls, who Sam Uley molested when they were only seven and eight years old," he said, thickly struggling to keep his tears from falling. "Leah . . ."
"Leah what?" Emmett asked. "Leah, what, Jay?"
"She committed suicide after Sam Uley . . . killed her father. I believe her father, Harry, and Sam's uncle, Billy, lured Sam into the woods to try to kill him because of what he had done to the girls, but he killed Harry first. This was a couple years after he kidnapped Bella, after he killed Charlie and Renee, Rosalie."
Rosalie brought her hand to her mouth as she looked from him to James. "Did you know Sam had done that to those girls? You said Dad thought there was something off about Sam? Was that it? Did you both know?"
"No, sweetheart, I promise. If Charlie or I had known Sam had done anything like that, we would have made sure the police knew about it. Charlie just didn't like the way he looked at you girls, that's all," James insisted, and looked at Jasper. "How do you know this?"
"I had a conversation with Jacob Black, who confirmed that Sam Uley left town the same night Charlie and Renee were murdered, the night Bella was kidnapped. I believe he molested the girls before that night, though. I think they were his first victims, and for some fucked up reason, the Tribal Council covered it up, and when Sam showed back up two years later, Harry decided to take him out himself, but Sam beat him to it. Jacob also told me that he believes Sam killed Billy, though there's no real proof. I think Sam Uley is a psychopath."
"Wait, why would the Tribal Council cover up the molestation of two little girls?" Carlisle asked. "Those were their girls, weren't they? How could they just . . . overlook something as disgusting as that? He destroyed those girls' lives, for fuck sake!"
"I don't know, but I'm going to find out," Jasper said, shaking his head. "Emily Young lives here in Seattle now. Newton and Crowley, the detectives from Forks, are going to meet me tomorrow and we are going to go talk to her, see what she can tell us about Sam Uley."
"So what do we do in the meantime?" Esme asked, causing everyone to look at her. "It won't take long before Sam Uley realizes that she's gone. He's going to be looking for her, don't you think? I don't want to be the . . . naysayer here, but every minute that girl is here, puts all of us at risk. Especially Beth."
"Beth?" Rosalie asked. "You think he'd come after Beth?"
Esme shook her head. "No, but I think if Bella fears Sam will take Beth away from her, from us, like he did her baby, Bella will take off with Beth, to keep her safe."
"You really think she had a baby with him?" Rosalie asked in horror. "She's only sixteen, for fuck sake!"
"She all but told me she had, Rosalie," Carlisle admitted, causing everyone in the room to turn toward him. He could see the hurt and disgust filling each of their eyes, which he knew matched his. "When we laid Beth down for her nap this afternoon, she asked me why he took her away."
"But she's only sixteen," Rosalie cried, wrapping her arms around herself. "That means . . ."
"That means sometime within the last, say four, maybe five years, he got her pregnant and she gave birth to a little girl that he then took from her," Carlisle said.
"Oh, my God, no," Rosalie sobbed, turning and falling into Emmett's arms.
Carlisle hated that he was adding to her pain, stacking onto the horror of what her little sister had been enduring over the last eight years, but they had to face facts about what she had been through. Bella Swan had been kidnapped, raped repeatedly, and abused so severely, she may never recover from the horror she suffered.
"I'm going to reach out to . . . Shit, I don't know. I'm going to get people looking for the baby, see if we can find her, but we need a time frame, you know? Four, five years is a lot of data to search for," Jasper said, giving Carlisle a look.
He groaned, but nodded, understanding that he needed to push her to give him more information. But it scared him, pushing her too hard. She had already given them so much, and she'd only been with them a day. Still, though, if there was any hope of catching Sam Uley, finding her baby, maybe saving her fractured soul, he would try. He would try for Edward, who needed them to save her as much as he needed to be the one holding her hand.
"While you do that, I'm going to put an APB out on Sam Uley. Maybe we'll get lucky and the dumbfuck will get stopped speeding, or running a red light," Jasper groused.
"Something tells me taking Sam Uley down won't be that easy," Carlisle groused, before adding, "I'm going to reach out to Peter, see if he can come by tomorrow."
Jasper nodded. "Probably not a bad idea. In the meantime, I think we should be heading out."
"I can't leave her," Rosalie wailed, looking from him to Emmett. "Can't we stay here?"
"She's already so overwhelmed, Rosalie," Emmett said, bringing his hand up to her face. "We can come back tomorrow, all right? Let's give her a chance to breathe."
"But . . ." Rosalie shook her head. "Fine, I guess you're right."
"Rosalie, I promise we'll keep her safe," Esme murmured, walking over and placing her hand on her shoulder. "She's our family now, just like you are."
Rosalie sobbed harder as she nodded, and Carlisle knew it had been difficult for her to be around all of them. Her family had been tore away from her, leaving her alone. At least when their parents were killed, he had his brothers, Esme, and Alice. Rosalie only had James, and Carlisle didn't know how they survived such heartbreak. He'd only just met Bella, and the thought of losing her had his own heart hurting.
"We'll be back around nine, if that's okay," Emmett said, giving Carlisle a look.
"Of course," he murmured, and looked toward the stairs. "I'll, um, go see what I can find out."
"Just call me, okay?" Jasper said, tightening his arm around Alice.
"Thanks, Jay."
Carlisle swallowed against the lump in his throat as he walked to the stairs, knowing he was push Bella harder than she needed to be pushed, but if they had any hope of finding her baby, he would have to. The girl had already been through too much, gave them more than she should have had to. And now, he was going to be pouring salt into her wounds, and he'd hate himself forever for breaking her even more.
The door to Edward's room was open and Carlisle could hear Clair De Lun playing. Elizabeth's favorite, and Edward's, too. How many times had he found them in the living room, listening to it on repeat? While Elizabeth would never have admitted it, Edward had been her favorite of her four children. They bonded over their love of music and art. Of course, Elizabeth loved each of them, but Edward had been her favorite. Perhaps, that was why Edward all but shut down after the accident. He blamed himself, even if nobody else did.
Stopping outside of the room, Carlisle took a deep breath. He could do this, for her, for the baby. When he walked into the room, Edward was laying back on the bed, but Bella was sitting on the floor, next to the bed with her knees pulled up against her chest. Her eyes were closed, but he could tell she wasn't asleep. The bond between the two shocked Carlisle; however it worried him, too. Edward was older and more mature than Bella, who at sixteen sometimes spoke and behaved much younger than her years. He wondered if the abuse and torment she suffered had caused her to stop developing mentally and emotionally. That would be a question for Peter, though.
Carlisle cleared his throat, causing both of them to open their eyes and look at him. Edward tensed, while Bella just stared. "Hey," he whispered, sitting on the chair next to the desk. "You okay, honey?"
She nodded. "I was gentle when I laid her down," she said, proudly. "She didn't even frown."
Carlisle smiled. "She likes you."
"She does?" Bella asked, her entire face lighting up.
"Oh, yeah, of course she does," he assured her. Carlisle took another deep breath. "Honey, I need . . . I need to ask you about . . . about your baby."
Just like that, her face darkened and she tightened her arms around her knees, her eyes shifted toward the door, like she was contemplating making a run for it.
"I know you don't want to tell me," Carlisle added, sliding off the chair and sitting on the floor in front of her. "But we . . . all of us want to find your baby."
She shook her head. "He took her from me. He said I didn't deserve her, said that I wasn't a good girl, but I was. I did everything he told me to, even . . . even when it hurt, I did what he wanted."
"I know, honey, I know," Carlisle said, his eyes filling with tears.
Edward slipped off the bed and sat next to her, taking her hand in his. She looked up at him, her eyes widening. "You are an amazing girl, Bella. Amazing. Look how gentle you are with Beth, sweetheart. And, um, Carlisle and Jasper, they want to help you find your baby, your little girl, because she deserves to know that you are . . . you are her mother, Bella."
"Mother?" Bella asked, whispering. "I'm her mother?"
Edward nodded. "She grew inside your belly, didn't she?"
Slowly, almost painfully, she nodded. "For a long time. I didn't know what was happening, why my belly was getting so big. Then one night, I felt . . . I felt this pain, here," she said, dropping her hand between her legs and body, flattening her palm against her stomach. "I cried, I cried because it hurt so much. Felt like . . . felt like I was being ripped apart. I tried to be quiet, I really did, but I screamed until I couldn't scream anymore."
"Was he there?" Carlisle asked, causing her to tear her eyes away from Edward and look at him. "Did he help you push her out from inside of you?"
Her eyes widened as she slowly shook her head. "He was gone. I tried to stop the pain. I didn't want to be bad, but I couldn't stop it, and . . . then she was there."
"When she came out, Bella," Carlisle whispered, "did she cry?"
"Just a little," she insisted, frantically. "I held her against me, told her I was sorry that she fell onto the floor. I tried to catch her, I promise, but she was covered in gross stuff."
"No, it's good that she cried," he told her. "Baby are supposed to cry, Bella."
"They are?"
He nodded. "Crying is how baby talk, how they tell us what they need. Like Beth when she wakes up and needs you to hold her, remember? Did we get mad when she cried?"
Bella shook her head.
"Because she's supposed to cry," he added. "Now, how long had you been holding her when he came back?"
She frowned and shook her head. "I don't know. A long time."
"When you had her, was it light outside? Or dark?"
Bella's eyes met his once more. "It was dark. Always dark inside."
"He kept you inside?" Carlisle asked, and she nodded. "What was the inside like?"
Bella frowned. "Cold. So cold all the time. The ground was dirty, so I put her inside my shirt, holding her against me to keep her warm. But when he came in, he said I was hurting her, that I hadn't been gentle enough, and he took her from me. Left me there alone for a long time, too."
"Honey, do you know how old you are right now?" Carlisle asked.
Her eyes widened and she looked from him to Edward before she shook her head. "I was eight when he took me away. It was almost my birthday. I wanted to have my party at the roller rink in Port Angeles. Daddy kept saying he would think about it, that it was expensive."
"That was eight years ago," Carlisle said, drawing her attention back to him. "You're sixteen now, Bella, and I really, really need you to think about how old you might have been when your baby was born, okay?"
Bella frowned, somehow pulling her knees even closer to her body, and her eyes closed. "It's been six hundred and eighty-five days since he took her from me."
Carlisle reached out and placed his hand on the side of her face, causing her eyes to open. "I'm sorry he took her from you, Bella, but I'm going to find her, okay?"
"Promise?" she sobbed.
Though, he knew he shouldn't, he heard himself saying, "I promise, honey, I promise."
Edward wrapped Bella in his arms and pulled her onto his lap, giving Carlisle a look that said he'd better not break that vow. Carlisle stood and headed out of Edward's room, but instead of going downstairs, he found himself standing in Beth's room, watching his daughter sleep peacefully. Beth still lived in a world where monsters didn't exist and people like Sam Uley were only a myth.
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