A/N: The chapter may contain content that is triggering for some readers. Read with caution or skip.


Chapter 14 - The threat

Don't look at it.

Don't look at it.

Don't touch it.

Don't-

Her thumb grazed carefully over the- stumps? What was it even called? The part of her left hand that once held two fingers.

Now, it was void, except for several cruel stitches. She didn't dare to count how many there were or why her hand looked so shattered.

"I can't find them," she heard him say in frustration.

She glanced back at him. He was bent down in a closest that held barely any item. A few clothes, sanitary items, socks.

"Can't find what?" she muttered in still a raw voice from not being used for so long. She was sitting in the wheelchair, trying to gather all the missing pieces of her memories together.

"Your fucking shoes," he nearly groaned.

Such a strange thing to be searching, she thought.

"I can barely walk anyway," she said softly.

Did she really need to put on shoes?

He brought his eyes slowly up at her and looked so... so... pissed? Why on earth was he so angry about a trivial thing such as shoes?

His eyes turned even colder if that was possible and he walked up to behind her wheelchair and pushed her out of the room.

She glanced around the hallways which were so quiet and dim. The hospital didn't look familiar, but she started noticing the smell of hospital. It always had a peculiar smell.

But she was too weak to really take in the amount of rooms, the people around, certain gasps.

They reached the elevator and waited. Six, she noticed on the digital board.

Then the number continued up. Seven. Eight.

She started to feel as if she was being choked. They were in a building with at least eight floor. And she wasn't sure which floor they were on now. If the elevator was coming towards them, that could even mean more than eight floors. However, if the elevator was first travelling upwards, before descending to their floor, that could mean they were on a lower floor. Lower to the ground.

Safety.

She hadn't given it any thought that she was currently in a building with several floors...

Unsafe.

"What on earth?" she heard behind her.

"Is that patient Swan?"

"It is!"

"-a miracle-"

She noticed the numbers going upwards, towards ten, eleven-.

"-alright? Miss Swan?"

Her skin, in contact with other hands-

Her eyes, blinded by a light.

Voices around her, speaking louder and louder.

Edward, meeting her eyes. He was suddenly standing several yards away from her, no longer behind her wheelchair.

She gasped at the change around her.

Would they hurt her?

"I was bringing her down for some fucking fresh air. Is that a fucking crime?"

She heard him clearly, but those around her much less. They wore coats, white coats, white pants.

They smelled foul, like antispectic.

A crime.

A fucking crime.

There had been a crime, and she was involved in it. She could see Emmett's blood on her hands again, his blood soaking through her pants, wetting her knees.

She could feel pain in her fingers so badly she instinctively reached for her left hand, for her fingers, to protect them from the tormenting pain-

But she was grabbing for air, because her left hand didn't hold five fingers no longer.

She choked out loud at the sight.

And then she noticed masks, and caps around their heads, and all she could see next were just eyes.

Angry eyes, sadistic eyes, reaching for her hand, putting a thumbscrew around it and breaking her fingers.

But her finger's weren't there anymore...

Where was she?

The building was so familiar to the CC, but it smelled different.

She noticed a sign that she knew all too well. It was an exit sign, locating the stairs.

Stairs are safe. The bring safety.

Last time she noticed stairs, she was in the CC, running downstairs. She ran downstairs and tried to save all those people.

Even though they all died...

They were all dead...

She tried so hard to save them, but it had been in vain.

She jumped out the wheelchair and she elbowed, kicked, and kneed everyone that came in her way, and ran.

Shoes, or no shoes. She ran on her bare feet as fast as she could.

She ran away from the eyes, the masks, the torture.

Her body hit the door as she pushed it and came in sight with the stairs.

Up.

She started running upstairs. Common sense told her to get down, but her body brought her up several flights of stairs.

Until her body collapsed on the ground and she felt a sharp pain in her ankle and next her wrist.

Need to go to the top floor.

She quickly glanced at her surroundings and noticed the stair hall, but which floor was she on? Fruitlessly she tried to stand up, but the pain in her foot was too much.

Need to get to the top floor to make sure he is safe.

Why exactly, though? Who was she trying to save?

No matter how she tried to go up by crawling, she kept being interrupted by the new pain in her ankle and wrist.

It was agony.

"You already saved them," she heard from beneath her.

Before her was suddenly those green, familiar eyes again.

They used to be sweet ones, before turning evil.

"Bella, you're in the hospital," he said with urgency in his voice. "You're not in the CC. James is dead, remember?"

He held out his hand. She brought her eyes to it, and next back to his face.

What's happening?

She remembered this man. His hands had been on her body once. Pushing in a painful part of her stomach. She reached for her stomach and noticed it was tender upon her own touch.

"You tortured me!" she snapped. "You're one of them!"

His hand dropped next to his body and her next step was crawling up the stairs, away from him.

She made it up a few stair steps until she heard him again.

"What did I do?" he said sharply. "Remind me."

Her body froze at his request. Remind him... even if her memories were tangled up.

He hurt her, she knew it. But how exactly?

"I was hurt," she said. "You pushed your hands in my stomach..."

"Why?" he said in an insisting voice.

"I don't know!" she said, turning to him. "I don't remember!"

She felt terribly confused and truly hated this - hated her life.

"I do," he said, holding her eyes sharply. "I can help you remember."

"Liar!" she snapped. "You've lied to me before. I know you did."

He shook his head, and said, "I won't."

"You will!"

"Am I hurting you now?"

"You did!"

"Am I-" he said sharply, "hurting you now?"

She pondered it quietly, realizing her weak position on the stairs with her ankle hurt and her wrist aching badly.

The man above her instead stood tall and strong, showing no signs of unsafety.

He could hurt her, if he wanted to.

But he didn't.

"But you did," she repeated weakly. "You're a liar who hurt me."

It had never been much fun with this man. She remembered that much. He never cared for her. He never really comforted her.

He never really gave her what she wanted.

And more importantly, he never gave her what she needed.

She dropped her head in her hands. Tears streamed from her eyes. It was a pain she didn't know she could feel. There was a pain inside her without an explanation. She couldn't remember what hurt her so much.

It felt as if her heart was broken but she didn't understand why. She didn't know where all this pain was coming from.

It didn't matter how hard she pulled against her hair, it didn't make the pain go away.

The man above her cleared his throat uncomfortably.

She glanced up, afraid of the thumbscrew.

"Please don't hurt me," she sobbed, reaching for the pain in her fingers again-

Only there weren't any fingers there, still.

They had. He had. Someone broke her.

Where are her fingers? Why are they gone?

He held a thumbscrew once... He had handed it to her. The man with the green eyes. He had mentioned the torture.

Her fingers hurt. Even if they weren't there.

She choked and couldn't contain the next round of tears. Her body shook with each sob.

The man above her bent through his knees and sat down, his back facing her.

They could no longer look at each other this way.

She sobbed, and sobbed, while watching his back carefully. He didn't move. He didn't say a thing.

That happened once before.

Somewhere, sometime... He waited for her. Even though he hurt her.

Her memory was a fog and she moved her head against the wall next to her.

She swung her head lightly against the wall. To find some relief. But it didn't hurt at all the first time.

Neither did it the second time.

Or the third, the forth.

She kept repeatedly hitting her head against the wall, losing count.

"Bella," came again that voice, only this time she spring to life because he held her.

She blinked quickly upon feeling both his hands lightly on either side of her face - his hands being so large they covered her cheeks, ears and even lightly touched her hair.

"Please stop hurting yourself," he said in a quiet voice.

She was gasping for air.

His touch scared her and she pushed him away, making sure he no longer touched her or held her face.

She remembered something instantly. It made her gasp out loud. This man above her wasn't Edward. His words, once loud and clear, rang in her mind, telling Bella to not address him so informally. They used to be formal. But at the same time, she remembered a time when he'd been sweet, and kind, and gentle-

It was only just a dream.

Her flashbacks were sweet ones and devilish ones. She tried to filter which ones were her reality and which ones were only a dream, or perhaps even nightmares.

She could see herself in his arms, enjoying his body against hers. But next she could see herself suffering, as she was remembering those green eyes.

Another sharp pain went to her fingers and she gasped at the pain, reaching with her right hand to the stumps of her left hand. She forced herself to keep breathing, breathing through the pain.

In the meantime, Mr Cullen's face darkened as he watched how Bella carefully unclenched her left hand and placed it behind her back where she couldn't see it.

Even if she couldn't see it, she felt another agonizing pain in her fingers and she sobbed at the reminder of the pain.

"What is hurting?" he asked, his eyes analyzing her intently.

She didn't answer.

"Clearly you're in pain," he said.

She dropped her eyes, feeling sick and tired.

"What do you care?" she said. "You are Mr Cullen, after all."

He raised an eyebrow at her comment, and said, "I'm not sure I understand what's that supposed to mean?"

She instantly regretted telling him that.

So she shook her head.

"I want to know what you meant," he said intently.

He didn't sound demanding nor angry. But still he made her nervous and she hated it.

"You were my boss," she said, trying her best to hide her anxiety. "You hate me. I know you're only here because you want to know what James threatened me with."

He stopped speaking all togheter and she snuck a quick glance at him.

Shocked, repulsed, angry - oh, no.

"I'm sorry, Mr Cullen" she said quickly.

"Don't," he all but growled. "Don't you ever, ever again apologize to me, ever again, Bella," he said with a pain laced voice. "And don't be nervous around me. Just don't."

No apologies?

Not be nervous around Mr Cullen?

She wondered if that meant he pitied her.

"Why do you call me Mr Cullen?" he asked, his voice less tense but still strange.

She froze at his strange question. What else could she call him?

"Because you told me," she said. "To call you Mr Cullen. That I shouldn't address you informally."

He had a strange look on his face, and didn't want to hear his thought.

"Don't mock me," she warned with tears in her eyes.

And that's what she feared - to be mocked again. It was something he often did and it was always unpleasant. Painful even. Yet she seemed to continue to explain.

"You used to call me Edward," he said, his eyes shifting. "Do you remember?"

She felt a strange crush in her heart.

"In those dreams of mine, yeah," she said quickly. "The ones I told you about because you manipulated into telling you about them with large money transfer deals. And sure, I know I'm too young for you, too ordinary, too simple. I know. I had dreams while I was in recovery and perhaps way before too. When I first came to your company. You're attractive and a wealthy man who owns an entire company. I dreamed about you. Fantasized about you. N-Not- not in a dirty way... But I mean... I'm the opposite- needed a job- saw you while wondering what it would be like to be with someone as you."

"Bella-" he snapped.

"I remember it all now," she said quickly, feeling like a fool.

His mouth dropped and he ran both hands through his hair.

"Right," he snapped, standing up. "Tell me what else you remember."

Why did he get on his feet?

She gulped nervously.

"I remember," she said, nodding.

He waited, raising his hands and waiting.

"Remember what?" he eventually asked.

"I remember what James threatened me with."

She remembered after her rant about her old fantasies of her and her boss.

He stood frozen for a moment.

"Tell me," he said slowly.

She glanced around and felt unsafe.

"Can we get out of here first?" she asked.

He seemed to want to disagree with her, but he nodded.

"Wait here. I'm getting a wheelchair."

He went for the door and then - she would be alone.

"Wait-" she called in panic. "Mr Cullen!"

He turned his face to her as he held the door open.

She was surprised to see his eyes had darkened a bit, and she started panicking.

For a moment, she was unable to speak as she wondered if he would leave -

And come back with a thumbscrew.

She shuddered hard and pulled against her left hand, trying to get rid of the pain. The pain was too much...

They kept breaking her fingers, over and over.

"Bella," he said gently, his voice snapping her back to reality.

She glanced up quickly in shock upon him using her name - so informally.

She could faintly see the ghost of a smile upon meeting her eyes. She could even see an old memory and feel an even older feeling that lasted for just a second - something familiar. But what was it? She couldn't grasp it.

"You won't just leave me here, right?" she asked, glancing at the stair hall.

She had lost all trust in people.

But thus far, this man seemed to genuinely not want to cause any harm.

All he wanted to know is what James had used as a threat.

"Just count to ten, Bella," he said, walking out the door.

She closed her eyes and shuddered, counting.

One...

Two...


Before the count of ten, he'd returned, helped her in a wheelchair.

After asking permission, he checked her ankle and wrist. Not broken, he told her. Sprained. He had placed an ice-pack around her ankle and tied it with some gauze. He had another ice pack, which she held against her right wrist.

But she dropped the ice pack instantly on the ground too.

She had asked him if more people would stop her again, touch her again-

"No," he had said. "I told them to back off after your panic attack which had you leaping up three staircases."

He reached down and handed her back her ice pack for her wrist.

She shook her head.

"I can't," she muttered. "I can't hold that thing with my l-left hand. It feels... I can't."

"Okay," he said quickly. "That's alright."


They were now in front of an elevator again and she breathed hard and fast.

"Which floor is this?" she asked.

"Eleven," he said.

She breathed, harder and faster.

Elevators were one of her nightmares.

She'd been brought back to that dark, empty box for several times.

Her eyes found the emergency exit, again.

"Hold my hand," he said, his hand appearing by her right shoulder.

She nervously reached her right hand to his hand by her shoulder.

Her hand was weak, unsure what to do. His much larger hand was strong and held hers tightly.

He didn't let go as he pushed her inside the elevator, not as they descended down and not as he pushed her out the hospital.

He knew the elevator scared her. But he didn't mention it and didn't make her feel worse.

He simply was there.

This man really badly wanted to know what James had threatened her with.


The cold air hit her face. She glanced up, noticing the stars. The night seemed darker than usual and she noticed it was new moon.

There were no people around at the entrance of the hospital.

Then again, who went out in the middle of the night?

She didn't speak as she let him guide her in the wheelchair towards a few seats when he stopped. He sat down across from her and looked at her.

"So," he said. "You wanted to be outside first."

She nodded.

"We are outside now."

He kept making eye contact, but she was too nervous to say it out loud.

She might even be unable to really say it to him.

"What did he hold against you, Bella?" he asked, a slightly softer voice for the first time.

She remembered that soft voice. She had many fantasies about that softer voice.

It comforted her falsely. Because it wasn't real. It had been a fantasy. And it was too strange that he kept calling her Bella.

He never called her Bella before.

"I won't mock you," he said quietly. "I know that's one of your fears."

"Why? Why won't you mock me?" she said with a forced, bitter smile.

"I won't," he said, guilt present in his voice.

"You could," she said, realizing he didn't answer her question. "You used to mock me a lot. You enjoyed mocking me. You were never kind to me. Right now, too, I'm not sure why you're pretending to be kind to me? It doesn't make any sense."

He abruptly stood up, turning his back to her.

"Fuck me," he said in a low voice.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly.

She found it strange to hear his breaths come out shakily.

"I didn't mean to anger you, Mr Cullen," she said, frozen in space.

He flinched and let out an angry groan. Why did this anger him so much? He didn't deny it. He used to mock her. Her body, her hair, her mind, her fantasies. Everything about her.

Suddenly he turned around abruptly again and sat down where he previously sat.

She watched him carefully, a tad bit unsure if she should continue.

He wanted to know what James' threat had been.

But what she wanted to know, is why Mr Cullen's eyes were no longer green.

His eyes were glassy, as if he were ill.

"Are you feeling unwell?" she said unsure.

She felt strange asking him, and it felt foreign too. She couldn't remember, real or dream, ever asking him how he was really doing.

He always had this arrogance around him. He always seemed to feel superior to anyone, really. Especially to her.

He leaned forward.

"I've been unwell for a very long time, Bella," he said with a meaningless smile.

He put more force into calling her by her name, and it made her wonder, why do you call me Bella? Just like how he'd wondered why she called him Mr Cullen.

They were in a strange situation where she addressed him so formal, and he kept addressing her informally.

When his fingers reached both his eyes quickly and wiped, that's when she realized what was wrong with him.

"Are you crying?" she said.

What on earth?

Her heart fluttered at the sight.

That didn't add up to any of it.

"Are you perhaps wondering if this is one more of your dreams or fantasies? Do you want to touch my hand to see if I will vanish?"

He reached out his hand and waited.

"For the past months, you've been on countless drugs," he said. "From sleep medication to anti-psychotics. They've been confusing you, terrorizing you, immobilizing you. Right now you're in withdrawal. No wonder you can't see the difference between reality and dreams."

She wouldn't touch him. She refused...

She sat down on her hands, which he noticed, as his hand was still up in the air.

"Scared to touch me?" he said with a humorless laugh.

She shook her head.

"What's stopping you then?" he asked.

"I rather like the part where you are in pain too," she said. "I don't have any memories, real or fake, of you crying. It's actually-"

He shook his head and leapt forward.

Brushing the back of his hand across her cheek quickly.

They maintained eye contact.

She inhaled sharply and froze.

"Why did you do that?" she asked in shock, dropping her eyes to the ground, hugging herself tightly.

She rather liked this moment, and she dreaded it might now disappear.

"Why do you think?" he asked pointedly. "To help you. To give you the truth."

This was real then? She was with Edward Cullen, outside the hospital, in the middle of the night?

The stars above her didn't lie. The massive building next to her really stood there. The pain in her ankle and wrist from her fall was real.

But above all, he touched her and didn't vanish. He still sat across from her.

"But that doesn't make any sense," she whispered.

"I need to set a few things straight with you," he said in a strong voice. "I won't mock you. And I'm not here to pretend anything. I want to be here. If you don't or can't tell me what James threatened me with, then don't feel pressured."

She took a deep breath, glancing at her surroundings nervously.

"But I would really appreciated it if you could tell me, perhaps?" he said with a strained voice.

It scared her to tell him out loud.

"In fact," he said. "I'm desperate to know."

"You never really told me why, though," she muttered with a shrug.

"Because I wasn't always Mr Cullen to you," he said.

She glanced down at her knees. "You were though. The rest was just my fantasies."

"No, Bella-" he had begun intensely.

And it drove her mad. She was sick of him trying to convince her otherwise.

She took a few shaky breaths and noticed that the man before her watched her with confused eyes.

"He somehow found out that my weakness is you," she said, trying to find back her voice.

The memory was clear as day. James was in her apartment.

She had been fantasizing about a date with Edward. But she didn't quite understand how James found out. Maybe he had read her diary? But her diary was pen and paper... Huh? How could James have known about her weakness?

"I know it's silly," she said, trying to hold back tears.

"What exactly did he threaten you with, Bella?" he asked sharply, his voice reminding her of reality.

She was unable to shake of the feeling as he called her Bella.

"He s-said- if I don't listen to him- he would-"

She gasped several breaths, unable to continue.

Another sharp pain, in her smallest finger. Even though her finger was no longer there.

Her eyes remained fixated on her feet.

She couldn't continue.

"Why can't you say the words, Bella?" he said.

"Stop calling me Bella!" she snapped.

She reached for her left hand and wanted the pain there to stop too.

"Does it remind you of your lovely dream in my apartment?"

She froze and cried, "Don't mock me-! You said you wouldn't-"

"It's not mock when I agree it was a lovely dream."

She buried her face in her hands and her heart crushed into a million pieces.

"I liked how you and my dog Hailey got off so well," he continued. "Do you remember Hailey. She slept by you the entire night."

Hailey. That warm, soft brown fur.

"She misses you more than I can describe in words."

She did remember.

But how could it be a memory and not a dream?

"I'm not mocking you," he repeated. "I'm saying that dream was perhaps my loveliest memory of you and I."

"Did I tell you about it?" she asked in shame. "That dream?"

He sighed hard and said, "I know it's hard for you to believe it's a memory of us. We were together, Bella. It wasn't a dream."

Of course that day wasn't a real memory.

She tried to rationalize it.

"I must've told you all the details of the dream," she told him.

He watched her for several seconds, before he finally said, "I'll prove it to you that we were real. However fucking brief we lasted before James fucking broke us apart, you and I were real."

She froze at his hard, confusing words.


After he sent a text, he just sat with his eyes staring at the sky.

They were both quiet.

She wasn't even sure why he bothered to convince her.

But it was the perfect moment to rip off the band-aid between them. She kept her eyes downcast.

This is it.

"James said he'd kill you if I didn't listen to him."

She could remember how he said it.

It had been a simple threat.

"James said he'd send your rotting bodypieces to where ever I would dare to fled, if I didn't listen."

She could remember all the nightmares of rotting bodypieces and Edward's dead head sent to her in a box. She could remember it so well.

And that same pain was back in her fingers.

"James said your death would be on my mind, if I didn't listen."

Of course she had to do everything James said after he told her that.

"James said your death would last several days, though- uhm- that he'd torture you slowly to death and he'd make sure I'd see you a-a-and hear you slowly die."

She swallowed, remembering the day as if it were yesterday.

"And next he showed me the girl you were with once. He had a video on his phone. He showed me how he had tortured her to death. It was a video that lasted for several hours."

She heard a faint bark in the background.

"He forced me to watch every second of it," she said. "He kept torturing her even after she was dead. There was barely anything left of her body once he was finished."

She couldn't repress her shudder.

"I wasn't able to tell you the truth, because I didn't want James to torture you to death. I couldn't- bear the thought. I just couldn't. Even if I meant nothing to you and was just an employee, I-"

Mr Cullen abruptly stood up, interrupting her confession, and ran several yards towards a lane filled with bushes. His hand was on his stomach as his body jerked.

And he retched loudly. He coughed, and he retched.

Without warning, a dog yelped and touched her left broken hand. It gave her a kiss, a nose shoved in her hand, and much, much heartbroken enthusiasm.

She was scared of dogs, right? But why didn't this one have her running up the hills?

"Hailey?" she muttered, feeling that strange feeling when she was inside a dream, realizing she was about to wake up any moment soon.

But Hailey kissed, touched and greeted her and Bella remained in the moment.

She wasn't dreaming Hailey.

Hailey was real.

Hailey was Edward's dog.

Edward? Or Mr Cullen?

She met Hailey before in reality. She could now vaguely remember.

It wasn't only just a dream.

And Edward-

Edward was near the bushes still.