37

"I want to taste you on my tongue. He told us you tasted divine, like the sweetest wine. Oh, yes, I've wanted to taste his angel so fucking bad, Isabella."

Bella whimpered, her left hand coming up to the side of her head, fisting her hair and giving it a hard tug. She needed to get Angela out of her head, get the feeling of her hands off her body, and get the sensation of the knife handle being shoved inside her body out of her mind.

Why would she do that? How could they have touched them so violently? How could she have put that knife up to her throat, slid it down her body, and then to use the handle to penetrate her? Did she just not consider how that would make her feel? Did she just not care? Were they just crazy? Or was there more to Ben and Angela?

Releasing her hair, she wrapped her good arm tighter around her knees, the darkness both comforting and terrifying. The closet had been one of the only places she felt safe, where she hadn't felt like people were around her all the time. She had spent so much time inside the closet Charlie had put those little glow-in-the-dark stars all over the walls and ceiling.

"This is a special place, Bee. Somewhere to go where you can breathe," he said.

But the closet wasn't a safe place, not without Edward.

She wanted him.

She needed him.

Yet, she hadn't been strong enough for him, had she? Ben put himself inside his mouth — used her against him. How would he ever look at her again without seeing what he had to endure because she needed him to keep her safe?

Tears burned her eyes, tears she struggled to keep from falling. She failed, of course, and the moisture burning her eyes trickled down her face, seeping into her cotton sweatpants. It had taken two days to find them, to 'save' them. Ben and Angela demolished her home, violated her body, destroyed her soul, and now she was alone.

Completely and utterly alone.

Except for Edward.

She still had Edward, she hoped.

"Where is she?"

Bella leaned her head backward when she heard Rosalie's voice. She opened her mouth to reply, to call out to her, but then she heard him say, "She doesn't want to talk to you."

"What? Where is she?"

"She doesn't want to talk to you. She doesn't want to talk to anyone."

"Bee! Bee, where are you?"

Bella slid up the back wall of the closet when she heard Edward say, "Get out! Just get out!"

She pushed the door open, drawing their attention to her. Edward stood between her and Rosalie, his arms up in front of him like he was getting ready to fight. Rosalie shifted her eyes from him to Bella, down to the cast on her right hand, and her lips began to tremble.

"Bee."

But Bella didn't say anything as she moved to stand behind Edward, gripping the back of his shirt. Hesitantly, she urged him to follow, which he did. Together, the two turned toward the closet and entered as Bella reached around him and pulled the door closed. Edward pivoted his body and looked down, his eyes meeting hers.

"We stopped them, didn't we?" she asked.

"We did." Edward brought his hands to her face, cradling her gently against him. "We did it together." He shifted his eyes around the closet and smiled. "This is nice."

"It's just a closet."

Edward dropped his hands from her face, letting them rest on her hips. "Still nice."

"Guess so." Bella pulled away and stepped backward against the wall, sliding to the floor and pulling her knees against her chest. "Are you just going to stand there?"

"You want me to stay?"

Bella nodded.

"Okay."

Edward sat next to the door like he was preparing his exit strategy, which he probably was. After all, it had been her fault that he'd found himself inside that cement prison. She had gone to him for help finding her stalker. They hadn't been targeting him until she asked for help. And she was the one who refused to stay with his parents; she was the one who needed to be alone with him. She wanted to be with just him, only him. She had put them out in the open, and they had paid the ultimate price, hadn't they?

"Do you ride any of those horses?"

Bella laughed. "I do. Have you ever ridden a horse?"

"No."

"Never?"

Edward shook his head.

"Wow."

"Why does that surprise you?"

"I don't know. I mean, with the cabin and your family, you just seem like the kind of people who go horseback riding."

"They have, but I was always too scared."

"Suppose that makes sense."

"It does?"

She nodded. "You can ride one if you want. Charlie . . ." She automatically brought her hand up to her throat, reaching for the silver locket, but it wasn't there anymore. She couldn't put it back on after learning he had placed a tracking device inside. It felt tainted now, even if they had used it to find them. "He never trusted me, did he?"

"I don't know, Bella. Maybe a part of him has always been afraid that someone from the Gathering would find you, and he wouldn't be able to help. He spent the last twenty years trying to keep you safe, away from Marcus and his followers. He never even told Dad, and they had been partners. And in the end, the tracking device did lead to where we were being held, didn't it?"

"Not in time," she quipped.

"No, not in time."

Bella leaned her forehead against her knees. "Were they working alone, Edward? Are there more of them? Will we ever be free of the Gathering?"

"I don't know."

She leaned her head up just enough to look at him. "I'm sorry."

"Why are you sorry?"

"Because he . . . you let him . . . because of me. And I'm sorry he used me against you like that."

Edward frowned. "He would have just figured out a different way to hurt me. So would she, Bella. They . . . they were never going to stop until they killed us."

"Who do you think was inside my house?"

"Honestly, we may never know."

"The world thinks I'm dead." Bella leaned her forehead against her knees. "Probably be better if we kept letting them think that."

—TB—

They stayed hidden inside the closet for hours before their stomachs rumbled, and they realized they hadn't eaten in almost three days. Though Bella wasn't sure they weren't going to be camped in the hallway, waiting vigil for them, the closet was beginning to suffocate her, so when Edward suggested they go search for food, she placed her hand in his and allowed him to help her to her feet. When they walked out of the closet, her bedroom was dark, and the clock on the nightstand read half past three in the morning. She tightened her grip on him as the two walked out of her bedroom into the hallway, downstairs, and into the living room.

While nobody had been sitting outside her bedroom door, Felix was perched on the window seat next to the front window, his knees bent up in front of him, his arms tucked between them and his body. His eyes flickered from the window to her and Edward and then back to her. He stared at her momentarily before looking out the window again. Bella tightened her grip on Edward's hand and nudged him toward the kitchen, but the two stopped when they heard Felix speak.

"I waited a long time to kill him. A long fucking time, and he was already dead."

Bella looked back at him, finding him with his arms wrapped tightly around his knees. It was the only time she had seen the vulnerability inside him, the pain and grief he must have felt. Like her and Edward, Felix had been used and tossed away. Their parents had fled to keep them safe, but his mother had chosen to put him in the hands of the devils.

"I knew how I was going to do it, too," he whispered. "It was going to be painful. So fucking painful because he deserved pain. Like real pain for what he did to us, to all of us. All the kids who suffered at their hands. I wanted him to pay. I wanted him to fucking pay," Felix whimpered.

Edward shifted his eyes down to Bella before he said, "Me too."

"He came for you one night, for both of you," Felix said, looking out the window. "You were maybe three years old, and he came for you. Usually, Kebi or Sasha came for you, for us, but that night, he came for you personally. We lined up at the end of our beds like we were told; gotta follow the rules. And we waited as he walked past each and every single one of us. Every once in a while, he would pause. It was just long enough for the fear of being picked to set in. And then, he would move on to the next one and the next. Then he stopped in front of you two. Always you two, and he placed one hand on each of your faces, gesturing toward his own cheek. And then he would say, 'I pick you, Angels. I pick you.'And you started crying, and I wanted to stop him. I wanted to stop him from hurting you again, but I was just another kid, another one of their kids, so I stood back and watched as he led you toward the chapel. I was relieved he didn't choose me. Instead, he chose you."

Felix shook his head. "My mother came for me that night. Wrapped me in my blanket and carried me out of there, saved me from the monsters," he quipped his hand lifting to his hair, pulling against the dark locks. "I didn't want you to cry because of him anymore. You always fucking cried, and I just didn't want you to cry anymore. I was supposed to be the one to kill him. I was supposed to fucking kill him."

Bella wasn't sure what to say. Felix wanted to kill his father, and she had wanted hers to keep her safe. Looks like neither of them were getting what they wanted, were they?

—TB—

Bella and Edward left Felix next to the front window and headed into the kitchen, where she found some dairy-free yogurt, dried fruit, and granola. There was also a gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream in the freezer, and for a moment, a brief moment she smiled because Charlie always had mint chocolate chip ice cream in the freezer despite being lactose intolerant.

After they ate, they settled on the front porch in a couple of metal chairs like the ones Bella had on her back patio. He'd brought them for her when she bought her house, told her they would always remind her of home. But now, her home was gone, wasn't it? Her home was a pile of ashes, and two people had lost their lives because of them.

"Maybe it would be better if the world never knew we weren't in that house."

Edward looked at her. "Maybe, but sooner or later, they'll realize it wasn't us. I mean, you are America's Sweetheart."

Bella snorted. "No, not anymore. I stopped being her when she put that knife handle inside me."

"Nobody but you and I know what happened inside that room, Bella, and nobody else has to know."

"Don't they?"

"No. They might have an idea, and they're probably not too far off, but only we know how hard we had to fight; how we had to save ourselves."

She slipped her feet onto the edge of the chair, wrapping her left arm around her knees while tucking her broken hand between her torso and legs. "Do you think there are others out there, Edward? Others like them, just waiting in the shadows to find us again, to finish what Marcus and his brothers started."

"Probably."

"Why were we his favorites? What was it about us? Did we cry more than the others?"

"He used to say it was the way we responded to him," he murmured, and she shifted in her chair so she was facing him. "I thought it was normal, Bella, for men to touch us like that. Dad carried me out of the bunker, out of the rubble, and I expected him to hurt me, you know? But he never did. He took me to the hospital, and they cleaned my wounds and gave me clothes to wear, and then he asked if he could take me home with him. And I thought he would take me back to his house and, you know, do what all adults do to little kids. It was normal for us. But then, when he pulled up in front of the cabin, when he lifted me out of the backseat and carried me into the house, and Mom, Emmett, and Jasper were standing in the living room, I knew they weren't like the others. They didn't look at me like they had, and I wondered what was wrong with me, Bella, that they didn't want to touch me."

Edward closed his eyes for a moment before he looked over at her. "I tore myself out of his arms and crawled under the dining room table. I stayed there all night, and you know what?"

"What?"

"Mom and Dad sat on the floor with me. All night long. They never moved, never pushed for me to move. They just sat on either side of me because they knew I was scared." He closed his eyes, wiping away a tear that trickled down her cheek. "How fucked up is that? Five years old, and I thought it was normal for grown-ass adults to stick their dicks in me? Because that's all they had done for as long as I could remember. They would hold me down on the table and just . . ."

Edward scrambled to his feet, walking to one of the metal posts. He wrapped his hand around it and leaned his forehead against it.

"It took me a long time to trust them, to let them close to me, to believe them when they said they weren't going to hurt me. And they never did. Not when I was violent, or mean, or hateful. They never, ever hurt me."

"And we never will."

Bella and Edward startled, turning to the door of the house where Charlie, Carlisle, and Esme stood. They shifted their eyes from her to him and back and forth until Esme put her hands up in front of her and slowly walked toward them. Bella hadn't been prepared for it, though, and scrambled to her feet, hurrying behind Edward, who threw his hands backward and caged her against him. She grabbed the back of his shirt once more.

"None of us will ever hurt you. Either of you. Never. We love you, and that will never stop, no matter what happened inside that bunker."

"You were supposed to keep us safe," Bella whimpered. "You promised not to let them hurt us. You said we were safe. You said you would never let them get to us again, but they did. They took us away, locked us in hell. They touched us, and . . . You were supposed to save us. We stopped them. We stopped them by ourselves."

And pulling on the back of Edward's shirt, she coaxed him backward with her, away from the parents who had failed them.

Thank you for all the AMAZING reviews! Huge shout out to Sunflower Fran for cleaning up my mess, and it was a mess. She's amazing. I am going to start posting updates to this story on Saturday. Do me a favor and leave me a few more words.