Hello again!

Back with another chapter! I tried to get tgis one finished in my last school holidays, but I was so tired, I got halfway through it and had a mental block. I kept plugging away at it though and little by little, it got done!

Work at the moment is CRAZY! It's the last term of school and there is so much that I need to do. So, dont be surprised if there's a little wait until i get the next chapter up. I promise that I'll post it as soon as I'm done :)

I hope you enjoy this one!

BPOV

I was still floating on a cloud of happiness when I woke up. All night, I had dreams of futures where Edward and I were together. We were a couple and in love. It seemed like such a simple fantasy, but I hadn't allowed my mind to go there before. Always cutting myself off so as not to fill my head with unrealistic hopes.

But it was possible now.

As I went through my morning routine, I kept going over everything Edward and I had said to each other the night before.

I couldn't believe I almost let the chance slip through my fingers. I was so thankful Edward was brave enough to be honest about his feelings. I doubted I would have been able to take that step alone. There was still a long road between now and the future I imagined for Edward and me. So many things that needed to be resolved.

One of them was that I needed to tell him about the latest link I'd uncovered between Maria and me. He deserved the same honesty he had shown me over and over. I had more faith that finding out how connected we had been as sisters wouldn't drive him away any longer, but I was still unsure how he would react.

It was one thing to process the coincidence of Maria and I having similar medical emergencies at the same time, and it was simply the difference in our situations that determined who survived. We were identical twins and shared the exact same DNA after all. It was a little different to realize that we were so attuned to each other, one of us experiencing harm would cause the other to endure the same fate.

We were two sides of Fate's coin. Maria had been shot in the abdomen and I lost my son. I nearly died from a head injury on the operating table and Maria died in her sleep from a stroke caused by a brain aneurysm.

As I sat at the kitchen table with my second coffee of the morning and a steaming bowl of oatmeal, my thoughts turned from Maria to Bree. The card was still propped open where Edward had placed it the night before, the letter and the photos tucked back inside their envelope beside it.

I pulled out the portrait of my mother and studied her face. Her round cheeks, her full lips, her serious brown eyes.

She looked like she could be one of my students. She was old enough to be in my Junior Literature Studies class, yet she looked like she had already lived a lifetime full of hurt. I'd seen the look in other kids' eyes before, unfortunately. It broke my heart each and every time. The steely strength seething under a veneer of detachment. They never wanted anyone to know that inside, they were a hurricane.

I could see so much of myself in her young face, it was eerie. For most of my life, people remarked on the fact that I looked so much like Dad, it was a surprise I was adopted. We did actually look like father and daughter, which went a long way to making me feel like we were truly a family.

But seeing my features in the face of another person was moving. It was small things, like the upturn of her nose or the curve of her brows. From what I could see of them, the shape of her ears was the same as mine.

In a sudden bought of fancy, I quickly went and fished out a photo album from high school, as well as the one Edward gave me in the beginning, and brought them to the table. I flipped through them until I found photos of both me and Maria around the same age Bree had been.

Maria and I looked about the same, though I could see our different personalities. She was more lithe and tan, from years of running track and summers in Italy. I could see her confidence and warmth in her eyes. It's what would have drawn people into her. She would have been like Jacob. Everyones personal sun, anchoring them into her obit.

I, on the other hand, was more introverted. In most photos of me, especially at the tender age of fourteen, I held myself more carefully. My posture looked like I was permanently curled around a book. Which, to be fair, I probably was.

Out of the two of us, I was the one that resembled the Bree in the photograph. But only because she probably never looked as confident as Maria until after she ran away from the cult.

As I compared parts of Maria and me that I could see in our mother's face, I wondered what we had inherited from the other contributor to our genetics.

I refused to even think the words biological father. It made me sick to my stomach to know how I came into this world, how much pain and suffering my mother went through. Whether we were a blessing or a curse to Bree, to Him we were barely a consequence of his actions.

If I had to make a guess, his hair was dark. We had darker hair than Bree, so I could only assume that was where Maria and I got it from.

I didn't want to know anything more about him. Not really. What could I possibly want to know about a child molester? What I truly wanted to know was how Bree ended up within his grasp; how he had so much power and influence inside the cult that it didn't matter what he did, yet my mother paid for his sins with her life.

With trepidation, I pulled the folded letter from its envelope. It may hold some answers to the many questions that ran through my mind, and that both thrilled and terrified me.

I had asked Jenny about how their family had ended up living with the community in Idaho and a little about what it had been like for them there. I hadn't explicitly asked about what Bree had gone through before she ran away, but I wouldn't have been surprised if that was in the letter as well.

When I'd written back to her, I told Jenny a little more about my adoption. How Bree had come to meet my father and intrust me to him in her desperation. It was vague, basically the story my father had told me my whole life. It left out a lot of key things that I wasn't ready to share yet.

I still hadn't mentioned Maria, and I didn't know if I would any time soon. She was gone, so telling Jenny about her wouldn't make any real difference. But deep down, I still felt loyalty to our mother. I had broken her last wish by reaching out to her family, the least I could do was not spill any more of the secrets she so fiercely protected.

After taking a calming breath, I unfolded the pages and smoothed them out in front of me.

Dear Isabella,

Thank you for telling me what happened to my sister. She never spoke of her time away, especially of what had happened to you. A private adoption makes a lot of sense. There wouldn't have been a paper trail to follow, so even if Bree had told some of the truth, my parents would not have been able to find you. It also makes sense that she would choose someone like a cop to raise you. Someone who would protect your childhood fiercely and keep you safe. It sounds like you love your father very much and he did exactly that. I was wondering though, what happened to your adopted mother? Did she also pass away?

I understand you have a lot of questions about how we ended up living in the Sanctuary of the Dawning Light. As much as I wish I never have to revisit those memories again, I know you deserve answers.

you asked about the death of my father. Daddy worked in construction on a road crew. He worked long hours, always outside, in all kinds of weather. On the day he died, there was a flash storm, forcing the crew to quickly cover things up in the rain. It was while he was moving a metal pole out of a rapidly filling pothole when Daddy was struck by lightning. He had massive heart failure and died almost instantly.

My heart broke for the once-young family and the tragic loss that seemed to have set them on an even more tragic path.

It ruined my mother. She couldn't make sense of the freak accident. She couldn't get out of bed some days, let alone make it to work. I don't remember much of that time, I was only five, but Bree had to step up and do a lot of things around the house that Mom couldn't.

Only a few months after Daddy died, Mom started receiving letters from a man saying that he'd seen an article about Daddy's story in the newspaper and wanted to reach out to her with his thoughts and prayers. That was Kyle Rusher, my step-father. His letters started off friendly, comforting my mother with assurances that God had a purpose for all of us, and even when we thought someone's life was too short, we had to trust in God's divine plan. Their letters soon turned romantic, and less than a year after Daddy's death, Mom and Father got married.

Only weeks after the wedding, we moved to Dawning Light. At first, everything appeared normal, if not a little outdated. There was a small community school that taught mainly from scriptures, and boys and girls were in separate classes. The girls got to work in the garden and in the kitchen, growing and cooking the food for all the families. At that age, I remember it being peaceful and fun. I didn't have to go to school like I had before, instead getting to spend hours outside with my friends. Bree was older, so had a lot more responsibilities and she often had to spend hours in the laundry or kitchens with the other girls over ten.

A few months after we got there was when I first noticed things start to change. It started when Father took a second wife. It wasn't uncommon in the community for men to have a few wives. The Prophet said that because it is a woman's purpose to be a wife and mother, it is a generosity to take many into your home. Hanah was eighteen when she was married to Father, and having grown up at Dawning Light, it was the kind of marriage she had been raised to expect.

Taking a second wife allowed Father access to a new social circle within the church. One of the members he started to spend time with was Mr. Vulto.

I slammed the letter down on the table and drew in a shaky breath. My heart, which had started to beat faster at the first mention of Kyle Rusher's name, had begun to gallop after reading the name of the man who hurt my mother. I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping to block out the world and calm down.

Needing a distraction before I delved into a full-blown panic attack. I left the letter where it was on the table and went back to my bedroom to pull the sheets off my bed. After stuffing them in the washing machine I took out the cleaning supplies stored in the laundry cupboard and marched back down the hall.

Whenever my brain was chaotic, I knew I could scrub away until it was ordered again. I put my AirPods in, selected a Parmore album and put it on blast, hoping to drown out my tumultuous mood.

I spent the next few hours dusting, wiping, washing, and vacuuming. After the sheets were done in the wash, I switched them over to the dryer and put on a new load of all the covers from the cushions in the lounge room. I emptied the fridge and wiped down all the shelves before throwing out anything that had expired. The oven was next and after the amount I had been baking since Thanksgiving, it needed a good scour.

By the end of my rampage, I was a sweaty, disheveled mess, strands of hair escaping the tangled bun on the top of my head. I sat at the kitchen table with a bottle of water, rubbing my work-roughened hands together. The entire apartment was spotless and smelt like citrus cleaner and the lavender laundry detergent I used. Yet, I still felt just as unsettled and agitated as I had before.

I was disappointed that I didn't get the same soothing feeling I usually got from cleaning. It had always helped me sort through my thoughts and emotions in the past. Like putting my space in order would right the whole world. Now I just felt tired as well as restless, and I wondered what I could do to alleviate my anxiety before I attempted to finish reading my aunt's letter.

Edward's handsome face flashed through my mind and I found myself smiling instinctually. The uncomfortable tension that prickled my skin died down and I felt the ease that cleaning was meant to provide me. In fact, my cheeks felt warmer and my heart began to beat fast for a completely different reason.

I paused the music, which had turned to Muse when I was shoulder-deep in the oven, and pulled up my phone app. Edward was one of my most used contacts, so it wasn't hard to find his name.

The phone only rang twice before Edward's smooth voice reverberated down the line. "Hey, you."

I sighed just hearing his rich tenor. "Hi," I smiled to myself.

"How are you today?"

"I'm good," I said dreamily. It was so easy to forget my previous frame of mind when I could much more happily focus on him and the way he made me feel.

"What have you been up to that's got you in such a good mood?"

"Thinking of you," I teased flirtatiously.

Edward chuckled. "I'm honored, Love." The term of endearment slipped out of him naturally, making my heart stutter. Then his voice took on a softer tone. "I've been thinking of you, too."

A bashful blush bloomed across my face suddenly, and my empty hand flew to my cheek reflexively. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," he confirmed. "And playing the piano. You've inspired me." I could hear the twinkle of piano keys in the background. He must be downstairs in the library. My heart burst at the thought that I was his muse. "What else have you been doing? I could always come over if you're tired of just thinking about me." His playful smirk was practically audible.

"I've been cleaning as an act of procrastination."

"What are you procrastinating?"

I hesitated at first, unwilling to fully reveal my weaknesses. "Reading the letter," I confessed self-consciously.

Edward was quiet for a moment "Bella, you know you don't have to read it straight away. You don't owe her anything, especially not an instant reply."

"It's not about what I owe her. It's about what I owe myself. I want the answers to my questions. I hate feeling like something is hanging over my head."

"Well, just take the time you need to prepare yourself."

"I, um. I actually already read half of it," I admitted, biting on my bottom lip.

"You've read half of it already?" He sounded puzzled.

"Yes."

"Then, well… What's stooped you from finishing it?"

I thought momentarily about how to best describe my jumble of emotions. "Um. I guess… dread?"

Edward's one-word response of "Bella" was gentle, but a clear prompt to be completely honest.

"I asked for more details about their life in the cult and how they ended up there," I explained. "I had just gotten to where she mentioned… the man responsible for hurting Bree, and I just…" I was lost at how to describe the uncomfortable need to think about anything but what happened to my mother.

"Needed to power clean your apartment to distract yourself from facing the terrible reality of the past," he said without any question.

I laughed humorlessly at Edward's apt characterization. "Yeah. That about sums it up."

"You know it's okay to need time to process. Isn't that what Angela is always saying? Don't crowd yourself and give yourself the space to breathe? Same applies here."

"I know. I'm just…" I sighed, tired of being so on edge all the time. "I'm nervous, and a little scared, to read about what Jenny remembers from back then. It's one thing to know what my mother went through on an abstract level, but it's different to know details and to build a picture of her life. I don't want to imagine those horrible things happening to that innocent young girl in the photo." By the end of my confession, my voice was barely above a whisper.

Edward was quiet for a moment. "Knowing or not knowing doesn't change if it happened or not. But knowing or not knowing might change you. I think you need to decide how much detail you can live with because once you read it, there's no going back. No unknowing it."

"Ignorance is bliss?" I scoffed. "I know this will probably change me, change so many things, but… I-I've come this far. Sure, I'm afraid. But I… I can't let that stop me."

There was another pause. "Well, there you go," Edward said warmly. "You're stronger than you give yourself credit for sometimes."

I laughed, a bit astonished at his ability to lead me to my own self-belief. He'd always had faith in me and knew all I lacked was faith in myself. He didn't try to fix my problems for me like Jake used to do. Edward just offered perspective and space for me to figure it out on my own.

"I don't always feel strong. In fact, I felt pretty weak when I couldn't even get past that monster's name."

"Don't put so much pressure on yourself, Bella. This is an incredibly strange situation and there's no rule book on how to deal with it."

I didn't know how to respond, so I mumbled, "Yeah."

Edward huffed a little at me, most likely annoyed at my feeble reply. "I'm sure there was plenty for you to think about in the part of the letter you did read," he pointed out. "Taking a break doesn't make you weak. I hate that you think that about yourself."

He was right. I knew that. But that didn't stop the small whisper in the back of my mind that judged me and called me inferior. "Can I ask you something?"

"Always."

"How do you think Maria would have reacted to all of this?"

That caught him off guard. "Oh. Um… I don't know."

"Really?" I asked dubiously. "You knew her for her entire life and were married for, what, like seven years? You seriously don't know her well enough to at least make a guess?"

"Okay," he conceded, then sighed and took a moment to think about it more deeply. "Well, she was a practical thinker, and she had that ability to compartmentalize that I'm sure Emmett and your dad have. Being able to put your feelings in a box and focus on finding the truth at the core; honed after years of working with the worst things people do to each other. In fact, I would be surprised if she started one of those conspiracy collage walls with your brother, red string and all."

"So, you think she would have handled all this better than me?" I frowned to myself.

"No! That's not what I meant at all," Edward quickly corrected. "I think she would have plowed ahead and put everything out on the table as soon as she could, then dealt with her feelings about it all later. Sure, she would have seemed fine, or like she was coping, but eventually she would have reached her limit and broken down. Maria could cope with a lot and seem unfazed, but when it got too much… it was intense.

"I remember when she was home from the hospital after she was shot, she would refuse my help all the time, wanting to do things for herself, like normal. For the most part, she took everything in stride, not letting all the pain and anger show. I was getting home from the grocery store one day when I heard her sobbing from the bedroom. I found her curled up half-naked on the far side of the walk-in closet, crying hysterically, glass all through the carpet from a shattered mirror. She'd tried to do her hair by herself and couldn't stretch her arms up to hold the brush. She snapped and threw it at the mirror with so much force, it left a dent in the wall behind it. I don't know when, or what would have triggered it, but something would have tipped her over the edge eventually and she would have snapped, or had a breakdown. It's not a question of if, but when."

I couldn't imagine the version of my sister I had in my mind with what Edward was describing. I always pictured Maria as strong and self-assured. I'm sure she was those things, but it was also comforting to know that she wasn't the tough one and I wasn't the weak one. However, I couldn't help but wonder if our connection was so deep, maybe what she had been experiencing was my depression and grief after losing William.

I must have been too quiet, lost in my thoughts because Edward's next words were warm and resolute. "I hope you know you have handled everything that's been thrown at you like a fucking champion, Bella."

I laughed lightly at his swearing. "Thank you?" I awkwardly said, unsure how to respond to such a declaration.

"You're more than welcome," he chuckled back, before sobering a little. "Can I- I mean, do you mind if I ask what you have read so far? It might help me understand what unnerved you so much."

Edward's awkwardly polite wording made me smile. I'm sure he'd been curious since last night, even though he would never have pressured me to open the letter then.

So, I recounted what Jenny had revealed in the parts I had read. He was surprised to find out how Bree's father had died and suspected that the shock of such an improbable death left Bree's mother susceptible to the manipulation needed to draw them into a religious cult. She had been vulnerable and in search of answers to impossible questions when Kyle Rusher found her.

Edward's compassion soon turned to contempt as I described the patriarchal, fundamentalist beliefs and practices of The Sanctuary of the Dawning Light. How could any mother not see the absolute clusterfuck she had gotten her daughters into? How could she have stayed so long? How could she keep deluding herself after her husband brought home a second wife, let alone a teenage one?

I wish I could answer any of his questions, but I was just as confused as he was. It was hard to rationalize Erica Tanner's decisions when there seemed to have been so many red flags waved in her face from early on.

"I can see why you're wary to read on," Edward said a little while after I'd finished. "That already sounds pretty intense."

I sighed, rubbing at my eyes. "A part of me wants to rip off the bandaid and read the damn thing. But the other part of me wants to protect myself from what I'm sure is… difficult information."

"I can understand that," he hummed empathetically. "You know you don't have to do it alone, right? You've got lots of people around who want to be there to support you."

A knock at my door sent my heart racing.

"That's not you, is it?" I asked, a little hopeful that it was.

"What's not me?"

"Knocking at my door." I got up from my seat at the kitchen table and made my way towards the door. "You didn't jump in the car as soon as you knew I was having a bad day, did you?"

"No," Edward chuckled. "Still at home." I could hear him tinkling the piano keys to prove he was still sitting in the library at his parent's house.

The person standing on my doorstep was definitely not Edward. The woman was dressed like a 70s hippy, her waist length, wavy red hair barely tamed in a loose braid down her back. She had on a long gathered skirt and a peasant blouse under a leather vest. She looked more equipped to go to a music festival in the desert than walk around Seattle in January.

"Hello?" I asked her, wondering who she was and why she might be knocking on my door.

"Hi," the woman said in an overly friendly manner, a toothy smile plastered on her face.

"Can I help you?"

"Do you know your purpose in life?" she asked in return, completely ignoring my question.

My brow furrowed in abject confusion. "Excuse me?"

"The Lord will show you the path to eternal glory."

I held the phone up close to my chest, hoping Edward could hear everything. The woman gave me an odd vibe and I felt safer knowing I had some sort of witness.

"Oh, um," I stuttered uncomfortably. "No, thank you."

I tried to close the door but she held her hand out to stop it. "By submitting yourself to God's true purpose, you will be granted a life free from the plague of mortality. You will no longer succumb to sickness and death. An eternal angel on Earth." She almost seemed hopeful, like I'd somehow understand her incomprehensible offer and accept it.

I smiled at her politely, worried to upset the strange woman. "I'm sorry," I said tightly. "I'm Jewish." Then firmly shut the door, turning both locks and fasting the door chain.

"That was so weird," I whispered into my phone as I brought it back to my ear, listening to the woman's footsteps as she walked away, probably off to knock on someone else's door and spout her craziness.

"Yeah," Edward chuckled. "Why did you say you were Jewish? Did you think she wouldn't try to convert you if you were already pledged to an established team?"

"I don't know," I shrugged, trying to shake off the edginess I still felt, even after locking the door firmly. "It was the first thing that popped into my head."

"She definitely didn't sound like a run-of-the-mill Mormon or Jehoviah's Witness."

"She was way off script if she was either of those. And the dress code seems to have changed."

"Check the peephole if anyone knocks again, just in case she comes back." I could hear the underlying worry in his voice.

"Yes, Dad," I teased, my smile returning.

"Hey!" Edward admonished, though I could hear his amusement. "Just because I'm trying to look out for you!"

"Okay, okay. I promise."

His next words were unexpectedly tender and made my insides melt. "All I want to do is look out for you, Bella."

"Edward," I whispered. It was the only response my brain could formulate at that moment.

Letting the bizarre interruption go, he returned to our previous conversation. "I know you're tired of needing other people, Love. And you think you have to do things alone to be strong, but you don't. If you need someone to support you, I could come over. Or you call Emmett or Rose. Any of us would be there in a moment if you needed us."

He was right. Though Emmett and Rose were both working today, I knew if it was a real emergency, if I really needed them, they would come. But I still wanted to do this for myself. I had leaned on them for so long after the accident and I wanted to prove to them, and to myself, that I could stand on my own two feet. However, the idea of being close to Edward was tempting. Even with my desire for independence, I wanted him close.

"Maybe tomorrow?" I suggested. "You could come over in the morning and I can tell you what else is in the letter, if I'm game enough to read it, or we could read it together if I'm not."

"If you're sure," he hedged. I could tell what Edward really wanted was for me to ask him to come over now, but he was giving me the space I needed and I loved him for that.

"I am," I assured him. " I appreciate all of you so much. And I know it's silly, but I feel like… I don't know. Like this is my battle to fight, you know?"

"I get it. I was the exact same way when I first saw you. I know I could have told my family right away and they would have understood. But instead, I flew back to Chicago and spiraled by myself for weeks. It wasn't until I was back in Seattle that Alice pulled the truth from me, like drawing blood from a stone."

"I promise to not be as stubborn as you and open up to you more tomorrow."

Edward chuckled. "Thank you, Love. I'll see you in the morning."

"Bye," I breathed, my cheeks warm as my bashful blush grew.

~oOo~

After hanging up, I needed to wash off the day scrubbing my feelings away, so I jumped in the shower. I stayed in there until the room was full of steam and the water began to run cool, the grime of the day washing off me. When I stepped out, my skin was pink and slightly pruney, and I felt refreshed and new.

It was coming up to six o'clock when I was once again dressed in my at-home uniform of comfortable leggings and my old U-Dub sweatshirt that was so old, the edge of the cuff had completely split apart. Even though it was early, I hadn't eaten lunch, so my stomach was growling.

I heated up a plate of leftover Chinese food from last night, pouring the last of the rosé into a glass while it was in the microwave.

As I sat and picked at my food, my eye was drawn again to the photograph of my young mother, lying where I'd left it undisturbed since the morning. It reminded me that I was doing all this for a reason. It was for her. To know her, understand her. I wasn't just learning all these horrible things for shits and giggles, like a true crime podcast enthusiast. If I wanted to know my mother at all, I was going to have to deal with her tragic life.

Swallowing the last I could stomach eating for the night, I drank half my glass of wine to bolster my courage and picked up the letter. It didn't take me long to find where I'd left off.

Taking a second wife allowed Father access to a new social circle within the church. One of the members he started to spend time with was Mr. Vulto. Mr Vulto was an influential member of the congregation, having been part of the original group that founded the community devoted to the Prophet's teachings. He had a large family with many wives.

My heart lurched and I regretted the choice of day-old take-out and rosé for dinner. I didn't want to contemplate how many women - girls - that man had preyed on.

He took a liking to Bree and asked Father to allow her to marry him. Mother convinced Father to wait until Bree was a little older. When Mr Vulto asked a second time, she said they should until Father married again because if Bree were to go, there would be more work for everyone.

While Father agreed both times to hold off the marriage, they were unaware Mr Vulto had gone behind the backs and claimed Bree for himself.

In the community, marriages were arranged when the father decided his daughter was ready to be a wife. He would allow the interested men in the church to make an offer of betrothal. He would then choose the man he thought would make the best husband for his daughter.

When Mr Vulto asked for Bree's hand, he should have waited until Father announced she was available and then made a public declaration for her. If he had done that, no one else would have made a marriage offer to Father. Doing that would have been considered an insult. Instead, he broke the rules. But because he was so high up in the church, no one could do anything about it.

I won't get into any of the details about what he did to her. For the most part, it was kept a secret. Mr Vulto was sneaky, but Bree never told me anything. I guess she was trying to protect her little sister.

When she eventually told Mom she was pregnant, Mom was so upset and she yelled. She wanted to know why Bree let it go on so long. After she finished crying, she told Father, who went straight to Mr Vulto to arrange for the wedding to place after the baby was born. After you were born, I suppose.

It was decided that Bree would be kept at home until she had the babies. Mr Vulto also promised Father one of his older daughters in exchange, thereby illuminating one of our mother's only remaining arguments.

Then Bree disappeared and no one knew where she could have gone. Mom went into town and filed a missing persons report, terrified about what could happen to her or the baby. It was weeks and weeks before Father received a visit from the sheriff to tell him she had been picked up at the border going into Canada.

Everyone was shocked when she returned without you. Mr Vulto was angry, but he became furious when she wouldn't tell him where you were. Mom thought he might refuse to marry her, but he didn't.

It was my stomach's turn to lurch as it dropped. Reading those words and all they implied made me ill. It seemed Bree had been a breath away from freedom when she was dragged back to hell, only for the torture to get worse.

His anger only got worse when Bree never seemed to conceive another child. Building your legacy through strong bloodlines was a large part of Dawning Light's fundamental principles. He began to see her inability to have another child as a curse, one he didn't want spreading to the rest of the community.

The congregation decided they needed to purify her soul in order to save them all. It was during one of the cleansing rituals that she died. Because they believed her soul was still cursed, they refused to let her be buried next to the church hall. Mom wanted her to be somewhere beautiful, so we found a place by the creek, under a willow tree. We would visit the spot when we could, talking to her like she was there with us.

My heart, which had been full of anger towards my biological grandmother, bled for her now. I had pictured her as a gullible fool, manipulated into complacency with lies about the nature of God's eternal love. And while that may be partly true, I hadn't stopped to think that she was probably just a grieving woman in an extremely traumatic situation she saw no way out of.

I was a mother who'd lost a child, too. I had never gotten to know William, but I knew I would have died in his place if I could have. I didn't have the years Erica Tanner got with her daughter, but I could understand the pain she must have been in at that moment.

That was until the flood ripped up a whole lot of trees, dragging everything downstream. Including the willow and Bree's body. It didn't take long before police came to our home to talk to Mom and Father. They already had so many questions, more than just about Bree. I remember watching from the top of the stairs as the cop interviewed my parents. Father refused to say anything, but then Mom started crying. They took them away in the back of a dark car and the next day a whole lot more police showed up. A few days later Child Protective Services came and took us all away and refused to let our families see us until a judge gave permission.

During the trial, the autopsy report was read and it said that Bree had a copper coil inserted after giving birth. That's why she hadn't been able to get pregnant. I think a part of her knew she might be found and brought home, so she wanted to take precautions. Now that I know about you and how she made sure you were protected, I can see how many precautions she really took.

I never saw Mom outside of prison again. The Martins, who took me in after my parents were arrested, took me to see her while she was still alive. After six years, she got pneumonia after having bronchitis that never got treated. The last time we visited the prison, I wasn't allowed to see her because she was in the infirmary. She died three days later. The Martins put on a small service at the church for her so I could say goodbye, and they paid for a plot for her at the back of the cemetery. I plated a willow right next to her.

I hope this gave you the answers you wanted. It is always painful to rehash these memories, but I know you deserve to know the truth of where you come from. The truth of who your family is.

All my love, Aunt Jenny ox

There were no tears when I finished reading. I didn't think what I was feeling was numbness because I felt a gnawing ache in the centre of my chest. I was sad, but maybe what I was feeling was resigned. Each detail had left a laceration, but while their strike hurt, it didn't destroy me.

There had been a cleansing element, too. So many of my questions had been addressed, even if it was hard. If there was nothing else to gain, at least I now knew my grandmother wasn't the monster I'd originally thought her to be.

It also made me so proud to know how strong my mother truly was. Sure, I'd already known that from digging into the cloak-and-dagger operation she organized to cover up my entire existence, but to know she stood up to her tormentors after she was dragged back into their clutches filled me with so much pride.

I couldn't lie to myself and say there weren't parts of the letter that weirded me out. The tone I interpreted, skating over what sounded like pretty horrific occurrences almost nonchalantly. Or the fact that, even nearly thirty years later, she still referred to the step-father who manipulated her mother and practically ruined all their lives as Father.

I didn't know why I felt like she needed to be critical of the cult she was made to join as a child, but I did. And the fact that she wasn't made me a little uncomfortable.

What really made my stomach churn was the almost respectful way she kept referring to the man who preyed on my mother, and probably many other girls. She always called him by his last name. Mr Vulto. Like, he wasn't a predator who deserved to be called every ugly name under the sun. I didn't want him to have a name and each time I read it, I felt sick.

Those thoughts, and many more, continued to buzz around my head while I got ready for bed.

I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror as I brushed my teeth, wondering what my mother might have looked like at my age? Would she have looked like me? What would she look like now, if she were still alive? What would she have been like? What would she have thought of me? Would she have liked me?

My heart ached thinking of all the 'what ifs'. So as I curled up in bed, I allowed my mind to drift off happier 'what ifs'. Ones about Edward what might be beginning between us and what will happen when I see him again tomorrow. After our confessions, I don't know what it will be like being in the same room as him.

What if I can control myself and kiss him again?

~oOo~

A loud noise roused me from my sleep with a jolt, my head flopping back onto the pillow as consciousness suddenly returned. I checked my phone, the screen brightness hurting my eyes so I quickly shut it back off. Luckily I'd been aware enough to see that it was only two in the morning.

One of the worst parts about living in the city, and especially in an apartment building, was the constant and unpredictable noises.

I'd grown up in the forest, in the rainiest place in America. There had never been other noises at night besides rain. Well, there was the occasional owl and my dad's snoring, but not much else. When I moved to Seattle for college, it took me forever to get used to the fact that it was never quiet. Not really. There was always someone awake, a car, a siren, a blaring alarm, a delivery van in the middle of the night, a random thud as a drunk person banged their door against the wall.

It never got better, but you got used to it.

I rolled back over onto my side and snuggled back down into my blanket. I had been dreaming something good right before I woke up but I couldn't remember it now. All I know is I wanted to get right back to it, whatever it was. Thankfully it didn't take long for me to doze back off.

I wasn't sure how much time had passed but something else woke me back up. Not a noise this time, but a feeling. A creeping feeling, like a spider on the back of my neck. I'd never experienced anything like a paralysis demon, but a sense of fear washed over me that left me frozen in position. Goosebumps prickled across my skin and the shadows in my room seemed extra dark and foreboding.

Suddenly, I felt a cloth press against my mouth and a sharp prick at my neck that shocked me from my petrified pose. The cloth swallowed my cry of pained surprise and covered my yelps as I fought against the arm now wrapped around my thrashing arms. The one covering my mouth pushed my head deeper into the pillow, making my ears ring from the pressure.

Whoever it was was incredibly strong and the body was beginning to feel weak. There was a cool numbness spreading from my neck and I knew they had drugged me with something.

My last panicked thoughts were that I had no idea who would want to do this to me. What was going to happen to me? Was I about to be murdered? Or maybe kidnapped? Will Emmett and Dad be able to help me? What about Edward? Would he be the one to find my body in the morning?

The darkest shadow in the corner of my room shifted and moved, a figure forming from the dim. As it stepped towards me, my vision began to pin-prick and fade to black.

Don't hate me! I know it can suck finishing the chapter on a cliffhanger, but none of the other ways I could have ended it worked!

I'm sure everyone's got their own thoughts about whats going on. What did you think of the aunt's letter? Do you see any red flags, like Bella?

I love hearing what you think, so please leave a review if you feel like it.

Hopefully it's not too long between chapters!

Until next time, Lovelies