A/N: As you read the past, it's also Bella remembering. Some. She mentions what she remembers in the present. So many new follows. Say hi. Who are you? Where you been, Loca? ILY for reading.


..::.. Chapter 16 - Hiding ..::..

Present, continued ...

Jess was probably an escape artist in another life. My belongings were packed in a matter of seconds after I told her what I could while sitting on the floor in the bathroom. All she knows is Edward and his family were involved in criminal things since we were younger. Things that got us both in trouble, and still linger years later.

Her eyes had this tinge of anger.

She said, "Say no more."

Her father carried that same weight for years. The same weight Dad carried when I was young working for the Cullen men. Jess' father couldn't tell anyone what he had to do. That included his wife, but not his clever daughter who figured it out ... like those off numbers she thumbs through in long account lists day after day.

Her mother was none the wiser. All she knew was Jess had tutoring classes after school when, really, she was at her father's office learning all the shortcuts and tricks on how to embezzle money for coworkers in on the game. In case something went wrong, or he'd go missing, she would launder the right amount of cash to save her and her mother. As time went by, she grew to be just as talented as her father.

Father and daughter had a new, unbreakable bond because of their secret.

Luckily, she never had to ring the alarm and cover his tracks. The family moved away and started a new life, one of the fortunate ones who did the right thing. She was too attached to her grandmother to detach herself from this town completely. Like me, she had come back, just not with all the baggage I carried.

. .

. .

After I fled from my house, I jumped around hotel rooms for a couple of weeks. A coworker lent me his spare room for a few more. He thought my furnace was out. We'd drive to work and park in the garage undetected. Jess did her homework, knew who to involve and how without their knowing.

Eventually, Jess' apartment was warm and open, as she insisted. It's small, but in town, closer to work. We wake—me from the couch—and dance around one another, comfortably in each other's presence. I make coffee for both, she makes dinner since it's what she's best at. We work well together.

But watching her from my desk as she flirts with the company president she's secretly involved with, tells me soon I will be the third wheel. Soon, I'll be overstaying.

I'm a burden.

I shake in my bones just thinking of going back to that house.

I leave her behind to get lunch across the street. I'm starving. I can't wait for her the way I have all week. She's a late-in-the-day eater. I'm an on-the-clock, two lunches a day, kind of gal. She fetched lunch for me for nearly three months. Today, I cannot accept more charity. I stand on my own two feet.

The market is small but has a great salad bar and snacks hanging on racks. It's busy. All kinds of people sail in here to get fresh fruit instead of fast food.

I'm shaking off a plastic bag to dump the salad bowl and the rest in with the speed of anxiety—the internal kind that crawls in when you find yourself alone.

A fairly old woman drags her oversized purse by me, blocking the way out of the buffet area. I nudge her purposely after pardoning myself twice and being ignored. I'd like to yell at her. Who have I become? I'm this impolite, scared, coward wanting to push everything out of my way to run and hide.

She glances my way, but only moves a step.

I nudge again. "Excuse me," I say louder this time.

The hairs on the back of my neck suddenly stand at attention.

When she looks up this time, her glance sticks, but not on me. Her eyes widen, and she quickly waddles away, taking a rack with her. She makes a ruckus. The entire cluster of people lingering look up. Then, their eyes stick, too.

This is the feeling I was gravely hoping to avoid.

My shoulders tense and so does my back. I feel that warmth close behind me, then his fingers nudge my spine to move. I don't turn to look. I head straight for the cashier and pay for my lunch—or attempt to. His large hand juts out awkwardly, some bills in a wad from his fist are dropped on the counter. It's not even enough. The cashier just nods and rings it wordlessly.

One more nudge to my spine, and we're outside.

I want to scream for help, drop everything and run, but the stares of others begin to change. As he's jittery, shuffling around me, it just makes this seem like he's the luckiest, poor man alive, and I'm giving him the time of day. Some folks pass by and smile like I'm the kindest, most giving person.

I am not.

I'd like to watch the life leave his eyes as I stand over him.

"Touch me again, I'll rip your arm right out of its socket," I say through teeth. He merely gets closer, not farther away.

"When are you coming home?" Edward asks beside me. "Sit," he says, gesturing with a nod toward a bench. More like an order.

I give him a side glance. I have no choice, I sit under the shade as he paces a few feet away. The coast is clear. No eyes are on us, but his are on me. He takes me in, from heels, to legs, to my deadly stare.

"What? You've sent someone to find me?"

He focuses on my chest but doesn't answer. I pull on my jacket until whatever he's fixed on is moderately out of view. He blinks. My dread in all my effort to hide all these months has fallen flat. I just get angry.

"What the hell do you want? You're stalking me now, is that it? No peace?" I ask.

"You look beautiful today."

He disarms me, and it prickles behind my eyelids. I huff out a sigh.

"I didn't ask for this. Maybe I was … silly, stupid, a child, but I never asked for the rest," I rush to say.

He pauses in front of me. His robe moves with the breeze, so does his greasy hair. Everything is disorderly but his clear eyes, just like that Sunday, in my room, before he pulled on the hem of my night dress. With me, he's always been sober, clear-headed. No mistake in his intentions.

"You're remembering." He frowns as he examines my posture. "I'm guessing things I'll be paying for a long while?" He shrugs. "I apologize, whatever it was."

I cross my arms over my chest, cross my legs, and stare out at the desolate park. I feel his eyes on me.

He hums, like he figured out what I've remembered. He pictures us, too; young, limber, and stupidly in love.

"Yes, you did ask for this," he says the contrary. "Those eyes of yours always asked for it. I was the poor fool who fell right into you. You made me crazy … still do."

These eyes of mine look into his. I don't respond.

"And when you were gone, body and mind," he says, stepping closer, "I was left dry. Dysfunctional. Lost. You built me up to crash right down on me, under your heel. You left." He shakes his head and points at his chest. "I didn't ask for that."

"Well, since I don't remember anything, please, enlighten me. Why did I leave?" I challenge him.

He looks away, over the trees and the road close by.

"I didn't come to bother you. I just … wanted to make sure you were okay." He flexes his neck to the side and looks at anything but me.

"Bullshit," I say. "I don't matter to you, but for your stupid, shameful secret. You're here to make sure I keep it. To put a bit of terror in me, right? It's what you do."

Red crawls up his neck.

"But you know what, Edward Cullen Jr.? Neither you nor your sacred family scare me. You're so desperate and scared that you actually followed me today, risked everything, just to threaten me to keep my lips sealed? I see right through you." I point at him.

"Maybe I will keep them sealed," I say shrugging. "Maybe I won't. That's up to me, isn't it? This is my game now. You've played long enough. I should put a bit of terror in you from now on." I smile.

He meets me with that. His grin brightens his eyes.

"Baby…" he says.

"Now, you know what happened the last time you called me that." I interrupt. "Do you really want to try that again?"

"You don't remember exactly what I'm capable of, Bella," he says through his lashes, this time he's angry.

I nod.

I pull out my lunch, stab a mouthful of salad, and feel this hunger inside. The type that washes away uncertainty and fear.

"I think you also know what I'm capable of," I say around a bite. "I mean, you would remember, far more than I do. Right?"

I take my time while he uneasily stands frozen. I can't help but smile looking up at him.

Why am I running? The look of worry alone in his eyes tells me I have an iota of control. I grasp that feeling desperately, because when he turns and looks at me, it will fade away just as quickly as it rushed in.

He looks at me.

I must have control.

After this tense moment of us settled in silence, listening to cars pass by, birds chirping, my fucking jaw going at my lunch, I calmly finish eating. I stand. I pick up all the napkins and utensils and feel … control. I've consumed it. Best arugula salad I've ever had, I guess—maybe just my newfound nerve.

I walk away, but not before he reaches over and hooks his fist around my elbow. He pulls me. I shuffle close to his warm side. Anger shows in the firm tug. His lips hover by my ear. Mine form a faint grin.

"She's a good friend to you; her father was a good friend to me. We wouldn't want to jeopardize our relationships, would we, Bella?"

I freeze to my bones. My grin fades now.

Jess.

He leans in just enough to touch nose to neck. My eyelids flutter. "You smell nice, today, just like yesterday," he says softly as he grazes my skin. "I'll kill the next man who tries to hide you at his place."

He leaves me standing here after a kiss.

I reel.

I didn't see him yesterday. A ghost at my heels. I can't run. I can't hide. He's everywhere and nowhere.

My heart pounds uncontrollably.

That night, I quickly pack my things as Jess talks a mile a minute about work in the kitchen, unaware of how my day went. The next evening after work, I take the bus early before she leaves the office.

The house is already warm when I walk in. A small set up sits by the stove for hot cocoa. Sinatra plays in the living room where the fireplace crackles. Even my bed is dressed down with my nightgown spread out over the sheets.

I live with a phantom … one who welcomes me into my own home and who pulled down all the sheets I put up over the windows before I left. One who never shows his face through his dark windows, but I know he watches through my bare ones.

So, I do the one thing you wish you'd catch your neighbor doing as you peek through your windows in wonder.

I skip the nightgown and the towel. I make my way around the house after a nice, long bath… in nothing but this good smug feeling.

I make that cocoa and lounge in front of that fireplace with a book I've been meaning to read for the longest. Tits bare and perked with that draft coming through the hallway. Bare-assed on my couch, feeling velvet against my skin. And I find that it's surprisingly nice. Why isn't this something I'd do more often? I wonder this as I twirl a lock of my hair around my fingers. My legs over pillows and over the armrest. The light of the flames setting a glow, dancing over my skin.

The best part is crawling into bed, right over the nightgown and over the sheets. Euphoric release after weeks of stress and anxiety. No sleep has been this peaceful in weeks.

He wants a show; I'll give him a show. Just one he can't touch or get anywhere near in this house. If he does, it would all just be part of my new plan.

I found a loaded gun he keeps stashed under my bathroom sink. At that level, when I was sitting in a tub he also set up with candles, I don't think he intended for me to find it.

I sleep and grip the Glock under my pillow—because when he comes, just like he always has when we were young, I will kill him.

I'll end this for good.