Following her scent, I descend into the passageway and find my way along the walls in the darkness. Waiting for a sound. A shadow. But there are none.
When I reach the end, my worries are only compounded. The door is cracked, a sliver of moonlight spilling in from the outside. This is the way she left.
It's almost four am now. I don't know how long she has been out here. I don't know if she found her way in the darkness. Flagged down a passing car on the old dirt road.
What if someone took her? Someone worse than me?
My chest caves in. There is nobody worse than me. That's what I'd like to believe. But for my Bella, there are others who could be worse. I have to find her. I have to get to her and...
There is a footprint in the dirt.
It's not right. She went the wrong way. She came out in the darkness and could not see the path to the road, so she unknowingly ventured deeper into the forest instead.
I walk beside her footprints and retrace her steps. They are wild at first. She was running. But as the brush thickens, the footsteps disappear, and I have only broken twigs and bent leaves to rely on.
I listen for her. My eyes seek out her hair, shining in the moonlight. I do not see it. Not after ten minutes. Not even after thirty. But the trail is still here. And so I keep going. I keep searching, hoping that my Bella is still here.
After two hours, I still have not found her. And all traces of her disappear abruptly. There is nothing. But I am in the middle of the forest. It doesn't make sense.
I stop, and I listen. And eventually, I hear something. The faintest of sobs from behind a tree.
I find her curled into herself, her face resting on her knees. She does not look up, even though she knows I'm here. She continues to cry. Shattered. Defeated.
Her feet are bloody, and her knees are skinned. She is scratched from head to toe.
I scoop her up into my arms, and she does not fight me. She does not say a word the entire walk back to the house. She does not say a word as I draw her a bath and clean her wounds. She remains silent even as I bandage her. It is only when I put her to bed that she looks up at me.
Broken.
Empty.
Her eyes are absent of the light that used to shine so bright.
"I was wrong," she whispers.
"Wrong about what, Bella?"
"I don't love you," she tells me. "I despise you."
I swallow. And I wish I had just let her stab me. But I give her the words that she needs to hear now. The only ones that matter.
"Then your transformation is complete. And nobody can ever hurt you again, my sweet."
Chapter Thirty-Six
My bones areweary and everything aches, right down to my very soul.
Javi lays me in bed. His bed. If I had any energy left to argue, I still don't know that I could.
I certainly don't have any fight left when he lies beside me and swallows me in his arms. He holds me while I cry. Comforting the hurt that he caused. The despair that is so much a part of me now I doubt I'll ever be right again.
I think that Javi is correct. He has broken me completely this time.
He thinks I can protect myself now. But I've never been able to protect myself from him. Because even as we lay here in the solace of darkness, unburdened from the heavy strain that still lives between us in the light- his presence does comfort me.
I bury my face into his chest and breathe him in. I beg him to stop. What, I don't know. I just want it to stop. I want it all to go away.
Either let the blackness swallow me whole, or push me back into the light. It’s too much. Too much to be torn between the two.