When Javi dares to look at me, I lunge for him, striking out at his chest. He grabs hold of my arm and halts the blade mid-swing.
"What's the matter, pet?" he taunts.
"I hate you!" I scream.
I try to thrust the knife again. This time he doesn't stop me, and it glances off his chest.
He's bleeding.
But it isn't enough. Not when I see the cruel laughter in his eyes. The way he mocks me with his lips.
"I thought you loved me," he sneers. "That's what you said. You said you would do anything. Anything to prove it."
"Not that," I cry.
And the tears are real now. Pain. So much pain. I feel like I've been punched in the heart.
"Where is she?" I demand. "Who is she?"
Javi snatches me by the throat and looks deep into my eyes. There was a time when my tears turned him on. A time when he liked to collect them like sweet memories. But now, they disgust him.
I disgust him. With my feelings and my humanity and my love.
"You never loved me," he snarls.
"Fuck you," I choke out.
He smiles. And it scares me more than any of his other smiles. Because there is nothing behind it. He is dead. He is without anything now.
I don't know how it came to this. How everything changed so abruptly. Even as he drags me to the bed and tears off my clothes, I want to believe that there is hope. I want to believe all is not lost.
This is just another temporary bout of insanity. But I should know by now. Everything Javi does leaves a permanent scar.
He unbuttons his jeans and thrusts inside of me without warning.
"Fucking liar," he chants.
"You're the liar!" I scream. "You're pathetic. You can't even admit your own feelings. You can't even admit that you care for me."
It's the wrong thing to say.
He stops. And dread fills my stomach. I try to look back at him, but he presses my face into the bed. Then he takes his cock out and nudges it against my ass.
I bite my lip to keep from crying out when he shoves inside. Now he wants my tears for a whole different reason. To punish me. But I won't give him the satisfaction. I won't let him see my pain. Not anymore.
My strength only enrages him further as he grabs me by the hair and yanks.
"You are nothing," he tells me. "Nothing!"
To further prove his point, he reaches for a pillow and frees it from the case. And then he wraps the case over my head, so he doesn't have to look at me.
He fucks me raw. Hard. Brutal. Neither one of us says a word.
I cry silent tears behind the veil of the pillowcase, and he grunts out his frustrations before finishing inside of me. And when he is done, he pushes me away with one final parting blow.
"Nothing."
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
WHEN I WAKE, it is to the sound of the private phone line ringing.
River.
A glance at the clock confirms that it is three am, and I fell asleep at my desk. Drunk. I'm still drunk when I pick up the phone, and his words are not clear. That is my initial reaction.
"Ray is back," I hear.
"What?"
My head throbs and my eyes burn.
"Check your email."
I rouse my computer from slumber. My inbox is filled with alerts.
Ray Rossi has been found.
Alive.
My initial reaction should be relief. This is what I've been waiting for. Hoping for. The day has finally come. Ray is alive. And he will finally know the suffering I have inflicted upon his daughter.
Upon Bella.
River mumbles something from the other line, asking if I'm still there. I disconnect the call and stare at the screen.
My gut churns. It's too soon. That's my only thought. It's too soon. I wasn't ready for this. I'm not ready to let her go. I tell myself that she hasn't been broken. That I need more time.
But it's a lie.
Because it does not matter what I did before. Nothing else matters. After tonight, she will never look at me the same way again. My Bella is as broken as broken can get.
She has seen me for what I am. She has seen me at my worst. She has dared to hope. And her hope has turned to dust.
I flip over to the house security screens and search for her in the dim light. She is not in my room. Or the conservatory. Or even her own room.
I continue searching, and I do not find her in the piano room. Or the library. Or the kitchen. Or any room. Dread coils deep inside as I search them one by one again.
Something is wrong. Something is off. She isn't anywhere.
I leave my office and check the only places without cameras. The bathrooms. But they are empty too. I pace the halls and check the doors and windows.
All locked.
I can find no trace of her. Not one. My mind conjures up the worst scenarios as I retrace her last steps.
My bedroom is the same as I left it. The pillowcase is now on the floor, next to her panties. And her shoes.
Her shoes.
Next to the bed, the floor board is misplaced.
The trap door. The same trap door I sent the prostitute through upon her arrival this evening. And I don't know how I missed it. How I could have been so careless.
My Bella is so smart. So observant. It is too late. I fear it is too late. I have lost her forever.
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 ARE weary 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.
He holds me closer still and tells me it will all be over soon. Then he kisses me. He kisses me like it's the last time he will ever kiss me. And we fall asleep.