A/N: I have emotional attachments to Strae, my beta, and hennaluv, my sidekick for this story. I'm pretty sure they think I'm creepy.
I'm not like you, your faceless lies, your weak dead heart, your black dead eyes.
Breaking Benjamin ~ Crawl
Chapter One
Jacob's Point of View
I woke up sputtering, as I always did. I couldn't sleep without having the same dream. It was always the same dream.
All this time later, I still hardly managed to keep breathing at the thought of her laying there, unmoving. Seven years later, I couldn't close my eyes without seeing her broken body, her pallid, wasted face. I couldn't think of her without feeling the bitterness towards him and what he did to her.
I didn't regret taking his life – or his existence since his life had already been taken – for a second. There wasn't a small part of me that regretted it, even after the hell I'd been in since. Sometimes I could still imagine the sickly sweet taste of his skin on my tongue, could hear the terrible metallic noise of my teeth ripping him to pieces, could smell the thick, vile smoke that his burning body created.
Wherever he went, I hoped he was rotting; trapped and suffering, like me.
I often wondered what Bella would think. Would she have regretted her choices? Would she have changed anything, knowing the outcome? I had my doubts. Bella was, after all, a masochistic martyr to the core. She was probably happy to die for that creature they created together. Scratch that, she was happy to die for that thing.
The only reason I could even imagine her changing anything would be for that sick asshole who killed her. I'm sure she didn't want him dead, and for this reason, there was also a part of me that thought she didn't want their spawn to be nonexistent either. I was humble enough to know that, yeah, she'd feel guilty, but it wasn't enough. Deep down, I knew she wouldn't have changed a thing for me if she knew where I'd end up. Hell, I'm sure she would think I was deserving of this shit, seeing as I killed her husband.
Maybe she'd be right. I didn't know anymore.
But then I didn't regret, I couldn't, not even a little, because he killed her. It was his fault. I would take the consequences for my actions so long as he took those for his. And he did.
I had to give him that at least. He didn't even attempt to fight me. He wanted to die. If I were to choose to look at it in such a way, I would say I did him a favor. But I didn't want to do him a favor, so I didn't look at it that way. He wanted to pay for his actions, I fulfilled his request willingly.
He was dead because he killed her. I was here because I killed him.
She was here because they made her.
I don't know how it was possible to hate someone you never met – less the one time I saw her immediately after she was born, when she bit her dying mother – but I hated her. I hated her so goddamn much it hurt. She was the essence of everything I hated, and if I ever had the chance, I'd kill her too.
They'd kill me for that. They didn't kill me for taking Edward's existence, but they'd definitely kill me for taking hers. Renesmee.
God, I hated her fucking name. It was so… Bella. Which made me feel it was really kind of wrong to hate, because it was Bella but I hated it no less. It was a reminder of everything really.
She was part Bella, she was made from Bella, her name was so Bella, I bet she even looked like Bella, but she was not Bella. She was ultimately the death of Bella. She was his spawn, she helped succeed in her mother's death.
Therefore, I hated her and wanted to kill her too. No amount of Bella in her could make her good – or so I told myself. Having never met her, the traitor part of my mind told me I was screwed if she looked anything like her mother. How the hell could I kill something as beautiful as Bella?
It was really kind of sad. No, not really, it was sad. Just plain fucking sad. This was the daily grind for me. It was boring and repetitive and sad.
Every morning I woke up sputtering and sweating, and admittedly sometimes sobbing like a fucking baby. Then I would think about Bella. Dead. And my empty stomach would churn uncomfortably and I would occasionally dry heave for a few minutes before I got really pissed off and relived his death over and over again. I swear that fucker had the nerve to smile when I ripped his head off. I would think about everything she did and how much he did and how they were the death of each other in the end. I would sporadically – as in daily, sporadically through every goddamn day – think about how much I still loved her.
I couldn't blame her for a fucking thing, never could. She couldn't help it that he sucked her in. His vampire sexy charms worked, and she couldn't help it. It was his fault. He forced her to love him, then he forced her into a wedding, then he forced her into bed, and finally himself into her.
Or at least, that's what I kept telling myself…
Every time I thought about that – which was way too often – I wished I could go back and re-kill him. Stomp on his granite nuts a few times or something. But mostly I wish I could go back further, to their wedding reception when I found out her plan to let him have sex with her. I could have killed him before he ruined her. Or better yet, I would go back further and make her mine after he left her. She had been falling in love with me then, I know it. I could have kept her on my side of the treaty line that night and the fucking leech wouldn't have been able to come to her and they all could have thought she was dead then and he would have killed himself and we could live happily ever after. Or even better, I could have kept her from him straight away in the beginning. I shouldn't have given him the chance. I shouldn't have let him get to her.
I did it daily. Like clockwork. I felt so fucking guilty it wasn't even funny. I just wanted to backtrack. Turn back the fucking time. I keep thinking I could have stopped this. All of it. Bella and I could have been off happy together in La Push with a house full of beautiful babies by now. But we weren't because I didn't stop it and he killed her and I killed him and I still loved her. I loved her so fucking much it hurt.
The day would go on like so. I could spend hours at a time thinking about how much I loved her, imaging what our life could have been like together. Eventually I would start thinking of everyone else I lost.
I often wondered if Billy was still alive. I really hoped so. I figured I was probably an uncle by now. Christ, Rachel and Paul probably had a whole fucking litter of pups running around La Push. Billy had to be alive for that. He was probably owning the grandpa business. Rebecca probably had some babies as well, but with me gone now too, she probably didn't come home to visit at all anymore. Hopefully Rach and dad, and the rest of the bunch, flew out to see her.
Charlie, Jesus, I thought about Charlie more than my own dad. How the hell would he be living now? Someone had to have told him something, he couldn't just be sitting by his phone waiting for her. Maybe he was down in La Push now himself. Everyone knew Sue totally had a crush on him – which my dad fucking loathed. Charlie was probably shacked up with Sue, Billy probably got over it, and they all were probably pretty happy with all the fucking babies everyone was probably having. Emily probably had babies, Kim probably had babies, God knows who else imprinted on and knocked up chicks. There were probably pups everywhere.
Shit, Leah might have even imprinted. Leah pregnant and with a man was seriously a laughable thought, but anything seemed possible now. The kid, Seth, probably imprinted too. I missed those two. Once I admitted to myself that I actually missed Leah, I knew I was in a shitload of trouble. I was seriously lonely if I missed her.
And I was lonely, desperately so. All I had anymore were memories. Memories and fantasies. My life was one big dream… or nightmare, depending on how you looked at it. Nightmare was definitely more fitting.
Boring and repetitive and sad.
I could hear them faintly above me today. Them and her. It was really very cruel that they kept me so close to her. They didn't seem to worry about me getting off of my leash and attacking her like the rabid dog that I was.
Stupid, overconfident vampires.
She was so close, yet so far away. One of these times, I'd succeed with my plan, and I'd get a hold of her. She wouldn't know what hit her. She'd be dead, like her mother and father, and then I'd be dead, and the world would be a happier, more karmic place.
I was convinced death was a better compromise than this. This wasn't even a life. Shit, it wasn't even an existence. It was… subsistence. I didn't even really take care of myself. I couldn't, they wouldn't let me. I was on a schedule. Death was better than this.
She, on the other hand, had it really fucking good. The closest thing to a schedule that she had was the reliance on my schedule. She was allowed to do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, however she wanted, and I was stuck here, without so much as the option to go to the bathroom when I needed to.
Like a fucking dog. I could mess in my cage, but like the sadistic masters they were, they would leave me sit in it to 'learn my lesson.'
I wasn't the only murderer in this house, and the hypocrisy behind their actions was severely unnerving. All of them had killed, even Little Miss Perfect. Between her and I though, I suppose only one of us tried and succeeded in killing, but in my mind, she was no less of a murderer than I was. That didn't change the fact that I was the one being punished for everything.
It was all his goddamn fault. He just had to choose Bella. I just had to choose Bella, too. But it wasn't her fault. She couldn't help it she was irresistible. He could have fucking helped it though. He could have kept his nasty, cold hands to himself, and his disgusting, cold, icicle dick in his pants.
I meant to yell, "Stupid, sick, son of a mother fucking cunt…" and so on, but it all came out garbled, muffled, and strained by the gag.
I heard the faint sounds above falter and knew I was going to pay for that later. They were probably going to skip my dinner or something. Give The Golden Child a little extra for her growing bones.
I scoffed to myself, more bitter than usual.
Ignoring the gnawing feeling of wanting to go up there and just rip her to shreds, I realized a couple of weeks ago that she wasn't growing though. She was a whole seven fucking years old, and an adult already from what I could make of it. I'd heard a lot of the conversations early on, they were all so panicked that The Perfect Angel was going to die fast, like within-a-tenth-of-a-normal-human-lifespan fast.
I was torn between being completely content, satisfied by this karmic reprieve and feeling oddly empty at the same time.
I thought maybe, just maybe, these cold, dead bastards were going to get what was coming to them.
But that was just too fucking perfect. Too easy. The Big Guy couldn't give poor old Jake a break. No!
Instead, The Wicked Witch just grew up really fast. Not only was her mind exceptionally developed at the age of seven, but her body was too. Permanently in her prime. Not that I'd know firsthand, it's just what I pick up on pieces of conversations.
Of course any child of his would be immortal. So much for a little fucking justice in this world.
From the gist I caught of one awesome conversation I'd overheard a few years back, The Devil's Incarnate knew she was a murderer. That had been a sort of trying day. I'd very nearly felt bad for wanting to kill her – but I think that was mostly because I could smell her and she didn't really smell all that bad, as in she sort of smelled human. And sort of… good.
She was crying, hysterically. She felt remorse for what she did to her mother. She knew what she did to her mother. I mean, she actually wished herself dead because of what she did to her mother. Again, I didn't know how to deal with this. A part of me was content she was suffering, but I think I felt sorry for her. As quickly as that feeling came to me, I disregarded it just as fast.
No, I wouldn't feel anything for this thing. She was scum to me.
"It's all my fault," she had sobbed.
Her recall was spot on, and the moment she mentioned me, my vents were closed off.
That had left me reeling. She knew about me. She remembered me. But from how she spoke, she really had no idea.
I started sweating immediately and felt all my bitterness toward Her Bitchiness return. Now I got to sweat myself to death because she was making her 'parents' nervous with the touchy subject that was myself.
She deserved the guilt. Christ, she'd torn Bella up from the inside out. Emotionally just as much as physically. I really hoped this was eating her alive. I really fucking hoped she was in a great deal of pain. She deserved it.
It's too bad karma didn't actually exist. If it did, I was convinced she'd be a pile of ashes by now, while I lived in the Playboy penthouse or something as equally awesome.
Christ, I haven't seen a Playboy magazine in more than seven years.
Yup, it's just too, too bad karma didn't exist.
– – –
I woke up choking. Vomit tried to rise, but I quickly swallowed it down, knowing I'd choke to death if it rose.
Maybe I should let it.
I didn't.
The kink in my neck ached worse this morning.
My wrists felt more sore than usual.
I wasn't crying, so that was good.
My stomach felt heavy with emptiness, though, which meant they hadn't fed me in a while. My stomach growled as if to concur.
My jaw was fucking killing me from the gag. But I preferred this to sweating. The sweating I just couldn't take for long.
My head was all over the place. My usual dreams had been slightly obscure. I swear to God, Bella had been wearing a thong while she died in my dreams.
I shuddered. That was just fucking creepy.
I think her boobs had been bigger too.
Actually, there had been an all-around Playboy theme to the entire dream. He had been wearing a red silk robe.
It matched the blood.
Fucking creepy.
My thoughts were interrupted as the huge metal door clicked repeatedly. An equally huge dimpled grin awaited on the other side as it swung open.
"You're lucky," he greeted. "I thought she was going to come down here and kill you."
I rolled my eyes at him and he chuckled, crouching to remove my gag.
"Yeah, I'm really fucking lucky," I replied sarcastically, my voice deep and hoarse from going unused. "Just one regular lucky motherfucker."
1 comments:
now why would you think we think you're crazy?
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