CBWR? Chapter 44

You are getting a nice long chapter tonight instead of none, because when I went along to “chaperone” my son’s date tonight, I got rushed and didn’t bring the UC chapter I’ve been working on. Since I didn’t have anything I needed, I went with this instead.

Chapter 44

I nodded over to Bella.

“Do you recognize her?” I asked him, and I could see his bloodied face go pale. He knew there was no good way to answer. If he said no, he’d die and he knew it. If he said yes, he might end up in worse shape. I could hear Bella’s breathing behind me – labored and near hyperventilating. I didn’t look over to her – I had to focus on what was in front of me and just how I was going to get out of him the information I needed if he decided to be less than cooperative.

He chose the less painful path.

“Yeah,” he finally said. He squirmed back and forth in his chair, trying to get some feeling back into his tightly bound hands.

“How?”

“She one of the girls,” he said. He looked quickly to Alice, then back to me again. His tone was actually pretty controlled considering he was facing death.

“And how, exactly, do you know that?” My voice was calm and cold. If he’d done anything to her, I might very well rip his cock off with my hands.

“She um…she was picked up by my team.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Alice growled from the side. I waved a hand at her. I needed to do this one my way, and I was having just a little bit of difficulty with that, knowing Bella was behind me and watching.

“Explain your team to me,” I said. My hand slowly came around from my side, and rested easily on my leg, pointing right at his dick. His eyes nervously danced between the gun, Bella, the couple of Pack members still in the room, and me. His eyes were wide, and he nodded in acquiescence.

“We go all over the country,” he said. “There’s a couple other groups that go outside the US. We pick them up from different areas so it doesn’t get traced to one place. We pick them up and ship them back here for training before they’re sold.”

“And you picked her up?”

“Yeah…kinda by accident.”

“What the fuck do you mean by that?”

“Well…um…she fit one of the orders, but we weren’t casing her out beforehand. We were gonna pick up another one, but we saw her and grabbed her instead.”

“Where’s my mom?” I could hear it in here tone – Bella was just barely controlling her voice. She took a step forward until she was just behind me to my left. I didn’t want her that close to this guy – partially because I just didn’t want her that close to him, but also because I didn’t want her to see what I was going to do to him.

“Huh?” The idiot looked from me to her again.

“Where is she? You didn’t just pick up me, you picked up my mom, too. Where the fuck is she?”

I moved my arm out to the side and kept her from going any closer to him. She pushed against my arm, but didn’t really try to get past me. Our captive licked his lips a couple of times before her spoke again.

“We dumped her.”

Bella started screaming.

“Alice, get her out of here,” I ordered.

“She has every right…”

“Alice! Get her out of here!” I repeated. “She doesn’t need to…”

I looked straight into the guy’s eyes.

“…see this.”

“Fine!” Alice glared at me, but put her arm on Bella’s to take her away. Bella was still screaming at her, but Alice managed to get a grip on her and haul her out of the room and out the front door. I put my foot on top the chair’s seat, right between our hostage’s legs. I knew the only thing Bella wanted to know was whether or not her mother was here somewhere…or sold…or dead. She needed closure in one form or another. But there was a question that was pressing more in my mind.

“You said she fit one of the orders,” I reminded him. “What order?”

His eyes went really wide as he stared up at me and licked at his lips.

“Aren’t you Edward Cullen?” he said. He sounded confused.

“Yeah…”

“I don’t get it,” he said with a shake of his head. “Why do you need to ask?”

“Just fucking say it,” I heard myself growl. I didn’t want to know, but I still had to know.

“She was to fill your order.”

I closed my eyes and tried to swallow, but it felt like my throat had swollen up, and I just couldn’t. Completely and totally confirmed – Bella was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, looking like my type. They were supposed to grab some other girl that night. There was no way in hell I could try to pretend this burger didn’t come from a cow slaughtered for my sole benefit.

After a minute, I managed to take a breath, swallow, and speak again.

“Now you are going to tell me exactly what you mean by dumped her.”

“She was…she was way too old for training,” he told me. His voice was nowhere near controlled any more. He sounded almost as hysterical as Bella. “No reason to keep her, and we already had three others in the truck. We needed to get back, so we…dumped her out the door.”

“Where?”

“On our way up the ramp to the interstate. Umm…I-5?”

“Was she alive?”

“At the time, yeah.” The sweat on his forehead was starting to drip into his swollen eye. “I don’t know about after. I mean…she could have been, I would think.”

“How fast were you going?”

“I dunno – I wasn’t driving. Maybe fifty?”

I slammed my foot straight into his crotch, wondering if Bella could hear his screams from the van. I reached for the fingers on the guy’s right hand, and he flinched and groaned as soon as I touched them. Realizing Alice had already worked over his right hand, I went for the left instead, snapping his smallest finger as he cried out in pain.

“So what you are telling me,” I snarled, “is that you never had her at all? You dumped her right after you picked them up?”

“Um…yeah…pretty much.”

“And all the time Aro was telling her he had her mother, he was lying just to keep her in line?”

“Yeah...James says it helps train ‘em faster, you know?”

I slammed my forehead straight into his face, causing him to spit blood and teeth.

“James is in the basement, fried to a crisp,” I told him. “You might get off that lucky if you can tell me who has access to the tracking systems for the slaves.”

“I don’t know,” he said. I raised my fist, slammed it into his eye socket, and then raised it again. “I swear to God, I don’t do anything except find them. I swear! I don’t know about the other shit!”

I snapped another finger, because honestly I just wanted this asshole to suffer. I couldn’t pretend he was solely to blame, because now I knew exactly why she was picked, but I could still take it out on him.

By the time I was ready to walk out, he was begging to die.

I obliged.

Bella was in the van, yelling at Alice. I pulled the door open wider and she immediately took another swing at me. I caught her arm and pulled it down to her side, because she was going to end up hurting herself in the close quarters of the vehicle, and told Alice to help out with the clean up crew, who were just arriving.

Once Alice climbed out the back, I grabbed both of Bella’s hands and tried to get her to llook at me through her anger.

“Bella…Bella, will you listen to me, please?”

“You had no right, no right to have her drag me out of there! Did you think I couldn’t fucking handle it? Is that what you thought? Because I will tell you something-”

“Bella – they never had her!” I finally yelled. She stopped her tirade and stared at me.

“Never…had her?”

“No…they dumped her out of the car right after they took you.”

“But they…they said…if I didn’t…”

“They were lying to you, Bella.” I moved back a little and let go of her hands. She was struggling against me anymore. “They just said that so you would do what they wanted.”

“She’s okay?” I watched another tear drop off her lashes.

“I don’t know, Bella,” I told her honestly. “But she might be. We have to get you to the hospital now, though, and get your chip out. While the doc is taking care of you, I’ll see what I can find out, okay?”

It was the least I could do, right?

---

Chapter End Notes:

Well...poor Doofusward got some answers - some better than others. Now, if Bella doesn't end up tasing him in his sleep, he'll be doing okay.

Ooo - it's late! I gotta get to work! TTFN!