Author's Notes:
Happy Easter! Hope everyone has a wonderful day! Increased the font to make it easier for peeps to read ont he phone. Hope that helps!
“I can go home?” she asked quietly.
Chapter 53
“Oh my God,” Bella whispered. “It’s beautiful.”
It had been nearly two months without incident. No more trailers, no activity from any of Aro’s previous businesses. Emmett did most of the monitoring, and he had certainly taken the lion’s share of the businesses he “divided” between the two of us. Other times I would have cared, but not now. Now I only focused on what I could do to make Bella’s temporary life here with me more bearable.
I glanced from Bella to Neuschwanstein – the giant Bavarian castle. She had a real smile on her face, and those were rare. When I saw it on her face, my heart would start pounding in my chest like I had just run a mile or something.
Or just walked up this fucking insane hill for a closer view of the castle.
I had wanted to take her more places and do more things, but it just hadn’t been possible after news of the second trailer on Alice and Jasper. Until we could confirm these people were more the curious and not a missed cell of Aro’s operation, there would be no outings for Bella. She took it in stride, as far as I could tell, but then – she always seemed to take everything in stride. She only cried at night, when she had the dreams.
Taking a little trip south was the first time we had ventured out for something other than the necessities, and I wanted it to be something cool, at least. The castle made the most sense, and wasn’t too far away from where we were staying. Considering the look on her face, I had the feeling I just might have done something right for a change.
We took the usual guided tour, and I shoved a bunch of bills into Bella’s hand so she could check out the gift shop at the end of the tour. I stepped outside to grab a quick smoke while she wasn’t looking. While I stood there, my phone rang. It was Rosalie.
“I think we got it,” she said. “It was just a matter of the right frequency to cancel the signal…”
She went on for a couple minutes about shit that made no sense to me before I cut her off.
“So, what you are saying is you can shut the chip off?”
“Yeah, exactly.” She hummed for a second. “At least, we’re pretty sure we can. The ones we’ve tried this on have been down for four days so far and haven’t reactivated like they were before.”
“Good news.” I crushed the cigarette butt under my heel.
“Finally,” she agreed.
“How long before you know for sure, and you can get here to deactivate Bella’s?”
“A week to ten days,” Rosalie said with confidence. “Are you going to tell her?”
“Yeah,” I said. “She should be pretty happy about that. At least she can get an idea of when she can go home. I know all this up in the air shit has been kind of nerve wracking for her.”
I hung up just as Bella was coming out with a small bag in her hand. Inside were a 3D puzzle of the castle and a model of it inside a snow globe, which she said was for her mom.
“Why are you smiling?” she asked me with narrowed eyes. I shrugged, because I hadn’t really realized that I was smiling.
“Looks like Rose and Jasper found a way to shut the chip off,” I told her. Her eyes went wide for a minute as she bit down on her lip.
“I can go home?” she asked quietly.
“Just another couple of weeks,” I told her. “Then yeah, you can go home.”
“Two weeks?” she said, and her face got all scrunched up like she was upset, which wasn’t the reaction I was expected. I looked at her closely, trying to figure out where I could have misread her. For a brief moment, I wondered if she was going to miss being here with me, and then I told myself not to be so fucking stupid. The chances of that were about as good as me finding all the right words to say at the right time.
“Is that bad?” I finally asked when I couldn’t stand it anymore.
“No,” she said softly. She started heading back down the trail to the bottom of the hill. I followed after her.
“Bella, what is it?”
She shrugged, telling me it was nothing, which was bullshit.
“Tell me,” I said. I reached out and grabbed a hold of her elbow, which slowed her down, but she didn’t stop. “Please?”
She stopped and turned to look at me.
“Next week is my birthday,” she finally said. “I thought maybe…maybe I would be home by then.”
I remembered the date from the paperwork Aro had given me. On September thirteenth she would be nineteen. Today was the eighth. As much as I wanted to be able to give her whatever birthday wish she desired, there was no way Rosalie would be ready by then.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. I let my hand slide down her arm, and I took her hand in mine. Her fingers were warm and a little damp with the humidity. I twined our fingers together, and we headed back down the side of the hill.
It wouldn’t be too much longer, right?
I love Neuschwanstein. :)
The countdown to the end...how will poor Doofus cope?
I may have one more update later today. We'll see.
