Author’s notes:
I do have a little more info on the updates. Basically, if I’m reading everything right, you’ll get one email update per day, regardless s of how many updates I do. I set it to send out between 7-9:00pm Eastern US time (GMT – 5). At this point, that’s all I got. I tried another setting that *might* send you additional ones, but I won’t know until I post this. Ha!
And now…on to the evilness!
A moment later, blinding headlights from a car coming up the drive burned into my retinas.
Chapter 59:
I dropped down in the plastic seat on the porch and reached out to the ground where my pack of cigarettes and lighter lay next to the brick wall. I glanced at my watch to verify it was two minutes after midnight before I lit one and brought it to my lips. I let the smoke into my lungs, and then blew it back out again with a big sigh.
I’d obviously fucked up again, big time.
What else was new?
I put my hand over my face and closed my eyes, thinking back to what had transpired just a couple of hours ago, and what the hell I could have done differently to make it any better. Not surprisingly, I didn’t know what else I should have done. If I had rejected her outright, we’d probably still be in this same situation right now. If I had taken her to bed…
Fuck, what if I had?
I’d probably be laying there right now, with Bella in my arms, in the most intense post-coital bliss imaginable, that’s what.
I flipped the cigarette into my left hand and took another puff. In the darkness, I could just barely see the glint off the gold band around my third finger.
Married.
What the fuck did that mean, anyway?
Nothing.
I never thought I would be married, even under the circumstances that had necessitated this farce of a marriage. As soon as Bella was safe she would go home to her parents and we’d get it all annulled or whatever. I didn’t really even know what the whole institution of marriage was supposed to mean. I was never going to have kids – no way in hell. I wasn’t about to bring some kid into my fucked up life. No one deserved that.
Bella was just a kid, really. I’d brought her into my life, and look where that got her? She was trying to seduce the asshole who bought her for sex, and I probably would have let her if she had just asked one more time. If it had been anyone else in the world, I probably would have just rolled her over and fucked her on the couch. Then I would have gotten up and left. Maybe I would have called her again later.
Probably not.
She hadn’t even finished high school.
I wondered again why that was.
I leaned back in the chair a bit, and my fingers rubbed deep into my eyes, like maybe if I shoved my fingers into my eye sockets hard enough I’d stop thinking about all of this. Thinking about it didn’t seem to help any, and it just left me feeling confused, stupid and useless. My hand dropped, and I looked up into the clear fall sky. All the stars were out, and this remote location had almost no light pollution at all, so I could see every point of light clearly. As I stared, little flecks of light shot across the sky – tiny specks of dust blazing into a big fiery ball as it hit the atmosphere.
A moment later, blinding headlights from a car coming up the drive burned into my retinas.
Shit.
The cigarette forgotten, I pulled open the patio door, grabbed the H&K and checked the clip before trying to shove it into the elastic waistband of the lounge pants, which of course didn’t work.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I pulled my jacket out of the closet, slipped the gun into the pocket, and went back out the patio door, leaving it open as I went and silently cursing myself for being so unprepared. A couple months of non-violence and I had already lost my touch.
The car was pulling up alongside the rental we’d brought from Heidelberg. I watched from around the corner as the engine turned off, the dome light went on, and the driver’s side door opened. There didn’t appear to be anyone else in the car, just a single guy who pushed himself out of the car and looked towards the house. The light was still on in the kitchen, and he cocked his head to one side to peer in.
I moved around the edge of the house, coming up silently behind him as he walked towards the door. I lifted the gun up and aimed at the back of his neck.
“Don’t move,” I told him. His steps halted, but he had enough sense to not turn around. “Put your hands up on your head and tell me who the fuck you are and what the fuck you are doing here.”
He moved slowly, holding his hands out to the side as he brought them up over his head and laced his fingers together on the top. I couldn’t see his face, and could only tell he was a tall guy and pretty big in general. He took a long breath, held it a second, and then breathed back out. My fingers tensed on the trigger.
“Edward Cullen, I presume?”
Him knowing my name wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, right?
Chapter end notes:
Ohh…yeah…evil cliffie. Who do youthink this guy is?
He waited until past midnight to smoke! Good Doofus!
I’ll try to update again this evening.
