Chapter 47
“Why the fuck not?” I stood up and glared down on her, as if my intimidating presence was some how going to change any of the facts.
“It was inserted into the back of her head, and its lodged right next to her brain,” Doctor Cope informed us both. “Removal would almost certainly render her blind, and could cause paralysis or death. There is no way I can safely remove it.”
“Does it even matter now?” Bella looked over to me. “I mean…who is going to be looking for me now?”
“We still have the Italians and the French to deal with,” I reminded her. “Outside of them, I don’t know, which is why we’re going to be in hiding while Emmett flushes out any extras. This does make things more complicated though.”
Deciding the doctor wasn’t going to be any more help, I led Bella back out of the hospital through the back doors and into the car. Once she was buckled in, I handed her the laptop with the article about her mom and stayed quiet while she read it.
“Is this all you found?” she asked.
“So far,” I replied. “I’ll still look some more. Now that we have that much information, Rosalie and Jasper should be able to find out the rest.”
“She’s been at home all this time?”
“It looks that way, yes.” I nodded as I started up the car and pulled out of the parking lot. “I mean, she might have spent a few days in the hospital, but it says she was recovering.”
“Give me your phone,” Bella suddenly demanded.
“Bella, you can’t-”
“Give me the fucking phone!” she turned and screamed at me.
“I can’t Bella,” I told her. “You can’t call them – not yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s dangerous, and you aren’t safe yet. If you call them, you are going to put both yourself and them in danger. When it’s safe, you can call them – I swear. When this is all over I’ll take you home.”
I really didn’t want to elaborate on how someone might very well be watching her parents if word gets out who started this little feud. If one of Aro’s people who hasn’t been eliminate or who slips through the cracks links everything back to me, they will definitely link it back to the girl I bought a week ago.
She argued a while longer, but I wasn’t going to budge on this one, and eventually she gave up and we rode in silence until I called Rosalie on the way to the airport. I asked her what else could be done about this chip.
“Let me look into it,” she said. “We’ve got all these other girls with the same issue. I may be able to track the signals on their chips and find a way of shutting them down or disabling the signal. It’s going to take a while, though.”
“How long?”
“I could get lucky,” she told me. “It might only take a couple of weeks.”
“Shit.”
“Don’t stay in one place,” she recommended.
“All right – we’ll be in touch.”
Rosalie had apparently packed a suitcase for Bella, though there didn’t appear to be anything for me. Nice. I guess I deserved that, but it meant I was going to have to stop and at least get a change of clothes. We ended up in the duty-free shop, where I bought a nice sized carry-on and everything I needed to get by for the next forty-eight hours.
Bella had never flown first class before, and it was only us and one other business type in the whole front, so we almost had it to ourselves. She settled back in the window seat and refused the glass of wine offered to her. I went with whiskey, though they didn’t have anything great. I drank it up quick, hoping it would stop my heart from pounding as hard as it had been since this morning…when I got married.
I got married to a woman who hates me.
At least she was kind of speaking to me again.
The plane took off, and I glanced over to see tears falling down her face again. I looked back down to my lap, trying to figure out what the fuck I should do. Was I supposed to hug her or something? Would she even want that from the fucker responsible for everything she had been through? That seemed kind of unlikely. I wanted to do something, but I knew opening my mouth was only going to make it worse, and didn’t know what my other options might be. I finally came up with something that I didn’t think would make anything worse.
“Can I get you anything?”
Bella shook her head and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. She looked over to me, and started crying harder. The business guy looked over the back of his chair to see what was going on, but I glared over at him and he decided to mid his own Ps and Qs instead. I looked back to Bella, who had her face in her hands.
“Bella…please,” I said. “Is there anything I can do?”
Again she shook her head as she wrapped her arms around herself and bent at the waist until her forehead was resting on her knees. I couldn’t take it anymore, so I lifted up the arm of the chair between us and reached out for her.
She came into my arms without protest, and though her crying was still tearing into me, I instantly felt more at ease now that I was touching her and holding her close to me. Her head went against my chest as her hand fisted the front of my shirt. I turned sideways a little so business traveler dude couldn’t stare right at her again, and wrapped my arms around her as tight as I could.
I was tempted to tell her how sorry I was, but I remembered how well that worked before and decided to hold off on any more apologies for a while. We were both exhausted at this point, and ended up falling sleep tangled up in each other. I woke at some point and looked out the window at the stars in the sky, wondering what time it was but not willing to risk waking Bella to check my watch. I lay my cheek on top of her head any inhaled her scent while I held her.
My wife.
My thumb reached across my hand and rubbed at the gold ring around my finger. As it twisted around, I wondered how long we would be married before we got back to the states and had it annulled. A couple of months, maybe? Maybe once the rest of the killing was done, I could at least take her on a honeymoon trip. We were going to have to keep moving around as long as her chip was active, so I might as well take her around Europe a bit. Maybe it would take her mind off all the other shit, and maybe her memories of being with me wouldn’t all suck.
It could be fun, right?
Chapter End Notes:
Poor Bella. She really has held up pretty well so far.
Doofus seems to have himself a small basket of clues at this point. They are going to be stuck with each other for a while.
