No One Knows (Sequel to 16) (Completed)

Chapter 10: Tell Me That I Won't Feel A Thing

A/N- WARNING!!! THIS GETS A LITTLE INTENSE AND NOT IN A GOOD WAY

Annabel's POV

My head was pounding. I couldn't understand anything in front of me, as I swayed in the kitchen. I closed my eyes. My old therapist from New York- after Cassie- her voice rang in my ears. Count to ten. Count to ten. Count to ten...

My feet moved without me feeling them. Up the stairs. I knocked on mom's door. No answer. I tried the handle, as I did every day. Still locked. The only reason I knew she was still alive was the sobbing and snoring into the early morning. 

I was slow to turn around, to walk back down to my fate I knew was waiting. Fate. You can't change it. It just takes you, hands over your eyes, leading you to the abyss. 

"Sweetheart." 

I consciously stopped from shivering when I heard him. This was the first time he came through the door, into the house. Before it had just been in the darkness around the side. If I didn't come out, I found a silhouette standing in my room. I supposed he had a key. I knew better than to ask how.

"There she is." 

His smile was gruesome as I stepped slowly into sight. Golden skin, silver eyes. He was radiant. He was beautiful. I felt repulsion at the mere sight of him.

 I swallowed hard.

"That mother of yours still locked away?"

I didn't respond. He cocked his head, his smile widening.

"You know, it's funny. It's said that mothers are born with an instinct to protect their children. That they'll move the earth for them, if it came down to it. Yet there is yours, who crumbles inside herself and lets her children die right in front of her, not even moving a muscle."

I clenched my jaw, staring at him. He could see the hatred.

"Ah ah ah, better mind that temper. Your mommy's future won't be very certain otherwise. I thought I had made that clear."

"You never told me why." My voice was so quiet.

"Why what, sweetheart?"

"Why you killed her."

That's when I saw the flash behind his eyes. I knew I had struck something, though I wasn't sure why or what. He advanced on me fast, hands gripping my wrists, pushing me against the wall. His nostrils were flared and for a moment I thought that in all the anger radiating from him, I thought he was going to grasp my throat and just end it then and there. But he just held hard, eyes boring into mine.

It became clear in that second.

"You didn't, you didn't kill her. She...she..."

"Bullet wound right through the forehead. I just took the gun, it was mine anyway."

I couldn't think. I couldn't breathe. I  couldn't...I couldn't....

"But...but the baby..."

Holden stilled. Something cracked behind his gaze. 

"Wh...what?"

"You didn't know?" The tears were falling now, blurring my vision as everything fell apart around me.

He pulled from me, blinking. Without him I simply fell to the ground, my knees buckling fast.

"You monster!" I screamed through the sobs that wracked my body. There was nothing left in me now. Nothing, nothing...

"She did it to herself! I...I...a baby..." He reached out to steady himself against the wall, as if someone had just pushed him hard in the chest.

"Why? Why did you take her from me?" I couldn't contain my voice any longer, it was a screeching, inhuman mess of pain and hatred and I couldn't see through the tears.