Burning Horizon

Burning Horizon; How Can He Even Dare?!

Chapter Fifteen: How Can He Even Dare?

"Bells, he wants to talk to you." Dad growled. "He won't leave at all until he's seen you! The others can't touch him because the whole pack is there and it isn't them who are the problem here. There is no need to harm innocents - just him."

I saw mom's face turned to an expression of disgust as if there was a revolting sight in the room as I opened my eyes. "What if I don't want to talk to him?"

I was back in the warm, safe living room of our house. My body was no longer being supported by hard arms; instead the padded cushions seemed to curve perfectly to support my plastered leg and my back.

"I know you don't Bella and I really, really don't want to let you go anywhere near that idiot, but would you rather he came here?" Dad hissed, making a small slit in my skin with the sharp nail of his thumb and inserting a long, threatening looking needle into my arm. I didn't even wince at the sudden flash of pain, not after I'd had so recently had worse, so much worse. She considered what dad had said for a short moment and then sprung lightly to her feet and swept towards the door.

"If he even tries to get past me..." Mom mumbled as she slipped her black cell phone into the large pocket of her jacket. "I swear to god he's over."

Dad looked down at my horrified expression and sighed deeply, inserting another pack of needles into the inner side of my arm.

"She doesn't have it in her to kill him Nessie. I know that for certain." He whispered, his eyes flickering between me and the door where mom had just exited - I knew how protective he was. To let her go alone like this towards possible danger (whoever that may be) demanded an enormous amount of mental strength.

There was a loud, short belt of wicked sounding laughter from the hallway before the front door slammed shut with a bang.

Why can't he come here! I demanded in my head.

"It's complicated... I don't know if I should even be...." He said, his voice flat and undecided. There was fury emerging in his dark eyes.

I love him. Let me see him! You have to let me see him!

"Could you still love him," Dad whispered, sliding my t-shirt back so the bandages on my stomach were exposed. I wondered if anyone had bothered to remove them since they were first wrapped tightly around my body - or whether the wounds underneath were too gruesome for anyone to bear to take a peek. I had no idea if there were any wounds under there; I only knew that they were wrapped so tightly to keep my broken ribs in place.

"Could you still love him if I told you that his teeth did this to you that night in Italy?"

His fingers were tracing along the ridges of the bandages smoothly, his fingernails making intricate engravings in the cloth. The swirls and flicks that he created with his force distracted me so much that his last sentence missed its opportunity to soak into my mind. All I could remember were the words; no meanings were appearing out of the clouds in my mind. So much so that he had to repeat his perfectly pronounced words again for my benefit - or as it turned out later, not for my benefit at all.

"Jacob did this to you, in Italy. He nearly... he nearly killed you." He locked his jaw together like he did when there was bad smell in the room; it was as if the mention of Jacob's name brought into the room the scent that all of my family (except me of course) found so disgusting. To me his scent was a different smell entirely - he had an entrancing smell, to me it seemed musky, pleasantly warm, not a pungent stench that could clear a room. By the way my parents had tried to describe how he smelt to them, I was still mystified at how they managed go within a miles radius of him.