Chapter 08
She was running. Something was chasing her, and she didn’t quite know what, but it was scary. She had gotten out of the house in the middle of the night to do some stargazing, but it was then that it happened; she heard them come from the sewers outside the gates and no matter where she ran, they kept following her and every door she knocked on the property was locked.
Bella thought she would be safe back in the house, but she couldn’t get back in as the doors were all gone. Freaking out, she tried the storm doors of the cellar, but they wouldn’t budge either, and she rolled into a ball when a flash of light hit her, illuminating her and the area around her. “Don’t hurt me!” She screamed. “Please, I didn’t do anything wrong!”
She wanted to outstretch her hands in defense, but she could feel how the grass was giving way and sucking her up. She managed to turn around and tried to crawl out of the hole she was disappearing in, but the suction was too great, and she fell through.
She fell right onto Carlisle’s doctor chair and had somehow, in the process of falling, had lost all of her clothes. When she gave herself a proper look, she must have lost her skin too. It only hurt if she looked at it. “Let’s open you up and see what makes you tick,” Carlisle’s cold, dead voice sounded before she saw the saw. Her eyes widened in shock when he started to saw through her body, and she managed to let out a scream.
This couldn’t be real, but why did it feel that way?
She screamed again and fell through the chair, turning upright and found herself being fastened to some cross by a big man with long blonde hair. It was dark, and a woman was chanting over a fire while she was struggling against her bonds. “No,” she whimpered and managed to pull away but the man pushed her back against it, calling for Elijah to help him out. Blinking, she saw Elijah’s frightened face.
“Hold him down!”
She realized that this wasn’t one of her nightmares, or one of her memories turned into a nightmare, but that it was someone else’s. And Elijah had something to do with it. She let out a cry for help; she didn’t want to be chained up, and something was going on that she didn’t quite understand. It hurt. She felt hurt. Betrayed. Angered by the betrayal, it’s what kept her fighting against the bonds. She needed to escape. “Please, don’t let them do this to me!” She cried out, hearing Klaus’ voice instead.
“Do it now, boy! Now!” the man ordered Elijah, and she could feel Elijah push her up and against the cross. His strength was making it unable for her to escape, his eyes showing nothing but sadness.
“Help me,” she begged him. “Please, don’t… help me.”
Elijah showed hesitation then but kept her on the cross. When the woman at the fire stopped chanting, she could feel a pain in her body and she fell through the cross, through the earth and landed in the basement of the house, surrounded by the Royal Guard, and a smirking Jacob.
“No!” She screamed, trying to crawl away as the men’s hands were all over her. One stifling her cries with their manhood, another one was tugging on her hair. She felt being split open from below when someone forced themselves inside of her with their shaft and a fist on the other side.
She was dreaming. She was having a nightmare. She had to wake up. Another sense of panic overwhelmed her as she blacked out for a moment from the violence of the men before she fell through the world, light as a feather, a familiar warmth enveloping her and guiding her to safety.
When she finally woke up, she felt tears on her face, and she realized that she wasn’t the only one crying. “I had hoped you never had to go through that as I have…” Klaus murmured as he ran his fingers through her hair. “I am so sorry, love, so sorry.” She had been screaming in her sleep, and he had been unable to rouse her. Against his better wishes, Klaus had slipped into her dream, watching things unfold for her, trying to pull her back whenever she fell through a nightmare.
When she landed in a memory of his, the one where his mother placed the curse on him, he had hoped it had been short lived, but she had experienced it all, just like him. Of course, he could have told her that it was nothing but a nightmare. But like the others, it would have felt so real to her, he didn’t have the heart to tell her that it wasn’t real.
At first he thought it was strange that she was having one of his recurring nightmares, but then he realized that she had taken some of his blood that day. Sometimes it was quite the inconvenience to be a thousand-year-old supernatural being.
The moment she realized she was in a nightmare and needed to wake up, was the moment where he could pull her to safety, but he was afraid that more damage had been done than good. “Are you alright, Bella?”
She nodded as she looked at him. “Why are you crying?” she asked softly and reached out to dry his tears with her sleeve.
“When you didn’t wake up from your nightmare, I decided to join you,” he admitted, not daring to look at her. “I went into your head to see if I could pull you out… I’m sorry you had my nightmare, love.”
“That was yours?”
He nodded. “It’s a nightmare I was fully awake for at the time. A memory.”
“Elijah really did that to you?”
He nodded again.
“What were they doing to you?”
He rubbed his eyes and sighed. He didn’t particularly like to talk about the whole experience; it was a long time ago, and the curse has long since broken. “Binding my werewolf side with a curse, but not to worry, I finally managed to break it a while ago.”
“Who were the other two people?”
“My mother and father.”
She blinked at him before putting her arms around him and kissed his head. “I’m so sorry,” Bella whispered. “They weren’t very nice.”
He couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle, her choice of words still fascinated him. “No, they were not.”
“And you still trust Elijah after that?”
“It’s been a long time ago, but yes, I’ve never fully trusted him after that. You see, when you get to live as long as we have, more often than not you find yourself forgiving someone for their transgressions against you, only to keep the peace. Especially when you can’t be killed. It makes life a lot easier that way,” he softly explained to her, enjoying sitting like this, in her arms for a change. “We always promise to be better, and it will be better for a while before things turn around again.”
“What kind of stage are you in now?”
“We’ve reached an impasse and are now courteous. Only time will tell when things will get rough again,” He looked at her face, giving her the once over. “Are you alright?”
“It was an awful dream,” she said with a nod. “And some scared me, and I felt incredibly betrayed when I landed in yours… but I’m alright,” Bella replied as she played with a small strand of his hair. “I am sorry that you had to go through such a traumatic experience.”
“You’re sorry? Bella…”
“No, I mean it,” she said as she softly kissed his lips. “You’re too good to be tormented like that.”
He smiled wickedly at that. “Oh, you have no idea, love, you have no idea!”
~o.O.o~
Elijah was in the dining room the next morning for breakfast when Klaus and Bella joined him. “Hello, brother,” Klaus greeted him chipper. He was glad that after Bella’s nightmare, they both had the opportunity to catch up on some dreamless sleep. After the happenings of the day before, she was now fully restored and back to her usual self. For which Klaus was grateful.
He was also grateful for not having completely screwed things up for himself with her.
There was some commotion in the courtyard that he and Elijah shifted their attention to while Bella had zeroed in on the pancakes that Klaus had specifically wanted on the breakfast table as he knew she loved them so much. After having been out all night, his brother and Jeri looked exhausted as Kol carried in the vampire that had caused so much trouble.
“Do I smell waffles?” Jeri immediately perked up as a whiff of the waffles wafted her way. “Oh!” She said giddily as she pushed through the two brothers and joined Bella at the table. The girl was immediately shying away, and she realized that she had to fix that. But breakfast first.
Kol dropped Jessica’s unconscious form to the floor at Elijah’s feet with a big smile on his face. “Congratulations, brother, you are now officially a daddy,” he said as he pat his shoulder. “I had to save her from Marcel because he wanted to kill her for what she did. I know that you think that everyone is worth saving, so he agreed not to, as long you took care of her. Good luck.”
Elijah peered at the vampire at his feet and turned around to say something to his brother, but was at a loss. Instead, he huffed, dragged the out cold vampire into the room and made sure he could keep an eye on her so he could snap her neck again.
“Oh, pancakes, that must be brilliant, poppet! Can I have one? Or shall I wait until you’re done, seeing as you’re hogging the entire platter?”
Bella looked at her stack and then at the shape Kol was in, slightly dirty and fatigued. She lifted up one of the pancakes and placed it on his plate. “One.”
“Aw, how about another?”
“You asked for one,” Bella simply stated before pouring the rest of them with maple syrup and icing sugar and continued to eat.
“Alright then,” Kol said as he turned to Jeri. He didn’t even bother asking her when he grabbed a waffle off the plate she was hogging. In return, she stabbed his hand with a fork, causing Bella to flinch and pull her plate out of harm’s way. “Hey!”
“Leave her be and keep your filthy paws off my waffles,” she said as she reached for the maple syrup. “Have some eggs. Or you know, blood.”
“I already drank, darling, thank you.”
“Then don’t take our food.”
“May I enquire why Jessica’s all banged up?” Elijah spoke up as he looked at Kol and his… floozie witch as he returned to the table.
“Anger management,” Kol shrugged. “Be happy she left her alive and that she focused her anger on her and not on regular humans. That would have been a mess you’d have to clean up!”
“Me?”
“You always clean up our messes, don’t you, ‘Lijah?” Kol smirked at his brother. “What does it feel like? Like changing our nappies?”
“That’s enough, Kol,” Klaus shot at his brother, watching Bella closely as she ate. For the first time in a very long time, she was eating like a regular person, devouring the not-so-modest pile of pancakes as if she hadn’t had food in weeks.
“So, that’s your duties? To clean up their messes? Wow,” Jeri said to Elijah. “What about your own? Because I had to go and fetch your vampire, Elijah. The one you are responsible over.”
He stared at her affronted at her accusation. “I am not! I took her to Marcel the morning after.”
“Perhaps, but had you given her to Marcel when it happened, your hands would be clean. Instead, you decided to take her to your room, making you responsible for her and you fucked up,” she pointed out calmly before she chewed on her waffle. “Marcel didn’t want to deal with her, and especially after what happened here, with Bella. That would put a target squarely on him. It’s your mess. You’re going to teach this young vamp the ropes.”
“Unless I kill her first,” Klaus growled lowly. “This time I’ll do it right.”
The witch glanced at him and shook her head. “No. She is his responsibility, but I do agree. The next time she fucks up epically like this, I will join you in ripping her apart. No matter how I feel about the situation, she was treated like shit by this douchebag. She reacted like any newborn, emotional vampire would when betrayed by someone they believed would guide them in a new life. Even if they conned their way into it, she lashed out.”
Elijah let out a sigh. “Very well. I shall take care of her.”
“Keep her away from Bella,” Klaus shot at his brother. “I’m not going to put her on vervain just because your young vampire can’t resist temptation.”
“Hey!” Bella looked at Klaus. “What is this vervain? Will that stop her from going after me?”
“Not necessarily, but it would stop her, and any other vampire, from compelling you.”
“I want.”
“Sorry,” Jeri said apologetically. “Can’t. With your permission, Bella, I’d like to continue the testing of your and Klaus’ blood, now mostly to satisfy my curiosity and not to help that asshole. I’d rather have it untainted, but I can use magic to keep her away from you, restrict her movements through the building.”
Bella looked at her and thought for a moment. “Are you sure?”
“Would you like me to throw your boyfriend through the room again?”
“No!” Bella said shocked. “Don’t ever do that again!”
“I’m sure,” Jeri smirked as she looked at Klaus. “I hope you’ve learned your lesson.”
“I have,” Klaus replied evenly. “However, I do not appreciate being taught a lesson on the expense of Bella. Do you have any idea what I had to walk into after your… display of power?”
“Kol has told me some of her history, not in full detail like you all seem to know about, and it’s not my business. But from what I saw, I have an idea,” Jeri said and then looked at Bella. “And I’m truly sorry for what happened yesterday, but I’m not responsible for your actions nor for what has happened to you in the past.”
“What did she do, Nik?” Kol asked, still staring at the fork in his hand.
“She had a knife on her!”
“Oh,” Kol sighed, slightly shaking his head as he finally pulled the fork out of his hand and watched in fascination as it healed up again. It never grew old. “We need to install a metal detector for her to walk through.”
“However,” Klaus continued as he walked over to a dresser and grabbed a book out of it. “You were right, and I hope you can accept my apology as Bella has done.” He handed Jeri a book. “This is the witch Rebecca’s grimoire. Maybe there’s something of use to you in there. It’s yours.”
She looked at the item in surprise, feeling the magic that it held flow through her hands and into her body. She could most certainly use it. She then looked up to Klaus and nodded. “Apology accepted and thank you.” Who knew that the hybrid had the ability to admit that he was wrong and do something nice? “But for future reference, Klaus? If you want to have a long lasting relationship with someone, you need to learn how to communicate.”
“Yes, I figured that out, thank you, Jeri,” Klaus smiled at her before taking his seat again.
Rebekah sauntered into the room and took her place at the table after kicking against Jessica to make sure she was indeed unconscious. “Oh, lookie, can I kill the bitch now?”
“No, Rebekah you can not,” Elijah shot at her. “We’ll see if she wants to even out and if she doesn’t, I’m afraid you’ll have to get in line.”
“Ah, why am I always last!”
~o.O.o~
Klaus found himself wide awake a few nights later, Bella blissfully curled up against him, all tuckered out, but he couldn’t sleep. Kol and Jeri were being far too loud for his taste. What if their constant thumping would wake Bella? Maybe he should go over and tell them off but he didn’t want to wake Bella. Instead, he tried to block the sound from his ears. But that didn’t work.
He was tired. He had been on the hunt for a couple of days to figure out which regular vampires had been hanging out with the Cullens. Who had hurt his Bella when they did and had managed to get most of them so far, he was still a few short. And they were all male, some were even saying there was a female vampire involved at one point, but no one dared to speak her name.
He needed sleep. He felt pity for Elijah, as Kol and Jeri had a room close to his and only hoped that he would be able to save his own sanity.
Klaus quietly sat up when he heard the door open and blinked when he saw Kol enter, followed by the witch. “What is going on?”
“We need your sofa, can we sleep on your sofa? Please?” Kol begged as he walked into the bedroom. “That sex is tiring as fuck! Hell, it even makes us tired and seem lazy compared to it!”
“So that’s not you?”
“Obviously, Nik,” his brother rolled his eyes at him.
“Then Rebekah—”
“Oh no no no no no,” Kol sat on the edge of the bed, careful not to disturb Bella in her sleep. “Rebekah already took off.”
Jeri had already found the couch and after wrapping her in her blankets, she had curled up and fallen asleep again, mumbling something about Rebekah seeking refuge at Marcel’s.
“Then who?”
“It’s Elijah, brother,” Kol visibly shuddered and rubbed the back of his neck to smooth out the tiny hairs that were standing up. “Elijah and Jessica have the wildest sex ever. I’m pretty sure it’s tantric and then some.”
“That…” Klaus was at a loss for words.
“Exactly. So, we’re taking the sofa. Don’t snore.” Kol got up from the bed and joined Jeri on the sofa. “Good night!”
Klaus let out a growl as he laid down again.
“Shush! I’m already working on a spell to soundproof his room when we wake up again but please, let me sleep!” Jeri groaned as she hit Kol in the face with her elbow as she turned around. “I need my beauty sleep.”
“No you—-”
“Shh!”
Kol slowly walked into the breakfast room, whistling and a spring in his step as he was followed by Jeri with an equally large smile on her face. Klaus blinked at them. “I see that my sofa sleeps well?”
“Oh, no, it’s horrible, but I’ve taken my revenge on Jessica now that the vervain is out of her system,” he grinned as he sat down in his chair and pointed to the courtyard through the open doors. “Any minute now.”
“Come on, Jessica, let’s go and get breakfast,” Elijah sighed as he tiredly rubbed his eyes. “We can have a nap afterward.”
‘Nap?’ Klaus mouthed to Kol, who shrugged in return. “I guess she wore him out, quite a feisty one.”
“No!” Jessica whined. “Elijah, don’t take me across the courtyard, the floor is lava!”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is!” She screeched as he tried to pull her with him. “No! The floor is lava, and the demons will get us, look!” she pointed at her shadow. “Look! Elijah!”
“Oh for the love of God, what has gotten into you?”
Klaus snickered as he looked at his brother. “Well done, Kol.”
“I did nothing, brother,” Kol said innocently. “Apart from taking care of our entertainment this morning. Speaking of entertainment, where is our little Bella?”
“She’s sleeping in; I didn’t have the heart to wake her this morning,” Klaus said as he kept watching the scene before them. Elijah was trying to get Jessica across the courtyard, and she kept resisting. He was wondering how long it would take for Elijah to only snap her neck or take the other corridor instead of the short cut. “She hasn’t been herself lately; I think I shall stay home today instead of going after those who have hurt her.”
“I know what we could do,” Kol reached for a piece of toast and, like Klaus kept his eyes on Elijah and Jessica. This was a real life cartoon, and it was fantastic. “Show her a little bit of childhood fun.”
“Kol, we’re too old for that.”
“No, we’re not, brother. Fun. Like… do you remember us making little wooden huts in the woods where we played or hid from Father? How about we make a blanket fort for Bella, and serve her tea in it. I’m almost certain she’s never done that before.”
“Oh,” Jeri smiled widely. “I’m so up for that!”
“Come on, Nik, let your inner child out and have some fun,” Kol teased him before grabbing another piece of toast to nibble on.
“I don’t think she’s feeling well Kol, why do you believe that something silly as a blanket fort will lift her spirits?”
“Well, I don’t know Nik, short of feeding her your blood again, we can’t actually get a doctor in here to check her over now can we?” Kol shot at him. “Get her out of her head. Do something unexpected and silly!”
Klaus sighed as he turned his gaze away from the courtyard as Elijah had decided to snap Jessica’s neck for the time being. He took a sip of his tea and ran his hand through his hair. “Very well, a blanket fort it is.”
“Great! Just get her down for lunch, and let us handle the rest,” he smiled widely at his brother before turning around too and continued his breakfast. When Elijah finally got to the table, he watched him drop Jessica to the floor. “Trouble in paradise, brother?” He smirked.
“Whatever you’ve done, reverse it now!” Elijah hissed as he sat down.
“What? Now? But she’s got her neck snapped! By you!”
“Kol!”
“Fine,” he said with a shrug. “We’re going to make a blanket fort anyway.”
~o.O.o~
The next day, Klaus went back to hunting. It wasn’t as if he needed to do it, but he wanted to. Every single bastard who ever laid a finger upon his Bella was going to suffer a long, painful death. Or from a single heart extraction, he wasn’t quite sure about it yet. It did mean that he had to leave Bella alone for a night or two. He had to go to Los Angeles where it was rumored one was hiding out and a handful in Seattle, but he’d be done after that. He could go home, and prepare for the moment the Cullens would come and try and take her away.
Kol was accompanying him, itching to cause some mischief, and Elijah and Rebekah would remain behind. Rebekah was going to tend to Bella, which was fine by Klaus as Bella preferred her over his brother anyway. Of course, Elijah had to comment on how rare it was for him to leave his home to hunt things down in a different city.
It wasn’t uncommon. Klaus simply never had enough reasons to step outside his comfort zone. Even while on the run from Michael, he never ventured further out than necessary. But he’d do anything for Bella, and to make sure that those vampires would never hurt her again was one thing. A mere thirst for revenge on her behalf. And a sport.
And yes, he felt a little funny while he was away from Bella, but he decided to use that feeling to hurry things along to get back to her. If he continued to be a slave of the magical bond between her and him, he wouldn’t be going anywhere without her until the sad day that she might perish. The knowledge that she was now safe with his siblings and a powerful witch in his absence was enough – for now. They all cared for her deeply to defend her from anyone, including from him, and he wouldn’t want it any other way.
Bella realized that this would be the first night without Klaus in the building since he had taken her in. She felt quite strange about it, she couldn’t describe it, it was as if a hole in her heart was forming the second he stepped outside as she knew he’d be gone for at least 36 hours. Two nights. Two whole nights.
She wasn’t a whole lot unsafer; Rebekah and Elijah were still around, and so was Jeri. After Klaus had left, Bella had taken up a spot outside the room Jeri was in, and occasionally she could hear her cry out in frustration. Bella wondered what frustrated her so much, what was she doing? Was Elijah annoying her?
Bella blinked at her next thought. What if they were having sex, and she was listening in? Oh, that would be horrendous! Pale as a sheet, she moved away from the room and headed to her own. Without Klaus, she didn’t want to be in his study. The thought of Elijah having sex with Jeri was unbelievable, Jeri would never do that to Kol, would she? She wasn’t too sure about Elijah. Despite him always being dressed up, she suspected that he had a naughty side, even if he was having endless fun with Jessica in the evening.
Oh, that was so gross. Bella shuddered as she sat on her bed and wrapped her blanket around her. If she’d go to sleep, would Klaus come home sooner? Probably not, who was she fooling?
As she had figured for herself a week ago; she needed to find herself a hobby to keep herself occupied. Could sleeping be a hobby? Because she had felt tired for a few days now, and it was getting harder and harder to pretend she wasn’t tired. Or dizzy. She didn’t understand why, though, she was eating healthily, and she slept quite long hours and yet, she still felt off.
Falling on her bed, she stared up at the ceiling and shivered. It felt as if someone was using a doctor’s knife to slice her chest cavity. She knew the feeling because Carlisle often did it when he wanted to play with her insides, see if the introduction of foreign elements would have an effect on them on the outside. He was crazy like that.
More and more, she came to realize that what everyone had been saying about her life before the Mikaelsons was true. The Cullens had been very wrong when it came to treating her, and they were insane. Klaus and his family had been nothing but kind to her, understanding and patient, even if Bella didn’t deserve it. It was unbelievable as she made a lot of mistakes over the months she’d been at their house. They treated her as an equal, nothing less. In fact, they treated her better than an equal, and that was terrifying, she didn’t deserve it. All she was doing was to be. Existing. Breathing air. No one deserved to be treated better for that.
She had landed from hell straight in heaven, and it was the best. She felt guilty for not being a productive member of the family. If she even was a member of the family. She was with Klaus, his unofficial girlfriend as he’d never asked her, and it simply happened but was she truly a part of them? A weak human?
The sudden feel of nausea overwhelmed her, and she barely made it to the bathroom to throw up. This had happened before, a couple of days earlier when Klaus had gone for the first time. He’d just been in New Orleans as a handful of vampires he was hunting was in town, and this sucked. Even when there was nothing for her to throw up, she kept going until she felt exhausted.
This had to stop.
She rinsed her mouth, and while she was hugging her blanket, she made her way back to Jeri’s room and knocked on the door. “Jeri?”
“Go away, Bella,” Jeri’s voice sounded. She seemed agitated.
“Jeri.” Bella knocked on the door again.
“No!” she yelled.
“Jeri.”
“Go away, Bella before I… I swear to God… fucking… just leave!”
Bella sighed. “Fine. I just wanted to offer you some of my blood,” she muttered and turned around to walk away again. “Good luck.”
“Wait, what?” The door opened, and Jeri almost pulled Bella into the room. “Seriously? Can I have fresh blood to play with? That would help so much! The grimoire is great, and I think that I’ve narrowed it all down, but the point is to test it, isn’t it? And since I only have an old sample of your blood…”
“I think you’ve had enough coffee,” Bella replied calmly as she pushed her arm through the opening of the blanket and nodded towards the empty cups on the table.
“No, I could use more,” Jeri said as she grabbed a clean syringe, only then noticing that Bella looked like a sheet, and she was wearing a blanket. “Are you okay? You look a little pale.”
“I’m fine,” Bella said with a wince when the stabby thing pierced her skin. “Typical ‘Klaus leaves the building’ symptoms. Nothing to worry about.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, if you’re sure,” Jeri slapped a band-aid on Bella’s arm. “There, all done. Thank you for volunteering your blood.”
Bella slowly nodded. “Have you figured out how the bonding thing works, between Klaus and me? I mean, not that I’m complaining, but if I feel like this every time he leaves…”
“It’s not a bond between mates. Or you know, soul mates linked together through blood,” she explained as she shook the vial and placed it on the table. “Or werewolf mates. You won’t die if he does.”
“I think it’s the other way around,” she said with a slight smile on her face.
“Let’s just say, at a hormonal level, you’re not bonded. It’s likely one of the spells that have been used to create that potion you took. I haven’t figured that out yet; the powers aren’t actually cooperating and without Kol, I have less magic to draw from.”
“You could ask Rebekah or Elijah to sit with you?” Bella offered.
“Ugh, no thanks, I don’t particularly like them.”
“Do you like anybody else other than Kol?”
“Sure I do,” Jeri said with a shrug. “I don’t know. I really like you right now because you brought me some fresh blood to work with?“
A sense of pride swelled inside of her. Jeri was pleased with her. “If you need more, I’m in my room,” Bella smiled at her, deciding to swing by the kitchen first to get herself a cup of tea, although she was confident that the people working in the kitchen would kick her out. Because they would bring her the cup if she wanted one.
~o.O.o~
It was frustrating that they had destroyed her faucet from turning too hot to burn her because all she wanted was to draw herself a hot bath and warm her bones. Was she getting sick? Like the flu that she had seen on the shows that Kol and Rebekah had shown her?
She shuffled to Klaus’ study and his bathroom but found his faucet having been sabotaged as well. Letting out a snort, she decided to stop finding one that still worked correctly and headed back to her room so she could soak. She’d just have to refill her bath with the water whenever it cooled down, not a problem.
She could ask Rebekah, but she’d say that her own bathroom was perfectly fine. And it was. The water was warm, just perfect for her, but Bella needed something hotter. She didn’t want to scald herself because Klaus wouldn’t like it, but she needed heat. Would she dare to ask Jeri? Surely she’d be okay with it, considering Bella had given her blood earlier that day?
Making her way over to Kol and Jeri’s room, Bella was surprised to see the door open, and when she peeked around the corner, she saw Jeri lounge on the couch and watch television. “Jeri?” Bella asked with a knock on the door.
“Hey! You want to join? I’m watching Toe The Line, so cheesy, but such great entertainment!”
Bella slowly entered into her and Kol’s domain. “I was actually wondering if you still have full control over the faucet in your bathroom, you know, the one that comes with the bath?”
“Of course I do, why wouldn’t I?”
She smiled at that. “Because I have a habit of sometimes still punishing myself and stuff, they fixed mine and Klaus’ to an average temperature that can’t get any hotter than a particular temperature… but I’m freaking cold. I just want a soak in a hot steamy bath.”
“Oh, I gotcha, come on,” Jeri got off the couch and led Bella into the bathroom. “Those Mikaelsons mean well,” she said as she plugged the bath and opened the faucet. “Granted, I don’t want you to scorch yourself, but make it as hot as you think you can handle and I’ll check and see if it’s not too hot, alright?”
Bella smiled gratefully. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“No worries,” Jeri smiled at her. “They forget that occasionally, we mere mortals do need our hot baths and that you have a strong will. I’m sure you would be able to handle mixing your water by now and not abuse it.”
She nodded as she felt the temperature of the water. She opened the hot one a little further and was then satisfied. “I won’t open it any further.”
“Good. Now, enjoy, use whatever product of mine that you want,” Jeri closed the bathroom door when she left.
Bella stripped out of her clothes and let the blanket fall on the floor as well before getting in and letting out a sigh of relief. This was good. This was warm and heaven. She let the water heat her bones for a few moments before reaching for one of the bottles that said ‘lavender’ and poured a few drops in. While she had used a bar of soap at the Cullens if she was allowed to wash without any supervision, she had quickly gotten used to using the products that Rebekah and Camille had bought her. She liked to smell nice.
When the water started to cool, she added some more hot water and closed her eyes. Could she stay in this warmth forever? She wanted to.
“Will it die?”
Bella looked up to the never aging Edward and Carlisle before looking down at her hands that were strapped to something. She couldn’t move her legs either, but she was focused on her hands. They were small.
When the contraption she was on started to lower her into god-knows-what, she felt how she begun to panic. She knew exactly what was going on. Carlisle and Edward being cruel; this didn’t serve a purpose other than to have Bella end up in agony. And she wasn’t allowed to respond. The mini version of her wasn’t permitted to answer as the water slowly engulfed her body, cold.
Bella shivered as she tried to break free, but she couldn’t move. It was a miracle that she could shiver at all. She attempted to open her mouth to scream, even though she was taught not to. She didn’t want to go through this again. Not again.
She managed to open her mouth and only breathed in water, only her nose was above the water now, and as she panicked, she started to swallow it. Cold, cold water, chilling her body even further now that it was inside.
“No, we need her cold, that’s all,” Carlisle’s voice sounded. “She’s getting there.”
Her body shivered and started to tingle. If she weren’t continuously breathing in water in her panicked state, it would have been a nice sort of tingle. She couldn’t close her mouth anymore, her body made it impossible for her to do so as it was submerged, and she needed more air than what was coming through her nose; which, despite it being above the water, was also mostly water.
Her lungs were starting to burn.
“Look, she’s already paler than when we’ve first started.”
Feeling cold wasn’t new to her, she walked around without clothes and on bare feet. She slept on the floor. She was being touched by cold hands every single day. The only time she felt some heat on her skin was when she was sitting in front of the window. She was fortunate that she hadn’t reached the age for Edward yet.
She couldn’t think anymore. The longer she stayed in the water, the more difficult it became for her to think. She couldn’t move anymore, and she had given up on breathing. The only thing she could wish for now was death.
“That’s enough, get her out of there.”
The contraption lifted her out of the bath she was in, but other than that, she didn’t move. The bright lights were hurting her eyes and the last thing she remembered before passing out was that Carlisle had his doctor’s knife in his hand.
Bella remembered the first thing she noticed when she woke up; a huge scar across her side and stomach sutured up. It was curious how it wasn’t on her body now that she was older. I’m dreaming, she thought. I’m having a nightmare, and I’m in a bath!
“Easy,” Jeri’s voice sounded as Bella was being pulled out of the bath, coughing up water and a towel wrapped around her. “Just breathe.”
Bella put her head between her legs as she coughed and hated herself for getting a nightmare in the bath with Jeri in the other room.
“That was some bad dream, huh?” she crooned as she rubbed Bella’s back. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to you sooner, I should have run to you as soon as I felt the disturbance.”
“Thanks,” Bella breathed as she wrapped the towel closer around her. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying you’re sorry when things happen beyond your control,” Jeri chastised her, causing Bella to wince slightly. “You dozed off in the bath, that could have happened to anyone. Sucks to be you when a nightmare comes along.”
Bella shivered and nodded. “Thank you,” she shakily got to her feet, unable to shake her nightmare off and gathered her clothes. “I’ll go to my room now.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” she pulled the plug on the bath and followed Bella as she slowly walked to the door. Something wasn’t right, but if the girl was going to be stubborn about it, she wasn’t going to push. “You know where to find me.”
Bella nodded again and went back to her room. She dug through her closet to find the comfiest and warmest clothes and layered up before crawling into bed, tugging the covers tightly. She was just sick. There was no need to cause for alarm. The nightmare had only made it worse because she now felt colder than ever.
Maybe it was a good thing that Klaus wasn’t home; he didn’t have to see her sick. Coughing up some remaining water, she sat back up again. She never got sick at the Cullens. Well, she did, but she usually got better fast, the moment she became ill. Because it was usually from one of Carlisle’s experiments. She wasn’t being experimented on now, was she? No, Jeri had only withdrawn some blood, and that’s it. Nothing else. And she’d been nice to her for the bath.
“Stop being so paranoid,” she told herself as she laid back down and closed her eyes. She was going to be fine without Klaus home. She’d be better before he returned. “And that’s an order,” she muttered sleepily as she shivered. “Go to sleep.”
