A/N: Hey guys. Sorry for the long wait. Let me explain.

I took a hiatus from Fanfiction to sort my life out after my sister's sudden passing. I immersed myself into work, and college, and found myself trying to remain as busy as possible. It helped, but I can't deny I'm still learning to cope and deal with what has happened. It hasn't been easy, but I find myself especially fragile after writing. I think that's why I've avoided writing for so long but I had to get this out there. This chapter was especially hard for me to write as it deals with the themes of loss, guilt, and how we grasp at coping mechanisms that aren't necessarily good for us, but instead detrimental. It also deals with the lack of caring others may have for our suffering, and how the world moves on, but we (those who have lost someone) are stuck in a place in time that we wish would have never ended.

I just want to thank you guys for sticking with me, not only with this story, but as an author here on FF. I appreciate all the support, always.

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight.

WARNING: This story includes RAPE. I am not in any way glorifying it, or condoning it. It is just a part of this story. There will also be violence, and graphic imagery. That being said, read at your own risk.

Note: Unbeta'd so all mistakes are my own.

Bella's ears were ringing. She was sure of it. The sound hadn't dulled, not even when she had pulled the knife back out of Jacob's chest, and laid her head where the blood flowed with her tears along his skin.

She clung to the sound of his breaths, however faint they were, through the ringing. She wanted to remember. She wanted to remember what he sounded like alive, how he felt while he was still warm.

I love you. I love you.

Not once had he opened his eyes, and looked at her. Instead, he'd stayed blissfully unaware of the war raging inside of Bella's head. Now that she had made her choice, she wished she could have taken it all back, wished she could have gone along with him once and for all.

"No, no…" Bella whimpered, feeling the weight of Jasper's hand on her arm, slowly pulling her away. "No!" She began to thrash, striking him wherever she could only to be held down until she calmed.

He was heavy on her back, his hands holding hers in a grip that made it so she couldn't escape. "Jake, Jake!" Bella began to cry in earnest, as if her voice could bring him back to being the boy she had once known.

Jasper's knees dug into the backs of her thighs, and she yelped, her limbs weak and struggling.

"Be a good girl for me, and calm down." He shushed her, reaching to brush her hair out of her face where it had fallen into her mouth. "Shh, it's alright now. It's alright."

The blood had pooled all along the floor, and when he stood with her, and hauled her up into his arms, his footprints stained whatever part of the floor had remained untouched red.

"No, no…" She cried out once more, before looking down the stairs at Jacob's lifeless body.

The bath water was stained pink. Bella watched it in slow fascination, finding she couldn't tear her eyes away. She heard Jasper's voice on the phone distantly, and listened, knowing he'd hide the old plug-in phone once he was done.

"Yeah, I'll need you both here to do it." He was silent for a moment, listening to whoever was on the other line before he began again. "I don't care. Just get here as fast as you can… Alright, bye."

He came into the bathroom then, kneeling down on the ground next to the tub. He reached in with a bar of soap in his hands, and washed her skin when she made no move to do so herself.

She couldn't find it in herself to fight him, to keep his hands away from her. The battle was already lost. Whatever fight she put up now was pointless, futile. There was nothing left for her to protect, nothing left to keep sacred. She'd destroyed the only thing she had ever truly cared for, and for that, she deserved to suffer.

"Edward and Emmett are coming over." He didn't need to say anything else. She already knew he couldn't dispose of Jacob's body himself, and leave her alone in the house. It wasn't that she would seek means of escape, but that he couldn't trust her not to hurt herself. He'd seen the lifeless look in her eyes, the look that meant she had given up.

"Come on, stand," he'd said once he had rinsed the soap from her hair and her skin, already holding an old towel in his hands.

She didn't miss the streak of blood at his collar, or the warning in his gaze when he started to pat her down, one that told her to keep it together.

A small whimper came from her throat. "Bella, hush."

"Jas…"

He was silent throughout her sobbing, and just when she feared he would strike her, he did something else instead that made strange hope bubble in her throat.

He walked over to the old plug in phone he'd discarded on his bed, punched in a number, and handed it to her.

Hands shaking, and mouth dry, Bella pressed the phone against her ear, and stood, waiting to hear a voice, any voice.

The phone rang, once, twice, and just when she thought to hand it back to Jasper, she heard a velvet voice answer, "Hello?"

Although Edward should have been the last person she wanted to talk to, something inside her broke as she listened to him speak. "Bella, love. Calm down. It's alright. Emmett and I are on our way." There was no trace of anger in his voice, nor smugness. Instead there was a tenderness that made tears come to her eyes, and she found herself nodding though she knew he couldn't see her.

"I'll be there soon, and then we can lay down and rest. Would you like that?"

"Y-yes," she rasped.

"Good," she could hear the soft smile in his voice. "We'll be there before you know it. Hand the phone back to Jasper, pet."

She did as he said, shivering as she felt her wet hair on her back. She met Jasper's eyes as he said goodbye to Edward, and ripped the cord from the outlet in the wall before he walked over to his closet. It was a small mercy when he came back to her, a black oversized T-shirt in his hands.

Finally covered, he lead her to the bed, and underneath the covers. "Stay," he said, petting her hair before he left the room.

Bella woke to the sound of voices.

Dazed, and confused, she swallowed before grimacing at the dull ache in her throat, and head. Her eyes hurt most of all. Pressing the backs of her hands to her face, she remained oblivious and unaware until finally realization set in, and she remembered.

A single cry escaped her throat before she heard the sound of footsteps on the carpet of Jasper's room.

"Shhh, don't cry."

"Edward," she pleaded.

"It's alright." He crossed the distance between them, shedding his coat and bag on the floor before kicking off his dress shoes, and joining her in the bed.

He wrapped his arms around her, tucking her head beneath his jaw before he started to rock them back and forth. There was something about being held, about crying into his chest that made the heavy weight in her head easier to bear.

She didn't understand it, and she couldn't explain it, but held onto his body despite everything inside her that told her not to, that told her to push him away.

Hours passed, and by the end of it, Bella could almost lull herself into a false sense of being. Only it was shattered the moment Jasper walked in.

The cuffs of his shirt were bloody, and his hair was sweaty and in disarray. He glanced at them on the bed, a strange look in his eyes before he turned and walked into the bathroom. He stripped with the door open, shameless as their eyes took his nakedness in.

Emmett appeared next, poking his head into the room. "What do you guys want Rose to make for dinner?"

"I don't have a preference," Edward replied, rubbing a hand down her back.

"Me either," Jasper said from underneath the shower spray. Bella remained silent. The last thing on her mind was food.

When Edward decided she was well enough to get out of bed, it was time for dinner. As they walked into the kitchen, Bella spotted Rosalie's blond curls before she cast her eyes downward. She didn't want to see what she had become.

The three brothers each took their seats. Bella, needing no instruction, sat at Jasper's feet on the floor, her knees bracing for the hurt that came from the hard wood flooring.

She listened as Rosalie opened the wooden cabinets, and to the clanging of porcelain bowls as she placed them on the counter. Bella spared a glance at Jasper's bowl when it was set on the table, and felt her mouth water at the sight of spaghetti covered in tomato sauce.

Unconsciously, she reached for Jasper's pant leg, wrapping her arms around his calve before resting her head against his knee.

The urge to cry was imminent, and was made worse when Jasper spoke. "Rosalie, come sit next to Bella."

Emmett nodded, and soon Rosalie sat with her thigh pressed against hers. She watched, her violet eyes waiting for further instruction, and when it came, to Bella's dismay, she didn't hesitate.

"Lay her down on the floor, that's right." Rosalie pushed Bella's shoulders until she lay with her back against the floor, her thighs trembling. "Spread her legs, yes touch her there."

"Please," Bella begged, only to choke back a moan. She felt the other woman's tongue on her slit, and her small fingers fingers spreading her open, then dipping inside.

"I want you to make her nice and wet for me," Jasper continued, palming himself through his jeans as he watched the lewd display.

"Fuck," she heard Edward curse, and opened her eyes to look at him through her weak tears.

Rosalie made small sucking sounds, and reached up to push back the shirt Bella wore to palm her left breast before squeezing her nipple softly between her forefinger and thumb.

"Kiss her," Jasper urged, and this time, it was Bella who obeyed him. Weaving her hands into Rosalie's soft hair, she pressed her lips against hers, before angling her head to sweep her tongue past the other woman's lips. They both moaned in unison before they were broken apart.

Bella only saw Jasper's belt buckle before he shoved his cock into her warm mouth. She held his hips as he thrust, taking him in deep, and reaching to fondle the sack that lay against his thighs.

Why am I doing this? Some distant voice inside her asked. Why aren't I pushing him away? Why did I kiss Rosalie?

She didn't understand, but she didn't need to. All she knew, and felt was sensation, a sweet numbness that came as her nerve endings pulsed and spasmed. She felt his cock thrust in and out of her mouth as if from outside of her body. She sucked, and pumped his shaft as if on autopilot, her motions instinctual.

Hands shifted then, and she found herself on her back again, looking up to see Edward above her.

"That's it, my love," he whispered, finding her wet and trembling, her thighs coiled with the anticipation of waiting for him to part her legs.

As he thrust inside her, and Rosalie's hands caressed her breasts, pulling on her nipples with the slightest bit of pressure, she thought of nothing and everything, glancing at Jasper every so often as he stroked his cock above the display below him, a heated look in his eyes.

You're mine, now. Truly mine.

She should have recognized the strange energy that had been pulsing throughout the house ever since Jasper, and Emmett had come home. Red splotches had covered their clothing, and their hands looked every bit as dirty as they were. Bella had tried to ignore the sounds she had heard as they were leaving, their heavy grunts, the opening and shutting of the cellar door, and the thud as a heavy weight was dropped onto plastic, the material shifting beneath the sudden mass. But they rang in her mind now, louder than ever.

"Stop! Get off me! GET OFF!"

Her sudden outburst startled them all; she had never truly protested with such an intensity.

With Edward still deep inside her, she tried to bring her knees up to push him off her, but his heavy weight remained, with a determination that had her desperate and helpless to find a way to escape this sick invasion of her body and mind.

"Rosalie, hold her down," Jasper said, watching her struggle. Emmett stared from the table, a fork raised to his mouth with the food that had sat long forgotten on everyone else's plates. There was a sort of amusement in his eyes that made her sobs come that much louder, and her resistance that much fiercer.

Rosalie struggled to keep her wrists pressed to the ground, but the grinding of Edward's pelvis kept Bella immobilized.

"Look at me," he urged, frustration laden in the rasp of his voice when she squeezed her eyes shut, and turned her face away. No. No.

He finished inside her a few moments later, pressing against her and breathing into her chest.

Rosalie's hands shook around her wrists, and silent tears ran down Bella's face, her bottom lip doing little to hold in her tiny whimpers.

Bella's eyes burned as she stared up at the ceiling, a heaviness growing behind her eyes, and in her throat the longer she tried to keep her sobs in.

She just couldn't stop seeing his face.

The face she had grown up looking at for as long as she could remember. Jacob. Jake. I'm sorry.

She tried to remember him the way he had used to look, with the sun in his eyes, and in his hair, with a smile so big, she had felt nothing but warmth when he gazed at her. I love you, his eyes had said. I love you, always.

But she could only remember the gauntness of his features as he lay in the dank cellar, his warmth gone away, unknowing of the fate that had awaited him.

"I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to," she pleaded in the darkness of Jasper's room, knowing she had. Another gut-wrenching sob escaped her, and she felt rather than saw Jasper's mean eyes on her face.

"If you don't quiet down, I'm going to put you in the fucking cellar." Another fresh wave of tears and shivers overcame her, and she tried in vain to control herself. Her cheek was still raw from where he had smacked her only a half hour before for keeping him from his sleep. She knew she was risking a beating going on the way she was, but just couldn't stop. Her grief was a living, breathing thing, and it refused to release it's grip on her.

He can't be gone. He can't be.

"That's it. I've had enough," Jasper ripped her from the bed, and dragged her down the stairs, past his brothers and Rosalie, and into the cellar.

The sight of where Jacob's body had lay stole the breath from her lungs, and all ability to move.

This is where it happened. This is where you…I killed him.