CHAPTER TWO - THE WAR BEGINS
1104 Words
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Bella opened her eyes, the sting in her right eye slicing through the haze of unconsciousness like a needle through silk. Her head throbbed—no, pulsed—as though someone had placed a war drum behind her temples. The ceiling above her spun gently, the light fixture twirling like a cruel carousel. She groaned, lifting a trembling hand to her forehead.
It was worse than the last time. The fog in her mind had thickened. Thoughts came slowly, fragments and echoes. But one image cut through the murk: her baby. Her child. Her flesh and blood. Her reason for living.
Bella jerked up, her breath catching in her throat. Her eyes scanned the room, each movement making her head reel. The familiar rose curtains, the dresser with gold handles, the tall mirror beside the closet—it was still her matrimonial bedroom. Still her home. But something was wrong. Something was missing.
She stood abruptly, ignoring the fire in her knees. “My baby,” she whispered. Her voice cracked, foreign in her ears. “Where’s my baby?”
Panic surged through her, flooding her veins with ice and fire. She began searching the room, wild and desperate—under the bed, behind the drapes, inside the closet. She tore through the sheets, checking beneath pillows, even stumbling into the bathroom and yanking back the shower curtain as if she might find a swaddled infant inside the tub. Her breath came in gasps, her chest heaving. There was nothing. No cry. No crib. No baby clothes.
Tears blurred her vision.
She bolted from the room, her feet barely catching the steps. Her legs were weak, wobbly—betraying her body with every step. Yet the desperation kept her moving, down the hallway, past the framed wedding photos, down the stairs toward the laughter echoing from the living room.
Laughter.
She froze for half a second at the foot of the stairs, heart pounding, before stepping into the room.
Edward—her husband. Samantha—his mother. Lucy—his best friend since college. All three were seated comfortably in the sitting room, laughing as though nothing in the world was wrong. As though the universe hadn’t just shattered. As though Bella hadn’t lost everything.
She stood there, shaking, her eyes wide and burning.
Edward looked up and tilted his head. “Bella?”
“I need my baby,” she whispered. Then her voice cracked open like a storm, her sobs uncontrolled. “Why are you doing this to me?! Give me my baby! Where is my baby?!”
The room fell quiet. Samantha’s smile dropped into a frown of pure disdain.
“What baby?” she said flatly, her lips curling like spoiled milk. “You didn’t give birth to any baby. What are you even talking about?”
Bella blinked at her, a broken laugh escaping her throat. “No. No, I... I pushed. I remember the pain, the screams, the nurses. I gave birth. I felt the baby leave my body. I heard the cry!”
“You’re delusional,” Samantha snapped. “You were hallucinating. God, this again?”
“I’m not crazy!” Bella cried. “You were there! You saw me in that hospital room! I held the baby in my arms, Samantha. I know what I felt!”
But Samantha only hissed through clenched teeth and pressed a button on the side table. “Nurse,” she barked into the intercom. “Come get her.”
The nurse arrived swiftly, a broad woman in white, her expression unreadable. She moved toward Bella like a warden, her arms already reaching.
“No! Don’t touch me!” Bella screamed, flailing wildly. Her fist landed squarely in the nurse’s abdomen, causing the woman to gasp and stagger backward.
“Enough!” Edward roared. His face twisted into something cruel, something she hadn’t seen before. He lunged forward, grabbing Bella by the arm and dragging her toward the stairs like a rag doll, her limbs scraping the polished floor. “Go,” he growled at the nurse. “Follow me.”
Bella’s tears left a trail behind her, silent testimony of her humiliation and rage.
Upstairs, the room felt colder, the bed an open grave. Edward threw her onto it.
“Give her the damn shot,” he ordered.
The nurse nodded, preparing the syringe.
Bella’s vision blurred again, but not from tears—this time, it was fury. And resolve.
She would pretend. She would survive this. She would uncover the truth.
Because there had been a baby. And no one could convince her otherwise.
Downstairs, in the warm glow of the living room, Lucy sipped her wine and gave a cruel little laugh.
“I didn’t know she was this far gone,” she said lightly, brushing an imaginary speck from her silk blouse. “Crying about a baby that never existed? Madness. Maybe all that boardroom stress finally snapped something in her.”
Samantha chuckled, shaking her head. “She really is crazy, but what does it matter? We just hope she gets better soon.”
Their laughter, sharp and false, echoed off the walls.
“You’d have been so good for my son,” Samantha muttered, barely above a whisper.
Lucy smiled dreamily, her eyes half-lidded. “I know, right?”
Upstairs, Bella lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling as the tranquilizer began to numb her limbs.
But inside her mind, something sharpened. A knife of thought. A vow.
She would find her child. Even if it killed her.
Later, Edward entered the room again. He stood at the door, arms crossed, studying her like a scientist would a test subject.
She turned to him slowly, offering a smile that barely touched her eyes.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, her voice calm now, almost warm.
Edward narrowed his eyes. “Just... checking. Wanted to see if you were back to normal.”
“What do you mean ‘back to normal’?” she asked, the smile never leaving her lips.
“Nothing,” he said too quickly. “Forget it.”
He left the room, the door clicking shut behind him.
Downstairs, he joined his mother again.
“She seems better,” he said quietly. “I think the meds are working.”
Samantha arched a brow. “Or she’s just pretending.”
Edward said nothing.
Neither did Lucy.
But upstairs, Bella lay with her eyes wide open in the dark, her mind clearer than it had been in days.
She wasn’t broken.
She was hunting.
- Writer
