Beautiful Things Can Come From the Dark

“Didn’t anyone tell you not to play with you food?” A bored southern voice drawled.

“HA HA Jazz, like I haven’t heard that one before.” A burly man laughed back and dodged a swipe from a very giant, very angry bear. “Besides, I asked you if you wanted to fight and you said no, this is the compromise.”

“Well then, would you mind hurrying it up a bit? I’m anxious to get back. I know Alice and Edward have been hiding something from me and its really starting to bother me.”

“Pfft, when don’t they keep secrets? You need to chill Jazz, even if you are right and they are hiding something it’s not the end of the world. ‘Cuz if it was,” Emmett paused as the bear raked his claws his chest, effectively obliterating his shirt and producing a high pitched screeching, like nails on a chalk board. Emmett shook his head and continued. “If it was anything life changing or important they’d tell you.”

Jasper watched his brother wrestle the bear thoughtfully as his simple logic sunk in. His words were true, his now ex-wife and brother wouldn’t keep anything dangerous from him, but Alice had a nasty habit of not telling the entire truth of her visions sometimes.

He recalled a particular vision some years previous that Alice saw, but wouldn’t tell anyone the details about it, Jasper knew this because he felt the range of emotions from both Alice and Edward, and they didn’t match up with her explanation entirely. It was then that Alice had announced that she and Jasper needed a ‘divorce’, after all this time Jasper was just barely coming to terms with it.

For the most part the separation was amicable, the family took Alice at her word that this was the best of action and was a great support system through the hardest of times, but Gods, Jasper missed his little pixie fiercely; he had no idea what could possibly be worth this torture he’d suffered through the years.

Jasper sighed irritably and ran a hand through his hard and noticed Emmett grinning cheekily at him. “What?” he bit out.

“While you were lost in La-la land, I had time to find another bear to play with.”

“Does that mean we get to go back now?”

“I’ll race you there!”

***

Cami took another bite of her muffin and sighed, they really were delicious. She looked to the door that Josephine was dragged through and laughed lightly, the man that dragged her off certainly knew how to make a scene.

Jake looked up at the sound and watched Cami thoughtfully for a moment before the smell of his muffin demanded his attention again.

Moments later the door jingled and a man walked through, inquiring where Josephine was, Cami pointed toward the back and watched as the man swallowed hard once and clutched the bouquet of Sunflowers tight before heading through the door.

“Who was that Jake?”

Jake looked up puzzled, “Who? Oh, that’s Charlie Swan, he’s the Chief of Police and if I’m not mistaken Joey’s boyfriend.”

Cami wrinkled her nose, “For reals?”

Jake laughed. “Yeah, weird innit? For like a year or something, but they somehow work together, ya know?”

Before Cami could reply the teens both jerked their heads up when they heard a rather loud ‘CHARLIE’, neither teen had a chance to comment before they saw Charlie carrying Josephine over his shoulder; blood running down the back of her leg and soaking his shirt.

“Ohmygod Jake! She’s hurt; she’s going to the hospital right? We have to make sure she’s all right!”

Looking torn, Jake glanced down at his muffins, to Cami’s worried face, and then to the door that Joey was carried out of. Mind made up, he grabbed an extra muffin, nodded to Cami and walked out to his car.

The ride to the hospital was quiet and by the time Jake and Cami made it the receptionist let the teens know that the doctor was in with Josephine, that she was in need of stitches, and that Dr. Cullen would come and get them when she was ready to have visitors.

The duo made their way to the waiting room and found a nervous Police Chief pacing back and forth muttering to himself. Instead of bothering him, Jake grabbed hold of Cami’s wrist, taking note of when she flinched, and led her around the corner and sat down.

Cami smiled apologetically at Jake but didn’t offer any explanations; instead she remembered what Emily had said earlier and blushed.

“Jake, you don’t like me like me, do you?”

The poor boy didn’t know whether to laugh, or be dumbfounded; he settled by shaking his head a blush prominent on his dark cheeks. “No, I think you’re a really great girl, but that’s about it… why?”
Cambria sighed in relief. “Oh good!” she quickly backtracked. “N-not that you aren’t sweet and all… I just – ugh… Emily said something this morning and I just wanted to make sure.”

Smiling an easy smile he answered. “Oh, now this morning makes more sense.”

She nodded, thankful that when she left at the end of the week, it’d be a clean break.

“Do you think Josephine will be okay?”

A scoff met her question. “Of course she will, this is Joey we’re talking about!”

Just then Dr. Cullen rounded the corner and when he saw Cami he smiled and asked, “Cambria, it’s nice to see you, are you feeling alright?”

“Oh yes, thank you. We’re here to see Josephine, make sure she’s all right.”

“She’s just fine, stitched her up myself, Charlie is in with her right now, but I’m sure she’d love it if you stuck around.”

Cami looked at Jake, then back to Carlisle, “No, I’ll let her rest, I’m just glad she’s okay. She’ll need to take it easy if she still wants me to come in and work with her tomorrow.”

“You’re staying then?”

“Oh, no. Just couldn’t pass up an opportunity to earn a little extra money that’s all, I’m planning on leaving Friday.”

“What a pity, well it was nice meeting you Cambria; I hope you find happiness wherever you end up.”

“Thank you Dr. Cullen, for everything.”

The doctor smiled again, nodded to the silent boy and left.

As soon as Dr. Cullen was out of sight, Cami rounded on Jake. “Why’d you have to be so rude?” The question tickled her brain, something about the situation seemed familiar, but when she couldn’t place it immediately she brushed it off and deemed it unimportant.

Jake shrugged and grunted. “You ready to go back? We can start on your car before dinner if you want.”

Temporarily distracted at the mention of her car Cami nodded.

The rest of the night passed quickly and when Cami told Sam and Emily about working with Josephine, Emily squealed and offered to take Cami to work in the morning.

After dinner they found an old alarm clock that they set up in Cami’s room.

Cami passed on the after dinner movie and changed into her pajamas; the electric clock blinked its bright numbers up at her, 8:32 PM.

It really was too early to go to bed, but Cami wanted some time to be alone, she really liked these people, part of her wanted to stay, the other part knew she couldn’t, as soon as they found out they’d kick her out anyway.

Without wanting to, her mind wandered to her real family and wondered what they were doing, were they still looking for her? How far would they look? How long would they look?

Cami groaned and held her head, she was better off sleeping then thinking those thoughts.

She crawled in the covers and closed her eyes, hoping for another night of dreamless sleep.

***

…..beep….beep….beeeeeeeep…..beeeeeeeeeeeeep…

Cami jolted, ‘What in the hell am I doing back here?’ she thought to herself as she looked around the sickly yellow room with a feeling of dread.

She looked down to where she knew her deceased mother lay and felt a pang of guilt, not because she missed her mother, but because she felt nothing for the woman before her.

Her dead mother turned slowly to face Cami, blood leaking from every orifice of her body, the blood bright red against the grey skin of the dead, and laughed a dry cackle.

“I tooold youuu that youuuu’d moooorn meeee!”

Cami found herself back peddling until she felt the wall behind her, turning from the grotesque form of her mother, she frantically looked for a door, but there wasn’t one. Cami started pounding on the walls, desperate to escape, why wasn’t there a door?!

“Shiloh, darling, come sit by mommy, I promise I’m not upset.” The kind voice coming from the corpse confused Cami, and when she turned to confront the bloodied corpse, she found herself in her backyard, a younger version of her mother sitting on a blanket on the grass, her hands behind her back.

“If you’re not upset, why are you hiding the belt behind your back? I haven’t done anything! Let me go!”
As tears started running down her face she wondered frantically if she was going crazy, her mom was dead, right?

“This is a dream, you can’t hurt me, you can’t hurt me ever again!”

The dry cackle was back again, surrounding, suffocating her. Cami closed her eyes and crumbled into the fetal position, hands over her ears.

“STOP IT!” She screamed, endless tears falling from her eyes and down her face. “YOU’RE DEAD, you are dead!! Leave me alone!”

***

“Cami? Cambria! Wake up!”

Cami shot out of bed, breathing heavily. She looked around frantically, looking for the monster that had birthed her, but only found Emily sitting on the bed looking at her with sad but kind eyes.

“Wanna talk about it?”

With those soft spoken words, Cami was undone, hysterics climbing again.

She found herself in Emily’s embrace, and instead of flinching, Cami clung on to her for dear life.

Endless minutes crawled by with Emily gently rocking Cami in her arms, softly humming a soothing lullaby to try and calm Cami down.

“I dreamed about my mom,” Cami began, swallowing hard. She thankfully took the glass of water and tissues from Emily before continuing.

She opened her mouth, but the words wouldn’t come out, how do you explain your worst fears and pure terrors, she shrugged.

“Your mom? But dear, it sounded like you were having a nightmare.”

Cami nodded and in a small voice said “I was… my mom’s dead and –“

“My God! You poor child, no wonder you are so quiet!!” Emily hugged Cami tighter, cutting off her protests.

“Emily, you don’t understand-”

“Damn right I don’t! You poor thing! Do you think you can go back to sleep? You really should try dear, you have work in a couple of hours.” With that Emily tucked a still complaining Cami in bed, kissed her forehead and shut the door.

Cami let out a frustrated sigh, and swallowed as a sinking feeling settled into her gut; this misunderstanding was going to cause problems.

She closed her eyes to try and get some sleep, but to no avail, by the time the alarm went off Cami had gotten maybe an hour of sleep. She sighed, frustrated and rolled out of bed.

“Time to get ready for work!” Cami said with fake cheer and a roll of her eyes.