“How’s she doing?”
“Fine, she just needs to rest.”
“Bella is not the kind of girl that’ll just lay down and let things go. She wants to get even.”
“Keep an eye on her, I don’t know what’ll happen if she sneaks out again.”
“Will do.”

I groaned, they didn’t understand. A girl gets shot, almost dies, and they expect her not to want revenge. I put my hand over my wound, actually it was just stitches now, but still, it was a wound. It hurt to touch it, move, breathe, or do anything that was required to live.
Devon didn’t understand how I felt. He was overprotective and didn’t want me doing anything even remotely dangerous. Of course, that ruled out swimming, hiking, dating, horseback riding, driving, and pretty much everything that a person with a life would do.
Jared understood how I felt. He told me that he would feel the same if he was in my position. I closed my eyes and replayed the scene in my head. I snuck out through a window, went with my boyfriend to a club called Ace of Hearts, and as the deejay played the song ‘Shot Through the Heart,’ I was…as you could guess, shot through the heart. Oh, the irony. I could’ve died…well, died and stayed dead. I flat lined twice during the ride to the hospital.
I guess Devon had a reason to be overprotective; he put burglar bars on all the windows in the house after the incident. That wasn’t exactly necessary, what was I going to do? I was bed ridden, in constant pain, and the pills the doctor had me on gave me the worst case of vertigo that I’ve ever had. I wasn’t able to walk much less buy a gun, sneak out, and shoot my ex-boyfriend. True, I wanted him dead, but revenge could wait until I could move.
A knock on the door jolted me out of my thoughts. “Bella, can I come in?” That wasn’t Jared or Devon’s voice. It was somewhat familiar though. I sighed. “Sure,” my voice sounded tired and cracked from the lack of use. I hadn’t spoken to anyone in almost a week. I didn’t want to, I had nothing to say.
I watched as the silver knob turned and the door slowly open just a crack. A man poked his head in. He had short spiked black hair with blue tips, green eyes, a silver ring through his bottom lip and silver bars going vertically through the cartilage in his ears.
I knew this man all to well. He’d taken my life twice already, him and that stupid bullet he’d put through my chest. He stepped in the rest of the way locking the door behind him. He wore a black long sleeved button up and a pair of brand new American Eagle jeans. A pistol sat nestled in its holster at his hip. I knew that pistol just like I knew the look on his face, the same look as before.
How he got in the house I don’t know. He escaped prison simply because there wasn’t enough evidence to lock him up. But I knew he did it as well as Devon and Jared did. They wouldn’t let him in the house if he offered them the world. Where were they? How did he get in? Of course, I wasn’t worried about how he got in at the moment. I was more concerned with the fact that I was probably going to die. I could hear the gentle thunk of his boots on the floor as he approached me, but my brain couldn’t process what was going on. There was always going to be that one moment in a person’s life when they are too scared to think. That one moment where they want to scream but they can’t, they want to run but they can’t move. Where they feel trapped, a prisoner of their own fears. For quite a few people this only occurs in their nightmares, but for others like me, they can’t wake up from that nightmare.
There were so many moments in my life where I thought I was going to die. When I fell off my balcony, when I got hit by a car, when I was shot. Those little moments where I thought “I'm going to die”. Right now I knew for a fact that I was going to die, simply because not many people get the chance to look down the barrel of a loaded gun and live. I closed my eyes and prepared for the worst. The worst didn’t come.
Aubrey’s voice broke the silence
“Bella, open your eyes”.
I hesitantly did as he said. He grinned “Don’t think about it so much and it wont hurt as bad” his voice was like honey, sweet and soft and as beautiful as I remembered it.
A tear fell from the corner of my eye and dripped on to my hand.
“Please don’t” I pleaded, my bottom lip trembling, my hands shaking.
He chuckled “Hush, baby, hush. It’ll all be over soon,” he purred in my ear.
He kissed my forehead and put the gun barrel between my eyes.
“Good bye love,” he cocked the gun.
I heard a gun fire, but it wasn’t from Aubrey’s pistol.
“Get away from her you -!!!”
“Language Devon, please”
Jared cut Devon off before he could finish his sentence. I opened my eyes, Aubrey stood in front of me blood oozed from the wound, dripping like liquid rubies on to the carpet. I managed to catch a glimpse of his face. His lips were curled back into a vicious snarl exposing his unusually sharp eye-teeth. I’ve never seen anyone’s face like my older brother’s though; his eyes were on fire and held pure hatred.
He held a silver pistol pointed at Aubrey’s head. Jared as calm and nonchalant as ever, stood at his side, a hand on Devon’s shoulder.
His eyes emotionless as always, that pale emerald green. Jared was always calm. Once again I wanted to get up and run, but I was paralyzed by fear. Aubrey burst out laughing, “Come on. Are you going to shoot me? Honestly Devon.” He folded his arms over his chest.
My eyes got wide. The gunshot wound started to close up. The bullet was slowly pushed out and it fell on the bed next to me. In a matter of seconds it was as if he had never been shot.
Jared reached out and took Devon’s gun. “Sorry Devon, you’re too emotional to handle this. Besides this isn’t your fight is it?” He tossed the gun to me.
“C’mon Devon. “ Jared grabbed Devon’s wrist. I’d always known that Jared was just a little bit crazy, but this was insane. I could barely move much less shoot and kill a guy who could heal himself. Devon didn’t want to go; he wasn’t going to lose his baby sister to this guy.
“LET ME GO!!!” he was struggling but Jared was much stronger than him mentally and physically. Jared dragged my big brother out of the room leaving me with my killer ex-boyfriend. Aubrey laughed, “Looks like you’ve got a friend.” He grinned. I took the gun and just held it; Aubrey sat on the bed next to me. “Let me tell you something, Love. I’m not exactly human; my parents shot me then changed me into what I am now. You see…Bella, it may not seem like it, but I care about you.”
He reached out and touched my cheek. “I care about you enough to give you immortality, but that requires you to roll over and let me kill you. Understand?” That soft I love you smile flickered across his face. I wasn’t sure I could trust him. He leaned forward and kissed my nose. “Trust me,” he murmured rubbing my arms.
My heart ached. I wanted to trust him but…I just couldn’t. “I can’t,” I sobbed. He reached up and wiped my tears away, it seemed as if he was the one who always wiped away the tears and pain away. Even when he shot me, he was in the ambulance holding my hand, wiping the tears away.
“Fine, then” he whispered putting the gun barrel on my chest. “Good night Doll, see you in the morning.”
I put Devon’s gun under his jaw, “Shoot me, I shoot you. We both die and let me tell you something, you may be able to regenerate, but nobody comes back after getting their head blown off. Understand?” My attitude changed in an instant.
He chuckled. “Let’s see who’s faster, Hon.”
A smile flickered across my face. I pulled the trigger the same time he did.
Just like the last time, I woke up in a hospital bed. Devon and Jared sat next to me. I just wasn’t ready to die yet. I was killed for a third time, February 13, 2009 by Aubrey Edwards in my own bedroom. I got my revenge, now I had nothing to fear. Aubrey was gone and I was living happily with my big brother and his best friend. The only thing I had to remind me of the incident were scars... Scars would fade with time.