"There was nothing you could have done. And now, you are doing all that you can."
"You’re right. I'll do everything I can to make them pay," I swore, my hands trembling when I thought of Katherine and especially Nathan.
"But first, I want her buried."
"Coming here is already a huge risk. There’s no way you could bury her without them knowing you've found her body."
He was right. No matter how much it hurt, I had to leave her body lying on the cold slab until I could give her justice.
"I'll be back," I promised, brushing her hair out of her face.
My hand stilled when a black shape on the left side of her neck caught my eye.
Carefully, I turned her head to the side until I could see it more clearly and frowned in confusion.
It was a tattoo of a barcode that I was certain had not been there when she first went missing.
"What is this?" I asked, waving Stephen over to take a look at it.
He crouched down and studied it for a few seconds then stepped away from Bella's corpse with a grim expression.
"Stephen. What is it?" I asked again, growing fearful after his bizarre reaction.
"I thought it was just a rumor."
"What rumor?" I demanded impatiently.