Here it begins. It's a crisp Rochester, New York evening in 1933, and by the time you finish reading the beautiful and betrothed Rosalie Hale will be dead. But that's just the beginning.

Though this is a pre-Bella and Emmett story I can assure you Rosalie and Edward won't end up together, but how they don't end up together might surpise you...

Thank you ever so much for reading.

** All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the intellectual property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of Stephenie Meyer and I am borrowing her play dough. No copyright infringement is intended.**

Chapter 1: Through her eyes

I felt more relaxed than I had in months, pavement crunching under my feet and leaves dancing down the sidewalk. I'd volunteered to walk Esme home from her poetry class this evening, and strolling the university grounds reminded me how peaceful life can be. The air was tinged with the last hearth fires of the year as winter succumbed to spring and every person I passed glowed with the knowledge that another long winter was coming to a close. A winter within me was also coming to a close.

Two years ago today, I reunited with Carlisle and Esme after nearly four years on my own. Fed up with Carlisle's excuses that by not drinking blood we were more than the sum of our fates, I left him to experience my true nature. I drank from those who I felt deserved death, transforming myself into a red-eyed harbinger; judge, jury and executioner in one. And yet as the years passed, I came to see that no man is simply black and white. The rapist had an invalid father with no one else to care for him. The arsonist who destroyed homes as well as ending lives had a daughter who knew nothing of his crimes and loved him dearly. I left that world to return home without knowing if Carlisle and Esme would accept my red eyes or shun me. Not only did they welcome me back with open arms, but neither ever asked about my crimes. The lives I had taken were literally visible in my eyes, but neither even needed to mentally stifle the urge to ask me how many or why.

Esme sensed my newfound peace and slipped her arm through mine. We'd been living in Rochester for a few months and so far the adjustment period was going well. It wasn't generally a dangerous town, as large cities go, but both Carlisle and I felt it wise to ensure one of us met Esme for the walk home. While there was no doubt she wasn't the tiny, fragile woman she appeared to be and even less doubt she'd have any trouble protecting herself if the wrong man crossed her path, we were happy here and none of us wanted to risk leaving because a thug decided to steal the wrong woman's bag.

Carlisle was swiftly moving through the ranks of the hospital, despite his credentials that marked him as a newly minted doctor. His supervisors constantly praised him on his ability to think on his feet and find a diagnosis that doctors with 10 years his experience would often miss. Little did they know he'd practiced longer than some of his colleagues had been alive. Esme, ever the educator and student, enjoyed taking a range of night classes on everything from poetry to advanced mathematics. Though her thirst for knowledge is deep, I knew from listening to her thoughts that it was the opportunity to meet new people that drove her to enroll in so many classes. We keep ourselves apart from society by necessity, which troubles her deeply. While she yearns to make friends with other women, the risks inherent in a new friend getting too close were too great. People who saw us in small bursts could overlook small slips, like moving too fast or overhearing a barely whispered comment. For an acquaintance to come to our home or spend any quantity of personal time with us, the things that set us apart from our co-workers, classmates and neighbours would fast become apparent.

For my part, Rochester offered enough city to lose myself in. I content myself with bookstores and concerts, long walks and the ample hunting in the nearby woodlands. While I enjoyed Esme's company, my sister to those outside of our small family, her presence awoke a loneliness within me. Before she joined us, Carlisle and I lived, worked, studied and supported one another. He was as much a father to me as the one who saw me through my first 17 years. When he changed Esme it was obvious that they would fall in love. Her brilliantly red eyes sparkled when he came into the room. She couldn't leave the house, both because of her eyes and her newborn temperament, so Carlisle withdrew half the library to bring the world to her.

When Esme finally did venture outside, the pair would explore the woods of Ashland for days at a time. It was nearly a month before I realized that it wasn't Mother Nature that drew them away from the house, but human nature. They'd chosen to take their love far from my keen hearing and ability to read their thoughts to avoid embarrassing me. While I appreciated their attempts to protect my feelings, the pity I saw in their eyes and thoughts when they looked at me was often too much to bear. I lost myself in the city to counter my own fears that I would roll along as Carlisle and Esme's third wheel forever. To shake myself from the darkness and return to my contentment with the weather, I engaged Esme: "What did you cover in class this week?"

In her mind I immediately picked up Shakespeare's love sonnets, but waited for her to answer. "I've always loved Sonnet 23. Do you have a favourite, Edward?"

Lines of poetry danced in my mind as I tried to pick one. The Bard had never been one of my favourites, but I wanted Esme to feel like we were connecting. Despite the 10 years we'd lived together I know she still feels a twinge of embarrassment from my gift. Every once in a while I'd catch her watching me out of the corner of her eye, wondering, quiet literally, if I was thinking what she was thinking. "Sonnet 29," I chose at last.

"When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state," Esme said quietly. I mentally cursed myself for the slip.

"I was thinking specifically about the last lines: 'For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings, That then I scorn to change my state with kings.'" I searched her mind to learn that my lie passed unnoticed. We continued toward home, arm in arm, chatting about Esme's classes and Child of Manhattan, a film based on a Broadway play we'd both loved and wanted to see.

Blurred images assaulted my mind as our house came into view. I was witnessing an attack, but from the victim's point of view. Fleeting images of her hands as she tried to ward off an attacker showed the victim is female. Her left ring finger bore a large, yellow diamond engagement ring, and a dainty gold bracelet that was severed from her wrist with one swipe as she clawed at his eyes. I tore myself out of her mind to focus on Esme for a moment, only to see the fear in her eyes. I held her arm so tight that she'd dropped her satchel.

"Edward! Please, Edward, what do you see?" she whispered quickly. I blocked out the attack to concentrate on Esme's thoughts. She feared that the vision that stopped me dead in my tracks was a danger to us. I shook my head to indicate that this was a memory, not an active event, but before I could speak the images returned.

My view was now from the road, looking up into the dark night sky. Everything was out of focus, shaky. The stars wouldn't remain in place, and the victim's face felt sticky and wet, like blood and tears. As the wetness spread to her eyes the world become even harder to see. I tried to blink out the offending matter, but it changed nothing. These weren't my memories. There was a dull rhythmic sound in the distance, choppy and uneven like a drummer loosing the beat. She was in a lot of pain and had no feeling in her legs or right arm. One lung was definitely collapsed and her breathing was so raged I feared I would watch her die from within her own mind. But if I was watching her memory then didn't it follow that she must be alive and near by?

Each blink of her eyes was followed by a longer blackness. As they opened for what felt like it could be the very last time, I saw a face. A face I knew.

Carlisle.

His eyes were filled with a mixture of terror and pity. "You are gravely injured. Please don't try to move." The woman's good hand reached up to push against his chest as he leaned into her line of vision. She was desperately weak but her meaning was clear; she didn't want Carlisle anywhere near her. "Please don't hurt me anymore."

His eyes opened wide as hers closed for what seemed like the last time. "Please," she whispered as everything went black.

I shook off the vision and looked once more to Esme. I hadn't answered her original question and she was even more frightened. As she started toward our house a light flared on. Carlisle's shadow bounced off of the walls of his study and on to the street in front of us. He paced at a fast human speed, occasionally hooking his index finger into the spine of a book as he passed the shelf, reading a few words, and tossing it onto his desk. Esme's mind relaxed when she saw Carlisle. He was clearly upset, but seemingly unhurt. That knowledge almost made her forget that something was clearly wrong.

I slipped my arm through hers once more and looked down into her concerned face. We should go in, she thought. I nodded once, took her arm and we made our way into the house.

Edward. Please keep Esme out of the cellar, Carlisle thought hurriedly. Ask her to run back to the hospital. Tell her… I'm working on an experiment and I need sulfur but… I myself can't leave at the moment.

As much as I hated to lie to Esme twice in one night, I knew that I was far better at it than my father. I told her Carlisle was upset because he'd forgotten the sulfur, but was now too far into the experiment to leave it untended. He needed my help for the next phase, so she was the only one who could save it. She nodded quickly and rushed out the door. The lie was solid; her mind was firmly focused on the trip to the hospital. She mulled over different experiments he could be performing based on sulfur's scientific uses as she hurried down the street. "She's gone," I called up the stairs when I knew Esme was far enough away to avoid hearing.

Carlisle was at my side in a flash. His hands and pants were coated in blood from carrying the dying woman to our house. I didn't want to believe he was capable, but his breath smelled of her blood. The same smell now permeating the entire house as he moved through it.

"Where is she? The cellar?" I asked briskly while pushing past him toward the stairs. Whatever had made Carlisle take his first human victim after centuries of this lifestyle was beyond me, but she was alive and in our house so there was still a chance to set things right. Though she was a stranger to me I recognized her hands from her memory. Her nails were torn and several were missing altogether, a testament to the fight she offered her attacker. Carlisle. It was still hard to process.

Her blood soaked, camel coloured coat sung to me from the corner. Drink, Edward, Drink. I stopped breathing and looked down at the woman supine on the table. Her dress was so shredded and drenched with blood and mud that it was barely recognizable as the fine piece of silk it must have one been. Her once-white slip trimmed with lace was equally decimated, making her look more like a homeless waif than a woman who would wear such an ostentatious ring. Only one family in Rochester could afford a ring like that, which meant that this could be only one woman.

"Rosalie Hale? Rosalie Hale. You've got to be joking, Carlisle." I worried my hair with my hands, hoping he'd tell me I was wrong, insane or dreaming.

He nodded, but I didn't need the assurance. Though her golden hair was sodden with mud and her face swollen from one hell of a beating, but there was no mistaking it was Rosalie Hale. If a resident of Rochester had somehow failed to pass the golden girl in the street or miss the gigantic wedding announcement proclaiming her to be the future Mrs. Royce King ll, bride-to-be of the most eligible bachelor in all of New York State. Though the Kings are well to do, the Hales are comfortably middle class, which made their match a Cinderella story any young girl could fall for. Mrs. Hale took great pains, often making sacrifices, to ensure her children were well heeled, in hopes that they could achieve more success than she and Mr. Hale. Half of the city was invited to the wedding of the century, which was now only one week away. Not only would her absence be missed by her inner circle, thanks to the proximity of the wedding it would also be news. My hands worked their way over my face back into my hair and I had to hold on for dear life to not wrap them around Carlisle's neck.

"Hypocrite," I seethed. "Not only have to you gone back on everything you urged Esme and I to be, you have put us all in danger. What if you were seen? What if you left something behind? We need to leave Rochester. Now."

Seconds later I was in my room, jamming my prized possessions into a trunk I kept at the foot of the bed for just such an event. Sheet music, books, clothing, anything that touched my hands. The hallmarks of my time in Rochester now ending because Carlisle could not control his thrust. I resisted the urge to scan his mind for his rational. The image of the girl's blood coating his mouth and flowing over his tongue might be too much. If we could get far enough away fast enough I could still send help for her and she might make it. My mind drifted to hers as I checked to see if she was still alive.

She'd stopped reliving the attack, but the slightly out of step drumbeat was still banging away. It was faster now –too fast.

I launched myself down both set of stairs to the cellar, and within a sixteenth of a second had Carlisle's body pressed up against the rocky foundation. While he was my elder by centuries, I was faster. My gift allowed me to pluck his next move from his mind before he made it and the human blood I'd indulged myself during my time away still strengthened my muscles.

His eyes widened as I pushed harder and harder against his chest. Small chunks of stone broke off as his back began to sink into the foundation. "Why would you do this to us? Esme and I have a life here. You do, too. Now we have to leave and take a newborn with us," I screamed. Almost on cue, Rosalie screamed at Carlisle's venom painfully mending and reshaping her bones, tissues and muscles. A broken rib sliding out of her lung and back into place punctuated another scream. My own change was hazy in my mind, but Rosalie's screams reminded me of the pain clearly. Her left hand clawed ineffectually at the wooden table, ripping her nails further. One detached completely and landed on the floor, but she was too far-gone to even notice. As she writhed in front of us, I returned my attention to Carlisle.

"Why? Just tell me that much."

He closed his eyes and in his mind I saw the image of a beautiful girl, full of life. She walked into the bank, owned by Royce's father, to bring her own father his lunch. Her hair bounced in the sunlight and people bumped into each other to have the opportunity to hold the door for her. The image of the golden girl disappeared to be replaced with a broken, mangled woman lying in a dark, back alley. I could once more hear her ragged breathing. Her violet eyes filled with terror and blinded by the blood pouring out of a head wound.

Such a waste, Carlisle thought. To allow such a beautiful young woman to die like a dog in the road, it was unthinkable. For the first time I allowed myself to search his mind. He walked out of the hospital and found the air stained with blood. Too much blood, he thought. No one could survive that for long. He tracked the scent to the alley where he discovered her body. The slowing thrum of her heart and her tearful plea for him not to hurt her were replayed for me through Carlisle's eyes.

His vision continued where hers ended. He pressed his ear to her chest hoping to find her more alive than she appeared. He blew air into her smashed lungs and compressed her bloodied chest. Rosalie's body was still, but not calm. Her ever cell screamed out for help while her mouth remained silent. There's only one option now, Carlisle thought. He softly whispered I'm sorry, kissed the palm of Rosalie's broken hand and sunk his razor sharp teeth into her wrist. Her back arched against the fire as Carlisle's teeth grazed her neck, the back of her knees and her elbows. After licking the wounds closed to preserve what little of her blood remained, he scooped up her lifeless body and ran for home.

I took a deep breath I didn't need and locked my eyes on Carlisle's as I released him from the wall. "I'm sorry, Father. It looked like you had…"

Carlisle's smile touched even his eyes. I can't say I wouldn't have thought the same of you, Edward, he thought. I did what I had to, but I'm not proud…

This thought stopped mid-sentence as Rosalie arched off the table so violently she nearly tipped it. "How long before it is over?" I asked, shuddering at my own burning memories.

Two and a half days, maybe less, he replied. Before she wakes, I will need to explain the situation to Esme. You should go out into the city to learn what, if anything, is public knowledge thus far. He pictured the spot where he found Rosalie's nearly lifeless body. I knew exactly where it was, not that I'd ever had trouble finding a giant pool of blood.

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