Name of O/S: Bloody Rose
"Entry for the 'A Different Kind of Fear' contest
Summary: Entry for A Different Kind of Fear contest- After a traumatizing prom night, a group of students make a pact never to tell of the accidental murder that occurred after a joke went wrong. Now, Bloody Rose is back, and she won't rest until revenge is found.
Pairing: Edward x Bella
Word Count: 5516
Disclaimer: All recognized characters in this story belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended. No financial gain is being made by the creation of this story.
Rating: M
The flames from the fire licked their way toward the sky in a dusty and granite veil of smoke as burning embers crackled and popped throughout the quiet forest, warming the cool night air. The slightly chilled bodies of five students, telling urban legends around a campfire, huddled closer to one another without conscious thought. They were scared.
"I've heard of that one, but my version's a bit different." Several were already listening attentively, while the others – lost in thought – snapped their unfocused eyes back to Edward's at the sound of his animated tenor voice. Their curiosity was peaked, their minds interested in possibilities of what could be added to make the story even more frightening than it already was.
"But her name wasn't Mary." The monotone creak of crickets chirping buzzed around them, the noise reaching a cacophonous crescendo of incessant serenades that aided in the buildup of his pregnant pause. "It was Rosalie. Rose for short."
"Bloody Rose?" Skepticism. A sign of disbelief which is also undoubtedly the number one cause of unnecessary death. "You have to say Bloody Rose?" Three students giggled at the response of Mike's ignorant comment. Edward however, did not, for he knew the truth, and understood how grave things could become if her name was said just once more. Secretly, he knew that he shouldn't be telling the story at all, but a part of him needed to get it off his chest in one form or another. The truth had been locked inside his mind for far too long.
He interrupted Mike by scrambling over the fire to cover his mouth with his fingers, preventing him from saying the name again. "Don't you fucking dare," he whispered – voice gravelly and deep. His seemingly harsh and gratuitous actions instantly paralyzed everyone around him in fear. Though they'd only known Edward since the start of their freshman year of college – a little over a year now – never before had they witnessed his behavior transform so raucously.
The grip he had on Mike's mouth loosened and he reclaimed his previous spot next to his girlfriend, Bella. Edward and Bella had been seeing each other for about six months. They were in the early development of a relationship and were still learning things about each other. Bella didn't know very much about Edward's past, but Edward knew that Bella had been adopted as an infant. He knew nothing about her biological parents. Not their names or what they looked like – where they came from. The topic was still too personal for Bella to share, but their relationship was promising, and they seemed to care about each other deeply.
Edward cleared his throat, his skin flushing scarlet in embarrassment as all eyes fixated on his face, weary of his next move. "Sorry, Mike. You just...," he paused, contemplating how to word his next statement. "...Don't say her name three times, okay?"
Mike nodded his head while Edward reached into the pocket of his jacket to retrieve his pack of Marlboros. He put the cigarette to his lips, igniting the flame, and inhaled the stale and musty fragrance of the tobacco into his lungs. Thick, chalky billows of smoke hovered just above his tongue as he slowly exhaled, simultaneously blowing the tainted air through his nose and partially opened mouth.
"You really believe in all this stuff, don't you?" Bella asked, silently observing Edward's tense form.
"It all started back in 1982," Edward started, choosing to ignore Bella's question after a few moments of silence. "It was the day before Senior Prom, and a group of jocks decided that it would be funny to play a cruel joke on a girl named Rosalie Hale. She was pretty, but a bit of a geek – a loner. Obviously no one saw who she really was outside of the label they had given her." Edward's eyes scanned the forest nervously, as though he actually believed that at any minute, Rosalie Hale just might grace them with her unwanted presence.
"A couple of girls had told Rose that Blake McCarty wanted to ask her to prom. She was suspicious, as Blake was the captain of the football team, and the only thing she excelled in was calculus. He was extremely popular and she...well, she wasn't. He'd never even so much as spoken more than two words to her in their entire four years of high school together, but for whatever reason, Rose pushed away the feelings in her gut that told her otherwise, and decided to believe it.
"Blake had a girlfriend at the time. The entire prank was her idea. No one really knows why she targeted Rose of all people, but it was because of her, that the whole thing was started to begin with. The two girls that informed Rose about Blake honestly didn't have anything to do with it. They were the school's gossip queens, and the moment they saw Blake's girlfriend crying and sobbing, they just knew he had to have broken up with her for Rose. Or so they thought."
Edward took in a deep breath and exhaled it in one quick burst of air, puffing out his cheeks as he did so. He couldn't understand why he felt so edgy. It was over with. Done. Rose was gone, and no one around him would ever consider saying her name by the time the story was over, whether they chose to believe him or not. He threw the end of his finished cigarette into the fire and continued with his story.
"So anyway, Rose was told to meet Blake in the old band room in the basement of the high school the night of the prom. It'd been closed off for years due to water damage from old broken pipes and no one was supposed to be allowed down there, but there she was, in her red prom dress, slowly walking down the three flights of stairs to meet her so called date.
"When she got down there, all the lights were off, enabling her to see anything in front of her. She called out, asking if anyone was there, but was met with silence instead. Suddenly, a hand was pressed forcibly over her mouth, preventing her scream from escaping. She was dragged roughly over chairs and band equipment, kicking and screaming the entire way, until the lights abruptly flickered back on.
"In front of her stood Blake and his girlfriend, along with three other members of the football team: Anthony Whitlock, Billy Black... and Carlisle Cullen."
At the mention of Carlisle Cullen, Bella gasped, covering the sound with the tips of her fingers. "Your father?" she questioned. Edward sighed, nodding his head forlornly. Even though his father had begged the others to stop, telling them that enough was enough, he was still involved, and it shamed Edward. He never would have even known about what his father and his friends had done to Rose had it not been for her tricking Edward. She told him everything, and afterward tried to finish what she started by taking him with her.
Edward shook his head, stopping that train of thought. It would do no good to think about what could have happened. It hadn't, and because of his father, he was still alive.
"What did they do to her?" Alice asked, wondering what sort of horrible things were done to the poor girl.
"Nothing physical at first," Edward started, repeating the answer told to him upon asking the exact same question. "They all just stood there, laughing at her. Blake's girlfriend was pointing and yelling, asking how Rose could even consider Blake's request as anything more than a lie. They began pushing her around, from one person to the next, back and forth, while they laughed hysterically in her face.
"Rose was sobbing – screaming so loudly in despair and embarrassment, that Blake's girlfriend began to slap her to stop the noise. My father at that point, stopped thinking the prank was funny and begged the others to stop. They didn't of course, instead, yelling back at her to shut her mouth with threats to beat the shit out of her. Rose tried to make a run for the door, but Blake was able to stop her by pinning both of her arms behind her back. She struggled, trying to break free, as Blake lost his grip, and sent her body flying into the table that was positioned next to the wall.
"Her head collided with the corner of the desk and she instantly collapsed, her screams immediately silenced. Blood seeped out of the open wound in her skull, pooling onto her face as the crimson liquid expanded around the feet of the five students that had just inadvertently caused her death.
"By now they all began to freak out – trying to wake her – but it was of no use. She was dead the moment her head hit the metal desk.
"Instead of going to the police, they panicked, each one vouching to never speak of what happened, knowing that their lives would be forever ruined if they had to spend the rest of their living days in a prison cell. So to cover their mistake, they stuffed her body into an old trunk that they'd found in the closet and locked it, sealing their secret and their fate, forever."
"That's horrible," Jessica whispered, seemingly caught up in the severity of Edward's story.
Edward contemplated only moments before deciding to tell them the rest of the story. If his friends thought it was bad so far, they hadn't heard anything yet. "That's not all."
"There's more?" Bella asked incredulously.
Edward slowly nodded his head, thinking back to the day it all began...again. Not that the first time wasn't horrible enough, but the second time – when she was dead set on revenge – was even more disturbing.
~/~
"Truth or dare?" Lauren Malory asked as she sat in a circle with three of her closest friends playing a game of spin the bottle. The end of the open glass stopped at Angela Webber, who had to choose which action was the least embarrassing.
Lauren was Angela's best friend, and knew of her attraction to Ben Cheney, a boy in her class that was also sitting among the four of them. She thought about her answer, intently weighing out the pros and cons of each decision. If she were to choose truth, her friend would undoubtedly make her confess her undying love to the boy that sat next to her. If she chose dare, maybe she'd get lucky and Lauren would make her wish come true by daring her to kiss Ben.
The answer – the choice – was clear. Dare it was.
"Dare." Unfortunately for Angela, and the rest of the group for that matter, the dare Lauren chose to give had nothing to do with a kiss.
"I dare you to say Bloody Rose three times." Bloody Rose was a game based on a myth that was usually played amongst friends to see which one was the bravest, or so they had heard. Supposedly, twenty years before, a girl named Rosalie Hale had disappeared the night of prom a couple of towns over. There were rumors that she had been beaten and stabbed, but that was never proven. She was still missing to this day, no one ever knowing the truth. Somehow over the years, a myth was born by saying her name. No one ever had the guts to say it the required three times, but if you did, her spirit would come back long enough to kill you. That was the story at least.
Not wanting to look scared in front of her peers, Angela spoke the name for the first time. "Bloody, Rose."
As each second passed without the name being said again, Angela secretly grew nervous. She knew it was just a story, something that couldn't logically happen, but she was still weary.
"Bloody Rose," she spoke again, this time locking eyes with Lauren, who was grinning from ear to ear. One more time she thought. This was about the time everyone always stopped, claiming it wouldn't work and they couldn't see the point, but Lauren was anxious, excited to say that her best friend in the whole world was the only one she'd ever known who wasn't too scared to finish.
"Lauren this is stupid," Ben chimed in. He wasn't a risk taker. Despite the fact that the story was just that... a story, he didn't want to take the chance. Especially since he was secretly crushing on the person dared to do it. Tyler Crowley agreed, frantically bobbing his head up and down.
"Aww, isn't that sweet?" Lauren sneered. She needed Angela to finish, as she was too scared to do it herself. "She's doing it."
Angela took in a deep breath, unknowingly one of her last, and uttered the name, barely above a whisper for the last time. "Bloody Rose."
A few minutes passed with nothing but silence as the four of them waited for something, anything to happen. Lauren began to laugh uncontrollably, pointing at the group. "You should see the look on your fac...," but before she could finish her sentence, the lights cut off, leaving them in nothing but complete blackness.
The girls briefly screamed, surprised by the sudden loss of power, before all was silent, except for the sound of fabric ghosting along the wooden floor. "I have to go to the bathroom," Angela suddenly stated. "Lauren, come with me."
"No way. The lights are still out. You know how klutzy I am," Lauren replied. Unable to hold her bladder, Angela removed herself from the group and walked down the hall to the restroom, closing the door behind her.
It was dark. Too dark honestly. The only visible light came from the moon as the curtains fluttered in the wind from the open window. Angela stood in front of the mirror after relieving herself and turned on the faucet to splash water on her face. As she patted her cheeks dry with the towel folded across the counter, the lights began to flicker back on.
As Angela stared in the mirror at her reflection, the image of another person's face began to form alongside her own. At first she thought her eyes were playing tricks on her, as whatever she was seeing was extremely blurry and hard to see. Her brow furrowed as she continued to watch, moving her face closer to the mirror to get a better look.
When her face was only inches from the glass, the image she had saw became exceptionally clear. Before she had time to react, two hands shot through the other side of the mirror, without shattering any of the glass. Angela's body was in shock, her mind on auto pilot, unable to utter a sound, as she backed herself up to the door of the closet. She watched as the body of a mummified woman began to pull herself out from another dimension behind the mirror.
She wore a faded red dress with straps that hung from her shoulders and were littered in tears. Her hair, probably once blonde, was now the same dingy gray color that the rest of her body was. Big patches of hair were missing from the top of her head and her skin was decrepit, hanging loosely from her bones.
The girl from inside the mirror struggled to pull herself out from behind the glass, eventually landing with a loud plop on the linoleum floor of the bathroom. She crawled across the floor on her hands and knees, her body contorting with each step closer to Angela that she took.
Still in shock, Angela watched in silence as the decaying and clearly dead woman rose to her feet, face just inches away from her own. Angela's skin prickled in goosebumps as the coldness of the woman's breath fanned across her damp cheekbones. Her breath smelled like mothballs and dirt and death.
"Who...," Angela stuttered, finally finding her voice. "Who are you?" The woman smiled, giving her a glimpse of decayed and rotting teeth.
"Rose," the woman rasped, her voice hoarse and rough like sandpaper. Without another word, she inched her face even closer, cupping both sides of Angela's head to keep her locked in place. Rose angled her body and leaned in, forcibly parting Angela's lips as she plunged her tongue deep within her mouth.
Angela gasped from the unwanted intrusion and struggled to fill her lungs with oxygen. It felt like Rose was stealing the very air that she breathed. Unbeknownst to her, it wasn't air that Rose was stealing, it was her soul.
Rose pulled her lips away from Angela's, sucking in the dusty fog of air that was her soul, between them. She needed a soul to be reborn, and Angela would be her first victim.
Bella shuddered, unsure of what to say. Instinctively, she grasped Edward's arm as the chilled night air wrapped around them. While she hadn't known him long, nor had they been dating for a significant amount of time, she could tell in the way his brows puckered and the corners of his lips dragged, that he believed in the legends. She wondered how he knew so many minute details; surely his father hadn't delved into the story. Shivers ran up her spine as she imagined having to one day tell her own child the tale. She wasn't sure she could.
"What ever happened to Blake and his girlfriend?" Mike asked, voice trembling as he interrupted Edward's story.
Edward shrugged. "They never said a word. Not to the cops, not to each other. I guess they got away with it, although the thought must plague them. I don't know how it couldn't." His tone was cold, calculated. Ahead, he stared into the deep thicket of Evergreens, the wind dusting branches against one another. It howled solemnly, and the others didn't know how to break the unsettling silence. They watched the embers die out, crackling and spitting until the fire was down to the logs.
"We don't say her name three times," he concluded, chaffing his hands together in the warmth of the ebbing flames.
"She steals souls?" Mike was unconvinced. "I think we should try it. Just once. Just to see what happens."
Bella felt Edward's grip tighten exponentially around her fingers, painful, warning. "No." That would be the final word on the matter. No one dared to defy him, although his myth brought up more questions than answers, and they sat back, thoroughly spooked. No matter how tempted they were, he would not allow Mike to say the name once more.
"She steals souls," Bella repeated. The words tasted strange as they rolled off her tongue. "How morbid."
"She needs them to survive," Edward replied. It was as if he was no longer with them, detached from the conversation as he struggled to explain the rest of the legend. The playful, ever-sturdy boy Bella had been sitting next to, joking with, not an hour ago, had vanished. "She kills them by stealing their souls."
"Who does she choose as her victims?" They were asking more questions than Edward was willing to answer, but that didn't deter them. Sitting at the campfire, in the middle of the Olympic Forest, a full, milky moon hanging overhead, it added to the mystery of it all. They wanted to know.
Edward sighed. "Say her name once more, and you'll be the next." He would give no more information than that.
That quieted them.
"Maybe we should stop for the night," Bella recommended, studying Edward's face carefully. Stoic lines had etched their way into his forehead, and he kicked a pebble across the campground, watching it disappear from sight. "I think we've scared ourselves enough. I'd like to actually get some sleep."
The other four nodded their heads in agreement, ready to escape the stifling discomfort. It wasn't due to Edward's reaction to the story, but to the story itself. While Bella tried her best to keep herself calm, the image of Rose with her decaying face and shriveling skin, blackened eyes and meaningful smirk, haunted her. She could imagine her appearing in front of the group, smiling, displaying those rotted teeth, before grasping their throats and snapping. She stood up and snuffed out the fire, refusing to look around. The darkness of the shadows hiding within the tree limbs would only make her imagination run rampant.
"Come on." She tugged on Edward's arm, afraid to let go. She knew they would have to part once they reached the tents, but she couldn't bring herself to move. His face, haunted and cold, began to contort back into the level-headed visage she knew and loved, but something still wasn't right.
"I hope you'll be warm enough." Edward frowned, looking up at the blackened sky. "Hopefully the snow holds off until later."
She had a difficult time letting go of his arm. It wasn't the weather she was concerned about, nor the fact that it didn't look as if camp would grow quiet for quite a while. In fact, just the opposite. Things were quiet. Eerily quiet. Everyone had retired back to their respective tents without uttering a word, still clearly preoccupied with Edward's story. It didn't help that their own prom was only a few weeks away.
"It's just a story," she whispered. "You know if Mike had said the name once more, nothing would've happened, right?"
He didn't answer. The wind picked up, blowing the flaps of the tent wildly, and the previously roaring fire dwindled down into a pile of sparking embers. He leaned in, arms wrapping around her while his lips pressed against her forehead. "See you in the morning." Leaves crunched beneath his feet as he padded toward his own tent.
The warmth of the sleeping bag wrapped around Bella's body, but it didn't prevent her from shivering. The even breathing of the other two girls fell in tandem with the howling wind, and Bella watched shadows from the moonlight dance across the top of the tent. Somewhere in the forest, an owl cooed. She tucked the sleeping bag up to her chin, trying not to scream, willing sleep to find her.
It came in sporadic spurts, allowing her mind to drift into unconsciousness for what felt like minutes before her rampant thoughts shook her awake. It was irrational; crazy, even. Bella was rarely spooked so badly by stories, especially those that didn't make any logical sense. She'd heard the Blood Mary legends, and was hardly fazed. But there was something about the fact that there were people she knew involved, and a location she knew, that took this one to another level. Carlisle Cullen was there, for fucks' sake. Someone she knew, whom she'd met several times.
The image of the girl replayed a thousand times over in her mind, like an old, broken film reel. Had she fought against them? Bella imagined the torn prom dress, one she'd undoubtedly spent ages picking out, and the blood seeping through the carefully beaded fabric. She heard the cracking as she pictured Rose's skull hitting the corner of the table. If she had lived, what would she have said? Would she have told?
If Rose was the type of person Bella imagined she was, she would've done more than told. She wasn't a force to be reckoned with, although Blake, his girlfriend and the rest of the group clearly underestimated that.
Even thinking her name gave her the shivers. She curled up on her side, willing for sleep to find her again. Footsteps could be heard just beyond the tents, and she wondered if it was Edward. Pacing and heavy, they walked a calculated number of steps before turning, walking the same length before turning again. The sound lulled her, but never quite enough. The image of decaying, sunken eyes staring back at her was enough to jolt her awake once again.
In the dead of the witching hour, she suddenly sat up at the urging of a whimpering coming from outside the tent. Instinct coursed through her, and her hand rested shakily on the zipper. The whimpering grew to a cry, and unable to withstand her curiosity, she pulled. The flaps opened, blowing in the drizzle. Through the darkly cast shadows, she could see Mike's silhouette crouched several feet from the dead campfire, a violently trembling hand pressed tightly over his mouth as he stared into his reflection through a puddle of water.
Before she had time to react, Bella watched, transfixed as two decayed, ashen colored hands shot up out of the puddle, violently pulling it's body from somewhere beneath the surface. The puddle must have been shallow, but somehow this...thing was able to emerge from the water as if it were incredibly deep.
Bella's shocked mind could do nothing but watch in horror as the creature, ever so slowly, approached Mike's shaking form. Although frightened, she couldn't seem to take her eyes off of the terrifying scene in front of her.
The closer it got to Mike, the more details Bella was able to distinguish. It was a woman, badly decomposed, but a woman nonetheless. Her eyes were blackened, and her skin was withered, almost mummified. What little hair she had left appeared to be nothing more than a few wisps of dingy light colored strands that were scattered sporadically throughout the top of her head. And she wore a faded red dress, complete with a multitude of tears.
"Rose," Bella whispered to herself. "It's Bloody Rose." She couldn't believe it. Edward's story was true, and she now realized that Mike must have said her name after everyone else had went to sleep.
Rose gently, almost lovingly, placed her hands on either side of Mike's face, her lips hovering just millimeters away from his own. A paralyzing scream that echoed amongst the trees erupted from his body not a second before the noise was abruptly muffled by her searing kiss of death.
Bella could hear the loud thumping of footsteps behind her as the rest of the group came into view, investigating the source of the screams. No one moved, too scared to do anything but watch, as their friend's soul was being absorbed through Rose's open mouth.
Alice and Jessica took off toward Rose and Mike, wanting to stop her before it was too late. Only, they wouldn't make it in time. The moment they reached their destination, Rose discarded Mike's lifeless body to the ground and grinned sinisterly in their direction. Before the girls had time to respond, Rose extended her arms, viciously curling each one of her fingers as she wrapped her hands around their throats, lifting them off the ground.
"Rose, stop!" Edward yelled, his pleas falling upon deaf ears. For she would not stop, not until she'd gotten what she wanted. Bella, still silent from the beginning, crumpled to her knees and sobbed into her hands. She couldn't watch this happen. Not again.
Rose was not a force to be reckoned with. Ignoring the calls from Edward and Bella, their throats soon hoarse from shouting, she sucked the souls of Alice and Jessica one by one. The glow surrounding her seemed to intensify as each body began to fall limply from her grasp to the ground like rag dolls, and she cackled wildly. Her string-esqu hair, matted and tangled, fluttered in the dead wind as she ghosted across the campsite. She gripped Alice's throat tightly, watching her face turn a ghoulish purple, until she had suffocated to death. Satisfied, she moved to Jessica, doing the same.
Bella stumbled back, clutching Edward's arm as tightly as she could. While the moon was strong, she still had difficulty seeing. She eyed the trees, and wondered if they should run. Could they really outrun a ghost? She doubted it. Fear coursed through her, sticky and thick, and she was afraid that even if she wanted to run, the numbness would prevent her.
"Breathe, Bella," Edward whispered, noticing that her face was already beginning to turn blue from holding her breath. "It'll be okay." But his voice shook, and she knew that it was a lie. A simple lie, just to placate her fore the time being.
"It won't be," she cried, burrowing her face into his chest. "We're going to die, Edward. We're going to die."
The weight of her words hit him hard. He had been outrunning Rose and her story for many years now, but it seemed as though this time, she would win. There was no escaping, no outside way to her away from her. She would kill him, just as she'd vowed to do after her death – to kill the offspring of those who killed her. An eye for an eye. Edward was the last of them, and there would be no running from her this time.
He couldn't think. Fear clouded all rational thought, and he could only hold onto Bella tighter as Rose finally finished with Alice and Jessica and made her way toward them. Her dress was falling off her mangled body, bones protruding beneath paper-thin skin and her eyes were a sunken milky white. Her skeletal fingers reached out in front of her and toward the couple as she floated closer, willing them to come to her.
"No," Bella couldn't help but whimper at the sight of Rose coming toward them. "No. I didn't say her name. Edward, please, make her stop."
His arms tightened. "I wish I could, baby." Tears welled in his eyes. He was only an hour away from home, camping in the Olympic National Forest, yet he would never return there. He would never dance with Bella at their prom, or see his father again. Rose would make sure of it. Nausea settled into his stomach, and he couldn't help but cry out.
"What do you want from us? He shouted as he pushed Bella behind his back, hoping to shield her. "Leave us alone."
Rose laughed, eerie and haunting, slowly shaking her head. "She's mine."
"What?" Edward asked. "Why? She doesn't have anything to do with this. It's me you want." He tried reasoning. He knew he was going to die anyway, and he didn't want to make Bella suffer for his father's mistake.
"Silly, boy," Rose cooed. "Her mother was Renee Higgenbotham, Blake's girlfriend, and the sole reason I was murdered. Of course I want her!"
Hands wrapped around Bella's throat more quickly than Edward deemed possible. Her lips parted, the color draining from her face rapidly as Rose went to work. Broken capillaries scattered across her cheekbones from the force of Rose's grip. Edward watched as Bella's eyes, once brown, turned crimson as the blood vessels within the whites of her eyes began to hemorrhage. No matter how much he fought, he couldn't stop it. His knees hit the ground as he watched the life slowly disappear from her face, until she was nothing more than a puppet. Rose controlled her, owned her.
"Bella," Edward whispered, voice scratchy and raw. He knew it wouldn't be long before Rose consumed enough souls to become human again, able to live in this world with no one the wiser. All she'd have to do is continue absorbing them. Edward was lucky the first time. His father had played on Rose's compassion, begging her to spare his son. It worked once, but it appeared that that wouldn't happen again.
Numbness wrapped around him and he was afraid of what would happen next. But he already knew. He'd always known. Shaky arms tried to lift himself off the ground, but it was fruitless. Rose's fingers had clenched around his throat all too quickly, lifting his body just enough to make him stand before her. They were now eye level with one another.
She smiled, sinister and sickening, prepared to lean in for the kill. Her chilled hands rested on his cheeks and he fought back heavy tears as he looked at the lifeless bodies of those he loved. Bella's soulless eyes had rolled toward him, and although he knew they would never blink again, it felt as though she were watching the entire scene play out right in front of her.
Rose's face was inches from his before she leaned in. Blackened lips parted, revealing rotted teeth as she laughed. "Hello, Edward. Did you miss me?"