Of Distant Dark Places
Effy Stonem / Edward Cullen
Chapter One
Tony wondered if he'd done the right thing. There would be nothing of their former lives in Forks. No family. No friends. Everything they had worked for gone the moment they'd stepped on a plane to god knows where. It pained him to look at her. She was beautiful. Everyone seemed to love her, but only he cared about her. And now she seemed so frail. As though she might break. Tony wasn't even sure if Effy focused on the trees her uncaring eyes supposedly fixed on. He only knew that she was trying to lie even if silent. He could see that she was tense even if her body slouched. That every pessimistic word she uttered was a barrier to keep away her true thoughts. He knew that her heart had so much love to give, yet she'd battered it to become cold and harsh. Desolate.
Effy didn't speak anymore. And Tony wasn't sure why. In that moment she'd just looked at him pleading and he knew he had to take her away. He'd tried to tell her to stay, to battle through whatever was happening to her. But seeing Effy so distressed made his heart break. They didn't tell anyone. Jim. Anthea. Nobody. They were simply gone.
To the other side of the world. Forks, Washington.
"So you're not speaking. Excellent Effy. Really, that's bloody marvellous." It was useless. Tony already knew he was talking to himself. She didn't even react to the snarky tone of his voice, bitterly placed in not knowing why the hell he was even out, driving to Forks. But she was Effy. Effy Stonem. His sister. The one person in this whole world he cared about. The lengths he'd go to for her. It frustrated him as only she could.
Silence. Only filled by the rapping of fingers against the steering wheel. Effy might have coughed. Tony didn't bank on that. Hopeful wishing played games with the mind. He could handle silence, when he made it. Tony was charming and manipulative and made everyone stand on edge. No one could do that to him.
But Effy. He saw her as more beautiful than him, even more dangerous. Everyone loved her and everybody felt like they needed her. It was easy to see why. She was what Tony was and more. And he looked at her both with admiration and sadness. He'd never of wished his behaviour on anyone, let alone her. It breaks your heart eventually. All that lying.
Tony wondered if someone had broken hers.
Effy Stonem couldn't bring herself to look at her brother. She merely shifted until her smudged eyes looked through misted glass, head leaning against its frame. It was hard. To look at someone you loathed. And yet as much as she hated him she loved him like no other. Confliction and complicated. He was destruction. Effy had been witness to every game he had played and everyone he had ruined. Michelle? Broken. Maxxie? Unwanted. Her? A tool. Effy had never forgotten that, waking up on a hospital bed all because Tony had selfishly played a game. The feeling of that needle pushing into her arm. She didn't inject again. The feeling haunted her.
And yet whilst she lay battered and bruised, forced to flee what had happened to Tony? He got hit by a bus and suddenly he was forgiven. Tony Stonem walked away from everything unscathed. Suddenly given an innocence that implored forgiveness by all who had seen his face. Effy? She'd been left to burn.
Before this she'd stood at the side of the road. Waiting. Contemplating if she too were hit then everything would be okay. Pandora would still be here. Freddie would still adore her. Everybody would still love her. Effy had wanted that forgiveness, the 'get out of jail free' card Tony hadn't even asked her. She was brave and she was strong. Her foot had left the curb. But in that moment it hadn't seemed worth it. Maybe she was just sadistic. It would explain why she was willing to hold onto the pain.
Tony. She loved him. More than any other. And she was the only one who cared. It was her voice that had soothed him with Myths in his nightmares. And who had fixed every single problem with his friends? With Sid and Cassie? Him and Michelle? It had all been her. Because everyone who knew her brother end up fragile to the point of breaking until she fixed them. And because of her they all flocked back to him.
Her friends hadn't done that. Tony could never understand. He'd never been this alone.
Could they be any farther from home? Forks wasn't Bristol, even by the smallest hint. Bristol was a concrete jungle where everything had a darker purpose. Every shadow held a dangerous seduction. Drugs. Sex. In Bristol it was too easy to get utterly, utterly wasted. No, Effy imagined. Forks wasn't Bristol at all. Forks seemed cold even without the concrete. A vast and wasted space of emptiness. As much as it brought distaste, there was an odd sense of comfort in its isolation. Here, Effy realised. She couldn't be touched.
"End of the line Effy."
She knew Tony had debated whether to even speak to her as he pulled into the driveway. Effy didn't care about that. Silently she admired her brother. How everything she hadn't even asked for he'd sorted. Their escape. This house. A whole new life. It wasn't much, Effy thought, as she stepped through the door. But then nothing about the town felt modern at all. Unsurprisingly it was furnished. Tony had been the one to find it. Effy wondered who he'd charmed. Had he promised something? Uncertainly she looked at his back.
Tony turned in that moment and Effy averted her gaze and fluidly as she could make it seem. It was too late. He'd seen her eyes, that briefest concern and speculation. He knew everything about her. More and less than what she knew herself. And she the same to him.
"Anyone in?"
It was the first time Effy had responded to Tony, responding to his smirk with one of her own. The man's voice was gruff and uncertain, even though clearly the answer to his question stood in front of him. Effy saw him to be an awkward man. The way he didn't know quite where to look, how he gave a short introduction only to put his hand out to Tony as though unsure whether the hand shake would be reciprocated. Charlie Swan, however, was nothing compared to his daughter.
If Charlie was awkward than Bella was the definition of the word. The girl's hands fidgeted awkwardly as she attempted to start some sort of conversation that Effy refused to participate in, merely staring and sizing. Supposedly Bella could be something. But she was nothing without confidence and composure. From matted tresses to a permanent wide eyed expression that made her appear all around shocked, Effy didn't favour Bella's chances in a life outside of dull little Forks. She lacked preservation.
To Bella Swan Effy Stonem and her brother were impossibly transfixing and unnerving to extraordinary levels. The brother was charismatic, something that he didn't share with his sister. But somehow even without speaking, Effy Stonem appeared to be totally socially aware. Bella found something daunting about the girl. Not only how on edge her silence made her feel, but the way she looked. Bella hadn't seen anyone like Effy or Tony in forks, apart from one family. She was intimidated by their stronger presences, jealous of the way they held themselves. Even with smudged eyes Effy looked gorgeous in a way that Bella doubted she could ever pull off. And those eyes. Blue to the point they became translucent. Enchanting.
"Umm. Maybe I'll see you at school?"
Bella was all too glad to act upon her father's cue to leave. All too eager to remove herself from the presence of a girl who made Bella fear her to a small extent. And, as she looked towards Charlie's still expression as they walked towards the Stonems gate she instinctively knew her father had shared a similar experience.
"You're going to have to talk now Effy. This is school; it's how the deal works. They ask questions and you say 'yes sir' or 'no sir'. You can't escape this." Tony knew he was being forceful, and yet he had to be. Effy still hadn't spoken to him, it was so unnatural with each morning he expected her to become stone. "Open the door. Get out. You are not avoiding this."
Effy didn't appreciate the smugness in her brother's smile as she exited his car, a rental no less, but she still made sure to slam it with all the force her smaller frame could muster. She didn't want this. Her back was to Tony as he pulled away, leaving her completely alone in his sweater. Dressing appropriately was something that was flawed to her. But even his sweater couldn't protect her from the wolves.
Every eye was drawn to her, drawing attention effortless, almost naturally. Effy wasn't aware of the sashay of her hips. How an impossibly short tunic ran up her thigh with each step, showing far more than anyone in Forks would have dared for their daughters. And those legs. They were barely captured by tights that crisscrossed against her flesh. Everyone had an opinion of Effy, soon enough. And whether they loved her of hated her no one could deny the air she carried herself in was impossible to reach. There was something about her mystery that kept others at bay, making them falter, before her unspoken charm and beauty did nothing but invite them in.
Everyone knew her by lunch. That she was British and completely desirable. No one seemed to care she hadn't spoken. Only nodding when she felt the need to and giving curt answers to deter any conversation. Everybody loved her. Silently she glowed at that familiarization.
"So. Effy. Is that short for anything?"
"Maybe." Mike Newton was proving to be an irritation to Effy. Hic cocky and abrasive nature reminded her so much of another, but the familiarization was but an echo compared to the real thing Mike could never be as corrosive, never as destructive. He could never be equal to him.
Mike laughed, and Effy saw through his disguise of motioning Angela away from her side, his arm sliding over her shoulders. Shuffling closer to her as though an invitation had been open. "Your a funny girl Effy. Amongst… other things. Maybe we should go see a movie. It could be a date if you wanted."
Effy would have sighed if she didn't bask in the satisfaction of Jessica Stanley's scowl to her right. Other's misery so lovingly clouded her own. The other boys, Tyler and Ben were still aimlessly tossing trays to one another, no doubt trying to impress. They had more chance than Mike. And even then that chance was very slim.
"Make it seven Mike. Who knows," her body moved closer to his, eyes glinting with a hint of malice that had Jessica flare. Something about that raged blush seemed so delightful to Effy. "Play your cards right and you can drive me home."
It had all been completely selfish. Effy had no plans to meet Mike at the cinema, her efforts only to cause that comforting soothe that came with others friction. She was silent as she left the table, almost gliding towards pushing the remains of what she hadn't eaten into the bin, seemingly naïve to every head that turned in her direction. Oh how Tony would be so proud. Her first day and already she was wielding her beauty to darker intentions.
Tony. Effy missed him, her thoughts turned to her brother as she stepped into the frosty Forks air, fingers delving into her pockets. God she needed a cigarette. The only thing that made this crappy school bearable. What was that feeling when she thought of him? Regret? Her brother had dropped everything, his entire life for her and he didn't even know why. And there was a rush of affection that she always felt concerning Tony, but her ways in showing so were so distorted and complex. The flame enticed her attention, staring at its glow for a few moments before she finally lit up. Tony. She'd been hard on him. She had to be.
Effy couldn't bear the thought of disappointment flashing in his eyes if he knew what she'd done. Anyone else she could take that from. Just not him.
Edward hadn't found her fascinating until that moment. For Effy Stonem had been nothing but another girl arriving to Forks, impossibly close to Bella's own movement. Perhaps it was because he had his own difficulties. Bella and that sweet, flowery blood of hers. Alice had assured him he was past his taste for her yet Edward told himself to doubt that, just for precaution. And then she had come along. Dressed like that in weather he assumed was freezing and that had every other human reaching for scarves and gloves. But Edward had known that Effy Stonem was different to everyone else. For he was dead and he was gifted.
In a world where the mind was a book to his eyes, hers revealed itself to be static. A continuous white noise, in which images rarely flashed, always guarded and unthought-of. It as though she was lifeless. And yet, Edward agreed, that was almost the case.
Many people queried about he and his family, Edward felt bitterness for their perfection. And yet for someone so new to avoid their tables intrigue the feat was astonishing. Yet now Effy Stonem did look towards him, so far away and through glass looking in and he found himself captivated by her eyes. So astonishing and pure. If he had the fortune to have one, Edward would have thought they looked into his very soul.
But they appeared empty. Comatose. Edward gained the impression that she was lost, but yet impossible, somehow she was found.
There was something fascinating about Effy. He was unable to look away, watching the cigarette push between her lips, the smoke curling into the frosted air. There was nothing innocent about her.
In the end it was he who looked away first.
Effy believed that there was something heartbreaking about Edward Cullen. Hadn't she always been attracted to broken little things? His expression almost seemed as if he were eternally pained, even with his impossibly beauty. All of them. Not like her. Effy knew she wasn't perfect, but that family were something else all together. Flawless and yet all looking towards one another with sombrely as though they expected the worse.
And their eyes. A rich gold, almost liquid that even from her distance she judged to be impossibly unique. They all, even the blonde, paled in comparison to Edward. Effy wondered if he was like her. Tortured. He appeared it so; she wondered whether he was unable to repress his feelings like she effortless could permit herself. Perhaps there was no comparison. You only had to look at their eyes.
His eyes shone gold, yet they spoke of nothing but emptiness. Not like Effy's. Hers were clouded and unreachable. Edward's let you fall without a stop.
"You were staring at me."
Edward didn't often speak to his peers, only when asked a question by a teacher or forced to partner up to someone to perform a task. It was safer this way, after all his secrets were far more dangerous than anyone else's. Edward found that school passed quickly in silence, the hours seeming but a second in his infinite life. And yet he desired this. To talk to her. Roughly he placed it down as naked curiosity. Nothing more.
"I look at lots of people."
Her composure was still enough to rival his own. Edward couldn't help but make the comparisons between himself and the enigma Elizabeth Stonem surrounded herself in. Her answer was direct, almost conversation ending in tone. Did this girl have any knowledge of what she done to people? How every attempt to turn them away, even a Vampire was unable to resist wanting to get even closer.
"But you were staring right at me. Nobody else. That has to mean something, surely?" Edward felt extraordinarily vulnerable, talking to this girl. Unable to read her thoughts every answer he could not expect. Unpredictability was something that for so long he had never been forced to witness. And now she came along. With mystifying and baiting ways. Even now as he attempted to penetrate her mind he was met with nothing but that static. She frustrated him, made him question his own abilities. Just what was so special, no elusive about her?
Edward knew that she was hard to read for a reason. Was this some warning from a wider power. A clue not to find himself involved with someone so dangerous to him? The fact he could not determine a right or wrong answer placed him to a limit where he felt he'd always stay around her.
"As I said. I stare at a lot of people. It doesn't have to mean anything. Anything at all."
He was designed to attract and charm, every perfection turned for this cause. And yet Effy evaded this, human nature bypassing her birth to make her into someone who didn't fall for his dangerous allure. Was it that in her presence all he was she took away? Edward found it impossible, to look at her. Straining to keep his eyes at her face rather than her slender frame. To keep focused within her eyes than study every inch of her face. And that smile. So mysterious, so off putting that it made him want to turn and run.
A hunter with feelings to flee?
"People think I want to get to know them."
Edward didn't understand why in that moment an unprompted Effy seemed suddenly so honest. How her cheeks briefly touched pink de to the fact she hadn't spoken to openly in weeks, perhaps longer. Effy was sure why she was responding to the likes of Edward Cullen in this way. Perhaps she saw their compatibility, their heartbreak and disaster.
She knew more than perhaps his attentive vampire eyes could ever expect from a human. Effy knew that others loitered at their cars, sneaking to talk though cleverly tuned into every word that passed between the brooding Edward Cullen and the new and beautiful Effy Stonem. Once more she was the centre of a scene. She was uncertain on how to feel about that.
Her fingers brushed strands of hair behind the confines of an ear, eyes trained on his, unfaltering and without any apprehension. The air around Edward seemed so… strange. Effy could read anyone's behaviour. She understood that Edward was reserved and contained. Yet there was something about him. Though to place it was something she found herself unable to do.
"Do you want me to want to get to know you Edward? Everyone else wants me. How about… you?"
How mercilessly Effy left him, standing dazed and perplexed at her, were they seductive words? It had been so long that Edward couldn't be certain, yet something had been there, luring him in. Perhaps it was best, as she watched her fine form with appreciation that she went into a car.
Or perhaps it was worse. Edward didn't like that. How easily she slipped into the passenger seat of car driven by a man she appeared to have zero chemistry with. There was something about the human girl, something devilishly intoxicating that Edward found himself wondering just who knew the mystery so well as to take her home.
"Edward are we leaving?" Alice Cullen's lighter notes sounded cars away, her smaller frame resting delicately at the edge of his Volvo. Her golden eyes were wide and imposing, seeking every indication of what had just passed. He could read her thoughts, the suspicion and the worry. She was the one who reminded him that Bella Swan could never be taken. And she feared the same attraction had befallen Elizabeth Stonem. Edward shook his head; the smallest motion thought he knew Alice would pick up on it.
As she sighed in relief, too quiet to allow Jasper to catch the wavelength of any communication between them, Edward slipped into the Volvo, buckling his seatbelt. "Yes Alice. We're leaving."
Tony watched Effy sleep. Almost guarding her as she had once he. He felt so utterly useless watching her sleep. The twitches of her bitten lip, the crease of her eyebrows as she lost herself in an ill fated dream of which no myth on his part could soothe. How could she rely on him, when he couldn't protect her? He leant forwards on the chair lodged in her doorway, elbows on knees as his fingers ran through his hair in frustration. All of this was for her. And yet it was nothing in comparison to what he should have been. Able to hug her, to tell her that everything was fine, she could trust him. It pained him, to know that neither of them could ever be that for one another. They were ice against fire, rain against sunlight. Beautiful and cold. Even if they loved each other, even if they understood each other like no other, they could never comfort one another as siblings should have.
Effy awoke in the morning to the sight of Tony slouched on the chair. Half way between falling off as his cheek pressed awkwardly against the doors frame. She rose silently, duvet in hand and draping it over his slumbering form. "I feel like my worlds falling apart Tony. And I don't want to do anything about it. I'm scared." She lowered into a kneel, head resting on her brothers knee, imagining his fingers stroking her hair in some caring affection. She needed Tony. But he could never know.
I hope this okay for everyone. I've never written fanfic before but I just think this pairing would be totally gorgeous. :)