Rated M for Mature Content. 18 and older only please!
Already with the follows, favorites, and reviews!
Truly love you guys!
"Jesus Christ." Emmett sighed roughly as he dragged a thick palm down the length of his face and gripped his neck. His eyes stared unseeingly out into the trees, ignoring the mossy bark of the evergreens and the leaves that fluttered to the ground. He sat perched on the very edge of the deck stairs of the back porch overlooking the expansive yard that housed the entire Cullen Coven. Alice flitted into view but he swatted his hand in the air as if she were a persistent little fly, without looking at her. She made a quiet indignant noise in her throat before darting away without a word.
How was this even possible? There was no way his best friend in the entire world was still alive. None. She wasn't a vampire so she had to simply be a doppelganger. There was no possible damn way. Facts didn't lie though. Her heart had sped up, sounding like a hummingbird and her breath had hitched before she started practically hyperventilating at the sight of him. He should have gotten up and run to her but he had been too stunned. She acted as if she didn't see him but her bodily reactions couldn't lie. He tried to make eye contact with her but she turned after a split second and disappeared into the thick of the student body. Rosalie had cuffed him in the back of the head for staring at another female and he'd growled at her menacingly. She refused to shrink back in fear but he could see it in her eyes. She still hated that he wouldn't give her the time of day.
He'd never growled at her before.
Isabella had been missing for five years when Emmett had lost his life. He was the one who rescued her from those terrible human beings she'd once called parents. They had gone to the general store, which was an hour away, and he'd broken the window of her bedroom, sneaking into the house. He pulled his muscular bulk through the shards of glass, uncaring of the scrapes and blood and continued on his hunt for his best friend. The worn and scuffed wooden floors creaked and moaned under his weight but he hadn't heard a peep from her. He almost wondered if they'd done away with their only child. He wouldn't have put it past them and his heart thundered in his chest at the thought.
Creeping down the cellar stairs, Emmett caught sight of Isabella's tiny feet, black from dirt and filth. The stench of urine and feces was strong and he struggled not to vomit as he crept closer to the girl's lifeless form. She was lying in the corner on her side, her arms around her head protectively, though limp. The poor thing was skin and bones and as Emmett looked around, he realized there were no plates or cups. Nothing to indicate that she'd eaten in the two and a half weeks she'd been missing. Her skirts were tangled around her knees, stained and smelly. It looked as if she'd grown half a foot since he'd last seen her, if that were possible.
Finally gathering the courage to swipe the tears from his face that he hadn't realized he'd let fall, he scooped Isabella up into his arms and gasped. She weighed no more than a feather! He tucked her head under his chin and held her carefully, thankful that she was breathing. Her breath was rank with the stench of acid and he wrinkled his nose against the smell, taking the stairs to the main floor quickly before he brought her to her bedroom.
Being a growing man, Emmett had never been allowed in Isabella's bedroom. It may have been 1932 but both sets of their parents had strong values about a young man and a young woman being in the same room unsupervised. He had no honest to God idea where to look for clean clothes. He draped his friend carefully on her meticulously made bed and hurried to the bathroom to wet a rag. Kneeling at her side, he gently wiped away the bile at the corners of her mouth and then folded the rag to a clean section so he could wipe her face and fingers. It wasn't perfect, but it was a damn sight better than it was.
He wasted no time in rummaging through her chest of drawers to find a black and brown skirt and light brown blouse. Thinking nothing of it, as they'd grown up together and seen each other in every imaginable type of undress, Emmett proceeded to strip Isabella of her clothing. The rags that used to be called a shirt and skirt practically tore away from her body like it was tissue paper and he scoffed at the sight of bruises littering her anemic body. He had no choice but to remove her underpants, which did cause him to blush. The material was soaked and stale with the stench of urine and feces and he shed tears at the way his friend had been forced to live.
As he dragged the wet cloth he'd used on her face over her lower half, Emmett felt a stirring in his stomach and his hands paused in their cleansing. His eyes widened and he threw the wash rag across the room as if it'd caught flames, disgusted with himself and finished his task with a brisk detachment. The dark brown skirt with tiny black dots flared down her body and ended below her knees. The straps of the skirt were difficult to maneuver over her blouse covered arms to her shoulders as she was completely out of it and rail thin. He was afraid that he would break her bones if he jostled her too much.
He couldn't find her hairbrush or even a ribbon to tie the long brown locks out of the way but he didn't have anymore time to waste. He grabbed up Isabella as carefully as he could and lugged her out into the woods behind her house. As he walked, he sang her favorite song quietly in her ear, remembering simpler times and vowing silently to make her world right again. Her breathing was shallow and he knew she needed help but he had to get her to safety before Mr. and Mrs. Higginbotham arrived home from the store. He would come back for her as soon as he could.
Rosalie sashayed out the french doors of the Cullen house, her clicking heels bringing him out of his memories. She sunk down gracefully beside him and leaned her shoulder against his. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her to his side but kept his gaze focused on the yard.
"Are you okay, Emmett? You know you can talk to me." She didn't usually put too much emotion into her voice and now was no different. She shrugged after she spoke as if she didn't expect him to answer anyhow so he didn't bother. Rosalie caring about something or someone other than herself was absurd. She was a good person inside, deeply compassionate and protective of her family, but she was also very shallow and vain.
Grunting so she would know he acknowledged her he moved away, suddenly uncomfortable with the contact she offered. Rosalie had been the first person Emmett had laid eyes on when he'd awoken to this world and he thought he had died and gone to heaven. The resplendent golden hair that surrounded him as she leaned over his body felt like the finest, softest silk under his newly sensitive fingertips and he'd immediately wanted to press his lips to hers. After a week of getting to know Rosalie in the most intimate of ways, his human memories had caught up with him and he'd put a stop to their amorous ways, stating he wasn't ready.
He never did give her a reason and he'd never again taken her to bed, much to her chagrin. She tried her damndest to get Emmett into the sack and he turned his cheek, ignoring the flaxen angel. Sixty nine years without the loving, intimate touch of another was sometimes the hardest thing Emmett had ever had to do but he would never forgive himself for losing Isabella Higginbotham. She was his first love, his best friend and he had stupidly left her in the forest for whomever or whatever to find. When he'd gone back for her a few hours after leaving her, she'd been gone. He saw the scuffs in the forest bracken but he couldn't tell if it was from her klutziness or animals. There was no blood or torn clothing, so he was hoping it wasn't a bear.
Five long years had dragged on without a word from her and her parents played it off as if she'd died or gone to marry a wealthy man. It mattered not to Renee and Phil Higginbotham what happened to their daughter and Emmett had never figured out why. Now, here she was, attending Forks High with his family under the name Isabella Swan, long lost daughter of Chief of Police, Charles Swan.
He had to find out how she was still alive after all this time.