-Chapter Two: Immovable Object, Unstoppable Force-

When it finally stopped, I prayed to God to let me be dead now. Death was surely an end to such suffering, death was anything but what I had endured. Annihilation, transcendence of the soul - even Hell, were preferable to that which had wracked my body, sent my mind into insanity with the longing to rip my own skin and bones apart. Hell had nothing on whatever that had been.

Was I still Rosalie Hale? I blinked; I could hear my own eyelids. I breathed, tasting a hundred flavours on the air. I could feel my skin on the cold stones of the floor, I could hear and sense everything, too much. I waited to hear my heartbeat - I was waiting a long time before I realised that I was truly dead, that Dr Cullen had spoken the truth to me as he sat beside me. I was a vampire.

Which was ridiculous, of course. Vampires did most certainly not exist and while I might not have been the most intelligent girl in all of Rochester, I wasn't about to be tricked into believing something so stupid. But my lack of a heartbeat was silently proving me wrong. I looked around the room at the people staring at me.

Dr Cullen was smiling at me as if he was looking at a miracle, the kind woman who had stroked my hair was smiling at me too; she seemed as though she might cry, though I couldn't understand why because she continued to smile.

The other face was notably not smiling. Upon recognition, I was not surprised. Edward Cullen never smiled, and certainly not at me. A proud, arrogant boy, too attractive for his own good. I had met him once. I fervently disliked him. Vaguely, I wondered what he was doing here at the scene of my death.

Perhaps I had lost my mind. Maybe I was really dead on the streets where Royce had left me and this was all a strange form of Hell. My mind refused to full take in everything; I was left with strangely disjointed thoughts.

Maybe that splintering, unbearable pain was a preliminary to something much worse. Eternity with Edward Cullen.

"How are you feeling, Rosalie?" Carlisle asked me, pulling me from my dark reverie. I shook myself. Carlisle Cullen would never belong in Hell. He was far too lovely. My initial dislike of him was wiped clean. He had sat with me the whole time, through everything. I could not envy him his beauty any longer. He deserved to be so divinely beautiful, as did his exquisite wife.

I could not think of an answer, so instead I fell back on a question. "Am I dead?" I really did need to know; heaven would surely not include Edward Cullen, but Hell would most certainly never encompass Carlisle Cullen. Of course, the most simple answer was that I was alive and Carlisle had healed me.

But the lack of heartbeat resounded my suspicions. I could hear their every movement, the small scuffles, Edward crossing his arms. Why could I not hear my own heartbeat, if it had not ceased and I was not dead?

It was Edward who answered. "You are dead in that your heart no longer beats. You are dead in that your old life has died and you stand upon the precipice of a new one."

I could not contain a small scowl. A simple 'Yes' or 'No' would have sufficed. He smirked at me, knowingly. I looked away from him, unable to formulate the resources to care. I looked to Carlisle.

"What you told me was….true?" My own voice sounded foreign to my shockingly perceptive ears. Higher and softer; with the pitch perfect chime of a bell.

He nodded, still staring at me in wonder, as though I really was some sort of soul-affirming miracle "There is much you must yet learn of your new life Rosalie, but we will help you."

I wanted to speak, to say a million things but my throat was very suddenly dry, then hot, then scorching. I needed something and I needed it now; the desire to have it, whatever it was, overwhelmed me to an extent that was terrifying.

Edward seemed to sense this. "She needs to feed," he said, almost with disgust. "Now."

The basement in which I sat was dark, so dark I should not have been able to see - but I could. Dusty, dirty objects sat piled up. Old books, a nursing chair, a gramophone with a broken needle. I could see the needle; I could see every grain and indentation in every object. Something glinted then and when I turned to look into it, I could not contain the gasp that uttered past my lips.

The mirror showed the most heavenly, perfect creature I had ever beheld. I knew after a few moments, that it was my reflection in a mirror. I took my own breath away, a new record - even for the heights of my vanity. Edward chuckled and I ignored him, too enraptured in my own reflection.

"When Narcissus is done," he said disdainfully. "You should take her hunting. She'll turn on the first human she sees."

My blood turned cold. Feed?

Carlisle began to explain everything to me then, explain it all in calm, loving tones but all I heard was Edward leave and shut the door behind him.

Two months passed and time was redefined. Life had turned into one long, sleepless episode, broken up by changes in pace. I understood it all now. I knew what I was, I hunted when hungry, I stayed away from humans. We left Rochester of course, I never saw my parents again.

But it was not my parents I was thinking of as I walked in our vast garden that night, looking at the sheer loveliness of everything. My family were inside the house, Carlisle and Esme partaking of some private, romantic anniversary which I did not wish to intrude upon. Edward was not inside the house - I did not count him as family in my mind anyway.

Pleased to have a distraction, I let my mind wander willingly onto the inexhaustible subject of Edward.

There were not enough ways to describe how much I hated him. It was strangely benign hatred sometimes, but I think that might have been self imposed owing to his ability to read minds. I spent most of my time in his presence trying to block him out or, failing that, convincing myself that I didn't hate him at all.

When I did, very much.

Firstly, his arrogance was astounding. Carlisle and Esme were blind to it of course, as they were blind to my vanity and dark side. I was not blind to it. He was one of those men who is unfortunate enough to know that he is God personified and that with a mere gaze he could reduce an Amazonian woman to a gibbering pile of shivery goo.

Secondly, he could read minds. It drove me nearly insane to be around him and it made him unbearably smug. He knew everything, and although he claimed it was involuntary - I knew he liked it more than he let on. He knew that I knew that, which made him smile and shake his head. It made me want to rip his spine out of his back - which made him raise an eyebrow at me, the same smug little smirk on his lips.

Which brings me nicely to number three. He was the slightest little bit interested in me whatsoever. This, criminal in itself, was the most intolerable thing about Edward Cullen. Whereas I hated him and therefore thought about him sometimes, I obviously never even passed through his mind. This, to me, was a far greater cruelty than hatred; indifference. He never even looked at me except to mock me with his arrogant, all knowing eyes.

Bastard.

I had run out of reasons why I hated him, I was losing steam on the whole thing. Other thoughts were creeping in now, unstoppable and poisonous. I closed my eyes, trying hard not to let them but it they were fuelled with oceanic determination. The sea couldn't be stopped from pouring onto the sand and nor could the memories and thoughts that flooded my consciousness.

Royce King.

The first time I realised how strong I was, the decision was made. Royce King and his companions would die in the most horrific manner I could devise, and it would be done by my own hand. Unfortunately, the first time I was struck with the idea I was in the same room as Edward. I remembered him looking up from his book, a well worn expensive first edition of 'The Inferno', and glaring at me with wide, judgemental eyes. I glared back, daring him to run to Carlisle like a child. He shook his head once, his judgement made, and returned to his book with moderate, yet obvious, disgust.

After that, I realised I would have to be more careful with my thoughts. So I waited until he was out to think of it. By now, it was force of habit. My mind knew he was gone, knew I was free to plan it - only I was too dejected just then to want it enough to commence scheming.

But then I thought of the cause for my dejection, and the monster inside me screamed for retribution. It begged for messy, unadulterated gore and broken bones. It begged for blood, and loss of control. I would meet it halfway - it could have the bones and cruelty, none of the blood. I would not taint myself.

A very small smile curled around my lips, I wound a silky thread of hair through my fingers somewhat masochistically. My hair was a conduit to a plethora of bad memories, memories that brought old fashioned shame and humiliation into my soul. This was why I hated Edward - because he knew everything. Even more than I knew really, because I denied that I blamed myself, or my beauty - but he knew better. He knew it all, and still he could not bring himself to once speak my name.

That upset me intensely. To hear him use Carlisle's name like it was the name of God, and was suddenly fashionable to take the Lord's name in vain. To hear him speak Esme's name with such fondness and love. And when, if ever, he addressed me - my name was always notably absent. It was always 'you' or 'she'.

He did not pity me, he did not like me, he was not attracted to me, he wasn't interested in me. He hated me. And yet - he was possibly the person in all the world who knew me the best. Life, or lack thereof, was deeply unfair.

I was imagining the mess under my fingernails after I would kill Royce and his friends, when I caught the scent and I cursed because only I could have such astronomically bad luck.

"You said you would be gone for the week," I intoned, calmly plucking a petal from a rose, breathing in the scent as a distraction.

"I was unaware that I needed your permission to return to my own home." His voice was as it had always been towards me. Cold, sarcastic, deadpan. Indifferent.

"You cannot go inside," I warned him. He stopped, I could hear his tracks. As I turned to face him, ready to battle with him to grant Carlisle and Esme their night alone, I caught the microscopic scent of blood on his lips. A frown flickered between my forehead and before I could even open my mouth to ask the question, he was answering it.

"It is why I must speak with Carlisle," he said, giving me a thoroughly disdainful look.

I suddenly felt smug, no longer caring if he heard every single thought in my mind. "Control is difficult to master, Edward. I'm sure you tried very hard."

His eyes might have been painful if their potency were made tangible. "You are a mere child compared to the years I have seen of this life."

"Years spent feeding on human blood. Carlisle's over-inflated opinion of you is staggering. You are fortunate indeed that he cannot read minds as well as you."

"I have no desire to make it a secret. I go to him now to confess it."

I suddenly felt wildly protective of both Esme and Carlisle. They would not want to know of their son's misdemeanours, it would hurt them to know of his deception. I did not want that for them. I loved them, I wanted to protect them.

"It is better that they know," he said, anticipating my next move before I had a chance to make it. "I will not lie to them any longer."

"Why throw away such a luxury? I should love to be able to lie and do so in the privacy of my own mind."

"You would love to do a great deal privately, I have no doubt."

He made to move past me then, a movement so fast a human could not even have seen it. I moved to compensate, standing in front of him. "Leave them be. Your selfishness can wait another day."

He looked at me with distaste. "Your ego is generous tonight."

"What good can come of telling them now? Why drag them into your suffering with you?"

He narrowed his annoyingly beautiful eyes. "You understand nothing."

"I understand that you no longer want to be alone in your dilemma. They do not deserve to be disappointed in you. They adore you."

"I cannot lie any longer. I have failed Carlisle."

"He will forgive you, of course he will. But you will never forgive yourself for telling him. He does not wish to know. Be brave and contain your transgression."

He sneered at me then. "You are telling me to be brave?"

"Yes." I stood my ground, ready to stop him if need be.

"Utterly ridiculous."

I expected him to try and cross me, instead he turned around and walked in the other direction. I was confused, why was he leaving? I did not believe that my logic had sunk in at all. He was heading towards the lake, a small distance from the grounds of our house. I hesitated for a moment, wondering if I should leave him completely alone or if I should follow him and keep him distracted from his goal of speaking to Carlisle.

I thought of Carlisle's face, of Esme trying to hide her anguish. It wasn't fair that they should be dragged into his desolate, dark little secret world just because he was wanted to alleviate his guilt. No, I would not allow that.

So with resolve and deep resentment I shook myself and followed him to the lake.

A/N - Thanks so much for reading, hope you liked it. Please review!