Chapter 2- Saving a Life.

I smell the blood long before I see her.

I'm walking through the town, enjoying the peace of the cold and deserted streets as I make my way home from the hospital when I first catch the scent, heavy and seductive as the breeze blows across my face. I pause, a frown flickering across my face as the scent comes again, stronger now. It's not unheard of to smell blood in the streets – a fight between two men, a child falling and skinning their knees – but this is too strong, too much…someone is hurt, badly. I increase my pace and follow the scent until I am standing in the mouth of a dark and empty alleyway. Empty except for her.

She is little more than a pale shape on the icy stones, but as I speed towards her the story of what has happened here is made horrifyingly clear. The girl is naked, covered in the blood that is dripping from her nose and mouth and head and running down her thighs. I run my hands as gently as possible across her body, cataloguing and assessing her injuries with my sensitive fingertips. I will need lights to examine the mess they've left between her legs and I don't touch her there, but I can feel the ruptured spleen bleeding into her belly, the cracked ribs, the fractures in her wrist and cheekbone and jaw. Perhaps most damaging is the fracture to her skull, a crack I can feel on the right occipital that is bleeding freely out on to the stones, but is no doubt also causing a dangerous bleed into her brain. Between this and the bleeding into her belly the girl needs surgery immediately if she is to have any hope of survival.

I have lifted her head slightly to touch the injury to her skull, and I realise that the long swathes of hair flowing across the stones are blonde, not dark as I first assumed. The dark is only where they have been soaked with blood…she whimpers and I look down into the one blue eye she can open in her battered face and I realise that I know this girl. It is Rosalie Hale.

"What have they done to you? Oh Rosalie, Rosalie child…such brutality…" I know what they have done to her. Below the scent of blood I can smell them, the five men who have committed this atrocity, and for almost the first time in my long life I feel such rage that I could kill without even a twinge of conscience. If those men were here I would tear them limb from limb without pause for what they have done to this pretty, innocent girl and I would feel nothing but a savage joy in their pain and the righteous glow of retribution.

Rosalie sighs, a breath of hopelessness into the darkness. I both hear and feel under my hands her heartbeat slowing. She has lost too much blood for her body to function and her organs are beginning to shut down. I realise with the knowledge of long experience that this girl is dying, that even if I use all my vampire speed to take her to the hospital there is nothing the surgeons can do with their human hands and limited skills to save her now.

No! I cannot see it happen!

I have seen so many people die over the years. I have held their hands as they took their last breaths and their hearts faltered into silence. I have closed the eyes of men, women and children of all ages and commended their souls to God as their spirits left the flesh, and yet somehow I cannot bear to do so here. With no plan in mind save a desperate feeling that I cannot allow death to take this girl now, I gather her in to my arms and whisper an apology as I whisk her home.

I hurt her, I know that. I feel the broken ribs shift as I take her weight and hold her cradled like a baby, and she opens her mouth in a scream that she hasn't the strength to give voice to as her eyes roll back and she slips into unconsciousness.

That's right Rosalie, close your eyes, I'm taking you home to Esme…you won't die tonight, not like this…

I reach home in record time but there is no one else there. There is only me, and the weak, slow heartbeat of the broken girl I lay gently down on the table, and the sound of it pounds in my head like a drum as I stare at her. She is almost unrecognisable as the beautiful, laughing girl we saw at the dance only weeks ago, beaten and battered as she is now. As I watch her body stiffens and seizes as the bleeding into her skull puts too much pressure on her brain, and I know I have only moments now to decide.

Esme! I wish you were here to help me choose…but I can't see her die. Not like this, not as a result of such brutality…I cannot let those monsters end a life that shone so brightly!

With the sudden fire of decision I am at her side in an instant and, without any further hesitation, I bend low over her and as gently as possible tilt her head to expose the long slender neck. I press my lips against her fragile human skin with my dark lover's kiss…and I bite.

Again and again I bite; her neck, her wrists, her ankles, the inside of her elbows and her thighs, my body shuddering with the ecstasy and torment of what I am doing. This is the third time I have done this, the third time I have sought to give this dark gift, and it is not any easier this time. If anything it is harder as the hot, vital blood of this healthy young woman pools in my mouth and the taste of it dances on my tongue and all my instincts scream at me to bite and suck and swallow, gratify the burning longing that flames throughout my body. But I resist, doggedly biting, letting venom seep from my mouth and into the wounds, venom that is the only thing that can save this girl from death now.

Finally, it is done.

For a moment it is as though time stands still and in the silence I stand upright, as covered in blood as the girl, and look at her motionless body. For a moment I wonder if her heart stopped as I was in my frenzy of biting and I was too late. But no…I can hear it, faint and slow, and then in front of my eyes the girl's body stiffens as the burning begins and she opens her mouth and screams.

Oh, the noise! The high pitched, tormented scream of a body in agony! I groan and hide my face in my hands for a moment as I listen to it, and it cuts into my soul like a knife. After everything she has already endured this night, to now go through the burning of transformation…

"I'm sorry Rosalie. I know how much this hurts. Hold on my dear, hold on." There is no indication she hears me as her face contorts with her screaming.

There is too much blood. I need it gone before Esme and Edward return. Oh, what will they think of what I have done? I go to the laundry and fetch a bucket of cold water and a cloth, and bring it back to bathe the girl and remove the blood that has coloured her skin and hair crimson. I am as gentle as I am thorough, but I know it makes no difference. The girl continues to scream, twisting weakly under my hands, her throat already sounding hoarse and raw.

I see more evidence of what they did to her as the blood and dirt is washed away, and my vampire heart aches for her. The bites on her skin are not all mine- vampires are not the only monsters in the world, and this girl has known too much tonight.

Finally she is clean, and I take the blood stained cloths outside to the incinerator and throw them in, pouring gasoline on top and flicking in a match to watch them burn. Removing my own blood stained clothes I toss them in on top and for a moment stare at the dancing flames with my mind blank, until the faint screams from the house remind me of my responsibilities.

In my room I dress hastily, and after a moment's consideration I take one of my shirts from the closet, intending to dress Rosalie. I would prefer something more appropriate for her, but she is taller and curvier than Esme and I doubt any of her dresses would fit. I can't leave her lying naked though, and the shirt will cover what ought to be covered before Edward gets back. It wouldn't be right for him to see her as she is.

Esme is standing in the living room when I reach it again, her mouth open in shock as she stares down at the bruised and beaten figure on the table. The face she raises to me is twisted in sympathetic pain. "Oh, the poor girl!"

I am glad to see her and I embrace her briefly, finding comfort in her loving arms and soft kisses. "Carlisle," she whispers, staring past me again. "What happened? Is that Rosalie Hale?"

I nod wearily, and hand her the shirt. "Please help me dress her, and I'll explain." Together Esme and I lift the body and wrap the shirt around it, buttoning it down the front. I see Esme taking in the bruises and injuries, and I notice her shudder as she pulls the long tails of the shirt down over Rosalie's thighs and she sees what has been done to her. Rosalie struggles weakly against us, moaning, and then begins to scream again but she has no strength left and the noise doesn't last long. Soon she is quiet, although her body twitches and shudders and ripples with the agonies tearing through it.

"Who did this?" Esme asks quietly, stroking the long golden hair, smoothing out the tangled waves.

"I don't know," I answer. "I found her like this, on the ground in an alley. All I know is that there were five of them…and by God if I could get my hands on them!" I take a deep breath to quiet the unfamiliar feelings of violence welling up inside me, and then drop my face into my hands. "She was dying Esme. I was going to take her to the hospital, but it would have been useless- she would not have lived long enough for surgery."

Esme's hand on my shoulder is strong and reassuring. "She is lucky then that you found her."

Lucky? I don't think so, not as I look at the young girl's suffering. She moans and tosses her head in agitation, and then as I gather her up in my arms to carry her upstairs she finds her voice and screams again, long and spine chillingly. I can do nothing though but lay her gently in the spare bed and sit with her, holding her hands and talking to her just in case she can hear me.

Esme comes in and out but says little. She stays when it is very bad, and stands beside me as I bury my face in her breasts and shudder with the horror of what I have seen and done here with this girl.

"How much longer?" she asks quietly.

"Two more days."

"Are you sure you've done the right thing?"

Her voice holds no judgement, but it is a long time before I can choke out my answer. "No."

How can I be sure I've done the right thing as I watch the excruciating suffering Rosalie is undergoing? How can I believe it is right as she screams and arches her back in a fit of torment? How can I know that Rosalie will want the dark gift I have given her?

Esme drives to town and comes back with clothes for Rosalie. I go down to meet her, seeing the anxious look on her face as she takes the packages from the car.

"They're searching for her," she tells me quietly, not wanting Rosalie to hear this and not knowing how acute her hearing is now. "Her family, her fiance's family, the police…oh, the whole town is in an uproar over her disappearance!"

I frown, but spread my hands helplessly. "I suppose I knew they would be."

Esme tries to smile. "I'm sure it will be well, but we shall have to be so careful Carlisle. This will not be like it was when it was Edward or I."

It is already not like it was when it was Edward or Esme. I remember the change taking place in Edward. Stinking of disease and burning with fever he had tossed and turned and moaned as he suffered. Esme had cried but moved little when it was her turn, only fisting and releasing her hands, clasping them together and then apart and plucking at her clothes as she whimpered with the burning.

Now there is Rosalie, and she screams and fights against the pain. She tosses her head and thrashes as she struggles, and once again I take her hand and try to soothe her.

"Please Rosalie, ease yourself…I know it hurts but it will be over soon. Then you'll be one of us, a vampire. We'll teach you to hunt, and you'll drink the blood and feel how good it is and all this pain can be forgotten….Oh Rosalie, I am sorry."