I sat at the dining room table, a row of colorful nail polish lined up before me. Whenever I saw a shade I liked in a magazine, I immediately rushed to the store and purchased it. At this point I must have had three hundred little bottles in an array of colors from the palest of pinks to the brightest blues all the way to the deepest of blacks. Whenever I was stressed out or upset, I gave myself a little manicure. My nails never grew, or changed, but diligently painting my nails was one of the many things I loved when I was alive, and continued to enjoy. That day I selected a glittery pink polish from the most recent Katy Perry collection. The sparkling pink of my nails against my pale skin was an interesting combination. I wondered how it would look against my true skin if I dared to step into the sunlight.
But even this little luxury of painting my nails couldn't take my mind off the ridiculous things that were currently going on in my own home. I couldn't help but feel anger towards my adoptive family over their little secret. To be the last person to know something as important as this made me feel like a second-class citizen. I had always hated secrets, especially when I wasn't in on it. Carlisle and Esme would have so much explaining to do when they got home.
Who were they to bring another person into this family so randomly? I understand that they wanted children, but weren't Edward and I enough for them? I wondered what they even knew about this new person. Unless Carlisle made him fill out an application and go in for a formal interview, he couldn't never really know whom this man truly was. He might be an axe murderer on the run or a Bosnian drug lord who has killed a hundred men. Lon story short, this guy might be a total psycho and now I'm going to call him my brother. It was all utterly Ridiculous.
"His name is Emmett McCarty." Carlisle sighed, a weary touch to his voice. The moment my parents walked in the front door, I ambushed them with a barrage of questions, not even bothering to censor my, rather colorful, language. "I found him up in the mountains… I believe he was hunting when a bear overtook him."
"So, you decided to just bring him home like a little bird with a broken wing?" I shot back. For a split second, I almost felt bad about having such a rude tone with him.
Esme patted the back of my hand; a motion she believed would calm my tidy rage. "Dear, your father was just doing what he thought was best for the family."
"If bringing him in for the good of the family, then why all the secrecy? Why the hidden rooms? I don't understand why you would keep it from me."
"Because I knew how you would react." Carlisle said plainly. "But now that everything's out in the open, we can speak freely about our next move. I was blessed when both you, and Edward, were newborns… you adjusted rather well to this life. You never lost control or put our family in danger."
"Are you hoping that this new person will be just as well-mannered when he awakes?"
He nodded. "Hopefully. I won't know how he'll react to his new form until he regains consciousness. He's a rather large man so it's taking longer than normal for the venom to travel through his system…. Rosalie, I need to ask a favor of you."
I narrowed my eyes. "What is it?"
"When Emmett wakes up, I'd like you to take him under your wing and teach him about his new life. I think he might need some tough love like yours to keep him in line."
I sat at my desk and opened up my MacBook, the Google webpage instantly opening under my perfectly manicured fingers. I was still seething from Carlisle's simple explanation about the man in the secret room. I expected a little more conversation concerning the guy strapped to the table, but my father's calm demeanor made for little argument.
I typed in the name "Emmett McCarty" and scrolled through the hundreds of results. I had no idea that "Emmett McCarty" was such a common name. I narrowed the results to our area and tried again. I was pleased to see that there were now only a few websites pertaining to the mystery man. Several picture of Emmett graced my screen as well; him as a longhaired teenager in a football uniform, in the back of a boat holding a bigmouth bass, a senior portrait that displayed a welcoming dimpled smile. The first link I clicked took me to a local news article about his disappearance:
LOCAL MAN MISSING
Emmett McCarty, age 20, went missing last Thursday during a routine hunting trip. An avid hunter, McCarty went out every weekend during deer season and family says that it is very unusual for him to be gone for this long. He was last seen wearing a red plain shirt, work boots, jeans, and an orange safety vest. The police are treating it strictly as a missing person's case and while no foul play is suspected, authorities are welcoming any plausible leads at this time.
"Emmett's such a good man. Never stayed out drinking and gambling like all his friends. I just don't understand where he could've gone or why this happened to our family." Dolly McCarty, the missing man's mother, told the press during a recent interview, her silent husband's arm firmly around her shaking shoulders. The ex-high school football star shyly passed on a full sports scholarship to Notre Dame for the second year in a row last week in order to continue working on the railroad to help support his family. "He's the best person I've ever known." older brother Hank says of his youngest sibling, "he's funny, caring, and we really need him back."
I took a deep breath and slowly closed my laptop without finishing the piece. It seemed almost too personal to continue with. Emmett had a family waiting for him back home. He had two parents and a brother who loved him. He might have a sister and a number of cousins mourning his disappearance as well. An entire family was out there looking for him while he was chained up in our office. It was criminal.
There were hundreds of news articles and rewards posted in the papers when I, myself, went missing. Local and national papers plastered my beautiful face on their front pages under catchy titles like "Gorgeous Girl; Stolen Youth" or "Foul Play Suspected in Disappearance of NY Beauty". My parents even gave live radio interviews begging for my immediate safe return, a new luxury during that time. Stories about my mysterious disappearance appeared in the papers for years after I had been turned, each one posting a reward that grew in amount until both my parents were long dead and my sibling's children had forgotten all about their poor aunt Rosalie.
"Rosalie?" Carlisle addressed me quietly, slowly opening my bedroom door. "Are you busy."
"No, not at all." I answered, my tone drastically different from my harsh one earlier.
"Well would you like to meet the newest edition to our family? He's finally awake."
Now that Emmett's snapping out of his venom-coma, the story can seriously start moving. thanks for reading and please review to read more! =)
