Stephenie Meyer's the genius, I'm just having fun.
CHAPTER THREE:
Another gloomy day had dawned in Hanover, a light sheen of water cascading down from the sky at random intervals as the day progressed. In so many ways, it was just like any other day; go to school, suffer through montony, go home, wait for night to fall then go feed. The only change on this day was my hunting partner. Rosalie.
For reasons I couldn't entirely understand, she had taken it upon herself to accompany me. Her eyes were still a light shade of amber and the faintest of flushes still colored her alabaster skin. Yet she wanted to go hunt. With me, no less. Her least favorite person in our entire family. She'd never really made it a secret that I'd irritated her from the first moment she heard my voice. But yet, here we were; freshly full and seated on a large boulder surrounded by a wide grouping of trees.
There was a small amount of tension in the air, something that never entirely went away whenever we were around one another. No one could really explain it, maybe we had just spent too much time grating on each other's nerves to progress past it. But it was something I had grown accustomed to. But before I was really aware of it, air pushed past my lips noisily in attempt to break through some of the fallen silence.
"Just go ahead and ask, Edward." She sighed and flipped bright blonde hair behind her shoulder, still staring straight ahead of her.
"Why did you volunteer to come hunting with me?" I decided to be blunt. That was something Rosalie always appreciated. She seemed to hate whenever someone beat around the proverbial bush when it came to her. "It's not like I'm your favorite person. I've never held that role in our family."
Whatever I'd just said seemed to silence her. Either that or I had struck a very deep chord I knew absolutely nothing about. Either way, it took her a little while to vocally answer my question. Her thoughts were a dizzying myraid with all the different directions she wanted to proceed down. So I sat as patiently as I could in the new-fallen silence, idly wondering which words would come out of her mouth next.
"I came with you because I think you need some perspective." Rosalie never failed to shock me when it came to things I least expected. I knew that things had become strained between several of my family members and myself. One of those members had become Rosalie. She'd never been able to fully understand the attraction Bella had held to me. The way her mind worked had prevented her from seeing the tiny girl the way I did. There was some jealousy and a fear that things would end badly between us, thus pushing some unwanted heat onto her and Emmett. Those were who she thought of most whenever assertaining a bad situation. Herself and Emmett. In that order.
Snorting back a laugh, I just shook my head slowly and rose into a crouch. This wasn't a conversation I particularly wanted to have right then, not when I realized the direction of her thoughts. Of course, she wanted to talk about the mystery girl that was still plaguing Carlisle. "I think my perspective is perfectly all right, but thank you."
"Oh sit back down." She huffed and blindly reached out to grab my arm. I was back on my ass before her hand around my wrist registered, as lost as I was in her sudden train of thought. "I'm just saying that, if Carlisle is right about this girl, she's gone through hell recently."
"And you're suddenly concerned with a human's wellbeing? Especially a human that Carlisle has been tempted to change? We know nothing about her, Rose."
"But you're interested in her. It's obvious, Edward. You've been emotionally dead since we left Forks and everyone's noticed it. But now...now there's a little intensity behind your eyes. The same intensity I first saw spark when she came into your life."
Ah, my lovingly conceited sister. She still refused to call Bella by name, probably working under the assumption that the name caused me some kind of physical pain. It had, in the very beginning when I forced myself to exist without the aid of my large family. The separation had been tough, but I figured everyone would have been okay with her name being used when I rejoined them. Apparently Rosalie was yet another exception to yet another rule.
"It doesn't matter." I muttered flatly and sprang from the boulder we'd been perched on. I didn't know what Rosalie had seen or thought she saw. But either way, she was wrong. I was now determined to prove that to her. She would hate it when she realized this, Rosalie absolutely loathed being wrong. But she had to see that I was still how she described me. Emotionally dead. It did no good for me to care about anyone outside my family.
The house was buzzing with a nervous kind of excitement when I finally returned home. Rosalie had yet to catch up with me and I could only guess it was to give me some time and space to think. Either that or she just didn't want to deal with me. Either option seemed very likely when thinking of my sister.
Esme was the first one I noticed when I got home, stress creating lines I never really saw on her face otherwise. "What's going on?" The question slipped past my lips without any hesitation as I walked around the wide island that took up a good portion of the kitchen we never used. After all, what vampire needed to know their way around a human kitchen? Her steps faltered just long enough for me to fully catch up, but then she was gone yet again. With a groan of exasperation, my jaw clenched as I followed her up to the second floor of the house. The layout was quite different from that of our house in Forks and it was something I'd become extremely grateful for. The less reminders I had, the better I could pretend that things were getting easier for me. But when I reached the room that Esme had suddenly disappeared into, all thoughts of Bella quickly fell to the back of my mind.
Several members of my family had already crowded into the newly furnished bedroom. I was a little surprised to actually see Carlisle home from work, but that took a momentary backseat when I noticed the bed I'd actually moved in here was now occupied. By one vampire and one human. Probing into the minds of my gathered family was effortless, a natural habit as I tried desperately to piece everything together. I'd missed something major, there was no doubt about that. But the only thoughts I could clearly focus on, the thoughts that gave me the answers I was seeking was, of course, Carlisle.
I couldn't just leave her there to die. Such a waste.
A waste. That was the word he was using to describe this girl's slow decent into death. His solution was the same remedy he'd relied on when creating me, Esme, Rosalie, and Emmett. He was preparing to turn this girl into a vampire.
"No." The single syllable brushed past my lips so quickly that I even had to take a second to make sure I'd been the one to speak the word aloud. Four pair of eyes, ranging in color from vibrant gold to bittering amber fell on me simultaneously and I would have cringed in any other situation. But now my back just stiffened, as if my spine was suddenly being soldered to a piece of metal as I stood gaping at my creator. "You can't. There has to be another option."
"There isn't." Carlisle chose to speak that aloud, letting the rest of our family in on the internal conversation we'd been trying to exchange.
"I've seen it." Alice's voice was so soft that I had another moment of uncertainty. Had I heard her right?
"You've seen it?" The words felt like acid dripping off my tongue as I twisted to stare at my tiny sister, who was perched almost protectively beside the still-unconscious girl. "We know nothing about her, Alice. This is the exact thing we are supposed to avoid, not encourage."
"No one avoided it when we were created." Emmett spoke for the first time since I had barged into the room, and I could see Esme's face fall from the corner of my eye. She no doubt wanted this girl in our family very much. I was abruptly aware that I was fighting a losing battle. My family had decided, without me. This girl, nameless and futureless because of an unknown brutality, was going to become a Cullen in a very short time.
It wasn't possible, but yet I felt my spine straighten even more as I nodded curtly. "I'm not going to be here for it. Someone let me know once everything's settled." Then, without warning or another glance around the room, I turned and nearly flew outside. I couldn't just stand around and watch a girl, some human I didn't even know writhe and scream in agony as she became one of us. It wasn't right, none of this felt real to me. I hadn't even been able to contend the place this girl had adopted in Carlisle's professional life before she was suddenly thrust into the darkest part of our life. There was no hope for her.
No hope.
Those words pounded mercilessly through my head as I ran. I had no destination in mind, I only wanted to be as far from the house as possible in case this girl's thoughts suddenly became crystal clear to me. I'd been okay with the monotone buzz her mental voice had adopted while she lay unconsicous in a hospital bed. The possibility of hearing her, listening to her innermost secrets and fears as she passed through the mortal veil was suddenly so unbearable that I actually stopped to lean against a nearby, thick spruce. There was a hollow ache suddenly forming in my chest, though I knew there was no real basis for this pain. It was merely superficial, this girl's pain somehow inflicting mine in a way no other human had been able to. Save one very special exception.
It was a little unsettling that as I thought of Carlisle biting this unknown girl, that my thoughts would stray to Bella. She had wanted this life, to be with me for the rest of eternity. I'd strongly opposed it, not wanting to take her future and her humanity from her. I'd left to preserve all that, to give her the future I knew she would never have while in love with me.
And now, I didn't know the distance as I let the tree beside me support some of my weight, a girl was lying in my house; receiving the gift I'd unceremoniously taken from Bella. From the girl I'd wanted forever.
Fate really was a cruel creature when a person let themself sit and stew on it long enough.
I was acutely aware of just how much time had passed when my cell phone vibrated against my thigh. It hadn't left the confines of my pocket since I tore from the house, but it flew effortlessly to my ear as if on it's own power.
Alice was calling to let me know that the worst was past. It was now safe for me to return home. To undoubtedly meet the newest member of my family.
I broke into an easy stride once I'd pocketed the sleek, silver device. I never had been able to get over just how effortless all the physical aspects of my life came to me. Running like this, appearing as a blur to human eyes, had been the equivilant of breathing while I'd been human. I remembered very little from that time of my life, the pain from my own transformation overshadowed it all. But as the years turned into a century, I'd been able to grasp a few reminders of Edward Anthony Masen. A human boy hell-bent on becoming a soldier, sold on the glorified version of a grisly war that would have surely ended my life on the cusp of manhood. I'd only been seventeen at the time, I could remember anxiously awaiting my eighteenth birthday when the Influenza claimed my father's life.
Edward Masen Sr. had never regained consciousness. But I knew from Carlisle's thoughts, that Elizabeth Masen, my mother; had been alert enough throughout the whole ordeal to watch me weaken in death. It had been her final words, I learned much later with my supernatural gift, that had convinced Carlisle of his wavering decision. My mother's plea to the immortal doctor had been both my saving grace and my death sentence. All rolled into one confusing little package.
I made it home in barely any time, so consumed as I was in my thoughts that everything else faded away. I was greeted with silence as I trudged up the porch stairs and took that first step into the house. There was no heartbeat to greet me this time, though it had been very faint during my last encounter. Carlisle had been right, I realized belatedly. The girl had been just hours from her untimely death and I idly began to wonder just how much this girl would remember of her former life. Would she remember her name? Relive in exact detail what had ultimately delivered her into the arms of Carlisle's compassionate death?
I receieved my answers all too quickly when I retraced my steps into the bedroom I'd first found the girl in. She was still unconscious, right where she'd been when I left the house last. But the bruises that marred her skin had faded into the smooth marble that would now be her skin. I would never see just how tanned her skin was when there were no bruises to cover her flesh. I could tell now, as I stared at her uninterrupted, that her lips were very full and perfectly shaped into what I would forever see as a pout. She was just a child. No younger than I had been, no older than Rosalie. Forever encased in a body that reflected innocence she may or may not have once possessed.
The air shifted around me, signalling the arrival of Alice as I continued to stand stoically in the doorway. Her thoughts gave her away before she could formally say anything. She was thinking of the vision that had convinced Carlisle of this monstrosity. The girl wrapped arm in arm with Alice, her skin as chalky and unblemished as our own. Her eyes were crimson, no hints of their former hue able to survive the bloody mark of identification. "It's going to be fine."
I nodded curtly at my tiny sister's whispered statement, my eyes not able to stray very far from the motionless girl in front of me. Her heart had just stopped, I noted. Took it's final beat before I'd entered the clearing in front of the house. How had I not been able to hear that?
Alice's internal monologue continued as I stood there, almost as if I was inviting her to intrude on my gloomy opposition of this girl. She was trying to sway me, to give me some piece of proof that what had just transpired here would work out okay. It wouldn't, I had a faint feeling of that in the tightening chords that had once served as my intestines. All of this, saving this girl from death, would come back to haunt us somehow. It just irked me that I was powerless to figure out how. To accertain just how significantly and deeply this girl would tear at the bonds of my family.
Unable to bear anymore, I turned and headed for Carlisle's study. His answers were the ones I was once again seeking. I knew he hadn't left her side once since the venom had been injected into her bloodstream. The only reason he wasn't with her now was because he feared something had gone wrong with the transformation. Perhaps there had just been too much damage for her to come back from. Vampire venom could fix nearly anything, but miracles were still beyond our scope.
"Carlisle." I murmered almost uncertainly as I closed us up in his spacious office. The last time I'd come to see him, just after seeing this girl for the first time in the hospital, came back to me in flashes of mental images. But they were all pushed away once I'd reached the desk and leaned against it with both hands. Almost as if I needed supporting yet again. I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt this weakened.
"Edward," He sighed and sounded just as tired as he had the day this girl had come into his life. "I was wondering when you would be returning home."
"Alice called me. I think I came back into hearing range just after the girl's heart stopped." I wanted to cringe at how cold and icy my voice sounded. But there was no way I could rearrange the sound, not with all the emotional turmoil swirling violently through me. A good portion of it, surprisingly, was reserved for the girl we were all waiting on to regain consciousness. To wake up and discover the monster we'd turned her into. "How did it go?"
Carlisle leaned heavily back against his chair, relaxing a little when the animosity drained from my voice. Yet I didn't move, I couldn't. "It went surprisingly well, all things considered. She never regained consciousness. She just...laid there, occasionally convulsing or twitching as the venom spread through her damaged body. All of her internal injuries have already been healed. She no longer needs the bandaging ER physicians had to wrap around her abdomen."
"What were the extent of her injuries?" Curiosity replaced anger as I sank into the chair I always occupied while in Carlisle's office.
"Whoever had beaten her, stabbed her as well. Several times and they were all directed at her abdomen. One of the surgeons had to actually go in and retrieve the tip of the knife used in her attack. It was all...very ghastly when she was first discovered. I can only imagine how much pain she'd endured throughout it all." The transformation not withstanding, he added in silently. I couldn't be sure if he only thought that part for my benefit or his own.
"So what happens now?" I sighed and leaned toward the right enough that my temple easily sank into my raised hand. "Why hasn't she awoken?"
"I don't know." Frustration clipped at his words as he pushed himself out the chair and began to pace. I'd never really known vampires to be restless, but Carlisle was proving it's possiblity. "The scans of her brain showed no trauma, thankfully. There was some pre-existing damage to the part controlling her short-term memory, but that was all. None of us could figure out why she hadn't regained consciousness while still human."
"Maybe she was waiting to die."
