Chapter 4- Following Instinct.
Edward, come with me. We'll find her something to drink- she may be more inclined to listen to us once she is less thirsty.
Edward and I race into the forest, following the freshest scent trail of the deer that are so plentiful.
"She should be doing this herself," Edward murmurs to me as we stalk them. "She has to learn, Carlisle."
"She will learn," I answer, somewhat sharply. "But we can help her at first."
I didn't catch prey and present it to either Edward or Esme when they were first changed. Edward was a boy, and despite his distress over the change and his emerging telepathy he was reasonable from the first moment. Esme too was reasonable, and grasped the concept of what she had become and what she needed to do very quickly. She was a country girl at heart and the idea of hunting was not new to her. Rosalie however, has been anything but reasonable so far, and I doubt the girl has got any closer to nature than a walk through the city parks in all her life.
The deer are easy to catch. "Don't break the skin," I direct Edward. "I don't want them bleeding."
I snatch a buck and in one clean move break his back so he is paralysed. I don't like to see even animals suffer, and although I know the deer is not in pain I know he must be terrified and I hope that Rosalie will feed and end his life quickly. Edward takes two smaller deer and, following my lead, snaps the spines so that they dangle limp and helpless from his hands. Three will be more than enough and I am anxious about Esme left alone with her, so Edward and I don't delay as we hurry back towards the house.
Rosalie is pacing, and as I emerge from the trees with the deer she veers towards me. I can tell by her flaring nostrils that she is scenting the blood and she wants it badly, so I kneel down on the grass and lay it out beside me, beckoning her closer.
"I broke his back," I say, touching the bony ridge of the spine. "Right here, so he can't move. You won't have to do that when you hunt for yourself but it makes it easier this first time. It's all right Rosalie, you can come closer…it's yours." I try to make my tone as matter-of-fact and non-threatening as I can.
Rosalie looks repulsed, but at the same time she drifts inexorably closer and then drops to her knees beside me. I expect her to rip into the animal immediately to slake her thirst, but although she bends low over it and breathes in the scent she doesn't bite. Her face works, desire and revulsion at war within her, and she whimpers in distress.
"She's still thinking like a human," Edward says. "It's almost interesting really, her new instincts at war with what she thinks…"
"Never mind Edward," I say. "We have time Rosalie, lots of time to make this change." This girl is strung so tightly I fear pushing her will simply cause her to snap, and after her destruction in the house I have realised that we must tread very lightly here.
"It's rather a surprising amount of control actually," I say to Edward and Esme a moment later, watching as Rosalie's hands twitch and she hisses as she fights with herself. "I know you want it Rosalie," I say with gentle encouragement. "I understand that it feels strange to you, but it's what you need right now. Your body, your vampire body, knows how to do this if you let it."
I am impressed that she is able to sit here with blood so near and available and not feed, but I want her to take it. She needs to ease her thirst if she's going to be able to think at all, and I want her to feed and break through this barrier of denial I believe she is feeling. There is so much for her to learn… I am relieved when my words seem to reach her and she stills, her eyes glazed as she lowers her head and then strikes like the predator she is now, her teeth tearing into the hide and her mouth closing over the wound as she gulps down the spurting blood.
"Good girl." As I shift my position slightly she snarls and drags the body closer to her, and I can't help but feel a slight quiver of amusement. "It's all yours Rosalie," I say lightly. "Drink it all…you'll feel better."
Long ago I accepted what I am and came to terms with the violence inherent in this life. I am a doctor, a man, a husband, and I strive to live in the light…but at heart I am also a vampire and like all such creatures I must kill and drink blood to survive. I thought this fact had lost its power to horrify me.
I was wrong.
As I watch Rosalie, this beautiful girl with the face of an angel now crouched at my side, her body trembling with the ecstasy of the blood sacrifice she has drunk and her crimson eyes ablaze with the newborn blood lust, I cannot stop my feeling of horror. She is feral as she tosses the drained carcass carelessly to the side and glares me with a furious hunger as she snarls, "I want more."
Oh God, forgive me for I have sinned…what have I done here?
Edward tosses another deer at Rosalie and this time there is no hesitation as she seizes it and clamps her mouth on to it with a low groan of satisfaction. Her eyes close as she feeds, lost in the sensations of her vampire body taking in the life-giving blood, and all Esme and Edward and I can do is watch her.
Rosalie finishes and drops the deer to the ground, sitting back on her heels with a grimace of distaste. She glares at me balefully, and I see her swallow repeatedly. "It still burns," she snaps indignantly.
"Yes, I'm afraid so," I say. "That will ease with time, although it is something you'll have to get used to. It will be worse when you are around humans, or when you're exceptionally thirsty."
"When can I go home?" she demands. "When will you take me to see my parents?"
Edward, Esme and I exchange helpless glances. Is Rosalie not listening? Does she not understand what she is now? She must be made to see.
"That won't be possible Rosalie," I tell her firmly. "You're a vampire now, and you must accept that your life will be different from now on. I'm afraid there is no going back." My words sound bleak and final.
"But I didn't want this!" Rosalie sounds appalled that anyone would dare deny her anything. In her agitation she takes hold of the buck's antlers and twists them angrily. "I don't want my life to be any different!" Unused to her new strength she shatters the antlers as she squeezes her hands, and with a wordless exclamation she throws the shattered remnants of them away from her.
"There's no damage," Edward says to her as she examines her hands. "There's very little on earth that can injure you now Rosalie."
She whips her head up to look at him, and her eyes are glittering.
"You can feel how strong you are," Edward continues. "You crushed those antlers without effort. You can feel the strength and power your body has now…imagine yourself running Rosalie, or jumping or climbing. Your bones can't be broken and there is nothing short of vampire teeth that can penetrate your skin."
"No one can hurt me?" Her tone is intent. "I'm stronger than…they were?"
Oh, poor child. For once I am glad that our human memories fade, and I hope that time works swiftly to blur the experiences of brutality that will torment this girl.
Edward's face is tight as he answers her. "Much, much stronger than they were."
That pleases her, as nothing else we have said to her has, and she rises gracefully to her feet and smooths her hair back over her shoulders, wiping a smear of blood from her lip with a look of disgust.
"We need to bury these carcasses," I tell her. "There are a number of reasons for that Rosalie, but it is primarily because secrecy must always, always, be our first priority. As a vampire you must never do anything that would betray your true nature to humans, and always dispose of any evidence that shows you are other the human you will pretend to be."
Rosalie looks as though I've told her she has to fly. "I'm not digging around in the dirt!" she exclaims, brushing angrily at the grass and dust on her dress. "I don't care what you say. I'm going home," she spits out defiantly, turning on her heel and marching away.
"Oh Carlisle, what are to do with her?" Esme says anxiously.
"We have to stop her," Edward says practically. "She's too new to go off on her own- she doesn't understand what she's capable of yet."
I raise my hands helplessly. "She can't be allowed to return home. That would be disastrous- we must just keep trying to talk to her." Surely she will listen, surely!
She has begun to run, and I take off after her before she gets too far away. "Rosalie!" I call, reaching towards her. As my hand brushes her sleeve she growls like an animal and hits me, hard enough to make me stumble as she snarls, "Don't touch me!"
"Rosalie!" I call desperately. "You must stop! You don't understand what you are now. This is dangerous!" But with a flash of blonde hair she reaches the end of the driveway and on the straight, flat road she begins to run faster and I know I have no hope of keeping up with her. "Edward!" I shout, "Follow her!"
The situation is not good. An angry, aggressive vampire, with all that excruciating thirst and the strength of the newborn is the stuff of nightmares, and Rosalie is out of our control as she flees. It can only get worse though, and a moment later I hear Edward's shout from ahead of us.
"She's scented the farm! Head her off!"
Esme and I glance at each other in mutual dismay and bolt through the trees, moving towards the scent and sound of Edward and Rosalie. As the two of them burst from the concealing trees in front of us I stretch out my arms and between that, Esme and Edward, we have Rosalie caught. She fights back as our arms and hands clasp her, and with her newborn strength and blind desperation for blood she is formidable. The four of us fall in the struggle, and although the thought of manhandling a lady in this manner is appalling I find myself with a knee on Rosalie's back, Edward's shoulder hard against mine as he struggles to restrain her.
"Rosalie, Rosalie…" Esme takes the slender hands that are scrabbling for purchase in the earth and holds them, gently but firmly. "It's all right, calm down sweetheart, it's fine…"
But it's not fine for Rosalie. She's screaming and struggling with the desperation of a trapped animal, and beside me I hear Edward gasp and he moves back from her, dragging me with her.
"Carlisle, no! Get off her!" he growls anxiously. "She won't run now, but she's remembering what they did to her…if you touch her now she'll tear you apart thinking you're them!"
With the weight gone from her back Rosalie is on her feet and away from us at a speed even my vampire eyes have trouble following, ending up twenty feet away with her back pressed against a tree, her face contorted with terror. "Don't you ever touch me again!"
Oh, the fear in her eyes…I hold my hands up, palms towards her so she can see I am hiding nothing and mean her no harm. "It's all right Rosalie," I say, as gently as I can. "We won't touch you. No one will hurt you again, it's all right."
The girl's whole body is quivering with tension as she moves her tormented gaze across the three of us she sees as her enemies. Her hands dig into the tree behind her, fingers effortlessly cutting through the ancient wood, and she moans and whimpers in distress. I no longer know if it is the desire for blood or the terror that we have raised in her heart that is troubling her more.
Does she want to run again? Is it the desire for the blood?
Edward shook his head. "She's fighting it, but mostly because she's afraid of us. We need to make her understand Carlisle, because it would be a mistake to use any physical restraint with her again. She remembers too much of her human end."
The things this girl has been through…there are wounds that venom cannot touch, and I wonder bleakly how any girl heals herself after such a shattering of innocence as Rosalie has had. "I'm not going to touch you Rosalie," I say quietly, approaching her cautiously. "I want to help you."
She hisses a warning, and I stop immediately. Somehow we have to teach this girl to trust us. She doesn't take her eyes off me as she fists her hands in her hair and then scrabbles her fingers against the tree. "What you can smell is human blood," I say. "Feel how strongly you're drawn towards it…this is why you cannot go home Rosalie. Not now. It is possible to resist it – as you're doing now – but as a newborn any control you have is tenuous and you need to be careful not to ask too much of yourself. If you were to be near to your family it is likely you would hurt them."
She hears me, and in her tortured thirst she begins to understand. Her head bangs against the tree and she breathes heavily, a hoarse rasp of pain.
"You don't have to breathe," Esme suggests to her. "Your body is breathing from habit and it's part of the human façade we maintain, but it's not necessary. If you don't breathe you will not smell it so acutely."
I see Rosalie clamp down her lungs. Vampires don't need oxygen, but it is an unsettling experience to actively halt an involuntary act and I give Rosalie a minute to adjust to this new sensation. I see her regain control over herself as she stands upright and smooths down her hair.
"Come back with us now," I say persuasively. "Let us explain more to you. Explain the rules, teach you what you will need to know, and then you can decide what you wish do from here. We will be more than happy to have you make your home with us, but we have no intention of keeping you against your will."
Rosalie makes no sign, but Edward nods at me. "She'll follow us home," he says assuredly.
Rosalie scowls at him furiously, and Edward sighs as he explains. "I'm a telepath…I can read your mind."
Rosalie stares at him in disbelief, and a faint smile crosses Edward's face as he listens to her thoughts. "I'm not a child," he says lightly. "I'm older than you are; I was born in 1901. Come on…let's go back."
Rosalie backs away as he walks past her towards home, and it isn't until Esme and I move after him that she begins to follow us. She keeps her distance all the way home, and even when we reach home and are standing on the lawn she stands apart from us, refusing to meet our eyes.
"You don't get tired anymore," Edward says to her, in what I assume is a response to some inner dialogue of her own. "You don't sleep either."
The look she gives him is one of dislike. "Do you answer everyone straight out of their head like that?" she says haughtily. "It's extremely rude."
"Excuse me," Edward mutters stiffly. "I was merely attempting to be helpful."
"Well, don't," she snaps. "A person has the right to privacy in her own head at least, even if it seems she has no other rights at all." She turns away from him with an arrogant toss of her head and misses the glare that Edward shoots her way.
She is looking at the deer, at the two bodies and the one poor animal still alive that are lying on the grass. I can hear the terrified heartbeat, and as her posture shifts to that of the predator I know that Rosalie hears it and wants it too. I expect her to take it, but she stands motionless in the moonlight.
"Oh, go and take it if you want it," Edward says to her with a long-suffering sigh. "You'll be putting the poor thing out of its misery. And I know you don't want me to listen to your thoughts, but I can't help it when you're practically screaming them at me."
"Edward," I say in gentle reproof. "Please try and be patient." I have never known the usually scrupulously polite Edward to betray such irritation with a new acquaintance. Then again, we've never had to deal with such an intransigent newborn vampire as Rosalie is turning out to be!
"Go on Rosalie," I say to her, indicating the deer. "The more you feed the easier things will be for you, and Edward is right that the animal is suffering."
"She doesn't want us to watch her," Edward says blandly, turning towards the house. Rosalie can't see his face but I can, and I can tell by his expression that this is important so, although I am uneasy, I take Esme's hand and the two of us follow Edward's lead.
"We'll be inside," I tell Rosalie, hoping she doesn't hear my hesitation. "Please come and join us when you're ready."
