The Man with the Dimpled Cheeks
A/N: It's Rosalie's POV again, and will remain her POV for the next one, as well. I'll get Emmett in there later...so enjoy.
Disclaimer: This shouldn't be necessary at this point, but...Twilight isn't mine.
Rosalie shook her head, trying not think about the distance she still had to travel. She had covered over a hundred miles already. She could do that length of time again, couldn't she? It didn't matter if she thought that she couldn't, she would just have to. There was no other choice at this point. She had gotten over halfway and there was no way she was going to mess it all up now by killing him selfishly. She thought about nothing but that. She let it repeat over and over in her head: I have to, there is no other choice. I have to, there is no other choice. After repeating this sentence at least a hundred times, her old mantra came back into her head:
His name is Emmett McCarty. He was born on March 7, 1915. His father served in the Great War, and received a medal for gallantry. He broke his left arm falling out of a tree when he was nine years old. He has a fourteen-year-old sister named Margaret Ann, and a twenty-two-year-old brother named Tyler. His mother makes the most delicious homemade lemonade. He likes his hotdogs burnt, and the taste of Cracker Jacks. He wants a business degree, and he's more disappointed than he can say that Babe Ruth retired this year. He thinks I'm a goddess. A goddess…
This mantra comforted her as it had before, renewing her strength and giving her a sharper sense of determination. She could do this, she could make it happen. She would not let this fail. It was too important to her now. Unconsciously, she held Emmett closer to her chest. It seemed as if he had passed out. He was still breathing, she could feel his chest moving, could hear his rasping breaths, and his heart beating. She concentrated on this sound, absorbing and memorizing it. She knew that she would never hear it again if everything worked. She would never hear his heart beat again, and that made its last beats all the more precious. Emmett McCarty's heart made him even more real in her mind. The person she had been building in her head became fortified by the sound of his heartbeat.
She saw another sign.
Bellevue: 10 Miles
Hailey: 34 Miles
Ketchum: 68 Miles
She would be going through Bellevue in no time. It felt like a blink of an eye later, she was running around the town, avoiding main roads, but making sure she knew where the road she had been following was. When she passed the town, she was running along the road again. She pushed on, knowing that Hailey was close, and when she got passed Hailey, all she had ahead of her was Ketchum. It was not too much later when she saw the sign that said:
Hailey: 14 Miles
Ketchum: 38 Miles
Rosalie was nearly jumping for joy at this information. She was so close. She was almost there, and the sun was beginning to set. She suddenly realized that Carlisle would be gone by the time the sun was down. Rosalie panicked at this thought. He couldn't be gone when she got there; he just could not. He had to be there or this was all for naught. It would be a waste of time and Emmett would be dead and their future together would be lost and she would not have tasted his blood…and it would be such a catastrophic loss that she was sure that if it were to happen, she would beg Edward to kill her. She would get down on her knees and beg him to rip her apart and burn the pieces. She would force him to.
Then she was flitting around Hailey. She was going around it. When she was past it, she mentally did the math in her head. Ketchum was 24 miles away. That was practically a hop, skip, and jump away. But she saw that the sun was setting at a faster speed than it normally did. It could not possibly be that low in the sky already, could it? And was it possible for her to start to feel an ache in her legs and arms? Could a vampire become tired or exhausted? Had a vampire ever done what she was doing right now? Had a vampire ever run at top speed for over a hundred miles with a dying human in their arms who smelled like the most delicious piece of meat they had ever smelled in an attempt to save their life by turning them into a vampire? If that had ever happened, she wondered if that other vampire had felt the way she felt now. What she was doing was taking more than just physical exertion; it was taking mental exertion as well.
But the fact that she was resisting this urge made her sure that if she made it, that she would never be seriously tempted by a human again. She knew that if she smelled a particularly mouth-watering human, and was tempted to drink from them, all she would have to do was think back to this time, to when she had carried Emmett from Grand Teton, Wyoming to Ketchum, Idaho in her arms as he was bleeding all over her. This memory would be a safeguard, a guarantee even, against any and all temptations in the form of human blood. She would never kill a human for their blood. She would never kill a human for their blood.
That mantra, followed by her other ones, set to the rhythm of Emmett's heart, carried her into Ketchum. It was on their words that she flitted through the town just as the sun was setting. She could see the pinks and purples of the sky and she pushed forward, hurrying to her house. She reached the backyard, the words running through her head at the same speed as she was running. She continued running onto the porch. She turned her body to the side and smashed through the back door, into the kitchen.
Edward was at her side in seconds. He stood there, staring at her and the man in her arms. Rosalie could only imagine what he was thinking, what he was seeing, what he was assuming had happened. He opened his mouth.
"Rosalie, what have you done?"
A/N: Short, I know, and the next one will be, too, but I needed to break this chunk up. I should really learn how to make this length my longest....but oh, well. Review if you could!