Chapter 11: Emmett
Emmett's transformation was nearly complete. His heart was racing rapidly toward its final beat. He was still pleading for us to kill him between his loud cries of pain. Rosalie was trying to calm him down, and telling him it was almost over. I had tried in vein to calm down Emmett, but his emotions were so intense with pain that I was having no effect.
Silence filled the room with the last beat of Emmett's heart. All of us held our breath as we waited for Emmett to open his eyes. Rosalie was still holding on to Emmett's right hand. His eyes opened for the first time with his new vision. We watched carefully as he took in all the new sights, colors and details.
"Emmett," Rosalie whispered in her musical voice.
Emmett's head snapped in the direction of Rosalie's voice. His emotions shifted so quickly it was like whiplash. For one sixteenth of a second he felt shock and was tensed, but the moment his eyes fell upon Rosalie they shifted. His emotions were filled with adoration, lust, and a slow building love.
"Angel," Emmett spoke. I could feel the shock register at the sound of his voice.
"I know it is very confusing, but try to stay calm. We'll explain everything to you," Rosalie spoke softly. Emmett turned his attention reluctantly away from Rosalie to take in the rest of the room.
Edward and I stood at the foot of the bed shoulder to shoulder. A few feet behind us were Carlisle and Esme. I had wanted Rosalie to move closer to Edward and me, but she refused to leave Emmett's side. I chose not to argue with her over it.
Emmett's expression changed to worry as he took us all in, but relaxed a bit when he saw Carlisle.
"You are safe here," Carlisle spoke.
Emmett nodded, and turned his eyes back to Rosalie. "You saved me from the bear, and brought me to God to be healed?"
Did he really think we were angels? I suppose that would make Carlisle God since he was the one who had 'healed' Emmett. I wanted to laugh, but suppressed the urge. We were definitely not angels and Carlisle was not God, although he could probably pass for Zeus's younger brother.
"We are not angels, and I am not God," Carlisle replied. He too was suppressing his mild amusement.
Emmett turned his attention away from Rosalie and back to Carlisle. He had this perplexed look upon his face as he stared at Carlisle.
"I saw my angel save me," He said as he turned to smile at Rosalie.
"I am not an angel, Emmett. I did save you from the bear, and I took you to my father so he could save you," Rosalie replied.
Emmett looked confused, and his confusion grew as he looked between Rosalie and Carlisle several times.
"I know it is very confusing for you right now, but we will try to explain," Carlisle spoke again.
Emmett nodded, and waited for Carlisle or Rosalie to continue. It was Rosalie who decided to continue. "My name is Rosalie."
"That is a very pretty name, for a very pretty lady," Emmett smiled.
I suppressed another laugh. Emmett knew exactly what to say to make Rosalie light up. Her joy, happiness and love spiked. I really do hope he falls in love with her. He might just be what she needs.
"This is my family," Rosalie continued. "This," she said while pointing to Carlisle, is my father, Carlisle."
Carlisle nodded, and then pulled Esme closer to him. He introduced Esme next. "This is my wife, and mother of my children, Esme."
"Those two are my brothers, Edward and Jasper," Rosalie finished.
Edward and I nodded to Emmett. His grinned, but before he could speak Rosalie continued. "We are not human nor are we angels."
Rosalie hesitated a moment, and Emmett used the opportunity to ask what we were. "If you are not angels, and you are not human then what are you?"
Rosalie looked at me and I nodded. "We are vampires."
Emmett laughed. That was not the response we were anticipating.
I looked at Edward curiously. "He doesn't believe her. He think it's a joke," Edward answered my unasked question.
"You can't be vampires. Vampires drink blood. Wouldn't you have wanted to drink my blood instead of save me?" Emmett replied.
The look on Rosalie's face told us that the thought had crossed her mind when she had smelt the human blood.
"We are different from others of our kind. We don't hunt humans, but you are right in that your blood would have triggered our instinct to feed. It takes years of practice to be able to control our thirst," Carlisle said. He was giving Rosalie a curious expression. No doubt that he had a million questions about what happened in the forest.
Emmett looked at him for a long moment. "You're serious?"
Carlisle nodded. Emmett looked uncomfortable for a moment and his left hand moved up to rub his throat.
"Is that why I have a sore throat?" Emmett asked.
"That is part of the reason. You are very young to this new life. You will be very thirsty, which is why your throat is sore. After you have hunted, you will feel better." Carlisle answered.
"You mean I need to hunt humans?" Emmett asked. His expression was slightly pained.
'Good.' I thought. This would hopefully make his acceptance of our life style easier.
"No, we do not hunt humans, and because you are so young you cannot be around humans for at least a year. You will not be able to return to your family. Humans cannot know that our kind exists," Carlisle explained.
Emmett frowned. "You will need to stay with us until you have learned control. You will be free to go off on your own after you have learned control, or you can stay with us," Carlisle continued.
"I would like it if you stayed with us," Rosalie added.
Emmett looked at Rosalie with a huge smile. 'Well, I think that is settled.'
"We should take you hunting. You're thirst must be painful," I said.
Emmett looked at me and nodded. "What do we hunt, since you do not hunt humans?"
"We hunt animals," I answered.
Emmett suddenly smiled brightly. "Like grizzly bears?"
"We do hunt grizzly bears, but we must be careful with our hunting habits. We try to focus on place with over populations of predators, but we also feed on deer and other gentler creatures," Edward said. Edward had a slight smirk on his face. I'm sure he had the same conclusion I did, 'Emmett wanted to get even with bears for being attacked.'
"Will I need my gun?" Emmett asked.
"No. We have our own weapons." Edward replied smiling brightly.
"Well then what are we waiting for?" Emmett grinned.
I looked to Carlisle to see if he had anything he wanted to add before we took Emmett hunting.
"I have nothing else at the moment. Esme and I will wait here while you all go hunting. Please be careful," Carlisle said.
Carlisle and Esme exited the room. I waited a moment to let them get downstairs. Emmett was calm at the moment, but that could change in an instant.
"Let's go hunt," I said.
Emmett was on his feet in a flash. "Are you coming with us, angel?" Emmett asked.
Rosalie smiled broadly, "Yes I am."
"Follow Edward out to the forest. We'll teach you what you need to know as we head to a safe place to hunt," I said.
Rosalie took Emmett right hand and followed after Edward. I followed closely behind them as we headed out. We entered the forest behind the house and began to run. Emmett ran at the same speed as Rosalie, which was a relief.
"We have rules that we much follow when we hunt. They are to protect us and the humans," Rosalie began.
I watched Emmett as he listened intently on what Rosalie was saying. He was still controlled, but I could feel his emotions fluctuate across the board every few seconds. He was working hard to keep his mind focused.
"When we get there, I am going to run a parameter check to make sure we are in a safe zone. You will stay with Rosalie and Jasper. They will explain all the rules to you and teach you how to track and hunt your prey," Edward added.
"Are there a lot of rules to remember?" Emmett asked.
"There are a few, but your new mind will have little trouble remembering them. Vampire memory is near perfect. You will remember everything you do, hear, say, see, smell and so forth forever," Rosalie answered.
"I was forgetful as a human. Being able to remember things will be a nice change," Emmett replied.
Neither, Edward, Rosalie nor I commented on that. We all had things in our past we wish we could forget, but now was not the time to tell Emmett about those things. We reached what Edward and I determined to be a safe hunting spot. It was about fifty miles away from any of the nearby towns.
"I'm going to go run the perimeter now," Edward said and took off with a quick sprint.
'Edward, go out an extra half mile beyond our normal perimeter.' I called out in my thoughts. I knew Edward heard me even thought he did not respond.
"The first rule when hunting," Rosalie continued, "We need to be sure we are in a safe zone. We don't want to hurt any humans, nor do we want to expose ourselves. Our kind needs to remain a secret to the human world."
"That is why Edward is running a perimeter check," Emmett said.
While it technically wasn't a question, Rosalie chose to answer it as one. "Yes. Edward is the fastest runner. When we all hunt together he normally runs the perimeter check. He also is the best controlled of all of us other then Carlisle."
I was a bit surprised that Rosalie was giving Edward praise. The two of them tend to annoy each other more then anyone else in the house. I knew she loved him like a brother, but they fought worse then cats and dogs at times.
Edward returned a few minutes later to give us the all clear. We continued to explain to Emmett the rules of hunting. He asked a couple of questions that we answered. We finally told him that we'd be following a short distance behind, incase humans wondered into our hunting area.
Rosalie talked Emmett through the steps. I picked out the scents of bear and a heard of deer not far away, but in different directions. I had a really good feeling that Emmett was going to go for the bear. He did not disappoint and within another minute we were watching from a short distance away as Emmett was draining the large grizzly bear.
Emmett's shirt which was already in bad shape before the hunt was totally destroyed now. He was also covered in fur, blood, twigs, leaves and mud. Esme was going to pitch a fit if he walked in the house like that.
'I think we'll have to teach him some table manners.' I laughed in my thoughts. Edward chuckled beside me as heard my thoughts and also took in Emmett's appearance.
After we took out the herd of deer, we headed back to the house. During Emmett's transformation Esme had gone to Big Stone Gap, a town a south of Appalachia, to shop for clothes for him. Rosalie took Emmett to her bathroom so that he could shower and get cleaned up.
Edward and I had just sat down in Carlisle's study to begin discussing our eventual move. I was not looking forward to moving again. This would be the third move in four years. We were just about to discuss locations when we heard the sound of metal breaking followed quickly by a rush of water.
Emmett cursed. We heard someone, most likely Rosalie, turning off the water supply to her bathroom sink. I could clearly hear Emmett apologizing repeatedly to Rosalie. I heard her tell him not to worry about it that it would take time for him to learn to control his strength.
Rosalie appeared a few minutes later holding what was left of the cold water knob for her sink faucet.
"Sorry to interrupt," Rosalie said.
"It's quite alright, Rosalie. What can we help you with?" Carlisle asked.
"Emmett was a little too enthusiastic with the cold water knob on my sink faucet. I was hoping that Jasper might be able to fix it?" Rosalie asked.
I took the knob from Rosalie and shook my head after a quick examination. "Sorry Rosalie, it'll need to be replaced. I'll need to go into town and pick up a new one, unless someone else goes to town before I do," I replied.
"I am going into town to pick up boxes for the move. I'll pick up a replacement faucet," Esme said.
"Thanks, mom, I'll install it when you return," I said. "Oh you may want to purchase a few door knobs as well."
Rosalie left to check on Emmett, while the rest of us narrowed down our moving options.
"The South and North East are out. Carlisle has lived in the North East within the last sixty years. There would still be people who might recognize him. Maria is in the south and we want to avoid the southern armies, anyway," Edward said.
"The Midwest is out as well. I've already lived in Columbus, Chicago and St. Paul in this half of the century," Carlisle added.
"Well that doesn't leave us many options. Sounds like we either head to Canada or the Pacific North West." I said.
"The Pacific North West sounds like a good option. It rains often in Washington State, and we could also be out during the day time more often," Carlisle reasoned.
'That would be kind of nice.' I thought. I was getting use to being out during the day. It would be nice to be almost normal. An eternity of nights wears on you after awhile.
"Jazz and I are all for it," Edward answered for us.
"I'll need you to help me build a green house, Jasper," Esme said.
"I'd be happy to help," I replied. I had always been good working with my hands. It also provided time for Esme and me to bond. Esme loved to redesign or add onto the house. We had done a lot of work on the house in Rochester together. The same could be said about our home here and the clinic.
"Where are we moving to?" Rosalie asked when she returned. She and Emmett enter Carlisle's study together. Emmett was dressed in the clothes that Esme purchased for him. He wore a dark blue button-down shirt with black slacks with a pair of black shoes.
I noticed that he stuck close to Rosalie. They sat down on the sofa opposite Edward and me. Esme was sitting beside Edward, and Carlisle in his normal spot at his desk.
"We were discussing moving to the Pacific North West, specifically Washington State. It rains there often, and would allow us to be out more often during the day," Carlisle answered.
"That would be nice. Are you ok with going to Washington, Emmett?" Rosalie asked.
"I guess so. I mean . . . I've never been anywhere outside of the Appalachia area before. Will there be grizzly bears there?" Emmett asked.
Edward chuckled lightly, and I gave him a hard look. 'Are you crazy? You're going to set him off if he thinks your laughing at him.'
"Yes Emmett there will be plenty of grizzly bears. I see that you have found a taste for them." Edward answered. He totally ignored my thoughts.
Emmett who had been annoyed just a moment ago was grinning broadly now. "The taste was good, but it's also fun to get back at them for nearly killing me."
"I'll make a few calls to see if I can find work at a hospital somewhere in Washington." Carlisle said.
Carlisle started telling Emmett a bit about being a vampire, and answering questions. I worked on keeping Emmett calm, and explaining what he could expect as a newborn. We then told Emmett our stories.
I had to work overtime on keeping Emmett calm during Rosalie's story. I couldn't blame him for wanting to kill Royce and his friends, but Rosalie had already taken care of them. Rosalie told Emmett why she saved him from the bear, and after a bit of encouragement from Edward and me she told him why she asked Carlisle to save him.
"I asked Carlisle to change you, even thought I don't like this life, because I love you," Rosalie whispered.
Emmett still heard her loud and clear. It was quiet for a second, and then Emmett was standing and had Rosalie in his arms. He was smiling broadly as he swung her around in his arms. "May I kiss you, Rose?" Emmett asked.
I'm sure if Rosalie had been human she would have blushed. She only nodded slowly, and Emmett pressed his lips against Rosalie. Their kiss was quite intimate and we all looked away to give them a moment of privacy.
Esme returned at this moment and gasped when she walked in on the two of them kissing. "Oh my…"
Rosalie and Emmett finally pulled apart, and we all chuckled. Esme flitted over to Rosalie's side and gave her a hug. "I'm so happy for you, Rosalie."
"Thanks mom." Rosalie smiled.
We eventually broke off to our favorite past-times for the rest of the day.
