Chapter 21- Sins of the fallen.

I go out hunting with Edward and Esme once the moving men leave. I like hunting with Esme- she never misses her target but despite being so lethal she makes it look as genteel as drinking tea. Edward and Carlisle make it look elegant, and I generally still come home looking like I've been rolling around on the slaughterhouse floor. Watching Esme and Edward I wonder briefly about Rosalie's hunting style.

"She's fast and sneaky and she'll steal your prey right out from under you," Edward tells me absently, then winces as he sees my face. "I'm sorry Emmett, I heard you and I just wasn't thinking."

I shrug. "Whatever." I think that it shouldn't bother me as much as it does, this part of Rosalie that she refuses to share with me. I should be happy with the way she gives me her body and heart and mind…why would it matter so much that she keeps this one thing to herself?

It does matter though. It matters because whether she likes it or not, a vampire is what she is. It's what I am too, and if she hates it in herself she can't possibly accept it completely in me. I don't even have the moral high ground to say that I'm not a monster either, not with the human blood that's on my hands and weighing down my conscience, and so this essential fact of who we are hangs unacknowledged between us. And things are going to have to get worse before they get better.

I go out hunting alone. We've only been in the new house a matter of days, and no one else is thirsty again when I am. I don't mind- I like company but I like the chance occasionally to be alone. And as much fun as it is to compete with Edward for the game, it's also good to have it all to myself.

I lope through the forest, miles disappearing rapidly under my feet, scenting the game on the breeze. It's twilight, my favourite time to go out, and I'm not in any hurry. I've spent all afternoon in bed with Rosalie (and that's an item of furniture that's never going to be the same again) and despite my burning thirst I'm feeling content with my life. Maybe moving and starting over was a good idea. Maybe now I will have really mastered control and things will be better here.

Then again, maybe not.

I'm stalking a bear. The weather isn't good for scent so I'm relying mostly on the physical trail, eyes focused forward and down. It's a poor excuse, but it's the only one I have for why I don't notice any of the signs of human habitation. As it is I follow the trail as it comes out of the forest and into a small clearing around a mountain cabin where the bear must have come looking for food. I don't know if he found any, but I'm letting the predator within me lead and there's food of the best kind for me over by the chicken coop so I don't even think as I strike.

It's over quickly. There's no noise and not even much mess, not until the heartbeat stops and the ecstasy of the feeding fades away and is replaced by the most gut wrenching horror I've ever felt, because I've killed another human and this time it's a woman.

I make a noise that's half howl of pain and half sob, and if I could throw up I would because I've never felt so sick. Oh, God forgive me, will this never end? Am I destined to be the monster of nightmares, never able to control myself? Oh sweet Jesus, please no…

I moan, raking my hands through my hair, biting my lip hard enough that I feel my teeth cutting into the skin. It's the burn of my venom that brings me back to myself, and I heave myself to my feet and back away.

What am I supposed to do now? I look back down at the poor innocent who had the misfortune to cross my path tonight. She's maybe a few years older than I am, wearing a man's shabby shirt and a skirt that looks too big, her hair in a long, wispy braid. Her eyes, staring sightlessly at the sky, are pale blue and I close her eyelids with shaking fingers. Fuck, fuck, fuck….oh Emmett, your carelessness is worse than evil because you could have avoided this…

Do I go back to the Cullens and get Edward or Rosalie….no! I can't even finish the thought. I cannot bring Rosalie here, I can't make her fix what I've done again.

I look down at the woman again. It's a tidy kill for me, but the marks on her neck are very clearly bite marks, and in fact the neatness of it works against me because it doesn't look like any animal would have done this. I start shaking as I think that if I would stage this to look like an animal kill I'm going to have to rip her apart. Killing her in that bloodlust frenzy when I'm moving solely on instinct is one thing, but to cold bloodedly tear apart the corpse of a woman? I can't do that.

I take stock of what's around me. There's the chicken coop beside me and a small wooden cabin on the far side of that. There's a vegetable garden that looks well-tended but not overly large and a pony, calmly cropping grass on the far side of the clearing. There's a line of washing flapping on a clothesline strung up between two trees. The clothes are all women's things, but I have a sudden horrified thought that this woman might be someone's mama and there might be others here.

I'm on the porch and listening at the door of the cabin in an instant, but I can't hear anything, and the only human scent I can smell is that of the woman I've left behind on the grass. But I'm still cautious as I open the door and peer inside.

It's empty. There is only one room, crowded with furniture and warm with the heat of the fire. Everything is well worn and old, from the horsehair sofa to the lumpy bed with the patchwork quilt. I look around, trying to find anything that might give me a clue as to who this woman is.

It's easy enough to find. There is a bundle of letters stuffed into a drawer, and I only need to scan the first couple to find out her name and learn that her husband is away, working on a road building project. He signs his letters all my love and for a moment I reel back, feeling it like a punch in the gut that this woman was someone's Rosalie.

I can't let it overwhelm me. At least now I know that no one is coming back anytime soon, but it doesn't change the fact that she's dead and it's pretty obvious that she met a bad end. I could take the body and bury it elsewhere and no one would ever find her, but I think how I would hate the uncertainty of not ever knowing what happened to someone I love and I know I don't want to do that.

It leaves only one real option for me. I go back out to the woman and pick her up, carrying her gently back to the house where I lay her out carefully on her bed, folding her hands together on her chest, smoothing her hair down with my trembling hands. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry… I'm too rattled to remember any prayers, but I know it doesn't matter, God will take her soul because none of this is her fault.

Then I go to the fireplace and take up the shovel and scatter red hot coals across the floor in front of it, rolling the bright burning logs after them. There's a pile of books and magazines on a table and I drop them beside the armchair near the fireplace, watching the flames take hold. It doesn't take long before the fire spreads, crackling and roaring as it consumes the furniture nearest to the fireplace and then moves outwards.

I go outside when the fire reaches the bed and the flames start licking at the woman's clothes. I know she's dead and it doesn't matter to her, but I can't watch that. Instead I sit outside, keeping vigil over this funeral pyre for a woman I didn't know, watching the flames consume the evidence of my sins and wishing that there could be such an end for me.