Jasper POV.

This chapter takes a look at Jasper and Rosalie in the immediate aftermath of the assault. After Rosalie was attacked in the park Royce and his pals left her there, and a little while later she was found by someone who called an ambulance and the police. She was rushed straight into surgery while the police went through her things and found her id. They called her dad, and he and Jasper came to the hospital.

This isn't really a fun one, to be honest, but I wrote it when I was thinking about the impact on Jasper. I wanted to see what it had been like for him to find out what had happened, and also see how the closeness of their relationship affected that and the way they acted towards each other at the time. This chapter was one that didn't really have a place in the story, but was an important bit of backstory for me to know so that's why I kept writing it.


I shift uncomfortably in the plastic chair, feeling the way my t-shirt is starting to stick to my sweating back in the over-heated room. I don't want to look, but I can't keep my eyes away from the figure in the bed. I know it's Rosalie, but she's so battered and disfigured by the bruises and swelling that I think I could have walked past this room without recognising her. Even her hair is matted and dirty, stained with the blood that must have been covering every inch of her.

Dad's outside, talking with the doctor and the police. Shouting really, because he's furious. I don't know if he's angry with the doctors, angry with the police, angry with the people who did this to my sister, or angry with Rosalie herself. Maybe all four. I hope he stays away until she wakes up…the last thing Rosalie is going to want to be confronted with when she comes back is our dad.

A nurse approaches the bed and stands on the opposite side to me, checking the numbers on the monitors and making notes in the chart. I don't realise that in my numb state I'm staring at her until she smiles at me.

"The surgery anaesthesia is wearing off now, so she should wake up soon."

I run a hand through my hair. "Will she…will she be in a lot of pain?"

"She's been given some pretty heavy duty painkillers so it shouldn't be too unbearable. She'll be pretty groggy and disoriented though, between the drugs and the concussion." The nurse returns the chart to the end of the bed.

"The police want her awake and alert, so she can tell them what happened to her," I say slowly, reaching out to touch her and realising that there's nowhere on her body I can see where I could touch her and not cause her pain.

The nurse nods, looking at Rosalie with a professional mask of sympathy. "Hopefully she can tell them something. With the head injury and the shock there's no guarantee that she'll be able to give a full account of what happened though."

A full account. What must have happened to my sister to put her in the state she is in now doesn't even bear thinking about. Fractured skull, fractured cheek, broken arm, broken fingers, cracked ribs, fractured hand, ruptured spleen…she was already in emergency surgery when dad and I were called and told that she had been assaulted and she was here. When we got to the hospital she was still in the OR, and it wasn't until they were finished putting her back together that the doctor came out and told us the rest. The rapes. The baby that I didn't even know she was carrying, lost too, and the emergency hysterectomy they'd been forced to do to save her life.

For a minute I hadn't known if I was going to pass out or puke. I probably could have done both, to be honest. But the thought of Rosalie waking up alone was appalling and so I swallowed down my initial, emotion fuelled reactions and calmly asked them to let me go and sit with her in recovery. It's against their usual policy, but there's nothing usual about the situation my sister has ended up in and they finally brought me here, to sit in this uncomfortable plastic chair and stare at this grotesquely beaten human that they've told me is my sister.

Rosalie moves in the bed and I snap my head up to watch her, but she only whimpers a little before subsiding into stillness. Her broken hand is in encased in a brace and bandages because it's too swollen for them to plaster it yet, and the other hand has the iv needle in and the pulse and oxygen monitor on her finger.

It's her face I keep coming back to though. Her beautiful face, so bruised and swollen that she's nearly unrecognisable. There's a line of tiny, delicate stitching at her hairline, and I wonder if there will be permanent scars, and how my pretty, vain sister is going to cope with that.

"Jasper?" Her voice is nothing more than a hoarse whisper. "Jas…"

I'm at her side, bending low over her, in an instant. "Rosie."

She can barely open one eye because of the swelling, and it's hard for her to talk with her cracked, swollen lips, but in her glazed, unfocussed eyes I see her struggle to connect her thoughts. "I…hurt."

"I know, Rosie. But you're going to be okay." I try to smile instead of cry, because I know in my heart that my sister is never going to be okay ever again, not like she was before this.

I could kill whoever did this to her!

I see when her expression changes, when she finally catches hold of the elusive thought she's been chasing. Her eyes sharpen with a sudden terror and the hand with the iv reaches out and clutches convulsively at my sleeve. "Baby," she rasps. "My baby."

There's nothing I can say. Nothing I can do but hold her hand and shake my head gently. "I'm sorry Rosie," I whisper. "The baby's gone."

I am not prepared for the noise she makes, a cracked and broken howl that chills my spine and makes my heart ache. Her voice is gone then and she sobs silently, lost somewhere inside her own pain and grief. I bend low over her but I can't even touch her, her body such a broken mess of agony that touching her in love and compassion is only going to hurt her more.

The doctor comes in then, dad and the police behind him. Rosalie responds to no one though, not even me now, and when the doctor touches her shoulder she starts screaming until a nurse comes and turns up the morphine drip so much that she passes out again.

They take her out of recovery then and we all move in a quiet, sombre procession to the private room they've prepared for her. The medical staff have other patients and once Rosalie is situated and hooked up to monitors they leave to attend to them. I convince Dad to go home and get Rosalie some of her things and the police tell me they'll be in the waiting room and leave too. So it's just me who is there again when Rosalie's eyes flutter open and she makes a tiny noise.

"Rosie?" I've lapsed back into calling her by the old baby name in her newly vulnerable state. "Can I get you anything?"

Her throat must be so dry she can't even speak, but she indicates the water jug on the bedside table and I help her take a drink. Every little movement makes her wince.

I know I should call the nurses now that she's awake. I know the doctors and the police want to talk to her. But I also know my sister better than anyone else does and so I give her the only thing I have to give, but the thing she probably most needs. Space and time and quiet, until she's ready to talk.

"My baby's really gone?" she asks, so low that I can barely hear her.

"I'm sorry," I answer, touching her hand as she closes her eyes. "I wish I'd known."

Why didn't you tell me, Rosalie? They said you were far enough along that abortion wasn't really an option anymore…if you'd made up your mind to keep it, why didn't you tell me?

There is a long silence then. Rosalie's eyes are closed, and I can see the shiny tracks of tears running down her battered face. "It was Royce," she says finally, her eyes still closed and her voice dull.

I don't understand what she means at first. "Royce was the baby's dad? I assumed so." I've never really liked my sister's boyfriend, but I can't imagine that she'd cheat on him and get pregnant by someone else.

"No. I mean, yes, it was his baby but…this." The hand she can still move twitches to indicate herself. "He did this. He and his friends, did this to me…"

The wave of rage that catches me is so strong I have to grip the sides of the hospital bed in my fists to stop myself from lashing out. Royce King did this? Royce, who I've known since we started high school? Royce, who I've watched since he first set eyes on Rosalie and decided he wanted her? He's been in my home and in my car and in my sister's bed and now he's turned on her and raped and beaten her near to death? "Oh, Rosalie…"

"Should've run the first time he hurt me," Rosalie mumbles. "My fault Jasper…I was so stupid…"

"NO!" She grimaces as I put my hands on either side of her face even though I barely touch her, but at least she's looking at me. "No way Rosalie…This is not your fault, get it? You didn't do anything wrong, NOTHING."

But I don't think she believes me, and then the nurse comes in and sees that Rose is awake and it all starts. The next few hours blur together as doctors come in and out, talking to Rosalie and testing and examining her, trying to talk to her about her injuries and the surgery. They've had to take out her uterus and her spleen and give her blood transfusions. Rosalie nods at them as they talk, but her eyes are blank and I know her well enough to know that she's not taking any of this in. They're telling her things she doesn't want to hear and she's putting all over her considerable determination into remaining oblivious.

Dad comes in and tries to be comforting, but he's dad and can never say the right thing. Especially when the police enter the room and start asking questions and he finds out who did this. He gets so angry and vocally aggressive that one of the cops takes him out of the room and the other one is left alone to tease all the brutal, painful details out of Rosalie.

She remembers a lot.

I don't want to listen but she holds my hand as tight as she can and so I have to sit there. I stare at our linked hands and keep my face calm, but I know that her hoarse, raspy voice telling all these terrible things is going to haunt me for the rest of my life.

When the police have enough information they go, and after the doctors leave it's just Rosalie and I. For a long time she closes her eyes, her hand still clutching mine, before she says quietly, "Can you help me get up? I need the bathroom."

"Should I call the nurse? I don't know…are you allowed?" Looking at her I don't know how she can even move, let alone walk to the bathroom, and the thought of all the injuries hidden by the blanket right now makes me feel sick. "Just let me call someone."

When the nurse comes in she says Rosalie can get up if she needs to, but take it slow and be careful. She asks me if I'd like to wait outside, and quite frankly I really would, but Rosalie is still holding my hand and the looks she gives me is hunted.

"No Jasper, please…don't leave me alone." Her voice shakes.

Oh fuck it. I stand up and between us the nurse and I help Rosalie through the long and painful process of sitting up and getting out of bed. She doesn't make a sound, but as she sways on her feet she's sweating with the effort and the tears are dripping down her face. The hospital gown isn't tied properly and it's half falling off her shoulder and as I pull it gently back into place I see the cut and grazes and bruising on her back. I also see the blood she's left smeared on the bed.

Rosalie takes several tentative steps towards the bathroom but stops with a strangled cry of pain. The next thing I know she's vomited, the black, sticky stuff splattering across the clean hospital floor. She must have swallowed a lot of blood. Rosalie moans, weakly, and the nurse standing on her other side puts out a hand to catch her if she falls. But this is my sister Rosalie and she's drawing on every single ounce of pride and arrogance she has left to keep herself upright. I have little doubt she'll succeed.

Never would I have imagined the agony possible in only a few feet of shuffling motion. By the time we reach the bathroom Rosalie's breath is coming in soft, shallow moans and I have no idea how we're going to get her back to the bed. Just when I think she's had all she can take we go into the bathroom and, in a purely reflex action for my vain sister, she turns her head to the mirror and sees her own reflection. The bruising and swelling of her beautiful face, the dried blood matted into her tangled hair, the bandages and brace on the wrist she's balancing so gently on my arm…Rosalie takes it in and her sobs rise to a scream.

"Oh god, Jas…" Rosalie gags and then vomits again, all semblance of control gone as she grabs at my arm and then screams in pain as she jolts her broken bones. "I can't…god, it hurts so much! Make it stop…oh, shit…"

"It's okay Rosie," I say, but even I have tears in my eyes now. "It's okay…" I hug her but she flinches away as my arm comes in contact with her bruised shoulder and I realise bleakly that I have nothing to offer her.

The nurse helps Rosalie over to the toilet so she can sit down, dropping her head forward so that her hair falls forward to cover her face. The nurse pushes an assistance button and a moment later I'm being gently but firmly bundled out of the way while the two of them start cleaning up the room and my sister.

Another nurse is stripping the bed, and she gives me a sympathetic look as I fall into the chair beside it. Tipping my head back I stare numbly at the ceiling. God, how are we going to get through this?

Dad comes back into the room, tossing the overnight bag he's brought onto the end of the bed. "Where is she?"

"Bathroom," I answer briefly.

Dad looks irritably at his phone. "I can't get a straight answer out of those doctors as to how long she's going to be in here. I'm being slammed at work right now, and I can't exactly take too much time off…"

I can't help glancing at my watch. The hospital phoned us at around 1am, Rosalie came out of surgery about two hours later…it's only just after 7am now. Dad's hardly missed ten minutes of his usual office time and he's already bitching.

"So go to the office," I say wearily. "I'm here, we'll be fine."

"Maybe that'll be best," Dad mutters. "If I go in now I can sort a few things out and then come back here at lunch. I'll bring you something to eat."

To stop myself from losing my shit at him I unzip the overnight bag and dig through what he's put in there for Rosalie. Random handfuls of stuff from her drawers it looks like...does he really think that with stitches all up in her privates she's going to want to wear thong underwear? The skimpy satin and lace nightwear that she likes but that embarrasses the hell out of me when she wears it around home…she can't wear that in here. And how is she supposed to fit the t-shirts with long, tight sleeves over the wrist brace? Rolling my eyes at his thoughtlessness I shuffle through the clothes until I find some cotton panties, fleece pyjama pants and a soft tank top which I carry over to the bathroom.

I knock lightly on the door. The nurse opens it and I make a move to pass the clothes to her, but the door swings wide and I can't help but see Rosalie and I stop dead, transfixed in horror. She's in the shower, naked, but she's never been shy and we share a bathroom at home…I've seen her plenty of times and it's not the nudity that shocks me. It's what they've done to her. Her whole torso is black and blue, a row of silver staples glinting on the left side of her belly where they've removed her spleen, three plastic wound dressings stuck on lower down, purple bruises on the pale skin of her arms and thighs that show clearly where hands have grabbed her too roughly. Even as I stare at her a dribble of blood runs down her thigh and as I raise my eyes to meet hers I can't avoid the sight of a bite mark that's sunk deep into the flesh of her breast.

It's too much. This evidence of what they've done to her, so stark and brutal; the story of violence written across her previously unmarked skin is making me dizzy with horror. I thrust the clothes blindly at the nurse and turn away, stumbling over my own feet as I try to get away from what I already know I'm never going to forget.

Rosalie comes out of the bathroom dressed in the clothes I gave her, with her hair hanging in long, wet waves down her back. She moves stiffly, and I feel myself wincing in sympathy at the obvious pain she's suffering. The nurse lowers the bed and I hear the tortured gasp of pain Rosalie makes as she sits down. Her eyes meet mine and I see her struggling against the shame that she shouldn't be feeling.

"It's okay," I say to her, helping move her legs onto the bed and gripping her bare ankle as she eases back against the pillows. "You're going to be fine Rosalie."

She shakes her head and the tears slide silently down her cheeks. Rosalie has always been a drama queen, prone to fits of temper and dramatic sobbing when things go wrong, and I can only remember one other time I have seen her weep with such silent, hopeless grief. The day our mother died when we were eleven.

"The baby," she says to me, her voice raw. "My baby…there is no okay Jasper, not anymore." And she closes her eyes as he hand touches her belly and the tears seep out from underneath her lashes and run down her brutalised face.

How the hell are we supposed to get through this?