~~Edward~~
The past ten days I've analyzed Rebekah's mind left and right, top and bottom, leaving no corner uncovered and the things I've found are extraordinary. Her thoughts, emotions and dialogue were so meticulously crafted around social issues, her interests, and other things, mainly about the family finances and how broke we were going to be from all her shopping. Her mind and soul were perfectly pure, much like my mother's, but they also had this certain form of darkness, similarly to Rose.
Rebekah was also somewhat shy and conservative, mainly keeping to herself in Rose's old room. My sister was fine with it, there was no need for that room ever since our father bought the hundred-acre ranch in Montana back in 2015. We'd been keeping to ourselves there for the past five years, only occasionally coming back to Forks to visit Charlie and Jacob. We knew that our parents would have to move out there with us, since Rebekah was declared dead just days ago.
"Rebekah," I knocked lightly on her bedroom door.
"Come in, Edward." She replied quietly. "Just organizing fabric."
I walked in and was met with hundreds of scents of all different fabrics. There were bolts of different materials everywhere; the closet door, the bed, the lamp, everywhere. Rebekah sat on the bed in the middle of the mess.
"I'm here for the daily questions." She nodded and sighed.
"Do you have the burning thirst in your throat?"
"No."
"Have you discovered a special ability yet?"
"No."
"Have you broken anything yet?"
"Other than the bank account?" She snorted. "No."
I chuckled. "Been attracted to the scent of human blood?"
"No."
"Heard anything out of the ordinary?"
"Does Emmett and Rose-" I had to cut her off.
"That's completely normal in this family, you are not the only ones who've heard that. Might I ask id you have walked in on anyone yet?"
"Thank the good lord I have not yet, that'll probably change one day or another. I can unfortunately hear it clear as a crystal. Want proof? Last night Carlisle and Esme-"
"Please no." We looked at each other, knowing that if we were human, we would be the color of a fire hydrant in that moment.
"Have you been in the sunlight-" As I said that, the sun shifted through the window and met with her skin. Her bare arms glowed an aura around the skin, and her skin glittered just like the rest of us. Once it hit her face, it made her look like a living angel.
"Yes." She laughed.
"Final one, have you read all the laws and regulations and have you hunted recently?"
"I finished all of Carlisle's books last night, so yes." She rolled her fire-engine eyes, which had the tiniest hint of gold to them. "Ate a mountain lion for dinner the other night, it was delicious."
"Okay, thank you." I sighed. "I'll tell Carlisle."
"Nothing." I sat on Carlisle's couch in his study, Bella's arms wrapped around my left arm. "Nothing new."
My father sighed and pulled Esme closer to him. "She's been one of us for nearly two weeks. Certainly something must have shown, a power, her thirst, anything!"
"Carlisle, calm down..." My mother ran her delicate, slender fingers through his golden hair and he relaxed, turning into mush under her touch.
"She was just sitting in Rose's old room organizing fabric." I shrugged. "I don't know why she was doing it because you three are going to have to move out to the ranch soon. People are going to wonder if she walks around town."
"She walked around in Port Angeles without a disguise, and no one seemed to notice her." Alice chimed in. Ness and Rose nodded along.
"Well, we're moving out there soon regardless. How much longer should we wait, Jasper?"
"I would say that you three have to move out ASAP, two weeks at most." Esme and Carlisle nodded. "I guess that since there is nothing new to report Cullen meeting, dismissed!"
"Wait!" Emmett hollered. "Am I the only one who thinks that Rebekah needs a nickname? Her name isn't as mouthful as Ness' name, but she still needs a shorter name. Like… Bek Bek!"
"Bek Bek?" Esme asked bewildered. "I was thinking more on the lines of Becky or Bekah, not Bek Bek." I sided with my mother on this one.
"I agree with Esme." The rest of us agreed in unison. "Bek Bek sounds like you're talking to a chicken!" Nessie pointed out.
Her uncle pouted. "Well I'm calling her Bek Bek and there's no arguing with me on that." We all sighed and rolled our eyes.
"Meeting dismissed, this time for real." Carlisle sat back in his office chair. Once everyone left, with the exception of me and Esme, he sighed.
"I just don't understand." He put his head in his hands, my father was almost hysterical. He wiped his forehead for no reason and looked up at us, then I realized that his eyes were hovering near black.
"Carlisle, you need to hunt." I stated seriously. "You need to go now."
"I can't, I've got all this work to do, and I have a shift in-"
"I don't care." Esme cut him off. "You're going hunting before your shift, I don't care if it's in ten minutes or in two hours, you're going. I'm coming with, unless you don't want me too."
She pouted and batted her long lashes. My father couldn't resist her and begrudgingly got up and headed out. I laughed inside my head, that was the way she used to get her way when they first met and fell in love. Almost a hundred years later and nothing had changed.
Edward? Alice called to me in her head.
"Yes?"
I'm concerned about Rebekah's future. Alice continued. I can't read it anymore. When she was still human, I could easily read it, but now that she's transformed…
May I once again bring up my theory that she is a hybrid. Jasper added. I sighed.
Sorry, we're bombarding you again, aren't we?
"No, you're good. Just thinking everything through…" I replied. Alice put her head in her hands, probably due to another migraine. She hadn't had one of these since Bella was pregnant.
"I'm going to go lie down in the attic." She mumbled softly. She walked out with Jasper on her heels.
Edward. Another voice called out to me. It was Rose.
"Yes?" I approached her, she was starting to re-organize our parents' closet. She looked up at me.
I called because… You know… Her lashes fluttered as she sighed.
"I know."
I don't want to sound like a broken record, but it's really strange… I've talked to Jasper in private, and he's never seen anything like her. We sighed, knowing that all of us had heard the same information over and over again with nothing new ever coming out.
"Maybe I could talk to her?" Rose shrugged and folded another pair of our father's jeans. "She seems friendly."
"I talked to Ness about her, and I must say that you are completely wrong. Ness says that she has this facade she puts up, in reality Rebekah is an incredibly private person who doesn't trust or talk to many people. From what I've gathered from her mind, she needs to be in total control in order for her to actually get close to a person. For the moment, she does not care for or trust any of us."
Rose's face softened slightly and she sighed. "She seems to be close with Esme and Ness."
"I have to agree with you on that, Carlisle too. But maybe it's because she's met them prior to the transformation, she needs to feel more comfortable before she talks to the rest of us."
"The ball needs to be in her court."
"Exactly." Rose sighed once again.
"She can't be a shut-in like I was for a decade, but I know that we can't force her too hard because God knows what would happen if she decides to attack us! She knows how to kill a vampire and she could possibly wipe out the entire family. Seth, Leah, and the other dog included."
"I understand that you want the very best for her, just like you want for Ness. But you need to realize that Rebekah is a very complex girl, she shows certain things to certain people that she won't show to anyone else." She bit her lip.
"So when can I start getting close to her?"
"She, Carlisle, and Esme are moving out to the ranch soon. Maybe after they settle her down there, we can start making moves on her. We're also going to have to tell the pack about her." Rose nodded as I left her alone to continue organizing our parents' closet.
"Ness?" I called out quietly for my daughter. In Rebekah's room. She called back. I headed up there, where I found the two girls sitting in silence as Rebekah placed the last bolt of fabric on the high shelf.
"Hi…" She greeted quietly. I knew that she didn't want to say Dad, as we did not know if Rebekah had yet realized that Bella and I were actually her parents. We had discussed bringing it up to her and decided that a casual conversation would be the best place to do it.
Rebekah nodded her head, noting my presence. She silently straightened a bolt of cream silk on the shelf. I watched her delicate fingers, reminiscent of our mother's, brush over each bolt tenderly, almost like the way Esme did with her blueprints.
"Rebekah," She turned her head once again.
"Yes?"
"I need to talk to you."
"About what?" Many things, I wanted to say but refrained.
"Well… um… you know that you, Carlisle and-"
"I already know that we have to move. Mrs. Cullen says the three of us will be joining all of you on a hundred-acre ranch in Montana? Sounds relaxing if you ask me!" She laughed.
Mrs. Cullen. The formality of the name she had for my mother seemed too stiff and professional. We all knew that Esme had told Rebekah to call her 'Mom' or at the very least, Esme, but she clearly didn't comply. Ball needs to be in her court, I reminded myself.
"That's correct and honestly I'd thought you would be a little more anxious about this, considering your… status and all."
"Meh," She shrugged to my daughter. "I've lived here for about two months, by now I would've moved on. Can't let the fuzz put me back in the system!" Rebekah chuckled.
What did she mean by 'Can't let the fuzz put me back in the system' That was very off-putting, I turned to Ness and by the look on her face, she thought the same thing. Esme had told me that Rebekah had once said 'Your place' when talking about our home, which we had made very clear that it was also hers as well. Carlisle thought that maybe it was the venom messing with her mind, which could very well be the case. But my mother, daughter, and I thought that it was something deeper.
Unfortunately for us, the off-beat comments could come up in any situation, no matter the formality or subject. We never knew when to expect them because one moment she could be talking about fabric, then say something strange like the aforementioned comments. It's almost like they were a coping mechanism for her, just like Emmett's sense of humor in serious situations or Bella's lip-biting.
I sighed as I turned back to my daughter and new sister and in that moment, I didn't think that they were a hybrid and a newborn. They looked just like two normal teenage girls who were talking about the latest fashion trends and which celebrity men they thought were the cutest. I rolled my eyes and left the room.
"Esme." I knocked gently onto my mother's office door.
Come in, she thought. I twisted the knob of the mahogany door. It was still a little finicky after Rebekah had picked it with her bobby pin.
I saw my mother sitting at her wood desk that we had bought for her last Mother's Day, working hard on Rebekah's new rooms at the ranch house. We had decided that she would stay with our parents, while the rest of us lived in our separate places on the land. Carlisle didn't mind, as long as Rebekah didn't take up any of the family rooms when it came to her sewing, and she agreed since she preferred to work in a private area. For that reason alone, Esme let her newest daughter claim the two guest rooms for herself; the slightly smaller one to be her "bedroom" and the larger one as her sewing room.
"What do you need, Edward?" She smiled, her dimples showing.
"Rebekah said another off-beat thing." The smile was wiped away quickly and she sighed.
"What now?"
" 'Can't let the fuzz put me back in the system', honestly don't know why she would say something like that."
"She was a foster kid before she came here," My mother tapped her perfectly groomed nails on the gray wood of the desk. "Maybe she's on the run? I honestly don't know, I haven't met a vampire this difficult since Rosalie." We sighed in unison.
"Is there anything else you need?" She asked, slightly agitated. "I have to get back to work on the rooms in the new place."
"No, sorry for interrupting."
"You weren't interrupting, Edward." She replied apologetically. "I'm just… exhausted for no reason. I feel like I need sleep, but I can't."
"You need to rest," I took her hand. "You've been up here for two hours, your mind needs to calm down. Just go lie down, paint a picture, read- anything that doesn't involve a lot of heavy brain work for you."
She nodded and pulled out her sketchbook and flipped to a page with odd shapes. I quickly realized what she was doing.
"Esme, you're not thinking of…"
"Carlisle thought that giving her a crest would make her feel more secure with us. We were planning on presenting it to her on her birthday. The problem is I don't know whether she would like a necklace or a bracelet, or a ring!"
"I've said it many times but-"
"I think I can get through to her!" My mother defended, almost pleading.
If there was someone to break the ice with her, it would definitely be my mother. I had seen the way the two interacted with each other, and there was a small bond forming. She and Ness had the strongest bond so far, but Ness had known her for longer.
"If you must, please at least try and do it after the move, the next week is going to be hectic." She nodded. "Plus, we need to get her birthday beforehand."
"Your father has looked relentlessly, and can't find any of her past medical records. He can't even find her birthdate, it's really strange because it's like she wasn't born. Rebekah herself thinks she was born in China and abandoned outside an orphanage or something, but she of course can't remember where. She says she was adopted when she was six months old in April of 2005, making her birthday land somewhere in October 2004."
"No, that doesn't add up!" She blinked.
"You're right, she's stated before that she is sixteen and got her driver's license six months before moving here. Meaning-"
"She was born in October of '03 instead '04, meaning she was adopted when she was a year-and-a-half old and she's turning seventeen soon."
"She's going to be the same age as you." My mother whispered quietly.
"But she acts older, even older than I do. Some of her mannerisms remind me of my own mother." We sighed again in unison.
"Well, if you don't mind, I'm going to go back to work on her crest. I know you, Ness, Bella, Alice, and Jasper are leaving tonight. See you in a week."
"See you in a week, Mom." I walked out and quietly shut her door. My wife and daughter were standing outside the mahogany door waiting for me. We headed downstairs, and hopped into my Ashton Martin and started heading for Montana.
AN: This chapter was written within a solid 2-4 days, so that's why it's out earlier. Plus, for some ODD reason, writing from Edward's POV is super easy for me. Maybe it's because I've read Midnight Sun? IDK.
Thank you for reading, peace out, and please review on your way out.
R