~Bella~
We gathered around the dining room table to hear about Rosalie and Emmett's trip. Rosalie reported first: "We took a look around the newest crime scene. It was an old lady's house. She was 83. Working class. Quilleute. No sign of breaking and entering. Whoever killed her probably either snuck in through an unlocked door or was invited in. After the investigators left, we climbed in through a window in back of the house. As soon as we got in, we noticed this weird smell. It was human, but also… not…" She looked to Emmett for confirmation.
Emmett looked puzzled. "Really? I didn't notice anything."
Rosalie looked taken aback. "Yes you did. It was the first thing you noticed too. You said it was like human blood and rotten fruit".
"Oh. I don't know. Maybe it was some old fruit in her refrigerator."
Rosalie looked to Edward. He was staring at Emmett, frowning. Edward paused to formulate his question carefully: "Walk us through your whole trip"
"Okay… Sure." Emmett seemed to wonder why Edward was eyeing him so suspiciously. "We spent some time in Capitol Hill. In the evening, we headed over to the crime scene. The body was still there, but otherwise we didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. Rosalie and I split up..."
"To try and track the weird smell we noticed in the apartment," Rosalie finished his sentence. The expression on Emmett's face said he didn't agree, but he continued:
"Rosalie took 20th and up. I swept 19th Avenue and below. I didn't find anything. It's probably just a human. I don't think it's worth going back."
Edward looked confused for a moment, then afraid. "Say that again."
"It's probably just a human. I don't think it's worth going back."
"And before that?"
"I didn't find anything."
Edward leaped over the table and tackled Emmett to the ground. Crash! The wooden furniture shattered. "Help me, Alice!" Alice flew towards the two brothers, and ripped off Emmett's arms. Emmett screamed. Rosalie screamed!
"He's going to kill us!" Alice cried out. "I saw it! Get his legs!" Carlisle and Esmee looked too stunned to move. Rosalie hesitated. Jasper jumped in before anyone else could decide what to do. He ripped off Emmett's legs, and the fight was abruptly over. Alice, Edward, and Jasper threw Emmett's limbs into opposite corners of the room.
"What the fuck!" the now limbless Emmett screamed from where he lay on the ground
"Sorry, Emmett. We had to stop you before you did something you couldn't undo." Edward picked poor, stumpy Emmett up and propped him up on a chair.
"I had a vision of Emmett killing us all," Alice explained.
"I saw her vision, and I saw the plan in Emmett's mind," Edward corroborated. "He's under the influence of some kind of mind-control. His memories of Seattle looked… weird."
"Weird how?" Rosalie demanded, kneeling next to Emmett, trying to calm him. She seemed to trust Edward and Alice, but did not look happy about what had been done to Emmett.
"When he was talking about the smell in the apartment and how he didn't find anything in Seattle, the memories looked kind-of… painted-over. Like someone rubbed out the real ones and drew fake ones on top.
Jasper turned to me. "Could the work of a vampire with perception-altering powers like Zafrina's. Do you think your shield could block out whatever mind-control voodoo we've got going on here?"
"It's worth a shot." I offered. I expanded my shield to cover all eight of us. When it reached Emmett, I felt it: a cloudiness in his mind: a soapy, pearlescent, film that covered his brain. I pushed against it hard. I felt it lift away.
Emmett gasped like a human surfacing from underwater. "I remember!" he exclaimed. "It was a man! Or something like a man… He had this smell... It's like you said, Rosalie. Human, but not. Human blood, rotting fruit, rotting flesh… a corpse. Some kind of zombie freak!"
"Slow down," Jasper said, gently resting his hand on Emmett's shoulder. "Where did you meet this person?"
"He was at Sam's Tavern on 9th Avenue. He was drinking alone. I asked him to come talk with me in the alley out back. He did some weird hypnotism on me and made me sit down. He asked me who I was and where I came from."
"What did you tell him?" I asked.
"I told him the truth. That my name was Emmett, and that I was a part of the Cullen family."
Edward sighed. This wasn't good. We weren't hard to find. And with Reneesme here…
"I'm sorry! It's not like I did it on purpose! It was his hypnotism thing. He made me tell him. He told me to leave, to forget I'd seen him, to stop looking for him, and to kill anyone who found out about him."
That made sense. Edward must have triggered that last order when he read Emmett's mind and saw the manipulated memories. If Emmett knew Edward had seen something to lead us to the hypnotist, Emmett would have to kill us.
"What did he look like?" asked Jasper
"Tall-ish white guy. Sandy blonde hair. I can draw him if you give me my arm back."
We all looked to Alice and Edward, who conferred with one another silently.
"It's ok", Edward said finally. "He's not going to hurt us."
"We don't know if the mind control will come back if I take down the shield," I warned.
"Try it", said Edward.
I slowly lowered the shield. Edward and Alice watched Emmet, tense. Emmet winced, bracing himself. We all held our breath, and…nothing happened.
Edward exhaled, relieved. "He's fine. I guess the hypnotism is permanently cured."
Rosalie retrieved Emmet's right arm from the corner of the room, licked the break, and stuck it back on his body.
Emmet stretched his arm out and fluttered his fingers. "Much better!" Esme went to her study to get a pencil and paper. She handed them to Emmet. He began to draw crudely and excruciatingly slowly. Really his drawing looked more like a potato than a person. How could a being with perfect recall, precise muscle coordination, and 95 years to practice be so bad at drawing?
"Want me to give it a try? asked Edward. "I can go off your memory." Emmet looked grateful and passed the pencil and paper to Edward. The pencil flew across the paper, first leaving bold strokes then finer ones. We watched intently as a face emerged.
Alice broke the tension with a giggle. "He looks kinda like you, Edward!"
"What? No he doesn't" Edward frowned at his drawing.
Jasper joined in, laughing. "Just look at his hair! And his big, rectangular head!"
