REVIEW REPLY TIME!
nolbernabeyahoo . com left in a recent review that he was extremely disappointed with the behavior between Rose and Rye. I just wanted to address this hopefully before I lost the interest of you all. (I know that this upload is quite a bit later than the last)
Rosalie didn't just decide to up and high-tail it away from Rye. She was out hunting, and circumstances suddenly changed… in the end, she was forced to stay away. This chapter is the one that will address the concerns expressed about Rosalie's behavior.
In other words, DON'T PANIC, I meant to make it appear as though Rosalie just up and left, because I was writing from Rye's perspective. To him, that's what he thought had happened. In reality, it was a different matter, as you'll see below.
Also, i know this is a REALLY short chapter, especially in consideration of the others. I'll try to make 'em longer again as I can find the time to write.
Enjoy! :)
Chapter Twenty-One: A Prodigal Mother
Bella's POV:
Our night was drawn to a close, and we left the dancing to the night owls. Did vampires count as night owls, since we just… didn't ever sleep?
A question that will most likely plague my mind for the next decade.
Edward was at least for the moment sufficiently distracted, and at the promise of being able to spend time with Renesmee at home gave him the opportunity to divert his mind more. For a while, he was free from the responsibility set on his shoulders, to shoulder the other responsibility of being a father to his daughter.
Which meant that I was now left alone to my own devices for a short while as I was the one who panicked. I did it far enough away from Edward so he couldn't hear me, which meant I was pretty darn far. My companion to rant to?
Why, the only two Cullens aside from Edward who could successfully calm me down, Jasper and Alice.
"Bella—" Alice said, as I paced back and forth rapidly enough that I was beginning to wear a groove in the forest floor.
"—And how are we gonna know exactly when Ben gets here, anyways!?" I said. "I need to figure out how to save them if it comes down to it."
"Bella—" Jasper tried, about to continue.
"—But for that, I'd need to take out Demetri. Do you think Aro will have Demetri coming with him, or will Demetri just tell them where Ben is going? If I go straight for Demetri, maybe I can—"
"BELLA!" both vampires said, and only survival-instinct finally got me to shut up as I automatically turned to the two vampires beside me, warily though I knew them oh so well.
"First, you know Edward would never go anywhere and leave you behind to fight," Alice said. "Even if he wasn't the gentleman he was, insisting that women and children save themselves first… well, he'd still insist women and children first!"
"Edward wouldn't ever let you expose that kind of risk if he could help it. You know he'd try leaping in front of you if you tried to take on the Volturi," Jasper said. "It would be fruitless in the end, and only end up hurting Renesmee if both her parents leapt into a deadly situation."
"We'll know Ben is coming because I'll be able to tell when he's coming," Alice said. She tapped her cranium. "I can see the future, or did you forget?"
I rolled my eyes. "But what if we can't get to him in time?"
"Then we can't get to him in time," Jasper said. "Listen; either it's going to work out for us, or it won't. No sense in panicking over situations that already have a defined outcome. And whatever that outcome is, you can be sure there will be no changing it past the point we already have. Now we just have to wait, and if we can get Ben in time, we're almost assured victory. But we've come out of bad scrapes before, and we'll have to do it again."
Alice and I were both staring at him as he said this. As vampires, survival instinct was sharpened until it was pretty much an involuntary reflex. Worrying about survival was entrenched in our natural instincts; which meant that this confession must mean Jasper was solidly of the mindset that everything would turn out alright, one way or another. That, or he was purposely repressing his own survival instincts extremely.
Jasper sat back down, having stated his piece of wisdom in our argument.
On one hand, I could tell that he too was anxious for the fight; because either way the outcome was still unknown to us. Ben could very well be the deciding factor to play in all this. It was just… unclear. The whole thing was shrouded.
It was about then that Alice's eyes began to glaze over.
Leah's POV:
I felt extremely restricted. To put it in a wolf-metaphor, I felt like I had a collar and leash on, and that was infuriatingly annoying to my brain. I kept feeling the urge to go on a run, but for my own safety I didn't dare. My mother would chew me up like a milkbone if I tried to leave while I was grounded; at least without extremely good reason.
Rye's POV:
I blinked, coming out of the memory flashback. Rosalie was studying my face carefully, and though I may not have had vampire-speed, I could tell she was drinking in my facial expressions, trying to read me.
Good luck. I couldn't even read myself, right now. All I knew was that I was mad, but I couldn't tell if I was mad at myself, the entire situation I found myself a part of, or her.
A thought came to my head, almost making me laugh. If Leah found out I knew Rosalie from before, I had a sudden instinct that told me she'd be furiously jealous. After all, if I found out Leah had known a handsome vampire from forever ago, and was on good terms with said person…
My blood automatically began to boil, and I simmered down. Leah wasn't really on good terms with vampires. Period. I didn't need to get worked up over a rhetorical situation.
Rosalie was patiently standing, almost as if waiting for a verdict. Would I pronounce her guilty? Innocent? Would she forgive herself? It all seemed like it was on me.
"I—I need a minute," I said, pushing past and heading into the house. Rosalie seemed to respect my wishes, though I knew she could've easily caught up to me and blocked my path before I could blink.
I went into the kitchen, because despite how jarred I was, I came here for a reason. I needed something in my stomach. Being… whatever it was that I was, really did a number on my apetite.
It was as I was eating that I heard the garage door open behind me, and the softest of footsteps approaching.
Rosalie did sit down next to me, staying silent as I ate and regarded her. What I said earlier was true; she really hadn't changed a bit. I almost felt like I should be a kid again; what was going on with this world, where she stayed the same, and I grew up like I had?
I took another bite of the sandwich I had made, and swallowed before I began to cool off again. Mentally, not physically. I realized my anger was really irrelevant at the moment. What was done was done, and I didn't need to dwell on it any more than I had to, because I'd only end up hurting myself with those memories.
At the same time, I wasn't just about to speak right up and act like it never happened again. I had to be gentle and careful about integrating myself into this life again. I can't let myself get too close again only for them to disappear again, though I doubt Rosalie would do it a second time.
Unless of course, my original suspicions were true— that she left… because of me.
I knew Edward was the mind-reader, but sometimes there are things that people—any people—can just pick up on.
Rosalie picked up on these thoughts. And to my surprise, she broke her silence to voice them to me.
"The night I left you," she chuckled, without humor, "was not the night I intended it to be."
She turned to face me as she spoke, and I looked into her eyes as she launched into her narrative.
"I never meant to be away for longer than an hour…"
A simple hunting trip. That's what this was supposed to be.
The snow outside was crisp in the region of Montana. It was a nice place to find some of Rosalie's prey, since these forests were just loaded with delectable carnivores…
The scent of a large meal promised to quench the raging thirst inside. She didn't want to be gone too long hunting, because who knew when her scarlet boy would need assistance again. A large meal promised to be enough to quench her for the moment, and she could rush right back.
She sprang through the forest like a moonlit bolt of lightning, crashing through foliage as silently as a tiger. She was in hunt mode, and the scent of blood was coming into the air thick now. The added wound to whatever creature it was she was hunting seemed to heighten her bloodlust to even greater heights.
But the sounds of snarling and crunching that were definitely not human drew her senses into a more cautious mentality. She approached slower, as she took in everything with her senses. A sweeter scent permeated the air, mixing with the tantalizing scent of her blood. Clearly other vampires. The kill was already taken.
But the disgusting sounds coming from the vampires were certainly something a bit more… unrefined, to say it graciously, than an older vampire would be making.
Rosalie cautiously peeped forward, glancing at the scene before her as quietly as she could.
Three vampires, newborns judging by the bright red eyes, stood off to the side, circling the carcass of a large bear as a fourth one dug into it. Every time one of the newborns made an approach, the feasting newborn made a guttural growl, and the offending newborn in question stepped back cautiously.
Rosalie also noted a few littered carcasses of other newborns around the clearing, ripped apart. Obviously the others who had challenged the feasting newborn for the meal.
She was unfortunate enough to be spotted by one of the newborns, who hissed a warning that their kill had been spotted.
The three didn't want any more competition, it seemed, and rushed forward like mad to strike out at Rosalie.
Rosalie yelped, scrambling back as she began dashing as fast as she could away. Speed wasn't really her thing, but she had to get away. Fighting three newborns on her own would be a horrible idea.
Luckily, it didn't seem she was on her own, either.
The three newborns were suddenly met unexpectedly with a roar, and a huge figure barreled into two of them, dismembering their heads from their bodies as he darted by them. Rosalie was brought to a halt as a second figure dropped down behind the third newborn, flipped it over his shoulder, and slammed it into the ground. The newcomer bent down, careful to avoid the flailing arms of the newborn, and shredded the corpse.
Jasper stood back up.
"Rosalie, where have you been?!" Jasper hissed, turning. "Emmett's been frantic, and we gotta go!"
"ROOOSE!" she heard her husband say, as she turned in time to receive a figurative bone-crushing hug from her husband as he picked her up and swung her around. "You've been gone for days!"
"Yes, I—" Rosalie began, but something else was on her mind. "Why do we have to go?"
"Those newborns are a small part of several we've been tracking recently; somebody in the vicinity had a feast and didn't bother picking up after themselves. The newborns went crazy, and now they're multiplying. But their original creator already left, and so the Volturi are coming to clean up the mess, and being the only other vampires in the area we're gonna look like the ones who started it!"
Rosalie went into overdrive. She knew what would happen if the Volturi found them standing by, in the vicinity. Shredded and burned.
Emmett wasted no time, virtually picking up Rosalie again like he didn't want to let her go again, and began rushing back towards the direction of their house.
"Emmett, let me go!" Rosalie was shouting, struggling. "I've got to go back!"
She was talking about Rye, but obviously she was misunderstood. Monumentally.
And she would pay the price for it.
"Rose, it's just a bear!" Emmett said, forcing her to calm down as he thought she was in a blood-frenzy. "We'll get you another one."
"No, it's—"
"Emmett, she's just going to try whatever if she's in a feeding frenzy," Jasper said thoughtfully. "But right now, we don't have time. The Volturi's plane already set down, I'm just glad we found you when we did, Rosalie."
"No, I've got to—"
"We don't have time! If it's so important, we'll come back in a few days for your bear, if it's even still around, honey," Emmett soothed, as he fought to hold her still.
"SHUT UP, I NEED TO GET BACK TO MY—!" she said, screaming out her frustration.
But before she could continue, WAVES of something akin to exhaustion flooded her mind. While she wasn't tired, her mind was muddled the further into whatever was happening happened to her.
"N-No, I—I need to—to…" Rosalie said, trying her hardest to clear her thoughts. Something VITALLY important was happening, and she needed to retrieve some prize of hers. What was it—
"J-Jasper, d-don't," Rosalie said, struggling as she tried her hardest to remember.
"It's for your own good, Rosalie," Jasper soothed, though he was clearly straining to keep her under the influence of whatever biological drug he was soaking her brain in. "We'll come back when the Volturi clear out, I promise. Whatever it is, I'll help you look for it. But right now, we have to go."
"N-Nooo…" Rosalie said, though she couldn't remember for all the capacity her vampiric brain had what it was she was trying so hard to fight for. Jasper said he'd help look for it later. But she felt like it wasn't something that could be looked for later. She just couldn't… remember…
"I'm sorry, Rosalie," Jasper said, as he strained. "I'm really, really sorry."
The two older vampires toted Rosalie off, darting away from the scene of the newborns in a quick retreat.
A/N: So that's part 1 of the reason that Rosalie wasn't there for Rye. Part Two will be coming in the next chapter's flashback.
