Story: Tender is the Night, after Chapter 39: "I won't kill him," Edward says quickly. "But perhaps I could take him for a little ride." "Yes," I breathe. "Make him hurt, make him sorry."
Notes: This is the darkest scene I've ever written. This was fun, but not for the ways you think—I promise I'm not a psychopath. I'm just a big fan of powerful women, in case you couldn't tell. Please don't mind me, I've just been reading a lot of fantasy where women carry swords.
Where the Fuck is Jordan Johnson
If you ask her, Rosalie Hale is absolutely tired of being banned from the boys' club.
That's the whole problem—nobody ever asks her.
It's alright, really. She long ago learned if you want a place at the table, you have to make one for yourself.
Which is why she's here in this abandoned Portland warehouse, unexpectedly, much to the chagrin of her brother and the joy of her mate.
"How lovely of you to join us," Edward says, his voice tight. He doesn't address her by name, but it's an unnecessary safety precaution. After they're finished here, nobody will be going to the police. They never do.
Rosalie resists rolling her eyes, but only barely. "I don't know why you insist on having all the fun. Immortality gets boring if you leave me out." Her heels echo on the empty walls, the expanse of bare floor. They always pick the ugliest rooms for these things.
"Hey, baby," Emmett says, moving in to kiss her on the hair.
She stalks across the room, faster than a human eye could even see. "No," she hisses at him. "I'm mad at you."
He grins despite her words. "Aw, I'm sorry. He didn't want you to have to see another one."
In the middle of the room—constructed simply of four walls of concrete—is a single chair, and a person to fill it. His hands are bound behind his back, his eyes covered with a dark swath of cloth.
The room already smells of urine, which is embarrassing, frankly. They haven't even gotten to the good part yet.
She rips off his blindfold.
It's almost disappointing. He's so… simple. Still a boy, really.
Rosalie knows better than anyone just how deceiving looks can be.
She sees his pallid skin. His dirty blonde hair, eyes that are already bloodrushed and hemorrhaging; petechia is appearing on his sockets and cheekbones from where Edward probably choked him. The wet spot on the front of his jeans grows.
Yes, she sees this boy.
She also sees more. She sees the way his chin dips as he takes her in. His eyes crawl like spiders across her body. He doesn't mean to, but he licks his lower lip, straightens his shoulders to appear taller. When she steps closer, his pupils dilate.
She sees this, too.
He is like all the others. Like her fiancé, Royce, who she only thinks about on nights like this.
"It's a shame I'm not allowed to kill you," she purrs. Behind the chair, Edward takes a step toward them, but her look is icy enough to freeze him where he stands.
She wore her best jeans today. Her pointiest heels, too. She always likes to look her best when she tortures men who can't keep their hands to themselves. She wants them to ache for her, even as she rips their cocks off.
"Who… who are you people?" The boy is already raspy, hoarse. Maybe Emmett was the one who choked him. The same hands that love her so well have done their fair share of damage.
Her brother steps in the predator's line of sight. Emmett just cracks his knuckles. Showoff.
Edward smiles, baring every single one of his too-sharp teeth. "We're friends of Katie Clearwater."
Whatever blood is left in Jordan Johnson's face drains clear out of him.
Emmett cracks his knuckles again, and steps forward.
As Edward and Emmett work, Rosalie watches.
Sometimes she thinks if she could cry, she would.
Sometimes she feels like it will never stop. These people have existed for centuries: ones who feel entitled to other people's bodies, simply because they breathe. They think they should want for nothing, that they are owed everything. They take and they take and they take and they just fucking take.
From all types of people. Straight and gay and in between and nothing at all. Men and women and both and neither. Rich and poor and ugly and beautiful and kind and mean and abled and disabled and when will it stop?
Will it ever stop?
The men step back from the limp little boy strapped to the chair.
His face is unrecognizable. His shirt, which was so neatly pressed when she first got here, is torn to bits. Bruises have bloomed across his chest, his jaw and temples and back.
"I think it's time for the finale," Edward says, reading all her thoughts. He waves his hand toward the mess he's made, unbothered. Unruffled. "Care to do the honors?"
Rosalie runs a fingernail under her lip, cleaning the line of the lipstick she knows is still perfect. Smooths a hand over her hair. Smiles.
There's a place in her mind she goes while she does this. While she twists testicles and slides sharp fingernails along shafts. When she tells them about the first man who did this to her. What happened to him and all the others.
While she tortures them, kisses them even as she damn near kills them, she thinks about the good ones.
The men like her father, Carlisle, who has saved her too much to measure. Like Emmett, her Emmett, who celebrates her wit and her strength and who fucking worships her body and who would never touch her without permission.
Like her brothers, who found women too strong for them. Like Jacob Black, who will one day marry her niece, and all the wolves he runs with: Paul and Sam and Embry and Quil and Seth—
Sweet Seth Clearwater, whose wife is the reason she's here today.
Rosalie brings her mouth to Jordan's ear. He pissed himself again shortly after the boys started; shit himself too. She thinks she stepped in it. The scent of his fear is sharp, pungent, nauseating.
"This is for me," she says.
She slashes her nails across his face, four deep scratches that well with blood instantly. She sharpened them for this very reason. The scratches will scar. She wants it that way. She wants his reflection to remind him every day of what he's done, the way Katie and all the others will remember.
Odors of iron and fear flare her hunger, but she has more control of herself now. She must. There is a purpose for all of this.
The shoes are already ruined; might as well go for gold. She lifts her foot, resting it on his crotch.
"This is for Katie."
All it takes is the littlest push with her superhuman strength, a flick of muscle, and an earsplitting scream fills the air as the point of her stiletto pierces the base of Jordan's penis. One sharp drag upward, and it's almost flayed in two.
Jordan is still screaming when she pulls her shoe loose. She leaves a trail of blood spots as she walks out the door.
She dreams of a world where women don't have to carry weapons because they are weapons themselves.
And she knows that one day, yes, it will stop.
If she must kill them all by hand.
She will rip the world apart.