Chapter Thirteen: The Hunting Question - Edward

"I watched you suffer. A dull aching pain. Now you've decided. To show me the same. No sweeping exit. Or offstage lines. Could make me feel bitter. Or treat you unkind. Wild horses. Couldn't drag me away." - Wild Horses (The Rolling Stones)

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

I could hear hollow echoes reverberate off the canyon walls a thousand times over. The natural formation was beautiful, and only a handful of people had ever seen it. The striations and layers of rock told a story so old it made me feel young. I couldn't understand how I had come to this point in my life. A year ago, I was fine. Lonely, but fine. Then everything changed when she arrived.

Bella, Isabella, Isabella Marie Swan, Isabella Marie Swan-Cullen. My future wife… in my hopes and dreams at least. I had spent the last year with Bella in my life. Despite her situation, and my guilt, they were the happiest days of my life. Then suddenly she was an immortal, and for an instant I thought I could capture that happiness and keep a hold of it forever.

Then she said, "I love you too" with her voice like a chorus of bells, lilting and melodic. Those words were permanently etched onto what remained of my soul. While I couldn't understand why she loved me, I gave into her because I wanted her so much it physically hurt. Her passion pressed up against me was overwhelming. The burn I felt for her was nearly as painful as my thirst, and nothing short of impending death could've pulled me away from her lips.

I vaguely heard everyone quietly shuffle out of the room, the only ones that lingered were Rose and Alice, although they did eventually shut the door to give us a modicum of privacy. I was fully content to continue kissing Bella indefinitely, locked in an eternal embrace. Then she started to reach for our clothes, and I had to pull away.

"What? Don't you want to?" She pouted and looked disappointed, as a twinge of anger returned to her unbelievably beautiful face. Then her expression shifted into confusion. "Wow, I just noticed my voice is different, what else about me is different?"

"I want to, but there are things we need to discuss first. Part of that is what you have just gone through, there are a lot of changes you will need to adjust to." I exlplained, but then found myself just looking at her in awe.

"What, is there something on my face?" She gave me a curious look, and it made me laugh as I started to shake my head.

"Not at all. It's just, you are so beautiful, of course you were always beautiful, but I cannot express in words how absolutely gorgeous you are now." I tried to explain.

"I get you love me, but seriously Edward I am far from gorgeous." She frowned a little, and gave a soft head shake. I had forgotten her self image was so poor, and that self depreciation was deeply ingrained, probably formed even before the accident.

"I see, well perhaps you should turn that mirror around." I pointed towards the far corner of the room where Alice had set up a full length mirror in case Bella wanted to see herself. Bella smirked and turned towards the mirror. "Brace yourself, this will be a shock." I warned, and she glanced back at me frowning slightly, but nodded once, this time with a little less certainty.

She flipped it around and as her reflection came into view she audibly gasped. She brought her hand to her face, and then reached out to the mirror and traced the new lines of her face. "Who am I? That can't be me." She turned towards me with concern, "what happened to my eyes?" She turned back and continued to touch her new face with awe and shock and although she seemed only a little bit distressed, it was obvious the change was a little too much too soon. I moved over and gently pulled her away from the mirror and turned her to face me.

"You need time, your eyes are like all newborn vampires. For the rest of our kind the color darkens over time, as the last of your human blood is consumed by your body. For us, amber hues will begin to show in about two months." She nodded, and then looked thoughtful for a moment.

"Now that I'm here, I was hoping that you could tell me some of the things you couldn't before. Like can you read minds, and was Rosalie actually a teacher? Or more importantly, what really happened to your sister?" She had me smiling until the last question, and I found myself breaking eye contact immediately.

"Yes, I can hear the thoughts of every mind I have ever encountered, except for yours." I examined her face trying to figure her out. Whatever was keeping me out of her mind was even stronger now, before it was like a dead zone where her mind should be, now it was almost painful to direct my gift her way.

"Bullshit." She burst out incredulously.

"It's true, even when you were human I could not read you, that's partially why I asked so many questions. There has never been a mystery to me like you." I had wanted to tell her so many times, but at least I no longer had to hide or evade her at all anymore.

"Huh, so I'm a freak." She looked actually upset, and I immediately started to shake my head.

"I tell you I can read minds, and you believe that you're a freak. We think you have a gift, like mine." I tried to explain, but I must've phrased it wrong because she tilted her head and gave me a look of confusion.

Then her eyes widened. "Will I be able to read minds?" She sounded almost excited by the prospect.

"Well, no. I didn't mean your gift is like mine. I meant you have a gift as well, although we do not know what it is. As for Rosalie, yes she has been a teacher and I imagine she will be one again."

"And your sister?"

"My life hasn't been all virtuous, and there are things I haven't told anyone, even my family. Although I guess now is as good a time as any." She smiled and nodded at me to go on. "A few years after Carlisle turned me, I rebelled and actively spent time as a killer. While I had given Carlisle the excuse that I needed to know how the other half lived, in reality it was far more personal. By chance, I stumbled upon my sister's obituary. She was only thirty-five. She was found half eaten by rats in an alleyway. Her body beaten and discarded after a brutal rape. The police had a couple of suspects, but forensic capabilities at the time were spotty at best." I could see the pain on Bella's face, and she reached out to touch my arm in a show of sympathy and comfort. It was such a strange thing, even Esme wasn't overly fond of touching, but it actually helped.

"What did you do? I mean, I would've tried to track the asshole who killed her and beat him to death." She looked angry and resolute, and I had no doubt of the veracity of her statement.

"That's exactly what I did, well, I didn't beat him to death. I took my time, vetted the man and even found a way to extract the details from his mind during a casual conversation at a bar. As we spoke over a pint of beer, his thoughts betrayed what he did to her. It was senseless and brutal, and I could hear the echoes of her last words playing in his mind again and again. He felt remorse, but also cherished the memory as something he was actually proud of. As you can imagine, I lost it, reaching out and consuming him. In that instant I was a monster, so I committed to that monstrous impulse." I paused as I heard Esme gasp and Carlisle whisper something to her. Bella looked towards them almost in shock.

"I can hear so much. My god, nothing in this house is private is it?" Her eyes were wide and somewhat panicked.

"Not really." I said with a strained smile.

"Sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you. What happened next?" She said turning her focus on me again. That's when it dawned on me that she was exceptionally well controlled. Her eyes were clear and there wasn't a hint of newborn rage.

"I killed twenty-six men after that, all of them murderers who were never caught or the system had deemed innocent but were ready to kill again. Yet even then, the loss of life got to me after a time and I stopped." I expected my confession to shake her, but she just gave me a smile of sympathy.

"You probably saved lives." She said reaching out to me again, this time to squeeze my forearm which I had folded across my chest. "You know there was a book I read last year that was kind of like that. Although I can't think of the name…" She looked up as though trying to search for the memory and then blinked and her face fell flat for a moment. When she looked back at me her expression was unreadable. "I remember everything. I don't understand."

"We have perfect recall, and that extends to our human memories." I explained and she nodded abscently.

"What's the book called?" Emmett called from the living room and I glanced towards the door with a touch of anger. Bella turned and started to chuckle.

"Darkly Dreaming Dexter, it's about a vigilante serial killer who only goes after criminals." She said, speaking directly towards the wall.

"Neat, yeah that sounds like our Eddie." Emmett said through a laugh.

"Emmett." Rosalie scolded quietly.

"Sorry." Emmett said in his mental voice.

I thought about it for a few seconds, gathering myself before responding to her last point. "Perhaps my actions saved some lives, but there is no way to know if by killing those men I actually made any difference. My dark deeds could never be balanced by the unintended consequences of those lives being extinguished."

"Consequences." She frowned at me and shook her head slightly. "So that's your original sin, and why you're so virtuous it's painful?"

"Yes, and until now the family believed it was just a choice I made." I felt shame for hiding it so long, which made me feel even worse for the next thing I had to reveal. She still didn't know about my involvement in the accident, but how could I tell her?

"Why? Does that even matter?" She looked a bit confused, but also incredulous as if the difference was only in my mind.

"It alters the reason. I became a monster because I succumbed to my need for revenge, not for some philosophical curiosity about the nature of being an apex predator." I hoped she would get the difference but she shook her head again.

"You didn't want them to know you're human?" Her response made me frown, and I shook my head.

"We're not human, that's the material point. If I am capable of murder when emotional, what is to stop me from killing randomly?" My actions spoke to the nature of my internal beast. What I was capable of doing. I was a murderer, and from a certain point of view a serial killer. Yet in my world my actions barely raised an eyebrow.

"Edward, that's just stupid. It's a choice, you took revenge on your sister's murderer, and unlike most you had incontrovertible proof that he had done it. I cannot imagine many people would hesitate after what he had done, I know I wouldn't have." Her argument was valid, but to me it felt like an excuse.

"Angela would have." I countered, hoping using the name would make her see the point.

"Well, she's Angela. Not all of us can be heroes." She shook her head and actually looked down in shame.

"Is that how you view her?" I asked in curiosity, I had thought I understood their friendship. Perhaps there were deeper layers I wasn't aware of.

"I don't know if she saved my life, but she risked her own life to try. I know I'm not that kind of person. I'm not the dashing hero type at all." She said with a very matter of fact tone of voice. It made me realize this was something she had thought about before. She had asked herself the question of whether she would act in that same situation, and her answer was no. It was an impossible thing to internalize, something I knew all too well.

"Neither am I." My admission went over her head, which drove home the fact that I had to tell the truth now, before it was too late. " I'll admit I was gone by that point, although I did hear about what she did." I paused briefly to prepare myself. Then I realized I couldn't just blurt it out. "So, there are some things I should probably tell you now before we consummate our relationship." I said holding back the frown I was feeling.

"Consummate, sounds like marriage." Her own frown deepened, and I could tell that getting her to marry me would be a struggle, that is if she forgave me. "So, is that why we're not having sex right now?" She cocked her head at me and batted her eyes a few times for emphasis.

I almost laughed but held onto my composure. Emmett however started to hoot from the other room. She glanced over my shoulder and rolled her eyes.

"Perhaps we should go out to hunt, you need to feed; it must be torture." I suggested. She turned her head upwards a little and touched her throat.

"I hadn't been hungry until you just said something, now all I can feel is something burning in my throat, it's a little like the other fire, only a lot more localized and nowhere near as intense." She finally looked a bit like a newborn.

"Please let's go hunt and then I have a gift for you, my love. Afterwards we can do anything you like." She sighed and I held out my hand to her which she took without hesitation.

We jumped from the study window and she giggled as she landed. As we approached the nearby river, she looked at it nervously and turned to me shaking her head.

"That's impossible." She looked at the turbulent water with skepticism. I grinned at her and disentangled my hand from hers. I measured the distance then jumped in a shallow arc to land softly on the other bank of the river.

"Okay. There is no spoon." She gulped and backed up a dozen feet or so. "I'm going to give it a running start." Her eyes widened and then she ran full tilt towards the water. For a second I thought she was going to run right in, but at the last second, she jumped. It wasn't like my leap; it was much further and far more agile. She landed just inside the tree line giggling the entire way. A few seconds later I heard her shout. "I think I overshot a little."

I laughed as I caught up with her. She was up in a tree. Her midnight blue silk dress was ripped along the seam line of her right leg. I was grateful that I had at least been able to talk Alice out of giving her heels. Alice had pouted but couldn't deny my logic, that giving an ex-paraplegic a pair of high heels on her first day with new legs was a bad idea. Instead she chose a simple black patent leather flat with a tasteful silver buckle. Knowing Bella, I doubt she even noticed them.

"So where to, mighty hunter?" She jumped down to the soft ground beside me and smiled gently at her perfect landing. "I have to say my coordination has improved dramatically." She smiled widely as she took my hand again.

"This way." I led her into the forest for our first hunt together. For twenty minutes we didn't speak, as I showed her how to track prey. She seemed lost, as if her instincts were suppressed.

"You need to use your sense of smell; it is one of your primary resources. It is also important to judge danger. You'll be able to separate out scents in time, but first try to follow the scent of we've been tracking." I explained, and she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The large buck we had been tracking was close, and she almost immediately took off after it. I watched from a distance as she approached and took down her first kill. She was aggressive but made sure she was quick, so the animal didn't suffer.

"Wonderful my love!" I said after she was done.

"I've been thinking, and I really adore 'My love'. It feels possessive without possession, and tasteful. I've always hated the honey and sweetie type nicknames. They've always felt gaudy to me. I kind of heard you in the morgue by the way, not every word, but the important ones. Then my legs started to burn, and I was very distracted." I blinked at her and shook my head.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised. If you'd like I could repeat what I said?" She nodded so I conjured up my words and refused to edit them. This was the moment I was dreading but I had to get it out of the way.

"I said, 'I wish I could hear you, it's still frustrating that I can't. I also wish I could know for sure if you can hear us. If you can, I need you to know that this wasn't about reparations. This was about me; Carlisle did this for me, because Bella… I love you.' I'm sorry that the first time I said it you were incapacitated. " I felt my face contort into a slight scowl of disappointment as I explained my frustration. But she just smiled at me playfully.

"You know, you are like one of those flowered onion rings you get as an appetizer, spread open with layers of… okay my analogy sucks, but I can't seem to get a full bead on you. Every time I think I got you figured out you surprise me. So, what is the reparation you feel you owe me?" She looked at me with curiosity, and without a hint of distrust.

"That's the hard part. I don't know how you'll feel after I tell you this." I paused and took a deep breath, not that I needed the oxygen. "I made a choice. The day of the crash, I put my family above you. I didn't immediately act, when I could've stopped the van from hurting you at all. But I hesitated and only prevented the fatal injuries. Can you believe that I've regretted that choice every second of every day since?" She blinked at me and lowered her gaze to stare at a rock near her foot which she kicked with enough force to lodge it into a nearby tree.

"No. You can't be telling me that." She started to shake, and I reached out to her, but she batted my hand away and took a few steps back from me.

"Bella, I'm sor…" I started, but she shook her head.

"No! You do not get to apologize. You hurt me. You crushed me and took away my legs. Do you have any idea what I've been through? How humiliating, how painful? I had to carry around a bag with my shit and piss in it because I had no control over my lower body. I wouldn't ever have been able to carry a child to term. Or enjoy sex. I would've died in my twenties after years of struggling to breathe, and countless more surgeries. Now, I'm fixed. Sure, your father gave me my legs back, but I lost my fucking family. I'm never going to talk to my father or mother again." She stopped and wiped at her face before realizing that no tears were falling.

"What? I can't even cry now?" I felt myself backing up from her, the words all too real. I already knew all of it, what she had to endure, I just never thought of her as suffering.

"I'll leave and you'll never have to see me again." I said, unable to look at her.

"Coward." She spat back at me. That forced me to look up again.

"I don't understand." I looked at her in confusion and heartbreak.

"I don't know if I can forgive you, I don't know how I feel anymore. You destroyed my trust, but if you leave right now, it only proves to me that you're not worth it. If you can't be bothered to fight for me, then leave. I won't miss you." Bella's eyes were intense, furious and her nostrils flared as she spoke.

"If there is a chance, I'm not going anywhere." I said resolutely.

"Good, now get out of my sight!" She yelled and aggressively motioned towards a random direction, and then turned and waited for me to leave. I felt a bit of whiplash, but I understood that she couldn't be in my presence. I turned and ran, ending up in my favorite place in the world. Yet even the beauty of the canyon was lost on me, I had no idea what I was going to do if she couldn't forgive me.

Author's Note:

I really thought about ways of stretching out this chapter, but honestly everything that needs to be in it is already there. To add would be to pad it out, and that seems silly. Edward in this version isn't an overbearing asshat, because I just couldn't bring myself to write him that way (again).

His voice is definitely the lightest among my main characters, but seeing his point of view is important to the narrative.

Next Chapter: An Unexpected Party - Alice

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