Chapter Ten
A/N: A more Rosalie centric chapter. Enjoy!
Bella's showing off the library to Alice when Rosalie exits from it. She stops on top of the stairs, thumbing the strap of her bag awkwardly, while Bella freezes mid-speech to Alice. Alice naturally notices this, and she smiles brightly upon seeing Rosalie. "Ah! Do the two of you know each other?" she asks curiously.
"Uh, yea, that's Rosalie. She lives with me."
Alice giggles lightly at this. "Rosalie, what a peculiar name. Are you two sisters?"
"No...just a friend," Bella says sourly, shifting her eyes to Rosalie to see if that concept hurts her just as much as it hurts Bella. But Rosalie is not focusing on Bella at all right now. Her eyes are trained on Alice, brow furrowed in confusion. She looks to be thinking deeply.
"You two must have such fun times living together," Alice continues on and Bella wishes she would shut up already. She gives a tight smile. "Lets go. We still got two more stops to make and then I've got to go home."
Bella hurries away, Alice trailing slowly behind her. Her eyes stay trained on Rosalie, Rosalie's own gaze trained on her, until finally the pixie is out of sight. A shudder goes down Rosalie's back.
Following gut instinct, she decides to follow Bella and Alice.
Bella finishes the tour and gets into her truck to drive them both back. To her surprise, Alice waves the offer off. "Actually, there's something I want to check out here privately," she said with a wide grin. "I'll see you at school tomorrow."
"Sure," Bella gives a hapless shrug and throws the truck into motion. She doesn't spare another glance behind, but if she had checked the rear-view mirror, she would have seen Rosalie slinking out from behind a bush she had been spying on them from, and Alice turning to her.
"It's quite rude to follow a cute girl like me. Are you a pervert or something?" Alice says teasingly and Rosalie has no choice but to reveal herself. How had Alice known Rosalie was following them?
"Something's not right," Rosalie tells her in loo of responding to those earlier statements. Her skin prickles around Alice. It's not a pleasant sensation.
"You're telling me," Alice playfully huffs, before dropping the cheery act. "Let's go talk somewhere private," and she leads the way to a diner. Rosalie sits from across her in the sticky booth seat. The place is nearly empty at this hour. Alice orders two coffees for them even though Rosalie doesn't drink coffee.
Rosalie eagerly waits for Alice to start. The small girl looks stressed now and she rubs her hands on her thighs. "Look...I don't know how much you remember but...this isn't good."
"I don't remember much of anything, other than my name, and Edward's," Rosalie replies, curious as to where this conversation will go. It seems Alice knows something about her? Her heart begins to thump faster in her chest, eager for any morsel of information.
"I suppose that's good," Alice hums, chewing on her bottom lip. "But why are you with Bella?"
"What do you mean?"
"Of all the times and places to Fall, why to her?" Alice sighs heavily. "It's ironic, isn't it."
Rosalie tips her head, not understanding this at all.
"Right, sorry. I forgot you don't know," Alice heaved out, drumming her fingers on the table top. "Look, I don't want anything bad to happen to you again. You've already suffered enough as it is. There's no need for further punishment. But, you have to go."
"Go? Punishment?" Screams echo in her head. Her own screams. And a voice. A vicious voice. Of a man. Edward. She swallows harshly. "You'll need to do better than to mention that to me."
"Edward will come if he finds out," Alice said and she looked stressed and worried for Rosalie. "And I don't want you to get hurt again."
Edward. Rosalie had been right in fearing that he would come back. She had to leave. There was no telling what he would do to Bella if she stayed.
"I can lie to him and give you a bit of time to get your things and run."
"Run where?" Rosalie ran hands down her face. This was all a lot to take in, especially since she had huge gaps in her memory. She had no idea what the fuck was going on. "Alice, you'll need to tell me more than that."
The waitress came and served them their coffee but the smell of it made Rosalie's stomach turn. Alice took hers and sipped on it, clearly debating something within herself.
"I'm not human, am I?" Rosalie inquired. She had suspected this for a while now. She'd have to be blind and deaf not to notice the way she healed everything around her, the way she could heal even herself. There was just one thing she couldn't heal and that was the damage she'd done to her and Bella's relationship. But that was for the better. Especially now that she'd heard what Alice had to say to her. She had been right in wanting to give them a distance.
Alice jolted at this, surprised by Rosalie's bold declaration. But she didn't deny it.
Rosalie let out a heavy sigh, leaning back into her seat. "I've tried looking up what I am. But what am I?" Alice still didn't say anything, casting guilty glances into her drink. "You know, don't you."
Silence confirmed the truth. Rosalie looked out the window. The sky was overcast. This town always looked like it was on the verge of tears, or some great disaster occurring.
"I am sorry I have to obfuscate my words, but I cannot tell you. I would get in trouble with Edward if I did."
Suddenly Rosalie's chest squeezes in anger. This Edward sounded like a big bully. Hurting anyone who didn't follow his dictations. She had run from him, but maybe she shouldn't run from him anymore? "Tell him to come to me," she said all of a sudden. "Tell him I want to kick his smarmy ass."
Alice gasped loudly, and spilled her cup in order to reach over to Rosalie to touch her, to shake some sense into her. "You can't do that! You don't have your powers! He'll smite you!"
Rosalie knocked her dainty hands away, plucking up napkins from the napkin dispenser and soaking up the coffee spill before it spread any further. "I don't care. I don't want to have my life dictated by him. And it sounds like he's doing the same to you."
Alice thinned her lips. "He's our boss. We have to obey him."
"Maybe you do, but I don't," Rosalie said grimly.
Alice gave a shake of her head. "I've missed you, Rosalie. I've missed your fiery spirit. Heaven knows it just isn't the same without you."
Rosalie gave a wide smile. "Good, now tell me how I can kick this ass."
Rosalie was in a good mood when she came home late that night. Bella wondered why. What had happened to make her this happy. She looked a bit bedraggled, her hair messily combed up into a ponytail and her clothing sporting tears. What had she been doing? Who had she fought? At the idea that she had fought someone, Bella's heart leapt into her chest. Had it been Edward? Some figure from her past?
Bella itched to ask but she knew they weren't on good terms with each other anymore. So she suffered down her care, and watched as humming, Rosalie went up the stairs to shower.
Rosalie trained with Alice in secret for the duration of the whole week. She wasn't sure when the deadline of Edward coming was- even Alice didn't know. So in the meantime, she'd use every chance she got to train her body, so she could beat him. Alice helped her, even if it was a bit reluctantly.
"I really shouldn't be doing this," Alice complained, not for the first or last time.
"He's a dick," Rosalie said with an easy shrug as she shook her hand out. She'd just blocked a hit with it, and it had gone numb with pain. Alice hit hard for a small girl. Rosalie still had no idea what sort of beings they were, and no amount of persuading was going to make Alice tell her.
It was whatever, Rosalie decided. As long as she had the tools to take down Edward. Currently, they were fist fighting. Rosalie was learning how to use her enhanced strength and speed. It felt freeing to move so deftly and quickly. She was getting better at it too, each and every day- some things coming back to her as if in muscle memory. She could tell Alice was holding back to go easy on her, but Rosalie didn't want that. If she was going to fight Edward, she had to learn to take damage. Had to feel what it was like to be hurt.
"Come at me full force," Rosalie demanded.
"I don't want to hurt you-"
"When in an actual fight, I'd get hurt," she reasoned and Alice sighed out. "Therefore, punch me as hard as you can."
"Alright," Alice said reluctantly and rushed at Rosalie so quickly, the girl couldn't even blink before she was being punched in the face. She went flying, crashing through several pine trees and bringing them down with her. She flew for a couple of meters before finally tumbling to a stop. She lay there, struggling to breathe as blood poured out of her nose. Her face felt shattered.
Instantly, Alice was by her side, tsking as she helped Rosalie gently up. She held a hand to her nose and a warm golden glow spread from there before she healed the injury. "And this is why I didn't want to do that." Alice plopped down on a knocked over trees trunk and Rosalie was inclined to join her, only because it ached to stand. The rest of her body was going to be heavily bruised tomorrow. But it didn't feel like she had broken anything else.
"Your powers will nowhere be as strong as his. After all, you were stripped of most of them," Alice said, shaking her head tiredly. "I don't know why you're bothering to take him on. Just run away. Stay away from Bella, and he won't bother you."
"Why can't I be with Bella? Is it because it's her or because she's human?"
Alice squirmed uncomfortably. "It's...her. Stay away from her."
Rosalie frowned, the cogs in her brain moving. What did that mean? Was it because Rosalie had fallen in love with Bella? Ever since she'd set her eyes on the human, she'd loved her. She never understood why, she just knew she'd loved her since forever. She'd do anything for Bella, which was why she'd pushed her aside, to keep her safe.
"Edward won't hurt her, will he?"
"No, of course not. Our job is to protect humans and not hurt them."
"By that logic, am I a danger to her?"
Alice shook her head. "No."
"Then why must I-"
"Because those are just the laws of our kind!" Alice jumped up to her feet. She was angry now, small hands balled up. "I think they're stupid but we have to follow them. Because things have always been this way and always must."
"Things changes. People change. We can't just stay stagnant."
"You always said that. You were always the more forward thinking one of us all," Alice said wistfully, as if remembering old fond memories.
"Alice, were we friends in our past life?" Rosalie inquired and Alice looked away. Again, withholding answers. It only made Rosalie want to pummel Edward's face in more.
"You were a great warrior. One of our best. Edward could never compare to you. You defeated him time and time again and made a fool of him. So when he found an opportunity to make you Fall, he took it, and made a spectacle of it. You were disgraced, Rosalie. And I could do nothing about it because I was too weak, too scared of him, to do so."
Rosalie placed a hand on top of Alice's, comforting her. The pixie girl looked close to tears. Rosalie couldn't stand to see her cry. But she quickly cleared her throat, getting herself together. "Maybe, if anyone could beat him without most of their powers, it'd be you."
"That's what I like to hear," Rosalie said with a chuckle. "So keep training me. Even if you break every bone in my body, heal me up and keep on going."
"It's Leah, isn't it," Bella says bitterly when Rosalie comes back to their shared house at three in the morning. She's aching and tired and despite Alice's healing, Rosalie needs a good rest to feel back to normal.
"What?" she stares blankly at Bella's accusation. Her brain is a bit slow on the catch up.
"You're hanging out with her. Dating her," her upper lip curls up and she's hurt and willing to hurt Rosalie in the process. The blonde just shakes her head. She's not in the mood to deal with this. She feels dead on her feet. Instead, she does the only thing she can think of doing and strides across the room to kiss Bella's lips lightly.
Immediately Bella shuts up, the anger fading from her features to be replaced by shock.
"Please, go to bed, Bella. You have a school night tomorrow," and then Rosalie drags herself up to shower. Maybe, when she gets Edward out of the picture, she and Bella can actually be a couple. She can feel the warm and steady impression of Bella's lips on her own and it makes her chest tighten. For now, they must keep their distance, even if Alice says Edward won't hurt Bella. Somehow Rosalie doubts it.