Seven Devils

Holy water cannot help you now

Thousand armies couldn't keep me out

I don't want your money

I don't want your crown

See I've come to burn your kingdom down

They can keep me out

'Til I tear the walls

'Til I save your heart

And to take your soul

For what has been done

Cannot be undone

In the evil's heart

In the evil's soul

Seven devils all around you

Rosalie: I don't know

I prayed to a God I doubted could bear to look upon my face after what I'd become and what I'd made of His good, honest, and kind Emmett McCarty…

I watched him descend…

Emmett's jaw clenched and his eyes were shaded in darkness, intense and chilling. He looked like the monster I'd made him into.

The litter of dismembered body parts around him was like a grotesque garden in the blood stained grass.

However… Even though I'd been a spectator to his violent performance, he looked wildly out of place amongst the severed heads, displaced arms and legs, broken bones, and lake of blood.

He looked… like a child.

He didn't belong there, amidst something as awful as this. He was good.

And, he still believed good things could happen. He still had a spark of optimism and... and hope in him…

He had the naivety to think that there was more than this.

These two years of immortality had made me cynical and vile. I knew that to be true. As I watched him pull apart men as easily as breaking bread, I knew that even though I'd never indulged in human blood, Emmett had never indulged in the darkness that I reveled in.

I didn't believe. I didn't have hope.

I knew there was no more than this…

Emmett completed one of the most grotesque acts of horror that I'd ever witnessed, (aside from the one I myself committed to Royce and his friends) but still I realized he was the best person I'd ever known.

Emmett was a good man through and through and I wanted to be better.

My only experience with a man had left my soul destroyed – and I wished so desperately that I could return to the girl I was before because that's the girl that was worthy of a man like Emmett McCarty.

He was defiant in the face of darkness, even in the midst of his massacre.

Emmett McCarty was thoroughly good, down to his core. He was good and even I couldn't ruin him. In his violence, he was just as beautifully graceful as he was savagely animalistic.

As I watched him expertly rip apart the human body, I thought about his hands on me today.

Now looking back, I wondered if there was something seriously psychologically wrong with me that in all that violence, I was uncannily calm, just imagining the way it felt to have his arms around me today as we talked.

He handled me like porcelain - fragile, valuable, precious…

Watching him kill those men, I saw what he was capable of, but… but just as violent as he treated them, he treated me as carefully.

That's when I knew I had begun to care for him in a way that was dangerous and foreboding…

Emmett's eyes were tortured and sorrow-filled and triumphant and bloodthirsty all at once after he completed this slaughter.

Then, he looked to me for approval.

Even as a newborn vampire, I had never felt this out of control.

"Emmett, it's all right." Edward began, obviously responding to the wild thoughts in Emmett's mind.

Emmett's eyes darted over my face, searching.

Emmett seemed to panic, obviously needing something from my gaze that I couldn't provide.

I couldn't look away.

"Emmett," I finally whispered his name, as he exhaled like he'd just been ridded of a heavy weight.

"It just… I couldn't stop…" His voice rose desperately.

I think he assumed I was disappointed in him.

I wasn't.

In fact… I think I was exactly the opposite.

"Emmett, son… This isn't who you are. You can move on." Carlisle's voice was tight in his chest and I noticed Edward looked over at him with deep concern and compassion. "You are not what you've done. You can move on."

It felt like I'd robbed Emmett of his innocence, stripped him of his goodness and pure heart. It wasn't what he'd done. It was because of me.

Emmett frowned, still looking down at his dripping red hands as he didn't respond to Carlisle.

My throat burned in a smolder, but it was nothing compared to my heart.

"I didn't want you to see that, Rose." Emmett mumbled, his eyes transforming into something heart wrenching as he looked back to speak to me and only me.

I tentatively approached him.

"It's all right." I said as evenly as I could, taking slow steps.

I felt Edward and Carlisle's eyes heavy on us.

The closer I got to him the more my stomach fluttered with nervousness.

"It happened so fast…" He whispered and I tried not to respond to his panic.

I didn't see any remorse in his face - just shock.

Edward looked over at me. I was right.

Emmett didn't have any remorse.

Nor should he.

Edward narrowed his eyes then. That was exactly the kind of thinking that had him separated from Carlisle and Esme for the last decade…

It scared me now that Emmett could do the same.

It scared me that he could leave me…

In pursuit of justice…

He'd just killed seven of them.

There were tens of thousands of those hate filled people… That were known.

It'd never end.

"It's over now." I told him with a nod, close enough to touch him now though of course I didn't dare.

Carlisle and Edward stood back a little from us, still watching Emmett carefully. They thought he could snap any second.

He was blood drunk. I could see it in his eyes.

I was shockingly calm considering.

"You need to get cleaned up." I told him plainly. "We're leaving for Alaska now."

Emmett nodded, taking my directions.

"Do you want to say goodbye to your father?" I asked him.

"He needs to be found. Burying him would raise too many questions." Edward said as tenderly as he could. "But, we can go with you to say a few words if you need."

"No, it's fine." Emmett registered Edward's voice, but he didn't connect his eyes. "That'll be just fine. It has to do."

He rearranged his words like it was necessary. I wondered if it was true. Regardless of what a monster I'd thought his father was, he was still Emmett's father and I wondered if that still mattered to him.

"And, we need to burn these people before sunrise, Emmett." Edward said easily. "So they aren't found."

Emmett's eyes immediately went wild again and I worried.

"If you could still call them people…" He mumbled, looking around with white hot rage still burning in his vermillion irises.

"You go get cleaned up. We'll take care of this." Carlisle spoke evenly.

He would forgive Emmett for this. It'd just take some time.

Emmett nodded, still not fully processing as he turned his back.

The three of us exchanged a look on who would keep watch on Emmett and I had been voted the one to do it. I think I'd hoped as much.

"Be careful." Carlisle mouthed to me but I pretended I hadn't seen him.

It was obvious Carlisle didn't trust me especially not after my betrayal today, but that he and Edward were too gentlemanly to make me clean up this mess.

I followed Emmett slowly as it finally sank in all that had transpired in such a short amount of time.

Now, I was rightfully fearful.

I was about to be alone with Emmett. Totally. Alone.

It seemed different before I'd been all but assaulted with the realization that I could be… falling in love with him.

I paused on the outskirts of some trees and took a deep breath. Their blood was still in the air and it torturously burnt my throat, but Emmett's own scent centered me intertwined with it all. I clenched my jaw before I followed to the opening in the trees where a little dirty stream was babbling in the silent night air.

As he shrugged out of his shirt, I thought for sure my dead heart skipped a beat.

I'd never seen a man so… undressed before. Well, technically.

I recalled the way his human skin had been tattered and torn, ripped into by that bear.

Now, there were no interruptions to the planes of his back.

I knew I would've blushed if I could have as his vampiric white skin seemed to radiate under the moon light and I saw the definition of his back muscles around his shoulders while he knelt by the edge of the water, dipping his stained hands in so that a swirl of red expanded like a cloud around him.

It terrified me, but I was drawn to the temptation of his presence and undivided attention.

Somehow, after all that brutality, I think I trusted him even more.

How, I don't know. But, I think it had to do with something that he would never blindside me. I would know him. He wouldn't betray me.

He'd act as I expected him to.

He would be honest with me about his every fault and his every victory.

He would show me all, concealing nothing...

He splashed water over his face in an attempt to wash himself clean literally and metaphorically of the past few hours.

I took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry." He lied, not looking back at me to acknowledge my presence.

There wasn't anything that I could say.

Except there was… I should've apologized to him.

I did this to him.

I was the monster.

I watched him for a long moment, but he didn't turn his back.

He stared down into the water, still waiting for my response as he fixated on the reflection of his own red eyes.

"You aren't." I breathed. "You aren't sorry."

Then I realized, I wasn't either.

I wasn't sorry I'd had Carlisle change him, no matter how much I hated this life. I wasn't sorry I'd brought him back here. I wasn't sorry those people were dead.

I wasn't sorry about any of it.

Emmett shook his head, but he still didn't look back at me.

"I'm not." He corrected himself, agreeing with me. "Not in the slightest."

I got a stroke of bravery then at his honesty and I took a little step forward like a skittish little deer.

He shrugged his arms back into his shirt but he didn't button it as he sighed and sat back, propping up on his hands as he stared at the moon.

"And, you don't have to be. Not to me." I told him softly.

He turned at this, his bright red eyes finding mine as he opened his right shoulder to beckon me to sit down next to him.

I was nervous and my stomach was turning violent flips, especially at the glimpse of the muscles of his torso still exposed as he neglected to button his shirt up.

He was in the presence of a lady. Didn't he know any better? I was nervously rambling in my own thoughts before I focused and ever so slowly descended to sit down next to him in the grass.

I didn't dare speak in fear I would trip all over my words.

I remained on edge and sitting oddly upright and stiff in contrast to his relaxed position.

His eyes followed me and though he never thought twice before he spoke, right now he seemed to be calculating what he was going to say next.

It made me nervous.

"Rosalie…" He exhaled, running his hands through his hair sighing exasperatedly.

"You're the only person I wish I was really sorry for." Emmett seemed frustrated with himself.

"But, you're right. I'm not sorry. I enjoyed killing all those people. I honestly… enjoyed it. I'd do it again if I could." He snorted humorlessly.

"It's okay." I said softly.

"No. It's not. Your face. The way you're looking at me right now." He scrambled, but grossly misidentified the look on my face. "You see me differently now. I know it."

I did, but he didn't know exactly how and it wasn't necessarily bad…

For him.

For me, it felt like a great tragedy…

I cared about Emmett in a way that was becoming more and more dangerous with every passing moment.

I curled my knees to my chest, crossing my arms and resting my elbows on my knees. I was close enough to lean and put my head on Emmett's shoulder.

Of course I didn't.

His brilliant red eyes focused on me though, and I prepared myself to tell him something I hadn't wanted him to ever know about me.

I pursed my lips.

"I understand why you did it." I breathed. "I… I've never tasted human blood but…. I've killed before, so I understand." I admitted to him nervously.

If I had a working heart, it'd be racing.

Emmett didn't respond, but I knew he was listening to me because his eyes darted over my face.

"I killed seven people, a few months ago. And, it wasn't even for bloodlust or sustenance. It was strictly for my own delight. It was meticulously planned and expertly calculated." I started, my voice uneasy as I pushed through the words. "I spent two years indulging in the fantasy of their deaths and then I carried through with it. It was a theatrical production that I had designed down to the detail."

He looked over my face urgently, his brow furrowing in his desperate search for something.

"I chose all that… consciously. You didn't." I noticed I was trying to make him feel better.

I bit my lip, frowning as I realized that I was even choosing to darken his image of me to comfort him.

"Why'd you do it then?" He asked the question I didn't want to answer.

He mirrored my sitting position, bringing his knees up too and crossing his arms over his legs. His eyes weren't heavy, but they were on me, listening.

My mother had scolded me for sitting improperly thousands of times as a girl and I imagined she'd have something to say about my manners now.

But, it didn't matter any more.

Ever so slowly, I laid my head on Emmett's shoulder in a tender, shockingly intimate gesture. His muscles were still tensed to the point of stone, not relaxing to my touch like I'd been a butterfly landing on him and any sudden movement could scare me off.

A few moments later, he exhaled though, and I finally responded on the edge of his breath.

"Revenge."

Emmett didn't press me for any more information. I felt him nod, registering what I'd said, but I couldn't tell how he was truly responding. I didn't know what he was feeling or thinking, but I chose to put my head on his shoulder partially because I couldn't handle the pressure of his endlessly deep red eyes anymore.

Damn it.

"The people that killed you." He clarified but he didn't need to.

I didn't respond because I didn't have to.

"Immediately after, I called Carlisle and told him everything, every explicit detail." I said softly. "And, he forgave me… He dismissed what I did as justice."

I shifted closer to him as perfectly clear memories flooded my mind of those nights…

"Carlisle's a fool." I admitted, feeling like I was betraying him all over again.

This caused Emmett's head to turn.

"Why do you say that?" Emmett didn't need to ask, but he did out of support for my need for a break in the conversation with his prompted response.

"He thought… Well, he still believes that what I did to them was a fair trade for what they'd done to me. Esme and Edward too… They all think it was evenhanded."

I sneered, but he couldn't see my face.

"But it wasn't." Emmett understood me perfectly regardless of specifics, and I gave into temptation and sat back to look at him.

His eyes held knowing in them beyond what words could communicate and I exhaled as I finally shook my head. I was more honest with him in this moment than I'd ever been with anyone - including myself.

"Even as painful and horrible and gruesome that it was - what I did to them, it was still not enough for it to be called justice for what they did to me." I breathed, feeling vulnerable.

I couldn't look at him now, but he tilted my chin up with his fingertips so I'd find his eyes. My gaze was shameful, and again I turned away slightly so I wouldn't have to see his reaction to what I was about to say.

"It wasn't… It wasn't enough for me." I almost choked out the words.

"I'm sorry." Emmett said with the utmost authenticity, more authentically than anyone in my 'family' had ever spoken of my loss – even Esme as a fellow woman.

We didn't say anything for a long moment as we sat next to one another by the stream. I laid my head back on his shoulder, and I was close to him in a way I had never been close to anyone - beyond physicality.

He shifted to put his arm around me as I kept my head on his shoulder, and though I most definitely felt the weight of him on my skin, for the first time physical contact wasn't heavy.

His fingers traced an indistinct pattern on my opposite shoulder and though we definitely didn't need to respirate, it was comforting to synchronize my breath pattern with his - slow and deep.

"I know it's different, but all that was not enough for me either." He finally spoke after a long moment.

"I understand what you mean." I nodded, and I meant it.

"You do. Which is why you'll also understand what else I'm about to say." Emmett inhaled deeply.

"Dorothy didn't tell me. Not like she told you." Emmett sounded like he was in physical pain talking about this, and it made my limbs feel heavy. "But… I knew."

My instinct was to get closer to him, and so I did.

"She's strong." I said all I knew to say, my voice shaking because I was realizing again that I wasn't…

"She is." Emmett agreed, his voice rumbling in his chest full of emotion like I'd never heard in him before. "But, I never wanted her to have to be."

I felt something flutter in my stomach, and I didn't dare look up to find his eyes because I was afraid of what I'd do…

"You know, one thing my father taught me was that it was important to always be the strongest guy in every room. Knock people out or get knocked out yourself you know?…" Emmett shifted conversation tangentially.

I did know though.

From what I'd observed and from what Emmett inadvertently told me, I couldn't imagine his father teaching Emmett this on purpose man to man, just as a lesson learned from flying fists throughout his upbringing that made him have to learn this.

Emmett still hadn't remotely mentioned violence or abuse in his house and I wondered if he thought it was… normal. I certainly feared so, and it scared me even more that physical violence was something so common in his personal life at that fight club too. Everything about his life was tragically physical.

"And, one day I realized he was right, I was the strongest, so no one'd dare touch me. No one'd touch my sisters. No one'd mess with any of my friends when I was around. A few years back, I finally stood a head taller and packed a harder punch than my Pa so even he lightened up." Emmett went on finally acknowledging to me what I'd already assumed.

"I thought that was it." Emmett said, maintaining an unemotional distance from his point up until now, but I began to hear what I imagined was anger in his voice and it sent a chill down my spine.

"I thought that was all it took to protect everyone I ever cared about, but then… everybody started dying. And it didn't matter how strong I was then. Just like it didn't matter how strong I was when they… they killed my best pal Sam and… did… that… to Dorothy. It didn't matter." Emmett kept his voice even expertly, but he stumbled over the words at the end because he was tripping over his blinding rage.

It scared me.

"But, tonight…Tonight, those people were no match for me like this…" Emmett said with a dark gleam in his eye. "No one is. Not even Carlisle or the know-it-all. And… And I think I needed it to be harder to kill those bastards. I wanted to feel them struggle. I wanted them to put up a fight. I didn't want to be so much stronger I couldn't feel when it hurt…" Emmett admitted.

"I only wish I'd been able to wait long enough to hear them beg for their lousy, pathetic, lives…"

The hand that had just pulled out someone's spine up through their throat traced over my arm like I was as fragile as porcelain.

I shivered.

His delicacy with me was in great contrast to his earlier violence and it made butterflies soar in my stomach again.

"I wish it would've been harder to rip them into pieces. I wish they could've felt more pain for longer." He listed.

I thought about how expertly I'd trained so I could draw my killers' deaths out and not spill a drop of their blood. I thought about how I tortured them in unspeakable ways - how I'd heard them cry and beg for mercy…

I remembered the look on Royce's face when he saw me… I remembered how good it felt to have him begging me to stop…

How powerful I felt…

I shivered involuntarily and Emmett's fingers stopped in their tracks on my skin.

"Oh God, I'm sorry. I don't mean to be too… harsh." He apologized for his honesty, but little did he know what a monster I was and the atrocity I had been visiting in my own mind.

I was a highly skilled killer - the most proficient of assassins… I found temporary enjoyment in lording my strength over them. Now, I was so much stronger than them. They couldn't fight against me any more than I could have fought them in my human life.

It was a momentary advantage over them, but now… Now they were dead and, I was left with memory and pain of what they'd done in my human life as a now permanent impact on my monotonous immortal life.

It had only been two years and what were two years in the span of eternity?…

I would be burdened with the memory for eternity…

Emmett misunderstood my intent by saying my revenge wasn't enough. It wasn't about anything I did or didn't do to them. I imagined and executed explicit horror that couldn't be fathomed - even by Emmett. Their deaths couldn't have been more perfectly atrocious. I did exactly what I'd planned to do and if I could kill them all over again, I'd do it exactly the same.

But, it wasn't enough because…

It didn't bring me back to life.

It didn't turn back the clock.

It didn't erase their claims on my body.

It didn't give me back my dignity, my virtue, my feminine experience of beauty…

It didn't make me forget their hands on me... their…

I would never be the same person ever again.

I was theatrical and melodramatic, but none of it - not those perfectly orchestrated murders, not watching Emmett kill bad people in his vigilante justice, not confiding in his sister, not giving her my name and my life in a sad, selfish attempt at resurrection- none of it would ever make me into the Rosalie Hale that I'd once been.

I didn't recognize myself. In any of it. I wasn't there. I wasn't here.

Did I even exist any more?

No matter how long I stared at myself in the mirror, I'd never see anyone I recognized for as long as I walked this earth.

They'd taken my identity.

I'd been erased.

Forever.

"Rosalie… I'm sorry." Emmett sat back, looking at me with wide, concerned eyes. "I know that was a lot to say."

I realized then I'd disassociated. I'd frozen and I'd become all but catatonic.

Just like that night…

If only I could've fought harder. Would it have changed anything? Probably not. There were too many of them. I think I'd thought it would be over quicker if I didn't fight so hard.

Royce had patted my head like a good little girl…

I ran my hands through my hair, nervously making sure I couldn't still feel the weight of his hand as I conjured it.

I shook my head, shooting to my feet as I turned away from him.

"It's not that. I'm not squeamish." I tried to catch my breath, but didn't really need to, so it was easier momentarily just to stop.

"Then what is it?" Emmett stood to his feet with me slowly.

"Nothing." I lied, my voice going up in pitch as I looked back at him.

He narrowed his eyes slightly, but didn't push me.

I couldn't focus. I couldn't decide what to say next. I wasn't here. I didn't exist.

"Rosalie… I shouldn't have told you that." Emmett worried, starting to reach out for me.

"No. I just... I was lost in thought." I frowned, trying to remember how to form words as I crossed my arms over my chest and curled my shoulders in terrible posture, but I just wanted to be as invisible as I could and just dissolve.

"Tell me what you were thinking, then." Emmett requested not realizing he was pushing me with his hand resting on my upper arm.

Invasion overwhelmed me and I could've screamed at the sheer weight of it.

"Come on, I'm not Edward." Emmett laughed without humor, still concerned as he looked over me.

"Thank God." I clenched my jaw, looking down at my feet.

Those weren't my feet. They weren't my boots. They weren't.

Emmett chuckled, thinking my statement was something of a sarcastic joke.

It wasn't.

My head spun rapidly and I tried to focus on a specific leaf stem on a tree a few yards away as I breathed in and out.

"Rose?" Emmett tried to pull me out of the bottomless pit I had fallen into but it was no use. He put both of his hands on the tops of my shoulders to tether me to reality.

"I don't know what to say." I breathed, speaking honestly as I finally snapped back to stand right under his gaze. "I'm... sorry."

Emmett was quiet then, waiting, but I noticed something shifted in him.

Some sort of understanding.

I felt intruded on, and incredibly vulnerable.

"You don't have to be. Not to me." Emmett repeated my earlier words, this time opting to trace his fingers across my hairline, tucking my hair behind my left ear.

I could've screamed.

He let his fingers linger on my face and I watched his eyes obviously settle on my mouth in a way that made me think he would kiss me.

I was glad he didn't.

Even though it didn't need to, I felt my breath hitch, catching in my throat.

"Growing up, I saw my father deal with a lot of stuff I couldn't understand; he'd physically be in the same room as me, but in his head… in his head he was millions of miles away." Emmett began slowly, but I was immediately on high alert because I had a sinking feeling he was talking about what just happened with me too.

He'd seen me disassociate worse than I had in quite a while.

I'd been floating above and beyond reality, but this hit me like a ton of bricks and I clenched my jaw, my body shaking and shivering nervously.

It was all different - what his father went through and what I went through. But did Emmett think it was manifesting similarly? Was that connection of our responses to trauma made in his mind before he brought this up?

With this, Emmett revealed he assumed trauma was in my past, and it scared me. I didn't even know what to process it as.

But, it certainly seemed present…

Not past…

I started to shake, trembling at a frequency of vibrations I could barely register even with vampire senses.

Emmett would figure me out. I didn't want him to know.

I was… ashamed.

I felt out of control and I so desperately wanted to curate the situation.

"And he…" Emmett went on.

"I'm sorry about your father." I said robotically as I cut him off.

I felt like I was floating over my body watching myself ice him out even though I didn't really want to.

I knew what he was trying to do though. He was trying to compare that moment of disassociation in me with his father's experience of his own trauma to get me to open up…

No. Not at all.

"I am too." Emmett said evenly, knowing I was on to him as he dropped his hands.

"Really." I emphasized, trying to make him see.

"I know, and I am too. Really." Emmett nodded, assuring me.

I tightened my jaw.

"Mostly because it didn't have to be that way for him." Emmett's brow furrowed a little so I saw he was trying to remain distant emotionally from the situation in order to recall it. "For any of us."

I knew he was talking about his father and his family, but I couldn't help but think of how he was reminded by me, so in this moment... He was talking about me.

A weird guilt washed over me.

Like… like Emmett saw through me. Like my blonde hair and perfect face and heavenly smile wasn't enough to distract him.

He saw the ugliness that was festering behind my icily beautiful exterior.

He didn't look away.

"He didn't want anyone's help, and he pushed everyone away for as long as I can remember." Emmett told me like this was the answer to all the swimming questions and ominous guilt in my mind.

I pursed my lips, clenching my teeth together in worry. I felt defenses starting to rise…

"Do you think you could've actually helped him though?" I asked a bit sharper than I anticipated, but he didn't take it that way.

He didn't respond to my icy undertone, just shrugged.

"Maybe." Emmett remained distantly optimistic, but darkness was looming. "Maybe not. Maybe he needed one of those fancy doctors that looks inside your heart to see if it's all broken to pieces or something, or maybe he just needed all my Ma's saints and that God she prayed to. But, if I've learned anything living with a dozen some-odd people crammed in one house it's that there's nothin' in this world worth sufferin' through alone."

When he spoke deeply and quickly, his accent made his words soften together like melted butter, and it had quite an effect on melting me.

I took a deep breath, the scent of tobacco and thyme weakening my knees, but I maintained.

"Emmett, can I ask you something?"

He nodded.

"Anything." His voice was hopeful, like what guise he'd planned to get me to open up to him by positioning it as a conversation about his father had actually worked.

It hadn't. I wasn't stupid. I wasn't opening up.

"Would you have killed him if you'd had the chance?" I spoke softly, genuinely curious, but also selfishly and venomously making him think of something personally difficult so he'd get off my case.

"I… Well, I don't rightly know." Emmett sighed, admitting to me with a frown, falling into my trap. "Probably. I can't think real clear right now so killin' sounds about like the second best thing tangled in my head."

"And the first?" I tested though I knew the answer.

"Blood." Emmett confirmed my thought, and his eyes darkened already. "So… yeah, I probably would've killed him without thinking twice."

"Most often he was a goddamned bastard, but… Oh shit, I mean, sorry. God, I'm sorry. I don't like cursing in front of you. You're a lady."

He made a face, guilty and wide eyed over to me.

Somehow this lightened what was otherwise an unbearably heavy dialogue and I even found it in me to chuckle a little.

He smiled a light, easy smile, dimples indenting his cheeks.

"It's forgiven." I said breathily. "What were you going to say?"

"I was going to say I mean, most often… he wasn't the greatest, but… sometimes things were good. Sometimes, he was actually fun." Emmett shrugged with a little wistful smile. "Those rare moments. That's why I guess… I guess I'm glad I didn't have to kill him in the end. He got to choose his terms and I don't have to live with knowing I killed my own kin. I can't carry that shit for eternity. God, sorry again." Emmett huffed, ultimately dismissing the gravity of the situation by his lighthearted apology for cursing in front of me.

But really… I'd been the one that prompted his family to leave his father behind because of my own fear of him and my own outsider's judgement that they would all be better off. Emmett hadn't told me to separate them, but I imagined that was the best thing to do so I made the decision and prompted his mother to leave.

I let all of this happen.

I shouldered the blame even though this wasn't rational.

"Emmett, I'm really sorry for all of this." My icy heart finally melted and I made sense of the tangle in my mind and addressed the pit in my stomach. "I… can't help but feel responsible."

"No. No. No. You aren't allowed to be sorry." He said powerfully.

"I wanted them to get out… I mean, sure there was a part of me that always hoped he'd wanna be a better man and get out of here with my Ma and my family, but he had too much pride to go back to my Ma's family money and her family's land even if it meant starving his children to death or suffering himself." Emmett was candid and open in a way I wasn't used to.

"You think that's where they are, back in Alabama?" I asked him.

"Oh, I'd bet my life on it. My Ma should'a done that a long time ago…" Emmett nodded unemotionally, not even characteristically pausing to acknowledge his word choice had been amusing because he didn't have a life anymore.

He was dead.

"Now the real question is: was that piano destroyed before or after my Ma left?" Emmett was fixated.

I hadn't considered any of that and I took a deep swallow.

"She was pretty adamant about not leaving when I talked to her." I recalled tightly.

"Before, then." Emmett answered with a humorless snort, imagining this unforgivable crime is what finally made his mother decide to leave and take Emmett's sisters with her.

"When they woke up to Dorothy missing, I imagine things got pretty… intense. Dorothy was… well, Dorothy was his favorite before everything, and my Pa doesn't really process being hurt himself without trying to hurt someone else; he knew smashing that piano was the best way to hurt my Ma 'cause he hates her for not being able to control Dorothy…"

A pit formed in my stomach.

Emmett knew too well the dynamics of hate and resentment within what was supposed to be a safe structure and model of love for him.

Then, I thought about my own parents…

They loved each other right? Mostly, they were distant life partners, just sharing a home and a goal to socially and economically reign superior by using their joint creation and prized possession: a beautiful daughter.

My parents didn't laugh or touch each other or smile or kiss - not like Carlisle and Esme…

Not like I imagined…

"Dorothy's safe." I told Emmett like it was a promise even though I didn't know for sure.

I just imagined…

"I trust you." Emmett told me three words I didn't think would mean so much to me as he turned toward me and gave me a sincere little half smile.

The air was thick between us and as we turned to walk back to find the others and start toward Alaska I felt his presence next to me filling the air like never before.

"You know, maybe in a couple decades it'd be safe to check on her. Discreetly of course." I filled his head with a fantasy.

I could tell he fancied it by the glittering optimism in his eyes.

"Really?"

"I'd imagine so." I couldn't see why not. "She'll be happy - with a husband and a house full of kids that play in the front yard. It might make you happy to see."

My words trailed out of my mouth like a ribbon of hopefulness, but it seemed to ring in his ears because he nodded, with a glorious smile.

"What about your family?" Emmett asked. "Have you seen them since?"

"They're doing fine." I clenched my jaw recalling the last time I'd seen them.

I looked in on them the day I killed Royce. I was distracted and angry of course, but it made me angrier to see my parents fighting over money in the living room when I looked in on them.

"Do you miss them?"

"Not really. We weren't close." I said sourly.

"That's a shame. For them." Emmett's eyes held something in it I couldn't identify as he looked over at me.

But, it was something that calmed every nerve ending in my body, even when he put his hands on the tops of my shoulders and stopped us in our tracks.

"Because it'd be a mighty big privilege to be close to you." His eyes found mine, darting from pupil to pupil as he admired me in the moonlight, obviously awestruck by my beauty.

I thought he might try and kiss me, and it made my stomach twist into knots. But again, he didn't even try.

I found myself with a little smile on my lips.

"You know Rose, I haven't much thought about immortality before." Emmett exhaled and I worried he'd begun to feel its ominous oppression like I had.

I tried to remain removed as I returned his gaze.

"We'll live forever..." Emmett recalled.

"Yes." I responded evenly, trying to read what was in his eyes, but it was all just enthusiasm.

"So, what do you think we'll be doing in a couple decades or hell, a hundred years from now?" Emmett asked, seeming to entertain some thoughts in his head that pleased him because his eyes sparkled brilliantly.

"Hmm, well, I don't know." I said, but I think now I was actually starting to get some ideas…