Secret Beneath the Roses
Extra Chapter
A/N: I'm having a bit of a writer's block with the last chapter, so I decided to post this just as a bit of fun. It's just a first chapter of how I was originally thinking of starting the series, but ended up scrapping it because I thought Rosalie would be too bitchy in this one and didn't see an angle on how to redeem her with Alice.
Alice always admired her older sister Rosalie. She was a beauty, long blonde hair cascading down her shoulders in perfect ringlets, and with a beauteous tall figure that would make any outfit on her look amazing. Her presence garnered the relentless attention of males and females, which swamped her at every opportune second hoping that she would confine in them her deepest secrets, let them in on the best gossip and generally trust them as her closest friends. Everyone wanted to be her, if not be able to talk to her (or in the case for boys, date her) and Alice was no exception to the rule.
She wished she had a tall curvy body instead of the thin ballerina one she had. She wished her hair was luxurious and bright instead of dark, spiked and unmanageable. She wished her voice was full and rich instead of tinny and whimsical. And oh, how she wished she had the confidence of her elder sister. She walked and talked with a carefully put together poise, always knowing what to say to get under people's skin; to get them to do what she wanted, to make them feel as if she really liked them and needed them. But unlike Alice, they didn't know her sister's other side.
Under that beautiful facade she was mean, arrogant, and self absorbed. She was extremely manipulative above all, and wouldn't care who she had to bend to her will to get what she badly wanted; this included complete strangers, friends, and even family. Alice could only recount with a shiver all the times Rosalie's sugar and spice words had slipped under her skin, invading her brain with sweet promises of eternal gratitude, and spiced comments of what would happen if you didn't offer assistance. And her fake pained look of betrayal if you hesitated or rejected her was killer on the heart despite Alice knowing she really hadn't hurt her feelings. She'd stick out her full red lips in a childish pout, upturn her brows and let tears fill her shimmering brown eyes. There was no way Alice could reject her then, it pained her too much to do so, but it also pained her to agree to the demands.
Rosalie wasn't considerate of what she demanded and it was no easy feat to satisfy her. At least with people that didn't know her as well she tried to keep up with appearances but with family her false pretenses fell away. Especially with Alice. Alice seemed to get the brunt of her foul moods and she didn't know why. It was as if Rosalie liked picking on Alice because she was smaller and delicate and because no matter how despicably she acted Alice would still admire and love her sister.
But despite being a total bitch to Alice most of the time Rosalie did care for her younger sister even if she did try to hide it. She'd go along with Alice on her long shopping sprees without complaint, she'd help her with a last minute school project even if she had other things to do, and she'd make sure that no one in school dared harm Alice, all with a lofty air of indifference. Alice didn't mind, she was just happy to have her sister to herself in those rare moments, when she wasn't too busy partying or hanging out with friends. She just wondered what Rosalie thought sometimes. The blonde's actions didn't always make sense and even Edward, their brother had trouble reading her mind and he had mind reading powers. He said her mind was too thickly shrouded and practically impenetrable. And she never stayed in his presence long if she found out that he was trying to break through her barriers. What was she hiding in her mind that had to be so carefully guarded? What was it that she couldn't share with her adopted vampire family? Eventually the Cullen's had given up on trying to get through her thick defenses and just let her be. As long as she wasn't causing trouble to humans or making problems to the town, she could go do her own thing.
"See you at school tomorrow, Alice!" Bella called out as Alice headed towards her beige Beetle.
"Bye Bella," Alice called back, watching the young brunette girl walk over to Edward's Volvo. It had only been a months time but already Bella and Edward were inseparable from the hip. Alice just hoped her brother knew what he was doing. She was his singer and that made his desire for blood even harder to control. So far he had kept it under control but... Alice quickly concentrated her mind and her gift went into action. She saw flashes of green and blue and then a clear image of Edward in the forest at night. He was panting heavily, eyes dark and thirst burning in his throat but he had made it from Bella's house. He hasn't hurt her, Alice smiled. Alice let her mind drift out of the vision, until the image was a small dot of color surrounded by a dark black tunnel and then with a pop it was gone. This hadn't taken more than a minute and by now Edwards car had peeled out of the parking lot of the school.
"So, since your visions over now, can I get a ride?"
Alice swiveled her head fast to the right to see Rosalie standing next to her, wearing a wide smile and jiggling Alice's car keys from her left hand. Alice huffed and grabbed the keys from her before turning to her side of the car. "What happened to your ride?" Alice asked popping into the drivers seat as Rosalie hopped into the passenger one. "Weren't you supposed to ride with that boy, Mike or something, today. To the movies?" Alice questioned as she threw the car into reverse and out of the parking lot.
"Well," Rosalie drawled. "I decided I didn't want to go with him to the movies. And that I'd rather spend time with you today." She looked at her manicured nails as she said this and then flashed Alice a smile to which the younger girl sighed.
"What do you want from me, Rosalie?" She knew the blonde had to want something or else she wouldn't cancel the event.
"Nothing. Nothing at all," Rosalie said in an airy tone that implied she might be hiding something.
"Rosalie, just come out with it. If you need me to do a favor for you just ask instead of going through the whole innocent act like you do with all your victims."
Rosalie tsked at this but her airy tone remained. "You really can't believe me when I say I want to hang out with you? It's been a while. About two weeks since we've watched a movie or painted our nails together." Rosalie trailed a finger down Alice's arm causing the younger girl to frown.
Seeing that Alice still didn't believe her she huffed and sat back in her seat, arms crossed over her chest. "It hurts when you don't believe me."
Alice rolled her eyes at this. Her sister could pretend all she liked but she wasn't really hurt. Despite that a part of Alice told her to stop acting so harsh and believe her sister. It did make her happy that Rosalie finally would deign her the time of day rather than party with someone else. But she wasn't going to reveal that. She had learned long ago that Rosalie played games and if you showed too much emotion in these mind games she'd take advantage of that.
When Alice still hadn't said anything, just turned down the road to their house, Rosalie let out another huff of air. "Fine, I did it because Mike said something nasty about the vision you had last time in class. There, are you happy? Now will you believe me that I wanted to hang out with you?" Alice felt her stomach do a giddy back flip and her lips start to split into a smile but she forced them into a thin line and breathed heavily through her nose.
"What did he say about me?" Alice asked, trying not to sound like she appreciated what Rosalie had done.
"Nothing you haven't heard before." Rosalie said quickly and dismissively. "But now that we're hanging out what do you wanna do? Emmett and Jasper aren't at home and I'm pretty sure Edward won't be either since he'll be too busy trading Dna with icky Bella." Rosalie leaned towards Alice and wrinkled her nose in disgust. Bella was the one exception to how Rosalie treated her compared to other students at school. She was as mean to the high school girl as she was to her vampiric family. No one knew why.
"We have the whole house to our selves? So what do you wanna do? Pj party, movie night, karaoke?" Rosalie leaned closer in to Alice, her cold breath brushing across Alice's cheek and ear. Alice held back an inward shiver and shifted in her seat away.
"We could watch a movie," Alice finally commented as she pulled the car into the driveway.
"Good idea." Rosalie smiled as she got out of the car and lead the way into the house. "I have the perfect movie in mind." She dumped her bags on the couch and flicked on the screen. "Alice get the snacks ready this time." She ordered and Alice rolled her eyes. She was always the one to prepare the snacks. Dumping her school stuff by the door she made her way into the kitchen and rummaged through the fridge pulling out two baggies of chilled animal blood. She made her way back to the living room to see Rosalie sprawled out on the couch feet up on the cushions. Alice took the only available spot by the edge and handed Rosalie the blood bag.
"What movie did you pick out?" Alice inquired, sipping on her blood as the characters on screen moved silently through a farm task.
"It's a niche French indie film. Heard it was good. Probably better than the mainstream pop garbage Mike was gonna take me to." Rosalie commented casually, taking a sip, her gaze on the screen. They watched the movie in companionable silence, Alice glad she had bothered to pick up French along the way in her many years of existence. It was really a pretty language.
Rosalie started shifting around halfway through the movie, never being able to find the perfect spot on the couch despite having the majority of the space. Alice's eyes flickered minutely to her every time she did and then back to the screen, a bit annoyed. Rosalie made a bit fuss of it, huffing and puffing as if it was the most saddening thing in the world that she couldn't get comfortable. Occasionally she'd brush against Alice startling her hand when she went to take a sip. After the third time Alice noticed that Rosalie was doing it on purpose. Tsking she gave Rosalie a pointed look only to have the blonde smirk and stick out her tongue. "Bored?" Alice asked.
Rosalie shook her head. "How could I ever be bored in your presence, Alice dear?" She said this mockingly and then flipped off the TV screen. "Let's talk." She said flipping around so that her head was now in Alice's cold lap and her feet lounging up the couches back. "What's new with you at school?"
Alice shrugged. Honestly she would have though Rosalie would have gotten bored of asking this decade after decade of going to school. But apparently it interested her how people in each decade acted around Alice's gift. She never said it out loud but Alice's acceptance into teenage social circles was important for some reason. "It's the same. Classes going great, people still don't know I'm a vampire, Bella's coming out of her shell and talking more to me," Alice ticked off her statements on her fingers and when she reached Bella's name Rosalie wrinkled her nose.
"That's good. That reminds me I have an important event coming up for school recently."
Alice arched a brow knowing where this was going. She flicked the TV on again and turned her attention back to the film where some fighting was going on now. "Uh huh and what's that event?" Alice feigned indifference in the hopes that she wouldn't crumble to Rosalie's willful way with words.
"You know what I'm talking about. Don't be coy," Rosalie's voice lowered on coy and she ran her fingers up the front of Alice's chest to her chin before pulling her head down so that Alice could face her. Alice frowned down at Rosalie's beautiful face on her lap, her hair spread out in a halo around her before reverting her eyes back up to the screen with renewed concentration. "The prom is coming up shortly and I just wanted to know if I would happen to win the vote for prom queen and prom princess."
Rosalie was vain to a fault. She knew she was beautiful and prided herself on it. She took every chance to let the humans know this and even the vampires weren't free from her proclamations. She'd parade around the house in skin hugging outfits if not outright naked at times. It really wasn't healthy and Alice found herself having to avert her gaze often.
Alice sighed but didn't say anything. When Alice still didn't move to speak Rosalie sat up Alice's chin in her palm. "Alice," she whined, pouting her lips and pulling herself into Alice's lap. Alice moved her head to the side to avoid Rosalie's increased closeness but the blonde looped her left arm around the pixie's neck and pressed her face into her shoulder. "Alice," she whined. "Please. Just one quick look into the future. Please? I ditched Mike to hang out with you. The least you can do is just tell me."
Alice locked her jaw. Of course she knew that Rosalie had only hung out with her because she needed something from her. She could ask caring questions, be a lot of fun to be around but she always had an ulterior motive if she did spend time with you. And if it wasn't about pulling information about Alice's mundane life from her it was requests for clothes or visions. And even though concentrating on a vision was easy it was the fact that Rosalie wanted her to do something after pretending that she didn't.
"Rosalie I'm pretty sure your going to win, just like you do all the time in every school." You'd think Rosalie would get tired of winning some childish competition that was destructive to self esteem but no, she was still insistent on winning them in every school they went to.
"But Alice," she whined, her voice vibrating Alice's body from how closely her mouth was pressed to her shoulder. She was laying on the sugar now, her tone so sickly sweet. "It'll mean the world to me if you do. Surely you want me to be happy. Surely you don't want me to cry."
Vampires couldn't even cry.
"Rosalie no. I said I wasn't doing favors for you."
Rosalie was quiet for a beat and then "Alice," she hissed, her nails scraping against Alice's back hard enough to rip through her turtleneck. Alice tried not to let it bother her, it was time to stand up to her elder sister.
"There's no one home to stop me from hurting you. You will give me what I want." And there was her spice as predicted. So much scarier in reality than in theory. Alice felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Rosalie had her hands placed around Alice's neck in the perfect position to rip off her head. As if feeling the fact Alice recognized this she flexed her hands more tightly around her neck.
"If you don't I swear..." Rosalie trailed off and Alice suddenly felt sick of playing these games. She was tired of having to give in to Rosalie but she was also tired of having to resist the giving of information.
"Fine," she huffed. And the grip on her neck relaxed. Closing her eyes she focused on the future, five months from now. The surrounding world faded away and she was thrown into pitch black, a small colorful image filling in like a puzzle being slowly being piece together. When it filled in she felt her body stiffen immensely and her mouth opened in shock. She was having a vision alright and it was about Rosalie but it wasn't the right vision. It was wrong, so definitely wrong. She tried to peel herself away from the vision but she was stuck between wanting to see it, with horrified curiosity but disgust. The vision eventually faded and she became aware of the fact that Rosalie was not on her lap anymore but staring at her with a mix of concern and annoyance. "What happened?" She asked impatiently. "You opened your mouth in a horrified scream and looked as if you were ready to sprint off and run."
Alice shook her head to dispel the vision she had seen but she couldn't, the vision so vivid in her mind that she could still hear Rosalie's cries in her ears. "I can't tell you." She licked her dry lips and made to get off the couch, needing to cool her head, to get rid of the hunger now growling in her lower belly.
But Rosalie was fast and pushed her back to the couch before she could get far. "Tell me what you saw!" She hissed. "What went wrong? Did I lose?" She placed both hands next to Alice's head and glared down at her, anger swirling in her dark black eyes.
Alice shook her head, afraid to say what she had seen. "It's nothing. Really"
"You're lying. Spit it out. Now"
Alice really didn't want to say but anger filled her veins after the initial shock had worn off. If Rosalie was so adamant about knowing then she would tell her. It wasn't embarrassing for Alice since she wasn't the one doing anything.
Alice told her how Rosalie had just been pleasuring herself and calling out Alice's name in the vision she had, the pixie enjoying the look of shock on the blonde's face.
"There's no way I would do that." She hissed, but in her eyes there was panic. Real panic.
A/N: So yup, pretty different from the original first chapter.
