Author's Note: I'm gonna give you a bit of a heads up; this chapter is more... gruesome than the two previous. There are some unpleasant thoughts, but it's all part of the story. (They get even better next chapter! Yum!) Feedback is still, as always, loved. Maybe if I get amazing feedback I can stop being sick! How beautiful that would be!
Disclaimer: As unfortunate as it is, I still am not Stephenie Meyer and I still own no part of Twilight other than my own copy of the books and what not. Even if my friend Kayla and I have split up the characters and decided who "owns" who, we don't technically own them... So depressing!
Five People Edward Cullen Has Killed: Chapter Three: Cathy Barnes
When I was walking around, searching through people's thoughts, I tended to avoid the women. It wasn't just that most of their thoughts were pure, but a real gentlemen didn't harm women and that characteristic stayed with me, even during my monstrous phase.
Until I read her thoughts.
I had been walking by a river, aimlessly, in San Francisco. It was twilight--the safest time for my kind to be out. I was sitting in the branches of a large tree, overlooking the river and what I could see of the town far, far down the hillside. I was thirsty, but something about the way the way the moon and stars were reflected off the water as the current disrupted the perfect image calmed me.
I was alone in my thoughts until three other sets of thoughts joined mine. Two of the thoughts were incomprehensible and unintelligent--infant thoughts, I presumed. The other person's thoughts, though, were as clear as the night. Her intentions, how she was to escape, who she was going to become... there wasn't a single feeling in this woman's thoughts; she was seemingly pure evil.
Most people's thoughts have emotions, much like a person talks aloud. Emotions of joy, fear, elation, disappointment, regret, apathy--all different types. But this woman, her thoughts were ice-cold, emotionless. What she was planning to do! It was wretched.
No mother or woman otherwise would relish the thought of drowning her two twin sons, let alone actually acting on it.
But that was only part of it. The imaginative process of her mind saw everything to the point, nothing blurry or foggy. She was going to wrap a cloth around each child's mouth, as to suffocate them. Then she was to kneel down and place both kids face first into the shallow, murky water where the current doesn't move the water significantly, and press their bodies down into the water, forcing their lungs full of water. She wasn't going to let up on the babies until she felt their bodies stop resisting. Only then would she weaken her grip and let their bodies float down river.
That was step one. Step two involved her going back to her home to the husband she never wanted. Here she planned to proceed to the dresser in their room where he kept his pistol.
She envisioned herself shooting him in the thigh with an evil smile on her lips. No, she wasn't going to kill him, she just wanted to make him live with that pain, that memory, his whole life. She wanted him to remember her face, particularly her evil grimace in that last moment. She wanted to haunt him after she was gone. And if they were to ever run into each other later on in life, she wanted him to be scared shit-less. She wanted to see him turn ghost-white at the simple mention of her name, or every time her face intruded his thoughts.
I wouldn't--couldn't--let this inhumane woman carry out her plans. I had to spare those two boys and their father.
From her thoughts, I could tell that these two baby boys hadn't even been named.
She didn't qualify as human. She may have very well been the devil herself.
Finally, after waiting so long, the woman made it out from the trees of the surrounding forest, a child in each of her arms. She came close to where I was, edging towards the river. Once she was where I wanted her, I jumped from the tree and landed beside her. I jumped with enough force to make a sound, one that shook the ground.
Instead of being horrified, she turned and looked at me, her eyes stone cold and her face filled with hatred.
Neither of us moved, instead we stared at each other. She started to turn away, to carry on with her business, but before she had the chance, I grabbed the two sleeping infants from her arms, holding them close into my chest.
A hiss shot from her lips, her hands clawed at her side. I could hear her teeth grinding together, an atrocious sound, bone being sawed off. She had the attitude and reactions of a newborn vampire. Even her eyes were coal black.
Gone for no more than a second, I ran deep into the surrounding forest and left the boys there where they would be out of harms way.
She didn't stand a chance. She couldn't outrun me, she couldn't harm me. She and I both knew it.
With all the force in my body, I launched her body into a tree on the other side of the river. Before she had time to fall all the way down to the ground, I picked her up by the neck, my thumb applying pressure right below her jaw. Her body was weak, plush-doll-like, under my grip.
Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she twitched and convulsed all over. By her head's deformed shape I could tell that the impact of my throw shattered her skull into tiny fragments, if not dust. Her jaw no longer held its own and fell slack, her tongue flopping out along side it.
For good measure, I cracked her neck in two. I don't know how, but somehow she wasn't dead yet, despite her body's limp, broken state. She hadn't even screamed.
With a growl, I flashed my teeth, coated in the venom I was secreting, and I sunk my teeth into her neck, making sure to puncture and do a work on her jugularis interna and her jugularis externa (her internal jugular and her external jugular). The blood gushed between my sweet, welcoming lips like a water fountain's liquid flows into a human's mouth to quench the human thirsts. When I felt her heart beat slow, I quickly sucked the last quart or so of her blood and dealt with the body.
Instead of charring her, as I did to the rest, I tied her to a rock and dumped her in the river.
Not having forgotten, I rushed to the two boys. They were still sleeping (it's not like the killing process took me that long), not seeming to have heard anything. I took them in my arms and, after making sure I was presentable in the event that I should run into anyone, I returned them to their house which I had seen in their mother's thoughts.
Silently and quickly I placed them in their bassinets and left through the window, retreating into the dark of night, leaving no evidence of my existence.