A/N: Sorry for the long wait. I had serious writer's block on all fronts. Thanks to all who keep me going on this story.

I hunted alone more and more often. Edward trusted me more after seeing me in town, seeing me deny my natural impulses. So once Carlisle and Esme left the house for the day, Edward would frequently leave me to my own devices.

We still hadn't found a way to get at the rest of the men whom I'd marked for death. Two weeks had passed since Smythe's death. No one suspected me, of course, although the barman had talked about the mysterious woman whom Smythe had followed into the alley. I was, of course, dead. But I confess that I was a tad disappointed. I wanted the men to fear me, and what good was it if no one knew that I had crushed him to death?

Everyone in town was at least clear that Smythe had been murdered, but they were, naturally, looking for a man, a large man, someone they could understand capable of the damage that Smythe had clearly sustained: the crushed larynx, the broken ribs, the internal bleeding. Smythe's body had been an horrific thing for the people who'd found him, his face bloated, the whites of his eyes blood red, the black bruising that covered his throat. The word had spread from the lowest circles of Rochester society—the man and the prostitute who had found him, stumbling over him on their way to their assignation—to the highest, to the King household. And all segments were worried. Someone—something—dangerous was loose on the streets of Rochester. If only they knew.

I was restless and frustrated. Edward had taken to visiting Rochester nearly every day, usually right at twilight, trying to find out the routes that the men took home, trying to find a moment when they'd be alone. Perhaps they cut through alleys or had a habit of walking down by the water's edge. Something, anything, just a moment when they could be grabbed.

According to Edward, he found nothing.

I didn't like leaving this up to him. I felt more than capable of doing my own reconnaissance work. But he wouldn't allow it, in spite of my admirable job when we went down to town to hunt Smythe.

"I was with you then, Rosalie. To allow you to go into town alone is to expose us all," he'd said on more than one occasion.

I thought he was regretting helping me to kill Smythe. I thought it in his presence to see his response. "I can't deny that I dislike killing. I've done too much of it. But I also know that Smythe was too damaged to continue to live. I can accept what we have done."

But he didn't know if the remainder of the men needed killing. I knew that they did.

So I suppose that my actions that Wednesday were to be expected. I couldn't wait any longer.

It was a rainy, grey day. I'd gone out for an early hunt, before Carlisle and Esme left for once, but instead of leaving the house and heading north as I usually did, I headed east. Toward town.

No one had noticed that I'd dressed in one of the skirt sets that Edward had purchased for me. I usually hunted in slacks, but for some reason, everyone failed to notice my attire. They were busy preparing for their day. I'd tucked away the veiled hat I'd worn to kill Smythe. I'd arranged my hair with care, and my face was framed with delicate pin curls, as it had been frequently so in life. I wanted to be at least vaguely recognizable.

I wanted them to see me.

I no longer needed the maps of routes we'd drawn up. Edward had marked each day's routes on the map of Rochester, and I'd pored over them so that I knew where my prey was at any given moment.

The clock in the town square read 8:32 when I passed. Everywhere, men were leaving for work. Billy Jeffries, Robert Stephens, and Ted Jackson would be among them. No one paid particular attention to me, other than to admire me as I passed. And I was used to that, so I paid them no mind. Were they to approach me, I could easily snap their necks. The knowledge surrounded me like protective armor. I feared nothing. Their smells were tantalizing, and I found that my mouth stayed filled with venom. I knew my eyes would be black, impenetrable. So much the better. Blood from my last hunt kept the thirst at a manageable level. And my determination kept me focused.

As I approached the Jeffries home, I noticed the door opening. I crossed the street, being careful to watch my speed, to keep it the plodding pace of the human. I made sure the veil was in place before I turned toward his house, to where he was walking. I made myself still, like a statue. Jeffries eventually stiffened, sensing someone watching him, and he turned toward me. I'm sure I made quite a figure, dressed entirely in black, my golden hair cascading over my shoulders, standing still as only a vampire can. I enjoyed the way his face paled, the way his pace quickened, the way he threw panicked looks over his shoulder. I decided to follow, to lengthen the sweet torture.

I followed him down the street, one block, two blocks. My shoes made a sharp triptrap on the sidewalk. It seemed to echo each time we passed an alley between the buildings. I could tell from the stiff set of Jeffries shoulders that he knew I followed.

He glanced over his shoulder in the third block, and I was careful to freeze in my unsettling stillness once more. His face was beginning to look purely terrified.

I loved it.

He sped up, and so did I. He could run, of course, and I would always be able to catch him. Each time he looked over his shoulder, I froze, staring at him with an intensity that no human could match. At the fifth block, Stephens and Jackson met up with him, emerging from a side street.

"What's the matter with you, Jeffries?" Jackson asked, seeing his pale face and wide eyes.

Jeffries whispered, "Behind me. She's following me."

I froze once more, allowed Stephens and Jackson to see me. There were few others on this section of street, so I decided to show them that I was not human. I leapt across the street in a single bound, and when I was across from them, having startled a preoccupied man sitting on a bench—"Where did you come from, missy?" he asked—I hissed, bared my teeth in their direction, and then vanished down a side alley.

I could hear their exclamations of fear. I could almost smell their fear. I loved every bit of it. I waited for them to scurry like rats down the street, and then I calmly walked the way that Jackson and Stephens had come, using their scents to retrace their steps, until I knew the route that they had taken. They lived most distant from the bank, very near one another. In fact, you could see one house from the other. Their chosen route ran through some fairly deserted alleys. I could tell from their scents, so easy to identify and single out, that very few others took the same route.

It was perfect. I could take them together. I would need Edward's help, and to enlist it, I would have to admit that I'd travelled down to Rochester alone. He would find out anyway, once the three men opened their mouths, as they inevitably would. The rumors would eventually reach Edward, and would perhaps meet Esme's and Carlisle's ears as well. Sooner or later, they would find out about my involvement. There would eventually be a catalyst for our move. I'd always known that. But I also knew that Esme and Carlisle would forgive me, just as they'd forgiven Edward for temporarily forsaking their lifestyle. I felt slight guilt knowing I was taking advantage of their natures, but I needed to do this, to make sure that these men would not survive to see their next years.

I made my way back up to the house, reliving each moment, each exquisite look of terror on the faces of the men I so loathed. I was once again thirsty, so I made sure that I took another deer on the way home. I imagined that the bones breaking in the animal's neck were those of the men below. I looked so forward to hearing them snap.

Edward knew the moment I returned that I'd been among humans. He could smell them on me. His face paled.

"You went to town?" His eyes were wide, his voice low and dangerously calm.

"Yes. Yes, I did." I met his eyes in a gesture of defiance. I was not ashamed.

"How could you do that? How could you put us all in danger? Does your insanity know no bounds?"

"No one was hurt."

"Did someone see you?"

"Only people who won't live past tomorrow."

He raised an eyebrow at me. "You let them see you?"

"Yes. I did. I want them to know I'm coming. They won't tell anyone, I'm sure." I didn't believe that, but Edward didn't need to know that. "Who would believe they saw Rosalie Hale on the street? Who would think I had a reason for haunting their steps? After all, a stranger killed me, not one of their golden children." My voice was brittle.

"You cannot expose us like this, especially to meet your own ends. If you are to be a part of this family, you cannot threaten us this way. You seem to think the only thing you are risking is our disapproval. You know Carlisle and Esme will forgive almost anything you could do. You fail to understand that there are threats bigger than losing their respect. There are forces outside this family that could destroy us all."

I sat in silence. I didn't know what he meant, but I was not going to allow him to make me regret my decision to allow those men to see me. I would never regret it.

Edward was suddenly beside me, gripping my arm in his stony hand. He shook me. "You know so little," he hissed. He marched me into Carlisle's office, stood me in front of a very old picture of Carlisle with some men I didn't recognize. "Aro. Caius. Marcus. Do you know who they are?"

I shook my head sullenly.

"The Volturi."

"And what are they to me?" I asked coldly. "Wall decoration."

"Let me assure you, they are a great deal to you." Edward shook me again. "They are the ruling class, and should they find out about what you are doing, the risks you are taking, you will doom us all."

"To what? We can't be killed."

"Oh, we can. They have vampires who will tear you limb from limb. They will burn each and every piece, every hair from your head, before those pieces can find one another. You will die, and you will suffer. And if they catch you, we all will."

Edward was never going to make me admit that my behavior was wrong. I snatched my arm from his grasp.

"Then we won't get caught. But I am not going to stop what I am doing. If need be, let the Volturi kill me. Do you honestly think I care? I will tell them that you didn't know, that I acted alone."

"They will know I knew. Aro has a gift very similar to mine. He will know your thoughts. All of them. All the thoughts you have ever had. And he will know mine. Perhaps Carlisle and Esme will escape, perhaps not. But you and I will burn."

I remained defiant. "I will not stop."

Edward hissed, "I am not asking that you stop. Merely that you follow my rules. The rules I had set up as a condition of my helping you. If not, you will no longer be welcome in this family. I will make sure that you never return to this home. You will be alone."

It was the one threat that could reach me. The loss of Esme was the only thing I feared.

I finally bowed my head a little. "I will follow you," I said. The words cut my throat like glass.

For the rest of the day, we were silent. I think we both wondered if Carlisle or Esme would hear rumors before they got home. I knew they'd spread like wildfire in a town fearing for its own safety in the wakes of my murder and Smythe's mysterious killing.

It became quite apparent after they returned that neither had heard anything. They chattered about their days, asked about ours, and didn't seem to notice the unnatural silence—unnatural even for our unusual household—that had descended around Edward and me.

It was another day or two before I told Edward the useful information I had from my ill-fated journey into town. He, of course, already knew, having read it in my mind. He knew as well as I that it would be our best bet for reaching Stephens and Jackson. The danger would be in getting them at the same time. One could not be allowed to escape.

"It means that I will, unfortunately, have to help, to hold one." Edward's lip curled in distaste.

"What if I could incapacitate both at once? Hit their heads together? Hold them together? I'm certainly strong enough." I wanted to prevent Edward from participating any more than he had to, both to keep him going and to protect him in the event that we were caught.

"That might work," Edward said thoughtfully. "I'll have to be ready in case one gets away."

I nodded. I could allow him to be backup. They could not be allowed to escape.

We ironed out the plan. We would carry it out the next day.

So early the next morning, we prepared ourselves again to commit murder. The hat, the change of clothes, the overfeeding…all brought back memories of the day Smythe died. We would stow my clothes just as we'd done that day, we'd amble into town slowly, we'd position ourselves in the most deserted alley that the two men ventured through on their way to work, we'd do what needed to be done, and we'd return home.

So just before eight o'clock, we found ourselves waiting in an alley, flattened in a doorway to prevent making a silhouette that would naturally cause fear in my victims. It seemed like a very long time before the footsteps sounded, echoed off the aging brick walls. I thought more than once that I was thankful that my vampire body didn't cramp.

When the footsteps fell, when we heard the murmured conversation of the men, appropriately about the unusual apparition they'd seen earlier in the week, when they were very nearly to the place where they would certainly see us, Edward stepped out in front of them.

"Well, hello," Jackson said in surprise. "I didn't see you there." He looked nervous. Stephens looked terrified, and he began to back away. In one leap, I was over them, behind them, blocking their way back out of the alley. They heard my feet land behind them with a sharp click, and they turned to see the very thing they'd been fearing for days.

"That's funny. We saw you," I purred.

"Who are you?" squeaked Stephens.

"I'm hurt. You don't recognize me?" I pulled the veil back from my eyes. They still hadn't reached the gold color of the rest of my family. I'm sure a thin outline of red was visible around the black.

Both men's eyes bulged. "R-r-r-rose?" Jackson finally stammered.

"I prefer Miss Hale, if you don't mind. I didn't quite make it to Misses, did I? You boys made sure of that."

"We-we-we…" Stephens stammered.

"You don't seem to enjoy my company any more." I stepped forward. Edward simply waited behind the men, whose attention was all on me. I reached out a cold finger and touched Jackson's cheek. He shrank away. "Now, that's not nice. You used to want me to touch you."

Stephens was a shade of green. He looked as if he might be sick. I turned toward him. "And you…you used to want to be near me very much. So much that you just took what you wanted, didn't you?" I grabbed his neck. "Now it's my turn." I began squeezing, lifted him off the ground. Jackson began backing up. He backed into Edward and then spun around so fast that he fell. I took two steps forward, still holding Stephens by the neck, and wedged my foot up against his chin, pressing down on his neck until he stopped moving. "Careful, careful," I tsked. "You wouldn't want to get hurt now, would you?"

"You…killed…Smythe…" Jackson forced out of his throat.

"Oh, yes, I did!" I said brightly. Stephens's face was purple, the vessels in his eyes rupturing as he choked. I jerked my hand in a twisting motion, as a human would shoo a fly, and heard the delightful snap of the bones in his neck. The useless clawing at my arm ceased at once, and his head flopped backward. Jackson let out a frightened sob. I threw Stephens carelessly aside. His body hit the wall with a thud. More bones broken, and a few bricks as well. He lay in a crumpled mass.

Jackson said, "I…I…"

I lessened the pressure on his neck. I was curious what he had to say.

"I don't…know…why…" he gasped.

"Why I'm killing you?" I asked, incredulous.

"We…deserve…to…die…" he was having trouble breathing, his voice ragged and faint. "We don't…know…why…we killed…you."

I immediately began pressure once more. "You killed me because you are weak. You killed me because you are diseased. You killed me because you thought you could get away with it."

I sat down on his chest and replaced my foot with my hands. I bent my face down to his, watching his eyes begin to bulge as I squeezed the life out of him. "And I'm killing you because you need it." He stopped his useless struggling, and died.

I stood, and spat venom near him. Their proximities, no matter how abhorrent to me, appealed to my thirst. But it was manageable, so much fainter than my hate. I gazed down at Jackson's face, then walked over to Stephens. Both were horrifying spectacles.

"Shall we hide them?" I asked, not particularly caring.

"No, leave them here where they will be found. There is no need to prolong the inevitable," Edward answered. I couldn't read the look in his eyes.

The deaths of these two men would definitely start the rumors once more. Hallowell and Jeffries would be harder to get to, and Royce nearly impossible. But I would get to them. And they would suffer and die just as their friends had.

We turned and walked out of the alley, pausing to make sure that we would not be seen. The street was not crowded, but it was not unoccupied either. I was glad that no blood had been spilled. I looked merely slightly disheveled, and Edward reached over to straighten my hat, pull the veil down a little more, to shield my eyes from passersby.

"Thank you," I said simply. I meant for more than the hat, and Edward, naturally, knew that.

He nodded curtly and took my hand, for cover more than anything, and we walked slowly down the street.

A scream sounded from behind us. "Dead! They're dead!" a man's voice cried.

Found already. We turned curiously, as did the others on the street. We were forced to mimic what the people around us did. If we behaved differently, we would be noticed. We looked at one another, at the people around us who were drifting back toward the alley. Murmurs reached our ears: Dead! Still warm! Two men! Who? Who could have? My ears picked my name out of the panicked babble, and for a moment, I felt fear. Could we have been found out so easily?

But no, they were speculating about my murder. I was tempted to sigh in relief, but of course, I didn't need to. Edward squeezed my hand, both to comfort and to warn me to get my reaction in check. A woman stood next to me, crying. I couldn't fathom her reaction. She should celebrate the deaths of these men. Instead, she moaned, low in her throat. "What is happening in our town? What evil is this?" she said, turning toward me.

"I do not know," I said. I couldn't touch her, although the human thing to do would be to do so, but luckily at that moment, someone she knew came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her.

We were unsure how to make our escape without drawing attention to ourselves, so we were forced to wait, two more faces in a growing, panicked crowd. The first policemen on the scene sounded a whistle. "Go on about your business, please! Move along there! Move along!" The crowd began to disperse, making its frightened, weary way down the street, splintering into smaller and smaller groups, until we were all away, and Edward and I were moving once more toward the safety of our home.

Edward was tense, his jaw moving as he ground his sharp teeth together. He said nothing until we reached the edge of the woods and plunged into their sheltering green. "That was too close."

"But we made it," I said. I surveyed myself calmly and decided that I didn't need to change. I wanted to get out of the clearing as soon as possible. The memory of my humiliation at propositioning Edward was still fresh. I cared not about his rejection, but the fact that I'd so humbled myself in front of him still stung. I scooped up the extra clothes from where they waited and started off toward home. Edward eventually caught up with me.

"Carlisle and Esme will find out about this, no question," Edward said.

"I'm sure they will, if they haven't already." Carlisle would probably see the bodies when they reached the hospital morgue. He would certainly hear about them. And Esme spent much of her day in City Hall, which shared a building with the police station. They would know before they returned at dusk. The only question was whether or not they'd suspect us.

"Carlisle certainly will," said Edward, responding once more to my thoughts. "He'll see the bodies, realize the amount of strength it took to break so many bones. He will naturally think of us."

"Will he allow us to continue?" I asked.

"I'm not sure. We could potentially appeal to the fact that these were men who didn't deserve to live, but Carlisle is…" he struggled to find the word, "…a pacifist. He believes that all life has value. Even ours. Even theirs."

"I'll have to leave the family if he can't accept this." I was sad at the thought, but knew that I couldn't leave the rest alive.

"I know," Edward said. He actually sounded sad. I was surprised. "I do care about you, Rosalie. And I care about Esme, and I know that she will not want to lose you. Should all of this come out, it is Esme to whom you must appeal. She will be the only one who can gain Carlisle's acceptance of the situation. She will probably understand."

I could feel the shadow of dusk approach, although it was hours away still. The end of the day would bring my actions to light. I would have to accept what consequences would come.

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