soif de sang - chapter 4
Fandom: Twilight
Characters: Edward/Bella
Rating: M, for blood, violence, etc.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything.
Bella didn't fear God.
Her father did.
When she was younger, her daddy would smile, the crinkles around his eyes deep. He'd lift her up on his knee and read her stories from a little dark book in a gravelly voice. She'd listen, enraptured by fantastical tales of Angels and Demons and Ghosts and the men who feared and loved them.
She travelled on dusty roads, a little girl among people who were saving savages with Christ and God and the Holy Scripture.
She kept quiet when she was old enough, knowing better than to ask questions about why anyone would need saving and how much worth a book could truly have. She didn't question changing the ways of a gentle people, didn't question the surety of those around her that they would go to Hell without Christ.
Not until she met Jacob.
A good Christian name is what his father called Jacob with a proud smile. Not a human, but a name.
Christ had already blessed the remote settlement of Forks before they arrived.
They lived in a small house next to an old wooden church, because her father had said it was time to settle down. Bella would play in the graveyard, picking wild flowers and standing on headstones, always falling off and scraping her knees. Her father would scold at her for disrespecting the dead, his eyes tight and his lips pursed into an angry pucker.
He brought her with him to La Push to do God's work every day, his dog-eared copy of the Bible treasured at his side.
She never knew she could love someone as much as she loved Jacob. Never had she felt that bursting of her heart exploding, the warmth of her devotion seeping into everything she touched, everything she was.
But his good Christian name wasn't enough.
There was so much that wasn't enough.
Tell me, she pleaded.
She was thinking of her father when she said it, of his anger and his wrath. She was thinking of Jacob and his wide smile and everything she saw and loved in him. She was thinking of his lies, of his demons. His very real demons.
"Tell me," she demanded, as if saying it out loud made any difference to him—to her it made all the difference.
He watched with fear in his eyes as she walked forward still, holding on tighter to the bedpost, unable to tear away from his relentless stare.
"Edward." Her voice shook; his name was an acknowledgment of his identity. Not as a demon, as a killer, but a man. She felt light-headed, dizzy, detached—like she was watching from afar.
But she wasn't; she was standing there, in soiled dirty clothes and bare feet, imploring a monster.
His lips thinned; he looked as frightened as she felt—just as shocked and terrified as she. "Bella." His voice was low and soft, all at once polite and formal and intimate in ways she couldn't fathom.
She nodded, knowing he could hear her heart thundering against her ribs. She fisted her dress into one small fist to keep her fingers from trembling.
Don't make me regret this, she prayed.
He exhaled, the dark red orbs of his eyes turning stormy. "Bella, I… never meant to hurt you," he said slowly, carefully.
She nodded again, still unsure and hardly breathing. Go on.
His jaw set; his eyes hardened. "I don't feed on the innocent. I never meant to…" He looked away, grabbing a hold of the bookcase in anger. The wood cracked and splintered. "I have… family," he struggled with the words, glaring furiously at the ground. "Family that lives where your…" Her breath caught. "They're... different from the others. They live off of animal blood. If you were to tell those dogs I had attacked you, they'd go after me. They'd go after my family, or my family would try to intercede and I…" He exhaled, eyes drifting closed. "I couldn't let that happen."
Silence touched her voice. Her gaze traveled across the pale lines of his cotton shirt, the fabric wavering to the coiled steel of his profile.
There was a part of her—an uncertain part—that believed him, and how could she not? How could she watch him struggle so painfully, full of such acidic remorse—and not believe him? But how could she, at the same time? How could she discount everything she'd ever believed, ever known? How could she ignore the instinct to run as far away from him as she could?
"Who… do you…" she started. "That man who attacked me," she sighed. "You only kill…"
"Yes," he confirmed. "I kill monsters." He allowed himself a self-deprecating laugh. "Monsters not unlike myself."
Her lashes fluttered; she saw a trickle of powdered sawdust fall to the ground at her thoughts. "You don't want to be a monster?" she murmured.
It was only when she saw his eyes open, the glint of red staring sadly at nothing on the ground that she realized she had inched closer, her arm stretched and sore, nails digging into the bed post.
"No."
Her lips closed with a gust of inhaled air.
"Please, Bella," he whispered, "eat and drink something. Take a bath and change your clothes. We can continue this later once you have the strength to stand."
"No, I want to know now," she protested. "I deserve to know now."
He looked at her finally, surprised at the flare of stubbornness rising within her. She let go of the bedpost and rubbed her forearm absentmindedly, not breaking his gaze, not backing down no matter what the cost.
"At least sit down and have your meal while we talk," he compromised.
"Fine," she agreed grudgingly, spinning on her heel to plop back down on the bed. She reached dutifully for one glass of water and took a sip, and then a large gulp, greedily downing the rest. She was hyper-aware that he was moving into her line of vision, carefully backing into the armchair, dark red irises never leaving her face.
She didn't see him move the clothes and shoes onto the table, but somehow they were there and he was sitting.
She deposited the empty glass on her end table with a small clink, hands resting self-consciously in her lap, fingertips tracing the pretty blue print of her best dress over small knees. "Why aren't you with your family?" She asked after a moment.
"Eat," he ordered. She lifted her eyes to glare but he only stared back, unaffected by her hostile thoughts. "Eat," he repeated when she didn't move. "I'll talk."
Teeth bit her lips together and she reached for the plate, knowing she couldn't argue, especially because he was right—she was starving and she hardly could stand.
Pointedly, she cut a piece of pancake with a fork and held it up to show him before slipping it into her mouth. Maybe it was because she was so hungry, but it tasted wonderful, and she tried to refrain from swallowing the rest whole.
It was small, but one side of his lips lifted crookedly, exposing a bit of teeth and some warmth into his eyes. She watched, fascinated and stunned, tearing her eyes away when she felt the beginnings of a blush tainting her cheeks.
"I didn't know vampires smiled," she muttered to her plate.
"We laugh too."
She used the opportunity to fill her mouth with more food, desperately hoping he'd speak to fill the thick silence. And luckily—or unluckily—he knew that she was hoping it and did.
"I left my family years ago," he started, the unexpected playfulness gone from his voice. "Animal blood… it nourishes and keeps us functioning, but it… it's not the same. I was… rebelling, you could say. I was being insolent and selfish; I wanted to give into the thirst that had plagued me since I turned."
Bella swallowed her next bite heavily. "So you left?"
A crease formed on his forehead; his eyes darted to the ground, hiding from her scrutiny. "I left," he said, hesitating over the words. "I… slipped."
Her grip tightened on her fork. You killed someone.
He was frozen before her, a statue once again. For a long awhile he did not respond to her thoughts or her stricken gaze, even when images of blood and sounds of screams filtered into her mind, shuddering her spine.
"I killed someone," he finally spoke, eyes rounding, deepening in the memory. "I was ashamed. So I left."
"It wasn't your fault," she blurted out, jaw clamping shut when he raised his eyes to hers. He said nothing, just held her there with nothing but his attention, his face blank. She wondered if she was truly right.
"You've hardly touched your food," he said and the sudden sound startled her, breaking the spell.
Dutifully, she began to eat again despite how her hunger had waned in his stare; she was anxious to hear more, anxious to know everything.
"Carlisle—my father for all intents and purposes—tracked me down, tried to convince me to come back. He said—he said he forgave me for my transgression, and that there was nothing I could do that would make him think of me as less than a man. But I wouldn't hear any of it. I lashed out at him." He paused, brows furrowing in guilt. "I wanted to be on my own. I wanted to punish myself. But I couldn't bear the thought of killing someone so innocent again. I… I traveled, always staying close to Carlisle. I began scanning the thoughts of those around me, trying to find the minds of those who'd killed, raped… I thought if I'd saved a few, I'd… I don't know what I thought. I only knew that I couldn't go back, not after all I'd done. And then…" He sighed. "Then there was you."
She licked the syrup from her lips and balanced the plate in her hands, nails curling around the hardened clay. She waited, watching his frustration play across the planes of his features.
"I was planning on… I was going to idrain/i you. I was so sure of it. I… wanted to, but you… looked at me and I saw what you saw. I couldn't. I couldn't bear it."
His eyes were shut tight. Bella looked away and quietly placed her dish back on the table, unwilling to identify the string of sympathy reaching out for him, her heart blind to its danger.
"I panicked when I'd seen I hurt you. I needed to make sure you were all right. But when you woke up, I heard your thoughts…"
His lashes lifted; she was once again prisoner in his eyes. The sadness, the hopelessness in them bottomed her stomach. She couldn't understand how something so evil could feel so much, and she couldn't stifle the rising thought that perhaps she was wrong.
"Why didn't you tell me right away?" It was the last query she needed answered, the one nagging question she had from the beginning.
"If you didn't believe me, and I let you go, my family would still be in danger."
"I wouldn't have said anything."
"Wouldn't you have?" he argued.
She looked down at her hands, unsure of her answer—knowing he could read her thoughts and know her uncertainty, that uncertainty she still carried with her now.
Time never moved slowly. In his decades of existence, Edward never cared about anything enough to feel the span of a moment, to listen intently to the tick of a clock.
He felt it now, watching her. He felt time like he had never felt anything. He felt it slow and stretch; he felt it matter.
And even as it did, as it became more than just a measurement to him, her pink lips parted and she sighed. And then time wasn't a measurement at all—it was a torture, a fickle thing that quickened and steadied and froze on its own cruel whims.
"I'd like to be alone now."
He nodded and rose; he knew she was watching him, could see it through her eyes, pinpointed on the floor but following his figure.
There was no need for words, not anymore.
He left the room at a human pace, so as not to startle her. The mechanisms of the door clicked behind him. He left the room unlocked.
She found the book nestled between an index of poetry and a medical dictionary.
The yellow cover was worn and the pages were thin. Some were bent and ripped, the typeface faded. The copyright was 1897—a first print.
She placed the book down on the table, and curled up on the armchair—Edward's armchair. The cushions sank under her light weight. Her fingers carefully, cautiously felt the seams as if it were he she was learning, testing with a touch.
A breeze struck her wet hair from behind, raising bumps on her skin. She felt clean from a recent bath, if nothing else, and clothed in a dress she could never afford—a dress no one she knew of could afford. The sun was out, a peeking ray of light amongst grey clouds.
Bella breathed in deep.
In the illumination of morning, the room looked old and lived-in, dull with browns and muted greens and blues and reds. It looked harmless—so unlike the shadows of her prison.
Quietly, she reached for the book and opened to the first page, driven by a curiosity she could not assuage. The binding creaked and the pages rustled. She gripped the book like a lifeline as she started the first sentence, and then fell headfirst into the enchanting prose for chapters, unable to put it down as the sun reached higher and a storm covered the sky.
"Do you like it?"
She jumped and looked up, startled by a smooth curious voice.
Edward stood in the doorway, the picture of the ethereal supernatural being: pale to near translucency, his glaring red eyes even more prominent in the white light of clouds.
"I'm—I don't know. I can't put it down." But I wouldn't say I like it.
He looked down at the plate of food in his hands, smiling very slightly. "It wasn't a question I contemplated enough."
"It's a—it's a good book," she consented, closing it and laying it on the table. Nervously, she played with the dark sleeve of her dress, eyes roaming over the orange lettering of the title: Dracula by Bram Stoker.
"Are you hungry?"
She gave him a hesitant smile in thanks as he left the door ajar to place the plate in front of her.
"I…" He sighed and lowered himself across from her, watching her untouched food. She couldn't help but feel the instant urge to run for the door, but she stayed put, knowing he could intercept her even if she tried. "You are free to leave," he explained gently. "I will escort you back home at your convenience."
Her voice stayed in her throat. She looked at the ruby of his eyes through the fan of his lashes, pressing her lips together at the indescribable emotion that willed his gaze to meet hers.
If he was a monster, she was afraid she didn't know anymore. She wasn't sure what she was looking for in his eyes, but when he lifted them to hers, she knew what she saw in them—regret and grief and loathing, decades of which she couldn't comprehend. Not the eyes of a monster, but a man.
"I'd like to leave now," she whispered.
He nodded.
Author's Notes: OMGGGGGG this chapter took me forever. Character development is HARD. It's finally ~done~ though. VIOLA. NEXT ONE SOONER I THINK. I'm looking forward to writing THAT one. :P