Chapter 6:
2005: Forks, Washington
(10 months before Bella Swan moved to the town)
~ Rosalie ~
"Rosalie, could you send me a list of anything you might need for the garage and your bedroom? I'm doing an order" Esme's voice, whilst soft and quiet, filtered easily to Rosalie's ears as she lay tinkering and clattering with her tools beneath Emmett's yellow jeep.
"Thanks, Esme" she responded swiftly, as she tightened a stubborn bolt, she'd already been splattered by some oil gunk and was ina particularly sour mood. Especially after she'd read the text message received immediately after the outfit destroying event from Alice, her 'sister' of the last several decades. The future seer had stated:
Alice: That's for destroying my favourite pair of shoes!
"Fucking, Alice" she'd hissed as she angrily wiped the sticky jet black oil from her perfect (albeit scowling) face. She'd seethed as she continued her work, bending two wrenches and a screwdriver before she could calm herself enough to let out the breath she'd been holding. This had been several hours ago, and still, she fumed.
"Rue?" Emmett's deep masculine timbre boomed as the front door was flung open. She withheld her wince and adopted a lazy roll of her eyes. She silently hoped he'd not damaged it again, for Emmett McCarthy-Cullen regularly 'forgot' about his sheer (enhanced) brute strength, and doors were amongst the top of his casualties as a consequence. He'd certainly face Esme's wrath and Rosalie deeply sour mood sucked away any inclination to defend the oaf from her mother's anger. She quickly disembarked from her position beneath the vehicle and tried to tidy her dishevelled appearance. But it was for naught, grease and oil clung to her, the streaky black gunk was everywhere. "Fucking, Alice" she repeated as she rubbed at a spot on her neck. Usually her future seeing sister would alert her of any big spills to prevent her from ruining her clothing and spending hours in the shower trying to rid her body of the strong smell.
"In the garage" she replied in a tone that informed her brother she was in no mood for any of his usual teasing antics. Despite his warning, Emmett appeared at the doorway not a few seconds later.He glanced at her ruined clothes and opened his mouth before finally noticing Rosalie's raised brow and signature glare, he clamped his mouth shut and mimed zipping it and throwing away the imaginary key. Perhaps the fool had more brain cells than they thought? She mused. Rosalie felt her lip curl upward in a ghost of a smile.
"What is it Em? As you can see, I am preoccupied" she said impatiently as she tapped her foot. Her friend rolled his eyes playfully and she pursed her lips.
Emmett was your typical man-child. His intimidating size and muscles gave the illusion that he was terrifying and 'tough guy'. Those who knew the vampire, knew him to be the opposite; he craved friendship, specifically human friendship, he'd pout whenever people avoided him like the Bubonic Plague due to his burly intimidating appearance.
Whereas, Rosalie's near constant scowl, frosty glare and enhanced otherworldly beauty made her appear unapproachable and terrifying to most – which was entirely purposeful. How she'd ever believed Emmett - with his sunshiny personality and adoration of his vampirism - to be her mate was utterly incomprehensible.
An involuntary shiver slid down her spine in the way it did whenever she thought of the unfortunate years they'd tried desperately to date. Of Emmett's constant enthusiasm and endless patience, and his crestfallen face when she'd finally called it a day with their wayward romance. Rosalie didn't have many regrets, but his heartbroken face would forever be etched into her memory. She could never regret saving him, or loving him – in her own way - but trying to make it work when she knew deep down it could never...well, that, she regretted.
"Still?" he gestured to her ruined clothing, bringing the blonde back from her sadness and Rosalie shrugged nonchalantly, expertly hiding her emotions. He quirked a brow at her clothing and smirked. Evidently, he was in a risky mood, to test her patience further despite her clear warnings.
Truthfully, the sisters were in a small tiff which was – indirectly (allegedly) – caused by Rosalie wearing some of Alice's impossibly expensive jewellery some three months prior, and forgetting to take it off before she attacked and devoured a large elk.
She'd misplaced it in the forest, where it wound up in the river and it'd washed away with the current. Rosalie honestly did try to find it, she knew it was an anniversary present from Jasper or something – but it'd looked so cute with her outfit...Alas, mother nature gave little fucks when it came to Rosalie's plight.
Upon Rosalie's (entirely remorseful) recounting of the unfortunate events, and despite her very dedicated hour of trying to find the bracelet, and offering to pay for a new piece, Alice Cullen – always one to overreact - had lost her damn mind, and in a fit of sheer insanity fuelled wrath had scratched 'don't touch my stuff' in French on Rosalie's freshly repainted favourite cherry red car, and, well...
"She and I remain in our mild... disagreement" she said matter-of-factly as she inspected her nails.
"You two are ridiculous" Emmett sighed. Rosalie merely glared. "Anyway, I um, have something to tell you..." the burly vampire shifted uncomfortably on his feet and swiftly averted her curious, sharp gaze.
Apprehension and dread pummelled into her stomach for two reasons:
One: The last time Emmett had uttered those words, he'd proclaimed his deeply profound love for Rosalie, but had informed her that he was no longer willing to put his heart, even in its non-beating state, in her hands for her to continue to crush. (Which, fair).
He'd sadly, heartbreakingly claimed he deserved to be loved with the same reckless abandonment he'd loved Rosalie. And with those words, the fragile thin glass encasing her dead heart splintered and cracked as she witnessed the look of sheer devastation on her best friends face.
She'd done that. Her inability to give him her heart, her body, her soul; when he'd offered her all of him, all that he had, on a silver platter. Rosalie had known this was inevitable, even Emmett had limitations on how much he would allow his heart to be repeatedly broken for the sake of a 'maybe, someday' with the 'Ice Queen', Rosalie Hale. Who'd shown little improvement in showing her affections towards the vampire in their decades together. Again, it was a regretful selfish action of hers.
But Rosalie did love him. She did. With everything in her. Every ugly part of her. But, he was right. It wasn't in the way he loved her. And she was being unfair, she was being cruel and callous to continue to delay the inevitable. Rosalie Hale loved Emmett Cullen-McCarthy, but she was not, nor would she ever be, in love with him. She was being every bit the monstrous, soulless creature she feared to be, in her clinging to him.
Two: Rosalie Hale was scared. So very scared that whatever Emmett Cullen said next, would change her life forever. It's important to note, that Rosalie was selfish and vain and shallow - she always had been. Simply put, she didn't want to deal with whatever Emmett had to say. She had little left to give. Mostly, selfishly, she worried that Emmett, her dearest friend, her first friend in her after-life – was finally going to leave her. Perhaps it was irrational, but it was as real as the oil sticking to her flawless diamond skin.
"What is it?" She asked, her tone significantly lowered to barely above a whisper and she averted her eyes to look at the concrete floor. If she concentrated enough, she could feel the cold seeping in through her shoes and up her body.
"I found my mate, Rosie" Emmett whispered, his baritone voice was so quiet, had she not been supernaturally gifted, she'd have missed it.
Rosalie's obsidian, venom-filled eyes snapped to Emmett's guilty gold orbs, he sighed softly and stepped towards her. Rosalie stepped back and her hip clipped the workbench, leaving a small dent in the metal. She cleared the overwhelming emotions from her throat and swallowed. She put a hand up in front of her in a silent plea for him to stay back. She needed to breathe through it. Her emotions were jarring and she didn't understand...
'what does this mean?' she wanted to shout. But she knew. She knew what it meant. It meant he was leaving, he'd found someone else finally to give him something she could not. Why did it hurt? Why did it ache?
"Congratulations Em, I'm h-happy for you" she stuttered. Rosalie waited for the mortification at the uncharacteristic stutter to invade her already swirling emotions. Rosalie Hale did not stutter. She was an intellectual woman, a blood-drinking creature of the fucking night for heavens sake – and above all else, she was a Hale. And Hale's did not, ever stutter. But she couldn't seem to care.
"She's a musician actually, guitar, her voice is...I saw her eyes and I just, I knew-" Emmett's elated tone tore at her, he stared at her eyes which were filling with blood and he reached out towards her and she retreated further, her eyes turning cold. "Rosalie..." Emmett winced as her hand instantly crushed the bench she rested against.
"I am happy for you" she repeated, but they both knew a lie when they heard one. "I am" she feebly tried again. Emmett was hers, she saved him, he was her chosen mate, he loved her for fuck sake...didn't he? Now some stranger he didn't even know got to...fuck, she really hated vampire mating.
"It's okay Rue" the term of endearment no one else called her shattered her last thread of control.
"Excuse me" she hated, hated, how her voice cracked. She despised Emmett's sympathetic, pity-filled gaze.
"Rose, it'll be okay, you'll find your..." Emmett tried.
"Like I said, I'm glad for you Emmett but you don't require my fucking permission to ride off into the sunset with your true mate" she snapped, her fangs dropped distorting her words slightly and she internally fumed. If she were human, she'd be ten shades to sunset by now. Emmett stood dumfounded and hurt. "I need to hunt" she said with a curt nod. She didn't give him an opportunity to stop her.
As she sped away, the sight of a sad, frustrated Emmett burned into her never ending memory, where it would remain for all of her unending eternity.
Rosalie Hale is selfish and broken and alone. The monster inside her chanted giddily over and over.
Rosalie ran and ran and ran. She ran for hours. Days. Hunting various wildlife along her way until she finally collapsed in a broken heap to the deep snow covered ground.
It was there, in the middle of no-where, surrounded by the unforgiving bitter cold, skeleton trees poking up from the deep snow covered forest floor and utter silence, days later, that Rosalie's earth-shattering scream woke a long slumbering, deadly part of her.
A part she'd keep silent, shackled, for far too long. Ever since that fateful night where the man who should've protected her, abused her and left her for dead. Then, as the first snowflakes fell of the season fell and melted onto her tear-stained cheeks, blood pooled around her broken, dying body – her 'saviour' took the last remaining choice from her. And when she woke, that scary thing, both new and old, screamed at her to let it out. To burn the world. But she'd silenced it in order to exact her vengeance, and now, decades later, that monster was back scratching at her mind.
Red droplets dripped down her cheek and decorated the crystal white floor beneath with speckles of bright crimson for so long that they formed a small red halo around her head. The black sky lit up with the glittering stars and silver moon above her, offered her some soft white light.
Rosalie lay back against the thick snow and opened her eyes to observe the far away stars, she watched in muted wonder as thick flurries of snowflakes fell from the sky miles before any actually reached her. She reached up to catch one and an echo of a smile briefly graced her lips as the unique flake rested on her palm and didn't melt due to her cold skin. It was poetic really, that it returned to her after so long, in the way she finally let it take her...
It took her a long time to notice the small crater she lay in and the snow she'd dutifully rested against was far colder, and the many trees around her were unnaturally skeleton-like. As though they been burnt. Not by fire, exactly. The strange zigzag pattern carved into the wood, like little spider webs. Like something had struck them with incredible force. Destructive. Beautiful. Deadly.
Like lightning, or starlight..
-
"How am I supposed to know?" A frustrated feminine voice hissed. "She's just laying there in the snow…uggggh finebut you owe me" Rosalie heard a long exaggerated sigh and then the crushing sound of snow underfoot creeping closer and closer.
"Rosalie Hale," a shadow, decidedly feminine, loomed over her, blocking the beams of light from Rosalie's beloved sun, Rosalie didn't bother to look at the sudden intruder and remained in her position, back and body unmoved as her chaotic mind continued to whir, desperately trying to connect several lines of thought and erratic emotions.
"You're going to turn into a vampire popsicle," the dry voice tried humourlessly, "hlúpe dievča " [foolish girl], the intruder muttered. "Snap out of it" Rose heard a sharp snap of fingers as the voice shouted this. Rosalie merely scowled. Who was this person that daredinterrupt her contemplative meditative (vegetative) state?
Rosalie simply huffed and simultaneously realised that this may be the first breath she'd taken in who knew how long. Although unnecessary, the freezing air seemed to shock her system. Like what she remembered it felt like to gasp in a breath after being submerged in water for a while. It was slight disorienting but comforting all the same.
The air she continued to pull inside and exhale formed a tiny white foggy cloud in front of her face as the snow continued its valiant mission to cover the surrounding area in its cold, white blanket. Still, Rosalie remained in her (unintentionally) self made snow crater, which had been filling up unbeknownst to the blonde.
Suddenly, a too beautiful feminine face leant down, contorted in mild amusement and something else, something that Rosalie thought looked a lot like pity. "Stop being so dramatic, môj Bože" [ my god].Straight blonde hair so light it was almost white fanned around the pretty scowling face and deep golden orbs met Rosalie's own - currently jet black - eyes. Rosalie blinked slowly.
"You have two choices dearest cousin, you can voluntarily accompany me to our house, or, I can zap the shit out of you, repeatedlyand drag you there unconscious" Rosalie narrowed her eyes at the rude vampire. She wouldn't dare!She thought defiantly.
Unperturbed by the blondes scowl, the woman continued, her velvety voice tinged with amusement as she practically sang, "really, I could knock you unconscious with one powerful zap, but to do several is more fun for me. And more painful for you" a devilish smirk stretched across the pretty face as golden eyes flashed briefly with the obvious threat. She really would,the fiend!She inwardly concluded.
Rosalie's nostrils flared, a key indicator that she was on the precipice of unleashing her more unpleasant behaviour. After all, Rosalie Hale's rage-fuelled outbursts were legendary among those she (begrudgingly) called 'family' or the rarer still, 'friend'.
"Neskúšaj moju trpezlivosť!" [do not test my patience]. The woman barked, her pretty mouth levelled into a thin line.
Rosalie ignored the outburst and instead, continued to ruminate on her behaviour and current predicament. For one, her emotions rarely bubbled over like this. She was known for her near unflinching, rigorous control.
And two, she knew on some surface level that her reaction was somewhat (entirely) unfair. She had no claim on Emmett Cullen, she never really had if she were to be brutally honest. But it hurtall the same. Fuck, did it hurt; the man she'd saved, who she'd tried so hard to love, who'd loved her despite the many, many obstacles she'd thrown in his path. He'd loved her. And now he was gone, leaving her for his true mate. And it HURT goddamnit. It pierced her dead heart like a splintered wooden stake, leaving tiny rotten splinters embedded in her flesh so whenever she thought about him, a stab of pain shot through her heart.
Lastly, Rosalie was no stranger to the study and certain practices in psychology, and as such, she knew on some fundamental level that her sudden reaction hadn't much to do with Emmett and his newfound true mate. Not really.
If she were to dig deeper as she continued to greedily inhale the freezing cold air - what troubled her about it all was the loss in control. It was scary and unacceptable.
She'd immediately reacted. Her body ran with very few signals from her brain, (signals she'd not even realised she'd given in the first place). She wanted on some level to stop, to think and sort through her emotions in order to avoid, well… this situation. Namely, being accosted and threatened by the frustrating, grating, infuriating, childish…
"When Tanya asks you about this, you be sure to tell her I gave you the choice!" The vampire chirped menacingly. And it was the downright gleeful tone coupled with the blondes flippant use of that last noun, (for the words meaning and more importantly, its practice she cherished above all else) that snapped Rosalie from her melancholy reverie.
"Touch me, Katrína Denali, and I will snap both of your arms and bury them so far into the earth that they will disintegrate to ash" Rosalie said through gritted teeth, her voice hoarse from non-use, as she gingerly stood from her position, wincing slightly at her stiff body, and glared daggers at the smug face of her vexing 'cousin'. "Of all of the Denali clan, why you?" Rose said through gritted teeth, her tone venomous. Kate grinned like the little imp she was before she rolled her eyes at Rosalie's scowling face.
"Dráma Kráľovná" [drama queen] Kate muttered, "follow me," before she turned to leave and levelled Rosalie with a toothy grin, "oh, and Alice sends her regards". And before Rose could react, Kate was gone, a puff of disturbed snow was the only evidence she'd been there at all.
"Fucking, Alice!" Rosalie growled into the vast expanse of nature surrounding her.
Had Kate remained to observe her troubled cousin, as she stared furiously and unblinking at the snowy sky, she'd have observed the dangerous flash of bright white light in her eyes. And the slight glow to her otherwise pale skin.