CHAPTER TEN:
'I have perfect reflexes'
"Hey kiddo, want to ride upfront?" Emmett said excitedly and Evelyn's eyes grew wide. For some reason kids were always fascinated with sitting in the passenger seat. It was like the holy grail of seats.
"No, Emmett, kids sit in the back. It's safer there," Rosalie explained to him for the twentieth time. She definitely felt like a parent. She was constantly saying no to things for Evelyn's own good and Emmett was constantly saying yes. The good cop/bad cop roles were quickly being defined and Rose didn't like it. She wanted Emmett to be the bad guy for a change.
"Please Rose, give me a break. We're only going out for ice cream. It's literally around the corner. And I have perfect reflexes."
"Mommy can sit in the back with me," Evelyn suggested, struggling to pull herself up into the back seat of Emmett's jeep. The floor of the cab was almost above her head. Emmett and Rosalie froze; both feeling as if their jaws might hit the floor and break apart into a dozen sparkly pieces.
They had told Evelyn they wanted her to live with them permanently about five weeks ago. Rose explained how she had always wanted a child but couldn't have one. At first Evelyn had been reserved, not quite believing her luck, and she continued to call them by their first names. It was strange to get used to having someone want to take care of her after living in the orphanage for so long. Then she stopped using their names all together as she mentally toyed with the sound of mom and dad on her lips and Rose was worried she had been doing something wrong, though Evelyn seemed to be a happy child.
This was the first time Evelyn had called Rosalie mommy and she thought her heart might just restart. She swallowed before speaking. "Of course, I'll sit with you," Rose said, lifting Evelyn up into the seat.
Emmett beamed, looking completely dazed and Rose was contemplating slapping him to get him to come back to reality: either that or smashing his face off the hood of the jeep. Either one should do the trick. Rose buckled Evelyn and was now securing her own seatbelt and Emmett was still just staring off into space.
"Come on, daddy! I want ice cream!" Evelyn cheered, throwing her hands in the air. Rose chuckled but pushed her forehead against her palm in a mock sort of frustration as Emmett's eyes seemed to glaze over. Great, now Emmett was really going to be lost in space. Rose got out of the jeep, walked around the front of the vehicle, grabbed the back of Emmett's neck and planted a kiss on his lips. It was so hot and fiery, filled with so much passion, love, and excitement, that when she released him, Emmett was breathless.
"I love you, Emmett Cullen," she breathed against his lips.
"Rose, did you-did you hear that, she called me daddy!" Emmett was emotionally overwhelmed.
"I heard," Rose grinned. "Feels good, doesn't it?"
Emmett gulped, as if trying to hold back tears and shook his big head up and down. Evelyn was yelling something about the ice cream melting before the even got there and Rose laughed.
"Come on daddy, pull it together, the kid wants her ice cream already."
It was one of those dark dismal days. But for all Rosalie knew the sun was shining and everything was perfect. Mommy. She had called her mommy. Evelyn thought of her as someone that cared for her. And she did. She loved the little girl as if she was her own, and was it possible that the little girl was starting to love them too. Yes, it was.
Evelyn was singing along to the music that Emmett had blaring from the stereo. He was trying to give the kid a well-rounded musical education. He didn't want her singing about rainbows and butterfly's and junk. He wanted her to be well versed in the great era of rock and roll that had changed music forever. They were jamming to ACDC's Thunderstruck when Rose's cell phone rang. It was Alice. Rose answered and for a moment didn't speak, easily separating Alice's voice from the high pitched wiling and deep bass pumping from the stereo. For a moment she seemed confused as Emmett watched her in the rear view mirror.
"Rose, what is she saying?" he asked, adjusting the volume.
"No, Alice, I don't see any black trucks on the…"
A deafening crunch filled Rose's ears as metal was ripped from metal; tires smashing into tires.
Then there was smoke. It was thick and black, billowing out of the front of the jeep from somewhere under the hood. Rose could smell the gas and the stench of burning rubber. The fumes choked her. She could hear Evelyn gagging.
Steam rose off the car, fogging up the glass with slippery condensation, or was it from their heated, panicked breath?
Heat smashed into Rosalie in waves. Like the tide going in and out, hot waves of putrid smelling air clung to her skin, suffocating her in her own confusion.
Glass shattered, exploding into every crevice of the car. She felt the shards in her eyes, breathed into her nose, traveling down her throat, and floating in her lungs. The glass didn't hurt her or penetrate her skin but she could still feel the particles in her clothes and her hair as her mind spun like a top.
Red flashed everywhere. A stop sign? A traffic light? They blinked wildly in front of her and for some reason would not stop moving.
Blood. She could smell it, so potent and fresh, as if it was on her lips. Human, mixed with something else. Floral? Honey? No, it was acrid. Why could she smell so much blood, she and Emmett didn't bleed?
Broken pieces of car jabbed at her impenetrable skin. Everything was breaking, contorting under the pressure, shrieking metal finding a new shape as it crashed like thunder. The noise was so close that it sounded like it was coming from the inside of her head.
It all happened so fast. The cab of Emmett's vehicle had been flipped. The truck had come out of nowhere, ran the traffic light, speeding out of control, and bulldozed over them, proceeding to drag the jeep down a steep embankment.
When the jeep finally stopped rolling, hitting a thick pine tree at the base of the hill, Emmett kicked the windshield out.
"I'll kill him, whoever that was, I'll freaking kill him," Emmett roared until his voice was hoarse.
Rose ripped her seatbelt off. "Relax Emmett, he's already dead." She could smell the blood easier now and there was still that sickly sweet presence. There was too much blood but it made more sense now that they were stationary again.
She felt around, as if looking for injuries, but they were okay. Of course they were okay. They were indestructible, immortal vampires. Nothing short of anther vampire with a grudge or an overly dramatic shape shifter could even contemplate causing them harm. A car accident was nothing.
Rose turned suddenly, panic taking over. Where was Evelyn?
"Rosalie!" Emmett yelled. He sounded terrified. Rose kicked out the crunched in door beside her. And that's when she found Evelyn. Her little body was lying there, covered in dirt and leaves. She looked peaceful, like she could have been sleeping. But the ground around her was soaked with blood.
"Are you folks okay?" a stranger called down at them, hanging over the railing that was supposed to prevent cars from toppling down the hill. Emmett shielded Rosalie and Evelyn from view with his massive body.
"Yah, were fine," Emmett said quickly.
"I saw the crash from the road back there. You folks are awfully lucky to be alive. I called 911, someone will be here shortly. Is your wife okay?"
"She's fine. But I think the other guy is dead," Emmett said gesturing to the black truck that was smoking and spewing gasoline. Emmett wanted to check his glove compartment for matches. His mind was already thinking about what the police would say when they showed up. Evelyn was unconscious. They would make them take her to the hospital. Then they would run tests and demand identification. There were two problems with that. First, Evelyn was a runaway and second, she was half vampire. The only way to fix this was to have Rosalie flee into the woods with Evelyn and he could set the scene on fire. It would destroy any evidence that could threaten their family.
The man nodded and quickly returned to his cell phone, talking animatedly with his hands. Emmett dashed to his jeep and reached inside the passenger window. He didn't find any matches but there was a lighter. It would do, the ground was soaked with gas; Emmett could smell it.
"Quick Rose, get her out of here. Go to Carlisle," he hissed. "She's a missing person. She ran away. We can't just show up at the hospital with her. I'll deal with the cops. Go."
Rosalie scooped up Evelyn, her little body all bruised and battered. She was bleeding from a gash in her head. But she was still breathing. Rosalie ran faster than she ever thought possible as she felt the heat wave explode behind her. A quick glance back told her that Emmett had dropped the lighter. He was covering their tracks.
Alice was waiting on the porch, and saw Rosalie arrive. She had obviously told Carlisle because his office had been transformed into an operating room.
"It's not your fault Emmett. No one could have known," Bella tried to convince him. She patted his massive arm.
Alice nodded. "I barely even got the vision until it was too late because the man only just made up his mind to get behind the wheel."
"He was drunk?" Emmett snarled.
"Couldn't you smell the alcohol in his blood?" Rose asked. She had been pretty much silent since she left Evelyn with Carlisle. "If anything happens to her, I swear to god!"
Alice caught a violent image of Rosalie covered in blood and a family of humans murdered in their sleep. It was the children in the picture that made Alice cringe. But the vision was distorted and it eventually faded which meant Rose wasn't serious. That was a relief. Alice didn't like the idea of having to get between Rosalie and her target. She had heard the stories of Rose's ex-fiancé. The one whom she killed after Carlisle turned her into a vampire. She was overly dramatic back then.
"What did you tell the police?" Esme asked Emmett, worry etching her face.
"I said I was the only one in the jeep. They asked if I wanted to press charges. I said no. The guy was dead anyway."
"But what about that stranger, he saw me, didn't he?" Rosalie asked.
"I told the cop the guy must have been in shock and that I was the only one involved. The officer was too wrapped up in the fact I didn't have a scratch on me. He kept trying to get me into the ambulance."
"Sorry about the jeep," Edward sighed. He knew Emmett treasured that vehicle.
Emmett shrugged. "It's a toasted part of a crime scene now, but I don't even care. I just want Evelyn to be okay."
"Did you get rid of all the evidence that Evelyn was in the accident?" Jasper asked, his mind instantly trying to find a way this could somehow implicate his family. They didn't need to go drawing attention to themselves.
"Yah, there was really nothing except for the pool of blood where she landed," Emmett winced at his own memory. "But the fire took care of that."
They heard the door open upstairs and Carlisle's footsteps as he walked across the hard-wood floor.
"She needs stitches," Carlisle said, wiping his bloody hands on a towel that he set in a trash bin and lit on fire. "I've managed to stop the bleeding, but she needed a transfusion." The family had ambushed him as soon as he emerged from the makeshift operating room.
Rose whimpered, "Can we see her?"
"Of course," Carlisle tried to smile. He hoped they were through the worst of it and that the cauterizing held.
"She fractured her clavicle, so I've had to put her arm in a sling so she doesn't use that side of her body as much until it heals, which shouldn't take long."
Rose and Emmett walked into the room.
"What's wrong Carlisle?" Edward asked.
"I'm running out of blood. I've already gone through three bags. I didn't have that much stored here. I'm going to have to go to the hospital and borrow some more."
He really meant steal.
"Why is she going through blood so fast?" Edward asked, reading Carlisle's thoughts.
"I don't know. Her body seems to be consuming it or something. But as fast as I got it into her it was bleeding from her head wound. I had to cauterize it, but I should probably stitch it to keep it closed."
Carlisle mentally cringed. "She woke up twice on me; the morphine must have worn off. She looked like she was in so much pain. I filled her IV with a double dose. Hopefully that keeps her under until the pain subsides. She seems to be fine other than that. No internal bleeding, no major breaks. Surprisingly no major head trauma."
"Then what is it?" There was something Carlisle wasn't quite saying. Maybe he didn't know how to say it.
"Well something felt off. Firstly, I know she experienced a major accident, but with the vampire DNA there is no way she should be in this much pain. It doesn't make sense. I kept searching for something I missed. A puncture wound, trauma to her limbs, anything that would explain the pain and terror in her eyes. I couldn't find anything so I just kept her IV fluids going and pumped her full of blood.
"Then what happened?"
"The second time she regained consciousness she stood upright and tried to rip the blood bag from the monitor stand. She ripped out the lines feeding it to her body. I don't know why, maybe a stress reaction or something. She was screaming, crying, never in all my time as a doctor have I seen a patient so terribly frightened. I had to give her a sedative just to calm her down."
Carlisle looked weary and beaten. He had refused to let anyone help him, because Evelyn was bleeding so badly.
"Can you read her thoughts, Edward?" Carlisle asked, not sure if he really wanted to know what she was thinking.
Edward nodded. "She's burning. That's what she's thinking. She's tossing and turning, thrashing about, as if on fire. But I can't tell if it's real or if she's dreaming. It doesn't sound like she's moving so it must be all in her head."
Carlisle nodded. "I'll give her some more morphine just in case. And it's probably about time to switch out the blood bag. That's the last one."
"Bella and I will get you more."
Carlisle looked relieved. He didn't think it was a good idea to leave Evelyn just yet, but he really needed to get her more blood. "Thank you, son. Take my access card. It will get you and Bella into the refrigerated room." Carlisle paused. "Make sure you're fast."
Edward smirked. Obviously. "In and out. No one will know."
Before leaving he took Carlisle by the shoulder and hugged him. He didn't know what made him do it but something was telling him that Carlisle really needed one. "Don't worry Carlisle, you're an excellent doctor. And I have the utmost faith in you. By morning she'll be good as new."