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Greedily she engorged without restraint,
And knew not eating death
"Paradise Lost"
John Milton
The cry of terror is unrecognisable, yet the sound emanates from somewhere deep within her throat. It is a noise she knows she should not be able to make, yet here it is, coming from her diaphragm, rippling over her larynx and flying from between her lips.
She wants nothing to surprise her any more, yet every single moment she is introduced to a new facet of this life it surprises her. It comes like a fresh blow each time. The burn in her throat surprised her, the scarlet of her eyes shocked her, the solidity of her body horrified her. It has been nothing other than a woeful surprise at every turn. She should hate it, she has told herself, yet she can't.
She thought, naively, that she had it under control. With the doctor and Edward it was so easy to believe she would never desire it. They had tried to warn her but with them as her guides it felt so unlikely that she would fail. They have shielded her so well from what she truly is. Had their warnings been almost patronising, as if they were sure she must do it at some point?
It is all over her. It has turned her hands scarlet and it is caking over her forearms in a dry, flaking skin that is cracked and broken – scales like a serpent. She feels it trickling down her neck, a little river of blood.
It still smelled delectable even as it mingled with the fresh scent of the forest and the clean smell of the detergent on her dress. He must have scraped his hand on the bark and released the delicious scent into the air. The next moment she was flying towards him.
She had greedily lapped at the blood; resentful of the little trickles on either end of her scarlet mouth, yet somehow she had finished absolutely covered in it.
His flesh was pliant under her lips, the rivulet of bites so much easier to make when she felt so overcome by thirst. It was like an inexplicable agony which only this crime could anaesthetise. This is a crime.
It is only when he is drained completely that the shroud of animalism lifts. She thought that the first time she would feel it, truly feel it, it would be made of iron. The desire would be frightening but inescapable, like manacles and chains. Like Charles. But no, the shroud that envelopes her humanity is made of rich red velvet and it embraces her tenderly, as a lover might. It is heavy and inescapable and comforting as she drains him. It is what she is made for, to be wrapped in this shroud of inhumanity and it feels pleasant, warm, right.
Suddenly, though, there is no more blood to pull forth with her predator's jaws. Suddenly her prey is just a carcass and then that carcass is very suddenly a man. In all of a minute, she has become a killer.
There is a man in front of her. Not a carcass but a man.
It is then that the noise she thought herself incapable of rips forth from her throat.
She crawls backwards from the still twitching, roasting, lifeless body of the hiker. There is black terror in her chest now, climbing up to her throat to choke her. Her venom flies from her mouth, landing on the grass at her feet and searing it as a droplet of acid might. She screams and screams and screams. Then, there is iron around her chest. Two perfectly white hands stop her even though they are acutely aware that it is too late. Against her ear, lips just pressed to her hair, he makes inadequately soothing noises.
"Edward," he orders quietly, "Deal with the gentleman please."
His marble arms are still around her chest and they are locked in the centre. He is not making them rock back and forth - her cradled within his embrace as her screams continue - it is her that is making them move rhythmically, in time with her cries of horror. She feels him using all his strength to keep them where they are.
She watches the young boy effortlessly scoop the body of her victim up, just as he had lifted the deer in the parlour during her first night with them. There is a reverence in his movements, as if he were carrying a child to bed. She wants to go to the man to mutter sorry against his brow and say she will atone. How does one atone?
She wants to ask the vampire who has scooped her into his arms now, but it just comes out as that noise. Dr Cullen, why?
Suddenly fury, white and solid, comes over her and the shroud descends again. She pushes him away, so much so that he flies and thumps against the trunk of a nearby oak with a sickening thud. With a screech of fright, the birds who had nested within its branches depart as he stands up.
Edward drops the man's corpse at once, coming to his father's defence as he crouches beside the other man and snarls back at her. She wants to shout at him for dropping the body so carelessly but right now she has no control over any of her actions. She wants her body to stop everything it is doing; she wants her knees to straighten from their defensive angle, for her teeth to stop snarling, for her venom to stop flooding her mouth.
She is trapped inside this predator's body. She is screaming against a velvet lined cell. It is not a shroud. It is a cell. She is trapped in the body of an animal, an animal which has so much more control than her.
"Esme, please," unlike his son, he has not taken a defensive stance. Instead he holds his palms up to her as he always does when he wants to show either of them that he means no harm, showing that he is entirely vulnerable. His face is agonised, sculpted fear. It is so human. It is beautiful but so human. She hates him for it; for his control and his humanity.
This is her chance. She dives at him, all the while that same vile scream rips forth from her mouth of its own volition. She goes directly for his throat, tearing the starched cotton of his collar - a product of her hands that very morning - and the silk of his tie as if they are paper. Then, finally he uses the strength he is capable of as he order Edward to 'stay back!' He grips her with a hold the likes of which she has never known. His hands are iron on her shoulders and her granite bones feel as if they might turn to powder under his grasp. She winces and moans in pain and she sees fear in his face as he realises that he is hurting her.
Golden eyes, ancient and breath-taking, are staring into hers. She feels her cell grow fractionally larger, feels Esme, whom she at least knows and feels safe with, emerge just a little, as those eyes linger on her face. Then the scream comes back.
"Esme," he says softly, gently, "Esme do not do this to yourself. Please Esme, please. I do not wish to hurt you Esme. Please Esme."
Her scream feels more like her own this time, pushing from her heart rather than her diaphragm. It is ragged and thorny as it comes forth from her mouth. His desperate pleas have broken the spell.
"Please," she pleads, surprised that she isn't so stripped of her humanity that she can still use the delicate language with which she feels only civilised beings should be blessed, "Please take me away."
He doesn't even shift position to carry her more appropriately. He just stands up. Her legs are wrapped around his hips and her face - her mouth smearing the man's blood all over his shirt - is pressed completely into his shoulder. She doesn't even lift her head to see Edward finally realise it's safe enough to start disposing of the body.
She supposes he has done this before. Of course he has done this before. His father will have shown him how to get rid of a victim. And anyway, for a while the two of them have been waiting for her to do this. They must have prepared for this final shedding of her humanity as parents prepare for their child's first steps.
It is almost romantic in its reality; this is a step all newborns take. She has taken the step she had to take.
She is weak within his grasp. She is so slack that she feels him use his strength to hold her. He doesn't even go through the front door, instead he jumps onto the porch, then onto the awning that sits just below her bedroom window. With an effortless hand which he takes from her back, he pushes the sash open. She whimpers as he moves his hand. Doesn't he realise she needs him to hold her forever, so she might never do this again?
She expects him to drop her on the bed and leave her in disgust. She wants him to do that for it is no more than she deserves. She waits for him to place her down and never come back.
The cell is widening, the shroud is lifting, and what she has done is becoming clearer to her by the second. The full comprehension of what she has actually done will really occur to her later, as he fills the water for the seventh time, but right now she feels it dancing around the periphery of her intellect, teasing her with it's solid reality.
She has murdered a man.
She feels blunt, like a pebble or an old knife. She feels emotionally blunt. There was so much a moment ago, and now there is so much that it has become nothing. She feels nothing because she feel everything.
He walks past her bed and instead opens the bathroom door. He places her gently in the bath and immediately turns the taps on. Water gushes in a stuttering motion from them, and he fumbles - she has never witnessed him fumbling - for the plug. His fingers brush her ankle as he pushes it in.
Her dress was light white cotton but it's now splattered with poppy shaped blood patches. She should be self-conscious as the water climbs and soaks the dress and the silk of her underwear and darkens her stockings and garter. She isn't.
"You need to remove this blood," he reaches for a towel, dips it in the water that is ripping softly and begins pressing it against the partially dried blood on her shoulder. It starts to slip free of her skin and make scarlet tendrils in the clear water.
She says nothing; not as the water reaches the top and he stops the taps, not as her dress turns a filmy transparent white, not as the water is tinged pink by what she has done.
She is frightened the scream will emerge once more.
He drains a little of it away then turns the hot water on again. He wrings out the towel and throws it in the sink once she is fully cleansed. Will she ever be fully cleansed? She watches as he twists off the tap and slides down on to the tiles to lean against the wall on the opposite side of the bathroom.
She wants him to go away. She wants him never to leave her. She does not feel blunt about him but she does feel very confused.
She looks at her hands through the rippling water, the water he had, only moments ago, made warmer. They are pale ivory. They are claws. They are so dangerous.
Then she finally, properly looks at him. She has saw him in a limited view until now; as a doctor, a saviour, a creator, a friend, a kind, generous man. A man on whom she has pinned her affections. She has never once considered just now dangerous he is.
She can only know it because she has felt it now. She has been it. She understands his golden eyes, his reservation, so much better now.
Hours pass. He gets up every once in a while to warm her bath even though she doesn't need it. She cannot lift her head to meet those golden eyes.
What she has done is now fully with her, filling her from her toes upwards. She is sure she would feel made of ice if it weren't for the hot water he is shielding her with. She realises he is shielding her again.
Night falls and he does not move. He does not take his eyes from her. She wonders, fleetingly and only once, about Edward. He has not come home. She knows though that he will be fine and Esme is glad. She is glad he will be okay. He might never forgive her but he will be safe.
Who could forgive such horror?
As time marches on and midnight comes and presses it's blackness against the milky window, he gets up to refill her bath once more. She lets him, pulling her legs up to her chest to accommodate him. She finally, bravely steals a look.
She has hurt him. There is no predictable evidence of this; no cuts or bruises or bites like one might expect on a human. His posture and his pained, half-lidded eyes tell her instead. His collar is almost completely torn, exposing his neck, and the fact he is stooped over the lip of the bath draws her eyes to look here. She has, it occurs to her as a surprise, never seen his neck before. It is always hidden under high collars, thick scarves or neckerchiefs. The skin is flawless ivory but she is taken aback by the cluster of scars which spread from under his ear, curve into his neck and fade just beside his collar bone.
They are uneven and silvery, like opal or pearl, catching different colours in the steamy light. They are ugly in comparisons to his skin but they are beautiful nonetheless.
Her hands itch to feel them and she pulls them, dripping, from the water. She touches the scars and in a moment he recoils, not as a predator, but as if he is burned.
"Please," he says softly as if begging her, "Please do not touch them."
She dips her head and feels the scorch of humiliation. She hadn't quite realised, but somewhere in between seeing his neck and seeking to touch that delicate skin, her shroud had lifted completely and Esme had returned.
She sobs dryly, openly and suddenly. It is an ugly harsh sound as she cries. She does not shed tears and this is oddly a relief because she feels that if they could come they might never stop. He stoops over her and scoops her half out of the bath, soaking himself as he does so. It is as if they have switched the noises of the world on again with her weeping; like a silent wireless suddenly brought to life. As she weeps he speaks softly, reassuringly.
He speaks now, for the first time ever, of his love for her. Even though she has known it since the moment she opened her eyes. Scarlet meeting gold. Fantasies clashing with reality.
"You gave in to your nature," he whispers as he clutches her tightly, "You had to know how it felt, just as Edward did."
"I am damned," she says, "God forgive me. I am a murderer."
"This is not supposed to be easy, please believe me. Esme, all of our kind are made for this. You gave in to your nature. You have done nothing wrong. It takes time. So much time."
"Carlisle," she sobs, "Carlisle, I knew what I was doing and I couldn't resist."
"It is very difficult," there is an earnest, pleading edge to his voice, "You have to believe me. Edward did it too."
She knows why he omits himself from his reassurances. He has never fallen from grace so absolutely. She loathes him for it and wants nothing more than to be just like him.
"It happens," he vows, "It happens. Oh Esme, by God...I love you with all of my soul."
All the noise recedes and their world is silent once more at his words. The only noise is their breathing, belaboured and unnecessary, conveying the sudden intensity that is sparking from both of them. It is as if it has slipped from his mouth, unbidden. It swirls in the air between them; the thick, obtuse air which coats everything with a sheen. She is suddenly painfully aware of his closeness and the agony on his perfect face. She has known of his love, though of what nature she could not be sure, but never heard him voice it and now he has, she feels suddenly desperately needy to show him how that love is returned.
She has broken free of the shroud,the cell.
She is Esme.
With him she is so much more than that.
But he gives her no opportunity to speak.
"Forgive me," he murmurs and she realises that he is shaking against her body, "I did not want to tell you. I know I am not deserving. I did not mean...I cannot bear to see you punish yourself for your instincts. Nothing I love with such purity, such clarity, can ever be damned. You must believe me."
She sobs again, this time feeling his absolution fully. It is as if he has opened a floodgate and from it pours all of the horrors of her newborn life, ending with the murder of that poor human. She sees his face, tastes his blood and knows there is no way back. There is,inevitably, only the way forward.
"Can you forgive me?"
She doesn't want to sound as if she is pleading but, of course, by it's very nature it is a plea. He pulls her tighter to him, fully out of the bath, and her soaked body is flush against his.
There is no eroticism or lust in their embrace, and while it is an inevitable current which flows between them, to acknowledge it is impossible in this moment. Instead their embrace is desperate.
"You cannot know how much I love you," he is confessing to her, he is suddenly fully open, " I love you."
She wants to cry with relief and with shame, instead she is just content to remain pressed to him.
"There is nothing to forgive," he answers her further, "I should have protected you. I have failed you."
She sees the last decade in his eyes. She knows he means more than just her newborn life when he speaks about protecting her. She was never his responsibility, merely a girl who'd taken a ridiculously childish tumble from a tree. Yet Carlisle Cullen had always felt responsible for her; he felt her failed marriage acutely, her bid for freedom wholly, her dead child deeply. He hates himself, she knows, for changing her to this. She had been ignoring that very fact for the last nine months as she spent every day in his company feigning ignorance because she thought she had conquered the urges which had become so inherent to her. It pained her that she could only face this fact as the reality of her true nature was made apparent to her. It had been easy to fool herself into believing she was incapable of the crime she had committed only hours ago, when he knew that his choice to bite her had set her on this trajectory the moment his teeth broke her cold skin.
" How can you love me now? I am...I am-," the lack of words infuriates her, "I am damned!"
"No! No," he cries fiercely, "No, no. It is I who am damned! I deserve nothing from you. I am the one who is damned."
His sudden outburst catches her off guard, the terror in his voice driving something within her to the surface that she does not fully understand. She grips his face between her hands, though her hold is soft, and looks directly into his eyes. He does not flinch at the hue of them, even though he might want to.
"You are not! You are the most wonderful, kind man I have ever known."
His face is a portrait of despair and she selflessly fumbles about for something, anything to say that will wipe that look away.
"Carlisle," she feels as if she is about to lie, yet it feels right too, "You saved me."
Once she says it she realises how true it is.
She also feels a little cheated by her own nature as what she has done is condemned to the past with those words; she is coming, much more quickly than is right, to accept the blood lust and its consequences. Perhaps it is his reassurance, perhaps it is the profession of his love for her or perhaps it is just want their kind do. She will never forget what she has done, no, but she will learn how to live with it. She has to learn how to live with it.
"You have given me another chance," she says softly, "To prove to myself that I am worth something. Another chance to lead my own life. The life I was supposed to have."
She has not told him about Charles - she cannot bring herself to tell him. She knows though that he has an inkling of her life before. She has never told him that she doesn't miss the life he believes he stole from her either and she hasn't yet shared with him that she has started to feel content with the idea of this second life. What right does she have to feel otherwise? What right does she have to eternity and not be happy with it? Nor is she prepared to tell him that she would not have chosen life had she been given the choice; she would have chosen the still, dark cavern of nothingness over any semblance of life before this. There had been no life to live for. That very thought had pulled her feet to the edge of the cliff and propelled her down into the crashing darkness of the waves below. The thought of what she did not have had driven her downwards. Then the cold envelope of water, compressing her lungs, snapping the column of her body, claiming her in its very suddenness.
She is embarrassed by what she had so readily chosen to do as she sits in the water now. Wasn't it the most selfish of sins, to take one's life? It was only selfish, she supposes, if you know you have a reason to live but make the conscious decision not to, regardless.
For her, it had been very simple.
It had never felt like her life anyway; she was always waiting for it to start. She was often a passive observer to the life of a recklessly free girl, then a broken woman, that she hardly recognised as herself. She would stand on the fringes, a shadow of herself, as her parents made her choices, as Charles brutalised her, as she took her own life.
"Carlilse," she tries again, "Carlisle I am grateful for this."
He lifts his head and loosens his hold on her suddenly, his face an impassive mask of nothingness. He goes to the sink, shaking his head slightly, and twists the taps on. He pools water in his hands and drenches his face. She is perplexed by such a human action as she remains standing in the cool water watching him. He was, only a moment ago, professing his love for her and now she feels as if he is miles away.
He pulls his face from the basin, "You are too forgiving of me. You do not need to-"
"I won't punish you for making me happy," she insists, "Despite the difficulties. The hard parts. I won't punish you for that."
"Do not give me more than I deserve," he whispers, hands clutching the sink, "I do not deserve your kindness, even less your love," His teeth grind together, "Don't pity me."
His face is desperately sad as he turns towards her.
"Carlisle, you do not have the choice in that matter," she curls up and falls back into the bath, landing with a splash which sends pink-tinted water all over the floor, "I have loved you since I was a child. When I woke up I was so...content that I had found you."
Her words are so inadequate.
His eyes flash with curiosity but he stays exactly where he is, bent over the sink.
She has never told them of her first thoughts either, though she knows that Edward has stored them for nearly a year. At first she didn't want Carlisle to know that she had thought she was in hell but that he, her angel, was there to rescue her. Even in the present, in this grave situation, she chides herself softly over her very childish interpretation of the situation. But a smile alights on her lips despite her self-criticism as she thinks of his face floating above her as her eyes fluttered open.
He looks at her then, his voice a whisper, "I wish you would not be so forgiving of me."
"Because he was not?"
His head snaps up and while he does not answer, she very much takes this as her confirmation that her inclination was correct. She has witnessed Edward's love for him but she has also witnessed his loathing. She has to be honest with him. She will not lie to him or deceive him; she has saw how Edward blames him and she thinks, while she loves the boy deeply, she knows that it is unfair.
"I cannot-"
She watches as his hands tighten around the basin and she fears it will crack under his hands.
"He is not here," she whispers, almost as if it is a challenge, "He is not here for you to protect! I do not resent you as he has. I will not, could not, make you feel as he does!"
"As he does...at times," he says, "And you should too."
But there is no resolution in his statement. He is shaking where he stands.
She stands up and steps lightly onto the floor, her feet trailing cold water across the tiles as she goes towards him. Around his waist she curls one arm and across his chest she curls the other. She presses her face to his back and her cheek fits in the muscular curve.
"You cannot love me," he says, his voice cracking in denial, "I do not deserve your love."
It's strange that she feels entirely the opposite; he should despise her, yet here he is, professing his love for her yet refusing to acknowledge hers. His refusal hurts, his determination not to give in hurts too.
For the first time she is strong and beautiful – she will demand the love of this man because to live without it, and know it is so real, is ultimately wrong.
"You cannot make me feel. You can tell me what to feel but you cannot make me feel it," she answers almost angrily, "And you have known of my love since the moment I awoke and you have been deserving of it for eternity."
From his chest he lifts her hands and between her knuckles he plants a kiss. His eyes are black with agony, his hands trembling.
"You are my paradise," he entwines their fingers on his chest, "A paradise I don't deserve."
"And you are mine...let me have my paradise."
"Was she thy God,
lovely to attract
Thy love, not thy subjection"
Paradise Lost, John Milton
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