"I pushed you away
Although I wished you could stay
So many words left unsaid,
But I'm all out of breath
So go, go, go
Get out of here
Go away."
-Of Monsters and Men, Sinking Man
x~X Lene X~x
"What did you do... Lene?"
"What I had to."
For a while, all remained absolutely still. I refused to look at Carlisle, even though it killed me not to know what was going through his mind. A part of me not wanting to know.
"I don't want to feel this way," he said then, breaking the silence, his voice so small but not in the least confused but instead sure even if a bit aloof.
I couldn't help furrowing my brow, or my instinct to turn and look at him.
His eyes were so piercing, that the moment they met mine, I knew I could not look away. That I didn't have the strength to.
"I know you want to spare me... I know you will take all the blame and the abuse- but it's for me to share and no matter how painful, I would not be parted from any of my sentiments, especially not those I feel for you," he spoke quietly and seriously, so quietly that I doubted that even the vampires would be able to hear with the music even if they stood just outside the study door.
If I thought I couldn't breathe before, it was nothing to what those words did to me. I thought then if I was not built like a statue, that the sentiment that suddenly knocked against me would have made it impossible to remain standing.
My throat tightened, worst then any thirst pangs I'd ever felt before and as I became lost in his eyes, I was uncertain what to do or say.
"What do you want Carlisle?" I whispered, because I couldn't raise my voice any higher than that as I pleaded for him for... something. I felt a sweltering anger so hot that it burned tears in my eyes because he was my weakness, because he never made a choice and tortured me instead with his words. "What do you want me to do?!"
Because I didn't know what he wanted. Because I couldn't remove the barrier without sending us all pitching into a spiral to hell. Because I couldn't go back to that. Because I refused to exist as the Other Woman.
Carlisle frowned as he looked away, finally releasing me by doing so. But even so, my eyes remained on his face, searching him for the answer... as if his words might somehow release me from what I felt for him because I obviously couldn't do it myself.
Before Carlisle could say anything, the door of his study opened. We both turned and looked at Rosalie who looked between us momentarily with an arched brow that briefly took over her scowl.
Looking away from her, I noticed then that Carlisle and I stood very close to each other, causing me to cross my arms and move somewhat away as I turned to look at Rosalie, wondering what she wanted as she continued to stand at the threshold.
"The mutts have arrived. Jasper and Edward think that it would be a good idea to inform them of the coming New Born battle," Rosalie reported, though she was nearly spitting in rage. Rage I was starting to think, had nothing to do with how she found Carlisle and I.
"They do have a right to know that a large number of New Borns may be passing near and through their territory, so that they may protect their tribe," Carlisle lectured reasonably, almost as though Rosalie had interrupted nothing.
I bristled in hurt, but forced myself not to show it.
Rosalie didn't think much about Carlisle's response as she rolled her eyes, but she refrained from commenting on it.
"We're all gathering in the dinning room. Alice, and Esme are seeing out all the guests," and with that, Rosalie turned and left, the summoning left hanging in the air.
I felt Carlisle turn and knew that he was about to say something, so I moved quickly to follow Rosalie. Yes, I was running away like a coward, but really what else could I do? I'd already ventured that path with Carlisle, I didn't want to go down it once more.
"You're really stupid, you know that," Rosalie told me, not long after we first met- when she and Emmett stopped to visit after their 20th honeymoon or something. "When Esme comes back, because she will... he's just going to leave you. You're setting yourself up for failure... the Mistress ALWAYS loses."
...
"You should leave... if you have any respect for anything, you should go. You don't belong here," Edwards words, cold and cruel, filled with resentment ran in my head.
…
"Lene," Carlisle's voice, a whisper in the dark to where I stood, frozen in place, staring out the vast window and into the snow covered night. Were I human, I might have been in tears. But instead, I just fell a vast reserve of anger and I felt if I uncrossed my arms from my chest, I'd unleash a wave of unmerciful destruction.
"Carmen and Eleazar are taking me into town," I whispered, though I wasn't sure why I was breaking the silence... only knowing that there was nothing that Carlisle could possible say that I would want to hear.
"Would you like me to-"
"No... your family is finally all together again- I thought you might like to spend time with them without me intruding," I replied without turning to look at him, though I could feel him lingering behind me, no more than three feet away.
"You're not intruding, Lene. You're part of this-"
I scoffed, causing him to stop speaking.
"I'm not welcome nor wanted, Carlisle. And if I stay, its only because I'm barely out of my New Born phase... because I haven't been exposed to many humans yet."
"You want to leave?" he asked, his voice sounding heart-broken as he closed the distance between us and gently took me in his arms so that he could turn me to face him.
I glared up at him, unable to believe that he could ask.
"This is a living hell, Carlisle! Every moment I'm here, I want to tear Esme, or Edward or Rosalie apart! I almost pulled Esme's head off when she arrived! And I can't take this anymore! Their looks! Their asinine and degrading remarks! I didn't fucking ask for this Carlisle! Why didn't you just leave me alone?! Why didn't you just let me die?!"
"I can't go on without you," Carlisle spoke, his voice breathless and almost sounding like a sob, spoken so lowly that I could barely hear and I felt all the anger evaporate, leaving behind only despair as I wrapped me arms around his neck.
I didn't want to hurt him... fucked up as it was considering his words turned out to be lies... his promises so easily broken.
His own arms wrapped tightly around me, pressing me so close to him that the tips of my feet barely touched the ground.
"Don't leave me. I know it's selfish of me to ask... but I can't lose you"
"I'll stay," I whispered in response, weakly and brokenly. "But I can't live in this hell for eternity."
To this day, I'm not sure how the hell I lasted those last few, dragging months, but I pushed this out of my mind, instead thinking of the other thoughts that had crossed my mind.
"Why haven't you tried to recruit the Denali's for this battle?" I asked no one in particular as I caught up with Rosalie, just as she was on the threshold into the dining room.
"They blame Bella for the death of Irina's mate," Rosalie replied as we entered, shooting a glare at the three Native-American wolf-boys who looked very uncomfortable as they stood tensely near to Bella and as far from the rest of the Cullens as they could.
Immediately I forced myself to stop breathing as I was punched by their stench.
"Who is that?" the biggest of the three asked, looking at me with narrowed and suspicious eyes at the same time that I asked Rosalie, "Irina got a mate?"
"A vampire by the name Laurent, part of the nomad coven that we came across last year. He went to see the Denali's after he defected and became Irina's mate. He came back to Forks not long ago- for Bella while we were away. The wolves tore him apart," Rosalie explained at vampire speed, shooting a look at the wolves that screamed distaste.
I raised a brow at this.
Though I met the Denali coven and even got along better with them then with the majority of the Cullen's, I hadn't bothered to keep in contact with them after I left the Cullens.
"Magdalene is a friend that we asked to help us with our Victoria problem," Carlisle explained at the same time, looking at the wolves patiently and amicably.
I turned to look at the wolf boys who were staring at me apprehensively, as if afraid that I was planning to attack them at any moment. I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest, choosing to lean against the wall as Edward proceeded to explain the situation to the wolves.
But I wasn't really interested in anything that they were talking about and instead turned away, only paying half mind while losing myself to my thoughts.
In truth, I couldn't wait for the battle of the New Borns so that I could get the hell out of Forks. All this waiting with nothing to do but reminisce about the past... it was quickly becoming old.
X
x~X Leah X~x
I really didn't want to be there. And by there, I mostly meant in this fucked up pack-mind bull shit that I seemed forever trapped in these days and not so much the forest.
'Lighten up Leah,' Seth's chipper voice piped up in my mind, causing me to growl in his direction (to the right of me) as we waited in the treeline for the arrival of the leeches.
Seth was too fucking excited and it was fucking annoying. In spite of the coursing adrenaline through my veins, I din't feel the need to fucking hop around like a little kid who wants to take a wicked piss.
'Stop whining!' Paul thought in my direction, all the while suddenly thinking of me naked and I could feel his damn lascivious fucking smirk in the inside of my mind. I growled all the deeper, getting up and turning my head in his direction. Unfortunately there were several other wolves between me and him, including Sam.
'Shut the fuck up Paul!'
'Leah!' and there goes my sanctimonious ass of an ex trying to fucking control me.
'Why don't you fucking tell anything to him?!' because of course, I was the one that was always being told off. Never one of the fucking guys.
I could feel the rage building inside me, rippling through my muscles and I knew that if I wasn't already phased, the fur would have fucking flown.
I mean, how do these fucking things happen? And why the fuck did all this bull shit have to happen to me?!
'Cause the universe hates you,' Quil replied to my rhetorical question. But he was at least close enough to bite.
A yelp rang through the clearing, high and brief at the same moment that Sam called out 'Leah!'
I really wish that fucking bastard would keep my name out of his mouth.
'Bitch,' Quil thought as he slunk further away from me all the while Embry and Paul laughed at him. I growled once more while Sam turned his great big, black head to glare at me over my brother and Jared. As if his glare really has any fucking affect on me.
However, I turned away until finally the fucking Cullens appeared.
One of them seemed to be carrying something on his back... too big to be a bookbag.
'Bella,' Jacob thought with a growl which was short lived as images of the pasty white girl, with chocolate brown hair started to blare through the pack link, all bright and fucking sparkly.
Honestly, you won't believe how the wolf's perception of something colors the image presented. Because though I've never seen her from too close up, I know Bella fucking Swan doesn't walk in an aura of constant sunlight. That's Jacob's pansy-ass mind's doing.
Jacob growled at me, but I paid him no mind as we finally did something and walked out to meet the leeches.
'Is it just me or are there a shit load of them now?' Jared thought nervously as I counted in my head, not paying any of them any individual attention.
Sans Bella, the group across the clearing from us totaled in eight people, four males and four females.
'I thought there were only 7 of them,' Paul thought, and I could feel the frown in his voice while I mentally ran through the images that Jacob had provided to us of the Cullens in the past.
There was of course, Dr. Leech- the blonde fatherly one.
Then there was the motherly one- I mean, fucking Stepford-wife much?
Then there was the Barbie bitch, the midget with black hair, the big fucking bear of a guy, and the blonde constipated dude and of course, Mr. Fucking Bed-Head Ginger who Bella wants to hump.
I honestly didn't get it. Jacob might be an annoying little fuck, but at least the kid is cute. And since the change, he even looks fuckable.
Unlike Mr. Geriatric Pedo, mind-rapist fuck.
Jacob's bark of a laugh rang through the clearing as Embry joined him. Beside me, I could feel Seth frown at my unkind thoughts.
You would think after knowing me all his life, the kid would be fucking used to me by now.
'You weren't always so angry and mean, Leah,' Seth's mind whispered to me and I felt my heart clench as an old memory of us together ran through his head.
We were sitting on the couch, curled up together, watching some Disney movie. I think I was fourteen, Seth was something like eight. Suddenly, I'm not sure what we were talking about or saying because Seth couldn't remember, but I suddenly grinned widely and started to tickle him while he shrieked happily while laughing, begging me to stop.
I felt my heart give a painful clench while Sam seemed go glom on and suddenly before everyone there I was, sixteen and grinning happily. My whole face glowing while he stroked back my long hair and tucked a strand of my dark hair behind my ear.
'Cut that fucking shit out! Aren't we here supposed to be learning to fucking kill some leeches for some fucking armageddon battle?!' I yelled through the pack link, feeling my rage surge because how fucking dare he think of me lovingly, how fucking dare he bring up the time when we were dating and happy and thought that we would be together forever just so he could go and fucking imprint on my cousin!
Sam didn't say anything, though we could all feel his sudden embarrassment. But he instead motioned for Jacob to follow him and they both stepped forward. The ginger who Bella had been clinging to stepped forward with a tall, blonde male to meet up closer to Sam and Jacob while we all tensed and watched intensely.
'It's the one with dark hair and whose skin isn't as pale as the rest of them... she's some friend or something they asked to come help,' Embry piped up for the rest of us while Sam and Jacob had a conversation with the two leeches while the mind-rapist spoke to them.
Instead of watching them, I turned and looked for who Embry was referring to before I spotted her.
The leech had long black hair... darker even then my own. Her skin, which was pale and perfect, seemed to have a slightly pale-olive tone to it. But it was difficult to tell from her features what she might have been when she was human.
Dressed in black leggings with one of those long black hoodies and black combat boots, she was slender but not very tall. Like the rest, she was sickeningly beautiful.
'I get a hispanic vibe off her,' Quil opined. But I didn't really pay him any mind as I continued to study the new leech in town.
Unlike the rest of the Cullens, she seemed to be standing behind the line they created by several feet. Her arms were crossed over her chest and there was a scowl on her face.
She didn't look like she wanted to be there anymore than I did. But what I found interesting was the fact that she stood apart form the Cullens and I wondered what that was about.
Why come fight a fucking battle if you don't care for the people you're standing up with?
Although, not that I could really talk. It's not like I had much of a choice when it came to this fucking tribe-protector bull shit.
As if sensing my attention, the leech turned her head in my direction. For a moment, her dark eyes looked me over, he brow furrowing before she turned away and stared at the proceedings, looking rather bored.
'Got a girl crush there Leah?' Paul's voice leered and I snapped towards him, ready to bite his fucking head off but it seemed that we were starting.
I turned away to stare at the ginger who was speaking and stared at his face for single moment, thinking that while he looked too damn much like a teenager that he was actually good-looking in spite of what Jacob thought...
And then he looked up. Eyes like bright fucking topaz met with my own and I was fucking lost.
I'd known how it happened. Felt it in the memories of my pack-mates before me but... somehow it didn't fucking compare when it happened to me. It felt like I was feeling their sentiments through a filter, as if a sheet separated it from touching my heart.
But now...
Fuck fireworks. Fuck the world tilting. Fuck gravity.
It felt like a cosmic explosion. Everything in that moment that wasn't me and him, completely winked out of existence as if it had been sucked into a black hole.
I felt like my heart had been placed in chains and those bright links ran from my heart and where latched around him. Holding us together. Forging a connection that neither one of us wanted or were prepared for.
He was it. He was my everything. And I existed solely to protect him and make him happy in anyway that I could.
'Oh shit!'
'Fuck!'
'Did that just fucking happen!'
'I can't believe it!'
'How is it possible, on a leech?!'
The words of my mates were background noise and I couldn't really hear them or distinguish who was speaking over the sound of my racing heart as I continued to stare at the shocked boy.
My Imprint.
'NO' Sam's voice broke through, but even so, I couldn't tear my gaze away form him. I couldn't. I was frozen.
"Edward? What's going on?" a tentative, vulnerable voice spoke, causing him to look away and break the spell. And suddenly I felt my hackles rise because of course, if I had to imprint it would be on a fucking leech. And not just any fucking leech. It had to be the one that was clingy-Bella's fucking straightjacket.
I did the only thing that was sensible to do. I turned tail and ran.
Quil was right of course, the Universe really does hate me. That's what hurt so much.
X
x~X Lene X~x
"What just happened?" Rosalie asked, bemused.
"Edaward?" Carlisle intoned quietly as he stepped closer to Eddie while I stared after the wolf who ran, a grey wolf who seemed smaller than most of the others, but was sleep and apparently very fast.
"The girl... she imprinted," Edward whispered back, sounding horrified, speaking so low and fast in his panic that the human wouldn't be able to hear. Hell, I could barely hear him, but then I was standing quite a distance from them.
"Imprinted. What is that?" Rosalie asked callously.
"I think...it's what happens when they look into the eyes of their... mate?" Edward said, thought he didn't sound certain as he turned to look at the wolves, as if pleading for them to correct him.
For a moment, I wondered why Edward would be so panicked about that before it clicked.
Edward had been facing in her direction...
"She imprinted on you?" I asked in a quiet voice, causing Edward's eyes to snap towards me as he attempted to compose himself and straighten up. I'm not sure how, but a vampire can apparently actually get paler.
He seemed about to snarl something when suddenly, he flahsed so that he was before me. I barely moved my hands in time in order to put them before me, as if to ward him off.
I hated having my personal bubble barged into!
Edward caught himself before he got dangerously close. But suddenly, as I looked into his face, I wondered at the somewhat manic expression on his face.
"Help me," he said simple.
"What?"
"Use your power on me," he pleaded with his eyes, his entire form taking a slightly stooped and supplicating manner.
I stared at him, wondering what the hell he was going on about before pausing in my perusal of him.
"You felt it too, didn't you?" I murmured quietly, ignoring all the eyes that I felt latched onto us. If I had a heart, it would have swooped at the sudden delight that I felt when Edward refused to answer, but his eyes and the way his adams apple bobbed said it all. "It's different isn't it? That sudden, magnetic pull that materializes from nothing... that you can't ignore... that demands you be at there side and do everything you can to make them happy," I taunted in quiet tones.
"Edward?" I drew my gaze to Bella and felt my pleasure being properly doused.
"I told you, Eddie. I warned you," I stated seriously, turning to look at Edward now with contempt. "Love for us isn't something that comes slowly. It happens all at once. I told you, you would hurt her."
"I don't have to... if you take it away!" Edward hissed, taking a step closer but stoping when he felt me press an index finger to his chest and gave him a warning look.
"I'm not going to make this easy on you. You don't deserve it. You need a good damn reality-check and to learn some damn humility," I sneered at him. "Maybe in the future, you'll learn to have some damn compassion instead of arrogantly thinking you know everything and that the feelings of others don't fucking matter."
I turned away.
"Lene," I heard a disappointed voice but I shook my head.
"NO, Carlisle! Not this time," I snapped, before running through the trees to get away from them.
I wouldn't be guilt-tripped. I wouldn't be reasoned with. I wouldn't be bribed.
Edward was finally going to be in my shoes, and I wanted him to fester with the guilt, of having his heart tugged mercilessly by a force that he was powerless to stop.
I might have felt sorry for Bella, but I hoped that she was strong enough to weather the bitter experience and move on and if she wasn't, then she probably wasn't worth the space she was taking up.
X
I'm not sure how long I'd been moving through the tress, running away from the Cullens before coming to a stop. I could feel as I moved, not really paying attention to where I was going except to keep under the cover of foliage, someone following behind me. I hoped, as I gathered my powers, that it wasn't Edward fucking following me because I would freeze his ass, just to steel one of his arms and hide it before unfreezing him so that he could go off and track down his arm and leave me the hell alone.
As I finally stopped, I closer my eyes and tilted my head back, extending my senses. I wasn't alone for long, but one breath, and I knew who'd followed behind me.
"I won't be moved or convinced, Carlisle," I called as I hear him step closer before coming to a halt.
"Do you hate Edward that much?" he asked dispassionately, calmly.
I snapped my eyes opened and turned to glare at him.
"I don't hate Edward... I dislike his personality, it aggravates me that he feels himself so superior to others all the while thinking himself a monster. I resent him, for everything he's said to me over the years, for blaming me for what happened as if I asked you to turn me, to fu-"
I stopped in my angry tirade and straightened up, taking a sharp breath at what I was about to say. Reaching up, I ran my hands through my hair and felt tears that wouldn't fall build hotly in my eyes.
"He treated me like all those fucking nurses used to. Like I was a dirty urchin-whore... like it was my own fault I got-"
AIDS.
I didn't get to say it. I wasn't sure I would be able to. And Carlisle knew that. Knew that every-time, even after all these years, the word was so bitter that only at my most self-deprecating I could say it.
Perhaps that's why suddenly, stunningly, I found my forehead pressed into his chest, one of his hands lodged in my hair while the other held my waist and all the words that I might have spat got caught in my throat.
I shut my eyes, leaning against him minutely because I couldn't hold myself together as the weight of it all came back to me.
The hate. The hurt. The betrayal.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, placing a kiss on my head, causing me to pull away because it felt... empty.
I know he meant it... Carlisle was the most compassionate being in all of existence. But this that he was giving to me, he might give to about any patient. It wasn't special.
"It's done. It's past," I grit out, shutting my eyes and rubbing a hand over them because really, I thought I let all this emotional shit go already. Taking a deep breath, I willed myself to disconnect from that past... from those last years.
"But it doesn't mean he gets a free pass."
"Edward was too young when I changed him-"
"I don't care, Carlisle," I snapped, looking up at him because once more, he was just making excuses for his brat. "He's been around for like a century. He should know by now that monsters aren't simply creatures that suck the blood of the living... its people who have no regard for the feelings of others too."
Carlisle looked pained at my words but did not seem to disagree as he ducked his head.
"It's a learning experience," I sighed.
"But what about Bella?"
"She doesn't belong in our world. And she'll be better off, ultimately."
Carlisle frowned. "She fell apart while we were gone. She was barely getting better when we returned."
"Maybe if you stayed completely away, she would have fully recovered and moved on."
"You haven't," he stated suddenly and I felt the world shift beneath my feet. I stared at Carlisle incredulously.
"How could you compare-" I started to ask, my voice raising in indignation as ha cavalierly compared my feelings for him to Bella's for Edward.
"You walked away. You left me and you were gone for ten years- how? And why did you come back?"
I looked away, understanding what he was saying. He was asking me how it was possible, if we were truly mates. And in spite of the veil I put between him and his emotions for me, I could see the confusion written on his features as he tried to understand.
Would his heart be broken now, if I weren't keeping him disconnected from his true feelings for me? Would he feel distraught at the mere thought that I could leave him and stay away for so long?
I couldn't respond. I couldn't tell him.
What was the point, if he didn't know what I'd done already? If he couldn't guess that I had to disconnect myself from my emotions, what was the point in telling him?
He doubts that I'm his mate... but then, hasn't he since Esme returned? Why wouldn't he leave Esme for me? Because he turned her... made her live after her son had died and taken away her possibility to have more children and a real family?Because he couldn't hurt her after all that? Because he felt obligated? Such weak arguments!
"You should go back," I told him, my voice hard. "Before they start thinking we're out here fucking."
Carlisle flinched. For a moment, pain flashed through his clouded eyes. But he ducked his head and started to walk away, making my heart ache in my chest.
What was that? Is IT weakening?
I got lost in my thoughts, phantom heart racing, breathing erratic as I panicked in wonder.I didn't even hear the sudden rustling behind me.
"I thought Dr. Leech was married to that other brunette."
TBC...
A/n: Sorry for any mistakes, I just wanted to get this chapter posted already. (Writing at least 5k for a chapter is hard XD)
Oh and to bridgetlynn, very intuitive of you! Yes, Magdalene had HIV/AIDS, but I'll reveal exactly how she got it in possibly the next chapter.
Anyway, please review! And so sorry for the long wait!