Chapter 38 – Emmett – Aftermath

I stood at the window looking out on to the street, straining for any glimpse of Rosalie. In my arms Jem fretted, kicking his legs irritably and making the kind of whining noises that I knew from experience would soon escalate to full-blown wails.

"She should be back by now," I said abruptly, turning from the window and looking towards Rosalie's parents. "What could she still be talking to him about? Either he's agreed or not."

"Perhaps they're working out details?" suggested Mr Hale, a little uncertainly.

I scowled and jiggled Jem in an effort to keep him happy. "She wouldn't leave Jem this long. He's getting hungry." As if on cue the baby opened his mouth in an impatient scream, which made up my mind for me. "I'm going to go over there and see what's going on."

"Oh, do you think that's a good idea?" Mrs Hale said nervously. "Rosalie was quite clear…"

I shook my head. "The baby needs her. I knew I shouldn't have let her go over there by herself…I'm going to go and find her."

"I'll come with you," Mr Hale said shortly and I was forced to wait, with increasing impatience, while he put his jacket on before we could leave the house.

I kept pace alongside him, although my growing sense of unease made me want to run as fast as I could. I hadn't wanted Rosalie to go alone in the first place, but the fact that she hadn't returned by the time Jem was ready to feed again had made me feel sick with anxiety. How could I have been so stupid? Royce was dangerous, and Rosalie wasn't one to back away from a fight. The last time they'd been alone he'd dislocated her elbow and hit her in the face, so who knew what might be happening now… I cursed myself to hell and back and walked as fast as a puffing Mr Hale could keep up with over to the house I knew so well.

I saw the cars from the end of the street. Several of them parked carelessly on the drive, the men moving between them in uniform…my heart in my throat I held Jem protectively close to my chest and ran.

"Sir! You can't go in there…Sir!"

One of the policemen tried to stop me, but I brushed him aside as easily as a fly and pushed my way through the open front door and into the hall. It was crowded with men in blue police uniforms, and loud with talk. Several of them turned to stare at me, their voices dropping.

I couldn't see her anywhere. "Rosalie!" I shouted.

"Sir, you'll have to leave. This is a crime scene…" One of the officers came over to me, holding out his hands and trying to guide me backwards.

Jem, hungry and cranky already, took one look at the crowd around him and opened up his mouth and screamed. For a moment no one did anything, and then a small women with brown hair and a kind smile came and touched me on the arm.

"Emmett? I'm Esme Cullen. I was with my husband when the police called him in. Come into the kitchen with me, that's where Dr Cullen and Rosalie are," she said gently.

The police officers didn't tell me I couldn't so, confused and terrified over what I'd find in the kitchen, I followed Mrs Cullen through to the back of the house, where I saw Dr Cullen and Rosalie seated in kitchen chairs, a young looking police officer standing awkwardly off to the side.

"Rosalie…oh Rosa-girl…"

She looked like a vision from my worst nightmares. Face stark white, blood soaked into her clothes and matted in her hair, a row of black stitching running halfway down her face as it closed a gaping wound that ran from her temple to her jaw. Her hands and arms were swathed in towels, all of it coloured with giant crimson patches of blood, and a blanket was wrapped around her shoulders.

My arms shook so much that Mrs Cullen reached across and took Jem from me, and I let her without a word as I fell to my knees by the chair that Rosalie was sitting in. "Beautiful girl, please tell me you are okay."

Rosalie looked down at me, her face blank. "I'm okay. It…he…" Her face spasmed and without even thinking about it I knelt up and wrapped my arms around her, stroking her hair and back and kissing her face anywhere it wasn't hurt.

"Oh Rosa-girl, I'm sorry…I should have been here."

"Take it easy Emmett."

I realised then that Dr Cullen was sitting right beside Rosalie, stitching up her face. I'd been so desperate to talk to her that I hadn't even registered him. "Doc, is she…"

"Hello Emmett." He indicated for me to move and, still with my arms around Rosalie, I shifted to her side. Dr Cullen gave me a sober smile as he went on with his meticulous stitching. "Rosalie will be okay. It looks worse than it is."

Jem saw his mama and started sobbing, and Rosalie seemed to jerk back into wakefulness. "Oh Jem…oh little one…" Automatically she reached up and began unbuttoning her blood soaked dress and, feeling sick, I hurried over to the drawer and found a tea towel so that she could wipe her breast free of blood before the baby fed. Much more awkwardly than usual Rosalie held Jem up to her breast and he latched on, leaving us all in silence.

"What did he do to you?" I asked tightly. As well as the wound on her face, I could see bruises and cuts on Rosalie's arm and hand, now dripping blood onto Jem's new clothes. "Did he have a knife?" I grabbed the towel and did what I could to wrap her arm and keep the blood from the baby.

"Yes," Rosalie said, her voice low and detached. "He had a knife. He wanted to kill me…but he wanted to hurt me first." She shuddered. "But it didn't end up that way…I killed him, Emmett."

It was like the whole world was rocking under my feet. "You…what?"

"I killed him," she repeated, in the same robotic voice. "He cut my face, and we fought and I…I got the knife and I…he's dead, Emmett, Royce is dead…"

Good girl! I can't deny that my first thought was one of overwhelming relief, that Royce was dead and now Rosalie was safe from him. Jem was safe from him. We were all safe from him…but, oh! At what price?

"It's not your fault," Mrs Cullen said soothingly. She carried over a steaming mug of tea and pressed it in to my hand. "Here Emmett, drink this." She looked back at Rosalie and twitched the blanket more closely around her. "You were defending yourself Rosalie, that's all."

I took the tea and drank it down, finding comfort in the hot sweetness. Rosalie had a cup of tea beside her, and I gently encouraged her to drink some too.

Dr Cullen continued stitching as he said quietly, "It was self-defence. The knife belongs to Royce, and these cuts were clearly made when he attacked you. I have documented evidence of the previous abuse Royce inflicted on you, Rosalie. You called the police immediately and made no effort to hide or lie about things, which speaks in your favour as well. There is no doubt in my mind that this is a straightforward case of self-defence." He reached the end of the cut on Rosalie's face and tied and snipped off the thread. "I've been as careful as I can Rosalie, and I don't think that will scar too badly. Now, I need to deal with the injuries to you arms and hand."

I took Jem as he finished feeding. Mrs Cullen got a basin of warm water and helped Dr Cullen wash Rosalie's hand and arm. The cuts weren't as deep as the one on her face, but they were messy and some still required stitching. Rosalie sat stoic and uncomplaining as Dr Cullen began the tedious process of sewing her back together.

Mr Hale came into the kitchen, accompanied by one of the senior police officers. His face paled when he saw Rosalie covered in blood, but he maintained his composure as he came over and touched her lightly on the shoulder.

"Rosalie, this is Detective Shane. Detective Shane, my daughter Rosalie King."

The detective nodded around. "Dr Cullen, is Rosalie able to answer a few questions right now?"

Dr Cullen hesitated. "I think she's in shock Detective. She's told you the story, perhaps any interrogation can wait until she's feeling better and has a lawyer present."

Rosalie looked up at the detective, her face taut. "I'm not in shock. It happened exactly as I told you. I came over here to talk to him, but he had his knife and he wanted to kill me. He would have if I hadn't been able to fight him off. And he told me he's done it before and got away with it."

"We'll be looking into those claims," the detective said quietly. "Dr Cullen, we'll need you to give a statement about the extent of the injuries."

"Of course," Dr Cullen nodded and continued to work on Rosalie. His sewing was even better than Ma's…I couldn't help but be impressed at his tiny, impeccably neat stitches.

"Do you feel up to going through the events with me now?" The detective asked Rosalie. "I'd like to get a full and complete statement from you."

Rosalie nodded and over the next hour she spoke, answering all the detective's questions, painting a clear and stomach-churning picture of what had taken place. That she had been in such danger, that Jem and I could have lost her…I clenched my hands into fists to stop them shaking.

At one point during the questioning a younger detective came in with a box. I saw a brief flash inside of all the mutilated photographs of Rosalie and looked away. Rosalie herself looked vaguely sick as she looked at them, and shook her head when she was asked if she had seen them before.

Finally the detective seemed to run out of questions. He finished scribbling in his notebook and then said, "Thank you Mrs King, for your cooperation. We won't be taking you in to custody at this point, although our enquiries will be continuing and we would ask that you remain at your parents' home for the time being."

Rosalie nodded. "Of course."

"We'll be in touch."

Back at the Hale's house, it was clear that the numbing effects of shock were beginning to wear off for Rosalie. She was shivering and jumpy, and I thought the last thing she needed was to have to sit down with her mother and tell her she'd just killed her husband.

"I'm going to take her upstairs and wash all that blood off," I said quietly to Dr Cullen, who had come in at Mr Hale's request to help him tell his wife all that had occurred.

"Try and keep the stitches as dry as possible," Dr Cullen murmured. "I'll give her a shot before I go so that she will sleep, which is what she needs now."

"And don't worry about little Jem," Mrs Cullen said, smiling at me as she held my sleeping baby. "I'll look after him for you."

"Come on Rosa girl," I said, taking her hand and leading her past the sitting room. Mrs Hale saw the blood all over her daughter then and screamed, but Rosalie didn't even blink.

Upstairs Rosalie fumbled with her buttons, but her hands were shaking so much that when she'd only undone one button five minutes later I gently took her hands away and did it myself. The dress, her slip, her underwear…everything was dark with drying blood.

I sat her before the sink and washed her hair, careful to keep the water away from the long row of stitches on her face, gentle and tender with the swollen, bruised area that had been slammed into the table. Neither of us said anything as I did that. Rosalie kept her eyes shut, and I watched with my heart aching as all the blood washed out of her hair in water made red.

After everything he's ever done to her before, now we have THIS? This attack on her face, this threat of death that gave her no choice but to fight back with everything she had? He didn't leave her any choice BUT to kill him.

I ran the tub, and helped Rosalie step into it. She shuddered as the warm water rose up around her, and then covered her face with her hands. "Oh Emmett…" Her voice was muffled and desperate. "What have I done?"

"You did what you had to do," I said steadily. "You did what you had to do to get away and get back to me and Jem. It was self-defence Rosalie."

"But I killed him," she whispered, dropping her hands and staring at me with wide, terrified eyes. "I got hold of that knife and I drove it right into his belly and he died right there next to me…"

"He didn't give you a choice." My voice cracked. "Beautiful girl…you can't blame yourself for this. He's the only who pulled out the knife, he's the one who used it to hurt you. You didn't have a choice."

"What do I tell Jem? What do I say when he's old enough to ask about how he came to be?" Rosalie's voice shook.

I stroked her long, damp hair. "We tell him the truth. That the man who fathered him wasn't all that he should have been, but that his mama was brave and strong and did everything she had to in order to take care of him. He'll be proud of you Rosalie; when he's old enough to know what happened he'll be as proud of you as I am."

"What if I go to prison?"

"You won't. The detective said that the evidence backs up your story, and Dr Cullen has proof that Royce had hurt you before. They won't jail you for defending yourself against someone with a knife to your throat."

Rosalie gingerly touched the stitches running down the side of her face, from her temple to her jaw. "This is going to scar. Everyone is going to look at me and see it…what will they all think?"

"That you're beautiful," I whispered, tenderly taking her face in my hands. "Because that's what I think. You're beautiful, no matter what." I kissed her forehead, her cheeks, and finally her lips. "Beautiful and strong and so, so brave."

And my beautiful, brave girl, who I loved beyond words, laid her cut and bruised face against my neck and cried.