A/N: This is a virgin chapter folks, it has not been previewed or proofread by anyone other than myself.

WARNING: This chapter contains some dark imagery.

~*~ Chapter Eleven ~*~

Rochester, New York - February 1934

Rochester was a city in official celebration of itself. It had been a hundred years since its founding, and the Rochester Centennial was underway. Building was almost completed on the new post office on Cumberland Street, to be commemorated in less than a month. Craftsmen from all over Monroe County were building and preparing for the Hobby Show in August that would be the single most significant event of the upcoming summer. Citizens were working hard and feeling good about themselves and what they could accomplish. It was a deliberate morale booster by the city for the people while all across the country many suffered under the low economy. Despite its hopeful outlook, the city of Rochester still bowed to constraints. For over a year, one third of the eighteen thousand street lamps in the city had not been lit in order to foster financial survival. It was both an advantage and a disadvantage to the city.

With so much less light, there were a lot more dark corners and alleys where illicit and unlawful things could occur. Ten months earlier a young woman, no older than eighteen years, had been found in such a dark alley. The doctor who came across her was not able to heal her wounds, or give her back the life that she had known. Yet he was able to give her life, and picking her up and carrying her to his home, he had done so.

Rosalie Hale had not recovered gracefully. She remembers the cold and the pain she felt as she waited to die. She remembers resenting Dr. Carlisle Cullen, first when he appeared and tried to save her, and again when in the warmth of his house she started to slip away only instead to feel the sharp cut of his teeth. She screamed. Rosalie screamed for days, begging everyone in the house to just please kill her. She wanted to die. Carlisle sat by her, holding her hand and apologizing every time she screamed.

The four members of the Cullen family were all on hand to give her guidance as she adjusted to her new life as a vampire. Rosalie had never shown it, but she was grateful to them. She did not want to be alone. Yet as soon as she'd gained a sense of control over her strength, it was alone that she moved forward for revenge. One by one, she killed the men who had hurt her, saving her fiancé for last. No one helped her, and no one could stop her. After each killing Rosalie returned to the Cullen home, meeting with the grief of Esme, the understanding of Maggie and the reluctant acceptance of Carlisle. Edward simply said nothing.

In the months that passed the rest of the Cullen family simply stopped thinking about what she had done, though Rosalie did not. She remained hidden in the house, as the need for vengeance no longer superceded the wisdom of preventing recognition. The Cullens had remained in Rochester after Rosalie's disappearance from society to avoid attention being called to themselves. Had Rosalie been less widely known, moving her away from proximity to the life she had known would have been more prudent. All the same, an urban legend would sprout up in Rochester of the missing debutante and her rich fiancé who disappeared mere months later.

Carlisle's concern for Rosalie did not abate. While she may have been flawless on the exterior, he worried about the wounds she carried within, those that could not be healed by the death of the men who had hurt her. Esme shared his concerns and Carlisle would often let Esme take the lead in trying to talk with Rosalie. Esme had experienced years of a less lethal, though no less brutal, abuse from her human husband. However, time and pregnancy had given Esme something Rosalie never had the chance for: the strength to get away. It was a difference that prevented the help in healing that Esme could offer. Carlisle suspected that Esme's happiness in Maggie was also contributing to the gap between her and Rosalie. Though Carlisle wanted to help, he did not know how he could be able to, when Esme was not.

That particular evening, it was not Rosalie whom Carlisle sought out to be a shoulder for. When Carlisle found Edward, he was sitting against the wall of his personal room. Edward's elbows were resting on his bent knees, his hands supporting his head. The tension he was feeling was obvious, and most apparent in the sprawled fingers that clung through the red-tinted dark hair.

Edward was the most unique of the family members that Carlisle had turned, for he was the only one to come to his vampire abilities with an enhanced gift. While Maggie had the unerring ability to determine the truth and recognize deception, Edward's gift was even more extrasensory. He could read the minds of all around him, with no exception except for some limit as to distance. Carlisle was not entirely sure how far off one had to be to avoid their thoughts no longer being private. As a newborn Edward had learned to filter what he heard as he had learned to control his thirst and strength. It was either that, or become insane from the onslaught.

Carlisle's first family member had stayed with him for almost a decade, living the same life choice in feeding but for one or two accidents. Edward was driven to set on his own path away from Carlisle's teaching and influence by a culmination of things: hearing unwelcome dark thoughts from the people in the towns around him, a philosophy born from the rage he felt when experiencing Esme's memories of abuse and the appeal of a recent accident that happened to involve a man who had murdered for money without getting caught. Carlisle knew that in those four years of hunting humans Edward had encountered horrors beyond Carlisle's own experience. Carlisle had always striven to lead a good life, while Edward had deliberately thrown himself amongst the worst of humankind.

Edward had returned to living with the Cullen family less than three years earlier. In that time, he had kept mostly to himself, not often talking with anyone. Things had been better recently, though since Rosalie had joined the family Edward had taken to walking the streets of Rochester. Since his return to the house this evening, no one in the family had seen him and Carlisle knew it was time to find his eldest child and be a shoulder for him.

"Edward," Carlisle said.

Edward slowly raised his head to look up at him, and there was a brief instant before the tension in his shoulders loosened a fraction.

"I want to kill this man."

Carlisle's face gave nothing away before he eased himself to the floor beside Edward. "Tell me."

Edward looked over at Carlisle before fixing his gaze blankly on the wall across from him.

"You and I, we are not animals."

"No," Carlisle agreed.

"Though I am a monster and you are not."

"Edward, do not-"

Only Carlisle was not able to finish, for Edward's turmoil had found a voice and did not want to be stayed.

"Killing is the simplest thing I have done, a thing that we all do. I, however, have hunted, stood above them as if I were superior and listened to their minds to seek what I felt right to destroy. When I found the element I wanted, I sunk myself into them, brought myself to their darkness and equaled it. I taunted them, made them to fear before I fed on them, taking what they were and swallowing it into myself."

Edward looked into Carlisle's eyes, his face miserable. "I enjoyed it."

Carlisle placed a hand on Edward's shoulder, all sympathy. "You came not to."

"Nothing, nothing, was worse than feeding on them. They were monsters. There was one who not only murdered, he tortured and mutilated his victims. There was yet another who ingested them." Carlisle felt sickened even as Edward continued on without pause. "They were monsters and so was I."

Edward inhaled through his nose. "I do not regret their deaths; yet I could never allow myself to take nourishment from a human again."

"I am proud of you, Edward. It cannot be easy to have been as torn as you have and still find yourself whole."

Edward made a derisive noise. "I am not whole, Carlisle. I still want to punish. I was tempted today by the thoughts of a man and a part of me delighted at the idea of bringing about his death just as I used to."

"What happened?"

Edward sighed, closing his eyes against the pain.

"I came across the mind of a schoolmaster in town. He has taken on several new female students, girls no older than ten years. He has done nothing to harm them, and teaches them as he does the boys."

Carlisle waited for the story to turn.

"He has an awareness of the girls: the ankles that show under their skirts, the soft skin of their necks and how smooth and hairless it would be to touch all the way down. He desires them, fantasizes about them, more than just a daydream fancy. I was a lengthy distance away and I could almost smell his sweat as he thought of it.

"I wanted to kill him, to follow Schoolmaster Prodan into his home and frighten him before I finally sunk my teeth into his neck."

"Yet, you came home, Edward. You fought the urge within yourself to kill and won."

"Yes. I know. That does not change the fact that I want to. So much of me wants to indulge in being the punisher, in that dance of hunter and prey again. Yet this man is a man capable of mindfulness and reason. He has not actually committed any crimes. Who am I to kill because of what someone might do, because of a thought in someone's head? I am not so godly. I am not of God at all."

"Edward, we are all creatures of God, even vampires. Like your schoolmaster we are capable of reason above our impulses."

Edward started to respond, to enter into an argument that dated back to his early days with Carlisle. Instead his head abruptly turned towards the door. "Rosalie," was all he said to Carlisle before he was off running.

Realizing that something was wrong, Carlisle gave chase as well. It was a few seconds before it occurred to him that Rosalie had obviously overheard his conversation with Edward. Fearing the action Rosalie might have decided to take, Carlisle quickened his pace to catch up with his faster children.

Rosalie still held on to some of her extra newborn speed, and while Edward was faster than the average vampire, Rosalie was still significantly ahead of him. When he reached the schoolmaster's house, he was already too late. George Prodan lay on the floor, his neck broken. His head was tilted back and bones from his neck protruded forward, just barely not breaking through the skin. Edward wished that he could say it was the most grotesque image he had seen, but sadly the truth was that it was one of the more mild mutilations he'd witnessed. Still, this did not prevent him from feeling horror at the scene in front of him.

Rosalie stood waiting for him, her arms crossed over her chest, one shod foot propped on the body at her feet, its delicate toe sinking just barely into the cadaver's stomach.

"Rosalie… what were you thinking?"

"That's ironic, coming from you." The gold red of her eyes flashed dangerously at him. "You should be able to tell me exactly what thoughts passed through my mind, Edward."

Edward said nothing and Rosalie scoffed.

"This man deserved to die."

"He had not done anything wrong, Rosalie. His thoughts may have led him in a particular direction, but his hands never strayed to where they should not."

"Let me tell you this, mind reader." Rosalie's expression and stance was an image of beauty and dark purpose united. "There is no difference to men like him. If they are thinking about it, they will do it. Now George Prodan never will. No young ladies will ever be violated by him, and I am glad to have killed him before he could."

"To kill him for his thoughts, Rosalie?"

"Thoughts lead to deeds, Edward." It was an impulse; a thought that came so quick that Edward did not have time to evade. Rosalie seized him by the throat and slammed him into the wall, all the rage against him that she had been holding back seeping out of her and adding even more strength to her arms. "Is this the first time you have heard a man's thoughts and done nothing?"

Carlisle arrived to find them in that tableau. The body on the floor, Edward's neck in the stranglehold of Rosalie's porcelain white fingers, and a red-eyed expression on Rosalie's face that Carlisle had seen only in the Old World. After a millisecond's deliberation, Carlisle held his ground. Rosalie still had her superior newborn strength, and trying to prise Rosalie from Edward would not likely meet with success, and could possibly result in the crushing of Edward's throat. It struck Carlisle, more forcibly than ever before, that there was something still broken inside of Rosalie.

"Whom else did you hear, Edward? Before I died, what other thoughts could you have acted on?"

"I could not have known that he would hurt you." The words barely made it out on the last breath Edward had stored in him.

"Rosalie, stop this. Set Edward down."

Rosalie continued to ignore Carlisle's appearance. Her every focus remained on the vampire in her grasp. She seemed so lost in her own crashing emotions Carlisle almost doubted whether she was even aware of his presence.

"Admit it," she seethed.

Edward struggled to speak around her clenching of his throat. Though he did not need air to breathe, he needed air to speak. Rosalie relaxed her grip only slightly; her other arm came around to press against his torso and continue to hold him against the wall.

"Royce King was worse than a misogynist. He had no respect for women in any capacity, not even for their flesh. You were a decoration on his arm that enhanced his own image of himself. Though you were of less worth to him than a silk necktie, you were still an asset. I had no reason to believe he would turn on you."

"You were wrong!" Rosalie screamed at him. "Being on his arm meant that I was in more danger than anyone! You could have stopped him. You could have killed Royce before he hurt me, or any others who came before me."

Edward wanted to protest. He wanted to claim blamelessness. Yet he had known, from a flicker of a thought crossing in the fiend's mind, he had known what Royce had done before. That he could not deny.

Even as Carlisle called out in protest, Rosalie slammed Edward against the wall again, causing cracks and breaks in the pressed pattern tin sheeting into the fibrous cement underneath. "Admit it! You knew what Royce was capable of and did nothing."

Carlisle grabbed hold of the arm Rosalie had pressed against Edward's sternum. Rosalie allowed him to pull her away, her only acknowledgement of his presence, and Edward slid into a heap on the floor. Asbestos floated down on and around him.

"Yes," he said.

Surprise and regret filled Carlisle. He had never suspected that Edward knew beforehand about the kind of man Rosalie's fiancé was. Edward buried so much inside of himself – and for Rosalie to have suspected the truth, on top of constantly reliving what had happened to her - Carlisle's heart was breaking for both of his children.

Rosalie crouched, a pace away from the puddle of guilt that was Edward. Her eyes stared into him, forcing his gaze up to meet hers. "Just as tonight you knew what this man was capable of and planned to do nothing."

"Yes," Edward said.

"You owe me," she hissed at him.

In that second a grotesque smell permeated the room as the body on the floor released the fluids of urine and excrement it still held inside. At this point in his life Carlisle was desensitized to such a smell. He noticed that neither of the other vampires reacted, too caught up in their own personal agonies.

"What exactly does Edward owe you, Rosalie? He cannot undo what has been done. There is no healing he can offer you. You have every right to be angry at what happened to you, but acting this way is not going to help."

Rosalie's gaze shifted to Carlisle only briefly, conveying both a command and plea to let her finish, before fastening on Edward again. "Why have you been avoiding me, Edward? Why these long walks in the city, and keeping to other rooms when home?"

"That should be obvious."

"You are avoiding my thoughts, why?"

Carlisle wanted to intervene and take both his hurting children home. Yet, somehow the situation was allowing a sort of fascinating therapy to occur, and it stilled him from interfering. Perhaps Edward and Rosalie needed to have this conversation, as dangerous as it felt to Carlisle.

"Rosalie, you keep yourself in constant torment. You shift from thinking of what happened to you to remembering how good it felt to hurt those men. I have my own pain; I don't need yours."

"I believe that I have just proven my pain is yours, Edward. You deserve to see every moment that I have had to relive. However, your avoidance has another cause." Rosalie crouched closer to Edward. "Do not think that I did not understand what you told Carlisle. It is the pleasure I take in remembering the kills that gets under your skin. It appeals to you, makes you remember what you have already done, what you stopped doing too soon."

Now that was too much for Carlisle. Rosalie was manipulating Edward, and suggesting he go down a path Carlisle was very thankful that Edward had left.

"Stop this, Rosalie."

"Stop."

Both Carlisle and Edward spoke at once, though Edward's one word protest was weak. His eyes clenched against the memories in her mind, resisting the way they made the venom burn within him. He took a breath.

"I know what you want of me, Rosalie. I could never drink human blood again."

"Fool," Rosalie said. "Look at who is in this room with you, and rethink why it should even be necessary."

"Do not make me a part of what you are trying to do, Rosalie." There was a dangerous edict in Carlisle's voice, and both Edward and Rosalie inwardly flinched to hear it.

"Carlisle, I am only referring to the example you have made for all of us." Rosalie's voice was the most normal it had been since he'd arrived. She actually sounded kind again. "I admire what you've done, and I'm proud of you for it. Feasting on humans is despicable, and it makes demons out of us if we do it."

"She is right, Carlisle." Edward sat up. "You are right, Rosalie. I have never felt less like I still have my soul than when I have fed."

"You will never have to again, Edward. I can help you, if it ever gets too strong to bear." Rosalie reached a hand out and grasped his wrist in a gesture of caring camaraderie. "Let me help you. It is the solution to your pain, Edward. We can help people together by using our abilities, and we can help each other. That is what makes us different from the monsters."

It was a moment of decided change, and Carlisle recognized it. He knew that despite the forthcoming arguments and discussions they would have, Edward and Rosalie would move on, seeking their own path. Lit by the moonlight shining in through the windows on all three of them, Carlisle watched acceptance manifest on Edward's face and felt the break within his family begin to happen.

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