This part of the story is so terribly awful that I couldn't post the last chapter and not follow up with new one. I hope it's somewhat of a balm, because I know the last 2 chapters were crazy intense. They're the most infuriating, upsetting, enraging part of the entire thing. But things get really fun from here, I promise. We know how this story ends. Thanks for stickin with me 3
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Unknown date
Unknown days until the wedding
He wouldn't kill me.
And he had the nerve to apologize every time I screamed.
I didn't believe him. He'd done this to me. He could make it stop. He wouldn't.
When Royce and his gang had abused my body, my screaming had worsened the torture. With this, though, screaming had no effect on my pain at all.
It went on for fucking ever.
All the while, Dr. Cullen held my hand and promised me that the suffering would end. I cursed at him until I thought my voice would give out.
It never did.
"I'm so sorry," he said softly, for the millionth time.
"No you're not, you bastard!"
"I'm so sorry, Rosalie."
"Then kill me, you demented quack."
"I won't. I'm sorry."
"Bullshit!"
"I'm sorry."
"Please!"
"I'm so sorry."
"Fuck you!"
Eventually, I stopped screaming. It did no good to scream. It made no difference whether I suffered in silence or suffered out loud.
He was just like Royce. They all were.
After a while, I only bothered to scream when I wanted to piss him off. Like when he started talking nonsense.
The doctor was insane. He tried telling me that he survived by drinking blood – never human blood, but only the blood of animals. Like that distinction was supposed to be some kind of comfort.
He told me that Edward and Esme were the same, as well. He told me that I would be the same soon, too.
He told me that, when the pain ended, I would want nothing more than to consume human blood. He told me that he would help me resist it.
He told me that I would never age, that my wounded body would fully heal from its trauma, and then I would become frozen forever. He told me that I would be strong and fast, faster than any human being on the Earth. He told me that I would never feel the need to sleep, or eat, or even breathe.
He told me he had been alive for over two hundred years. That he'd saved Edward from death by influenza in 1918, and that Edward's sibling relationship with Esme was a lie. That Esme had been found in a similar state as me some years after he'd found Edward. That she had healed perfectly, and that I would, too.
If he wasn't lying, then he was delusional. I would never heal from this. I knew it. If the physical pain stopped, I was sure to be scarred forever. My body felt like it had been charred, yet the flames continued to lick at me.
I was in Hell. I had to be. I had been sent to Hell for the lust I'd inspired. The lust I'd encouraged. I would burn forever for it.
I told him I didn't believe him. He just kept apologizing.
At some point, Edward and Esme came home to join in on their shared psychotic hallucination. They were as committed to the blood-drinking bit as the doctor was.
Esme didn't speak much, which made sense. She'd have to be a good wife in the eyes of her husband, who was capable of doing horrific things. Apparently, good wives shut up about their husbands' sick hobbies.
All she said when she saw me was a quiet "oh."
As it turned out, the male voice from earlier had been Edward's. I'd never heard him speak before.
But once he started talking, I wished I'd been left wondering.
"What were you thinking, Carlisle? Rosalie Hale?" he said, sounding exasperated. Like invoking my name was some kind of insult. Like there was something wrong with me.
"I couldn't just let her die," Carlisle said quietly. "It was too much – too horrible, too much waste."
There was a beat of silence before Edward dismissively replied, "I know."
Oh, now he acknowledges me.
Had I missed some conversation between them? Edward couldn't know the state Carlisle had found me in, and Carlisle had been with me for every second since.
Edward didn't know. He couldn't know. He didn't know anything about me.
He wouldn't even look my way at my own engagement party. Why should he start now? Was he that dedicated to whatever fucked up ritual their cult was sacrificing me for?
"It was too much waste," Carlisle repeated. "I couldn't leave her."
"Of course you couldn't," Esme agreed. I gritted my teeth.
I wished that he had. He hadn't even asked.
"People die all the time," Edward said callously. "Don't you think she's just a little recognizable, though? The Kings will have to put up a huge search – not that anyone suspects the fiend."
A sense of righteousness coursed through me. The fact that Edward seemed to know Royce was guilty – somehow – made me feel the closest thing to happiness I could.
Also, we both shared the hope of my demise coming as soon as possible. There was a strange, dark kinship hinting at my intuition.
I realized that I could think about intuition. I hadn't been able to think around my chronic pain to form an actual thought in some time.
The pain even started to fade from my fingertips. Maybe that knowledge that someone knew the truth about Royce was soothing the burn. The more I thought about justice, the more the pain subsided.
He would get what was coming to him.
"What are we going to do with her?" Edward asked, sounding disgusted. And I was right back to being pissed off.
Carlisle sighed. "That's up to her, of course. She may want to go her own way."
I laughed out loud, humorlessly. It must've startled them, because they fell quiet.
What about this was 'up to me?' What kind of joke was it that what happened to me had anything to do with what I wanted? If that was his attempt at humor, I was thoroughly unimpressed.
But then the dread began creeping in.
What if Dr. Cullen hadn't been lying or delusional?
Maybe there was some truth to what he'd told me. He'd said the burn would stop eventually.
Maybe both things were true; I was dying and I was about to awaken as something… else.
The fire was moving – traveling to my throat from my hands and feet, taking the very essence of my life with it. I hadn't even known that essence was there. I desperately tried to memorize what it felt like to be alive.
I wished I'd known it existed at all. I would have cherished it. I would've wept for joy every day.
Whatever life force was leaving me hadn't been basking in the glow of the spotlight of my existence. It had humbly faded into the background and simultaneously permeated my body, mind, and spirit.
It would've been hard to find if I'd known to look for it. Now that my soul was bleeding out, I ached for the stolen euphoria of just being.
It was like the outermost layer of my skin was made of acid, and I was shedding it, revealing something completely foreign underneath. When the flames died down from one area and crept to my neck, the limbs it passed were not relieved as if the pain had stopped. The fire left new limbs in the place of my previous ones.
It did not feel good. These extremities did not have the same life force as before.
I felt my life draining from me helplessly.
I couldn't stop it. There was nothing I could do.
My body didn't belong to me anymore.
I knew my life was over. I knew that, whatever came next, I could not return to the life I had. I couldn't see my family. I couldn't see the Kings. I couldn't see Vera – I couldn't see Henry. For all intents and purposes, I was dead.
No, I didn't want a life with Carlisle Cullen and his band of reclusive freaks.
But as I stared down the barrel of eternity… I wanted to be alone even less.
My heart started to thud out of my chest. I writhed on the table as the pain concentrated there. One of my arms flew above my head, searching for something, anything, to hold onto — but I'd moved more quickly than I'd intended to and knocked something over. Whatever it was clattered to the ground.
The sound was so acute and sharp that it scared me. My reactionary fear was so sudden and intense that I scared myself even more. A hissing sound came out of me without my intending it to.
And then two sets of hands were pinning me down onto the table. I shrieked in fury.
I'd had enough of being manhandled.
At that exact moment, several things happened.
I felt my heart stop. It definitively stopped and didn't start beating again. Even surrounded by chaos, time stopped and locked into place. I knew that it had happened, but I didn't get to feel it. Life left my heart without my attention.
Simultaneously, the pain evaporated, and I felt perfect – like I had never been hurt at all. Like my body was brand new. My phantom limbs felt like they were glowing, radiating.
Another novelty: there was an insistent, scratching, parched ache in my throat, and it felt… permanent.
Finally, my eyes opened.
All I could see was Edward Masen and Carlisle Cullen above me, wrestling me down.
Rage engulfed me. I willed my body off of the surface I'd been on – a kitchen table, apparently – and lunged at them both.
I was going to kill them. I didn't know how, but I would try my damn hardest.
I'd go for Edward first, just because his tone from earlier had pissed me off.
I dove for his throat, but he dodged me exactly, ducking under me as I sailed over him. Somehow, I landed on my feet, and spun around to have at him again.
Except he was already there. He absolutely decked me, tackling my middle and slamming me to the ground. He fell with me, on top of me. I tried to knee him, but someone was holding my legs down.
Carlisle.
Edward wrestled my wrists between his and pinned them down above my head, kneeling on my chest.
Suddenly, I was back on that street, almost a block from home.
All men were the same.
If a man could physically overpower a woman, he would. Even the men who presented the most gentlemanly facades were capable of this evil.
Angry sobs erupted from me as I incoherently cursed at and threatened them. Everyone was yelling.
And then nobody was touching me.
With my hands free, I crawled to the room's opposite corner, much faster than should have been possible. I could hear some kind of hissing sound.
Esme flung herself between me and the men, her back to me.
"She's volatile! Don't –" Carlisle began.
"That's enough," she said fiercely. They blinked back at her in stunned silence.
"Leave this room," she commanded.
"Are you insane? We're not leaving you alone with her," Edward protested, like he was standing on some moral high ground.
"I'm not taking no for an answer," Esme retorted.
"Don't be reckless," Carlisle tried. "She's unsafe. You'll –"
"You're going to have to trust me, Carlisle."
"That's a risk I'm not wi –"
"Can either of you even conceive of what she's just been through?" Her voice stung the very air between them. "Did it ever occur to you to take extra care with her body, given the circumstance? Have either of you ever been in a situation that's even comparable?"
They said nothing, but their eyes softened as they gazed at her. Shame had entirely deflated them.
"Leave this room," she repeated.
Edward sulked out immediately, slamming the door behind him. It closed too quickly for the latch to take hold and swung right back open.
I heard the tiniest splintering of the wood as it absorbed the impact. It sent a gust of air my way. Somehow, I could taste the paint of the walls in the next room.
Carlisle's face was a mask of shame. "I didn't think, Esme. I'm so sorry."
He'd been apologizing too much lately for me to take him seriously.
She said nothing in reply. He kissed her hand, muttered for her to be careful, and walked out, closing the door gently behind him.
Esme turned around slowly and gracefully sank to her knees a few paces away from me.
Then, she met my eyes and gestured toward my hand, silently asking permission to take it.
I didn't really have a choice. What else was I going to do?
With no better option, I nodded, placing my hand in hers.
She didn't say anything for a long time. I used the space to study her.
She was far too pretty. Pretty wasn't even the right word. She was a classic, timeless beauty. As much as I wanted to be intimidated, as much as I wanted to hate her for causing my jealousy, I couldn't; her golden doe eyes were infallibly disarming.
Those same eyes had just silenced two agitated men and commanded them to fall in line.
I'd never seen a woman hold — much less use — so much power.
When she finally did speak, her voice was soft.
And what came out of her mouth wasn't at all what I expected.
"It's not your fault."
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Since the last update I've been getting to speak with so many new readers who leave reviews, and it's the best part of my entire day. I'd love to hear what you think. xo
