Saturday May 6th, 1933
Wedding Day
I watched the sunrise from the shadows of my windowsill, using one of the drapes like a blanket. More like a shield, really. I didn't want the buttery sunlight leaking into the room to illuminate my skin, as my freak roommates had warned me it would.
So I perched on the sill, curled up behind the curtains, and watched in silence as dawn broke over my wedding day.
At first, the sky turned the same color as pigeons in the city. Light gray, drab, nondescript. The pigeon-color morphed slowly into a lilac, then pink, then orange.
The sun rose, a brilliantly red ball of fire in the sky. It was as startlingly scarlet as the orbs in my own eyes.
I felt nothing but treacherous calm as I watched it climb higher into the sky.
I'd always imagined that I wouldn't get much sleep the night before my wedding. I would've been too excited, too happy, too wired with euphoria and anticipation to get much rest.
My imaginings hadn't been too far from the truth, but I couldn't have felt further away from the girl whose wedding day it was supposed to be. I had stayed up all night, after all.
My would've-been-groom was most likely snoozing. I hoped he was having a sleepless night. One full of nightmares and too-hot pillows and crumbs in the sheets and cold sweat.
My gut twisted at the thought that actually, it was possible that he was still awake from the previous night, prowling the streets with his band of bastards.
I wondered if I would be their last victim for some time, or if their appetite for torture was tricky to sate. Maybe I was just the latest name on a long list of skirts who had mysteriously gone missing.
Maybe there had already been another one since. Not that it would go noticed, what with my disappearance dominating the news cycle.
I felt a twinge of pain as I realized that some of them, hopefully, had escaped with their lives, the lucky bitches. My life had been taken, but instead of the comforting void of death, I was shackled with the burden of existence. Worse than surviving, worse than dying. The worst possible result.
Maybe it was because I had done something to end up here. Been the kind of person who deserved this end. Maybe I was in Hell, and this was what my Hell looked like. I'd be forever punished for my pride, for the lust I'd ignited in so many men who understandably just couldn't help themselves, for the greed of my social-climbing, for my envy of Vera and her perfect budding family, for the gluttony of my privileged life, for the wrath that raged within me and the revenge it fueled, for the sloth of my…
I hadn't been slothful, at least. Maybe I could use that as leverage with God, who was currently dead to me, some day.
In the meantime, I saw no other option but to sin further. Thou shalt not kill. Fucking whatever.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, then take whatever was done to you and do it unto them tenfold.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. True, but I'd make sure he saw who snuffed out the light in his eyes. And knew exactly why she did it.
Forgiveness is divine. Except that God was dead.
And I was not.
—
I felt silly "sending" a thought to Edward a few hours later, still sitting right where I'd been all night and early morning. Not for the content of the thought itself, but for the act of thinking something just so that he would hear it. I hated talking to him, anyway, and he could already hear everything else, so this shouldn't be any different.
No matter. It was nearly time to kick off my wedding day.
You'll come with me? Do you swear?
I huffed and rolled my eyes as I remembered that it wasn't like he could telepath a response back into my head.
I knew he was in the house, though. I could hear him leafing through that book downstairs. Well, I couldn't hear him, but I could hear the rustling of paper as he turned pages.
Carlisle and Esme were out for a pre-vigil hunt. Not that they'd been afraid of slipping up – no, certainly not Doctor Delightful. Just "to give ourselves and those around us any grace of which we are able."
Sanctimonious son of a bitch.
I supposed I could've just gone downstairs and asked Edward outright, but it felt wrong to speak my plan aloud. Like I would jinx my chance at successfully carrying out that plan. He could hear it in my head just fine, and he'd have the chance to voice his own opinions soon enough. I was sure he'd have plenty of thoughts to share.
In any case, I couldn't risk causing a shred of suspicion within Carlisle; Esme, on the other hand…
Esme knew to keep Carlisle's attention away from the parking lot, but that was about it.
The vigil was to begin at two o'clock sharp, the original time of the ceremony. It was to last until midnight, though our reception would've ended at ten. Giving me every last second of the wedding day to meet Royce at the altar.
I wondered how many of those in attendance would think that I was absent of my own volition. I hadn't given anyone any reason to think that I had doubts about the wedding – quite the opposite. I'd been grinning on the goddamn front page.
But rumors flew, gossip spread. Without my presence to provide any kind of explanation, my reputation was left in the hands of grubby, chatty commoners… and Rochester's social elite.
In the hands of the Kings.
Of course they'd spin it, I realized. With no one coming forward to ask for a ransom, as would've been the case if I were kidnapped, there would be no other explanation for my absence than cold feet.
Hilarious. They didn't even know how fucking funny that was.
They'd paint me as a villain. As some floozy who thought she could do better. As some stuck-up, snotty princess with visions of grandeur that extended beyond Rochester royalty.
And there was nothing I could do but watch it happen.
My fist forced a chunk of wood off the windowsill, splinters falling to the ground. I hadn't realized that I'd been gripping the edge with such strength. I stared at my handful of construction, startled, before opening my fist and letting it fall. Wood chips found their way to the floor.
Sorry, Esme.
Eh, she'd said we'd be leaving this place soon enough.
It was a good reminder that I'd have to be careful to leave no scrap of evidence behind that could lead the Rochester police to me. Back to the Cullens.
Although, wouldn't it be grand if I could somehow frame the Cullens for all of it…? As revenge for what they'd done to me, too?
I didn't mean that. I obviously wouldn't do that. Don't be moronic, Edward.
I moved on quickly.
I wished there was someone in the town who I despised enough to pin these murders on. I would've been happy to settle with setting up an innocent that had a proper motive, but couldn't think of any in the entire town. Everybody liked me. It was a massive inconvenience. I had no one to frame; that presented an issue.
I'd have to be very careful, but it was possible to make my murders look like tragic accidents, unfortunate circumstances, and sheer bad luck. No, the five men would not be murdered – not publicly. Who would have reason to? Who could?
The story that would spread around town would be that those men must've been cursed, to all have died so suddenly. That God worked in mysterious ways, and that their deaths, though tragic, were a warning sign. They were apparently real rough-housers at Robertson boarding school, they'd heard. Always up to no-good and getting off scot-free because of their rich fathers.
Their deaths would provide a cautionary tale to all who knew of them: get caught up with the wrong, rowdy crowd, and you'll turn up dead, they'd say.
And maybe Rosalie Hale ran off because she had the sense to suspect that her husband-to-be was no good. Maybe a real royal, a prince of some kind, had swept her off her feet and saved her from a doomed marriage, and she was off in a faraway land right now, pregnant with her second in a beautiful castle estate, at the right hand of her adoring husband, who waited on her every whim.
That was the kind of thing that happened to good, pretty girls, they'd say. Maybe if they tried their best to be as pretty and as good as Rosalie Hale had been, they might one day find their prince, too. And they'd live happily ever after.
I shook my head to clear away the thought.
It wasn't enough.
The story didn't have to be too far from the truth, I realized. Maybe there was a way to reclaim my reputation, after all.
How could Rosalie Hale have possibly killed those men? She was presumed dead. She'd probably been killed by the same force of nature that took the lives of Royce, Tony, Frank, Oliver, and John.
And nobody actually believed in ghosts.
