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| banner by w8ing4rain |
BATTERED ANGEL
Minnesota, 1935
“What did you tell him?”
Though he knew I was angry, Edward could hardly be bothered to look up from the ivory keys of his piano. “Tell who, Rosalie?”
“Emmett, you moron,” I snapped angrily. “He won’t touch me. He won’t even hold my hand.”
With a weary, bothered sigh, he closed the lid over the keys and looked up at me. “Rosalie, I did not tell him anything about what happened to you. Please remember that both Carlisle and Esme know what happened to you as a human, though probably less than I do.”
I didn’t even try to stop the hiss that escaped my lips.
Edward stood toe to toe with me in an instant. “Remember, too, Rosalie, that they may not have told him just to protect you. We all know just what think of Carlisle for giving you this life. Maybe they like Emmett more than they like you and would be upset if you tore his arm off when he tried to hold your hand.”
“I would not do that,” I whispered acidly.
“You would, and you know it,” he argued, irritating me even more by keeping his voice so calm and even. “I’ve seen it in your thoughts, Rosalie. You’re afraid, and not wrongly, of him touching you, even though you’re angry that he hasn’t.
“I was there last night when he moved his hand too close to your leg, and you thought about ripping off his fingers. And yes, Rosalie, I have told Carlisle what I heard. I only tell the thoughts that pose a threat to a member of this family, so don’t start with me on that. What Carlisle did with that information, I don’t know.”
“Like hell you don’t know what he did with that information!” I shrieked, keeping my hands balled at my sides and trying not to hit him. “Did he tell Emmett about Royce?”
Looking over my shoulder and avoiding my gaze, he gave his answer. “I don’t know.”
I couldn’t control myself any longer. I slapped him as hard as I could across the face, not even feeling the smallest twinge of guilt when I heard his jaw snap. “Fine. Have it your way,” I growled, turning on my heel and flying through the door. “Sanctimonious bastard!”
On my way to the small lake where I liked to be alone and calm down, I destroyed four trees. I didn’t mean to destroy them. I really wanted to kick a tree and break my foot, not have the tree be instantaneously pulverized to fine sawdust. I wanted that pain to make the rest of the pain I felt hurt less. But I couldn’t even have the pleasure of breaking my foot, not in this perfect, eternal body.
So, with the intention of planting four trees in the morning, I continued on to the lake. I quickly found my preferred nest beneath a copse of poplar trees and curled up, resting my chin on my knees. In seconds, I was sobbing violently.
I’d had a spot like this when we lived in Tennessee, and I’d found a matching one as soon as we arrived in Minnesota. It was a vicious cycle. I got upset over ridiculous things. I shrieked and raved like a madwoman at anyone in striking distance. And then I ran away to sob. Alone.
I need to get out, break free, and breathe again. But I don’t know how.
I was still sobbing when I heard footsteps approach two hours later. Edward would never have come at all, and the sound was far too heavy to be Esme or Carlisle. Without turning to look, I knew it was Emmett.
Wiping away the invisible tears that would never again trail down my cheeks, I tried to pull myself together. “How was your trip to town?” I asked as he sat down a few feet away from me. I said a silent, secret prayer that Edward hadn’t opened his big mouth about my outburst.
He’d been so excited to go to town with Carlisle and Esme. It was his first trip since he became a vampire, and he was eager to prove that he could control himself while shopping for clothes and games.
“My eyes are still yellow,” he informed me proudly, smiling when I turned to look. “Esme dragged me to so many clothes shops, it was terrible. But I got dominoes, chess, checkers, and a new radio.”
“All the things you wanted,” I said lightly, or at least, I hoped it sounded light. “How’s your throat?”
“It was burning,” he said with a shrug the belied that struggle I knew it would have been for him. “But we stopped on the way home and I drank two deer, so I’m fine now.”
“Yummy,” I mused as nonchalantly as possible. It was very strange, this part of me that wanted to protect Emmett from my madwoman act. I’d managed it so carefully in the year and a half since I found him in the Appalachians that he’d only seen one tiny outburst, and to be honest, he was a newborn hell bent on destroying the house at the time, so I don’t think he noticed.
He nodded and picked up a twig, gently twisting it through his fingers. “So what did you do while I was out on the town with the parents?”
My laugh sounded a little hysterical, even to me. “This and that,” I answered as airily as possible. “You know, bugged Edward. The usual.”
“That’d be why he announced that he wasn’t talking to or about you as soon as we came into the house.”
There wasn’t anything I could say in response that wouldn’t lead to me completely losing control in front of Emmett. So I didn’t say anything at all.
Emmett did, though. He spoke in a more serious, somber tone than I’d ever heard him use. “Are you okay, Rose? You’ve seem different over the last few weeks. Did I do something wrong?”
He was still so childlike, so innocent and untouched by life. It broke my heart to think that I loved him – to think that he was loved by someone so broken and bitter at life.
“No, Emmett, you didn’t do anything wrong. I’m fine.”
“You’re lying,” he said bluntly. “I can see it in your eyes. Maybe I didn’t do anything, but you aren’t fine.”
I chewed on my bottom lip, my chin still resting on my knees, and drummed my fingers on my legs. Finally deciding that putting off the inevitable was foolish, I decided to go ahead and talk to him about it, about everything.
“Emmett? Has Carlisle, Esme, or Edward told you anything about my human life?”
“Not much, no,” he answered and I knew, just from the uncomplicated innocence that was his nature that he wasn’t lying. “Carlisle told me that you were attacked and it made you not want to be touched without knowing it was going to happen. Is there more?”
Was there more? He had no idea how much more there was.
“Yes,” I answered quietly. “There’s more. I’ll tell you everything. And I won’t stop you if you run away.”
Emmett shook his head, still sitting a few fee away. “I’m not running away, Rosalie. But I want to know everything. I really do.”
He was so very sweet and earnest when he told me that, I couldn’t help but smile at him, laughing softly when his eyes lit up at my smile.
“All right, Emmett, I’ll tell you everything. I’ll tell you everything, because I care for you and you deserve to know the truth about me.”
If he was happy that I said I cared for him, he didn’t show it. He simply sat, perfectly still, just across from me and waited patiently for the story that was to come.
I fixed my eyes firmly on the shimmering lake in front of me as I prepared myself to tell someone things that I’d never told anyone. I couldn’t look at Emmett while I spoke. I didn’t want to see the pity and the disgust that would surely be etched all over his sweet, dimpled face.
“Four years ago, I was engaged to a man named Royce King II,” I began, stumbling over his name. “I thought the world of him. He was rich and handsome, and all the girls in my circle were insanely jealous that he chose me. I was in heaven.
“Royce took me to all the best parties and showered me with expensive gifts. He wanted me, and I couldn’t have been happier.
“Then, one night, a month before we were to be married in Rochester’s wedding of the year, I was walking home from my friend Vera’s house, when I saw Royce and a group of men in the street. They all had open bottles, and their clothes were rumpled and disheveled. I’d never really seen anyone who was actually drunk until that night. It was after Prohibition, of course, and I’d heard about the horrible things that alcohol can make a man do, but I’d never seen it, or really believed it, until that night.”
I had to stop telling the story when I heard something snap. Looking up, I saw that Emmett had somehow managed to crack the tree closest to him right down the middle. It wasn’t pity and disgust that I saw in his eyes; it was anger. “Do you want me to stop?” I asked quickly, not understanding why he might be angry.
“No. Don’t stop. Sorry about the tree,” he said sheepishly, though the anger didn’t leave his eyes. “I just know what alcohol can make a man do, and I don’t think I’m going to like where this story is going. But keep going. Please, Rosalie.”
I took a deep breath and thought back to that night. “Royce called me over to introduce me to his friends. I was wary of going close, but I didn’t know how to say no. So I went over. Royce pulled of my hat to show his friends my ‘beautiful hair.’ He wanted to take off my coat, but he was too drunk to undo the buttons properly, so he just yanked and ripped until all the brass buttons popped off. I knew then that things were already spiraling so far out of my control that I wasn’t ever going to get it back. If I’d ever had it.
“Royce went first, of course, claiming what he already knew was soon to be his. He’d thrown me to the ground and pushed my dress up before I realized what was happening to me. I didn’t know how to fight back, so I didn’t.
“I prayed, instead, that I would die, and die quickly.
“I didn’t. Royce finished with me and waved one of his friends from Georgia over. He was so very much more rough than Royce had been.” I hugged my knees more tightly to my chest as I realized that I was shaking as I told the story. “Each man, and there were five of them, including Royce, was rougher than the last. Royce got a second turn, though, and his friends convinced him to be more like them.
“One of them heard a noise, and they got spooked that there might be a policeman coming by who couldn’t be paid off, given what they’d done. They ran away like the cowards that I would soon find out they were. It wasn’t a policeman, though. It was a cat, trying to get into a metal trashcan. I saw it as I lay in the wet street, bleeding to death. That’s when Carlisle found me, of course.”
Emmett wasn’t sitting still anymore. He was up and pacing furious circles along the edge of the lake. I could see the veins bulging in his arms as he clenched and unclenched his fists.
“Are you okay, Emmett?” I asked, distracted from the urge to cry by the urge to comfort him.
“I’m fine,” he grunted, still pacing just as quickly. “Is there more to the story? Please, please tell me there’s more to the damn story.”
I didn’t know exactly what he wanted, how he hoped the story would end, but there was more to the story. So I kept talking. “I hated Carlisle for putting me through those three days of torture. I screamed and shrieked and begged them to kill me, to stop the pain. But they didn’t. I could hear them talking while I was burning. I heard Edward talk about how they’d have to move, because the Kings would have a search out for me. He seemed so … bothered that I was in his life now. It hurt, Emmett.
“While Royce,” I stumbled over his name again, hissing it more than saying it, “and his friends were doing what they did, I realized that my parents didn’t raise me to have a daughter. They raised a daughter to be married off and handed to someone else. It’s what people in their world do. And it’s heartless and cruel. Then I realized that Royce wasn’t going to marry me because he loved me. He was marrying me because he was supposed to have a wife and I was lucky enough to fit the definition of what his wife should be. He didn’t even wait until we were married to do what he wanted with me, Emmett!”
Emmett’s anger evaporated when I choked on a sob and bit down on my finger, desperately trying not to cry. He was at my side in an instant, pulling my hand from my mouth and crushing me to his chest. “I’ll kill him,” he vowed, pressing his face into my hair.
My laugh was even more hysterical than before. “You don’t have to. But… we’re not there yet,” I told him. “Do you want me to keep going?”
He gave me a look, probably wondering if I was excusing him from killing Royce, or telling him that Royce was already dead, but then shook himself out of it. “I want you to keep going if you want to keep going. You don’t have to. Not now. Not for me. Not ever, if that’s what you want.”
Still crushed against him, I decided to keep going. The more I said, the more it hurt, and the better I felt for it. “When I heard Edward say those things, it was like the cycle was repeating itself,” I continued, not yet sobbing uncontrollably. “I think it’s why we don’t get along so well. But Carlisle and Esme explained what I was and why. They gave me the option to go off on my own, even offering to help me find traveling companions. I still hated Carlisle for what he’d done to me, but the idea of killing humans was repulsive to me. So I stayed.”
“I’m glad you did,” he whispered.
“Me, too. Now,” I murmured softly, before the bitterness took over again. “Anyway, a couple weeks after I woke up, the Kings were still making a spectacle of looking for me, like they cared what had happened to me. So I decided to take matters into my own hands, since no one was any the wiser about what Royce and his friends had done to me.
“Edward knew from my thoughts what I planned to do, and he helped me keep it secret from Carlisle and Esme. They would never have approved. In the end, he helped me, too. He stayed close as I snuck through the streets of Rochester, hunting down each and every one of the men that had brutalized me.
“I tortured them, Emmett, just as they’d tortured me. One by one, I found them and tortured them to death. I didn’t spill a single drop of blood. I didn’t want them inside of me, not for anything. I saved Royce for last. I even stole a wedding dress, just to make it worse for him. Well, Edward stole the dress for me,” I said, correcting myself reluctantly. “But Royce was terrified when I found him. I killed the two bodyguards he’d hired, and then I found him. He wasn’t expecting me, and he suffered the worst.
“We had to move after that, of course, to Tennessee.” I paused, and then sighed, forcing myself to look up and into his eyes. “That’s my story, Emmett.”
I couldn’t read his thoughts or the emotions in his eyes. He was simply staring at me, as if I might disappear if he looked away for a moment. I waited and waited for him to say something, but he just sat there.
“I can go,” I offered finally, desperate for something to be said. “If you want.”
As I started to stand, I felt his broad hand grasp my arm, ever so gently forcing me back down and onto his lap. His arms snaked around me, locking me there. Finally, he opened his mouth slowly, ready to speak. “It is not.”
I blinked at him. I didn’t understand. “It is not what, Emmett?” I asked softly. “I don’t understand.”
He shook his head and focused even more closely on me. “It. Is. Not. Your. Story,” he said very slowly and very firmly. “What you told me is not who you are, Rosalie. Not even close.”
“Why do I feel like it is?” I mumbled morosely, finding it strange that I wasn’t at all bothered by being held down. I liked Emmett holding me.
“Because it’s most recent and it hurts the most,” he answered simply. “If you want to define yourself as something other than Royce King’s victim, you can.”
I was sobbing again, this time against Emmett’s chest. “I don’t know how,” I whimpered. “I’m alone, and I don’t know how to be anything other than his victim. I’m sorry.”
I never wanted to cry as much as I did when he slid out from underneath me, leaving me sitting on the rocky lakeshore, while he stood in front of me. He was going to run away – or hit me – I was sure of it. And I didn’t blame him a bit.
“Stand up.”
I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t watch him order me away.
“Stand up,” he repeated, gripping my shoulders lightly. but not forcefully. as he pulled me to my feet. “Stand up, Rosalie.”
I did as he asked, if only to make him happy, but I kept my gaze firmly fixed on the rocks below my feet.
“Fine,” he sighed, dropping down to one knee. “If you won’t look up, I’ll get down. It’s the way my ma taught me to do it anyway.”
“Emmett?” I had to know what he was doing. As much as I didn’t want to know, I had to.
“Rosalie Lillian Hale,” he began, taking my hand in his, “you are the most beautiful creature to ever walk the Earth. The moment I opened my eyes and looked up at you, I knew you were an angel. My angel. Angels aren’t battered and broken. Well, sometimes they are. More battered than broken, though. Battered angels can be fixed better. But when they are battered, they don’t know how beautiful they really are. They can only see that they’re battered. And they think they’re broken beyond repair.
“It takes someone special to show the battered angel that she’s beautiful, that she’s good, that she’s loved.
“I think I’m that someone special, Rosalie Lillian Hale. You are beautiful, you are good, and you are loved. By me. Maybe it won’t be enough. Maybe you’ll need more than me. But until then, can I show you the angel that you are? Will you be my angel? Even for just a little while?”
If I’d been human, I would have been drowning in my tears. Vampires can’t cry, though. Not tears, anyway. But I was crying as hard as any vampire ever had. And for the first time in two years, it didn’t hurt to cry.
“I know you picked me, saved me from that bear, because I have dimples and curly hair like your friend’s baby. But I hope, maybe, you’ve kinda gotten to like me, Rose,” he continued, growing nervous in my silence.
“Emmett, stop,” I whispered shakily. “I more than kinda like you. But are you asking me what I think you’re asking me? Are you asking me to…”
“Marry you?” he finished for me. “Yeah. I’m asking you – educated, cultured, beautiful Rosalie Lillian Hale – to marry uneducated, backwoods, average Emmett Eugene McCarty. Will you?”
I was stone still as he pulled a small, red velvet box from his pocket. He’d omitted something monumental when he listed the things he bought in town, that was brilliantly and amazingly clear. When he opened it, I was sure my heart would start beating again.
He wanted me. He really and truly wanted me. It didn’t even matter if Edward or Carlisle or Esme had told him about how I became the so-called angel that could defeat angry bears for him. He wanted me.
I felt like I was light as the air, like the breeze from the lake would pick me up and carry me away. I held on to Emmett with everything I had.
“Angels, you know,” I murmured, crying tears of pure, unadulterated joy now, “can do lots of things. Convincing boys silly enough to fight bears that they are not uneducated, backwoods, and most definitely not average is one of them.
“But you know it might not be easy living with me, don’t you?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he answered bluntly, shrugging carelessly. “It’d be boring if it was easy. And stop trying to talk yourself and me out of this and just answer the damn question, Rose.”
Rose. I used to hate that nickname for my fancy, romantic name. But coming from Emmett, there was nothing I’d rather be called.
“Yes, Emmett,” I answered with all finality, kneeling before him and moving so that our lips were almost touching. “I will be your angel. Not just for awhile, though. Forever. I’ll be your angel forever.”
THE END
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
