Iridescence | Edward x OC

39

There are two types of tired, I suppose. One is a dire need of sleep, the other is a dire need of peace.

- Mandeq Ahmed
-

The passing days were torturous.

Osiris was growing more and more impatient as Aris struggled to find ways to put off what she was sentenced to do. She did everything that she could think of. She begged, she pleaded, she even said that she'd join the Volturi in exchange for keeping Edward alive, but Osiris's mind was set. She would kill him, or she would die.

She of course didn't show up to school during the passing days, unable to even fathom the idea of seeing Edward and his siblings faces, knowing what she was going to do.

After not returning dozens of worried text messages from each of the Cullen's, they had shown up to her house, more worried about her than they'd ever been before. Aris had just gone completely ghost out of the blue, the last time she ever talked to any of them being right before she exited the school with Osiris.

To make it less suspicious, Osiris still went to school, even though Aris didn't, all while playing the role of an innocent new student. Having been around Aris for so long and now knowing how to spot an iridescent, it didn't take long for the Cullen's to figure out that that's what he was. They'd of course confronted him, asking him where Aris was, and what they had talked about when she'd left the school with him, but he'd just simply lied and told them that he had attempted to befriend her, knowing how she too shared the gift of being iridescent with him. He told the Cullen's that the conversation had gone well and that they'd exchanged numbers, but since then he hadn't seen or heard from her. His alibi made sense, and unable to prove that he was lying since Edward couldn't read his mind, they all had no reason to not believe him, especially since he continuously showed up to school, rather than disappearing too.

Aris knew how they might do this though, show up to her house in a near ambush. So, making sure that she was a step ahead, she decided to, rather than spending the passing days at her house, spend them at none other than the place where Osiris was staying.

It was for good reason though, that being how Aris thought that if she became friendly enough with Osiris, then maybe she could get him to reconsider. However, it was proving to be useless, seeing as every time she even mentioned the idea of bargaining to keep Edward alive, he'd simply repeat the phrase "you will kill Edward, or you will die."

However, there was one good thing that she was getting out of staying with Osiris. Since he had been in a fairly good mood due to how he knew that Edward would be dead sooner than later, he was more than willing to help Aris explore her other gifts of being iridescent that she hadn't yet used before. Though it was with a depressed and mopey attitude, Aris had learned how to camouflage like Osiris, though she refused to learn how to enter anyone's dreams. She knew how much torture it had caused her to relive those nightmares over and over, and the thought of doing that to someone else made her sick to her stomach. Osiris assured her that she didn't have to put nightmares into people's minds, but rather, she could put good dreams instead. Regardless, she still refused, not trusting a word he said about anything at this point.

Aris had managed to push off the day when she was to kill Edward Cullen by lying to Osiris and telling him that she was simply perfecting her plan as to how she was going to do it. The truth was though, that she had absolutely no idea of how she wanted to go about this. Any time she even thought about putting her hands on Edward in a way that was to harm him, she found herself rushing to the toilet and throwing up anything that she had in her system. Due to this, her physical state was definitely not at its peak, which was also part of the reason she had yet to show her face to anyone but Osiris those past few days.

She had told her friends and family that she was just going on a much needed vacation by herself to a beach down in California, so they weren't expecting to see her for a week or two at least. She didn't bother telling the Cullen's this lie though, because she knew that they'd see through her bullshit, or at least Edward would.

She knew that the time was coming when she'd need to do it though. Osiris's patience was thinning by the day, she couldn't stay on her "vacation" for much longer without her family and friends starting to become suspicious, and she knew that the Cullen's were bound to send out a search warrant at any moment, especially considering the fact that they'd most definitely talked to her family members by now, trying to figure out what was going on.

Fed up with her procrastination and starting to become suspicious, Osiris had taken it upon himself to write out a plan for how Aris was to kill Edward. He simply wrote it out on a sheet of paper, handing it to her and telling her that she had exactly one week from that day to accomplish it, or he was taking her to the Volturi to be executed.

Aris tried to reason, telling him that she needed more time because she needed to become stronger than Edward in order for her to successfully kill him, but Osiris knew better. He knew that with her spending as much time around the Cullen's as she had been during those passing months, it was impossible for her to possess strength less than theirs by that point. In fact, she was probably stronger than all of them by now, including Emmett.

Alas, it was two nights before Aris's deadline to kill Edward, and of course she was tossing and turning around her bed, unable to sleep, just like she hadn't for the past two weeks she'd been at Osiris's house. She was finally in her own bed in her own home, deciding that she might as well return home now, rather than the day of, seeing as it wouldn't really make a difference.

However, that was proven untrue the next day as Aris was informed her family was summoned to yet another one of the Denali's famous parties, this one being a Masquerade.

-

"Do you really think she'll be there? She hasn't shown up to school in weeks, I doubt she's going to show up to a party of all things." Emmett tried to reason, not really feeling up for going to another one of these.

"Well, it's worth a shot!" Edward snapped, taking everyone aback by his sudden outburst. "I'm sorry I just - I'm just holding on to every last hope I have here, alright?" He sighed, exasperated. "It's taking everything in me to not track her down and invade her privacy like that, but this is killing me." He took a seat in the chair closest to him, holding his head in his hands as Esmé rubbed his back soothingly.

"I talked to Mark at work the other day, and he assured me that she was just on a much needed vacation down at the beach." Carlisle attempted to console.

"Aris hates the beach. She's terrified of the ocean, which is ridiculous because she's practically invincible." Edward chuckled, a faraway look in his eyes. "But even if she did like the beach, it would be impossible with her skin for her to go there without attracting attention. Her color changing has become so prominent nowadays, she often skips school when it's sunny, like us."

His family members all exchanged a knowing glance at how he was talking about her. He'd never talked about someone like this before, and it was obvious that he cared more about Aris than he had let on before.

"Okay, well then we'll all go to the Denali's party. I agree, it's worth a shot." Alice chirped, clasping her hands together and sending Edward a reassuring look, which he returned with a grateful one.

Everyone nodded in agreement, heading their separate ways to get changed and ready for the party that night, grateful that Alice was such a fashion icon to the point where she had a whole section of her closet designated for ballroom masks.

It took Edward much longer than everyone else to gather the strength and stand up, holding on to every ounce of hope he had left for the party that night. He decided that if she wasn't there, then he would do his best to track her scent and go looking for her, even though it felt like a major invasion of her privacy.

Luckily for him however, Aris was planning on going to the ball that night, and God was she going to look stunning.