Téméraire: A Rosalie Hale Fanfiction

CHAPTER XVI: DON'T FEAR (THE REAPER)

She should see the blood first.

She knows that, she knows the fresh blood that covers Emmett Cullen should have been the catalyst to the shrill bloodcurdling scream that slips from her lips. It drips from his strong glittering chin, coats his pastel green polo shirt like a child covered in chocolate syrup- unmistakably red. It is to a lesser degree on the others, a smeared thin stain on Edward Cullen's shimmering jaw, dripping thickly like drying syrup from the delicate fingers of Alice Cullen as she holds Jasper Hale's face, forcing him to focus on her and only her as she tries in vain to calm his wild eyes. It covers his gaunt cheeks from her touch, his skin dazzling like diamonds just the same as his twin sister before her.

Rosalie. It is Rosalie that makes her scream. Not because of the blood at the corners of her lips, or stained her fingers and smeared on her jeans the way grease had stained her when they worked on the truck. Jules knows the blood should make her run for her life, but she also knows  that no human should shine. And they all were, every last one of them, exposed to the sunlight through the break in the trees above the narrow gorge and the break in the clouds above.

Her scream is short-lived. Rosalie's freezing cold still glittering hand is over her mouth, muffling her with furrowed brows as if the blonde was more concerned for her health than the fact she had just caught them— Jules wasn't even sure what she had just caught. Her mind struggles to catch up as her panicked eyes flicker this way and that, and it is just instinct then- her hands fly forward and that familiar push forces itself past her physical form. Except Rosalie Hale does not move an inch, not even while Jules slams back against the tree once more. It is like trying to push a ten-ton tank with her bare hands, if a ten-ton tank looked like a goddess dipped in disco powder.

This time the pain at the back of head disrupts everything, the tall brunette groaning as ink smudged fingers reach up to the back of her head. She isn't bleeding- not that she knows how different this moment would be if she were. Rosalie shifts again worried, checking her. "Promise you won't scream again? We aren't going to hurt you doll."

"Yeah because that was clearly the point of that whole demonstration." She can't help the bitter bite in her words, feeling betrayed by the blonde who she had been inviting to her house every day, to where Charlie lived, allowing Rosalie to help her up to her feet. "What the actual fuck- what are you, aliens?"

Jules jumps back a step when Emmett, Jasper and Alice disappear in a blur in the corner of her vision. Edward walks over in human speed- which Jules deems he is decidedly not- casual with a hand tucked in his pocket as he wipes the smear on his chin with his thumb. "Aliens were your second guess. You were closer with your first."

Her eyebrows furrow together at Edward's words. What can he- mon dieu, can you hear me?

"Yes." He answers her thoughts, and Jules balks. "Not every thought you've ever had, just the ones you have in my presence."

"Our arguments at lunch." She says as her heart sinks. "You knew what I was going to say. You were always prepared."

"No." Edward chuckles with a soft smile, both hands in his pockets now while he remains at a fair distance, understanding that Jules needed personal space while her mind carefully deconstructed and reconstructed everything she had just experienced, scrambling to be in control once more. "No you don't usually think in words, it's more visual than that. I find your mind a very organized place. It's almost...peaceful."

"Thanks, I think- so fairies?" Jules returns to what was her immediate concern, eyebrow up unimpressed.

"That was your first guess?" Rosalie snorts with a wicked smirk, amused. "Do I look like Tinkerbell?"