Bound || A Twilight Fanfic

Chapter 4

Three months had passed since the night that changed Rosalie's life for eternity, and the Hubert brothers had been found dead. Two, since Ulysses Levitt ran out of town with a girl his family would have never approved, and the body of John Harris was found in his hotel room, asphyxiated and with a broken neck.

Word had spread through the town of a killer that was taking the lives of prominent young figures. They had ransacked through two families already, and it was rumored they had taken the Levitt son hostage, regardless of the letter left. It made families hold their young ones closer to them, hypervigilant of their every move. No one wanted their child to be next. No one wanted to weep for their child. Not even for them to go missing.

Because none of them knew that they had nothing to worry about.

Well, other than the King family. The royal family of Rochester, New York, would suffer a great loss that night at the hands of who would have been their greatest acquisition. She would take his life into her hands the way he had done with hers. He would clamor for mercy, beg for forgiveness, plead for another chance. And she would laugh in his face.

There weren't many places Royce could hide in that Rosalie would not have found him. He could have hidden a thousand feet underground, and she would have carved at the ground with her own hands until she got to him. He would not get away from her without paying for what he had done. She was judge, jury, and executioner, and she would make sure his sentence was fulfilled.

In the Cullen residence, the other three vampires walked on eggshells around Rosalie. The anger that radiated from the girl was hot enough that any closeness could leave them burned. Even if their words and worries came from a place of concern –at least from Carlisle and Esme– she did not want to hear them. All she had time for was her revenge. There was nothing else she had to look forward to.

She didn't want to be angry. It was an all-consuming emotion that she did not wish to impart on the family that had "rescued" her.

"Good morning, Rosalie," Esme called the girl's attention as she readied herself for the day. "How are you feeling today?"

"As well as I can be while my rapist's heart still beats," she shrugged, brushing the golden curls in her hair. "Apart from that, I guess not worse than I felt yesterday."

"That's good, I think," the woman offered a smile. "Hopefully tomorrow is better."

"Oh, it will be. Once Royce gets what's coming for him, the universe will balance itself out. After that... well, we'll see when we get there."

Esme remained quiet for a moment, weighing whether or not her words were welcomed in the blonde's space. The last thing the woman wanted was to make something snap inside the girl. She was already fragile as it was, even if she wouldn't allow herself to be, and Esme didn't want to be the drop of water that made her cup overflow. "May I offer you some words?" she asked against her better judgment.

"If you're trying to get me to see how wrong it is to take a life, please save your breath," she responded, holding in her laughter at the irony of her sentence. "Carlisle and Edward have tried, and I can tell you there is nothing you can say that will make me desist from my plan."

"Well," Esme sighed with a smile on her face. "Then, can I tell you about my story? I can't say that I lived through the horrors of what you did, but I did have my own monster." The blonde simply nodded in approval, her attention fully on the woman before her. "I didn't envision my life turning out this way, much like you. When I was younger, I dreamed of being a school teacher. I wanted to mold the minds of my students and help them navigate this crazy world. But my parents wanted me to be the perfect wife. They wanted me to stay home and marry. And I did. I thought then that my life would be better. That's what my parents had promised, so that's what I believed.