Recommence ° Edward Cullen[Rewriting]

[011]

Chapter Eleven | When The Body Remembers

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"You're acting like I killed him."

Edward glanced over his shoulder, the slightest frown pulling at his lips. The woman perched atop the porch steps was half-lit by moonlight, her silhouette sharp against the silver glow. Her tone was amused, almost teasing, as if she hadn't just turned a city alleyway into a small graveyard.

"You nearly did." He grumbled, threading his fingers through his hair. Alex, or, at the very least, what wore her face, tilted her head, the motion lazy and feline. "Nearly," she repeated, as though the distinction was a badge of restraint.

They'd left the alley behind hours ago, the city shrinking in the rearview mirror while Edward's mind replayed what had happened there. He'd been ready for a fight, expecting, from the way she'd grinned through the blood and the moonlight, a long and gruesome one he wasn't even sure he'd win. Instead, she had been cooperative if detached, and almost clinical, about it all.

The disposal of the bodies had been disturbingly easy, though, cleaning the alley of blood and gore was all but impossible. Edward feared there was nothing for them to do but leave it there, and the woman couldn't have cared less, offering commentary lazily as if she were supervising a chore. Her nonchalance bled into her motions when she brutally tore into the bodies, executing a gentle twist of her wrist that pulled muscle, bone and flesh apart like cloth.

Edward had known what needed to be done, but nothing could have prepared him for watching her do it. The sound of tearing, wet and deliberate, had set off every buried instinct inside him. For the first time in decades, the predator he'd long buried pressed against its cage. He could smell it: the blood, thick and metallic, seeping into the concrete. And she. . . Alex. . . had smiled.

He grappled for control as he bundled the body parts in torn sheets of plastic, hoping to save the interior of his car from any stains to tempt him further when the night was over. Luke was the only body that went into his vehicle whole, though the woman had given her input numerous times that she was more than willing to rip him up next and add his pieces to the heavy pile in the back.

"No," he'd said then, voice flat. "You don't kill a man who lives in a town this size. It will draw questions." Alex—or the part that wore her skin—had shrugged. She watched him with that calm, predator's patience, as if the decision mattered only as much as it pertained to her appetite.

They got Luke home without further incident. Edward carried him inside as gently as a man could carry someone he'd hoped to leave dead, laying him on the bed and tucking a blanket up to his chin so any visitor peering into the room would see only a sleeping boy.

The woman watched him through the window with a craftsmanship of calm that made Edward's skin prickle. "He won't tell," she muttered, uncaring. "You mean Luke?" Edward's words had come out stilted. "The boy you left alive after he watched you kill six others?" He let the question hang, incredulous.

It remained unanswered as they soundlessly left the Newton home, made the short trek back to Edward's vehicle, and arrived at his home. "I was hungry," she said plainly, walking past him around the house until she came around the back, ascending the steps and making herself comfortable. "And they were parasites."

Edward stared at her from the bottom of the steps, his eyes wide and analyzing. "Who are you?" A different creature wore Alex's skin and spoke in her voice, and he wasn't sure what to make of her. Was this the person he knew when he was human? He watched her head tilted at the latter, her eyes gleaming almost teasingly before she spoke.