Recommence ° Edward Cullen[Rewriting]

[022]

Chapter Twenty-Two | The Federal Bureau of Investigation

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Three days.

Three days of avoiding the elephant in the room. Three days of prevailing silence following the series of incidents. Three days that every passing second of it grated on her last nerve.

Everyone involved continued on as if what had transpired was normal. As if Alex, bandaged up from slow-healing wounds was normal. As if remaining at the Cullens for her father and sister's safety was normal. As if the threat she posed to the two vulnerable humans was just a daily occurrence.

Frankly, none of it was and Alex was at her wit's end with how Charlie never seemed inclined to ask and Bella always seemed to bite her tongue. The young woman wasn't exactly eager to talk about the brutalities of a past she could scarcely remember but the lack of acknowledgement wasn't her preferred way to go either.

Because of it, Alex felt like the wrong thing was always at the tip of her tongue and as a result, she opted to say nothing at all unless spoken to. There was an undercurrent of violence just burning beneath her skin, ignited by a spark of distrust for those around her as irrational as she knew it to be.

The act of normalcy reminded her of the faint memories where scientists lulled her into a false sense of security, leaving her in silence and tranquillity. They wanted her to let her guard down just to have the cruel satisfaction of trapping her within the four, stone-cold walls with heavy, burning chains around her wrists, ankles and neck.

The helplessness from the similarity in the situations was made worse by the fact that the beast that usually lurked on the outskirts of her mind was just. . . gone. The constant pressure she had once been able to feel even when it hadn't been awoken had vanished. Alex felt sickeningly empty, a contrast to the relief she thought she would feel at the absence of the beast. Now, she was aware enough to realize that wanting the creature gone had been stupid. It had been reckless because now all it left her was vulnerable and useless.

With the beast went her strength and a time before now, that would have been alright but with impending threats around every corner, she was in constant danger with no way to defend herself.

She found her escape in dissociating from the world around her more often than not, just as she was now, sitting by the window in the kitchen as Esme bustled about, casting her decidedly unsubtle glances. Emmett was in the room as well, murmuring to the woman but unlike how his adoptive mother tried to hide her glances, Emmett didn't bother.

Alex managed to ignore it despite the itch in the back of her head from the heaviness of his gaze, waiting for him to hold his tongue like the others or, hopefully, break the silence for the sake of her sanity. Half an hour into Emmett's staring, Alex began drumming her fingers against her propped-up thigh, in near perfect mimic of Edward's in the other room. He sat at the piano, playing a soft, melancholic tune that spoke more than he had in days. It both soothed and grated on her growing exasperation. 

Rosalie stood out on the back porch, adjacent to the spot where Alex had stood before the blonde had stepped out, the woman barely sparing her feelings before she slipped back inside. Alex didn't dislike Rosalie—lacked reason or energy to—but she did, however, hate the critical look in the blonde's eye, a part of her buried deep finding disfavored familiarity in it. Different intentions than that of the blurry scientists in her mind didn't diminish her dislike for it.