Chapter Text
“Those are the Cullens. Well, those three are. The other two, the blondes, are twins and go by Hale. All five of them were adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Cullen. They’re gorgeous but also they’re all paired off…if you know what I mean.”
“Except for him. That one’s Edward.”
Bella was vaguely aware of the pain. But only in an indifferent, nonchalant kind of way. With the same sort of apathy a toad might regard the gradually rising temperature of it’s boiling pot. If it all hadn’t happened so quickly, maybe then she would’ve had time to process the pain. Or feel fear. But the moment her sneaker had crossed the threshold of classroom 203, she’d been sent careening backwards against the wooden door. Too fast for her stomach to plummet. Too fast for her heart to skip a beat. Before her brain could so much as fire a warning signal.
There had been noise after that. Multiple voices screaming. The squeak of frantic shoes on linoleum. The crashing of colliding desks and upheaval of chairs. But then the granite slab that had shoved her to the floor disappeared and soon after, the screams settled and all that remained was the soft whirling of a fan and Bella’s own wet gurgles.
She used those few precious moments to gasp for air. Struggling to breathe despite the fluid rapidly filling her lungs. She absently wondered if the snapping she’d heard on impact was the sound her own ribs breaking. She didn’t have long to dwell on it because he reappeared soon after. Effectively blocking her view of the water-stained ceiling above.
“Except for him. That one’s Edward.”
Bella almost didn’t recognize his face despite having seen it for the first time maybe fifteen minutes prior. The same face she’d shyly admired across the cafeteria was now twisted into something truly monsterous. A rabid gargoyle, dripping in red, standing sentry over her broken body. Edward Cullen was shaking violently. Like an angry hornet with eyes the color of pitch.
Again Bella waited for the terror to manifest. It didn’t. So she stared blankly and found that the abyss stared back. Something warm trickled down her earlobe and faster than her eyes could track, he was on her again. Edward scooped her up almost tenderly, in a mockery of a lover’s embrace and clung to her limp frame like a child might their most treasured toy. There was an unfamiliar desperation. A hollow whimper escaped her lips as her bones splintered and popped beneath his pressure. He only tightened his grip.
She was aware of something cool swiping across the side of her neck, leaving a trail of condensation in it’s wake. He was licking her. Lapping languid stripes from her nape to the bottom of her ear as he hummed lowly. Or was it a growl? Whichever, it was unmistakably animalistic. And it continued, as if he was savoring her flavor for a brief respite. Then just as suddenly, she didn’t have to worry about breathing anymore because he tore her throat clean open with teeth like serrated steel.
“That one’s Edward.”
There was a loud grinding boom and Bella’s eyes which up to this point had refused to close, peered over Edward’s shoulder as her body convulsed in his arms. The heavy door was ripped clean off it’s hinges and several lean figures darted in.
“Not good.”
“Edward, what have you done?”
“Rose, quick, grab that. We need to—”
“Jesus, Edward, what the hell—”
“I don’t understand. I didn’t see this. I didn’t see it.”
The voices spoke over one another and became a distant buzz. Just like the fan. And soon she couldn’t discern between the two sources of white noise. But she could discern the creeping chill. Both the one that seeped through her clothes from the unnaturally hard body of her killer. And the deeper one that started at the tips of her fingers and toes and laced it’s way like window frost up her veins.
There was a sharp tug on Bella’s arm followed by more incomprehensible hissing and a crunch like gravel underfoot.
Finally, her eyes which had grown unbearably dry and had begun to lose their vision, shut. She wondered what her mom would say when she heard how her accident prone daughter got eaten on her first day of school. She wondered if Charlie would pick up her truck and what he would order for dinner that night. And she wondered why her murderer smelt so much like lilacs.
And then Bella Swan drifted away as she felt herself die.
“That one’s Edward.”