Little Edward

Chapter Twenty Eight

Author's Note: THis might be a little on the short side, but I wanted to let you know that I have an idea for the sequel. You could learn more about the sequel from the end of this chapter, where there's a little present from someone you don't know yet. Hell, I don't know them yet. Let's see what happens. Feedback is appreciated. Chapters will come faster now that I have inspiration and ideas. Sorry for the wait by the way.

“Esme? You need some help with that?” the girl called from the door. Esme turned and smiled at her adoptive daughter from her place on her knees in the midst of the sea of vividly colorful roses and lilies and other graceful flowers. 

The girl joined her, not acknowledging Esme’s filthy clothing, nor did she show hesitation in dirtying her black leggings and maroon muscle shirt. 

The two female vampires worked alongside each other for a few moments, before Esme glanced at the girl. She was seemingly entirely focused on patting the soil around her lone rose in a square of daffodils, but Esme could see her sharp white teeth digging into her bottom lip and her jaw clenched tightly. 

“Are you alright, sweetheart?” Esme asked, obviously concerned for the young vampire. The girl turned to the kindly woman. She never stopped maneuvering her hands around the stem of the flower in a rhythmic sequence.

“I’m fine, Mom. Don’t worry about me,” she brushed off her mother’s attempt at getting her to open up. Esme sighed but let the matter drop. If her daughter wanted to talk, she’d come to her on her own time. 

For the rest of the day, mother and daughter enjoyed themselves while planting a meadow of lovely plants that smelled of love and determination. They joked around and even drew the girl’s brother out of the house to join them in the sunlight that caused their skin to glitter like diamonds. 

That night, as Esme was finishing up her last bed of tulips, she glanced up at the girl’s window, before grasping at her chest in a panic. 

The girl was clutching her head in her head, her mouth twisted into a tortured and soundless scream. Her eyes … There were no words for the torment so clear in the girl’s topaz eyes. And then Esme nearly broke inside at what the girl did next. 

The girl fingered the lone rose she had planted that day. With a horrified look towards the girl’s bed of flowers, Esme saw that one plant had been uprooted from the ground. Turning back to her daughter, Esme would have had a heart attack had she been human. 

The girl was tearing the rose to shreds, all with a feral shine to her eyes. 

That girl was Bella. 

Esme knew, from that day ten years ago, Bella was not alright. The pain had been hidden from everyone else, but late at night, she’d coped with losing her other half with questionable actions, such as puncturing the wall with her fingernails or ripping the mattress in half with her bare hands. Carlisle had once walked in on the girl sitting in the corner of her bedroom, rocking back and forth, head in hands, muttering to herself about “Emma’s Edward, Emma’s Edward”. It had hurt her family so badly. 

But now, when their sister and daughter’s pain was so evident in those impassive golden orbs, it did more than hurt them.

It broke them. 

Carlisle was a mess. He wore sweatpants daily, which was a sign of no hope. His hair was almost as rumpled as Edward’s had once been. He did nothing but monitor Bella, making sure the pain just didn’t kill her altogether. But no, it seemed Aro had figured a way to keep her in just enough pain to hurt more than she had ever hurt, but not enough to put her out of her misery.