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themidnightsonIt isn't even a full two weeks later when it happens.
Walking out in the snow on a blustery night, with Esme and Carlisle left behind, cozy and snug in the house and themselves, the sky an ominous blanket of grey that hides the stars even from eyes that could see beyond the lights of a city this size. There was a man, if a creature of such deplorable morals can be called such, and a woman. Isn't that how all the stories start?
But it was no innocent rendezvous. She'd lost a shoe and then been shoved into the alley, where she was pleading for her life with a knife pressed against the hollow of her throat, where blood beaded in fuzzy vision, and a hand crept at the thigh of her dress on the leg with the sodden, shoe-less, foot.
The street silent of needed saviors.
Empty of witness save one intrusive vampire three streets over;
With very questionable morals, even when he begrudgingly sighs from his new rest, on the alley wall. Five feet from them.
"Propriety dictates that you unhand a woman the first time she tells you no."
The women screamed, fear and anxiety flooding his head, even as the man whirled, his knife flashing and Edward remained where he was, against the wall in a suit meant for business or leisure, but most certainly not for alley's. The pittance of the man's words was lost on Edward's ears, as his gaze moved between the guttural mouth spewing and the small pool of blood lingering in the hollow of the woman's throat. It shuddered with her histrionic breathing, the humming bird of her heart.
"Leave now." Edward had looked back to the man, no forte but the hint of a growl in his voice.
"You going to make me, pretty boy? I think I take you and then come back to her."
Golden eyes narrowed on the Italian complexion not lost in the abject night darkness. Unimpressed, somehow more dangerous for the asking of the first part than the bravado of the second. His head tilted, a casual disarray of shiny bronze hair curling at one cheek, as he tilted his head once as if to beckon him onward to even trying. Especially with the near arrogant smugness hooked into the one corner of his lips.
It's easy to catch the knife flying out as the man leapt at him, ignoring the woman's next scream and the way she dashes for the front of the alley, while he moved faster than sight would give either to catch the man by his wrist. The woman crying and muttering, humiliated, terrified apologies. She's thought she was abandoning him, thought this was the only few seconds she has to run and survive. Good. And still there is the man dangling by his wrist from Edward's grasp, who comes back to his attention when crack bones in the man's leg collide with the marble of his body.
The one giving where the other does not.
It would have been a nice move if Edward weren't indestructable.
"I did give you the option--" Edward said, voice like satin over sharpened steel. The man panted, cringing, trying to flail and founder against him still, swearing as though he needed to do so more than he needed to breathe. He looked down into that face, the mind where blinding pain and deep rage tinged every thought, expect some remorse, some tiny spot of anything resembling regret or repentance.
What he got -- aside from a sudden dearth of the fact this occurrence wasn't the first or even the dozenth of having happened at the man's hand, that it was a cheap parlor amusement compared to that other things the man's mind spun though, other things he had done alone and in conjunction with other's hands -- was the man trying to punch his nose.
Edward flung him against the wall harder and faster than he meant. The sound of impact coinciding with the sudden silence of those dark thoughts when the body slumped to the ground. Edward cringed in annoyance more than regret himself and took three quick steps to body, turning it over with a foot, so he could see the flutter of his chest rising, throat working, in tandem with the thready notes of the single heart beat left in the alley.
The man was still alive.
He was both relieved and highly annoyed.
He crouched down beside the body, eyes distracted to a single woman's snow drenched shoe. She was still running. She -- Candice. She would make it home and never be out this late again, would never look back and never forget. She wouldn't join the parade of faces in the man's head. She would never know what he'd had exquisitely planned out for her. She would live. She would live in defiance of him, for all the other women and men who never had. She would go on, as she had already gone on.
Which left Edward as the singular witness to the alley again,
one devoid of needed saviors, when he reached out a hand toward the man's throat.
Walking out in the snow on a blustery night, with Esme and Carlisle left behind, cozy and snug in the house and themselves, the sky an ominous blanket of grey that hides the stars even from eyes that could see beyond the lights of a city this size. There was a man, if a creature of such deplorable morals can be called such, and a woman. Isn't that how all the stories start?
But it was no innocent rendezvous. She'd lost a shoe and then been shoved into the alley, where she was pleading for her life with a knife pressed against the hollow of her throat, where blood beaded in fuzzy vision, and a hand crept at the thigh of her dress on the leg with the sodden, shoe-less, foot.
The street silent of needed saviors.
Empty of witness save one intrusive vampire three streets over;
With very questionable morals, even when he begrudgingly sighs from his new rest, on the alley wall. Five feet from them.
"Propriety dictates that you unhand a woman the first time she tells you no."
The women screamed, fear and anxiety flooding his head, even as the man whirled, his knife flashing and Edward remained where he was, against the wall in a suit meant for business or leisure, but most certainly not for alley's. The pittance of the man's words was lost on Edward's ears, as his gaze moved between the guttural mouth spewing and the small pool of blood lingering in the hollow of the woman's throat. It shuddered with her histrionic breathing, the humming bird of her heart.
"Leave now." Edward had looked back to the man, no forte but the hint of a growl in his voice.
"You going to make me, pretty boy? I think I take you and then come back to her."
Golden eyes narrowed on the Italian complexion not lost in the abject night darkness. Unimpressed, somehow more dangerous for the asking of the first part than the bravado of the second. His head tilted, a casual disarray of shiny bronze hair curling at one cheek, as he tilted his head once as if to beckon him onward to even trying. Especially with the near arrogant smugness hooked into the one corner of his lips.
It's easy to catch the knife flying out as the man leapt at him, ignoring the woman's next scream and the way she dashes for the front of the alley, while he moved faster than sight would give either to catch the man by his wrist. The woman crying and muttering, humiliated, terrified apologies. She's thought she was abandoning him, thought this was the only few seconds she has to run and survive. Good. And still there is the man dangling by his wrist from Edward's grasp, who comes back to his attention when crack bones in the man's leg collide with the marble of his body.
The one giving where the other does not.
It would have been a nice move if Edward weren't indestructable.
"I did give you the option--" Edward said, voice like satin over sharpened steel. The man panted, cringing, trying to flail and founder against him still, swearing as though he needed to do so more than he needed to breathe. He looked down into that face, the mind where blinding pain and deep rage tinged every thought, expect some remorse, some tiny spot of anything resembling regret or repentance.
What he got -- aside from a sudden dearth of the fact this occurrence wasn't the first or even the dozenth of having happened at the man's hand, that it was a cheap parlor amusement compared to that other things the man's mind spun though, other things he had done alone and in conjunction with other's hands -- was the man trying to punch his nose.
Edward flung him against the wall harder and faster than he meant. The sound of impact coinciding with the sudden silence of those dark thoughts when the body slumped to the ground. Edward cringed in annoyance more than regret himself and took three quick steps to body, turning it over with a foot, so he could see the flutter of his chest rising, throat working, in tandem with the thready notes of the single heart beat left in the alley.
The man was still alive.
He was both relieved and highly annoyed.
He crouched down beside the body, eyes distracted to a single woman's snow drenched shoe. She was still running. She -- Candice. She would make it home and never be out this late again, would never look back and never forget. She wouldn't join the parade of faces in the man's head. She would never know what he'd had exquisitely planned out for her. She would live. She would live in defiance of him, for all the other women and men who never had. She would go on, as she had already gone on.
Which left Edward as the singular witness to the alley again,
one devoid of needed saviors, when he reached out a hand toward the man's throat.
