New Update 11/24/2011:

I was notified that this story had been plagiarized, where the first nine chapters were posted WORD FOR WORD by TinaJaymes/EdwardsCougar33 work under another title and passed off as her own. So, if you feel like you've read this story before, know that THIS IS THE ORIGINAL WORK and that I AM THE ORIGINAL AUTHOR of the Rosalie story where Emmett is a crazy newborn. Thanks!

Chapter Specific Warning: Those sensitive to rape and violence may want to skip this chapter. Though it doesn't exactly occur within the following text. The issue is certainly dealt with.

Should anyone care to read an explicit version of this story, you can find the full, unrated version on Twilighted dot net.

To my beta, Lisa, aka cfmom, who is an amazing friend: Thank you so much for taking over this story early on when it was in need of some thorough editing and feedback. My only regret was that you weren't my beta from the beginning.

To my readers, threadsters, reviewers, tweeters, my friends: thank you, thank you so much for your support of this fic. I've enjoyed writing this as well as all of your continued enthusiasm for Emmett and Rosalie and their beginnings. Thank you for sharing in the love, laughter, and tears through this whole saga.

Playlist:

Tori Amos – Me and a Gun

Sullen Girl – Fiona Apple

Roberta Flack - Killing Me Softly

Ashanti - Foolish

Prologue: Turned

April 1933, Rochester, New York.

The beginning of the end.

Shock.

Shock is defined as the sudden or violent disturbance of the mind, emotions, or sensibilities.

In medicine it is a critical condition brought on by a sudden drop in blood flow through the body.

I was experiencing shock in every sense of the word.

Complete shock.

Even more than the pain that throbbed all over me.

I was lying on my stomach, my limbs in an awkward position.

The street felt horrible to my prone body, but anything would be more comfortable after what I'd endured not even an hour before.

I knew I was bleeding—bleeding in places a woman shouldn't be bleeding.

My cheek lay pressed against the abrasive mortar and large, smooth pebbles that formed the street's surface. I stared at the cobblestone just inches from my nose. The lines that formed where each stone began and ended started to blur within my vision.

My tears were just beginning to dry, my sobs getting smaller and more silent as time went on. My sniveling had quieted down. I wasn't wailing like I had been moments ago, crying from the simple shock of what had transpired. Reality came crashing down on me like a tidal wave.

The voice of the devil still rang in my ears loud and clear. What did I tell you, John. Isn't she lovelier than all your Georgia peaches? The irony was eerie, the voice I'd fawned over for the past few months had been the same voice to bring atrocities upon me I couldn't have imagined before tonight. It was the same voice I'd been preparing for the same amount of months to worship for the rest of my life.

The voice of Satan.

My body shivered at the recollection, appraised by his friends like I was a horse to purchase. A friend of a friend who I'd never met before had just come in from Atlanta. It's hard to tell, his sick friend, John, answered in a thick southern draw. She's all covered up.

Show him what you look like, Rose! My memory could hear him slur, his breath lousy with cheap whiskey.

I could still hear my buttons fly loose as he had torn my jacket off. I could still feel the bobby pins that held my hat in place pull hair and skin from my scalp as he had ripped my hat off of my head.

"I hate you," I tried to growl out loud in the present time, into the empty darkness of the street, but the sound was gone from my voice. A raspy breath was the only sound that I could make.

They'd enjoyed my screaming voice that night, with every cry for pain that they caused me. All my cries and screams had wasted my vocal abilities that night.

Waste.

Everything had gone to waste that evening.

It was insane to want to die, but I had no choice. There was no way I wanted to live after the disgrace he and his friends had done. I couldn't marry him after this, and I doubted anyone would believe me if I tried to tell them what happened.

I barely registered the hazy white falling down around me, like cotton. I thought I was hallucinating until I felt them fall on my hand and melt away quickly. It was fluffy little snowflakes, so quiet in their fall, swaying in the strange winter breeze as they descended to the ground… and on me.

I called it strange because of the time of year. I was sure when I had set the wedding date for late April that there wouldn't be a chance of snowfall. Boy, was I wrong. The large flowery wedding of my childhood dreams had been so close, just within reach of my fingertips. But then, the wedding was the least of my worries now.

Or at least it should be.

I winced as I made a small adjustment to my position.

Pain.

And it wasn't even the physical pain that was tearing me up inside, though that pain was overwhelming me to the point that I could barely hang onto consciousness.

There was more pain to be dealt with inside of me. My heart was more than broken. It was shattered, its pieces scattered along that very street, like broken glass. They were mixed on the cobblestone with the broken pieces of my virginity that he and his hooligan friends had destroyed and annihilated in one night.

Defiled parts of my body clenched in pain at the thought alone.

I swallowed the moisture in my mouth, a mixture of blood in my saliva, with a bad aftertaste of booze, and other foreign… fluids.

I fought the urge to vomit.

My memory took me to a gorgeous ballroom with everyone dressed in floor length gowns and tuxedos. I saw a crowd of people before me. A waiter offered us sparkly drinks in elegant flutes.

"No, thank you," he, my personal Satan in a designer suit, had declined politely at the swanky town dance party last month. He turned to me with a wink. "I don't care much for champagne."

I had smiled back, squeezing my fingers around his hand. I had jumped to my own conclusions that night, proud that he didn't drink. So stupid. So foolish.

How would I know that he preferred something much stronger?

I had been the biggest dupe on the planet, completely seduced by the riches of his family and his undeniable good looks, and the charming façade he'd only displayed until this night.

The man I thought loved me. The man I'd meant to father my future beautiful babies.

I hadn't known him at all.

I managed to move my hand to my face, and I knew as I felt my nose, swollen and deformed, that it was broken. That bastard named John had punched me in the face to keep me from resisting. My left eye was also swollen shut. I think that was Royce that had gifted me with that mar to my beauty.

I cringed, not only at the sensitive flesh of my face, but the silent utter of his name.

The wounds were tender, the slightest pressure to the swollen tissue caused sharp sensations. The pain brought about whimpers that broke through my lips on a gasp.

Tears brimmed and swelled in my eyes before they poured relentlessly down my cheeks and onto my cracked lips. They were brought on by the thought of my former lovely face, now mangled and deformed. A less than perfect nose was unacceptable to me.

One thought comforted me.

At least I'll be dead.

And I knew that the end was near, because I literally felt life draining out of me.

My failing body trembled in a pool of my own blood.

God, it was cold.

The ache and discomfort continued to throb and pierce through me. I tried my best to run thoughts through my mind in an effort to concentrate on something else. One thought came instantly.

Let them find me.

I hoped there was some kind of clue that Royce had done this. Hopefully he'd left a scarf or hat behind, or his stupid stopwatch. Something to lead them into knowing he did this.

As humiliating as the fact was, it was still a fact.

Royce had raped me.

He had killed me.

He had taken away my perfect life from me.

He needed to pay.

Never mind that I would never wake when I closed my eyes. Excluding that night, I was close to getting everything that I wanted in this life. After that night, I no longer cared to live. As long as there was justice in the name of my death, I would be happy.

After a time, long or short, I wasn't sure, I closed my eyes. My lids were pitch black from the inside. There was more pain than I thought I could bear, but I didn't fight it. I drifted and waited for the end to come to me, my thoughts dipping in and out of memories without a consistent pattern. In the moments that I was lucid, I tried to hum a lullaby in my head. It was the same lullaby I would use to hum Ronnie to sleep.

The memories came and went. I'd put my youngest brother to sleep often. I'd watch after both of my younger brothers, especially when my mother was so busy keeping house. That was her duty, keeping the house—and us—spotless.

I recalled her brushing my hair as she stood behind me at my vanity, insisting that I'd have to employ one hundred brush strokes every night to my long, golden tresses. She knew what she was talking about. I'd inherited her lush, blonde hair, and she'd always kept it lovely.

It went well with every gorgeous dress my father would come home with about every other week. The last that he had given me was a lovely powder blue satin and organza piece that he thought would be good for my bridal shower.

I choked on a sob then.

There would be no more bridal shower now.

It was dark and silent for a timeless space. The throbbing pain was still there, and I was eager for it to lessen. The end couldn't come soon enough. I was losing so much blood that the snow now falling on me was no longer melting away from my skin. My temperature was dropping, able to sustain the frozen fluffy ice that began to accumulate on me in layers.

I braced myself, ready to shut my eyes to the world forever.

I hadn't lived the full life I wanted, but now, the one man who I thought I loved had single-handedly destroyed me—my perfect future, my perfect body, my perfect life.

I was no longer willing to live.

I welcomed death.

I felt a sudden presence that barely roused me. Something shook me, and pulled me. I heard metal clacking onto the cobblestone street, a person shifting on his or her feet.

"Oh, my," I heard a male voice say. It was smooth, like velvet. It sounded better than anyone's voice I'd ever heard. I heard him exhale, in sheer pity. "Rosalie Hale." He recognized me!

I was flipped onto my back carefully. I felt myself blush with what blood my body had left, knowing that I was exposed indecently, certain parts of my body bare for a purpose. I felt stark naked, completely stripped of my virtue, my dignity. I was tarnished, violated and impure, and this person was about to see it all first hand.

I felt exposed to the man hovering above me.

But my thoughts took another turn. Maybe this was good. Maybe this was enough evidence to convictRoyce of his crime.

Did he know? Did he see Royce and his hooligan friends? Please, God, make sure he saw who did this to me.

I was able to open my eye, the one that wasn't swollen shut. My vision was blurred, mostly by the snow that had settled on my lashes. Behind them, I slowly focused on the fair-haired man in a white coat.

Even in my dying stupor, I recognized Doctor Cullen, the beautiful man with a beautiful wife and beautiful brother in law, Edward Platt, who attended my school.

"Such a shame," he whispered quietly, to himself. "Such a waste."

With my last dying words I wanted to name the person that had done this to me. I wanted justice for my life, for my family. I desperately wanted to tell him with my final breath that Royce was my assailant. I needed him to notify my family, and tell my father at once. I made an effort to speak, but all that came out was a strangled moan.

"There, there," he soothed. Suddenly I felt him checking over my vital signs, when I realized he was helping to save my life.

I struggled to speak again. I wanted to tell him about Royce, and then tell him it was too late. I wanted to die. I wanted him to let me die.

His strange golden eyes look at me with such pity.

I felt a wave of shame. That wasn't the way I wanted people to look at me.

He looked into my eyes with warmth and kindness. "We'll get you better."

No!

I began to shake, frantically. I wanted to reach out and stop his hands from working on me.

Leave me, I wanted to say. Irritation was tingling in my limbs as I felt him check me with his frigid hands. It didn't startle me that his hands were so cold. I figured it was from the unusual snowfall and freezing temperatures.

Please stop, I urged him in my mind, but my voice and lips were not in my control anymore. Let me die!

He wasn't listening. He continued to work, fiddling with his medical gadgets and his hands began to pump my chest to give me more air. He kept at work to keep me alive, not comprehending my weak attempt to stop him.

No!

This was horrible. Almost second to the rape I was subjected to hours ago.

You idiot. I want to die! Stop this right now!

I began to weep again.

I wanted to scream at him, and tell him to leave me be. But I couldn't, and he continued to misinterpret every sound I made as a cry for help.

Stop! Let me die, God damn it!

After a short while, it seemed that I was winning. I was dying, and he knew it. I could see it in the helplessness of his kind face. He knew it was hopeless.

Ironically, I was more hopeful. I get to die, I thought.

But suddenly, he gathered his things. Something about it was strange, like a light bulb had turned on in his head.

He'd lifted me effortlessly from the ground, and just like that, we glided forward at an alarming speed.

Even as I drifted to and fro, my mind continued to run, having illusions of heaven. It was because of the doctor's pace. It felt like we were flying. I was waiting for wings to sprout from his back, because the flight was just unimaginably smooth.

I was sure we were flying. I wondered if the doctor was actually an angel from heaven for a moment. It would explain why he was even more beautiful than I was.

It wasn't long before I found myself in a warm room, the light bright and shining in my eyes. I was slipping away, and the sharp pain of my injuries was finally beginning to dull. I couldn't help but be grateful.

I felt myself being placed on a soft surface. Was that a bed? I wasn't sure.

"Be reborn, my child," he whispered.

In the next moment, I felt sharp edge pierce into my neck, and shock overtook me. I screamed as the sharpness continued, cutting away at my wrists, my ankles… every joint in my body.

Had he taken me here to hurt me more?

But that wasn't the worst of it. I wish I was warned that the worst was yet to come. Suddenly, I was burning as if being burned at the stake. What did he do to me?

It was hard to concentrate as the fire raged through me. Nothing else mattered except that I was being burned alive.

I felt a hand take mine, and I knew it was the Doctor's. I took it because I had no choice. I was in flames, and any comfort was welcome.

Every time I screamed, I would hear his velvet voice apologize, and promise that the burning would end.

I screamed at the top of my lungs, but it didn't help. It didn't stop the fire from continuing to incinerate my body. I could feel it to my bones.

I screamed for them to kill me. I was able to open my eyes when Mrs. Cullen came home to beg for her to end my life. She wouldn't do such a thing, holding my other hand in hers, occasionally sitting to stroke her hand through my hair.

Was anyone else burning but me?

Dr. Cullen stayed by my side, sitting with me, my hand gripping his. He told me everything at once. Vampire. A new life. Bloodlust. Immortality.

No.

No!

Sometimes I listened. Sometimes I didn't; the flames were too strong for me to comprehend anything.

The inferno consumed me, holding me against the bed. The flames held me against my will.

I writhed and moaned, my teeth clenched so hard it was painful.

Throughout the burn, I held onto my memories of the last night of my life—my visit to Vera's house, my unfortunate run-in with Royce and company that ended me completely.

That was, unless Dr. Cullen spoke of what was happening to me.

Whatever nonsense he uttered about being a vampire, I didn't believe him.

When Mrs. Cullen's brother came home, I pleaded for him to kill me as well. He paid my request no mind.

His reaction was different from Mrs. Cullen's. He was extremely upset with Carlisle for taking me. I hadn't been under for long, but I heard every word of his tense conversation with his brother in law. He wasn't pleased that Dr. Cullen had chosen to change me. He wasn't pleased with me. Even burning, I was irritated with him, mortified at how disgusted he sounded when he uttered my name.

One thing was certain: he would not be my favorite in this family.

There was only one thing that pleased me from that discussion.

"Don't you think she's just a little recognizable, though?" the doctor's brother in law asked him. I didn't know Edward Platt too well from school, and I had a feeling I didn't want to. "The Kings will have put up a large search—not that anyone suspects the fiend."

It was strange to feel pleasure and satisfaction that they knew Royce was guilty, even when the flames continued to spread through me.

"What are we going to do with her?" Mrs. Cullen's irritated brother asked. His question reeked of disgust, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth for him.

I heard Dr. Cullen sigh. "That's up to her, of course. She may want to go her own way."

I cringed at the doctor's statement through my writhing in sweltering agony.

I'd heard enough about the vampire story for me to believe—for me to know I didn't want to do this alone. I just couldn't. It wasn't a life I wanted, but my life had ended once Royce and company did what they did, and there was no going back for me. Like hell if I'd experience this second life by myself.

I might as well been dead because it felt like cremation. I burned for what felt like an immeasurable amount of time.

And then the pain finally ended. Had I really been burning for just three days? It had felt like weeks on end sometimes, embers eating away at my tissue. Flinching. Suffering. I was in shock that it was finally over.

As I stood for the first time, on my perfect feet, in the most graceful stance I'd ever stood, they explained everything to me again. Vampire. Immortality. Frozen for eternity.

As they explained, I realized what this would mean for my future—my physical body, unchanging for the rest of my existence. No children. No death. "No," I breathed in a sob.

My heart, the one I knew was now frozen and dead, pulverized within me. Millions of pieces of broken glass, but now finer than sand.

I wanted to scream, but looking at the Cullens held me in reserve from doing so. The kindness in the doctor's eyes, in his wife's smile, kept me from acting out against them. Even with Edward in the opposite corner, with a scowl on his face, observing quietly from where he stood, I couldn't be angry with all of them. I couldn't fault them for imprisoning me into this life. How could they have known what I wanted?

I didn't deny it anymore. I couldn't.

I believed.

I felt my skin, hard as marble, cold as winter. I took my first breath, with a painful burn, much like what I'd experienced during the transformation, but not to its full extent. It was the thirst, it scorched in my throat, and they told me that I needed to hunt immediately.

That was it. It was done.

I was a vampire.

But there was one more thing I needed to do before I went on my first hunt with Dr. Cullen and his family.

I caught a light bouncing off a shiny object in a room across the hall. My new supernatural vision knew what it was. Slowly, I floated to the mirror that hung on the opposing wall.

I froze as I studied the stunning woman staring back at me with the most frightening eyes of fiery hell.

I gasped at their startling color. My eyes. The word "frightening" was an understatement. They'd send anyone away screaming.

There was no doubt anymore of what I was in my mind.

I was a monster.

I stood for several moments in shock. I could feel three very curious sets of eyes watching me as I observed myself.

I forced myself to accept it— to accept what I was. I vowed at that moment that the distaste for my new nature would not prevent me from being the best at it.

Once I got past the scary eyes, I was able to scrutinize the face, and suddenly a wave of reprieve crashed through me, gathering the pieces of my pulverized heart.

The woman's face with the scary eyes stared back at me.

I gasped once again.

Absolutely breathtaking.

A strange sense of satisfaction washed over me as my eyes drank in my loveliness. I traced the features of my face with my fingertips in amazement. I turned my head side to side. My bone structure was enhanced, much like a goddess. My lips pouted even prettier. There was no sign of my broken nose, or any scar or wounds on me. In fact my nose was flawless. Both eyes, though frightening in color, matched each other perfectly, beneath a thick shelter of the longest, fullest, darkest lashes I'd ever laid eyes on.

I was still gorgeous. Undeniably flawless.

In fact, the transformation only improved my already striking human features.

I was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

I realized then that I wouldn't have any issues attaining whatever I would want to have that was possible in this new life. I could feel the strength of my body, combined with my looks. I knew many things would be easy.

And my first task in this new body was completely obvious to me.

I would be unstoppable when I went to avenge my death. I couldn't resent the kind and gentle Dr. Cullen for this situation, but I sure as hell can blame someone for taking everything I wanted away from me. My mind fixed on a certain young gentleman caller and his quartet of merry queers.

Royce King the Second was going to pay.

My perfect lips curled into a wicked grin as I contemplated my plan of attack. My quest for vengeance.

My plan for justice. Retribution.

I would come after them one by one, and then come after Royce last so he would know that I was coming. I knew exactly what I'd wear for the occasion as well.

There was nothing that could stop me from getting what I wanted with the way I looked and what I could do in this body.

I was so sure of that fact at that moment.

It would be another two years until I would meet my match, and be proven wrong of that very thought.

Endnotes

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