Chapter Text
With an absentminded movement of the back of his hand, Carlisle brushed his knuckles over the corner of his mouth. As he straightened up, he looked around for a brief moment, and immediately, his eyes found what he had been looking for: His gaze met that of Esme, who was standing a few feet away from him, her shoulder leaning against the trunk of a slender pine tree.
Apparently, she had been watching Carlisle from over there, her arms crossed loosely over her chest as he had fed on the boar, whose lifeless body now lay on the forest floor, mere inches from the tips of his polished leather shoes.
Somehow strangely embarrassed by this realization of having been watched by her, Carlisle used the knuckles of his fingers to wipe at his lips, even though he knew he had not shed even a single drop of blood on his hunts for decades now.
But more and more often now, he had been catching his hands beginning to move on their own whenever he suddenly noticed Esme's gaze on him, as did the corners of his mouth, which he could feel lifting into a gentle little smile at the sight of her, not quite able to stop himself.
He saw her returning his shy smile for a brief, hesitant moment before she lowered her head, quickly avoiding his gaze again. And with the sudden movement, a strand of caramel hair that always kept coming loose from the tight knot on her head fell into her eyes, hiding them from Carlisle and thus not allowing him to read in them.
"What is it? What did I do?" he muttered a little sheepishly, and as he blinked at Esme, he pulled his hand away from the corner of his mouth and moved it up to his hair instead, hesitantly brushing it back a little.
Suddenly, he had to keep himself from burying both of his fists deep in the pockets of his pants, like some schoolboy who had gotten himself into trouble and who had been caught in the act red-handed.
Except he could not quite say what it was that he had been caught doing.
"Nothing," Esme merely replied at this before she blinked up at him again. Ducking her head ever so slightly, she brushed the loose strand of hair back behind her ear. "I was just—" At this, a soft sigh suddenly escaped her lips, and she lowered her eyes a second time, but now to look down at herself.
Clearly embarrassed about what she saw, she gently shrugged her shoulders as she ran her hands over the worn fabric of her olive-green dress.
"I couldn't help but notice—the way you look, one would think you are in your Sunday best, whereas I look like I have been... well," she mumbled with another shrug.
Hesitating, she looked up at him again, and in the bits of sunlight that were fighting their way through the dense crowns of the trees above their heads, her cheeks sparkled ever so gently, and her eyes—their color some indefinable shade between red, orange, and gold by now—suddenly reminded Carlisle of bits of amber he had once found on a walk at the Scottish coastline many decades ago.
"I look like a mess," she concluded quietly, reminding him again that they had been talking about something different than some pretty stones.
And indeed, one could usually see the traces of Esme's hunts on her afterwards: Leaves and moss would often get tangled in her long, caramel hair, which constantly seemed to come loose from its carefully tied knots over time, no matter how hard Esme tried to keep it in place with pins and ties. With her still somewhat clumsy movements, she often managed to smudge traces of earth or blood on her face, or she would leave dark fingerprints on the backs of her brown hands and forearms. And despite the dark, olive-green color of her dress, Carlisle could see quite a few earth and grass stains on it, saw drops of old blood scattered across the fabric. Even her leather boots, which she had switched to after she had finally reluctantly explained to Carlisle that she could not possibly go on hunts with heels underneath her feet, had long since lost their original manicured gloss and were now covered from top to bottom with countless scratches and splashes of mud instead.
And as she had previously killed a rather resilient young stag, the hem of her dress, already covered with several seams and patches from similar encounters before, had split again. Now there was a long tear running through the fabric of her dress that gently brushed around Esme's ankles as she walked, occasionally revealing a small glimpse of her calf.
Carlisle had observed all this without further comment and, though more out of his own embarrassment for even having noticed at all, had decided to pretend that it had entirely escaped his attention. That his eyes had not continuously been drawn to the flash of her brown skin just above her boot, always bare, as she seemed to have a particular aversion to long stockings and would seldom be seen wearing them.
And he kept pretending that he had not secretly noticed how at every touch of weak rays of sunshine, this small patch of skin would begin to sparkle ever so slightly underneath the fabric.
Blinking sheepishly, Carlisle quickly made himself tear his gaze away from the sight of her calf for the umpteenth time now and let it find Esme's face instead. And as he remembered the topic of their conversation again, he gave her a small, encouraging smile in response to her words.
"Give it some practice," he told her gently. "You will see, it will become easier after a while. You forget you have barely been a newborn for four months yet. It takes some time," he admitted. "But believe me, I looked worse than that in the beginning. Much worse," he added with a quiet nod.
He remembered it well, this strange period of time right after his own transition had come to an end, when he had truly looked like a creature from one of his worst nightmares. The way his tattered linen shirt had hung from his strange new body like a dirty sack that one would not even have wanted to use as a shoe mat anymore. Always kept clean and neat before, the fabric had reeked of fear and sweat, of rotten potatoes, and of his own, dried blood.
Carlisle had never quite been able to forget the smell of those rotten potatoes in particular, and even today an invisible hand seemed to grab his throat, suffocating him whenever he smelled rotting food.
At the time, deep rust-brown smears had stained his clothes, where the teeth of the vampire had pierced his skin and his blood had seeped into the fabric. Smudged marks from the wound in his hand had borne witness to those moments when, blinded by pain, he had searched for something to hold onto and had found nothing except for what he had been wearing on his body. The dusty stains on his back and shoulders had told of the desperate moments when, in his agony, he had writhed on that dirty cellar floor. And his new leather boots, for which he had saved up money for so long, must have slipped off his feet at some point during the cruel process of the transition and had finally been lost, because for a long time, Carlisle had not only been covered in dirt and sweat and blood but had also wandered the world barefoot.
And so, at the very beginning of this strange, new life, it had been all the more difficult for him to see himself as anything other than the wretched monster from the abyss that he had been taught to fear and hate for as long as he could remember.
"It took me quite some time until I got used to my new body as well," Carlisle murmured, leaving the painful memory behind with a final blink.
Instead, he raised his head again and met Esme's gaze as he slowly uncurled the fingers of his left hand, where he had absentmindedly let them run over his palm for a moment, touching the crescent-shaped scar that the vampire had left on his skin all those years ago.
"You will learn to control your strength, I promise," he told her quietly. "And if you agree, we could try to—"
But before he could finish his sentence and express the idea that had come to his mind, he suddenly saw Esme's expression freeze. In less than a fraction of a second, her entire body seemed to stiffen, her face tensing up.
And at this, Carlisle forgot what he had been wanting to say.
Because he smelled it as well. He smelled the young man, not too far from them. He smelled his sweat in the summer heat, smelled his agitation, the adrenaline rushing through his body, smelled his fear.
And he smelled the injury, the wound from which fresh blood was ebbing.
"Esme," Carlisle breathed carefully. "Listen to me."
But he could see from the cold expression on her face, could see from the sudden blackness of her eyes, that it was already too late, that his words alone would no longer touch her. He had seen it happen often enough during their hunts together: Her deadly instinct, so strong in their kind in the first few months after their transition, had been awakened, had taken control over her mind.
And Esme, a newborn for barely more than four months now, had not had nearly enough practice fighting that instinct on her own.
Slowly, Carlisle raised his hands.
He was suddenly reminded of a moment when, as young boys, he and a friend had tried to calm a skittish young horse that had thrown its inexperienced rider, the injured man landing mere feet in front of them on their way home.
The dense fog of oblivion had long since settled over the other boy's name and face, just like it had made him forget what the young rider had looked like. But Carlisle still remembered the look of panic in the Haflinger's dark eyes—and the way his father had yelled at him when he had finally returned home with a collection of bruises scattered across his body. The way he had called him a brainless fool for carelessly having exposed himself to such danger. The way he had finally shaken his head in disappointment as he had turned away from Carlisle, sighing that next time, he should decide to let the horse go if he wanted to keep his head from being split open in the middle of the street.
Swallowing, Carlisle sought Esme's gaze.
"I don't want to fight you, Esme," he breathed softly, hoping that at least a part of her would understand his words, would perhaps listen to him long enough for him to help her resist this urge, to resist the thirst.
But at his words, a low growl suddenly left her throat, and Carlisle understood the clear warning in the sound.
And yet he knew what the consequences of such an accident would be. What responsibility, what pain would be weighing on Esme's shoulders forever if he did not try to stop her from such an accident.
So, reluctantly, he gritted his teeth and slowly ducked into an attack stance before her, ready to react as soon as she moved at all.
And as he did, he was more than aware of how bad his prospects were. Esme was still a newborn, was still so much stronger and faster than he was. If she launched a direct attack on him, he would no longer have even the slightest chance against her, and certainly not against her blood-driven instinct.
In every way, she was far superior to him, and the risk of her accidentally injuring him was much higher than he liked to admit.
And yet he found that he had already made his decision, knew that he had to try. After all, it had been he who had not paid enough attention, who had allowed himself to get lost in his thoughts and memories for a moment too long instead of keeping up his careful vigilance, paying close attention to their surroundings as he usually would. It had been four months ago, right before they had left for their first hunt together. But he had given Esme a promise, had sworn that he would stand in her way and that he would do everything in his power to keep her from hurting a human being.
And Carlisle had never given a promise lightly, never one that he was not intent on keeping.
For a brief moment, Esme seemed to watch his slow movement almost motionless, but then another low growl suddenly emerged from between her clenched teeth, a thin trickle of venomous saliva running down her chin.
Now the sound was no longer a mere warning. It clearly was an open threat, and one that made Carlisle's skin crawl. And though he could not quite make himself truly be afraid of Esme, the sound made him blink and shudder ever so slightly, made him swallow hard as he could not help but notice a sudden pang of intimidation in his heart.
But even as his instinct seemed to override his mind for a fraction of a second, as it made him duck his head ever so slightly in an almost submissive gesture, he could not help but feel strangely mesmerized by this unfamiliar sight of her.
And still he felt himself take a small step back, hesitating, simply not able to bring himself to even think about hurting her.
Carlisle had not wanted her to see it, but despite his trust, despite his strange fascination for this Esme, the sound coming from her throat had deeply unsettled him, as it did not seem to fit the image of the careful being he knew, the woman whom he had just talked to as he had on so many other afternoons like this one.
But he realized that the hesitant Esme he knew had faded into the background for the moment. Her powerful instincts, still so new and unpredictable, had taken control over her body and mind alike, and it suddenly made her duck down a little as well, mirroring Carlisle's stance and thus silently signaling to him that she was ready for an attack as well.
And that, unlike him, she would go through with it if he dared to get in the way, stepping between her and her prey.
And he could see she was just as aware of the fact that he would be no match for her in a direct fight, and not just physically.
She had seen his hesitation as well, his instinct to submit to her without any resistance. He could see it in her eyes, hard and dark from thirst, saw the burning urge in them, the hot desire for blood that overshadowed everything else.
He swallowed.
"Esme," he tried again anyway. "Please," he added in a whisper.
And with a strange feeling in his throat, he could hear the desperation in his own voice. He heard the pleading tone, the uncertain trembling that seemed to sound so strange, even to himself.
But Esme remained silent.
Instead, her body suddenly seemed to flinch for a brief moment, as if ready for a leap. But Carlisle did not fall for this trick. Without even thinking about it, he took a quick step forward to step into her path, trying to cut her off. And as he moved, he merely raised his hands again, carefully trying to remind her that, despite what her instinct was telling her, he was not her enemy. That he did not want to hurt her.
But as he came to a stop in front of her, Esme just snarled impatiently and suddenly swung out at him to push him out of her way.
At this, Carlisle reacted by mere instinct. Leaning to the left, he dodged her blow just in time before it could hit his ear. Instead, he quickly tried to take advantage of Esme's brief struggle as her hand cut through the empty air and caught it, desperately wrapping his fingers around her wrist as he sought her gaze.
But as soon as he touched her, he immediately realized that he had made a mistake.
With a sudden, angry scream that made him flinch, not having expected Esme to be capable of such a sound, she suddenly whirled around and wrenched her wrist from his grasp. The blind panic that flashed in her eyes made Carlisle take another startled step back, and for a split second, the image of the Haflinger from his memories reappeared in his mind.
He could see it standing before him again, just a moment before the first hoof had suddenly sailed down right in front of his nose, missing its tip by mere inches.
But before he even realized what was happening, before Carlisle could do so much as raise his hands, Esme's fist struck him, hitting his face with such force that he was suddenly thrown off balance.
Hot pain flashed through his cheek as he whirled around. It ran through his head and neck, seeming to discharge itself deep into his shoulder blades as the forest started spinning around him, a veil of bright white sparks covering his vision, blinding him for a second.
Blinking out of an old, once-human reflex, Carlisle felt himself close his eyes. Only then did he realize that he was falling, unable to keep his balance. A young tree, probably uprooted during the last storm, cracked under his shoulders as he slammed into the ground, and not a moment later, Carlisle hit his back hard on the damp forest floor, the sound as loud as thunder in his ears.
Startled and disoriented, his eyes opened again, blinking, looking for Esme.
But she had already disappeared.
Carlisle cursed under his breath as he quickly staggered back to his feet, still a little dazed from the sudden blow to his face.
Almost mechanically, he started setting off in pursuit.
Dull pain rumbled through his head as he followed the trail of blood in the air, interspersed with Esme's scent. The pain seemed to slow him as he moved, radiating deep into his shoulder blades for another moment with every single step. And yet Carlisle knew that he had gotten off relatively lightly with this attack. Esme's incredible strength seemed to be slowly, very slowly, diminishing a little by now, but she was still a newborn, and she was still drawing on the tremendous energy from her transition process.
And in a state like this, her deadly instinct awakened and in sole control of her actions, all resistance to the overwhelming power of thirst entirely extinguished, she could pose an enormous danger to him.
Carlisle had never told her about it, had not wanted to worry her any more than she already was, but with just one well-aimed blow, she might have been able to sever his neck from the rest of his body and incapacitate him.
After all, he had seen it happen more than enough times.
At the memory, he allowed himself to squeeze his eyes tightly shut for a split second. But then he shook his head to quickly dispel these thoughts again—and in the hope that he might finally be able to shake off the dull pain pounding in his cheek as well and focus again on what was truly important at this moment.
But it suddenly dawned on him that he no longer had even the slightest chance of catching up with Esme in time, not with her enormous speed and the headstart his fall had granted her.
And he realized that he had failed her, that he had not been able to protect her from this fate.
That he had broken his promise to her.
His hope had been to hold Esme off long enough for her to regain her senses, to fight the thirst with his help. In this way, he had been able to save Edward from such moments a few times before, slowly leading him away from the overwhelming temptation without anything ever happening.
But this time it had been different, Carlisle had failed.
He had miscalculated. He had not been careful enough, had simply not expected Esme to actually go for an attack if it ever came to this. And this realization suddenly shook up his image of her, momentarily confusing the patiently collected and carefully arranged pieces of the mosaic that he had gradually begun to create in his head over the last four months.
Carlisle suddenly felt a wave of anger at himself rise inside him. He felt despair, guilt. And he took advantage of it and ran ever faster, seeming to fly across the forest floor for a moment, faster than he ever had before.
But no sooner had he finally caught up with Esme's scent and that of the blood than he knew with absolute certainty that he was too late: The young man's heart stopped beating at the very moment he caught sight of Esme kneeling over his limp body, her teeth buried deep in the crook of his pale neck.
Silently, Carlisle lowered his head and closed his eyes for a moment, the image of it all still vivid in his mind, as if it had burnt itself into his eyelids.
How much he would have liked to save Esme from this suffering, from all the pain that would come with the realization of what she had done.
"Carlisle, I—"
Slowly, he raised his head at the sound of her voice, forcing himself to look into Esme's eyes.
Only a few weeks ago, they had finally slowly started changing color, had only just taken on a shade of dark caramel, had reminded him vaguely of amber just a few moments ago. He was sure it would not have taken too much longer, and they would have been the same color as his and Edward's.
But now he was looking into startled dark eyes that were already beginning to turn crimson around her irises, the same shade as the blood that was running from Esme's lower lip and down her chin in a thin trickle.
And it was the hot panic in those very eyes that finally woke Carlisle from his stupor.
He blinked, hesitated for one last moment. Swallowing hard, he then finally forced himself to take a stiff step towards her.
But when Esme suddenly flinched away from him as if he had been about to take a swing at her, he abruptly came to a stop again and just slowly raised his hands instead.
Absentmindedly, he noticed that his fingers had started trembling ever so slightly.
That was new.
At this, Carlisle swallowed and just gritted his teeth, forcing himself to lift his gaze from his trembling hands and look at Esme instead.
With a gentle shake of his head, he tried to signal to her that he did not want to hurt her.
"Esme," he breathed cautiously as he tried to catch her gaze, fighting the impulse to avoid her crimson eyes when they suddenly snapped up at him, clearly startled by his voice. "It's alright. It's me, it's Carlisle," he continued quietly, simply not knowing what else to say, what to do now. He had never had to do this before. "I do not mean you any harm," he breathed. "I am here to help."
Slowly, he gave her a gentle nod, waiting for some reaction. But nothing came, and Esme just looked up at him in silence with the same despair in her dark eyes that he could feel in himself—and so much fear.
At the sight, he felt his heart sink. Cautiously, he started moving again, taking one step after the other as he slowly edged a little closer before he finally sank down to one knee about an arm's length away from her, casting a brief glance at the young man in her arms.
She was holding his lifeless body close to her chest, as if he were a child she was gently rocking to sleep. And despite her trembling fingers, she gently kept stroking his reddish-blond curls, her cool brown skin dark against the bloodless pallor of his freckled face.
At first glance, it all looked like nothing more than some bad dream. As if all they had to do was wait for the boy to finally close his light blue eyes, with which he was staring blankly into the treetops above them, and drift away.
As if he would fall asleep at any moment now, and then everything would be fine again.
But a second glance betrayed the calm first impression, blurring the picture and painting a very different, rather gruesome one: Esme's grip on the limp body was far too tight for any human to bear, let alone fall asleep in her arms. At Carlisle's feet, frantic tracks on the forest floor told of the boy's desperate last attempts to defend himself against Esme's attack. And the smudges of dirt on his face and hair, the strangely protruding angle of his arm, it all bore witness to the battle he could never have won. Instead, dark blood covered Esme's hands, wetted her mouth, and, where it had trickled down her lip, her chin as well.
It blurred the gentle illusion of a sleeping child and just made Carlisle painfully aware of what had truly happened here.
Swallowing sadly, he looked at her, only to find her eyes still filled with fear.
"Esme, I am so sorry," he breathed softly, and as he sought her gaze, he slowly lifted his hand and moved it slightly in her direction.
He had not intended to actually touch her, but Esme flinched so violently at the gesture that, with a startled blink, Carlisle quickly withdrew his hand and just slowly raised it again in front of his chest, not able to keep himself from backing away from her a little.
In his mind, the image of her face appeared, just a fraction of a second before her fist had suddenly struck him, causing him to lose his footing.
And for a brief moment, the pain in his left cheek seemed to flare up again at the memory.
With a blink, he lowered his eyes, and swallowing hard, he tried to push the image back. But when he finally looked up at Esme again, he realized that he did not have even the slightest idea what to do now.
"I—it was an accident, Esme," he finally started carefully, trying to catch her gaze for a moment. But she was no longer looking at him. Instead, her eyes had fallen back on the body of the lifeless boy in her arms.
"He can't be much older than Edward," she suddenly whispered, as if she had not even heard Carlisle's words at all.
And she was right, the boy seemed barely older than seventeen, maybe eighteen, nineteen at the very most. His face was still young, with no wrinkles on his skin apart from two gentle dimples in his cheeks and the first, gentle traces of a thin beard trying to grow in on his chin and jaw.
He was almost still a child.
"I killed him," Esme continued in a low whisper, and the fingers of her right hand suddenly paused in their movement, trembling as they came to a halt on the boy's still chest. Suddenly, she drew in a shaky breath before uttering what Carlisle had been thinking only a moment earlier. "He's no more than a child, and I killed him," she breathed, appalled.
And from the horrified expression on her face, Carlisle could see that what had just happened finally seemed to seep through to her. That she finally seemed to realize it had been her who had killed the boy in her arms and that it was his blood that was clinging to her skin.
Gasping, Esme suddenly dropped the body and backed away from him, crawling back on the ground. With a desperate trembling in her hands, she slapped one over her mouth, seeming to realize too late that the boy's blood was on her fingers as well and that she had thus smeared it across her face.
And suddenly, she was desperately trying to rub it away. But it stubbornly kept sticking to her skin, and the longer she tried to wipe it off her hands and face, the more desperate her movements seemed to become. And having smudged the blood all over her skin, she suddenly began to tremble more and more all over, her breath short and intermittent, a dry sob escaping her lips.
Unable to move or speak, Carlisle merely watched as her fingers finally found her left wrist and gripped it tightly as she pulled her legs up against her chest and slumped into her knees, her arms crossed to hide her face.
Still trembling, she suddenly began to whimper into her elbows.
"Esme, look at me," Carlisle pleaded softly and tilted his head a bit as he slightly leaned forward, trying to seek her gaze. Never before had he wanted to be able to reach out to her this much, to simply touch her, pull her into his arms, and comfort her. He swallowed. "Esme," he breathed again, forcing himself to keep his hands in his lap. "Please, look at me."
Startled, she suddenly raised her head, looking at Carlisle over the crook of her arm as he absentmindedly noticed that her eyes had turned entirely red by now.
Nevertheless, he gently returned her gaze.
How he would have liked to put a hand on her cheek to keep her eyes on him instead of letting her return it to the boy on the floor. How he would have liked to take her by the hand and slowly pull her back to her feet, to take her far away from this cursed place and never let her think about it again.
But he did not dare even so much as reach out a single finger toward her.
Instead, he let both of his hands rest uselessly in his lap, feeling the weight of them on his thighs as he looked into Esme's panicked, crimson eyes and wondered what he should do now, what he should say.
"I am sorry, Esme," Carlisle repeated gently, because he simply could not think of anything else to say. "I should have—I am so sorry."
"But you—it was me, Carlisle," Esme suddenly whimpered, and the desperate fear, all the disgust and pain in her eyes, almost seemed to take his breath away as he looked at her. "It was me, I killed him, I—I took someone's son and—God, I swear I didn't mean to, Carlisle," she sobbed, desperately pressing the back of one hand against her mouth, the fingers of the other clutching at her throat. "I'm sorry, Carlisle, I don't—I—"
"I know," he breathed, nodding gently.
With a hesitant sigh, he closed his eyes before he slowly started inhaling and exhaling, over and over again. As he did, he could hear Esme's quiet sobs, the trembling in her chest, and the soft hitching of her breath as she seemed to realize what he was doing.
And finally, she seemed to try to follow him, to breathe along with him, as they had begun to do every now and again when she suddenly found herself in another one of her episodes.
When Carlisle opened his eyes again after another moment, his gaze met hers, and he gently nodded at her as they continued to breathe.
In and out. In and out. Again and again and again.
"I am sorry," Esme repeated quietly, and suddenly, another distraught little sob escaped her throat before she buried her face in her hands. Trembling, she sucked in desperate gulps of air, clearly trying to control her sobs. "I am so sorry."
"I know, Esme," Carlisle breathed, feeling his still heart shatter at the sound and sight of her pain. Gently, he nodded again, feeling the tingling sensation in his fingertips, the longing to take her hand and squeeze it, to hold it tight and show her that she was not alone with this. "I know. I am terribly sorry, too," he mumbled.
But instead of taking her by the hand, he watched her in silence, simply continuing to breath for her, slowly and reassuringly, nodding gently every now and then when she glanced up at him as she tried to do the same for a moment. And slowly, very slowly, her breathing eventually calmed down, growing more and more regular again, until her sobs finally subsided.
But at this, Carlisle had to watch helplessly as the last bit of tension slowly seemed to drain from her shoulders, making Esme sink into herself more and more with each breath she took, making her look smaller and smaller.
And it almost broke his heart even more to see her like that than to hear her sobbing.
"Would you like me to take you home?" he offered her gently after a few more minutes of this, when Esme had long since fallen silent and had wordlessly looked at her hands for a while, her gaze blank and distant, almost as if in a trance. But at his words, her head suddenly jerked up again, unsettled.
"What—?" She blinked, finally seeming to realize what he had just said. Blinking again, she just shook her head. "No! No, I—"
At this, she seemed to be looking for words, her breaths suddenly growing more restless again, faltering.
And Carlisle looked at her in silence, not able to say anything, a little overwhelmed himself.
"What about—what about the boy? I can't just—I mean, I need to—I must—"
She started turning her head back toward the boy, and out of reflex, Carlisle reached out for her to stop her in her tracks. But startled, he paused, his fingers mere inches from her bloodied cheek as he saw Esme suddenly freeze.
For a moment, they just hovered there, without truly touching her.
Frustrated by his own carelessness, Carlisle gritted his teeth and simply lowered his hand again, clenching it into a tight fist on his knee.
For a brief second, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then sighed softly.
"I will come back," he replied and finally opened his eyes to look at Esme again, seeing her gaze resting on him with a deep frown. "I will take you home first," he explained, "and then I will come back and take care of—"
"No," Esme suddenly interrupted him with a shake of her head, and at this, Carlisle fell silent, blinking at her in surprise. "No," she repeated much more quietly, "I should help. I—I must help. Please, Carlisle."
He eyed her in silence for a moment, weighing up their options.
He did not know what to do, simply did not have enough experience. Nothing like this had ever happened to him or Edward before, and what little he knew about covering tracks he had only grudgingly observed from afar during his time with Siobhan or the Volturi.
Everything he knew in this regard, he had learned from vampires who did not quite share his views and in whose eyes a human being was nothing but food, the easy, natural way to survive, the cleaning up after the feeding no more than routine for them. Emotionless, detached, only necessary in order to stay settled in one place, at least for a little while.
"Are you certain? It will not be nice," he said quietly, the images of Siobhan's victims and what she had needed to do to them in order to cover up her tracks more vivid in his memory than ever before.
But Esme just nodded defiantly at him, and Carlisle realized that he would probably not be able to dissuade her from this decision, no matter what he would tell her.
And so he merely sighed softly, finally returning her nod.
"Well," he breathed quietly. "Alright, then."
At this, he rose from the damp forest floor, absentmindedly noticing traces of the damp forest soil and a few pine needles on his pants—and the last bit of blood that had found its way from the boy's body to his knee in a thin trickle.
Swallowing, Carlisle felt the damp stain on his skin, could smell the blood in the fabric, smelled it on Esme and in the air. And while he normally hardly noticed the smell of blood anymore and could easily banish it to the back of his mind, at that moment, he suddenly felt a strange sensation pulsing in his throat.
But it was not thirst. The smell of blood simply could not entice him this easily anymore.
Instead, he realized, what he felt was disgust.
At this, he quickly made himself turn around for a split second before taking another breath and finally, hesitantly, holding his hand out to Esme, who was still cowering on the floor at his feet.
He waited, unsure whether she would even accept the offer, whether she would just simply flinch away from him again.
But after a small moment's hesitation, she finally reached out and took his hand, allowing him to gently help her to her feet before she slowly withdrew her trembling fingers again and stood unsteadily at his side, her arms tightly wrapped around her shoulders, almost as if she were cold.
"We should move him further east," Carlisle mumbled after he had looked around for a moment to get his bearings and sketch out the outline of a plan in his head.
He looked at Esme, watching her as he spoke, saw how she did not seem willing to contradict him but looked at him with a startled uncertainty in her eyes.
"I am not entirely certain, but I presume he might be from the small village there," he explained with a small nod of his head towards the east. He hesitated, bit his lip. "Someone should find him before too many people notice that he is gone and start looking for him," Carlisle made himself continue quietly. He watched Esme's face for another moment. "They cannot find him anywhere near us," he finally added with a meaningful glance at Esme. "We are the only ones living out here, they would certainly come to us and ask questions."
"But—won't they see the marks and wonder if—"
Falling silent, Esme raised a hand to her mouth, touching her lips with trembling fingertips, unable to continue.
But Carlisle understood. He hesitated.
"We—I will make it look like an animal attack," he finally decided, hating himself for every word that was about to come out of his mouth. "There have been a few cases of bear attacks in the area during the last few months. I have treated some of them at the hospital," he explained quietly. Hesitating, he scrutinized Esme for another small moment before reluctantly forcing himself to continue. "That means I will have to break more of his bones and give him more wounds as well," he breathed with a barely suppressed shudder.
Esme opened her mouth, slowly shaking her head, but no sound escaped her lips. An expression of reluctant disbelief had settled on her features, and Carlisle saw her fear.
He saw her disgust.
He had expected no less.
And yet he felt her gaze on himself like another slap in the face.
"I—a real bear attack would not look this clean," Carlisle just breathed quietly.
How he sounded.
He was disgusted with himself.
And he knew he must sound like a cold-hearted monster to Esme, just like another one of all those experienced killers he had once watched with similar disgust himself. And although none of it was true, although he had never needed to do anything like this before, it killed him to even think about it. But either that or they risked suspicion and, in the long run, perhaps even the attention of the Volturi.
And that was something he was firmly set on avoiding for as long as possible, if only for Edward's sake.
"I can take you home," he simply offered Esme a second time. "You do not have to be involved in any of that."
"But it's my fault, Carlisle. I am beyond involved already," Esme murmured.
He could not help but notice that she was avoiding his gaze as she spoke, looking stubbornly at the collar of his cream shirt and no higher.
Her voice was barely more than a thin whisper, no louder than the soft rustling of the wind.
At this, Esme closed her eyes and swallowed before she slowly began to raise her head and finally looked up at him again.
And the sight of the crimson of her eyes seemed to blur all his thoughts for a split second.
"It was me who—I killed him." Her voice trembled, but she continued speaking before Carlisle could say anything in return. "And so it should be me dealing with the aftermath as well."
He hesitated for a moment. Esme had never openly contradicted him before, had not even dared as much as express her own opinion for weeks and had almost frozen whenever he or Edward had asked her about it. Even on such trivial questions from the boy as which tie would be better suited to an upcoming event at the university or which jacket she thought Carlisle should wear for a lecture at some symposium.
But she had clearly made up her mind, and Carlisle could see from the expression in her eyes that she would stick to her decision.
With a small sigh, he closed his eyes.
"Very well," he replied as he finally looked up at her again, nodding once. "Let us get to work, then."