Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Stephenie Meyer. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Author’s notes: Please read and review; I love constructive criticism and I accept flames, so no need to be shy here!

IMPRISONED

“Emily.”

I looked up at the sound of the love-saturated voice I was now so accustomed to hearing and watched him cross the room in one stride. I could say nothing as he took my face in his wide hands and leaned down to kiss the right side of my face – the scars – before he pressed his lips to mine.

Jared complained, but I barely heard him. Sam retorted then kissed my ruined mouth again.

Devotion, whispers the mercilessly cold voice in the back of her mind as she stares at herself in the mirror. That’s all he seems to know. Pure, unconditional devotion.

Her fingers steadily drag down the three scars on the right side of her face. In the mirror it looks like the left; three thick livid red lines, stretching from hairline to chin, despite the fact that they have long since healed.

Her eye, once dark and almond-shaped, like the other, is pulled down, and the corner of her mouth is twisted into a permanent grimace.

The burning sensation of tears pricks at the back of her left eyelid – the all too familiar sting of tears. She closes her eyes and the tears leak out, trickling from her face to the sink in a fluid motion, leaving a wet trail on her unscarred cheek. She can’t cry from her right eye anymore. The damage was too much.

She’s forgotten what it feels like to have tears fall from that side.

But it doesn’t matter, she thinks, brushing the moisture from her face.

He loves her. He doesn’t care what her face looks like.

I’d never hated anymore more in my life than I’d hated him in that single moment. How dare he. How dare he! The nerve he must have had, to approach me, telling me he loved me.

That bastard. I didn’t even know him.

And Leah…oh, poor Leah.

She loved him so much, and there he was, before me, confessing his love. In my anger, I barely remember what I said – or spat – to him when he told me he’d Imprinted on me. All I knew was that he was getting angrier and angrier, almost as angry as I had been. I could see it – I could almost feel his rage radiating off him. His eyes were narrowed and his breathing came in short gasps of air. Perhaps it had been my imagination, but I could have sworn I felt a change in temperature. It was getting warmer.

I knew I should have stopped before I went too far, before I made him lose control, but I couldn’t seem to. Everything kept on coming out – Leah, he was betraying her, her love for him –

I hated him.

He lunged. I don’t remember much after that – just the pain exploding on the right side of my face, and my screams, raw and brutal, being torn from my throat. It hurt so much, so much, and I could only think of one person –

Leah.

Leah.

Someone knocks at the door and she frown. She isn’t expecting anyone today, but she places the plate on the drying rack and wipes her hands on the tea towel before moving to greet her visitor. It can’t be Sam – he lives here – and it’s not one of the boys; they would have just invited themselves in.

Leah.

She tries to contain her excitement. Leah never comes around anymore – and with good reason. She doesn’t blame her cousin. The smile quickly falls from her face when she remembers this.

“Hey, Em,” Leah says with strained lightness.

“Hey,” Emily breathes. “Come in –”

“It won’t be for long,” Leah interrupts. “I just wanted to talk to you. Is Sam here?”

“Emily?”

The breath caught in my throat. I could recognise that voice anywhere. I didn’t look up. I didn’t want to see him.

“Don’t,” I whispered.

“Emily, please –”

He was closer by then. The light scent of flowers filled the room but I honestly didn’t care for them. All I could feel were the bandages on my face and arm, his burning claws tearing through my skin, the pain, the blood…

“No,” she replies meekly. “Sam isn’t here. Did you want to talk to him…?”

Leah shakes her head, but is obviously relieved. “No, only you. But it’s about Sam.”

“Emily, I’ll do anything. I’m so sorry. I’ll even…I’ll even kill myself if it makes you feel better. I’m so, so sorry, Emily…”

He would kill himself?

For my sake?

What the hell did he think he was playing at? Threatening suicide? Putting his death on my hands as well as the scars he’d already marked me with?

My head whipped around at his suicide threat. “You’ll what?”

He looked grieved, but resolute. “I will, Emily. If it’ll make you feel better, I swear I’ll throw myself under the nearest train or bus or off a cliff –”

“No!”

I would not be responsible for this bastard’s death! What more did he want of me? What more did he want me to do to Leah? Damn him. Just damn him! He had already mutilated me and now he wanted me to tell him to go and kill himself? I just wanted him to leave me alone – not to go and kill himself!

“No,” I repeated, more gently. “I don’t want you to do that. Ever.”

He looked at me with pained eyes. “But Emily, I can never forgive myself, what I did to you –”

The hell he shouldn’t. What he did to me? What he did to Leah?

No, he would never forgive himself.

And I resolved to make sure of that.

I took the flowers from his hands and smelt them. “Can we just…sit and talk for a bit, Sam?”

Her hands grip the table so tightly her knuckles have turned white. With her back turned to Leah, her cousin can’t see her face, her eyes, squeezed tightly shut to stop the inevitable flow of tears.

“…I don’t hate you, Emily. Even after what you did to me, stabbing me in the back and, and turning around and loving Sam back, even after what he did to you…”

She can’t speak, can’t listen. Her throat is constricted. She can’t breathe –

“You love him, I get it –”

“I hate him!”

The words, brutal and forceful, finally escape from their prison which is her throat. Her hand smacks the table as she rounds on Leah, her unmarred eye burning.

“I hate him, I hate him, I hate him!”

Sometimes I sit in front of my mirror in the mornings, when he’s just waking up. I know he watches me – he can’t help himself.

My fingers drag down the three scars on my face, whenever I sit in front of that cursed mirror. Three thick livid red lines, forever present. Sometimes I like to cry.

He watches me.

He doesn’t know I watch him as well.

I hate him I hate him I hate him!

It’s like a chant and she can’t seem to stop.

I hate him I hate him I hate him!

Eventually the young woman quietens and takes a deep shuddering breath. Leah stares at her cousin in shock, shaken by the brutal confession.

“Emily?” Leah asks. “What…?”

“Look what he did to my face!” Emily shrieks, pointing at her marred flesh. “Look what he did to you!”

“God, Emily, I love you. So, so much.”

If you really loved me, I felt like saying every time he told me that, you wouldn’t have slashed my face. But I didn’t say that.

“I know, Sam. I love you too,” I lie.

I took his hand and kissed his fingers.

His eyes closed.

Then I moved his fingers to the three deep gashes running down my face, and make them trace the marks he made.

I didn’t look at him, but I knew what he must have looked like. I could hear the change in his breathing – sharp, panicky.

Guilty.

I released his hand and rolled over. “I haven’t spoken to Leah for ages, Sam. I miss her. Do you…do you think she’ll ever forgive you?”

I don’t ever say ‘us’.

Or ‘me’.

Much later, after her outburst, the two young women have retreated to the couch. Leah’s arm is wrapped around Emily’s shoulders.

I’m scared of him, Leah, Emily had whispered.

Leah had brushed away a tear from her face and nodded. I’m sorry I blamed you.

They’re silent now, but Leah still has one burning question.

But she’s afraid of the answer.

So she doesn’t ask.

And yet, the question lingers…

Why are you staying?

I made sure he came home to find me crying. In fact, I do that a lot.

That one particular day, I had been going through old family photos. Mostly of me, and Leah. When we were younger, carefree – best friends.

There’s one picture I love above all others. I’m sitting on a swing, my eyes are closed and my hair is whipping around my face as Leah pushes me. It was a beautiful sunny spring morning and the leaves on the trees behind us were wet with dew. I can still remember the joy I felt in those days.

That was when Leah didn’t hate me.

That was before Sam came along.

I felt him sit down beside him and gingerly touch the photograph in my hands.

“I was so beautiful then,” I said tearfully, blowing my nose. “So beautiful.”

I could almost hear his heart clench in guilt as I said it. Something like satisfaction touches me.

“And Leah…oh, she didn’t hate me then…I wish I could go back to that day, on the swings…before all of this…when I was still beautiful…”

Sam doesn’t say a word.

I sobbed loudly and covered the right side of my face as if in shame.

His arm slipped around my shoulders and he pressed a gentle kiss to my unmarred cheek. “It’ll be all right, Em,” he whispered, his voice choked. “I’ll be here for you.”

That’s not what I wanted him to say. I wanted him to say, “Please forgive me,” or something like that. “I’m sorry for ruining your life, Emily.”

That’s what I wanted him to say, but I know he can’t, the coward. But I’m getting closer, I think, with every passing day.

One day I’ll have him, completely at my mercy.

He’s my husband.

My lover.

My imprinter.

He’s mine. My prisoner.

I will never let him forget.

And when I do finally have him at my mercy, I will never give him my forgiveness.