The Unwanted Imprint

Chapter 43

TW: mentions of rape and abuse

Nichole didn't say a single word to her mother the entire trip to the cabin. It was older, but you could tell that it was well kept. Nichole searched through cabinets until she found the first aid kit that she was looking for. She had Jacob sit down, and she tended to his injuries, which were already starting to heal.

"You should be fine in a few hours," Nichole said as she packed the kit up, putting it back where she found it. She still hadn't said anything to her mother, who was standing in the corner of the room. "You wanted to talk, so talk."

"Nichole," Carlisle spoke in a gentle, yet firm voice. "I understand that you're upset with your mother, but you're not going to get anywhere acting so hostile with her. Why don't the two of you go and talk outside? Just stay right by the cabin, and if you see anything, I want you to come inside right away."

Nichole sighed, and she nodded her head, walking outside with her mother. She leaned against the cabin wall, folding her arms across her chest. Yeah, Carlisle had told her to not be hostile, but he didn't say anything about her being sullen.

"Nichole, I want to talk to you, but I can't talk to you if you're going to act like this."

"Act like what? Wary? Wary of a woman who has been hunting vampires for years? Ones like the people who took me in and treated me like their own? Let me ask you something, Mom. Did you ever wait to to see if the vampires that you hunted were actually hurting people? Or did you just decide that they were all the same and just slaughtered them all?"

"Nichole, you have to understand where I'm coming from here. I come from a family of hunters, I was brought up to believe that all supernatural creatures were evil and needed to be destroyed. There were no people like the Cullens to show me that it wasn't always that way."

"The Cullens are the nicest people that you could ever meet."

"I see that now. Those things about your father...are they really true?"

Nichole swallowed thickly. "They are. The beatings started a little bit after you left. I ran away a year and a half ago, that was when Carlisle found me. Dad was hunting me down ever since I left. He found me in Forks and kidnapped me while I was working on a school project with Jacob. He took me to a hotel room where he assaulted me...sexually."

Her mother shook her head. "The man that I knew would never do something like that-"

"The man that you knew died the moment that you left. He was replaced by a man who drank every day and hated his daughter, a man who could convince himself that he wasn't raping his daughter, because it wasn't his daughter that he saw, it was you. He called out your name while he was doing it, you know. He didn't see me. he saw you, he saw Rachel, the wife that he loved so much."

Her mother's face fell, and she looked absolutely shattered. For a brief moment, Nichole regretted telling her, but that feeling of regret was soon to go away. "What happened, what he did to me, it's because of you, because you left us! It didn't have to be that way, you could have come home, we would have figured something out! But instead, you ran away. You didn't want to face us so instead, you left us. You abandoned us because you were a coward!"

Nichole had never felt this angry before. Usually, she was good at keeping her emotions under control, but after everything that had happened, everything that she had been through, something inside of her just snapped. "You wanted to talk, to save our relationship, but what you don't realize is that there isn't anything left for you to save."

Nichole stormed back inside the house, slamming the door shut behind her.

"I'm guessing that it didn't go well," Rosalie muttered, and Edward shook his head. "Her thoughts...they're so angry, she's angrier than she's ever been in her entire life."

"I suppose that I'll talk to her then." Rosalie went over to Nichole, taking her hand and sitting her down on a couch. "Nichole, we need to talk. I get that you're mad-"

"Save it, I already know what you're going to say. You're going to say that I was too harsh, that I should give her a second chance. I waited for years for her to come back, Rosalie, don't you get that? Years! Every night, I would stare out my window before bed and think that maybe she would be back when I woke up in the morning, and that things would go back to normal, that my father would love me again." Nichole wasn't even aware that she was crying. "But she never did come back. She didn't understand that I wouldn't have cared if she was a vampire or not. She could have been anything and I would have still loved her. The only thing that I wanted was to have my mom back, and she never came!"

"Oh, Nichole..." Rosalie wrapped her arms around the girl, and Nichole didn't try to stop her as Rosalie hugged her tight, the younger girl crying into her shoulder.

Rosalie truly realized now just how strong Nichole had been over the years. Even when she had lived with the Cullens, she had acted like everything was fine, but on the inside, she was beyond hurt. She had been abandoned by the two people that were supposed to be there and take care of her. For years she hadn't had anyone to take care of her, and now that one of the people that she had loved so much was back in her life, she didn't know what to do with those feelings.

Nichole's mother walked back into the cabin, and Rosalie shook her head, warning the woman to stay away for the time being. Maybe some day things could be fixed between the two, but for right now, Rosalie thought it best that the two stay as far away from each other as possible.