Romance in the Dark: An Emmett Cullen Story [11]

© littlemissdrama94

© theheartofanobody
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Chapter Eleven

Noah handed Elijah to William when he heard the rounds being fired. He gritted his teeth as his legs carried him in the direction of the noise. All he could do was pray that Iris was still alive because his family would be unable to endure the loss of both Iris and Emmett.

His running came to an abrupt halt when he saw a mound of black fur in the near distance. His heart pounded erratically as he imagined Iris’ lifeless body being squashed by the demonic bear. Noah cast the thought aside when maniacal screams filled his ears, he squinted and there atop the bear was Iris.

Iris sat atop the bear, Emmett’s favorite hunting knife firmly in her hand as she plunged it deep into the bears hide, mutilating its flesh like it had mutilated her husbands. Warm blood squirted onto her face with every stab that she made, it was twisted but the blood felt like heaven against her flesh.

“Iris, please stop,” begged Noah who could not stand to see her in such a state.

His words fell upon deaf ears. Iris gripped the bears dark blood stained fur tightly in her hand. She brought the blade down to the tough hide and began hacking away at it, wanting to have the bear skinned by sundown.

Iris tensed when she felt someone touch her shoulder. She turned around quickly, wielding the knife protectively in front of her just in case someone was trying to harm her or worse trying to take her kill from her.

Noah snatched his hand away from his shoulder when Iris turned around. His heart nearly stopped when she pointed the bloodied knife at his face. He held his hands in the air, attempting to convey to her that he meant no harm but the knife did not move.

“It’s Noah,” he whispered, sweat forming along his brow.

Her gaze softened when she realized that Noah was the one standing before her. Iris cast the knife aside, ashamed that she had been holding up to his face threateningly when he had been nothing short of a sweet heart to her.

“I'm s-s-s-sorry,” Iris stuttered, her hands shaking violently.

Noah wanted to tell her that there was nothing to be sorry about but he could not utter a word for Iris broken expression was tearing his heart apart. Never had he seen her so vulnerable. He had grown to think that a tender smile was a permanent fixture on her face but he now knew that to be untrue.

Instead of telling her kind words he opted to assist her in dismounting the bear. Iris gladly took his hand and moved her bodies so she could slide down the side of the bear. Her body rested against that of the bears, her knees gave way underneath her when she moved to stand on her own.

He immediately wrapped his arm around her waist as he moved her over to an obliging tree trunk a few yards away. Once she was safely on the trunk he turned to find Emmett’s knife but he came across his brother’s hand instead of the knife.

Noah fell to his knees before the arm. Pained screams escaped his lips as salty tears cascaded down his cheeks until resting on his brother’s remains.

Anger built within Iris when the sun began to shine brighter. This was no time for sunshine; it was a time for rain a time for thunder not cool breezes and fluttering butterflies. She wanted to chase after the butterflies to tear of their wings but this wasn’t their fault it was God’s.

“YOU BASTARD!” roared Iris as she stood from her seat. “You took NICHOLAS! Then ROSALIE! And now, now you take MY HUSBAND! IS MY CHILD NEXT! WHO’S NEXT you bastard, tell me who?!” yelled Iris hysterically, shaking her fists at the sky.

Noah stopped his mourning when he heard Iris’ hysteric screams. He rushed to her side, trying to take her in his arms but Iris fought against him scolding him for having let Emmett go after the bear on his own. He knew that she didn’t mean it that she just wanted to take out her anger on someone else.

“Why him, we were just getting our lives together,” Iris sobbed into his chest, staining his shirt with a mixture of blood and tears.

He made no response to her inquiry for he was asking himself the exact same question. Emmett was a good man, a bit childish at times, but good nonetheless. He was constantly doing charitable acts and standing up for those that were being abused.

Why would such a good man be taken from his loved ones so prematurely?

Was the Lord in dire need of an angel?

“We have to go back Iris.”

“Just leave me,” she replied, her sad eyes breaking his heart further.

Noah shook his head. He was not going to let Iris stay outside in her current condition, it wasn’t safe. He scooped Iris into his muscular arms. When he reached Emmett’s arm he picked it up, not wanting to leave what was left of his brother to the animals.

William stopped tickling Elijah when he saw two figures emerge from the forest. His brow creased with worry when he noticed that Iris was being carried by Noah. Fear gripped him as he imagined why Iris was being carried by Noah.

Had she suffered a similar fate as Emmett’s?

Had she fainted?

His questions were soon answered when Noah reached him. A sigh of relief escaped his lips when he saw Iris’ chest rising and falling but when she turned her face and he saw the blood that was smeared across it he felt the wind escape his lungs.

“I found him,” whispered Iris hoarsely as she raised Emmett’s arm slightly in the air before breaking down into a fit of tears.

Bile spewed from Williams’s mouth when he saw his brother’s dismembered arm. He held Elijah with his right arm as his left arm rested against the hood of the truck for support.

Mrs. McCarty rushed from her garden when she heard the honking of a horn. She wiped the dirt from her hands on the apron that was tied around her waist and readied herself to welcome her sons home from their hunting expedition.

All joy vanished from Mrs. McCarty when she saw Iris clutching a dismembered limb as if it was the most precious thing on the face of the planet. Her eyes snapped towards the truck, hoping that Emmett would jump out the back and tell her that they’d found the arm in the forest but that didn’t happen.

“Where’s Emmett?!” questioned Mrs. McCarty as she ran over to them.

Noah and William looked at each other, neither wanted to be the one that delivered the news to their mother. Mrs. McCarty grew weary of her sons silence and grabbed Noah’s shoulders, shaking him forcefully as she screamed for him to tell her what happened.

He tried telling her, really he did, but when he opened he fell apart. He couldn’t bring himself to tell his mother that her son had died at the hands of the bear and that all they had left of his body was a putrid limb.

Mrs. McCarty tensed when a small hand touched her back. She turned around and slightly stumbled when she saw Iris’ blood splattered face and the arm so up close. Iris’ eyes were closed as she told Mrs. McCarty ordeal for she didn’t want to say the older woman’s reaction.

For a brief moment Mrs. McCarty remained cool and collected. She tucked a strand of stray hair behind her ear and told Iris that she had to get some gardening done before the rain came back and forced her to stay indoors.

She patted Iris bloodied face with her right hand before proceeding towards her garden. Her steps were cautiously taken for she did not want her body to alarm her children that she was sobbing but her composure, along with her knees, faltered.

Her face contorted into one of agony, mangled cries flowed from her lips as her fist pounded the moist green earth. She knew that the good Lord had a reason for taking her child but she didn’t understand it, she didn’t understand why he had to snatch him from his family; from those who love him most.

Mr. McCarty ran from the fields when he heard his wife’s distinct cries. The intensity of her screams informed him of what had happened, one of his sons dead and he knew because the only other time his wife had cried like that was when she’d given birth to a stillborn daughter.

Upon his arrival he rushed to his wife’s side, hoping that he would be able to alleviate her suffering even if only a little. Her arms instinctively wrapped around his neck as she muttered incoherently to him.

No longer able to endure the sight of a broken Mrs. McCarty Iris opted to begin making Emmett’s arm a coffin. She wandered into the workshop and set his arm on the table as she gathered the flamed maple wood that they had purchased to build a cello.

Emmett’s voice filled her ears as her nimble hands worked the wood. He told her how to work the wood, how to hold the saw properly in her hands. Several times during the course of the evening she turned around, hoping to see him standing behind her but he was never there.

He would never be there again.

Emmett Dale McCarty was buried early the next morning underneath the large oak tree where he had carved his and Iris’ initials. No priests was there to preside over the burial for Emmett hadn’t stepped foot in the church since the priest refused to bury Dorothy Harden.

Due to this Iris was the one that said the last words before his arm was lowered into the ground. Her words were indistinguishable from her sobs but somehow those present understood her words for they were afflicted with a similar pain but Iris’ pain was more acute for she lost her soul mate.

Iris retreated into her cabin with Elijah once the dirt had been piled into Emmett’s grave. She fed Elijah, burped him and rocked him to sleep. The infant was placed on her bed and she grabbed her cello from the far corner of her room and began playing Emmett’s favorite pieces.

Halfway through Bach’s Cello Suite No. 5 ii-Allemande Iris cast her Cello aside. Her hands grabbed at her hair as she struggled to steady her breathing but nothing she did worked. She wanted Emmett to walk through the door and tell her that it had all been an elaborate hoax, but she knew he would never do that for he was in heaven with Mother Mary.

Elijah’s cries snapped Iris out of her daze and she rushed to his side. He was soon scooped into her arms and she sat against the headrest, softly singing him one of the many gospel hymns that Emmett had taught her.

“I’ll be strong for you,” Iris whispered, her thumb gently caressing her son’s forehead.

Rumors regarding Emmett’s death spread through the town like smallpox had spread to the native population when the European’s colonized the America’s. Many people refused to believe that his entire body had gone missing because of a bear accident.

It was too odd.

So they began saying that Iris’ Negro lover, the father of Elijah, had returned and that he was the one that had murdered Emmett. The McCarty family was outraged by those allegations. They refuted every opportunity they had but the racist population that hated Iris believed that the McCarty’s were just covering her tracks.

Although Iris stopped going into town she was very well aware of the rumors circulating for at least four times a week some hillbilly would show up on her property to scream at her for having killed a good man.

One night two drunken men arrived at her door, screaming derogatory terms at her. Tired with the never ending insults she decided to do something and grabbed a revolver from the den to spook the bastards with but when the men saw the gun they didn’t get scared instead they simply inquired if that was the gun she’d killed Emmett with.

Iris lost it.

She pointed the revolver at the man that uttered those cruel words and shot four rounds into him. The other man watched in horror as his friend’s lifeless figure hit the ground and he took off running, screaming about how she was going to pay for what she did.

Iris slowly sauntered into the house, she set the gun on the kitchen table and stared at it for a bit before deciding that she was going to have to leave town because the moment the sheriff found out he’d be at her door with a noose in hand.

She rushed to her bedroom and pulled out her luggage from underneath the bed, ready to fill it with all of her and Elijah’s belongings so that they could split town before the sun rose. Most of her packing had been finished when loud chanting filled her ears.

Her eyes widened in horror when she peaked through the drapes and saw men in hooded white robes with lit torches outside her house. She had heard of the Ku Klux Klan and had feared that some of the townsmen were members but never in her life did she think they would come for her.

A feeling of dread set in her stomach and she knew that regardless of what she did they were going to get her so she decided to hide Elijah in the special cellar that Emmett had created in case a tornado or anything ever passed through their house.

Her eyes watered as she placed the sleeping infant in the chamber by himself, he would be safe there and hopefully she would be able to get him out of the cellar once the Klansmen left the house. She placed a tender kiss on his forehead before running up the stairs to the den.

Iris loaded the three revolvers that she owned and Emmett’s rifle. She did the sign of the cross quickly and walked towards the door, arms in hand, ready to fight and if need be die with her head held high.

“Come out ya filthy coon lover,” they chanted in unison.

“Lord forgive me for the sins I will commit,” whispered Iris before throwing the door open and placing a hard look on her face.

“What is the meaning of this?!” barked Iris, not letting her fear shine through.

A man in a red uniform stepped forward and said, “You killed one of our brethren and you murdered your husband so we have co. . .”

Iris didn’t let him finish his sentence. She grabbed the revolved from her coat and pointed it at him, discharging several bullets into his chest. Men were outraged by her actions and stormed her but Iris kept firing round after round, killing five in total and injuring countless others.

The men had intended on plundering Iris that night but when she began shooting they grew so enraged that they pulled out their pistols and shot her down. In total eight bullets pierced her pale white flesh, blood dripped down her body like the rivers in Babylon.

Faces blended together as she looked up, her eye lids became heavy and she prayed that Elijah would be found by the McCarty’s and that they would not be afraid to raise him and give him the life that she and Emmett wanted to.

Blood spewed from her lips as she let out a sad laugh.

Whose next, was a question that Iris had often asked the Lord. She had begged him for an answer so she could ready herself for the torment that would ensure but he had never responded to her inquiry.

He hadn’t responded because she was the one that was next.

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© Emiliana