**The characters of Twilight are the property of Stephanie Meyers.**
The morning air was crisp and fresh. It had snowed last night leaving the air cool and cleaner than it had been in a long time. I hated pollution and the way it made the air smell like chemicals. I could still always find prey, but on some days, the air would be so bitter, it would be difficult to keep my focus on food. Even way out here, miles from the nearest town, it could be really irritating, but I knew I had to feed so I was pleasantly surprised by the now clean smelling air and hoping to find prey before the pollution reasserted its hold.
It had been a long time since I fed so I wanted to make sure I was farther away from civilization than normal. I was standing alone in a dark circle of old fir trees just waiting for the scent of my prey to lead me. Bella had taken Renesmee and Jacob hunting further south, but I wanted to hunt alone today. Although I could only hear Bella's thoughts when she let me, sometimes I needed to get away from everyone else's thoughts for some peace and quiet. Even in our cottage away from the house, I could still hear my family's thoughts. Alice's thoughts had become stranger and stranger. I was getting kind of worried and needed time away to think about them without Bella scrutinizing my features.
Alice had been having visions of our past, which was really unusual because she usually only saw the future. But the visions were of us, Alice, me, Bella, Jazz, Jacob, but not of us. It was so confusing. It was sort of me, but not me, and it was Bella, but not Bella, and the story was all mixed up and there were crowds of people around and cameras. I couldn't figure out the images and the crowds. I was never one for large crowds and even though I learned to control my thirst, human blood would always be a temptation. Now that Bella's blood wasn't eclipsing the blood of all other humans, I was back to keeping a distance and ignoring the pangs of hunger that hit when I was close to classmates or co-workers. I stopped visiting Carlyle at the hospital because it had been too much to bear the last time I was there. I couldn't seem to get the same control back I had before Bella, and now Alice was seeing me surrounded by crowds and crowds of teenagers? It was really worrying.
I spoke to Alice about it this morning before deciding it was time to hunt. She looked drained and, if it was possible, pale. Her brows were furrowed with worry and frustration.
"What's wrong Alice? Where are these images coming from?" I asked aloud because she looked too distracted for us to have a silent conversation.
"I don't know Edward," she whispered desperately, "I've never seen the past before and this past is different but the same. I can't place my finger on it. I keep concentrating on us, but they don't seem like us, they seem human."
She was thinking her gift was making her crazy and that she had been in the asylum when she was human because she deserved to be there. She was thinking maybe she had dreamed us all up and was actually still in that dark room, dreaming.
"You're not dreaming Alice; you're just over working your gift." I explained in as sure a voice as I could muster. I honestly didn't understand her visions either and was hoping she had more insight. The look on her face was less than satisfied with my explanation.
"I'm going to try to get a clearer picture. Jazz went hunting with Emmet this morning." She said distractedly, "You guys should go hunting too Edward but not too far, ok? There's something not right." She trailed off, furrowing her brow again and gracefully jumped out the window on to the nearest red wood and started climbing up.
There had to be a better explanation and out here, far from everything and every person, I knew I'd be able to figure it out.
A small breeze wafted in front of my nose and I took off running. It was a bear. I could tell, and it was at least 10 miles away, but I was glad for the opportunity to run, really run, through the newly cleaned air. When I got close, I braced my muscles to be ready to change direction and give chase, but the animal did not run. It was a really large grizzly with long claws and large canines and it smelled a little … rancid, but over the years many animals had started to smell differently, probably due to all the pollution.
The bear was standing rubbing its back against a large fir tree and I stopped. Something was wrong. Most animals instinctively fled when they sensed our presence. In fact, I liked chasing them down and conquering them. It felt good to be able to use all my power even if I did it because the need for blood was overpowering me.
I approached him from behind the tree silently. He continued his back scratching until I was only feet away from him. He stopped, paused and fell forward on to his paws so he could turn and face me. I got a chill up my already ice cold spine and narrowed my eyes. What kind of deranged animal is this? Where was his fear, his survival instincts? His blood smelled warm and strong as it coursed through his veins. His green/brown eyes showed no fear, only anticipation. As adrenaline hit his system, his blood coursed feverishly through his veins, but he made no movement to turn and run. I was so thirsty that I didn't think to wonder why, so I leapt at him.
My body lunged through the air at top speed meeting with my target in a blink of an eye. The animal swatted at me and clawed, but I felt nothing but the urge to feed. I instinctively lowered my head to his neck and bit, sucking the blood from the great bear. I drank and drank and was full but there was more blood, so I kept drinking for what seemed like forever. It tasted so good and different. Almost like…but it couldn't be, almost … I froze with my mouth still sucking the life from this body. The body went limp and I lowered it from my grasp.
It wasn't a bear at all. There on the ground, underneath my opened hands and heaving chest was the body of a large man. He looked to be in his late thirties, well built with dark brown hair and a long brown beard. His blood surged through me as I gulped in air. I may not need to breath, but the feelings of shame that took me caused my body to react in an oddly human fashion. I could feel some blood trickling down my chin and I licked at it hungrily with my tongue then tried to spit it out. My knees fell to the ground and I lifted my fists to the sky in rage as the blood coursed through my veins and made me feel full and satisfied and strong while my conscience wanted to thrash out from the inside and leave me broken and alone. Rage and despair consumed me and I let out a scream of agony going back all the way to 1918 and the night Carlyle changed me. The blood made me feel so alive and so dead, even more than that night decades ago.
I let my fists fall to my lap and turned my head down to stare at them. They looked like human hands. The fingers were long and graceful, and the skin was pale and marble like, but they were human hands. I opened my shirt, letting the buttons fly out. My chest looked human, albeit muscular and well toned and impossibly pale, but human. I breathed and it heaved up and down like a human. My legs were strong and muscular with the normal amount of hair human men have on their legs and, aside from being really fucking pale, I looked like a god damn fucking human. Even my face and head had bone structure, eyes, eyelashes, lips, teeth, fucking teeth. Fury built in me overpowering my usually calm façade. I killed this innocent man, a human, because, while I looked human, I was not. Maybe that's why he didn't run? Maybe that's why he just stared at me. He wasn't even scared … because I looked human. He, however, looked like a bear didn't he? Didn't he look like a bear?
Bella's voice interrupted my thoughts.
"Edward where are you?" I heard Bella's voice in my head. She had lowered her defenses to let me in and she was close. She had probably heard my scream, but I couldn't let her find me here, with my eyes red and blazing, a dead man at my feet. I ran. I ran away from Bella and my "human" heart, both of which I no longer deserved.
It had been a long time since I'd killed a human when I had left Carlyle to fashion my own brand of moral vampire. It was the mid-thirties and I was trailing a man who was a really sick monster. His thoughts were so bent and twisted as he remembered the faces of his victims. He enjoyed their screams and the look of horror on their faces. You'd never know, just looking at him, what kind of monster lay beneath. He lived a "normal" life, had a job and a family and all the things that go along with that. It was all a mask for the monster within that he let out on unsuspecting women and young girls. I was disgusted with a world that could allow him to live among humans while it pushed me to the fringe of existence and made me hide and skulk in alleys and darkness. Then again, I felt almost super-human and was content to be the one to stop him, the gift of my transformation was the power to fight filthy monsters like him.
Carlyle didn't understand when I told him I wanted to use this curse to help mankind. Maybe we could regain our souls by protecting the innocent and culling the world of its evil. Carlyle never thought we'd lost our souls. As a doctor, he reasoned, he was already protecting the innocent. Only he thought all humans were innocent. I had the unpleasant advantage of knowing their thoughts, and I knew not all humans were innocent.
I remember trailing the monster, his name was Jonathan Blake. He was relishing, no salivating, at the thoughts of his newest victim to be. She was the daughter of a neighbor and he had seen her skipping down the street earlier that day. He wanted her and was planning on stealing her from her room that night to satisfy his hunger. I was hungry now. I was tired of waiting for the killers to be so close to the victims. Tired of waiting to be sure they were really going to go through with their thoughts. I had given too many monsters the benefit of the doubt. I was tired of waiting to be discovered by someone I saved so they could scream in disgust and terror at me, their savior.
I hitched up the collar of my trench coat, thankful that it was raining and my clothes wouldn't look out of place. I followed silently behind him, letting the scent of his blood fill my mind. I was salivating and the idea of feeding on him made me euphoric. When he turned down the alley, I was so fixated on my mission that I didn't pause to listen to the surrounding area. I just let my hunger pull me into the alley, and I pounced. His blood was thick and warm and I pictured his victims as I fed. It tasted so much better when I knew I was giving him what he deserved. Even though he was screaming like a child, I was sure I could shut him up if I kept drinking, but the screaming didn't stop. I felt him go limp in my arms and released him, now dead, unable to hurt anyone else. I looked up, my eyes turning red filling with the blood that would color them for the next week or so, into the eyes of a child, twisted in despair and pain, tears running down his small cheeks as he cried.
He ran to the monster at my feet, his tears mixing with the few drops of blood I let fall to the ground. I was stunned and confused. The child ran to the monster and cried over his dead body. This dead man that was a monster and a terror to women and young girls; this dead monster who planned on taking a life that very night, had a child who grieved for him. He had a wife who would wear black at his funeral. He had family who would sit in silence every year on this day to mark his death, and he had this child who would grow up remembering me as the monster who killed him.
Now, decades later, that small child long gone from this earth, I had killed again. I was a monster then and I am a monster now. I had been too arrogant then, thinking I was just to punish their crimes. I had been too arrogant now, thinking I could live among humans and just control myself, deny myself my monstrous desires.
I just kept running, running away from my life, from my family, my existence. I knew that they loved me, but I couldn't face them. I couldn't face Carlyle. He'd always been so proud and supportive. I knew he'd forgive me. Then there was Bella and Renesmee. I felt so much love for Bella and Renesmee, and even Jacob, when he wasn't an asshole. How could I let them see me like this? Would they recognize me or would I look like a monster to them too? I could just hear my daughter asking my wife why daddy's eyes are blood red. Why didn't I notice that the man in the woods was not a bear? Was it really a mistake, or did I just give in? I stopped then. No words, no thoughts came from the man. What was that I saw in its eyes before I pounced?
Without warning, I doubled over in pain. My whole body erupted in acute searing pain, like thousands of tiny knives cutting from within. I fell to the ground. I clenched my jaw and pulled my knees to my chest trying to ride out the pain without calling out. If I did, Bella would hear me and come. Tiny knives reached my spine and I felt a pain unlike even that of being changed. It was excruciating and I knew if I didn't scream, I would explode from within. I held back the scream and internalized it deafening my inner ear with a silent scream. I was sprawled on the ground, my body jerking with spasms and my mind concentrating on keeping my screams silent. I didn't even hear them coming.
Out of no where, I was being picked up and carried. For a fleeting moment I thought it might be Bella and Renesmee, but the roughness with which I was hoisted and carried like a rag doll made me think Jacob. Renesmee wouldn't let him treat me that way. The pain, now centered in my head, interfered with my mind reading ability. I could hear nothing and couldn't move or open my eyes. If it hadn't been for the excruciating pain, I would've been sleeping for the first time in almost a hundred years.
The pain was so persistent that after a while I almost got used to it and could open my eyes. I chanced a look at the ground. I don't know how long I had been catatonic, but the shadows on the ground told me it was night. We were still in the forest, the ground looked cold and dark and there was light, from somewhere and everywhere. It must've been the moon. We must be far from Forks. Forks was under a never ending cloud bank, and it was hard to see the sun, let alone the moon. Even when the moon was full, the clouds would dull her light.
The air was cleaner up here too and I sniffed the surroundings to see if I could deduce where we were. In fact, after drinking human blood, all of my senses should've been even more sensitive than on the usual diet of bear, mountain lion or elk. Pushing back the pain, I inhaled through my nose deeply. Wet grass, dirt, animal droppings, elk sweat, birds, rocks, vampires, two, I was sure, then… rancid animal? I inhaled again trying to concentrate on the rancid animal scent. It was so similar to the bear, the man, to my victim. It was close, but there was no rushing of the blood, no adrenaline, no fear. Strange, but I couldn't verify anything with this damn pain.
I inhaled again, yes, two vampires. One was male, carrying me, one female. I let my eyes open again, slowly, painfully turning my head, small feet danced gracefully on the ground next to the vampire carrying me. Maryjanes on little, graceful feet… Jane. I closed my eyes again. That explains the pain. What was she doing here? I let out a low growl.
"I think he's coming out of it." said Jane in her sweet high voice. "Shall I incapacitate him again?" She asked hopefully, and by way of demonstration she looked at me momentarily and I reared back writhing in pain again. The intensity of the pain increased exponentially. I was shocked at the magnitude and control of her powers. If I hadn't been in so much pain, I might be impressed.
I clenched my teeth as the pain passed and growled again.
"If you call off your pet, I'll walk." I said through my still clenched teeth. Being a vampire had its perks in the pain department. For the most part, you didn't feel any, so having Jane regale me with her talent for the past several hours was really too much. In almost a hundred years, I'd been largely free of physical pain. I hadn't really missed it.
"Now, now Jane, control yourself. Caius wants him lucid." It was Demetri's smooth catlike voice. Of course, it would have to be Demetri. No one could run or hide from Demetri, not when he was on his game, and I hadn't even seen him coming. "Besides, I don't think he'll try to get away, not with his family somewhere out there, within our grasp."
At the mention of Bella and Renesmee, a low, furious growl erupted from deep within me. Instantly, almost as quick as it began, I was silenced by another bout of pain from Jane as Demetri unceremoniously dropped me on the cold damp ground. The pain was severe, but not as bad as before. I knew Jane was holding out, using just enough to quiet me.
"Don't be stupid Edward," spat Demetri, "you always struck me as so smart. Caius is waiting for us and he wants us to be there before sun up, so we better hurry."
I stood and slowly felt all the pain subside. At least vampires heal quickly. I started to take a few steps and stumbled clumsily. This was unusual, to say the least. Although my body felt better, my mind was, what is that sensation … dizzy? In a hundred years, I hadn't been dizzy or clumsy and now I could barely walk without stumbling.
"Ah, don't worry about that Edward, just residual effects of my latest serum. I perfected it just for this moment; the moment when I captured Edward Cullen." He smiled, obviously pleased with himself. "I have been working on it for decades, ever since I found out about you and Alice from Eleazar. I knew it would come in handy."
I had figured that Eleazar had informed the Volturi of our "gifts." Marcus seemed too intrigued by Alice and I when we first met in Italy. Demetri was thinking of too many things at once, no doubt in an attempt to keep me from reading his mind, but my mind was still dizzy, and I couldn't concentrate enough to get a clear reading. Jane's thoughts were easier to hear. She wanted to cause more pain and was picturing Bella on the ground writhing in pain. I growled and started toward her again and promptly stumbled to my knees. I shouldn't have been worried, Bella was immune to them all, but what if Eleazar had a "serum" for that too?
Demetri caught my arm and held firmly. "Shall we go back to carrying you? I'd really rather not. You don't want to show Caius you're weak. Aro really wants you dead, but Marcus is on the fence. Always wanting to add to his collection you know." He whispered this, his face so close to my ear I could smell the blood of his last victim. "You'd seem so easy to dispatch if I carry you to Caius. If you walk in, you have a small chance of survival. Maybe he'll agree with Marcus and give you yet another chance." He said in a bored tone and smiled deviously.
Demetri had always been one for drama. He and Jane made a good team.
I stood again and breathed in the cool night air. My head was clearing slowly. Demetri pushed me and we continued walking up the mountain under the full moon and bright stars. My blood red eyes were seeing clearer than they had in a long time, my ears were hearing better than ever and my nose was picking up even the faintest scents. With the blood of a human coursing through my body, I felt more powerful than I had in decades, and I felt farther removed from humanity than I had since before I met Bella.