AN:
Let's all say it together: We don't own Twilight. No copyright infringement is intended. We do, however, own this plot and an embarrassing amount of HoboPattz pictures.
Well, it was bound to happen sometime...anyone who knows us could have guessed that there would be an araeo/EchoesOfTwilight collab at some point, though it was less a conscious decision filled with ZOMG I LUV U we totes need to write together's and more like something out of a bad 80's horror movie. Attack of the Rabid Plot Bunnies went straight to video, but we hope our fic is a bigger success.
We're incredibly lucky to have the support that we do (thank you, Wonderbra), and so we have to say, as we both do separately when updating our other fics, a huge thanks to the fellow members of the LoD. We love you all, and Lisa, this is for you.
Thanks must go to ladyrip and karentwilighted for being awesomesauce betas, and to ilsuocantante and LaraIsAwkward for prereading and giving us their insight. You all rock.
One final thing: I (EchoesOfTwilight) write EPOV, and Ali (araeo) writes BPOV, but my chapters would be absolutely impossible without her assistance. Ali is my bio-nerd extraordinaire and she walks me patiently through the necessary science.
Another final thing: Tutoring Em in bio is super easy...she remembers damned near everything. I'm jealous. Bye for now...see you soon!
EPOV
My body went through the motions - running, scenting, stalking, pouncing - but the heart that sat unbeating in my chest felt no passion for this hunt, and venom did not pool in my mouth. That was all to the good. Mountain lion was my preferred prey on any normal occasion, but this time I took only a few mouthfuls before breaking the creature's neck and dropping it to the forest floor. It was a waste, yes, though the animal had just unknowingly done humanity a great service.
Carlisle's thoughts approached moments before he did, his mind analyzing, cataloging, hypothesizing at a speed with which only another vampire could keep pace. When he emerged into the clearing where I stood, he looked first at the carcass at my feet before turning his attention to me.
How was it, Edward? he asked silently, our habitual form of communication, developed over many decades together. Still the same as the other times?
"Vile," I answered simply. "Again, I am not sure if I can accurately describe the flavor, since it has been so long since I've tasted anything other than blood, but if I had to say, it was both bitter and rotten. Truly disgusting. Hunting did nothing to incite my bloodlust; it smelled exactly the way it tasted."
Excellent. We have all had the same reactions, and this method of administration appears to deliver dosages at sufficient quantities, which is very promising indeed. I will have to discuss it with Caius and Aro, but I believe we may be very close to beginning human trials.
I nodded. If we were successful in what we had been trying for several years to achieve, the last threat to humans from our kind would be eradicated completely. Physically we would always appear slightly different, our amber eyes and pale skin marking us as something other, but there would never again be any risk to the species who were weaker through no fault of their own. "Whose was that?"
Emmett's, but we appear to have confirmed that the source of the base venom does not matter. The necessary components are identical in us all, thus the effect is the same on each of us regardless of who it came from. Using batches made from all the donations is merely easiest in terms of creating as much as we need in the shortest possible time span.
Carlisle retrieved the remains of my unappetizing meal and together we ran back through the woods the way we had come, breaking free of the thick trees precisely where his sleek black Mercedes was parked on a little-used highway. He tucked the carcass swiftly into the trunk, anxious to get back to the lab, excited by the prospects of finally starting the last leg of a journey he - and all of us - had been on for nearly twenty years.
Twilit scenery rushed past us as he drove at the fast pace we all preferred, every detail still evident to our enhanced vision. There were some positive things about being a vampire, but other aspects were a daily struggle.
And that was where it had all started. Centuries earlier, a charge had been led by a dedicated few for our kind to live a more humane existence, and slowly vampires the world over had shifted to a diet that consisted exclusively of animal blood. Newborns - adult humans who were bitten and underwent the transformation from mortal to immortal - were kept secluded until they had control of their thirsts, fed from woodland creatures subdued and brought to them. Carlisle, my creator-father who had taught me all I knew of this life, had been brought into a world where human life was sacrosanct, and the gift of immortality proffered only on those facing certain death. It suited him, for I doubted there was a more compassionate creature anywhere than the man who had refused to watch me die of Spanish influenza when he held another option in his hands.
We had disagreed often over the years on just how much of a gift it truly was; in my more bitter moments I had hurled at him the wish that he had let me go the way of my parents, also claimed by the epidemic that had taken so many. Recently, however - in the ways our kind define such a term - it had become easier, because we had a purpose.
A practicing physician, Carlisle had watched from bedsides and operating rooms the determined march of medical science, and as more was uncovered about those patients who breathed and bled and fell ill, his curiosity as to our own makeup grew. No blood of our own ran through our veins, our hearts did not beat, and yet we moved and talked and had mental capacities far more adept than humans. Ever the scientist, the call to find out how we worked was too strong for him to resist.
It did not take long for the focus of his research to narrow down to one specific feature: our venom. Capable of healing wounds, causing death, and changing a human into one of us, it was fascinating in its complexity. We wondered what other uses to which it could be put that we were then unaware of.
By the time our investigation began, Carlisle had witnessed the effects of his own venom on humans four times: myself, his mate Esme, my sister Rosalie, and her mate - my brother - Emmett. During the early years our research consisted mostly of heated debate, five voices all offering theories on exactly what purpose venom could serve. That became seven when, on a rainy night in the Fifties, Alice and Jasper arrived on the doorstep of the home in which we lived at the time.
Jasper had been one of the few outcasts - a vampire who endured the ostracism of our larger community in order to indulge in human blood. There were not many - a handful at most - all of whom lived in shadows and dark corners, emerging only at night to hunt before returning to their lairs. When Alice found him he was already attempting to reform himself, and in her he found a reason to succeed. She had brought him into the light and to Carlisle's coven, seeing with her gift of foresight that living among a group of vampires who operated within our accepted boundaries would be beneficial for her mate. His experiences did, however, lend an interesting perspective to our almost endless discussions, Carlisle asking Jasper every question he could think of on what it was like to hunt humans.
You look even more intense than usual, Edward. Is something bothering you?
I shook my head. "No, I was thinking of Jasper, and how he will feel if this works."
I agree, I think he will be the most relieved of us all if - when - we achieve our goal. His guilt over hunting humans in the past is immense, and of course we all feel it with him.
As much as I found my own talent for mind-reading tedious - even infuriating - at times, I did not envy Jasper, who not only felt his own emotions strongly, but absorbed and affected those of the people around him, too.
"What has to be done before human trials can begin?" I asked as the Seattle skyline came into view, jagged shapes against a backdrop of night. Carlisle was heading directly to our laboratory; I would run home from there. Having been to medical school twice, I understood perfectly the theory behind the testing and frequently assisted in the lab, but I knew there were still decisions to be made on the administrative side of our work, and they were not solely left to Carlisle.
Well, I must speak with Aro and Caius - Marcus, too, if he chooses. This is as much their project as our own; any conclusion as to how to move forward must be made by all of us. The most important choice to be made is how to distribute the formula when perfected, as we will use that method for the initial tests to ensure consistency of results.
"Putting it in the water supply was effective on animals." I thought of the stream near where I had just hunted so unsatisfyingly.
Yes, and that is certainly an option. It also works via injection, as you know, but Caius has had some thoughts on an aerosol medium, so we must weigh each and determine how to reach as many humans as is feasible as quickly as possible. The car dipped as Carlisle drove under the tower of steel and glass that housed our operation, crossing the nearly empty underground garage to slide into the space reserved for his use. Tell Esme I will call her when I can, please, he said, stepping out into the glare of fluorescent lights that were never turned off, even though nobody who visited this building needed them to see.
Above, vampires worked on every floor of our state-of-the-art facility that had taken decades to conceive of and build. Much of the equipment we required had needed to be custom made, in many cases using materials invented for the purpose. Advanced though normal medial science might have become, the instruments used were not designed to study venom. When finally we had created everything necessary, our experiments began in earnest, and had continued steadily since.
Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Easy, for creatures who have no need for sleep, or even the ability to do so.
"Of course," I said. "See you at home."
~*~
Alice was waiting for me on the porch, a book in her lap, though one glance at her mind told me she had not been reading it. She looked up when I emerged from the woods and jumped the river at the edge of the clearing in which our home sat, her eyes following my movements.
"How did it go?" she asked when I climbed the stairs, speaking aloud for Esme's benefit. My mother was listening, her pencil hovering above a sketchpad where she sat in her studio on the second floor.
"You have to ask?" I teased, ruffling her spiky hair.
My sister rolled her eyes. "No, I was just being polite. Try it sometime. It tasted really awful again for you, too?"
"Terrible. Living around humans who smell like that isn't going to be the most pleasant experience, but I cannot argue with Aro's reasoning. If they tasted like nothing at all, or something innocuous but not horrible, there may be some who still surrender to instinct. It has to be disgusting to be a deterrent."
I listened to Alice's silent musings, following her train of thought to her words. "Jasper's happy."
"Yes, Carlisle and I talked about that, as a matter of fact."
She smiled. "I know. And this will benefit all of us, not just him, but it'll be nice for him to feel less guilty. Protecting humans will do that."
"Where is he?" I could hear only my mother in the house, none of my other family members were home.
"He and Emmett went to - in Em's words - find something to eat that doesn't taste as if it was already dead. Rosalie took off to Denali to visit Tanya for a few days while they're gone; it's going to be sunny until Wednesday afternoon, so we can't go to school anyway."
"Movie night?" Esme suggested from upstairs. I called our assent as Alice hopped lightly to her feet, swinging open the door to reveal Esme already in the living room, disc in hand. I passed on Carlisle's message to her, equally pleased and envious at the soft smile that appeared on her face at his name. The credits slid across the screen in some graphic designer's idea of artistry as we settled ourselves on the large white couches, my legs stretched out along one while Esme and Alice shared the other.
I would never admit it out loud, but these were the easiest times for me. Though I loved my family deeply and could not imagine being away from them on any sort of permanent basis, their company in groups of two or three made me feel less alone than I would have if all six had been gathered around me, eyes trained on the television screen. Each would be in constant physical contact with his or her mate, reminding me - as if I needed it - that I had no one. Telling myself that Carlisle had been alone for more years than I had so far spent unmated was fruitless, losing the promise it inferred the moment I laid eyes on the two together.
The fact remained that he had found his mate, and I had not. Esme worried that I had been changed too young, that some part of me had not, at the human age of seventeen, been mature enough to allow for a connection with my one true match when I was sentenced to be an eternal teenager. I worried that she was right.
And so I threw myself into every preoccupation I could find: art, music, every scholarly subject that held even the most meager shred of interest, and some that held none. I attended schools of law and medicine, perfected the playing of several instruments, read endless books and even wrote a few. None of it gave much meaning to my life, and so relief had washed through me, a tidal wave of purpose, when plans for our research finally reached the stage at which they could be put into action.
The collaboration between ourselves and the Volturi had sprung up naturally, the result of a long discussion on the social evolution of our kind during a trip we had all made to Italy in the Sixties. The three brothers were old, even by vampire standards, and were the closest thing our kind had to royalty. They wandered the halls of an ancient stronghold, enforcing the few laws deemed necessary for our kind, emerging only to venture into the mountains to hunt. It had been their agreement that had finally given credence to the shift toward a diet of animal blood hundreds of years earlier, their decision that immortality was only as worthy as the good to which we put our time on earth. Carlisle had met them early in his vampire existence, finding their intelligence and appreciation of arts and sciences in line with his own, and though he had struck out after a time to pursue his own interests, the friendship had remained close. When we visited and they learned of Carlisle's interest in delving more deeply into our nature than any had before, they all offered assistance. Caius, like Carlisle and myself, was trained in medicine, and he in particular had interesting insights to offer. With the full force of our combined financial and intellectual resources behind us, we built our lab and began to work.
And now we were so very close to a breakthrough that, at the outset, we had not even dreamed of. We had started by isolating the individual components of venom, testing them separately and in various combinations. Despite the fact that we had many more hours in which to work and infinitely more capacity to understand what we were seeing than even the cleverest human could ever hope for, it was still a long and arduous process. Several of the compounds we identified did not even have names in conventional science, and even the ones that did still had to be broken down and subjected to a battery of tests.
Examining first the venom of those of us involved at the start, we learned that we still had DNA, though it was in stasis and did not mutate during replication. While the world around us watched the progress of the Human Genome Project, we were mapping our own genetic code. I left the family for a time, traveling the world on a mission for Carlisle, and a purpose-built case in the lab now held samples from every vampire we could locate who was willing to volunteer a sample, all of them animal feeders. Though I had found several of the outcasts, none would cooperate, fearing we would use the knowledge we were developing against them.
I supposed they were right, but at the time that had not been the intention.
As with many scientific discoveries, the clues to the possibility of what we were now doing had been found accidentally. Many of the necessary tests involved combining elements of venom with human blood to assess the reactions, hospitals around the state having unknowingly donated vials of it for our use. Early results had given Carlisle and Marcus hope of using our ability to heal ourselves to cure human disease, and that was still one aspect of what was done at all hours of the day and night at the tall tower in Seattle.
But we had discovered something else, too.
By spinning out certain components of venom, altering them, combining them with blood, and introducing the new 'drug' of sorts to the species from which the source blood had originated, we could make the creature smell different. Awful. Permanently, or so we thought. Early prototypes kept in the lab still smelled, years later, like nothing we would ever want to drink. The side effects were minimal; the drug insinuated itself into the subject's bone marrow, performed its change, and left behind only its desired effect and a very slight propensity toward improved overall health and healing - benefits conferred by our own inability to suffer sickness or permanent injury.
Provided the human trials were successful - and we had no reason to believe they wouldn't be - we would attempt to administer the drug to every human on the planet, nullifying their temptation to us, eradicating the risk we posed no matter how careful we were, or how dedicated to our lifestyle.
They would be safe - forever.
~*~
Thursday dawned slowly, the sun that had so uncharacteristically emerged for a few days hidden by clouds once more, my own sigh echoing the wind through the trees that surrounded us. It was time to return to the bane of my existence, the knowledge that keeping up our human charade was important not making high school any more bearable. At least it was not such an endless cycle anymore; for decades I had gone because the younger we pretended to be, the longer we could stay in any one place. Designing and building the lab had provided a welcome reprieve, as had the early years of our research, but we were again near a populated area and were forced to endure the pretense once more. With the need to stay near the lab came limits on our mobility, and this was one of the last places in the Pacific Northwest where we had not yet resided - at least in living memory. The memories of legends were much longer.
I was using my real name again, however. It was a small comfort to feel like myself, even if I was not entirely content with who that was.
"Two minutes, Edward," Alice called to my room on the third floor from the living room. Frowning, I closed my book and stood, my limbs heavy with apathy for the day ahead. Forgoing the stairs, I leapt easily from the window and ghosted to my car, standing next to the driver's side while I waited for my siblings.
They were as bored by school as I was, but better at hiding it, turning to their mates for amusement or distraction when the constant gossip and sidelong looks became too much to handle. I was forced to suffer not only those sights and sounds, but the inner thoughts our classmates chose not to voice. None of them were clever enough to discern the truth; their incessant chatter rather focused on an aspect of my mysterious family that hit entirely too close to home - that the strangely beautiful adopted children of the rich and generous Dr. Carlisle Cullen and his stunning wife were couples, discounting their youngest son Edward.
Daily, I attempted to ignore the spoken and silent musings of the crowd, wondering why I was the odd one out and - from the majority of the girls - thoughts that they would be more than happy to help me remedy the imbalance.
It almost would have been laughable, if the idea did not make me cringe. Not a single one of those shallow girls held my interest, and even if they did, they were human...and I was not.
"Jeez, bro. Smile," said Emmett as he and the others approached. My lips twitched, not in deference to his command but because he said it every morning. My moodiness was as much a routine as the drive to the building I so despised.
"Carlisle called, Edward," Jasper said. "He wants to know if you can go to the lab after school."
I nodded absently as we climbed in, happy that there was something I could look forward to after the tedium that awaited a few miles away. Miles that sped under the tires far too quickly, even with Rosalie and Emmett bickering in the backseat and Alice fiddling with the controls of my stereo. For the thousandth time I considered insisting that they drive themselves to school, but knew I never would. Their presence was at least company who understood me to an extent, and if nothing else, my small Volvo stood out much less in the school parking lot than Rose's BMW or Emmett's monstrous Jeep.
Welcome to Forks, proclaimed the sign we passed moments before reaching our destination. That was a joke. There was nothing particularly appealing about this small town in the middle of nowhere, except that the weather here suited us well.
Disjointed images flashed too quickly through Alice's mind to be identified; I didn't pause as I maneuvered the car into a spot, but my eyes shifted to hers. No idea, she thought. I shrugged. That was common enough, and whatever fragment of the future she was seeing would become clearer as decisions were made and actions carried out. It might not even be important.
I turned my back while Emmett and Rosalie exchanged an enthusiastic goodbye kiss, grateful that Alice and Jasper were much more reserved about the displaying of their affections. Jasper winced visibly, a look at his thoughts revealing the way my bitterness had washed over him. "Sorry," I mouthed, because it was true. I didn't wish that they hadn't all found their mates, I was simply sorry for myself.
"I get it," he said, sending a wave of peace in my direction. I smiled my thanks and wished him and Alice a good morning, Emmett appearing at my side. We had the same first period, an inane exercise in pretending to be as uncoordinated as the humans around us in whatever activity the Gym teacher set for the day.
"Ready?" he asked.
As I would ever be. I sighed heavily, nodding and leading the way to our least-favorite class. The voices grew louder, more concentrated in my mind as we entered the building and made our way to the locker room, changing as quickly as we could without arousing suspicion. There wasn't much risk, in truth - the boys around us were too concerned with comparing their plans for the weekend and arguing over the best places to indulge in underage drinking without getting caught by the town's police chief.
I wanted to protect them - wanted the drug to work - but that didn't mean I had to like them. Over the years I had, on occasion, met a human who held my intellectual interest for a brief time, but it was never long before my insight into their minds soured the connection. Either I saw parts of them that I found unpleasant, or the constant view into their thoughts began to feel intrusive as I imagined their response to finding out what I could see. I was sure the feeling was the same one I experienced when Aro touched my hand and he was given access to my own private musings.
I couldn't help my talent, and I did not have to make the decision to invade a person's thoughts in the way Aro had to consciously choose physical contact with another, but I was still aware that I was seeing and hearing things never meant to be shared.
Gym was its usual tiresome hour. Basketball, a sport I had never enjoyed much even when not required to modulate my movements so that I didn't do a perfect slam-dunk every time, or worse, accidentally break someone's arm when I tried to take the ball. Mostly Emmett and I stood on the fringes, participating only enough to make it appear that we wanted to play, but lacked confidence in our abilities.
"So Carlisle said you guys are really close to testing on humans?" Emmett asked, speaking too lowly and quickly to be heard amidst the din. His lips barely moved. Our project had never interested Emmett to the extent where he wanted to get really involved, preferring to leave the science to myself and Carlisle while he pursued other activities - usually with Rosalie.
"It would seem so. We have tested it on all the animal species in the area, and all had the same response to that."
"Hmm. How will that work? Just expose a bunch of humans to it and then sniff them?" He laughed briefly before his face turned serious. "I hope it's effective, Edward. Imagine how much easier this-" he gestured around the gym under the guise of making a failed swipe for the ball "-will be if it doesn't smell so freaking good in here."
He was right. The physical exertion had exacerbated the already tempting scents of blood all around us; venom pooled steadily in my mouth as twenty heartbeats increased. "I know," I agreed. "But the trials will have to be very limited at first. We are as sure as we can possibly be that the drug will have no negative effect on humans whatsoever, but if the unforeseen happens, Carlisle is adamant that we keep the damage to a minimum. It's only the integrity of the scientific method that is justifying human testing in his mind at all; you know as well as I do that he would find another way if he could, but there is nothing more for us to learn from animals. The distribution through the water supply was the last thing to test."
"That's Carlisle for you." Emmett grinned. "But I'm sure it'll be fine. You guys have put so much work into this, and the benefits..." He trailed off, shaking his head. "Must be weird, to be pioneers of our kind when we don't ever really change."
The bell rang, signaling the end of the torture session, and Emmett and I parted ways. He loped down the hall toward his Physics class, leaving me to go mechanically through the motions of the rest of my morning. Calculus first, where I picked answers I already knew from the teacher's mind, too bored to invest even the smallest fraction of a second in recalling the answer myself. History followed, a substitute teacher instructing us all to use the hour for independent study, which meant that I had to sit through unendurable chatter while textbooks remained in bags.
So...tedious... School was merely hours poured into the bottomless cup of forever, but there was no real substance to them.
It had begun to snow, and I amused myself with the thought that perhaps hell really was freezing over, only there was no reward, no unexpected occurrence to mark the event. Flakes tickled at my skin as I walked from class to the cafeteria, preparing for the play's next act.
The others hadn't arrived yet; I chose food I would not eat from a selection at which I barely glanced and claimed the corner table at which we always sat. Jessica Stanley had been behind me in the lunch line, and her thoughts were focused on me even as she joined Mike Newton and Tyler Crowley, flirting shamelessly with them both.
He always smells so good. I totally should have asked him what cologne he wears...that would've started a conversation, and then he could have sat with me for lunch...
I nearly laughed, catching myself just in time - it would have looked odd.
Emmett and Rosalie walked in, two pairs of amber eyes flicking almost imperceptibly to me before they gathered up their own trays and stocked them with food props. Em's hair was wet and Rose wore a self-satisfied smile - the only kind I had ever seen on her face, but I saw in her mind the perfectly aimed snowball she had landed on her husband's head, so for once it wasn't admiration of her own beauty.
Alice and Jasper arrived shortly thereafter, her expression serene, his slightly pained. Resisting was still a struggle for us all, even with the threatened ostracism that would come if one of us slipped, but especially for him. He knew life as an outcast, and though the recollections I saw in his thoughts communicated just how empty those years had been for him, he was still one of the few of us remaining who knew the luscious taste of human blood. Our memories were infallible; he could never forget. I gave him a sympathetic look as he and Alice sat, aware from his rush of gratitude that he had understood its meaning: how hard we were trying to make it better. Easier.
"Can you take care of getting yourselves home?" I asked. "I want to head straight for Seattle after school." Privately, I wondered what Carlisle had been unable or unwilling to tell me over the phone, instead passing the message through Jasper that my presence was needed at the lab. But my trust in my father was implicit; there was no question that I would go to him.
Emmett shrugged. "Sure, we can run. Think you'll be back for school tomorrow?"
My lips quirked. "If not, I'll have Carlisle write me a doctor's note to give to Mrs. Cope." Not that I would need one; my perfect grades were enough to keep the school administration happy with absences more frequent than those of my siblings, who only stayed away on those rare days when the sun shone here. I stood, picking up my untouched food and telling them all I would see them later. Alice was leaning into Jasper's side and Emmett had one arm draped around Rosalie's shoulders, casually toying with her hair. Disposing of my tray, I fled to my car in search of true solitude, rather than a mockery of it.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully, if at its usual mind-numbing pace. I entertained myself in Chemistry by wishing that it was Biology instead and the look on the teacher's face if I were to submit the lab's research for my final grade. Spanish was spent correcting everyone's pronunciation under my breath.
Small pleasures, but the only ones I had during my wearisome days at school.
I didn't truly feel any measure of happiness until I was speeding toward Seattle, my car surrounded by frosted green trees and music of my own choice emitting from the stereo. After hours spent contributing nothing but the same rehearsed answers I'd given in classes for decades, my relief and excitement at heading into the unknown was palpable. Our experiments had consistently surprised and challenged us; a feeling I relished.
Two hours after peeling away from the crowded Forks High parking lot I was sliding the Volvo into a spot next to Carlisle's and listening carefully for his thoughts. Finding him, I slipped into the elevator, pressing the button for the top floor. Aro, Marcus, Caius, and Carlisle all had offices there, though the latter pair could most often be found over microscopes on the lower floors, and Marcus was rarely in the building at all. I had declined the offer of a space of my own, doing all of my work in Carlisle's lab on the occasions when I was called on to assist.
Come right in, Edward. The thought met me as the doors slid open and I followed it down the hallway, my feet making no sound on the thick, pale carpet that matched the walls and framed prints hanging from them. Knowing how much time he would spend here, Esme had decorated the entire tower in the same muted tones she preferred for our homes, her concern for Carlisle's comfort always paramount in her mind.
He looked up from a stack of papers on his desk as I opened the thick oak door, greeting me with a smile, though his thoughts were troubled flashes. Thank you for coming, Edward. There's something I need to tell you.
"Of course." I nodded. "Is there a problem with the formula? Some way I can help?"
No. More worry tinged the jumble in his mind. I am trusting you with this knowledge and, in making the decision to tell you, trusting Alice as well. It is my hope that you can both understand the need for discretion.
I moved to sit in one of the chairs on the other side of the expanse of wood, feeling alarmed myself. Carlisle was usually so calm; very rarely had I ever seen in him the distress that was so evident now. "Anything, naturally. What is it?"
He looked at his hands before meeting my eyes again. Aro. He has killed a human.
End notes:
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