So this is Chapter 4. I realize I have not updated in...a while. I recently looked back over the story and finally decided where it needed to go. This is me taking the first steps to getting there. Enjoy.

(disclaimer: I do not own anyone or anything in this story.)

Chapter 4.

My days were spent reading, listening to music, and watching the news. The Cullens watched the news religiously. They seemed to rely on it to inform them of vampire movements and such in the area. Emmett explained to me how they had gotten the numbers on my coven's whereabouts and doings. The news showed a clip about the "mysterious accidents" that had happened all over Seattle in the last months. When I saw my own handiwork in one of the accidents, I cringed and ducked my head.

A comforting and yet unsettling fact I came to realize was that I was never truly left alone in the house. At first I had assumed it to be coincidence, a mere fluke that there was always someone there to take me out when I got thirsty, which happened frequently enough. It donned on me that they were taking measures to make certain that I stayed out of human contact. Their trust in my control was equal to my own confidence in it. This uncertainty in and of itself was not insulting to me, but what pained me was I knew they were right. For all I knew, I might never be fit for human contact again. It was this train of thought that lead me to question Carlisle.

"How long did it take you to completely control your thirst?"

He glanced up from his shiny new medical textbook. "You never completely control it. That thirst will always be a part of you. Every time you can smell a human, you will feel it."

"How can you be around it then? At the hospital there must be blood everywhere. I sense it on you when you come home, the lingering whiff of blood and disinfectant."

Carlisle closed the book, "Bree, it will become easier."

"When? When will I be able to enter a library and not want to murder the innocent people nearby? When will I be able to walk into a school, attend classes without having to worry about looking at a news broadcast publicizing a massacre? When will I be able to make friends my own age, from my own time?"

I realized as soon as I had finished that I had begun to shout and my hands had left shallow dents in the wooden table.

"It all depends on you." Carlisle's voice was soft and certain. When I looked up again, I saw him watching me.

"I could give you a test, if you want. To gauge your control."

I sucked in a deep breath before slowly nodding.

"Tomorrow, then. That should give you enough time to prepare."

Knowing I was done, I retreated to my room. Ignoring the books I had cast aside, I strode to the bookshelf, pulling down a textbook, Introduction to Chemistry. The day I was approved to attend school, I would be ready.

Only Carlisle was present for my first test. When I had asked him why the others weren't there, he had tapped his nose and said, "Doctor-patient confidentiality." Meaning that if I failed, it would be between the two of us. He left me in his office as he went to get the test. I smelled him before he entered the room. Or rather, I smelled it. There was so little of it, a few droplets on a petri dish, but it seemed to call my name, taunt me. As soon as he had set it down on the desk in front of me, he started a stopwatch.

I couldn't help but stare at it. It would be like asking a chocoholic to ignore the aroma of brownies baking in an oven after a ten year stint of only stale bread. Though I had no distinct recollection of the taste of either chocolate or stale bread, I knew I had adored one and loathed the other.

"Concentrate."

Carlisle's voice seemed to be barely above a whisper, barely transmitting through the haze of thirst that had overcome me.

"Break the urge."

That's what I tried to do. To break myself from this need for blood. To separate myself from it. Suddenly it stopped. I was still looking down at the blood, but it seemed more vivid. I looked to Carlisle. He had dropped the stop watch and was rushing to the other side of the table. Looking down, I saw a body lying there, eyes open, staring blankly towards the ceiling, black hair splayed out around her head. Me. It was me on the ground. I looked so vulnerable. Right then I knew I needed to be back in my own body, that it wasn't safe here, in this space of in-between. I felt a rush of wind and I could feel my arms and legs. The natural instinct was to gasp. Instantly I was again aware of the call of the droplets of blood on the table.

"Bree? Can you hear me?"

I nodded. Carlisle pulled a light out of his pocket, checking my eyes.

When he was done with his quick examination, he stood. "The others can't know. You will not tell them. Edward will know soon enough, but I will make sure that he doesn't reveal it to the others. Promise me."

"I promise." The words were out of my mouth before I thought about it.

"Good." Carlisle stood and after second thought picked up the petri dish from the table. "You passed, I think."

Carlisle's flustered attitude confused me. What had happened? Where had I gone?

I returned to my room, pulled a book at random off the shelf and was surprised to see a leaf of paper fall down to the floor. Picking it up, I read it slowly, again and again.

Bree,

Go to the library. In the reference section, there will be a set of encyclopedias. Choose B.

Lacy Iream