Authors Note: If you haven't heard, Jessica's been on a few radio stations promoting this story and Blood Born now has an official place at Blogger as well as a place at Twilighted. To listen to any of the interviews, add Jessica on Facebook at /nessajova. Add Megan on Facebook at /MeganLeighPrather and add her photography page!


Edward POV

I've been sitting on this park bench for hours watching the herd of discount-addicted patrons flourish the streets of the rather large city of Spokane. I don't understand it, but Black Friday has become quite the spectacle over the last twenty years. Normally I'd do anything in my power to avoid this horrible idea of a 'holiday', but right now I'm desperate.

It's been nearly a month since I've last fed and the hallucinations I'm transpiring are making people out like they're inviting me in with their necks crooked just enough for me to indulge myself. The circles smudged beneath my eyes have darkened into a sickly plum shade and the hues of orange churned slowly but surely enough to about the same color.

Yet as much as the hunger pangs have sent my mind into total delirium, the idea of killing another human being at this point now doesn't seem quite as appealing as it did before.

Yes, the jaded and inconsiderate son of a bitch known as Edward Cullen has softened his mighty roar to a mere kitten's mew.

Believe me I've attempted to feed on my off-nights with Bella; midnight, the darkest hour. But in every man's face, I felt her willpower, every woman's eyes were her beauty, and with every child's smile, I heard her laugher. And it's all because being with said damsel in distress virtually every night has reminded me that humans were still human and that I've just used my ethics as a way to get what I wanted.

Not that I'd ever take a child's life, I just needed to test my theory: where did I suddenly connect two and two together? Why was she was so prominent to me and what does it all mean?

Before I was ruthless; I was inconsiderate. I still am in a sense but now—right now—I can't stop thinking that maybe everyone was only trying to mask their good from me like they're aware I can read into them and they purposely keep their virtues hidden beneath lies, deception, and evil.

With each opportunity literally passing by, I found guilt sinking deeper into the icy bench beneath me if I reacted. The abundance of snowflakes dancing around only instigated the distance between me and my meal. I even ventured another hundred miles afurther from my usual spot to see if that would help any and it didn't.

Who knew love could be so reprimanding?

My body stiffened.

Did I just say love?

Well of course I didn't mean love; affection wouldn't even be the right adjective. Attachment at most, but definitely not love.

I've been in this world for over a hundred years and have encountered countless minds and faces; never before have I been in love and Bella was certainly no exception unless it was because I couldn't see into her mind. But oh, to fall in love with the unknown…is that really love or just a sick fascination with mystery?

I wouldn't even know the difference since I've only experience the one side of it. Of course Bella's mind was very intriguing to me, but only because it was a mystery, which made me want to know even more.

Now comes the question of all questions: Do I want to learn more about her or do I want to know…just to know? If by some miracle I was granted a sole second in her mind, what would I do after I gathered everything I needed to know?

So many questions and not enough knowledge to answer them.

Anyway, back to important matters, I reminded myself, my, my, my. What do we have here?

My eyes fixed on a certain older gentleman walking out of a bakery across the street with something questionable in his hands. Something made of paper in a paper bag…something stolen. I kept my fix on him dashing between all of the eager bystanders. He picked a good day to rob a store, but I would've chosen something a little more worthy than a bakery. Not too sure how much money a baker can make selling cakes and cookies on Black Friday—unless this fellow had another alternative.

Move, move, move,
the distracted man chanted to himself.

Hmph…to follow or not to follow...

I listened in as the man dashed and disappeared through an alley between a couple of retail stores.

Hurry up before they find him. Hurry, man. Hurry!

I have a feeling this guy's not just worried about the cops finding the register empty.

Follow. I nodded, smirking to myself with much appreciation, then shaking my head at the idiotic thought I'd procreated moments earlier. Of course it wasn't love.

I hurried across the street and briefly stopped in front of the bakery to peek into the victim's mind for proof, but the blatant silence coming from indoors was proof enough for me. I marked the path of where the stumpy man was heading and wrapped around the other side of the building to meet him face-to-face.

I leaned against the brick wall and draped my hood over my face. Why not, I'll play up the theatrics.

"Hello Dennis," I bellowed through a low rumble.

He jumped back, and then stopped and bent over to identify my face. "Do I know you?"

I suppose it's customary for one to ask their assailants name, but being asked my name before I eat every time really started to get on my nerves over the years and the shove of impatience from my caving stomach reminded me to skip the theatrics and get to the point. There were too many people outside to let myself slip; one pair of eyes was all it took to send this town into a haphazard frenzy.

"You don't need to know me," I growled, ripping the hood back from my head, "But I'd like to know more about you. Let's talk."

I grabbed him by the brim of his coat and crushed his neck against the wall, pressing firmly enough to keep him from screaming. I had the opportunity to strike then and there, but my code has always been fail proof. No sense in risking a lifetime of business for a moment of pleasure. Sometimes I really hated how logical I can be.

"Now I'm going to let you speak," I said, "But I swear on my mother's soul, if you so much as raise your voice, I will rip your throat apart. Do you understand me?"

He shivered through a nod.

"Now then, why did you kill the man in that bakery?" I shoved a heave of pressure on his neck as I emphasized on my words. "And don't fucking lie to me."

I didn't realize that while I was awaiting my reply that I still held too much pressure for him to speak and I dropped my arm a little.

"The guy—the guy owed us money, man," he coughed, gasping for air, "He bought the place from my boss and was behind a few months on his rent. I was only going in there to collect, but he got confrontational and—"

"So you killed him." I finished with a firm shove of my elbow.

"He deserved it man!" he hollered, eyes tearing in pain, "He never paid his dues and my boss got fed up with it! He told me to take care of him! I just did what I was told."

"I apologize for the lack of sympathy, but I feel the proper way of taking care of somebody for not paying rent is to evict them."

Nothing says atonement like a few famous last words. His death was simple, like always, but I left him in that snowy alley in his own blood. The town needed the hype and it felt good giving families something to talk about over breakfast.

I met Carlisle in the basement where he did the lot of his experimentations. I know that makes him seem like he's some sort of mad scientist, but he did test a lot of his theories through samples of DNA strains from both humans and vampires, trying to find similarities and finding ways of compiling the two to create a genetic hyper-breed of the undead and still living.

"So you can't read Bella's thoughts," he stated rather curiously while staring through a beaker filled with some form of fluid, "You know, it could be her genetics. Is she naturally withdrawn by nature?"

"Yes, but that wouldn't have anything to do with it would it?"

I walked past the tables holding swirling tubes filtering an array of colorful fluids into various beakers, each separated with a precise amount of distance between each other. I watched as he flicked the bottom of tube like he was waiting for it to do something.

He pursed his lips and hummed, then met my gaze and sighed. "You're right; I can't see how she'd be immune to you, even if she didn't think as actively as anyone else." He set the beaker down and crossed his arms. "I wonder if it's an affect you have on her that keeps her from…no, she'd still have a collective thought or opinion at some point. Why don't you bring her over one night to see if there's something I'm missing."

I crossed out the idea the moment it came out of his mouth.

"Absolutely not," I said firmly.

He was offended by that, but I didn't care. I was not going to scare my only human friend away because Carlisle wanted to use her as a lab rat.

I changed the subject. "What are you working on?"

That put the excitement back into his face. He quickly swooped up the beaker he once held and displayed it for me like he was showcasing it.

"You're going to be impressed. This is a DNA strain I brought home from work," he admitted, "Mitochondria, to be more exact. The patient I acquired this from has a severe case of cancer."

Not unusual. Carlisle was always one to bring his work home with him.

"Now you know how mitochondrion is the powerhouse of the cell? It controls the death rate of cells and is independent from full DNA, for the most part, which makes human DNA more susceptible to mitochondrial mutation."

I flicked the beaker. "So that's what this is? Pure mitochondria?"

He chuckled. "No. I don't have the equipment or the patience to get such a precise extraction."

"I thought you said it was independent of DNA?"

"It is because it carries they're own form of DNA, but don't have the necessary gene products to function on their own. They still have to exist in the cell."

"So what do you plan on doing with it?" I asked.

"Remember when I said how they're able to mutate? Regular DNA are not, but this is," he smiled, the excitement apparent in his voice, "And I was curious to see if it would be at all compatible with what mitochondrion we had left in our bodies…and it is!"

"How did you get the sample?" I asked, increasingly curious to where he was getting at.

"Myself, of course." he smirked, "Blood is very much as needed in us as it is to humans, you know. It doesn't transfer from organ to organ, but it's still very much active. Of course I had to use a strong enough needle to break the skin, but I got it."

The smile on his face was more alarming than anything.

"So what did you get from all of that?"

Just get to the point, Carlisle. Sometimes I feel he was being more arrogant than informal.

"They meshed and mutated, of course, just as I thought," he said, "But the outcome was a lot more compelling than I'd ever hope for. It has healing properties."

Healing properties?

"What do you mean?"

"Our venom is only productive through our saliva glands, but has no significant effect on our bloodstream. Mitochondrion is the prime reason for vampire life. Its nuclear genetics have become dormant, but are still fully functional. They become stronger over time and mutate themselves. That probably explains our special abilities, but I haven't quite mastered that yet."

"And what happened with the cancer?"

"It's gone! Completely and one hundred percent gone!"

"You cured it?"

"It looks that way. Of course, I'll have to wait it out and see if there are any changes. The DNA might counteract my DNA and will form new cancer cells, but this looks really promising. I'm going to wait a few days and if there are no errors, I'm going to strain another sample from myself and put it into the patient to see how it reacts in a fully functional human body."

I replayed the conversation with Carlisle in my head throughout the next few days. Had he been right—and he usually was—he may have broken what a lot of scientists and oncologists have been trying to find since day one; a cure for cancer. Leave it to Carlisle to find what good vampires have left in them and turn it into something beneficial. And here I was thinking we're nothing but reckless leeches. That made me feel a little better about my situation...a little.

I had the house to myself for most of the day and took advantage of it with some much needed cathartic piano time. I fiddled through most of the notes at first, then progressing into familiar song patterns until I streamed into a few of my old favorites.

I then thought of how Bella wanted me to write a song for her.

Which reminded me of the dormant frustration I've held captivated.

And that had me even more frustrated when Carlisle—the man with an answer to everything—had no idea why I couldn't hear so much as a whisper from her.

If even he couldn't crack the code, who could? Maybe it would be a good idea to bring her to the house. It'd just be for one night and it's not like he'd literally probe her to death. How much damage could be done in one night?

Then again, it's Carlisle we're talking about. That man would interrupt God's creation of earth and insist on better ideas of creating things had he been around that time.

I sat there and played a little longer, struggling for the right notes that would stream harmonically; a perfect compliment to Bella's personality.

I was stumped.

Did she want me a song that summed up my feelings toward her or just a song I thought she'd enjoy…or both? It didn't matter because I had nothing. I was drawing a complete blank.

"You missed the Christmas lights."

Alice's sing-song, small voice strummed my ears and I swung around the bench to acknowledge her. Her small frame coddled the doorway in waiting for my approval to let her pass. Usually I'd be pissed when my family interrupted my critical thinking, but I was relieved.

"I wasn't invited." I smiled. Actually, I forgot.

Every year my family walked around and looked at all of the light displays during the Holidays. Usually it was within a week of Christmas, I'm surprised they decided to go so early.

"You're never home anymore. You're like a ghost around here now ever since you've been around Bella," she said, walking in and sitting beside me on the bench, "It's good though. She keeps your mind off things."

"New message!" my phone alerted me.

"I wonder who that could be…" Alice mumbled, rolling her eyes.

"What are you talking about? I'm here all day." I said, rather distractedly as I looked down at my phone.

'Hey, it's Bella. What r u doing right now?'

I winced at the battered use of vocabulary, but more so toward the fact that it was from a different number, but replied anyway.

'Got a new phone number, I see?'

"Yeah, but you're cooped up in your room or you're out doing God-knows-what!" Alice insinuated. She looked down at her twiddling fingers and bit her lip. "Jasper knows."

I shot up at her. "You told him?"

A few moments later, 'Still the same number. Using a friends phone.'

Odd…

'What friend? Just asking.' I texted back.

"No, he put two and two together," she corrected, "He sensed you've been harboring something and felt your depression. I didn't confirm it and he never asked, but I know he at least assumes it."

I drew out a sigh and turned back to the piano, stroking a few keys to keep myself distracted from saying something I'd later regret.

I peeked down at my phone when it alarmed me once again. 'Embry.'

'Are you with Jake? Why aren't you using his phone?'

I looked over at Alice whom was getting pretty aggravated I was paying more attention to my phone than to her. "I'm sorry I put you through all of this. I didn't want anybody else to get involved."

"Well, I don't like the fact I have to live with this secret everyday, but not having you around here anymore would be even worse, so I'll just have to deal with it."

'We're not speaking right now, I thought I told you.' Bella replied.

I rolled my eyes at the text, recalling the thought I had about human debacles and turned my attention to Alice once again. "I assume that's why Jasper's been avoiding me for the past few months."

"He'll come around. It took me a while to understand what you do and why you do it, but maybe he's more relieved that he's not the only one struggling with it. I think he might be jealous more than anything else."

"There's nothing to be jealous of. It's a horrible feeling."

The annoyance of my phone distracted my attention away from my sister once again. 'I really miss you. Can we hang out right now?'

Okay…something isn't right. Bella has never said anything to me like that and why wouldn't she have her phone all of the sudden? Plus she never asked to hang out with me before nightfall.

The only other culprit I could place blame on was Jake. Of course that's who it was. He was probably still bitter from that night in Bella's driveway. Well, whoever it was, I wasn't going to play any petty texting games.

'r u there?'

I'll deal with you later, mystery texter.

"But at least you do it to people who deserve it," Alice said, closing her eyes like she was reassuring herself more than me.

That only goes so far. I've been a lot more lenient with myself, but I suppose I'm happy that Alice sees what good I have left in me and I wondered if the rest of the family would take to it the same way as she would…


2 1/2 weeks later…Christmas Eve.

It was the night before Christmas, when all through the house, that this creature was stalking a girl named Jen Krause.

No stockings were hung by the chimney, how bare; and little did she know that Edward Cullen was there.

The dealer was nestled all snug in her bed, while visions of slaughter manipulated my head.

A girl in her blanket, and I with my teeth, I'll suck the bitch dry till she no longer breathes.

I came in very gently to avoid making clatter; I sprang on the bed to make her blood splatter.

A few little pills and she was out like a light; I tore up her neck with one simple bite.

I licked up the blood that tried to make it's escape; and finished her off, leaving her jaw quite agape.

When what to my wondering eyes should appear, a child in bed with a listening ear.

With a few little words, so lively and quick, I told the child that his mother was sick.

He thanked my concern and went back to bed, but little did he know that his mother was dead.

Had I known before, I would've changed my route; but it's a little too late and there's no need to pout.

I went to the kitchen and pulled out a knife; 'Suicide by throat cut', what a way to end life.

I went back upstairs and placed the knife in her hand; hopefully this way he'll soon understand.

I wrote a small note, no need to be brash; but I've got to explain the incredible gash.

'...I'm sorry to leave you, my son, but you know, I truly believe you'll be better off alone.

This world is too big and scary for me, and I think it'd be best that I permanently leave.

Soon you will know everything within time, but now there's no need to worry, so please don't cry.

I promised you life, and I plan to keep it; things will get better, whether or not you believe it.

There's only one thing from you that I ask; don't turn out like me, that's your solemn task...'

I folded the note and set it beside her, then noticed the room getting increasingly brighter.

Morning was here and before it's too late, I'd better end this now for her child's sake.

No time for mistakes, I must do this right; I took the knife to her neck with one final strike.

I decided to leave before the room would flood in a gathering puddle of the drug dealer's blood.

Had I more time I would've cleaned up the mess, but this was is the conviction I sought to be best.

I spoke not a word, and went straight to Bella's house, and that was the end of Miss Jenny Krause.

Here comes the remorse as I'd once felt before, now that kid was involved, I'll feel it much more.

Hopefully Bella will make this pain go away, "Why do I do this to myself?" I say.

I dashed down the block until I was clear out of sight,

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night.