Sweet and intoxicating. That was what it was. It promised relief. It was rain for my forest fire. It would drown the flames in ineffective ash.
My body reacted to the smell and headed towards the human in no time, climbing higher and higher between the sparsely leafed trees. The air grew colder and colder as I ascended.
While running, I imagined sinking my teeth into the flesh of its neck. I could see throbbing blood vessels under thin skin, each pulse of the heart pushing out the glorious scent. I could feel the skin breaking until I reached and pierced the silky tissue of an artery and a river of ecstasy would flow into me.
As I got closer, I realized that it was bleeding and I increased my speed. I couldn't let any more blood be wasted.
Soon enough, I found it. It was laying against the trunk of a large tree and was moaning in pain. It was too easy, I was almost disappointed. I had wanted to hunt, to feel the triumph of catching my prey.
Before I could take the last few steps towards it, I heard hurried footsteps heading in my direction.
I let out a warning scream. It was mine!
Mine!
The steps didn't stop. I turned to meet whoever was coming and crouched down ready to attack.
The first things that struck me about the vampire were his height and his skin, which was marred with endless bite marks that formed an intricate and alarming pattern. His stance was defensive, but I knew. He was a dangerous creature; dangerous enough that he might take away my prey.
"It's mine," I growled.
"Bella, please. You don't want him. You'll kill him."
I hissed.
His gold eyes looked worriedly at me.
I knew them.
I felt a wave of peace start washing over me, trying to subdue me into letting him have the human. "STOP IT!" I growled, feeling a rage raise against the peace he was imposing on me.
Moving as fast as I could, I went and threw the human around my shoulders. It moaned. It was good that there was still some life in it.
I had little time to waste in getting away. The vampire was following, trying to take away what was mine.
He moved swiftly among the barren trees keeping up with any evasion moves I tried. His scent was hidden by the same downwind that was betraying mine. It was bringing with it darker clouds, ready to unleash upon us.
"Bella!"
I kept moving. The name meant nothing.
"I don't want him!" He roared.
That made no sense. Why was he following me if he didn't want the human?
Why didn't he want it?
The eyes.
The eyes.
They were the answer.
But what about the eyes?
Gold.
Gold meant good.
Red was danger.
Trust the gold.
I started slowing down.
The human cried out in pain.
I was hurting it.
Why was that bad? It was food.
I couldn't make sense of anything. The anger and frustration that boiled deep in my chest like a tar wouldn't let me. It covered my heart and crept up to my brain. Sense meant doubt. Sense was fear.
Listen to the hunger. It's the only one trying to protect you.
No, that's a lie.
Listen to the hunger.
Lie, lie, lie.
Listen to the blonde vampire. He was safe. He was…family?
Family.
I had a family.
They were hidden somewhere in the frenzy. I had to find them.
I stopped moving. I had to search for them. They were lost in my mind. Puzzle pieces that I had to put back together.
A man. A husband. Bronze hair. Stubborn. Kind. Mine.
A child. Same hair. Small. In danger. Mine.
A woman, black haired. Joyful.
The same black hair on a man. A bear. Exuberant.
A doctor. Serene.
A mother. Compassionate.
A soldier. Trustworthy
A friend. Loyal.
A father. Stoic. My own.
Husband, daughter, sister, brother, doctor, mother, soldier, friend, father.
Husband, daughter, sister, brother, doctor, mother, soldier, friend, father.
Husband, daughter…
Sister, brother…
Doctor, mother…
Soldier, friend, father..
Edward, Renesmee, Alice, Emmett, Carlisle, Esme, Jasper, Rosalie and Charlie.
They were my family, I had to get out for them. I had to clear my mind for them.
And I was?
I was…
I was… He'd said it before. I was… Bella. Isabella. Isabella Marie Cullen: mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend, vampire, hunter.
But not killer.
Not killer.
"Bella?" Jasper asked.
"I need you to take him away. I don't know for how long I'll be able to keep my mind clear." My voice was shaky and the words were said with haste. I could not breathe anymore.
"Let me help. I can calm you down. Just let me."
"Okay…," I whispered with the last bit of air that was in my lungs.
I gently placed the human down on the leafy forest earth and I locked my eyes with Jasper's.
A sense of calm crept in at the sharp edges of my frenzy, smoothing it down, slowly, until it was only a pebble I could crush in my palm. It then moved on to the tar covering my heart, removing it gently and freeing me. Sense returned and with it all the feelings that had been tormenting me for the past few weeks and that I had tried to keep away from my husband. I never expressed them to their full extent. Why ruin this precious little time when our daughter was an infant?
I didn't know how to cry in this new body of mine. All I could do were dry sobs that were ineffective at capturing the fear that had taken root in my heart whenever I thought about Renesmee's future. I had brought her into the world without any consideration of what that world would be. She was loved. She was so loved. But was it enough? Was that enough to protect her? To save her from the Volturi?
Jasper came and pulled me into a hug and let me return to a modicum of normalcy. I hung to him as if he were a life raft and I was in the middle of an ocean struck by a thunderous storm.
"We have to take this man to a hospital," I said in the end. It was the least I could do for him after almost killing him and dragging him at breakneck speed through a numbingly cold forest.
His eyes bore into mine and I knew that his first instinct was to say no, that it would be too dangerous. Who knew what the man would remember?
"Edward and Alice can warn us," he replied more for himself than for me.
For the first time I got a good look at the human. He was in his late twenties, very tall, taller than Emmet, but with Jasper's constitution. His heart rate was slow, but steady. He had a deep cut on the forehead and another long gash on his arm.
We ran quietly.
I knew there would be a time for talking, a time when I would have to face what I had just been about to do. Had Jasper not arrived when he did, the man would be dead. That still could have been his ending, I had no way of knowing the extent of his injuries. My Bachelor was English Lit. Edward said I should major in something I loved and not something I thought practical. For practical there was a lot of time.
I wondered how long he had been laying by that tree trunk. I remembered a bright orange backpack by his side and a few stones had been placed in a circle, with a few half burned pieces of wood. The weather had been bad all day. They must have been remnants from the previous day. How long had he been out in the woods?
By the time we reached the outskirts of Forks, night had fully taken over from the gray day. That was where Jasper and I split. He took the man towards the hospital and I went to the house to tell Carlisle that he would soon be needed.
Once my tale was told and he was gone, I was left with the rest of the family. The atmosphere was somber. Rosalie and Alice gave me bone crushing hugs; Emmet gave an understanding pat on the back and Esme handed me a cream sweater to change into. The man had bled on my T-Shirt.
I felt emotionally numb.
It had all been too much.
All my negative emotions were much stronger than they had been as a human and they never went away, not even when I was happy. They were there lingering, gathering strength for the moment they would unleash themselves and take control over me.
There was no doubt in my mind that I would have fed on the man. What I feared was that he would not have been enough and I would have gone into Forks. The whole town would have been at my mercy. It was a frightening thing to contemplate.
Jasper returned not long after Carlisle had left.
I had retreated to Edward's bedroom. I knew he wanted to be by my side, but having his face alight with love for me while I felt like a despicable creature was too much for my unstable emotions to bear. He was downstairs reading french poetry to Renesmee, "It's much easier for children to learn other languages if they are exposed from an early age," he'd told me after the first time he'd done it. The rhythm was soothing and I focused on his voice, clearing my mind and enjoying the musicality of the words. There was a certain beauty in their mystery.
Jasper knocked and I let him in. He had also changed.
"How is he?"
"The people in the hospital weren't as surprised as they should have been to see him appear on a gurney in the emergency room. I stayed until Carlisle arrived."
"I can't believe I did this."
"But you didn't. Please… Allow me to finish."
I nodded.
"Thank you."
"Despite it all, you are still a newborn, getting used to your new world."
He paused and then continued. "Ours is a long existence. Not all human morality can be applied to us. Our victims and our actions get lost in time. You must never weigh the good and the bad that you do against each other. And especially not the bad that you could've done. You must strive that your next action is good. The past, for us, can be a much heavier burden and strong as we are, we might find ourselves unable to carry it. We must take from it only what can help us to be better. I must believe that."
He sighed, "I have done a lot of evil in my life. I was a confederate soldier, that you know. It is a sin that took far too long to confess and by the time I did, there was no one left to apologize to. Not that my apologies would've done any good. When I look back at the man who I was, I am disgusted. War and the glory of war appealed to me. I saw what the Unionists were doing as an assault on my home and my way of life. Little did I care that I was fighting to keep men imprisoned."
"I had all that I needed to succeed. I was charismatic and good looking with a sharp mind. That didn't change when I was turned. Little regard for life was a constant motif throughout my past."
"You have regard for life, Bella, and you have something I have never had during those years in the Confederate Army and then with Maria: you have a family. We can help you through your emotions and fears. Through the accidents that might happen."
"But isn't there evil from where you simply can't come back from?"
He took a moment before he gave me his answer. His golden eyes were aflame with old memories and heartaches. "I believe there is. I just hope that I haven't committed it. What I know is that you must atone for yourself, not for others."
His eyes met mine again, "You didn't go out to hunt that man. You had no intention of harm. And in the end, no harm was done. Had you not gone out, the man would have surely died in the forest. You might have just saved him"
"You saved it alongside me. Without your interruption I wouldn't have stopped. That's what scares me. And how difficult it was for me to come back to my reasonable self. Much harder than the first time I almost… and incomparable with the normal hunting trips."
"Because it was the first time you truly let your hunger be the only thing in your mind. Our hunger is an intrinsic part of us. There is no 'you' and 'it'. The hunger is yours. And it doesn't always crave just blood. Though that is the strongest craving vampires have for a long time. You hungered for a reprieve of the worries that plague you. You bury negative feelings under logic and when you don't, you put them in second place. It's good to be selfish sometimes."
I had no reply to him as I had to consider if he was right or not. His words made it seem like my days were filled with unhappiness when they were not. My child was a joy and I was loving every minute with her. My nights were spent in the arms of my adoring husband. I was an active part of my family. I beat Emmett everyday in arm wrestling matches. I could fund my daughter's education ten times over at the best universities in the world from the money I'd gotten out of our bets. I had my father back in my life.
I was happy.
But not knowing how to be sure that that happiness would last was what I'd tried to escape.
"Little Renesmee is well right now. She's growing fast and strong and we are here to help both of you," he said kindly.
"But what if the Volturi find out about her? How can we protect her?" My voice rose half an octave.
"We'll find a way." His voice was calm and authoritative, reminding me that I could trust him and that we had faced the Volturi before and come out well.
"I just wish I knew how to assure Aro that I am a vampire without raising any suspicion in his mind. 'I look forward to seeing the new Mrs. Cullen in person,'" I quoted in a mocking voice from his note.
I sighed defeated, "It's not like I can send him a letter."
Jasper's eyes lit up, "Maybe you can."
I looked at him perplexed, "What?"
"I have an idea."