Never thought that I would grow so old of seeing the gold
Still I never want it to go
I would hold it up to my cold heart
Feel the way it used to start up

Take me back to the way that I was before
Hungry for what was to come
Now I'm longing for the way I was

You say you will, say you will save me
Take me back
Give me, give me all your love
If you can't hold on
Then baby, baby don't save me now
Baby, don't save me now

Don't Save Me - HAIM

Chapter 37: Learning to Kill

Lexi

"I'm…I'm covered in…" I wiped at my hands and arms and chest, pawing at my new pale skin to try to get if off. That only smeared it everywhere. The smell of it both enticed and repulsed me – how could I have just consumed so much of it? I fell to my knees beside the creek, plunging my hands into the water. They cut through a thin layer of ice that was fringing the rocky bank, but I barely noticed. I was too covered in blood to care about much else. My chest grew tight and I felt myself start to cry. I whimpered as I doused myself in the cold water, not even pausing when I realized the water should have felt cold but didn't. I should have been shaking, but I wasn't. I should have passed out from the sight of so much blood, and not to mention on me, but I didn't. I felt like an alien creature in my own body. This wasn't right – was it? I couldn't really be a vampire who hunted and ran faster than a speeding bullet and killed animals I would have considered harmless and cute.

Could I?

I heard myself whimper again as I doused my hands in the creek water again. The icy water began to wash away the bloody stains, but I still felt like my heart should be pounding by now. Even as panicked as I was, I could still hear every sound and sense everything around me. There were no tears, no pounding heart, no ringing in my ears. Nothing felt right. Nothing.

"Lexi…"

I scrubbed at my hands, but the elk's blood was sticky and thick. It had lodged in my fingernails and onto my pale, chalky skin. The sight of it made me panic even more.

"I'm…it won't come off!" I wailed, my cries echoing against the trees.

"Lexi," Rosalie repeated, couching down beside me. Reaching out, she stilled my hands in the water and held them in her own. I stilled, taking a deep breath. I looked up at her with wide eyes as I realized what a fit I'd been throwing. I felt so ashamed. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Emmett, Edward, and Alice were all standing behind her, watching me with blank faces. I felt so humiliated that I'd made such a horrible mess. I realized too late that glancing down at my clothes only made it worse. I looked like an axe murderer.

"You were only eating," Edward pointed out. I blinked up at him and thought, this doesn't feel like 'just eating', but kept my comment to myself.

"Shhh," Rosalie chided him, turning back to me. She dunked my hands back into the water, her hands carefully rubbing the rest of the blood away into the icy stream.

"It's everywhere…"

"I know. We'll fix it."

She helped me wipe the elk's blood off my arms and hands and assured me the clothes could be destroyed.

"The first few times are always a mess. I made quite the terrifying scene on my first try too. I'm sure we all did," she reassured me gently.

I barely noticed when the other three turned and nonchalantly made their way upstream at a slow walk. I finished drying my hands on my jeans and tried not to look at the dried blood beneath my fingernails. Rosalie and I were alone. I glanced sideways at her and tried my best to not feel inferior next to her, but that was impossible. My new eyes could easily detail every line and curve of her perfect face. I surely looked like a mess. I felt like a raggedy old doll being held up next to a supermodel.

"I'm horrible at this," I sniffed. I wiped my cheeks, expecting there to be tears, but there were none. I stared at my dry hand and let out a shaky exhale.

Rosalie watched me in silence, no sound but the wind in the trees and the rush of the water in the creek beside us. If I hadn't been so upset, I would have marveled at the babbling brook in the middle of the wintery forest, but I was too distracted to worry about that now. I was a vampire and I was horrible at it. I'd seen the way Emmett had mechanically snapped the neck of the animal, effortlessly stalking, catching, and killing it in a matter of a second. I'd only succeeded in making a mess and…crying without tears.

"Crying without tears isn't really the same, is it?" she cut through my thoughts.

"No," I sniffed.

"Do you at least feel better?"

I swallowed, testing the fire in my throat. It was almost nothing – still uncomfortable, but more like a sore throat now instead of a blazing inferno. I nodded.

"You need more," she guessed. I bobbed my head again like a petulant child, refusing to meet her gaze. She carefully walked across the rocky little beach in her heels, I realized, and daintily picked up the other carcass.

Alice had killed it. I'd forgotten it until now, but as soon as she held it up my eyes immediately zeroed in on the animal's neck. My tongue grew thick with a cloying, sour flavor as I salivated at the sight of the dead animal. She held it up, exposing its long, thin neck.

"I'll help this time," she offered sweetly, motioning me forward. I bit into it without hesitation this time. She held it to my mouth as I drained it, the lukewarm liquid sliding down my throat and dulling the ache. Normally I would have balked at the feel of the elk's fur at my lips and the taste of the cooling blood, but I couldn't think of anything better in this moment than the feeling of it as it filled my stomach and seemed to warm my bones.

I finished, carefully wiping my mouth. Nothing. I'd drained it without spilling a single drop. I felt a small rise of accomplishment in my gut. Maybe I could do this.

"See? Just takes practice. I ruined a few silk skirts in my day. You'll get better at it. Now grab that one – we have to bury them. Don't want to chance a hiker finding elk with their necks mangled like this."

I followed her lead, picking up the first animal and walked after her as she left the rocky shore and entered the woods. She looked so out of place, I realized. Perfect blonde hair, immaculate clothes, heels….and carrying something that looked like road kill. She offered me a tiny smile before grabbing a sapling that looked five or six years old and uprooting it like she was picking up her purse.

"Toss it in," she instructed. I did as I was told and buried my kill. After the tree was replanted and the leaves on the ground carefully rearranged, I felt a little bit better – it was like nothing had happened.

"Where did the others go?" I asked.

She glanced out into the woods, shrugging. "Probably gave us time to chat. Just us. Edward, my brother….he's…he was trying to be nice."

"What do you mean?"

She started walking, motioning for me to join her. "We…some of us…our kind…have gifts."

"Gifts?"

"Yes. Well, we call them gifts. More like special abilities."

"Like what?"

"Promise you won't be upset?"

I shrugged halfheartedly, nodding. "I'm covered in blood and I'm a vampire now. I think I've already met and exceeded my quota for upset today."

She laughed softly, tucking her blonde hair behind her ear. "Well, when he was turned he was somehow given the gift to….hear people's minds. People, and…vampires."

"He can?"

"Sounds crazy, but…"

I turned my upstream in the direction of where Alice, Edward, and Emmett had disappeared to give us space. First vampires, now gifted vampires? It still didn't seem real.

"It does, but that's…sort of neat. So could he hear me when…?"

"When you were turning, yes. He helped us know what to do to help you. Most of my family wasn't turned into this by choice. I certainly wasn't."

"You weren't?"

"No, but…that's a story for another time. I'll share it. We'll have time. Plenty," she sighed. She paused, looking over her shoulder at me. "If you didn't already guess it or know it, vampires….don't ever age."

"I….I feel like I knew that," I paused, stopping in my tracks. I tried to remember how I knew anything about vampires, but it was escaping me. My mind before today, before waking up – felt fuzzy. I struggled to recall anything about my life or who I was before the terrible fire that had ripped through my body. And trying to remember it but only seeing blurry pictures and faces grew frustrating in the split second it took me to try. It felt like waking up from a dream and trying to remember every single detail –it felt impossible.

Our feet crunched against the half-frozen ferns and dead leaves covering the ground as we walked. In the distance, I could hear the other members of Rosalie's family talking and laughing as they traipsed through the forest.

"How would I know about vampires?" I asked.

She shrugged. "Forks has always had more than just vampires. I'm sure you have a lot of questions."

I nodded, sensing there was more she wasn't telling me. Not that I blamed her – my emotional outburst when I'd woken up was probably causing her to be cautious. Reaching out, I lightly pinched a sapling branch in my fingertips. It snapped with a satisfying crunch at only a whisper of a touch from me. My mouth quirked- that was weird.

"I feel…strong. That's not just me, right?"

"No," she laughed softly, "That's not just you. You're what we call a 'newborn'. A new vampire. Carlisle could tell you more science behind it, but essentially more of you human blood lingers in your tissues as a newborn, making you stronger. Stronger than any of us, actually."

I thought back (with perfect recollection) to their faces when I'd woken a few hour before. They'd all been clearly anxious and borderline terrified of what was going to happen – of what I was going to do, I realized.

"But I wouldn't hurt anyone," I quickly assured her. "I've…I've never hurt anyone. I don't think…I don't think I've ever even hit anyone. I think…."

She smiled. "It's alright, Lexi. We were just being cautious. Not all newborns are as controlled as you were."

"I wouldn't say controlled," I muttered, holding up my hands. They were pale and icy white as I turned them over in front of me. Not a single freckle or scar on them. I felt like they could rip down the entire forest. "Is that why you all looked a little terrified of me when I woke up?"

"Maybe," she sighed. "We were really more worried you'd be upset. This isn't an ideal life, Lexi, I won't lie to you."

"But vampires are strong?"

"Very. But as a newborn vampires you're susceptible to your emotions running wild, your senses being in overdrive…it's very overwhelming. It can be hard for even the most sensible person to control one's self when you're new to this life. It's a lot to take in. Don't be upset with yourself if it's difficult at first. But you'll learn your body and how to control it. We have nothing but time to practice. Don't let today get you down – this isn't easy to take in, despite how easy everything feels physically."

"Tell me about it," I agreed. I let my new eyes scan the trees around us, taking it all in. I could see every shape, every color, and every molecule, it felt like. Crazy. And that was only one of my senses. The rest were in overdrive as well, taking in every minute sound, smell, taste, and feeling they could. It was disturbing and exhilarating all at the same time.

We walked slowly for a few more minutes, Rosalie stopping patiently every time I was distracted by a breeze or a tree or a shuffle of dried leaves. I couldn't help it – everything was so overwhelming. I knew I'd been a human, but I felt like I'd been blindfolded and forced to wear earplugs the entire time. Everything was so vivid and new that even a walk in a halfway frozen forest had me reeling.

"We should catch up to the others," she sighed. "Do you feel like you've had enough to drink?"

I tested my throat – it still hurt, but not as badly as it had before I'd hunted. Well, tried to hunt.

I was about to tell her no when I felt my nostrils flare on their own accord. An icy breeze made the tree branches ruffle slightly the frozen ferns brushing at my calves. An aroma much more enticing than that of the elk filled my nose and mouth and made the sour taste return. I licked my lips and swallowed.

"Venom," she said quietly. "That taste right before the hunt is venom."

I listened to her, but another part of my seemingly endless mind was already a million miles away. I let out a shaky breath as my head jerked to the North, my eyes zeroing in on something large and brown moving through the landscape. Then I heard it.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

I sucked in another breath as I realized I could hear its heart beating blood through its veins. I couldn't tear my eyes away.

"This will be fun," I heard her chuckle.

"I…I…I need to go," I mumbled, barely able to control my own limbs. It was like another part of me had taken over – a wild, feral part that didn't ask for permission or worry about the consequences. It was the part that wanted to run and hunt and tear whatever I was smelling that was so wonderful to shreds just so that I could bask in the hot, warm liquid-

It was over before I could even blink twice. My feet propelled me through the ferns and saplings, barely touching the mossy floor as I tore across the short distance towards the beating heart. It was as easy as breathing, really – all of it. I didn't pause, I didn't think – I just let the instinct take over. My hands were around the neck of the large cat before it could even sense me – I'd ended its life before it even had a chance to jump in surprise. It let out a gurgled growl of surprise as I twisted its neck opened my jaws. They sliced through the fur and sinew like it was something I'd done a thousand times.

Relief – but this time, real relief.

I felt the blood running down my throat, a few drops missing my lips and dripping down my chin and onto my clothes again but I just didn't care. The blood of the animal was a hundred times more filling and savory tasting than that of the elk. When it was drained I heard myself let out a disappointed growl as I gripped it in my hands. I closed my eyes and savored the feeling of the warm blood running through my body, coating and soothing it. It was euphoria.

A wolf's howl pierced the air.

My eyes opened, scanning the wilderness. It was twilight, but my enhanced eyes could easily see the scenery despite the fading light. Everything took on a blue-ish white glow, but was otherwise the same.

It sounded again, in the distance. I strained my vision, searching through the now-misty woods to find the source of the call. It didn't frighten me. A strange feeling of nostalgic Deja-vu washed over me as I waited for it to come to me.

I knew that sound.

I dropped the mountain lion at my feet, letting it hit the forest floor with a muted crunch. Rosalie zipped to my side, placing her arm on mine.

"Lexi…"

I could hear its feet hitting the ground – the telltale thumping of something on four legs as it turned and loped away. It was faint, but I could tell the source of the sound had turned and left.

The wolf saw me feeding and made that noise….

It came back to me suddenly, swirling in front of my eyes like an old, out of focus black and white movie. The wolf howling. The cold woods. The blood red eyes. The feeling of his hand holding mine while I burned…

I stared out into the empty forest and my lips could suddenly form his name like it was my own.

"Brady."

This chapter was difficult - Unfortunately S. Meyer never spent a whole lot of time talking about other newborn experiences after first waking up other than Bella's, so I tried to come up with a happy balance of what I thought it would be like - a mixture of bloodlust and Lexi unable to focus on anything but her new, strange body, but also towards the end making her remember bits and pieces. I would assume it's different for each vampire, but for this story's sake I will just maintain that she was a little too thirsty and weirded out after her change to really focus on anything else.

Hope you are still enjoying this! I know my updates are slow, but I still enjoy writing it so I'm going to keep at it. Thanks for reading and please review!