I decided to stay at the hotel that night while I figured out my next move.

I also wasn't feeling the greatest – I figured the large amount of human blood I'd had over the last couple of days was the culprit. I felt sluggish, unlike myself. I chalked it up to the blood and the fact that I wasn't used to drinking human blood anymore.

I decided to switch back to animal blood – I'd still hunt the other attackers, but I wouldn't spill any more of their blood. Except Royce, maybe. I didn't want another part of them inside me anymore.

I laughed – Carlisle would be proud, knowing I wouldn't drink their blood anymore.

"He would," Edward agreed, climbing through the window of my room.

I'd been so preoccupied with my thoughts that I hadn't even heard him. "Edward? What are you doing here?"

"I thought I'd check on you," he said, sitting at the foot of the bed. "See how you're doing."

I was surprised. When Carlisle had changed me, he'd hoped that Edward and I would be mates. We weren't, but we'd developed a tight friendship – we were like siblings. I never thought he'd come all this way just to see how I was doing, though. "Did Carlisle send you?" I asked.

He laughed, nodding. "You caught me. Seriously, though. He didn't think this would be good for you mentally." He looked at me with his eyebrows raised, waiting for an answer.

"I'm good," I told him. "Knowing there's less of them left alive, knowing that they won't be able to do to me what they did to another poor girl, makes me feel better. I just got the second one tonight. It'll look like a sudden, drunken heart attack. Hey, make sure Carlisle knows I won't drink any more of their blood, okay? I don't want him to think I'm some sort of monster."

He agreed.

I was suddenly hit with a wave of nausea. "I don't even know why I did it, to be honest. Drank their blood. I don't want any more of them inside of me." I hiccuped, and started crying.

That startled me. I was usually a rock, able to mask my emotions carefully. But I couldn't. And I still felt sick, like I was going to throw up any minute. Can vampires even throw up? "I'm sorry," I apologized, sniffling. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

Edward sniffed the air, and laughed. "Rose, the guy you killed – he was drunk, right?"

I confirmed. "So, so drunk. He had a lot of alcohol at the bar. It was his brothers funeral, you see. He got killed in an animal attack at my ex-fiancé's cabin. It was tragic, really." I hiccupped again, and then laughed. "God, what's wrong with me?"

"I think you got drunk off his blood," Edward laughed. "You're absorbing the alcohol that was in his blood."

"Is that even possible?" I wondered.

"It would appear so," Edward said. "I've never seen you drunk before."

"I've never been drunk before. Tipsy, sure. I used to love champagne and wine. But never this…sloppy."

A wave of nausea hit me again. "I think I'm gonna be sick." I darted over to the bathroom, hanging my head over the toilet. Edward followed me and grabbed my hair, holding it away from my face. I wasn't actually sick – I didn't think vampires could throw up, since we didn't have anything in our stomachs or anything to expel.

I still felt nauseous and dizzy, though. "Here, sit on the bathtub. Put your head down." Edward helped me stagger over to the side of the bathtub. I sat down, resting my elbows on my knees and putting my head in my hands. "Stay like that for a few minutes. It should pass soon."

Luckily the alcohol didn't stay in my system too long. I felt much better in about half an hour. Edward had stayed, making sure I was okay. "Well, I'm glad that passed quickly," I said. "I never even knew we could get drunk – I didn't think it was possible."

"Carlisle's been alive for hundreds of years and I think there's still things even he doesn't know about our physiology," Edward replied.

"I'm sure he'd be fascinated." Carlisle was always fascinated by new developments like these. He lived for knowledge. I personally thought that more he knew about vampires, the better he felt about being one.

"Thanks for checking on me, Edward. I appreciate it. Tell Esme and Carlisle I say hi when you get back."

"Esme misses you, you know," he replied. Esme was like an adoptive mother to us – she loved taking care of us.

"I know. I'll be back soon, I hope. There's five of them left." One of them, I knew, was somewhere in Georgia. He was the one who had egged Royce on the most. I wasn't going after him next though – I'd finish my business in New York, then go to Georgia, then back to Royce.

I had to think about what was next. I had to find the other two – maybe they'd heard of their friends deaths and would be somewhere nearby. Maybe they'd still be in Rochester, where I'd been from. Royce would be there too, still working at his daddy's bank. I was sure of it.

Maybe a trip to Georgia was in order first.

"Hey, want to go on a hunting trip to Georgia?" I asked Edward.

"Actually, I should be getting back to Carlisle and Esme," he told me. "I don't want them thinking I'd walked out on them again."

Years ago, before I was a vampire, Edward had broken from the Cullens and been a nomad for a while. He'd killed a lot of people, done a lot of things he was ashamed of during that time.

I wondered if I would regret killing these men like Edward regretted ending the lives that he did.

I didn't think I would though – I wasn't ending innocent lives here. Not that Edward did either, but he still felt shame. The men I was hunting were scum, and the world – or at least myself, personally – would be better off without them alive.

We said our goodbyes at the hotel, and I went on to Georgia.

Don't worry, New York. I'll be back soon.