PSA! THIS CHAPTER HAS A TRIGGER WARNING! If you are sensitive to sexual assault/rape, you may want to skip 2 sequential paragraphs in this chapter. I have marked the start and end of these paragraphs so they may be easily passed over. Please note, that no actual assault or rape occurs directly, but a reference is made to a previous, as well as a planned act. Also, please know that I abhor assault/rape of any kind, and that I believe there is a special part of hell reserved for people who commit such crimes. In researching actual Phoenix criminal activity for this story, I came across a terribly sad and disturbing case regarding a mother and child that was preyed upon on their way home one night. The case went unsolved and the sick bastard was never caught...or was he? All I want to say is that I needed justice to be served.

~ Phoenix, Arizona - December 10, 1994 ~

Garrett groaned in pain as I held his arm and severed hand together. The sickening screech of his granite flesh fusing itself back together echoed in the alley. Less than a minute later, he was able to flex his fingers and turn his wrist again. As he worked out his hand motion, I slumped down to the pavement with my head in my hands. The weight of tonight's actions began to weigh heavily on me.

I almost killed a child! Monster is not a strong enough word for what I am. Demon! That's what I am!

"Over two hundred and thirty years as an immortal and that is first time I have lost a body part." Garrett paused to flex his hand into a fist several times. "I would love to see you in a full-on fight, Edward. You would be fierce with your speed, mind reading, and a grip strong enough to sever our flesh. In a battle you truly cared about, not many of our kind would be able to stop you."

I looked up at Garrett. His expression cocked in challenge, so I took the bait.

"What?" I asked. Even though his thoughts were clear, I wanted to hear him say the words.

"Edward, do you think I could've stopped you if truly wanted to get to that child? She was your singer. There is only one vampire on this planet that could have stopped you from killing her." I flinched at his thoughts of me sinking my teeth into the young girl's throat. "That vampire is you. From the moment you smelled her, you stalked her, slowly. Something inside you wanted that girl to live, because if you really wanted her blood, you would've had it. Believe me, I know."

Images of Garrett killing a female nurse during the American Civil War Battle of Gettysburg passed through his mind. His regret and sorrow were profound and so unlike any of the other feelings he had regarding his victims. Garrett had become accustomed to my mind reading during our short time together. He voiced his next statement in his mind as it was too painful for him to vocalize.

"My singer was the only woman I have ever killed, and my only true innocent victim. The instant I smelled her, I was upon her. A few short beats of her heart later, she was dead. It is the only thing I am deeply ashamed of in all existence."

From his thoughts I could sense the desperate pull he immediately felt to the woman's scent. It was almost like what I had just encountered, but mine was stronger because I did not end my prey quickly like he did. I had allowed the girl's scent to saturate my senses, heightening the addiction and baking my throat with heat and venom.

Before I could process more of his memories, the thoughts of another invaded my mind.

*** TRIGGER WARNING - START ***

"Damn, it's dead out tonight. No young sluts anywhere. I might have to settle for one of the bitches from the dance place down the street. She won't be as tight as some young teen pussy, but her screams as I fuck and cut her will still sound good. Maybe I could find one with a kid old enough to have some fun with too. Hell, they're all fun!"

I snarled as the stranger's thoughts moved on to some if his previous conquests. Specifically, he focused on a woman similar in age and look to my singer's mother. He dragged her and a child into an alley. He raped and then killed the mother with a large bowie knife. The young boy, her son, sat frozen in fear as he watched the life fade from his mother's eyes. Then the sick bastard attacked the boy next, before ending his suffering with the same knife that took his mother.

*** TRIGGER WARNING - END ***

Before the sick, demented memory had ended, I was already chasing after him at my full speed. A stunned Garrett struggled to keep close, but I was much faster than him. The murdering rapist was heading in the same direction as the mother and my singer had walked. The thought of this demon finding my singer and hurting her was too much to bear. Somehow in the few minutes that had past since I initially caught wind of my singer's scent, I had gone from killer to protector. I vowed to end this sick fucker's life before he would keep my singer from snuggling under the Christmas tree with her scarf this year.

Finding him was not hard given how loud his thoughts were. I approached at top speed. The smell of alcohol and cocaine dominated his vile scent. He rounded a corner spotting a woman up ahead of him a block away. Thankfully it was not my singer and her mother, but he had already singled the woman out as his next victim. I caught up with him two steps later.

Grabbing him from behind, I tossed him twenty yards down a small side street. I could've caught him before hit the ground, but I wanted him to suffer. I couldn't help the satisfied grin on my face as his bones cracked and broke upon his impact with the asphalt. Before he could make his first cry of pain, I grabbed his throat and crushed his larynx with the slight twitch of my thumb. A pained gargle, that signaled blood flooding into his lungs form his wounded throat, was the sound of justice to me. I pulled back my other hand to deliver the deathblow. There would be blood spilled tonight, just not my singer's. Before I could strike, Garrett gently grabbed my extended arm. I glared in anger toward him, but his quiet thoughts hit their mark.

"Remember who you are, Edward. Think of what Carlisle would want you do."

"But you don't know the horrors this man has done!" I spat. "Or what he was planning to do tonight! He deserves his death." I hiss back at Garrett.

"You are no longer that man that extracts revenge in the name of self-imposed justice. Let me have him, Edward."

Garrett eased him from my grip before speaking out loud so the man could hear.

"I on the other hand do not have any moral conflict with the revenge and suffering of the underserving." In a quick movement, Garrett twisted the man to expose his throat. This action broke his prey's back, but the effects barely register before Garrett plunged his razor sharp teeth into the man's flesh. After Garrett was sated, he mutilated the body to hide any evidence of vampire involvement and tossed the bastard's remains into a nearby dumpster.

After wiping his mouth on his sleeve, Garrett put an arm around my shoulder and led me away.

"See, two birds killed with one stone. Tonight you would've celebrated his destruction by your own hands, but tomorrow or the next day, his death would have weighed heavily upon you shoulders."

"And what was the second bird slain with the stone?" I ask.

"I got to feed, of course," he said with a smirk on his face.