Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.

Sorry it has taken me forever to post another chapter but I had a ten page paper and finals to attend to. I was also struck by the sudden desire to write Harry Potter and couldn't think of anything until that was out of my system. If you like HP check it out, I've posted it under consumed.

Anyway this one if for Ashley for punching me at lunch every other day to finish it up.

To Padawan Jan-AQ and LilStrawberriBananaMasochist: I plan on writing as much as I can or until the ideas fail. I will work in your requests when I have some crazy idea for them.

My next chapters may take awhile because I need to get angsty and I have about two projects, another essay, chemistry, sailing, my work at the hospital, and the basic everyday shit. So you get the picture.

Enjoy and review.

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The humans stiffened as we walked by. Their eyes followed us in the snow clouded air with unrestrained attention. Curiosity perforated their minds though they kept their faces blank in perfect disinterest. Esme clung to my arm in a violently protective grip. She was acutely aware of the eyes of her would be prey bearing down on her. Her mind echoed my thirst and screamed her fear at me. It was not fear for the humans or even for herself but instead for Carlisle and for me. Esme feared what had happened would harm her family and her maternal instinct couldn't accept that.

Oh Edward! We shouldn't have… How could this happen… What will Carlisle think of us…of me?

"We did nothing wrong, it was but our nature to act as we did," I replied. Our near silent communications alerted no one to our conversation.

But we are older… Control has never been a problem until now… What will he say? What will he think? An inaudible sob escaped her thoughts but her face remained immobile. Her supernatural eyes flickered to catch mine and hold them with her questions. The metallic red may have been hers but it may just as well been a reflection of mine. I knew she saw the tainted hue because her mind flared to life with the images of the golden butterscotch and amber charcoal that so often smiled back at her.

"He loves you more than anything in his many centuries. Don't pretend he will be angry with you or me for one minute… Forgiveness is all he knows," I reminded her pulling my eyes away from her invasive stare. "Control is difficult to master even when you have had many years of practice. Even I have trouble accepting our…diet and controlling my thirst. Carlisle doesn't count." I shook my head at her expression. Her beauty still betrayed her innocence. More than once I mistook her petite frame and angelic smile as the horror that a killer's grace could be. But Esme was unique and still very young. Seven years had not prepared her for the first taste. It drove her back to those few blood thirsty years when she knew so little. I was both blessed and cursed for learning of it so early. It created a horrifying need and yet did nothing to change the state I was in. For a moment I almost believed she was naïve again, almost. "Carlisle's control is like my ability. It is uniquely part of him and no other can do it but him. That's what makes him even more extraordinary. He went centuries without faltering… It is as much his ability as compassion is yours."

My compassion is not an ability from turning, Esme scowled. To compare it to your ability it is but an emotion and a weakness. She had drifted off topic and her fear evaporated beneath the heat of her selfless love. She plowed on toward the hospital, thoughts adrift about what it would be like to read minds.

I stopped walking and if her newborn strength had returned with her flashback to the days of torturous thirst she might have ripped my arm off. But now we were equals. An immovable object and an unstoppable force. Esme stopped a half step a head of me to save our arms being yanked from our bodies. The humans merely noticed that we had both stopped almost simultaneously. The interest that was fading began to return as the old men looked up from their seats in coffee shops and the passersby ignored their dogs' eager pull to be away from something so unnatural.

What? She turned back, lips parted to release the air she held deep in her chest. It should have clouded the air worse than the snow gripping her hair, but it didn't. She caught my eyes again and the lustrous red dared me to do what my mind ached to do.

"Your compassion is no less extraordinary than my ability to read minds and Carlisle's control." She shook her head rather violently until the snow fluttered out of it to join the falling flakes. A human might think his mind playing tricks on him with the speed of her movements. "It makes you who you are… It is why Carlisle loves you… It is why I care for you more than any woman I have ever known."

Edward. She leapt up and kissed me on the cheek. It was not a lover's kiss but a sister's kiss to her doting brother. But I felt it strike a deeper cord than that. It reminded me of my blurry human life and someone who used to kiss me that way. But those memories had failed as if the pencil in which they were drawn had become smudged irreparably.

Her hair bounced around her face and once again the hunter's grin returned to add to her striking beauty. How could she be perfect in complete serenity and yet hold an ever more true beauty crouched over those burly men? I leaned in to kiss Esme on the forehead and wrap my arm around her shoulder. She leaned into my side and returned the embrace with her pearly hand around my waist.

Never have I met anyone to compare to her.

The small town hospital was only a block away but it seemed forever at our human pace. Moving in slow motion made us appear natural and yet something entirely too graceful to be mortal. Neither Esme nor I wished to rush for we dreaded what would happen next.

We drifted in front of the crude brick building that breathed sterile, sick breath from the solid door of wood. The rotten smell that preludes death gripped this place through silently and seemingly dormant. The walls were pulsing with the many hearts held within; some thrummed unevenly and others with a healthy vigor.

We brushed the snow from a bench across the street barely able to maintain our distance from the enticing smell. We sat listening to the murmuring of voices waiting for Carlisle to notice us.

Twice Esme flinched as a heart started racing with excitement. Her nails would dig into my skin almost to the point of drawing blood. I sat silently listening to Carlisle's ever present thoughts. Ten years had familiarized me to them. His objective view had kept me sober this long because I knew how much he cared and what it would mean to him if I faltered. If I was heartless I would say that I was glad Esme broke first because then my break didn't look so horrific. But I cared too much and I knew what all of this meant. Sorrow gripped me, reminding me of the pain to come.

"Edward," Esme whispered across the stagnant air and indifferent snow. It was the first word she had spoken in a while. Her thoughts had returned to a memory of faces and I was sucked into the images. It reminded me so much of her turning seven years ago that for a moment her screams ripped through my head with perfect clarity. "Edward."

I blinked away the visions and looked back at her concerned face. A deep useless breath of air whistled into my long empty lungs as I moved to reply. Her scarlet eyes whipped away and I knew we had been found. Esme's head turned back and pleaded a tearless cry. She cast down the token of her shame so that Carlisle would not notice. He approached at a human pace with joy in his step. I stared at his smile with my tainted vision and remembered his forgiveness so quickly given. It was only when the smile sank did I realize I didn't want that forgiveness. I wanted an excuse. My tainted eyes glared unrepentant into his divine golden. Understanding over took the joy in a sudden battle within Carlisle's mind. His thoughts ran wild though his head with scenarios of how this could happen. They made me want to chuckle.

He approached the bench with a hard stare and lifted Esme's chin to gaze into the furnace. She mouthed I'm sorry and took his hand. I shuddered at his instantaneous desire to pull her to him. My glare became ever harsher because I knew he had already forgiven anything we could have done wrong.

This is my Esme, I love her. The thoughts echoed in his head as he pulled her into an embrace while murmuring that everything would be all right. How could this happen?

"Wait here," Carlisle said softly. He proceeded back into the hospital to tell them he was leaving early. I stared at his back with a venomous glare. I didn't know why I wanted to hate him so much. The nurse's mind went dull under Carlisle's influence and asked no questions. He returned quickly and led us to the edge of town wear we no longer had to pretend. If I had wished I could have arrived home before the other two even came close but I didn't want to leave Esme to take the blame.

Our most recent cottage was masked by the waves of snow but nothing deterred us. Minds racing, we all entered at a thunderous pace. The room fluttered in the wind as we stopped inside the door. "Esme, what happened," Carlisle whispered. His hands held her face and his eyes held hers. Obscenely impossible scenes developed in his mind and I couldn't help but chuckle viciously. The monster inside me saw its chance to break free of my carefully constructed bonds. I had strengthened it with the blood of men.

"Do you honestly believe those outrageous excuses you have fabricated within that deranged mind of yours Carlisle?" Something inside me snapped. My sanity ran through my fingers as I tried to remain whole. "Nothing could sneak up on us, nothing could find us. A blizzard thunders around us and these are your ideas. Ha! There is nothing wrong with what we did. It happened because we made it happen."

"What are you saying?"

Do it now! Dash all his hopes and break free of this life you never wanted. "We couldn't take it anymore… This… This life will destroy us. I don't have your control and neither does Esme. It was inevitable and you know it." The molten red within my eyes spread with uncontrollable fury, consuming my mind with anger. I drank in the fire with unabashed pleasure.

"Please, Edward," Esme begged. It was the only thing that could stop my rage. Her voice that has so often captivated my mind in even our darkest moments, called now to me in my ecstasy. I stepped back with sudden control. Carlisle was gaping at me with incredulous thoughts but his forgiveness remained strong.

"We came across a group of hunters. They had been caught in the blizzard a good twenty miles north. The snow was heavier there and the visibility was only a few inches," I began. "There had to be a dozen men, all of decent health."

"If the one hadn't started coughing blood we probably wouldn't have paid them much attention," Esme inserted.

"Speak for yourself because I was not about to walk away from that. Their blood was freezing in their veins. Damn it! They were dying already we just made use of their deaths."

Air filled my lungs at arbitrary intervals like broken bellows feeding a thriving fire. "Edward, everything is alright there is nothing to be sorry for. I'm sure your intentions were noble," Carlisle soothed.

I laughed, short and quick. "There was nothing noble about what I did, because you gave me a moral standard I didn't want. You are too right Carlisle. I wish I could feel sorrow right now. This is nothing like Elizabeth. Your forgiveness isn't wanted. My heart pains over this but not for your reasons. Esme truly wishes this never happened, that she never took those lives. I do ache fiercely but I do not regret one drop. My only sorrows are only that they might have been good men, and another feast like that won't come along again any time soon."

"I shouldn't have expected you to follow my standard. I'm sorry for any harm I have caused you Edward."

"You should have let me die ten years ago. Carlisle, you knew what this life offered…" This statement hurt him more than anything I could have said. It was an evil tactic but I was a monster and wasn't hurting Carlisle my intention?

"I never regretted saving you."

I looked away from his eyes. I felt Esme move toward me and take my hand. Her small form hugged me gently but I returned none of her affection. I couldn't leave them if I started showing my feelings now. I was the beast inside of me and it showed no mercy to my family. "I can't do this anymore."

"Don't say that," she whispered. Her face peered up at mine with mirror eyes.

"I can't." She would win me over if I let her.

"No."

"Esme." I pushed her away. I held her at arms length and looked to the door.

"I know you care. Edward, you love me, and you love Carlisle. You aren't going anywhere." Her demand was forceful and I felt her compassion try to restrain me, as if its mere presence erased the day's events. It tried to kill the monster with in me but Carlisle intervened.

"Let him go, Esme," Carlisle pulled her away from me. The monster in me flared into life but only because that was the part of me that wished she would come where the rest of me knew she wouldn't go. Esme would follow Carlisle to the end of the world. I had no hope to find anyone who would love me with such intensity.

I had to leave, to be alone. I turned to disappear with the speed that cut goodbyes short.

"Edward, be happy," Esme shook in Carlisle's arm. The monster staggered.

"You will always be my son, Edward and you are always welcome with us," Carlisle nodded his acceptance. I didn't look back at them once, but instead let the wind pull at my shirt as I raced for the trees. The familiar thoughts faded quickly as I trailed through the snow. The air pulsed with silence and every snow flake rippled in my ears. I could find it if I ran fast enough.

A strong scent drifted across the clearing in the gusts of wind. Esme's memories blazed strong before my eyes, painting a new picture across the field. Bodies stained the snow with rich color. The barren trees quivered in the wind, whistling their sorrows. I stood over them, death among the dead. The blood at my feet melted the snow and ran in bright rivulets down the drift. I remembered her smile at the first taste and mine at her appreciation. The moment was ours and I embraced its nature.

The seen faded and I was again searching the gray landscape hidden from the sun's eager rays. The perfect seclusion for murder.