Lady of My Night

Teeny Tiny Twilight

I sighed, watching the cracks in the road disappear under my car, a dull labyrinth of spider webs, intersecting each other, imaginary patterns to occupy my mind in the confines of humanity's monotony. This section of the city was better kept, black tar band-aids over the majority of the more severe fissures, while the rest of the minor blemishes were left to grow into more severe problems. The roads reflected the state of the city itself.

My windows were open, letting in the scents of my past, though the memories I had of this place were short. Carlisle hadn't wanted a new born running around the crowded streets of Chicago.

It had been so long ago too, while I had remained unchanged, making this new scenery even more foreign. My house was gone. The hospital my parents had died in had been so remodelled that only one wall of the original structure still remained. The biggest difference perhaps though, was the neighbourhood. As I passed in my sleek Volvo, drug dealers and junkies alike ducked out of the way of my headlights as if they were on coming traffic, melting back into the shadows like rumours and ghosts.

I didn't remember my human life, of course, but I recalled, as Carlisle and I had passed through a year or so after my turning, where the butcher and the baker used to sell goods. In their place were convince stores with bars over the windows and clubs that could just as easily pass for bars.

It wasn't nostalgia that had me roaming the streets today, though.

Jasper was suffering.

Two weeks without hunting, was not especially difficult for any of us, but Jasper hadn't lived our life for as long. He wasn't as practiced. So to flirt with fate, we had released him—unfed—into a close population of human bodies to see how he would fare.

But of course that was too easy. So rather than just let him into a crowd, we brought him into a population of hormonal young bodies, pumping with chaotic emotion, blood, and a disregard for the facade of our age. Their shallow attentions turned to the snare of our beauty instantly.

Today had been especially hard for Jasper, the first day back to school after Christmas vacation was always met with anticipation, nervousness, and a burning desire to please peers with new toys. Being accepted into the human world wasn't so hard as most of the children thought.

And now Jasper was trying to make amends for his less than benign attitude today towards us all, but especially to Alice. A harsh look in her direction haunted him for weeks, still trying to compensate for the life he lived previous to this one. I grimaced at the thought of enduring his self inflicted sentence with him for the next decade.

And of course it was to be mental.

With the fall of religious power in the last century or so, self inflicted physical torture was not something seen as noble any longer. People were committed nowadays.

I dragged in a deep breath of the human saturated air. These few hours in the buzzing of unfamiliar minds that didn't so easily intrude on my thoughts was not the time to stew in a particularly uncomfortable day.

Now if only I could move as fast as I desired, sharing the road as I was with the slower city traffic hindered my progress. I was practically crawling at forty-five miles an hour.

I assured myself that once I hit the freeway, I would drive as fast as my Volvo would allow. The thought alone was enough to make me smile.

Though driving wasn't quite as fun as running, there was a different kind of pleasure to the way the engine purred beneath me. It was additionally liberating in a narcissistic sort of way to breath in the blood of the humans I used to hunt, filtering as it did through the open window, hardly catching my attention. It was empowering to be able to deny something so deeply rooted into my nature. This was a vindictive pleasure today, not that Jasper ever had to know.

As I passed before an average looking night club with a few youth sitting out front, neon lights buzzing outside the building while a thudding bass trembled through the streets, a scent washed through the car.

I was born again.

Newly so.

It was like being thrown through concrete. Hit by a wreaking ball. Having thousands of tons of rock all collapse upon me at once. There was no image violent enough to compare to how the unbearably sweet scent ripped fire through my throat.

My teeth locked, eyes widening and all my senses were suddenly hyper aware.

I was hunting.

The fact that I was still in my car meant nothing, it hadn't even been a tenth of a second and I was just a mere three and a half feet from where the scent had first touched me. It was like I was standing in the shadows again with the sweet human blood of monsters—not unlike me—just inches from my hungry, razor sharp teeth. The feeling multiplied a hundred times over. A thousand times over. It was a never ending rage of fire against my suddenly arid throat.

The need was so profound that I stomped on the brake and had the scent not been diluted by the whipping air through my windows, I may have buried the pedal into the asphalt of the road under my Volvo. I just barely managed to control the muscle movement as it was. My tires screamed and I registered that two people nearly rear-ended me from my sudden stop.

Registered the information, and paid it no mind.

The whole of my mind was consumed with searching for the origin of the scent. Of finding the host to such a delicious fragrance.

There were no witnesses watching my scene, alerted by my protesting breaks. With my muscles already coiled and my throat a brilliant flame of desire, all the witnesses were already gone. They were merely the collateral damage. Each of these young children would die before the sun rose tomorrow. Before even a single hour was up.

For eighty years I had fought to keep the predator in me hidden behind that veil of humanity. It was laughable, truly sardonic how easily it rose above my many walls and barriers, like all that time wasted had been a sick joke thrown back at me. Had it all been pointless then? The great battle against myself to salvage what I no longer was?

How long had I lived and walked among humans, sure that they were safe from me now that I had decided to stop hunting them? Foolishly believing that simply deciding, making a conscious decision to stop, would really ensure their safety. Eighty, ninety years?

I had been sadly mistaken.

I was just as dangerous now as I had been when I was first created. Maybe more dangerous with all the hunting experience I now carried.

I would always be found in the rotting of the corpse, or the terror of a young child's eyes as they stared into darkness. I was the horror of murder, and the agony of recognition. I would always be the monster behind the mask.

It was as I looked to my left to get out of the car, to search and hunt for the scent and kill all the innocents, that I caught my reflection.

It froze me in my place, and most definitely saved lives.

The face I saw there was one I knew well and with an enormous amount of revulsion that came close enough to abhorrence that I was frozen, watching the hungry black eyes glare back at me. Eyes that would soon shine a brilliant demonic red for the horrendous crime I was about to commit.

No human had died at my hand for decades, and now, I was planning a massacre of innocents.

With out moving my head, I was able to count the different minds that stood on the sidewalk, absolutely unawares of the danger they were all in.

Seventeen. Seventeen young innocents. Each of them was focused mainly on my car and the occupant inside. Two, I already knew where prowling the night just as I was about to, though what they were hunting for were male suitors who would pay them for their sexual favours. The rest were just party goers in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I hoped desperately—as I continued to stare at the monster in the mirror who was already trying to pin point exact locations so no time would be wasted in the slaughter while I searched for the host of the wonderful scent—that the one that would die would be one of the prowlers. Maybe if I could just hold myself here long enough…just long enough for the innocents to walk far enough away that they wouldn't become witnesses….

I should have planned this before the scene I had caused. They had all stopped to watch me, and with the beautiful scent still thrashing me around, the wind blowing it my way and slowly making it more and more concentrated, I knew there was no possible way I would be able to linger that long. And what if the blood was of an innocent? I couldn't let them get away. I wasn't physically capable of it.

The monster in the mirror smiled in agreement. The smile was too wide, allowing all my teeth to shine dangerously. Glinting in the light from the orange tinted streetlights, sending aberrant, eight hued rainbows into the mirror, corrupted by the filthy light.

As disgusted with the face in the mirror as I was, as much as I struggled to cringe from the eyes that would soon burn a demonic crimson while my throat was soothed—I was planning the deaths.

I would have to strategically search through the humans, find which one it was that had been the catalyst of this black hour. And then they would all die.

A car whipped close by my car, honking at the obstacle in the road. The wind of its passage was enough to send guiltless, incorruptible air into the car. It gave me a breath of what I could save.

Maybe the hour didn't have to be so black. Maybe I could have just enough control to find them, to invite them into my car. Persuading humans was easy, even with things they had been taught from tender ages not to do.

Like climbing into a strange man's car.

It would be easier if they were female. I would be a poor lost stranger looking for directions. Perhaps I would take an interest in the doomed human and lead them back to my car with promises of kisses and coffee dates. A dark kiss at that, the very last one she would ever receive.

If it was a boy…that would make it more difficult. Perhaps I would insult him or take interest in the object of his affection and challenge him to a duel for her favoured regards. Lead him into a dark ally and escape with him before the others were able to pursue us. We would just disappear into the night.

My eyes were still black, dangerous, but I managed to compose my face so it looked normal enough.

Just a lost stranger.

I looked out the open window, getting ready to start my performance when something stopped me again.

The scene was different than the picture in my mind. The seventeen were exactly as I knew they would be by the orientation of their thoughts. That wasn't the problem that undermined my sure footing.

The problem was there were eighteen.

Slightly to the left of the doors leading into the club was a girl. The sensation unbalanced me, and for the first time since my change, I felt...dizzy. Was that the word to describe the feeling of unease, a confusion that made me question my orientation? What was more, was that—as most of the others were—she was staring into the car. Unlike the others, her expression was sharp, calculated. She watched the scene as I did, though I assumed our intentions differed vastly.

There was another unexpected turn of events. The silent mind was making its way over to the car. The girl was small, petite with large brown eyes that were odd. Odd in the way that they appeared too large and too deep. I could even see their depth in the darkness, something bright behind her eyes to lend her that pitch. She was actually quite plane, ordinary but for the eyes.

And the mind.

I was about to exit the car and ignore her, to carry on with my plan and head towards the grouping of younglings who stood watching the approach that could destroy my plan if I didn't put it into action soon. It would seem odd to ignore the help of this troublesome girl and then ask it of the others.

The wrench in my scheme was already too close. My throat was ravaged by another breath of this night's air. I would have to walk directly by her now and that would appear even more peculiar.

My steering wheel was groaning under the pressure that I was putting on it, trying to keep myself seated while I lied to the girl, to get rid of her so that I could start the hunt. I lessened my hold on the rickety piece of rubber, plastic and metal before I scared them all and needed to go with my original plan, the plan that left them dead in the streets while I fed.

It was only as I forced a smile and leaned over the passenger seat to speak more easily with the girl, it was only as she leant down by my window, only as I took a deep breath to speak that I realized this was perhaps the most pre-eminent plan yet.

My pray had come to me.

I locked all my muscles to keep from launching myself at her through the open window, witnesses be damned.

The girl smiled unawares, though her eyes lingered on my frozen smile a second longer then necessary before she spoke.

"You wouldn't happen to be interested in spending a night with me, would you?" She whispered, her voice was dripping with lustful promise, her voice rough. I was sure I saw her hands tremble where they were folded across the opening to the window slightly before disappearing from view. Her horribly sweet scent so strong that I tasted it on my tongue. So close.

This was even better than my pray coming to me.

This was not an innocent.

This was a whore.

She was a killer in her own right, stealing money from men in exchange of allowing them free reign of her body. She tore families apart and was the breeding ground for horrible diseases.

She was a monster, and I felt the small difference it made to me. Just one more rationally justified death. Or I could pretend it was rational. Could pretend that if she really were an innocent, I would have the strength to move my foot to the gas pedal, and drive away.

And then what? The only part of my mind that was even slightly coherent through the haze of her delicious blood asked. I could not face Carlisle after this, though I knew he wouldn't judge me for this sordid crime. I would have to prove to myself that nothing like this was to ever happen again.

My heart felt heavy with this new knowledge. I was going to let my father down. I was going to take another life and I would upset kind Carlisle and loving Esme and all because of one insignificant girl.

I hated her, I decided as she cocked her head slightly to the right, wonderingly at me.

I hated her with the blackest of loathing. What right had she to be walking this street this night? What right had she to have even been born? What gave her the power? It was criminal to commit such a ghastly crime against, not just my family, but her. Myself. The others who were still in so much danger.

My smile had slipped, and the loathing was apparent on my face now as I glared at this monster, sent from an opposing corner of hell as I to ruin me. All these years of dedicated work at being what Carlisle was—or trying to get close enough to make him proud to know that I was one of his coven, that his choice to turn me had not been a terrible mistake—had all been useless.

"Get in." I snarled while a stronger, much smaller part of my mind wanted to tell her to get out, to leave, and to never come near me again. But how long would I be able to leave her before the temptation was too much? Until I tracked her down? What if when we met again where there were more witnesses and less control? I couldn't even let her go now. Not if I wanted to.

There was no will here. No choice. I had to kill her.

The prostitute flinched slightly at my tone, and I saw that the shaking in her hands had become more apparent as she touched her hair self-consciously.

She took a step away from the window, and I wondered if I had scared her, if she would run. She wouldn't get far.

I'd kill her so quickly that there would be no more chance for fear, no chance for pain, and no chance for the small group who was fast loosing interest in us.

I only wanted to kill one tonight, if that was possible.

But all she had done was step away enough so she could open the door and sit inside the car with me.

The door closed, sending a concentrated storm of fire at me. My mouth was flooded with venom, it didn't dispel the dry ache in my throat or my parched mouth. I didn't do the windows up. That would be too much with her scent thick and rich inside the car now. I wouldn't be able to stop myself. The fact that I had enough control to keep from immediately pressing her throat to my lips was miraculous in itself.

I put the car in gear and took off, looking for a dark ally with no witnesses. No innocent deaths tonight.

The moment the car gained enough speed, I was blasted with warm to dilute the fire, and just as before, it gave me the smallest amount of space inside my clouded mind to think. The hot body warming my right side was of no help to my reasoning process.

A small point of reason managed to reach me.

Did I want to take her life?

No, I didn't.

Did I want to drink her blood?

More then anything I had ever wanted.

I would have combed the earth for this one girl had I known she existed. I would drink her now if there wasn't a women on the other side of me, staring at my lure. Would probably be already dead if not for the air rushing through the window. The woman across from us had slowed, sneaking glances at me, amazed at the perfect symmetry of my face, at the smoothness of my skin and the perfect proportions of my features.

What she saw: a beautiful man.

What she was seeing: a killer.

She would notice if I leaned over and began to drink. It didn't matter. I would not have the control to stop, to continue driving while I let myself have the pleasure of feeling her warm, thick, sweet—

Stop.

If I kept thinking about it, I wouldn't be able to keep myself in place.

The car in front of me carried two occupants. Both lost, their driving too slow. My fingers twitched with impatience, the heart next to me pounding a rhythm that didn't seem even, pumping blood through her veins too quickly. We were moving so slow now that the wind wasn't circulating nearly enough air. Her scent was filling the car.

I was going to drown in it.

All of my lanes were blocked, and as her heart pulsed again, another wave of heat and delicious temptation washed higher, thicker than the last. I considered jumping the curb to get around the sudden traffic.

If I didn't get her somewhere secluded soon, I would snap and all these humans would see. I would have to kill, hundreds maybe, on this suddenly busy street, and then have to find a way to dispose of the cars. That would only bring more attention, more deaths.

Just a little longer. I could hold myself in place for just a little longer.

My finger's twitched in impatience, a low growl building in my throat. Maybe not.

The distracted and lost couple in front of me sped up suddenly, too quickly, and hit the car in front of them. It was nothing major, but I heard a tail light shatter and hit the asphalt.

Oh no, oh God. We are going to be so late now. No way am I ever going to get that damn promotion now. And now the car….

I wondered how his priorities would change if I were to get out of the car now. If I were to tap on the window and explain my current position, my plans for the young girl in the car with me. Explain to him that in my current state of abandon, everyone was a potential victim.

The traffic stopped and I was trapped. My self control was quickly wasting away.

Just a little longer. Hardly a moment. Just long enough to turn into that ally up ahead.

I ran a hand through my hair, an aggravated habit that had started for human company. Possibly even something that had carried through my change with me. When the people started to get out of their cars I pinched the bridge of my nose.

Maybe killing all these humans wouldn't be such a tragedy.

I needed out of here. I needed to shed the last of my humanity and feed on the woman-child sitting beside me, watching my face with too curious eyes and a too silent mind. From the corner of my eye, it looked like she was struggling with a decision.

Aggravation added to the loathing that was a building heat inside me. Contrarily, it left me feeling more icy cold where its fires burned me. It should have been a pleasant relief from the other, much more potent burn in my throat. My teeth ground together as I tried to focus on something—anything—other than the scent.

I started to imagine it, the way her skin would feel when it was pressed against my lips, when my teeth pierced through the fragile membrane, so much like silk, and drew out the hot pulsing blood. The way it would taste

"Are you okay?"

The voice that had spoken was soft and quiet, not longer rough. I already knew where it came from. I worked to unlock my teeth and turned to look—to glare—at her for even having the nerve to pull the very air she breathed into her lungs to produce such a ludicrous question.

Was I okay? I was as okay as she was going to be in a short moment.

But as I gave her the darkest look I have ever parted with, a small hint of reality hit me as I looked into her eyes again. They were different now, still deep and dark, but they were pulled in real concern for me rather than the cool intelligence I had seen before. For a stranger no less, that had done nothing to deserve her bother. The lack of knowledge did more than unsettle me, it seemed to pull out my footing.

The light that fell through the windshield—light from the full moon—fell on her skin and I saw just how translucent it was, it looked so delicate with the dark pulsing just under the surface, as if just to lightly touch her skin would make it give way….

My throat flamed with vicious need. Reality fuelled the hate to a staggering degree.

I looked back out the window. "Fine." My throat was just as decadent as it had ever been, but there was only the faintest growl in my voice. An effect of my temper.

The addlepate parade who hadn't considered all the traffic they were holding up with their information exchange was finally climbing back into their cars and I was ready to hit the gas. The irritation continued to climb as I wondered why the small, delicate girl didn't run while the car was stopped. Not that I would let her get far, but she had to have some inkling of the danger she was in.

I was starting to question what I had assumed was shrewd astuteness I had observed before.

What was she thinking now that left her sitting beside the one who would take her life? Wasshe scared, or was she truly ignorant to what lay beneath my icy glare? Why weren't her instincts making her fidget nervously beside me?

I looked at her again to find her studding my face in spite of everything, looking like she was trying to read something off my features when it was her eyes that were opaque. When I caught her eye, she blushed and quickly looked down.

The irony of how clear that single thought was, at being caught staring at the rude stranger, while my mind automatically probed the space her mind should be was biting—no pun intended.

The easy pooling of blood just beneath her skin did nothing to help my control. The fact that I was so close helped nothing. It felt like we were alone here in the dark, it would be pathetically simple to just kill her now.

I was still on the road though, and I wanted to lose myself fully in this. If I would torture myself later for her murder, then I was going to thoroughly enjoy it with no distractions. It took everything in my power to keep my coiled muscles from springing onto the girl.

The girl—and I realized I still didn't even know the name of the one I was about to kill—looked up, and smiled. I saw that the look was confident, but there was a slight concave curve to her shoulders that resembled her trying to protect herself. I realized I was still glaring at her, making her uncomfortable, unsure.

There was a sudden flash of anxiousness in myself as I realized I had no idea what she was about to do. I had never encountered anything like her mind, and it was unnerving not knowing what was happening.

She moved closer to me. My nostrils flared, my hands tightening on the wheel. Was she insane? Had she lost her mind? Was she purposely undermining my control?

She avoided my eyes quickly as my expression darkened again, then she unbuckled her seat belt and ducked under my arm—still rigidly gripping the steering wheel to save her a few more measly moments on the earth.

The button on my trousers popped open and my eyes widened with comprehension.

"Miss?" I asked quickly as my zipped slid down. I would have moved to push her away if I hadn't known that unclenching my hands now, to touch her, would invariably be the death of her. There was no way that I could touch her, feel the boiling blood under the surface of her translucent skin and not bring that skin to my lips. Not crush her slight bones in my uncontrolled hands.

How was it that I was suddenly the very helpless one here?

My eyes narrowed at the dark road ahead of me when she didn't answer me. The back of the girl's hand brushed my abdomen, and all my muscles clenched.

An electric jolt flashed through my body, followed quickly by a searing heat that left my skin warm, the inflicted skin tingling painlessly. The physical feeling her touch created was in direct opposition with the hate that her being created.

The girl gasped too, started and yanking her hand back quickly from where it had made contact with my icy flesh. The temperature, the icy smooth texture of my skin, had started her.

I hadn't thought of a story that would adequately describe why skin that should be warm, no matter the circumstances, was chilled.

I made one up on the spot. "Sorry." I managed—more apologetic than anyone could ever know—"I have a lot of calcium in my skin, it doesn't get as much blood as it should." I was about to continue, to sell her fully on this lie when I realized it wouldn't matter much in a few minutes. She wouldn't be walking away to tell the story.

She craned her long, graceful, tempting neck to bob her head in a quick nod, her eyes still wide with surprise. The full, shape of her lips—absolutely unbalanced—entranced me for a short dull moment. The way one might stare a second longer than necessary at a crooked picture frame. Then she removed the last article of clothing between her hot, tingling skin, and own my icy dead flesh.

Or it had been dead. Now it seemed full of life, a purely physical relish of her company. I burned, I tingled, I dehydrated. I seemed to be falling appart on the spot.

I gave a low growl of frustration. I had expected that contact with my alien skin would have turned her off of such activities. But, in a loutish way that I was embarrassed of, I wanted to feel her touch again. The place her hand had brushed my skin was still tingling slightly in a wonderfully pleasant way.

I sighed, frustrated with myself just as much as her. "Miss, please, I don't—"I gasped, my head falling back on the head rest and my jaw falling slack as a pleasure I have never known consumed me so fully that for one moment, I almost forgot her blood. "—Ah."My hips jerked up, and her hands—warm enough to instantly feel through my jean clad legs—tried to push me back down.

This feeling, this brilliant warmth, oddly enough was the antidote to the fire raging in my dry, aching throat. The fire was soothed, along with the constant gush of voices I had been tuning out.

The sweltering moistness of her mouth was enough to sooth my coiled muscles. Deaths, murder, destruction, fury. It all disappeared, what was left were their antonyms. And then it was like someone had ripped the roof of my car off and I could see the sky beautifully unhindered.

Stars danced in front of my eyes.

The girl pulled away, and I saw through the corner of my eye that she looked a little…smug. She wiped the back of her hand across her lips, the back of her hand shimmering with my release."Better?"

I swallowed the venom in my mouth as the pleasure faded and the burn slowly started to return. "Much." My whole dead body felt like it was alive again, like the electricity that I had tasted in her touch was buzzing through my body, leaving warm tingles wherever it touched beneath my skin.

When I stayed frozen where I was, my eyes closed as I revelled in the fast dissipating feeling, the girl laughed quietly beside me, and zipped my pants up again.

There was a loud impatient honk behind us. I looked up, startled to see that the road before me was empty but for a few small triangles of the orange plastic from the broken tail light still littering the dark asphalt.

Move, Dammit! What now?....

Fucking teenagers, figures. This is why I keep telling....

I was the one holding traffic up now. I stepped on the gas and we shot forward just as the stop light changed from green to amber.

"What's your name?" I whispered as we ran a stop sign in my frantic search. Not for a dark ally now. That would come later. Now I needed a place were I could further explore her services.

The whole of my rational being cringed, my stomach knotted in sickness. I wanted to climb out of my body. Wanted to put a barrier of flesh between these sick desires, and what I knew was right. Her pulse continued to warm me, each beat like a physical strike against my skin.

I'm here. The warmth taunted, I'm here and I'm so close. I didn't know what of her was calling to me now. Her blood? Her body?

It went against the morals that had been instilled in me. If I had gone to see a lady of the night when my parents were alive, it would have shamed my name.

It still would.

"Chime."

My eyes closed as a new kind of sickness set in, riddling me with diseases. There was not just one monster occupying my mind now. There were two.

One was the one I had been battling since my change; I thought I known how to beat down that foe—for the most part—until this night.

The new monster was less callous, but more unfamiliar. Harder to control. Harder to dissuade when all it asked for was a touch. To simply touch her hair, or bring her hand back to the seam of my jeans. Her scent filled everything corner, seeping into my impenetrable flesh, exciting me in new ways.

"Chime?" I wondered sceptically. Then I remembered that many prostitutes created a false name for themselves.

Though Chime heard the scepticism she just looked out the window. "Mhmm."

"Do you have a last name?" I wondered, this ruse was an enjoyable distraction. I had a false name too, though my family would argue that ferociously. My true name before I had become a Cullen had been Masen. The change was a tribute to the loss of my humanity.

Chime hesitated for a moment. "Fowl."

I raised my eyebrows at her, before dropping them and turning into a hotel. I nearly groaned at the cliché, but Chime made no sound.

I regretted the short game I had played with her. It was one thing to kill a charming serial killer, it was another to kill this girl who was surprisingly agreeable in a genuine way.

I took a breath and that thought turned to ash.

There was no possible way that she would live through the copulation, though I would try to keep her alive for as long as was possible. The reason was not noble. It would simply be a shame to let her blood cool while I was so thoroughly distracted.

Killing her first was out of the question too, I doubted I would feel the same satisfaction from a corpse.

I wasn't even shocked at the callousness of my thoughts anymore. This woman easily dragged out the very worst of me.

I exited the car, only to find that she was already opening her door and stumbling out on unsure legs, more than willing to follow me without being asked. She gave me a bright fake smile that I didn't return. I turned and walked through the front doors, keeping careful tabs on her in case, in a moment of insight—of intelligence—she decided to run.

She didn't.

There was a man behind a counter decorated with brilliant orange specks and lime green plastic background. A seventies induced shudder moved through me. Then, with out pausing, I grabbed a key off the counter and replaced it with a bill.

"Hey you can't…" Oh my god, who caries bills this big? "Enjoy your stay!"

I started a pace that had Chime jogging unsteadily to keep up. Her face told a story in its blankness. This was routine for her, she was used to being hustled into hotel rooms quickly and unceremoniously.

This all seemed almost…dreamlike—if that was possible for one who hadn't dreamt in decades. I couldn't truly believe that what was happening was real. I was hurrying a strange girl into a cheap hotel room, not knowing her real name, or her knowing mine. I would never have condoned myself of this kind of behaviour before tonight. I couldn't believe I was doing it now.

I peeked at the fading number on the rounded plastic that was attached to the key and sighed when I realized how close the room was. Lucky. Or unlucky depending on which way you looked at it.

The new monster in my mind celebrated how close victory was, while the older monster waited patiently for his own turn. I couldn't find me anymore in this parade of vices. Carlisle's face was just a dim picture in my mind I couldn't quite call forward.

I almost darted right by the room, and I stopped so suddenly that a warm, soft pressure thumped into my back.

Instinctively, my hand shot out to balance her. The only gentlemanly courtesy I had shown her tonight.

The moment our skin made contact, a brilliant fire shot through my throat and fashioned a brilliant carnal need behind my black eyes. I grabbed her and nearly threw her into the room in my efforts to keep from just taking her. I tried very, very hard to be gentle with her, to not break any of her very delicate bones, but all I wanted to do was crush her against me. The two conflicting desires, plus the war to take myself back was too much of a distraction to keep me grounded long enough to think anything through.

Chime was on the bed then, and she understood part of my anxiousness, quickly stripping out of her clothes with a halfway worried expression on her face as she watched my frantic pace.

My clothes were off as quickly as my human charade allowed. Old habits warring with my muddled mind.

I was on the bed in the next second. There were no sweet, loving kisses as I had imagined my first act of love would have entailed. The monster that yearned for her blood would not allow it, while the monster that lusted for her body desperately wished for it.

I was between her legs—perpendicular to her on my knees to keep as much space between her throat and my mouth—so quickly that she hardly had time to take her last garment off. "Wait, wait!" She cried, trying to put some distance between us.

The small sliver of the gentleman I had been just hours before barely made it through to let her push me a few inches away from her warm little body. I waited impatiently while she handed me a small foiled square from her small fist. I hadn't looked at her body at all but for the soft flesh of her sex, her legs.

In all of this, it just didn't seem right.

My eyes narrowed and I made another attempt to gain entrance. I was already between her legs, so she couldn't close them to me. Instead she cupped her sex to stop my entry.

I glared fiercely at her—skipping over her breasts quickly—with so much white hot hate it should have burned her and left her cold, shocking her into stillness and submissiveness.

Humans all reacted the same way to fear, to the way our eyes that could look so much like theirs could be so predatorily as well. Instead of flinching away, or retracting her hand to give me what I wanted as I expected, she glared fiercely back at me.

I felt unsteady again.

"I don't have many rules, but this is a big one. I'm not getting pregnant or catching anything. Put it on." I finally realized what trivial human thing she had been wrestling with. A condom.

Absolutely pointless. I was sterile and a virgin, there was nothing I could give her, but she didn't look like she would back down from this, and rape was not something I wished to add to my long list of errs.

"You have to be kidding me." She muttered under her breath as I read the instructions on the package quickly.

When met with such thoughts, I had always rapidly skipped from the mind. Now though, I had no experience to call on. "Shh." I managed while I unrolled the rubber circle onto myself. And then her hand disappeared and I was inside her.

As my flesh encountered her tight walls, I seemed to expand to fill every inch of my body. Every inch of hers. I couldn't find the shame here, couldn't feel the burn her blood enticed but for where her skin met mine. I was fully aware of the delicate silk under my fingers as I held her body, hand splaying curiously across her abdomen as I rock in her experimentally.

It was…there were no words. I sighed; there was so little effort to the force I needed to move inside her. It was so perfectly calculated that I could almost convince myself that it was instinct. I knew, if I so pleased, I could find a greater pleasure from the warm, delicate skin that so easily gave way for mine. I knew it just as I knew that if I leaned forward and drank, I could feel her blood warm my throat. I did neither for the same reason.

I wanted her to keep.

So this was what the whole fuss had been about. I now understood the sickening fascination with sex.

Warm legs wrapped around my waist then, pulling me deeper, a moan. All sense of reason was lost and I grabbed onto her, the new friction the movement had created made me see stars again, but this was all leading to something far more profound than just the night sky. Something big was coming.

My world exploded into a brilliance of light.

And terror.

A sudden surge of emotion overtook me. A crushing weight seemed to settle around me, my chest carrying the brunt of it. The feeling terrified me, but through my panic, I felt it seemed familiar, from a different life were it wouldn't be uncommon to have to fight to breathe. To have to need the breath at all.

The understanding came then, of a trying to keep my head above the water, of feeling it crush down and fight to push through my lips and down my throat. Drowning.

I was drowning in the open air.

The pleasure faded as I continued to choke. As an immortal, could I drown?

The terror was enough to overpower the thirst that was reviving itself. I jumped away from the girl, for surely this sensation of dying originated from her. There was no other explanation.

I pulled my clothes on quickly, while Chime lay on the bed still. She quickly sat up, one leg raised to hide her heaving chest from me in a self-conscious gesture. Her eyes were imploring, asking me silent questions that I couldn't hear. Couldn't answer.

It seemed to finally dawn on her as I was heading for the door that I had left her alive…and she, apparently, wasn't having that.

"Wait! I need to be paid." She finally spoke just as I was fleeing, away from her and her alien sensations.

I didn't know her charge, nor did I have the ability to stop even for a short second to find out. For the first time since I had been turned, I was actually scared of something other than what I was capable of. I was still drowning though I'd put all of three meters between our bodies.

I threw my whole wallet into the room and shut the door, making a run for it. I dropped the human façade and bolted down the stairs, passing the empty counter. The man had disappeared to hide the bill in a safe place.

I was out in the parking lot in less than three seconds.

No minds were aware of my sudden materialization outside my car. I was about to climb in and put more distance between us, to run as far from the girl who seemed capable of switching our roles—predator and prey—when I felt the hair on the back of my neck tingle.

I did have the strangest sensation of being watched though I felt no intrusion onto my mind.

The suspicion—the thought alone—made a sick, ice cold dread churn in my stomach before trickling down through my empty veins and reaching out into my muscles, pulling them tight. As I turned to glance over the empty illuminated squares of empty window through the nearly barren hallway I caught the chillingly discordant sight of two very wide brown eyes staring at me with shock through the frame of a window.

I met her eyes, and a terror filled voice cried, 'Run'.

I climbed into my car and hit the gas.

I needed to disappear.

I needed to disappear, Now.