CHAPTER THREE:
Half-a-Vamp, give or take some DNA
The garage was a deep concrete jungle, cluttered with spare tires, gas cans, electric tools and a huge stereo system, compliments of Emmett. It could have easily served as an average sized house on its own but instead was built to hold the Cullen's massive collection of exotic and expensive vehicles. Carlisle moved swiftly with Esme by his side to where Rosalie was standing against the far wall. She was frozen, starring down at a small girl who was huddled in the corner of the garage, looking shaken and terrified. Emmett had apparently picked up the tarp she was hiding in and tossed it, less then gently, into the corner of the garage to make room to rearrange the cars Rosalie was about to work on.
The girl crouched, frozen somewhere between huddling in the fetal position and meaning to sprint from the garage. Edward and Bella motioned to Carlisle to do something, he was the doctor after all; people usually trusted him. He stepped forward tentatively, hands extended to reach for the girl and that's when her daze seemed to snap and she disappeared, sprinting between Emmett and Rosalie like a flash of lightning. She darted quickly for a child, the vampire family noted, whizzing between the vehicles and towards the door. Edward was faster though and he blocked her way. Her green eyes froze like the flat plane of a puddle about to be jumped in. She skidded to a halt as Edward made a grab for her.
Somehow she managed to avoid his vampire reflexes which startled him, though he made no mention of it at that moment. The girl doubled back around Emmett's jeep, clipping her shoulder on the side-view mirror of the Volvo, attempting to get to the side door that opened onto a deck surrounded by miles of secluded forest, but Esme and Carlisle had moved to block her there. She winced, gripping her throbbing shoulder, spinning in a circle, looking from each beautiful pale face to the next.
The girl looked like a deer caught in the headlights of a massive transport trailer, or better yet, like a deer that had been caught off guard by a thirsty vampire. Rosalie felt the vulnerability emanating from the girl and she reached out to touch her arm reassuringly. They were not going to hurt her, but it wasn't everyday a child showed up in their house. They never had anyone so small or precious around, especially now that Renesmee was fully grown.
But as Rose reached out, the girl went as rigid as a statue and then fell limp. Her eyes rolled back until only the whites were showing. It was creepy, even to a bunch of vampires whose eyes could vary from black to gold and even a deep shade of crimson if they had an 'accident': as in accidently drinking human blood, opposed to their usual vegetarian diet of animal blood. The girl seemed to topple in slow motion, but before she could hit the ground, Emmett had his massive hand under her, supporting her entire body weight on the palms of his fingers. Swiftly he picked her up and cradled her in his arms.
They took her inside to find that Alice had already made a spot for her on the couch.
"What happened?" Emmett mumbled looking at Carlisle, his unspoken words almost seemed to helplessly say do something to the seasoned doctor of the family.
"I think she fainted, poor thing, she's so weak," Rosalie said, clutching the girl's thin fingers gently in her own. They felt like brittle twigs that could be snapped easily from high up branches of the pine trees that surrounded the house. It frightened Rosalie to think of how breakable the girl was and she immediately released her hand.
Carlisle nodded. "She may be in shock. It could be stress induced. She looks really malnourished."
"Do you think she's homeless?" Bella asked, looking at the girls clothes. Her thin jacket was torn, frayed at the sleeves and her jeans had obvious rips over the knees, covered in thick layers of mud, as if she had fallen and skidded across the ground many times. Her running shoes were worn down, almost to the soles and there was a hole where the sock surrounding her pinky toe would touch the cold hard ground as she walked.
"Possibly," Carlisle nodded. He had seen street kinds like her before over the years of working as a doctor. Her pale skin, sunken eyes and chapped lips spoke of dehydration. There was a layer of filth covering her entire body, as if she was in need of a good scrubbing. Her eyes had a thin crust around them, probably attributed to many sleepless, tearful nights. The tight ringlets that framed her heart-shaped face looked as if they may have once been a pale white-blonde, but the grime shadowed the colour making it more of a greyish-brown. But despite all that, the little girl was strikingly beautiful, almost angel-like.
Emmett laid the girl carefully on the couch. She was tiny, not just in height but stature. Rosalie noticed the way her ribs were visible through the thin shirt whenever the little girl took a breath, which wasn't as often as it should have been. At first Rosalie thought something was wrong and asked Carlisle. With a knowing nod Carlisle placed his hand against the little girl's sternum and felt for the rise and fall of her chest while watching the second hand of his watch. For five minutes the family sat in an eerie silence. No one moved. The ticking of Carlisle's wrist watch and the shallow breathing from the little girl seemed to rattle like thunder in the still house.
"Odd," Carlisle said.
"What is?" Rosalie asked, frowning slightly.
"Well, the average adult should take between 12 and 20 breaths every minute. A child should take more because their lungs are smaller. But she has only taken five breaths in the five minutes I have watched her. One per minute," Carlisle clarified, more to himself than anyone.
"Is that bad?" Alice inquired, leaning past Jasper for a better view of the girl. She nodded as if confirming a vision to herself.
"It is unusual. I can't possibly see how her body is being provided with enough oxygen, but she doesn't seem to be in any type of respiratory distress. Her colour is good, there's no blue tinge around her lips or nail beds." Carlisle squeezed the little girl's nail. It turned white under the pressure of his finger then red again as he released it. "Her capillary refill is normal," he stated. "Let me get my bag and I'll check her oxygen saturation just to be sure." Carlisle disappeared up the stairs to his office.
Esme moved to sit on the couch by the little girl's feet. She let her hand trail down the girl's arm. "She's freezing."
"We'll get one of the quilts from the cupboard," Alice offered as she and Jasper disappeared.
Edward could hear them having a heated conversation about something but they returned after another second, and Alice was trying to hide whatever she had been thinking about earlier. Stay out of my head Edward. Her silent order made Edward frown and all the more curious about what Alice had seen. Edward shook his head, shrugged and then turned back to Carlisle as he appeared suddenly with an SPO2 monitor. He attached the free end to the girl's index finger and waited for the monitor to beep with a reading.
"Her heartbeat is strange, but her pulse is fine. Is that normal?" Edward asked Carlisle while they waited. They could all unmistakably hear the patter of her heart, buzzing like the wings of a hummingbird, so fast that it almost made no sound at all, definitely not the usual lub-dub of the average human, but with their keen vampire senses it was hard to miss. Carlisle didn't respond right away because the SPO2 monitor had finally beeped. It read out a bright red 97%, well within the normal range.
"No, her heartbeat is unlike any irregularity caused by human disease or infirmity. In some ways, it is almost like Renesmee's."
The way Carlisle said human disease and the stark comparison he made to Renesmee, made the family turn to the little girl on the couch, and it might have been the way the light hit her face or the angle at which her head was tilted, but all at once they knew the girl before them was not completely human.
"So, if she is part vampire, how did she end up here?" Rose murmured. She had been sitting on the arm of the couch, above the girls head. She felt an unrelenting need to move closer but was afraid of hurting her; she was so fragile looking, like a china doll.
"Alice?" Edward asked, blatantly expecting an explanation.
She shrugged.
"I only knew we might have met up with her. But most of my visions had us running into her in the woods on our way to hunt. We probably would have run into her if Edward would have conceded to leave the house before hearing from Renesmee. But there's a storm blowing in, Emmett left the garage door open, she was probably looking for shelter, somewhere to spend the night," Alice shrugged again like it was a completely logical and obvious explanation.
"Have you seen anything else?" Carlisle asked.
Alice looked guiltily from Emmett, Rosalie, then to Edward. She had seen some things. "Stay out of my head," she shouted at Edward, then started mentally translating an English prayer into Latin. "I don't want to say anything yet." She looked at the worried expressions of her family. "It's nothing bad, I just want to let whatever is going to occur happen by itself, okay? I don't want to force anything along that isn't meant to be. Please Edward, stop!" Alice pushed her hands to her temples, groaning and then raced up the stairs, slamming her bedroom door with more force than necessary.
Esme shuddered as the chandelier over the table shook from the force.
"Jasper?" Carlisle asked, attempting to get some clarification.
He smirked, and then shrugged, "Sorry. The lady has spoken." He flew up the stairs, disappearing after Alice, though he managed not to slam the door and Esme was pleased.
The remaining Cullen's sat with perplexed expressions, entranced by the girl and Alice's actions.
"What was that about?" Carlisle wondered aloud.
"I wish I knew," Edward said. "I hate when she does that. She fills her head with so much information it's impossible to read anything. It's almost as bad a looking at Bella and getting nothing but a solid black wall."
Bella shrugged. "She'll tell you when she's ready. So long as it's nothing bad, why worry?"
Esme nodded in agreement. Emmett stood behind Rosalie with his arms crossed. "Well what do we do with the girl? When she wakes up I mean."
Carlisle pursed his lips. "Well, the least we can do is give her something to eat and maybe she'll be able to tell us where she came from. If she's part vampire like Renesmee, she must have at least one immortal parent."
"Unless they're dead," Rose shrugged absently.
"Yes, that could be the case. Maybe we can help her get wherever it was that she was trying to go."
"She could stay with us for a while," Esme almost pleaded. "If she is like Renesmee, there is no need to hide what we are from her."
Carlisle wondered aloud.
"What is it?" Edward asked.
"Well, it's just that she seems to have some of the qualities Nessie has: the vampire beauty, the quickened heartbeat. She breathes less than a normal child, but at the same time, these things are less prominent then they were with Nessie. Is it possible that this child is less that half-vampire?"
"How would that be possible, Carlisle? How could she be a part-of-a-part vampire?"
"I don't know, it just seems as if the qualities that make her like us are faded." Carlisle opened one of the girl's eyes to check her pupils. "You see, green eyes, with just the hint of crimson lining the edges. It would be almost unnoticeable to a human, unless they knew exactly what they were looking for."
"So you're saying this girl is like one quarter vampire?" Bella asked confused. It didn't make sense.
"I don't know," Carlisle confessed. "I just felt as if I was starting to understand how Renesmee's DNA functioned. This child seems different in many ways and yet, similar. I would love to talk to her, find out about her life, about her habits, if she lives on blood, if she's venomous? It would be wonderful to have something to compare Renesmee's data to."
"What if she doesn't know she's part vampire?" Rosalie asked, looking particularly worried. The girl began to stir. "Maybe that's why she was so afraid of us."
"No, she was probably afraid of the incredible hulk over there who chucked her across the garage," Bella said nodding at Emmett. He sneered in an oh very funny type of way.
"Well, either way," Edward began. "We're about to find out."
Long dark eyelashes began to flutter as the girl stirred, and suddenly her bright green eyes shot open, only to see eyes of brilliant gold looking back at her. Many pairs of eyes. For a second she wondered if she was in heaven but then noticed her shoulder hurt and she could remember running from these pale strangers. She should never have broken in. It was a mistake.
"Hello, little one," Carlisle said softly, kneeling beside the girl. He placed his hand on her forehead. The girl squirmed under his touch. "You gave us quite a scare," he said smiling gently.
Evelyn felt a shiver zip down her spine, but it wasn't because she was scared.
"Can you tell us your name?" Rosalie asked gently. The bright green eyes jumped up to meet her own and Rose felt her stomach do a little flip. It was a strange feeling that she couldn't place.
Evelyn refused to answer, but instead looked at Carlisle. "You're hands are cold," she said. Carlisle's eyes meet Edwards.
"Sorry, it must be cold in here," Carlisle forced a smile.
"No, it's warm in here. It's was just your hands."
Carlisle swallowed out of habit. Patients at the hospital always told him he had cold hands, but they were normally too obsessed with his beauty to care. His eyes grazed Esme's face. She had the tiniest hint of a grin on her lips. Just like Carlisle, she couldn't tell if the girl knew about vampires or not. Or if she could tell that they were vampires.
"Your skin is hard like ice," the girl pressed. It wasn't a question, but a statement. She reached out quickly to touch Rose's hand, which rested on the arm of the couch above her head. Rose felt herself jump at the warmness of the girl, whose hand flew back to her side in an inhuman flash. "I knew it," the girl said. "You're all cold like glass." Evelyn had a bright flash from the past, feeling the frozen glass like grip of the vampire that ripped her from her mother's womb.
Bella moved closer to examine the girl. She was sitting up now, with her knees drawn into her stomach. Her eyes darted wildly between them. Evelyn had never seen another vampire except in her memories. She didn't even know what to expect from a real life vampire. She didn't know if these people were real vampires, but her instincts told her they were not human. They were like what her mother had become, but in some ways they were different, she just didn't know how to put it into words.
"I've meet people like you before," Evelyn whispered, more to herself than anything. Bella raised her eyebrows at Edward. Evelyn began shaking her head. "What are you?" she asked blatantly, looking up at the Cullen's with questioning, almost accusing eyes.
"What do you think we are?" Carlisle asked, waiting for her response.
"A monster, just like me," the little girl said flatly. But she tilted her head as if she didn't believe it herself.