12.

He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.

– Samuel Johnson

…

Bella

…

On the road, I couldn't tear my eyes from the endless scenery, fascinating to watch through my new eyes. Sunlight reflected sharply off metal mailboxes, buzzards circled over a pile of roadkill, and rows of birds perched on power lines above.

Peter asked me questions about my past as we drove, he and I in the front seat, Jasper lying in the back crosswise. Jasper focused on the notebook in his lap. I tried and failed to make out his scrawled writing through my side mirror, curious.

I told Peter about how I hadn't seen my dad in three years, and all I left was a note; and he told me how little he remembered from his human life, how all he remembered was blood and Maria's never-ending nightmare.

My human memories felt like dreams, like how everything looks kind of underwater and deranged when you're all fucked up (like I'd seen those terrible nights last year at my neighbor's apartment, with my bottles of pills and liquor) but the emotions churning in my chest were sharply real. Guilt, dread, and loving nostalgia.

Peter asked about my life, how I'd ended up on that street with him the first time we'd met. I finally put into words everything I'd kept to myself since my exile from Forks. The whole time, I'd had no one to talk to, be honest with, who wouldn't think I was completely fucking crazy with my ridiculous story of vegetarian vampires and shape-shifting Native Americans.

I felt like I could finally exhale the breath I'd been holding for years – leaving Forks, then arriving alone in a new city, terrified and powerless – but finally now maybe I'd found my place. Being with Peter felt effortless and natural.

After a few hours of passing desert scenery, scratchy radio music, and effortless conversation, my thirst began to grow, the tickling flames in my throat becoming too much.

"I think I should hunt soon…" I murmured to Peter, who nodded and rubbed a palm over his jaw, thinking. His red eyes were bright, excited as he looked over at me.

"I have a few ideas."

As the prospect of blood, hot and sweet and human, overtook my mind, Peter finally pulled the car off the road into the parking lot of a run-down building. A neon sign out front screamed "The Landing Strip."

"Strip club?' I asked with an incredulous laugh.

"Ever been before?" Peter only grinned mischievously.

"No!" My voice was indignant, but I was kind of curious… I'd never been inside a strip club before. Not that I'd ever really wanted to. When I'd first left Forks, I'd wondered how I would make money, where to find a job. I knew I was young and pretty enough to strip… but my general disgust for the profession and my ever-present clumsiness led me to nix that idea pretty quickly. Thank God it had never come to that.

I followed Jasper and Peter into the darkened club. With peeling paint and dingy floors, the club was a complete dive.

The room was noisy with pounding pop and rap music in time with the flashing lights, and the men's shouts, taunts, catcalls. Too many leering eyes followed me as I took a seat at the bar next to Peter and Jasper. The two of them turned toward the stage, to the women contorting themselves around mirrored poles, but I could see Peter's eyes scanning the crowd.

The crowded room smelled like baby powder, sweat, and stale beer – repulsive, if not for the pervasive aroma of blood, pumping away in the graceful, naked women, twirling, stretching, crawling, and in the men grouped around the stage in low chairs, lust in their eyes.

I watched the women dancing, the flashing lights illuminating their curves, fake boobs and flat stomachs. They writhed to the beat of the music, and as I watched, thirst and desire sparked through me and my mind refocused. I looked around, noticing a group of guys hassling a cocktail waitress across the room, grabbing her ass and leering. A dirty-looking blond guy noticed me staring and gave me a smirking nod.

My throat burned as I breathed in all the scents… blood, hot and tangy with alcohol and sometimes a chemical edge. Like a predator, a plan rose up in my mind. "So if we can still get high… can we still get drunk?" I laughed at both Peter and Jasper's excited faces – guess we can.

"You bet!" Peter affirmed, folding his arms across his chest. "Takes a helluva lot a liquor, but it can be done."

"Like how much?"

"Order us a bottle."

I grinned and leaned toward the bar, looking for the bartender. A girl in lingerie clattered over in mile-high heels. I ordered a bottle of whiskey and three glasses, and Peter threw down a handful of twenties.

After pouring them out, a toast: "To new beginnings?" The glasses clinked together, then the liquor burned and fumed down my throat. Ugh. Still disgusting.

Half the bottle later, my lips were started to feel pleasantly numb, when some of the obnoxious guys came up to the bar for drinks. I could hear them commenting on my 'fine ass' and 'DSLs' – they were totally right, but come on. Peter and Jasper just eyed them warily. One of them, the blond guy, shouted over the stripper music: "what up, slut? Why ain't you up on stage?"

I smirked. He was totally asking for trouble. "What?" Feigning stupid innocence, I adopted a vacant bimbo look.

"Damn, bitch –" before he had the misfortune to finish that thought, Peter stood, grabbed the dude by the throat, and pushed him violently away. His pack of tanned and muscly friends caught him, and looked to retaliate, but thought better of it when they saw Peter and Jasper's intimidating stance.

I gave Peter a quick kiss and a smile then sauntered away slowly, trying to harness my feminine wiles and look alluring for once. Past the group of asshole guys, I strutted toward a darkened hallway in the back corner of the club, turned a corner and went through a back exit to the back of the building. I heard a heartbeat behind me, and the blond guy who'd nodded at me before followed out the door. I breathed in deeply as he stepped outside.

He gave me a nod and lit up a cigarette. I adopted a smokin' seductive look (I hoped) and asked to bum one. He held out a cigarette, but then snatched it back when I reached out. He laughed then stepped closer and pulled it back again, shaking his head at my feigned clumsiness.

I let him crowd me back against the wall. He put his hand to my chest, then slid it down to cup my ass. I pushed him away slightly. "What the hell!"

But then he slapped me across the face and said, "bitch, shut the fuck up. You know you want it."

He pushed his body against me, his belt buckle sharp against my stomach, and my alarms went off – too close. Angry and fearful, I pulled him forward, bringing his neck to my mouth. His skin was salty with sweat and chap cologne – an irritation around the sweet blood as I bit down.

The guy stumbled into me, only struggling weakly, but I barely noticed – because oh god, satisfaction, and I would never, ever get enough.

My entire body tingled, my energy grew, and I felt dazed as I soon felt the guy's heart slow, stutter, and stop. Without another thought, I dropped him and he crumpled to the ground. I leaned back against the brick wall of the club, still reeling from the blood high – dizzy and exhilarated and confused – when Peter stepped out from the building.

Intoxicating: as Peter stepped closer, I saw his eyes lingering on my mouth. I saw us as if from a distance, but the sensations were intensely real.

His hand at the back of my neck, he leaned forward and licked a drop of blood from my lip, then forcefully kissed me.

With a groan, I bit down on his lower lip, and loved his reaction – he growled, trapping me against the wall, his knee between my legs. His mouth moved to my neck, and my eyes fell open, landing on the dead by of the man I'd just killed – his eyes open starkly, skin pale under the neon lights from the front of the parking lot.

He looked decisively dead in his ungainly sprawl, half-propped up against the wall, and a chill tickled its way up my spine. I stiffened, and Peter pulled away, following my perturbed stare. "Oh yeah… we should probably deal with him."

I swallowed hard, feeling sick. "He attacked me… when he followed me out here. Hit me in the face." My voice was hoarse. "But he – if I hadn't come out here, he…"

Peter interrupted me. "Bella, don't…you know he would've found some other girl and went after her. And she wouldn't have been able to fight back like you. Think you're the first girl he's fucked with?"

I closed my eyes, shutting out the bloody scene that still smelled so good, and rubbed a hand over my face. "I don't – I don't know what I'm doing here, Peter." My breath hitched in my chest, and I wondered what the hell was going on with me, why suddenly now this shit bothered me. My first time drinking human blood had been fine – amazing, even. This time, maybe it was the alcohol, or our trip to Forks… maybe my conscience was finally catching up to me.

Peter just folded me into a hug, resting his chin on top of my head. I leaned a cheek on the soft flannel of his shirt and breathed in his deep scent of sandalwood and summer rain, searching for equilibrium.

He rubbed a comforting hand over my back. "Everything's shit side up right now, sweetheart, I know." I snorted, tightening my arms around his waist. "But hey, at least we have plenty of time to figure this out."

I laughed weakly and began to follow him inside, but then something compelled me to run back over and grab the guy's pack of cigarettes that lay next to his body. Peter didn't ask why, and I wouldn't have had an answer.

When we walked back into the dark club, Jasper still sat at the bar, looking mildly disgusted as he stared at the strippers.

"Thank God," he proclaimed in relief as we left. I grabbed the bottle of whiskey on the way out, not quite ready to fully deal with my reality yet. Somehow I felt wired and weary, anxiety twisting in my stomach.

The outside air of the parking lot felt cool and free when we left the strip club. As we climbed back into the Peter's old car, I took a long swig off my bottle, savoring the harsh taste of the whiskey after such tasty human blood. The chill still hadn't faded from my spine, and my unease didn't fade with the liquor as I had hoped. I couldn't shake it… that awful feeling. How awkward and ugly and wrong that guy (my second victim…) had looked, dead on the concrete.

He was just a perverted asshole – he'd attacked me first. And I was a vampire now, so.

I sighed deeply, slouching in the bench seat and staring out the open window at the sky passing by. I dug out a cigarette from the scavenged pack and lit it using a pack of matches shoved into the cig pack. Smoking the guy's cigs appalled me, but I felt like I had to smoke them. The same cold guilt had propelled me take them, keep them from going to waste.

Reaching forward from the back seat, Jasper fiddled with the radio, eventually settling on a classic country station, landing on an old Neil Young song: "Out of the blue, and into the black..."

Reminded me of my dad. He'd always played old country and rock music in his garage as he puttered around with his fishing gear. Growing up, it had been a relief from the weird experimental music my mom loved.

Right then, remembering my childhood, I felt about a million years old – I'd been through so much since I'd first met Edward Cullen when I was 17.

I was weary as hell by now, and I barely knew which way was up anymore.

…

(A/N: Thanks again to all my readers & reviewers… you are all awesome. This took forever, I know! Sadly my laptop died and I had to buy a new computer. I stole one of Peter's lines from Sons of Anarchy - love that show. Also thanks to petersgirl2011… you're so sweet!)