Tadaaa, next chapter! I couldn't update yesterday because I went shopping with my sister, but you forgive me, right? ;-)

I really hope that you'll like it! ... but maybe you won't.

It depends...

Oh, before I forget: Edward took the CD a couple of weeks ago, Maddie just didn't notice! And why did he do it? - Because he's a jerk, ha!

It was a tug of war until Edward had enough. He braced his right foot against the couch for leverage and wrenched the CD from his sister's hand.

Suddenly an ear-piercing scream split the air.

Immediately white-hot pain shot through Maddie's hand, and she clutched it tightly in a desperate attempt to make the sudden pain go away.

"You ripped my finger off! FUCKER!" she yelled at Edward, then gasped for air.

A little venom oozed from the spot where usually her index finger was supposed to be attached to her left hand. Her finger had fallen to the ground along with the CD - her scream of pain had made Edward drop everything in shock.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to -," he started to say in a panic-stricken voice and helplessly moved his hands around. But then hesuddenly went rigid and remarked in a choked voice, "Esme and Carlisle are coming up."

Maddie's eyes went wide, forgetting about the pain for a moment. "Fuck," she pressed out, then bent down and picked up her finger in a hurry, stuffing it into the back pocket of her jeans in lack of a better hiding place.

Weird feeling ... picking up your severed finger and hiding it, eeww.

She tried to blink back the venom that had formed in her eyes and hoped her parents wouldn't notice. She also hoped they hadn't heard what exactly she had just yelled at her brother; but they had been sitting outside on the porch, so maybe she was lucky.

Edward moved over to stand on the spot where her finger had landed on the floor. The venom had left a little stain, so he tried to hide it that way.

Maddie quickly scratched the back of her right hand, licked over the scratch and shoved both her hands into the front pocket of her hoodie, before ...

Their parents were standing in the door, eyes wide and full of panic, scared that something horrible might have happened to their children.

"What's going on here? What happened?" Carlisle asked frantically; Esme followed right behind him, grabbing his arm before looking into her son's room, frightened about what they might find in there.

But when they saw both children just standing there and giving them sheepish looks, Carlisle's voice changed from frantic to slightly worried. "Why were you screaming, Madeline? What happened? You gave us a real scare."

"I ... well ...," she didn't trust her voice just yet; she was trembling in every limb and tried so hard to get it under control.

"Sweetheart, are you crying?" Esme squinted at her daughter and took a step into the room towards her, having noticed her teary eyes and the trembling.

Maddie took a step backwards.

Carlisle raised an eyebrow at that motion. "The truth. Have you two been fighting?" He did not sound amused.

Edward and Maddie looked at each other for a brief moment, and he could see her grit her teeth together at the pain that was still dominating her mind.

"We were arguing, sorry," Edward answered.

That was the truth, wasn't it?

"I smell venom," Carlisle walked further into the room and looked back and forth between his children.

"I accidentally scratched her hand," Edward explained after a moment of hesitating. He was paying close attention to what his sister was thinking right now because she luckily had a plan, just couldn't speak right now. And since Maddie felt like crying, he decided to do the talking for her, giving her the chance to concentrate on breathing the pain away.

"Let me see," their father said, immediately changing into full doctor-mode.

"It's nothing, and I've already sealed it by licking the wound." Maddie said through gritted teeth, but obediently held out her hand for Carlisle to see. He took it in his and examined the scratch, letting his thumb run over it lightly.

"Yes, it'll be healed soon. Good." He nodded his head, more than happy that nothing worse had happened. He looked at her a moment longer, then patted her on the head soothingly because she seemed to feel pain from the scratch. "How did it happen?"

"I tried to snatch the CD away from her. She pulled away but my fingernail scraped her hand," Edward lied, repeating what Maddie dictated him in her mind.

Madde still tried to breath the pain away, but it didn't really work. Well, to her parents she probably looked just very upset and a bit whiny right now - nothing unusual, she guessed.

"I should have asked Maddie to give it to me instead of just reaching out to take it from her, I'm sorry," Edward said in an attempt to quicken things up. He just wanted them out of the room, so Maddie wouldn't need to suffer any longer.

"Don't apologise to me, Edward, apologise to your sister," Carlisle ordered and his voice was strict.

Edward turned to his side, looked his sister straight in the eye and said, "I didn't mean to scratch you, Maddie. Please accept my apologies."

She took a deep breath, trying to ignore the pain that still pulsated angrily in her injured hand. "It's okay," she whispered.

"Now, did you resolve the problem?"

"Yes, Dad," Maddie and Edward replied in unison.

"Very well."

"Come now, Maddie, leave your brother to himself." Esme then turned back around, only to call out, "What happened to your room? Madeline, it looks like a pigsty in there!"

Oh dear, Maddie hadn't bothered to close her door when she went to ask Edward for his CD.

"I was looking for something. But I've found it." Maddie answered in a little voice - that was all she could manage to utter. Edward quickly picked the cracked CD cover up from the floor and handed it to her. She took it from him with her scratched hand, then held it up for them to see and smiled sheepishly.

Esme shook her head in disbelief. "Tidy your room, Maddie, I cannot believe you would make such a mess of your belongings."

"Sure," Maddie pressed out, not trusting herself to say any more than necessary - the pain was even worse now.

Unfortunately, Carlisle misinterpreted her tone of voice as disrespect.

He cleared his throat, then ordered in a strict tone of voice, "Madeline, you do it now. Nobody else but you is responsible for this disorder, so none of your cheek."

Maddie took a deep breath, then said as calmly and evenly as she could manage, "Sorry."

Her parents both nodded their heads, accepting her apology.

Carlisle put one arm around his wife's shoulders and together they descended the stairs.

Finally!

Maddie however, stayed in Edward's room instead of going into her own.

"That was close," Edward said, letting his finger's run through his messy hair. "and I am so sorry about your finger. Does it hurt badly?"

"Like a bitch," she ground out, taking out her hand from her pocket and looking at the stump. The sight of it made her tremble violently. Now that she didn't need to hold it in anymore, she got the feeling that the pain decided to just intensify, making the venom in her eyes spill over. A choked sob escaped her lips and she bit down on her lips to keep herself from crying.

"It will take maybe one or two days to completely heal, Maddie."

"Two days? Shit," Maddie replied in a strained voice. Then she asked a question, of which she was already dreading the answer to. "Does it leave a scar?"

He hesitated, but eventually nodded his head. "I think so, yes."

"Just my luck," she replied and more tears leaked from her eyes as she cried. Why the heck had she covered up for Edward? She was so stupid!

If it'd leave a scar, she had to come up with a damn good explanation for it - a finger doesn't just fall off.

Or she would need to hide it for all eternity ... with a ring or gloves or something. Argh!

"What do we do now?" Edward asked, pointing at her hand.

Maddie pondered over her possibilities. She realised that the pain wouldn't get any better as long as her finger wasn't back on her hand, so she said, "I'll take care of it.", and walked out of his room.

After a quick stop in the bathroom to get her crying under control and wash her face as best she could with one hand, she spoke a little to herself to check if she could pass as a painfree person again.

Then she made her way down the stairs on shaky legs and took several deep breaths before walking across the living room and the kitchen to get to the garage.

"Where are you going, dear?" Esme asked from her seat on the couch as soon as Maddie had reached the kitchen.

"Just to the garage, Mom," Maddie answered, more or less casually. She tried to focus on the lies she was going to tell them, not the pain she was in.

"Did you lose something? Do you want me to help you looking?" Esme made to stand up from the couch, so Maddie hastily said, "No need, I just came downstairs to get some tape."

"Why do you need tape, Maddie?" Carlisle turned around as well and looked questioningly at his daughter, waiting for her to explain.

"There is a crack in my CD cover, I just wanna tape it before it breaks completely."

That explanation was good enough for her parents; they had seen the CD their children had been arguing about, and they remembered having seen a large crack in the cover Maddie had held up in order to show him.

"Look in the toolbox if you need duct tape, dear," he called over his shoulder.

"I will, thanks," she replied and continued her way to the garage in order to retrieve the tape.

When she walked back towards the staircase however, her parents called her over into the living room.

"Sweetie, let me see your eyes," Esme said and waited for Maddie to come and stand before her.

"When was the last time you hunted?" she asked and her voice held concern. Upstairs in her son's room she had already noticed the change in Maddie's eye colour. It looked even darker now. Still not black, mind you, but more like dark caramel. It was very noticeable, since her daughter's eyes were normally of a bright honey colour. Due to the frequency they made her hunt, the colour of her eyes did not vary much.

"I went on Thursday, with Emmett," Maddie replied with a shrug. She had put the duct tape around her wrist, wearing it like a bracelet, so she could hide her hands in the front pocket of her hoodie again.

"I have never seen them that dark before, dear. You must hunt soon, you cannot go to school like this tomorrow."

"Sure, I'll ask Edward," Maddie replied and started walking in the direction of the staircase.

Now Carlisle spoke up. "Edward? You two have been fighting not even ten minutes ago."

"I know, but I made up with him," she shrugged her shoulders again.

"All right. If he doesn't want to join you, we will take you, honey."

Maddie gulped - she wouldn't be able to hunt with her hands in her front pocket and that way they would notice. No, she couldn't let that happen. "Thanks Daddy, I'll ask him now."

Running upstairs again, she plopped down onto her bed and closed her eyes for a brief moment. No wonder her eyes looked dark - she had to endure an immense amount of pain but needed to ignore it - pretending like she had never felt better in front of her parents.

Now she could focus back on the task at hand. She retrieved her finger from her jeans pocket and held it up to take a closer look. It was sticky with venom, so she smeared it on her jeans - Alice had picked the pair out for her, so it wasn't too bad if it got ruined.

Then Maddie carefully tried to wipe the stump on her jeans and hissed when the searing pain shot right up to her shoulder. She just wanted to get rid of the fluff from the hoodie pocket sticking to the wound, but it just hurt too much and she didn't succeed. Taking deep breaths, she waited until the pain cooled down a little, then she just pressed her severed finger to the stump and wrapped duct tape all around it several times.

There. It held everything together.

"Maddie ... duct tape?" Edward had walked into her room while she was taping her hand up, eyeing it carefully.

"I works, doesn't it?" she said and tried to blink the fresh venom in her eyes away. "Or do you have a better idea?"

"No, and I am terribly sorry that you have to go through so much pain. Maybe we should apply a bandage or -"

"Uh-huh, that would look inconspicious. How would I explain? It's a fashion statement? Yeah, right," she mocked and snuffled to get rid of the thick venom clogging her nose.

He had nothing to say to that.

Maddie spoke up again. "Oh, you owe me, by the way."

"I am really sorry, Maddie, I didn't mean to hurt you." He sounded sincere. Of course he did, he felt horrible for having hurt her ... maybe they should come clean and tell Carlisle so he could take care of the wound. But it was clear in Maddie's mind that she wouldn't want that.

"Well, too bad, you did hurt me anyways. And now you owe me," Maddie said determinedly and tried to put on a smirk. It looked more like a grimace, but he knew what she was implying with that.

Silence.

"Oh no ... really?" Edward asked after reading her thoughts.

"I think it's fair," she half-smiled, well, if you could call it smiling while being in pain.

He sighed. "All right, when?"

"That's for me to decide." she answered and mused what the best time would be to follow through with it.

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