Chapter two - hunt.
Everyone's in the room, and I don't know how but I know who they are. I guess it must be from the books. Jasper's in the front, guarding the others. He knows I could be dangerous. And I might be, I know that newborns are supposed to be powerful, but I don't feel powerful. I just feel like me. And then I notice. The sight, the sounds. Everything's more intense, like I'm on drugs or something.
Edward lets out a sharp laugh, but I can tell that although it amuses him, it won't make him happy. He looks dead inside. I check over the room. Behind Jasper, Alice's trying to get to me, but he won't let her out. Esme and Carlisle are to his left, and Emmett and Rosalie to his right, but still behind him. Edward's on the other side of the room. Alone.
He answers the question in my head. "The Volturi took her."
"Then we'll get her back."
I don't know what made me say it, it just felt right, and when I do say it, he seems to lighten up a bit.
Carlisle interrupts our hopeful silence. "You must be thirsty." And as soon as he says it, I feel the raw burn at the back of my throat.
"I am now." That gets a laugh out of him, and he steps up to the window. I know why we can't go downstairs – I can smell Renesmee and Jake from here. I have a fear of heights, so instead of standing on the windowsill before jumping, I just run from where I've been laying and jump straight out of it. It saves me having to look down.
Edward, Emmett and Alice follow, though Jasper looks like he'd prefer it if she didn't. Edward is probably there for his speed and thought reading – he'll know if there's a human around. Emmett is probably there for his strength, even though he couldn't take me down, he'll do better than the others at fighting a newborn. Alice… well, she'll be able to see if I'm going to do anything I'll regret.
We leap over the river by the house, and then Edward asks me the question.
"How did you know about us?"
I replayed scenes in my head – the book covers, the films, and told him about them. He looked shocked, then angry.
"And she just used our real names? She was so careless!" Then he slowed, and looked slightly happier, "Though it would be nice to know what she was thinking…"
That's when we smell the deer up ahead. There's a whole herd, and immediately Carlisle speaks up:
"Not the elder, or any of the pregnant females, or the young." Emmett lets out a groan of frustration at not being able to fight the big one.
"Except for our newborn. I doubt she'll be able to control it, but let's not deliberately mess up the wildlife."
"Name's Mae"
Ok, so maybe it wasn't, but I'd always liked the name, and newborn humans always get new names, so I figured, why not?
Edward snorts, and I glare at him. I'm not sure we'll get along too well, I don't really like others reading my thoughts.
Then Emmett shoots off, and the rest of us follow close behind. I manage to grab a young male, but he's dead before he realises anything's happened. I snapped his neck. I start draining his blood, and it cools the back of my throat a bit, but it seems only milliseconds before it ends. And it probably was, as the deer have only moved a little. I immediately pounce on another male, and drain him too. Now at least I feel satisfied, and I can feel a slight tingling at the back of my brain. I focus on it, and track down where the feeling's coming from. Edward! But he doesn't look like he's doing anything out of the ordinary.
I focus a little harder on it, and bring it more into the centre of my brain. It's like a string, and as I focus even more, I can almost make out a pinky-purple pulsating line joining my brain and his. As he registers what I'm thinking, even he looks confused. I follow the line with my brain, and see a tingle point (ok, so maybe it's a weird name for it, but it describes it perfectly!) in the centre of his mind too. Except that his is pulling the rope, like some kind of infinite line, towards him. And now I realise, the line is my thoughts. And I get annoyed at it, so I copy the line in my head, but reverse it, so there is a separate pulsing line, turquoise-green this time, leading from him to me.
What a weird thing to do, how's that supposed to…
He slows down as he realises that I can read his thoughts, and looks at me in horror. I quickly focus on changing the line, so that it is not so much a string, but more a magnetic pull, with my mind representing one pole, and others minds representing the other. Suddenly, I get many thought tracks reaching me. Emmett's still focused on the deer he's sucking. Four down. Honestly, he's drinking more than me, and I'msupposed to be the newborn. Carlisle seems confused at the intense focus on my face, has she some kind of power too? Alice is well, smiling. In her head anyway. I knew you were special. I bet this means that I'm just about to tell them all what happened. The thoughts are annoying me, so I push my tingle point to the back of my head, and imagine locking it in a box, and they quieten down, before disappearing completely. Well, the skill certainly seems useful. Edward looks confused, and then I see a look of concentration on his face. I think that he just copied my technique. He looks startled, then speaks up.
"Well, that's great – I've been trying to work out for 100 years how to turn it off and then some randomer figures it out an hour after becoming a newborn!"
I feel a grin etch up my face and then I burst out laughing. He glares at me, and I feel the tingling return to my head as he turns his power back on and races off back to the house. That didn't going too well.
Alice spoke up, in a laughing tone, "What the hell did you do to him?"
"Well, I copied his power, then got annoyed at everyone's thoughts so pushed it away to the back of my head, and I couldn't hear them anymore. He tried it and, well, I think it worked."
Carlisle spoke next, "What do you mean, copied his power?"
"Umm… I felt a tingle in the back of my head, focused on it, saw a link between my head and his, and saw it kind of… moving towards him, so I copied that but reversed it so that his thoughts came to me, then extended it and, well, I heard everyone's thoughts."
They both look stunned. Emmett hadn't taken a blind bit of notice though, and popped back with blood on his face, like a little toddler.
"Hey, where'd Eddie go?"
So we headed back to the house.