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"SINS OF THE PIANO MAN"
CHAPTER 06: KILLER CURIOSITY

Wave goodbye
To what you were.
The rules have changed.
The lines begin to blur.

"With Teeth" by Nine Inch Nails

EDWARD MASEN
I ran away from Bella, away from her scent and body and the frightening hold she had over my thoughts and emotions. I ran through forests, taking down any animal that crossed my path, and yet there was little relief. I skulked down deserted back alleys, searching for answers and solutions where I knew none were to be found.

I stole human blood.

Lucky growled at my satchel of sin when I entered the hotel room in the wee hours of the morning. It never ceased to amaze me how well this silly mammal knew me, considering his complete lack of self-preservation in the face of my vampirism. Lucky, I had learned some time ago, could be instinctual when he wanted to be, and he knew that what I had tucked away in the canvas bag was nothing good for either of us.

I growled back at him until he whimpered in submission. There was a bizarre, ongoing battle between us as to who was the alpha male in this relationship.

Sitting on an ugly, multicolored bedspread, I stared at the satchel that lay between my feet on the floor. The bag's flap was pulled back, revealing fourteen bags of human blood—roughly five liters. A human. A meal.

For some reason, I barely remembered stealing it. I knew I broke into a building and that when I'd left, a satchel was slung over my shoulder, but the rest was a blur. My thoughts had only been on Bella and her eerie rendition of "Katrina's Tears," a piece I had written for an eighteen-year-old girl I'd killed nearly twenty-nine years ago.

I had pulled Katrina Martinez from the grubby clutches of a Baltimore street gang, only to murder her hours later in the shoddy tree house in her family's backyard. It was a roofless and crooked tree house, rotting at its edges, and had been built by her mostly absent father, a man whose breath she remembered as always smelling of cigarettes and beer. Her final thoughts, which were joined by a flood of salty teardrops, had been of her eight-year-old half-brother, Manuel, and how she hoped he would not make the same mistakes she had. She had begged me to spare her, praying to the Virgin Mary, and writhing until she became too weak from blood loss.

Katrina's flawed goodness, her tears and wordless pleas would be with me forever; her caramel-brown skin and eyes haunted me almost as much as Bella did now. The frail human in me did not want Bella to become another Katrina Martinez at the hands of the less human side of my nature, even if it would be so easy to give into the temptation.

Would drinking human blood really quell the thirst Bella had fueled?

For some reason, I doubted it.

It was not normal thirst she provoked. These were not the flames I entertained around all other humans. This was a wildfire, come to devour and devastate. Of course, the thirst I felt was only part of the problem. Bella, as a person—as an unbelievably silent-minded creature—was the other part. I burned for more than her blood.

At seven in the morning, I held my breath and poured room-temperature blood into the bathtub, allowing cold shower water to wash it down in a swirling sea of pink. I would not become the feral, red-eyed beast again. I wouldn't. I made silent apologies to the lives I'd affected through my theft—one sin among many.

When the sun surprisingly became too bright for me to venture out, I lay on the lumpy bed, Lucky curled up to my side as I blindly channel surfed. The pillow faintly smelled of Bella since I'd replaced the crisp hotel pillowcase with the one I'd stolen from her room at the bed and breakfast. I saw nothing on the screen.

I avoided Bella that night and instead chose to hunt again, even though I had the day before. Seemingly unable to leave Port Angeles, and yet too afraid to allow myself anywhere near her, I hunted in the endless depths of the Olympic National Park as a precaution, until my whole body felt bloated and grotesque. Should I cross paths with her again or—more likely—should I stalk her like prey in a fit of poor judgment, I would, at the very least, not do so on an empty stomach.

On Wednesday, the rational, more human side of me considered returning to Damascus. It was the safe, reasonable option, not only for me, but also for Bella. There was routine there: composing, hunting, mowing the lawn, Lucky's walks, my halfhearted masturbation. It was what it was—normalcy, or the closest I'd managed to come to the concept as a vampire. Most importantly, Bella would not be in Oregon to tempt me.

Unfortunately, regardless of its being a good idea, I had no desire to return to my makeshift life. Deep down, I knew that it was pointless to leave. I would eventually come back here, back to Bella, whether I made a conscious decision to do so or not. The strong pull I had begun to feel on Sunday was still there, pulsing and writhing in my chest, as if it was a living heart, and somehow I knew it would not go away. It burned in me, just as surely as her scent did.

Curiosity got the better of me, and I did what all nosy humans do when they want to know more about someone but are too afraid to ask questions: I used my laptop and searched the internet.

It took less time than I expected to find something for the keywords bella "port angeles." The first several results were related to an Italian restaurant in the city, Bella Italia, but by the eighth result, I locked onto a relevant news article from 2007: Sophomore Isabella Swan Awarded Frances and Gunnar Fagerlund English Studies Scholarship.

The article was brief—more press release copywriting than journalism—but it provided some information. From it, I could gather that Bella—Isabella Swan—was likely a junior at Port Angeles' Peninsula College this year, and she'd excelled enough in her sophomore year to be awarded a scholarship in English.

Included was a picture of her, looking uncomfortably awkward and windblown in front of a nondescript, orange-bricked background that made her appear even more washed out and pale than she did in person. Despite the obvious awkwardness, her eyes were lighter in the photo, and her face was still a little youthfully round like a china doll's. The scar was there, however, revealed as the wind blew hair out of her face. The dusty, rose blush on her cheeks led me to groan and swallow back a flood of venom.

So mouthwatering.

Surprisingly, that was the only relevant result I found. There were no raucous college party pictures, no high school mentions or public profiles. Apparently Isabella Swan was as off the grid to her fellow humans as she was from my mind reading. It pacified me slightly, to know she was a mystery to her own kind as well, but it was a short-lived comfort.

I wanted—no, needed—more.

With considerable effort, I made it through another day without going to Bella's home. I hunted, walked Lucky, saw a movie, read several books and spent hours with my face buried in the fading scent of Bella's pillowcase, which was now the preferable location for my ten o'clock routine. It was shameful, but I did it anyhow.

In short, I obsessed but still had no idea what I should do about my obsession. All I could hope to do was distract myself. The average human lifespan was only eighty years, after all, right?

Seeking distraction, I made my way to East First Street's Books & News on Friday. It was the only bookstore in Port Angeles that was apparently not geared toward lost and bored tourists or new age types. It was a few buildings down from Bella Italia, which I loitered in front of for several minutes. I just stared at the name, abnormally still as humans passed me by, peeking at me covertly as they talked into their cell phones. I stared until a waiter began heading for the main entrance to see if he could persuade me to come inside. I had no desire to deal with him and left.

Books & News' large wooden door announced my entrance with a trilling bell. Inside, the wire newspaper trays and dozen or so rows of bookshelves smelled of paper and ink. And while the building itself was rather old and dusty, all of the products for sale were new, with flashy covers featuring attractive people that publishers hoped would appeal to generations obsessed with television, video games and the internet. In one corner, stood a child-sized cardboard cutout of a teddy bear from a popular children's book series. He was skinnier than the cartoon teddy bears used to be.

It was blissfully quiet in the shop, the only sounds being steady breathing and the mental whisper of a few customers as they studied printed words. I counted five separate heartbeats, and for the first time in many days, I felt the discomfiting ache in my chest calm slightly. I let out a relieved sigh.

It was so calm and peaceful—my mind so surprisingly not on Bella—that it came as great surprise when I smelled her scent in one of the cramped aisles. I hadn't smelled her when I came in; perhaps too many had crossed over her path.

The scent was fairly fresh, but she wasn't within sight, and I assumed she had already come and gone. No one in the store was thinking of her. In her wake, she had left the lingering perfume of freesias, and for one brief moment, all I had the power to do was draw in the deepest breath I could; her scent was nearly dizzying. A faded burn tickled at the back of my throat as I smiled and reached for a collection of Percy Shelley poetry that my nose told me she had touched. I felt a thrill, knowing I was touching the same book that she had.

Her scent was strongest on a page containing the poem Music, when soft voices die. I stared at the title for several long, uncomfortable seconds before reading the poem.

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory,
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

It was a strange coincidence that she should be reading such a poem. Somehow, Shelley managed to put into words what I could only put onto staff paper. No matter how much time passed, how many lives came and went in the aftermath of my murderous days, I could never forget the voices or sweet scents of my victims.

A human life was such an impermanent thing, while my perfect recall and I were not. I was literally and figuratively—ironically, even—the vessel that my victims lived through. It made for a disturbing and burdensome weight. Gently closing the book, I squeezed it back into its place on the shelf, between Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Richard Sheridan's The School for Scandal.

Sneakers squeaked on the old wood flooring of the bookstore. "That poem's beautiful, isn't it?" a soft voice said. "It's one of my favorites, actually."

I looked up slowly, disbelieving my bad luck—her bad luck. There, standing fewer than ten feet away from me, was Isabella Swan in a dark blue work smock, her hair windblown, tangled and somehow perfect—absolutely perfect.

She gasped in surprise when she saw my face. "Hi," she squeaked, her eyes wide.

I swallowed hard, choking down a mouthful of venom. I hadn't even taken a breath, but merely seeing her again, particularly when I'd least expected her, had me on a very narrow ledge. Even if my resolve to keep her alive was much stronger now than it had been days ago, I knew better than to trust myself—not with her, never with her.

I held my breath, thankful that I'd just sucked down a lungful of air, and nodded to her as politely as I could. I needed to save my air supply for necessary speech; my words would be few and far between.

Really, I should have turned around and left at that very moment, but I didn't.

A forced, uneasy smile lifted her lips as I stared at the circles under her eyes. She was so pale, and the circles were so dark, that were I not supremely aware of her heartbeat and potent blood, I'd believe her to be a vampire herself. She regarded me with some odd combination of curiosity and wariness.

Well, at least we both feel curious and wary, I thought.

"I didn't get to say goodbye to you last Sunday," she said as she stepped closer to me. She stopped when she was a few feet away, her chin lifting slightly so she could look me in the eye. While her posture was stiff, her eyes were earthy and warm…and calculating.

I listened as her heart thundered beneath her breast and watched as the pulsing vein in her neck twitched with new vigor. Even without smelling the scent of adrenaline in her veins, I knew she was nervous, but I had no way of discerning whether it was the monster or the man she feared. As I looked at her—so petite—the top of her head scarcely reaching the height of my shoulder, I marveled at our numerous differences. We were light and dark, weak and strong, transient and eternal. We had absolutely nothing in common, and yet there we were: two creatures of the universe, somehow in the same place, at the same time, and against unbelievable odds. Only a few years ago, I would have killed her as soon as we'd met, but she yet lived.

Carefully, I used some of my saved air. "I had to leave quickly on Sunday—appointment." My stilted speech made me sound like a fucking caveman.

Bella nodded, but her furrowed brow told me she was frustrated by my terse reply. "I never thought I'd see you again." She blushed then, and I nearly groaned at not being able to read her thoughts. "Do you live in Port Angeles?" she asked. "It's really only locals who come here. There's a touristy bookstore and souvenir shop down the road, if that's more what you need…"

I hesitated. I didn't live here. My home was in Oregon. And yet, as I stared at her, I could not imagine leaving Port Angeles, much less leaving her. So, I nodded.

Apparently, I lived in Port Angeles now. This was news to both of us.

Bella's face relaxed. "Great," she said, and her forced smile gave way to a genuine one, even though her drumming heartbeat suggested she was still far from calm. "You know, I didn't even catch your first name last time."

Is she flirting? It was hard to tell without her thoughts to guide me.

She pointed her two index fingers at her nametag sheepishly. "I'm Bella—Bella Swan." Blushing, she extended a hand for me to shake.

I trembled as I took her fingers in mine with the slightest of pressure. She was hot, like asphalt beneath an orange summer sun, and my fingers instinctively brushed against the pulse point on her wrist. Life.

Bella was looking down at our joined hands curiously; my chill skin probably unnerved her. I pulled away. Her hand dropped down to her side, where her fingers sought out a frayed corner of her work apron.

"I'm Edward Masen," I said.

She ducked her head and smiled a little. "Edward." The whisper was so quiet that I doubted she'd meant for anyone to hear it; perhaps she wasn't even aware that she had spoken at all.

Hearing my name on her lips was strangely pleasurable, and I shared her smile, even as venom gathered at the back and sides of my mouth.

She looked over her shoulder to the register, where two customers were waiting for her. "You know, I should get back to work," she said apologetically. "If you need any help finding anything, though, just tell me. I probably know this bookstore and the books in it better than I know myself."

I nodded and used the last of my air. "Thank you, Bella."

I hovered around the shelves, taking careful breaths when I deemed myself far enough away from her. Having been a glutton lately helped curb my primal desire to hunt her, but I was unwilling to go any closer than was necessary. It was risky enough to be in the same building.

I needed to leave.

But I stayed. And stayed and stayed.

One hour turned into two, turned into three, as Bella and I shared timid and questioning glances when she wasn't in the backroom. I chose books, papers, and magazines from the shelves, in a feeble attempt to ignore her, but none of them appealed to me. Even with the advanced ability to multitask, I could only focus on Bella.

As the human lunch hour neared, the bookstore had fewer patrons. I supposed not many humans had a desire to read, when they could be shoveling food in the hour of free time they had from work. Bella didn't seem to be taking a lunch break for some reason, but I began to hear her stomach rumble and growl from across the room, where she was shelving new, featured inventory on the shelves directly behind the register. Stomach growling had always amused me for some reason—perhaps it was the fact that such threatening sounds came from the stomach, as opposed to the mouth—and I found it difficult to hold back inappropriate laughter.

Somehow, Bella noticed this.

"What's so funny?" she asked from atop a small step ladder. She was stocking a top shelf, standing one step higher than she should be, and making me nervous as hell.

Please don't fall.

There was enough distance between us that I could breathe comfortably, but I didn't have an answer for her. Without a good explanation, I raised the book in my hand and waved it slightly, as if to say it was the source of my amusement.

"Oh," she said. She pressed her lips into a hard line, as if trying to suppress her own laughter.

When I put the book back on the shelf, I saw its title: Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives. Not exactly humor writing of the year.

"So are you going to buy any books today, or are you just here to keep me company?" Bella teased several moments later. I watched her stretch up on the ladder, two thin paperbacks lifted in her right hand. Her shirt rode up slightly on her back, and I stared at the revealed flesh and the small, teardrop-shaped birthmark that was above the curve of her hip. It was a flaw, a sign of her humanity. She had flaws, as all humans do, but I didn't find them jarring, as I typically did. Instead, I wanted to know the story behind every freckle and blemish, if only they could reveal some of her secrets.

I averted my eyes from her waistline. "I'm a picky reader," I said with a shrug.

"Do you—" Her words were interrupted by a gasp, and I watched in slow motion as she lost her balance and began to fall backward.

I ran to her at my fastest speed, holding my breath as I caught her waist and steadied her on the ladder. I could feel her thin stomach and floating ribs beneath my touch. Too much pressure and she'd bruise—or worse—beneath my touch.

"Shit. Sorry…" She gripped the top of the ladder tightly, her knuckles white from the iron hold she had on it. My hand rested on her lower back, seemingly frozen against her blaring heat. Her face was brilliantly flushed when she looked down at me. "Thanks, Mr. Masen."

I couldn't bear the formality and risked some of my salvaged air to correct her. "Edward."

"Thanks…Edward." My body hummed in satisfaction at hearing her speak my name once more. "I think you just saved me from a concussion." She stared down at the floor and the counter that was almost directly behind where the ladder stood. I felt her shudder at the same time I did. If she'd fallen, there would have been blood.

She could have hit her head, broken her neck or back. She might have even died from such a relatively simple fall. Humans were fragile beings made of silken flesh in a world filled with jagged thorns.

Moving from under my hand, Bella descended the ladder, and I took a few steps back. When she was safe on the ground and facing me again, she pushed hair out of her eyes, but wispy curls fell right back across her face. She gave a sweet, embarrassed laugh. "I really shouldn't do things like that. I'm kind of clumsy." She frowned. "To put it mildly."

Her eyes gravitated toward the bookshelves I'd previously been standing by. "You got to me so fast," she said in awe, even as her brow wrinkled in confusion.

I wanted to tell her that it was nothing, that I'd been closer than she realized, but there was a very good chance that I might end her life shortly after saving her from harm if I spoke too much and needed more air. I remained withdrawn and quiet and let her come to whatever conclusions she wanted. It was unnerving, not hearing her thoughts, but I had to believe that she was as oblivious as all other humans. She would come up with some "logical" explanation, surely.

I smiled at her sadly, my chest aching when I didn't feel confident enough to continue having a conversation. My muscles were bunched, as it was, knotted into stiff submission. I was keenly aware of the fact that we were alone since her boss had gone to lunch half an hour ago; fewer than three feet separated us. One part of my mind counted her heartbeats.

It was so easy to imagine how that steady beat would slow, slow, slow as I dragged blood through the side of her neck, as I pulled and pulled and pulled. Freesias and roses and sweet, green grass on my tongue…

The fire raged.

"I should be going," I said in a strangled voice and turned away from her wise eyes, from the call of her blood and the curiosity that was nearly crippling.

This time, I didn't try to stop myself from going to Bella's, and so it came to be that I sat in the bushes at the far end of the little house she lived in, waiting for the light in her attic room to turn off. Angela was asleep in her bedroom downstairs already, and Lauren appeared to be elsewhere, so it was only Bella's heartbeat and Angela's dreams that greeted me—well, those things and the thoughts of all their neighbors.

It was nearly midnight, but Bella was yet awake, despite her early shift at the bookstore. She moved about in what I suspected was a well-established routine. Sitting at a quietly-whirring laptop, she typed for a half hour, and then I heard her descend the stairs to enter the shared bathroom.

The shower ran for twenty minutes, and I would be lying if I said I didn't imagine her naked form, the way the water might cascade down her curves; how it would darken her already dark hair until it lay flat and brown-black against her back; it would curl forward along her front, over her breasts. I listened to a razor scratchily glide up and down her skin, to the way soap bubbles popped, and to the strange groan of old piping.

When she turned the shower off and got out to dry herself, I closed my eyes and pictured it was my hands holding the towel. Her eyes would stare into mine as I roamed her body with only the thin terrycloth to separate us. I might use the warming oil, but it wouldn't be like times past. I'd keep her around, maybe. Figure her out, then drink her.

I saw her face in my mind's eye. "Edward," she moaned in my vision, and I was immediately hard beyond comprehension.

The soft click of the bathroom door pulled me from my perverse and impossible fantasies. I took a deep, steadying breath as Bella went up to her room a moment later. Neither of us needed me pulling a repeat of claiming her bed like some territorial dog.

With a snap of a switch, her room melted into darkness a little after one in the morning. I heard sheets rustle as she got into bed, and while I expected her to fall asleep quickly, her breathing did not slow in five or fifteen minutes. Or twenty. Or thirty. She tossed and turned. She groaned and fluffed her pillow and tried again. Though I hadn't slept since I was a human myself, I felt sorry for her. Many humans struggled with insomnia, their thoughts often frustrated and tired.

Bella's many efforts eventually turned to tears.

At her first whimper, I thought that perhaps she had fallen asleep, that I had just missed the cues of her descent into rest, that she was dreaming, but then the whimper turned into a sob, and then a hiccupped gasp, and then a muffled wail as she wept into her pillow.

It took me several minutes before I realized that my own breathing was ragged, that I was holding my chest in sympathetic agony. Don't be sad, I silently willed her, wishing that there was something—anything—I could do. There was no thirst left in me at that moment, only pure and overwhelming concern.

It had been a long time since I had felt true and deep concern for a living human.

When Bella quieted around three in the morning, I returned to my hotel room. Lucky was waiting for me, his ears and tail drooping, as if he were aware of Bella's crying and my own confusion.

I pulled at my hair. "What's happening to me?" I asked him.

He had no answers.

On Saturday, I followed her, deciding that if I was going to listen to her cry at night, there wasn't much difference in my seeing what she did during the day. And so it was that I watched from a distance as Bella drove from business to business, dropping off résumés and asking for work. It was a long day for her, starting just before ten and ending at eight in the evening, and I wondered how she planned to manage two jobs and her degree. The puzzle that was Isabella Swan only grew more confusing with each passing day.

I followed her home from work, afraid she might wreck her vehicle after having such a long day on so little sleep. But she made it home safely, had a short conversation with Angela and Lauren, and then went through the same bedtime routine she had the previous night. I noted that she didn't eat dinner.

She cried again, but this time I stayed after she fell asleep. Towering above the shrubbery I'd assigned myself to at this end of Bella's home, there was a large ash tree. It was tall enough that its highest boughs reached up past the roof of the house as they lazily swung in the wind. I frowned up at the tempting branches. Were I to climb them, I could see into her room.

I knew I shouldn't even consider doing something like that, particularly given the nature of Bella's scent, but of late, what I knew was logical and what I ultimately did seemed to have little in common.

Perched up in the ash tree, I had a clear view of Bella's small room. It was simple, filled with a single-sized bed and a large work desk that had a closed laptop on it. A white, rectangular and shaggy rug covered most of the old wood flooring, along with a pile of dirty clothes and the pair of muddy Converse sneakers she'd been wearing at the bookstore the day before.

The only other piece of furniture in the room was a bookcase, its every shelf filled to the brim. Books were even littered atop the bookcase, and a few were stacked on the floor beside it. Most were old, clearly hand-me-downs or bought very used, with bent pages and old cover designs. Judging by the numerous compilations, she liked to read poetry, and she appeared to have a penchant for speculative fiction.

The most glaring thing about Bella's personal space was that she had very little in it that made it personal. There were no framed pictures hanging, no photos taped to walls. Beyond her love for books, there was absolutely nothing I could learn from looking into her room. Everything was nondescript, right down to the brown bedspread she slept beneath.

But then, when she had been asleep for an hour, something unexpected happened.

She began to talk.

"…mean insurance doesn't cover that? I've got the policy right in front…"

"Jesus, Dad. More goddamn fish…"

Sometimes it was very difficult to not laugh, but I was delighted, no matter how absurd her mumbled musings became. Finally I had some gateway into her mind.

Bella dreamed, and I hovered outside her window like the perverse creature I was. I was not delusional. There was nothing normal about a six-foot-tall man hanging in the trees in the wee hours of the morning. But then, I wasn't a man. I was a vampire, and above all, beyond the tears and twisted linens and sleep talking, Bella Swan was still my delectable prey.

I tempted myself with her scent, breathing in deeply against the glass window that barely separated us. The burn was muted by its presence, but it still raged more violently than the ache I felt around other humans.

Still, I didn't hunt her. Not this night.

As dawn approached, I returned to the hotel to change and walk Lucky. It was a good thing he had always been so amenable to housetraining, because I hadn't been the best owner of late, having been too busy either obsessing over Bella or following her. I believed the term for that was stalker.

Only an hour and twenty minutes had passed by the time I went back to Bella's house. Unfortunately, when I arrived, I found her car was gone from the driveway, and just as it had been last Sunday, I had absolutely no idea where she was.

Disappointed, I returned to my hotel room and evaluated my actions for the millionth time this week. I drew no solid conclusion.

I did know, though, that it was curiosity driving me now. My bloodlust had mostly been in check since I'd begun hunting more, and Id started acclimating myself to her scent the night before. I could probably afford to take a few more risks for the sake of getting information. I had to understand her. It drove me insane that a week had passed, and I still knew so little about a simple human. Humans weren't supposed to be this complicated.

I checked on Bella's home several times throughout the day. Like the Sunday before, Bella returned late at night. Her eyes were red and tired as she stumbled up to her home and unlocked the front door.

She was exhausted. She didn't eat or shower or even brush her teeth. She went straight to bed, only discarding her shoes and jeans. I tried not to notice her pinstriped underwear.

This time, there were no tears, but as I watched her, hidden within the thick foliage outside her window, I didn't think that it was because she had no need to cry. I suspected it more a matter of her already crying as much as she was able.

She slept fitfully, her fists knotting up in the sheets as she writhed and gasped. Her movements matched my own inner turmoil. I wanted to go to her—to do what, I didn't know, but the urge was there. Still, I was so afraid. What would happen if I lost control?

"Please," she cried, and it felt like she was crying for me.

I couldn't stand it any longer.

Taking a deep breath and holding it, I opened her window and slipped inside her room. There wasn't even a lock to mildly deter me.

Even without my sense of smell and the lack of personal decorum, I could feel Bella's presence in every corner and crevice of the room. Her heartbeat thudded loudly in my head, reverberating and embedding itself into everything I was.

I crept silently nearer, and I watched as gooseflesh rose up across her arms and the bare leg that was tangled above the bed comforter. Did she sense that there was a predator lurking in her bedroom? The fact that I didn't know—didn't know anything for certain—was frightening and exhilarating.

As I came to her bedside, I watched in baffled amazement as the gooseflesh relaxed, and the tiny, blonde hairs on her arms resettled.

She spoke again. "Daddy, don't go… Don't leave me here…" She turned over, this time to face me. Her eyelids twitched and jerked as REM-sleep took hold of her. "I don't want to be alone…" She gasped again, but it was different this time, less an expression of surprise or fear. This time, she sounded pained, sounded as though she had cried for so long that she was now choking and hiccupping on her sobs.

I felt drawn to her, and through that pull, I felt an echo of her pain, even if I had no understanding of its details. All I knew was that I would gladly shoulder some of her pain, if it would just give this one woman some peace.

Crouching beside her bed, I brought up a shaky hand and carefully—so, so carefully—rested it on her covered back. I rubbed my hand in what I hoped was a soothing circle, using the same pressure I used on Lucky when he was nervous at the veterinarian's. With her being so petite and shivering, it almost felt like I was petting a fragile animal; at the very least, I was touching something that was beneath me on the food chain. Baser parts of me were very aware of how easily I could kill her—or wake her and seduce her, then kill her—but I ignored them. This time.

To my surprise, she quieted beneath my touch and snuggled down deeper into her covers with a sweet, contented sigh. I pulled the sheets over her bared leg, taking several seconds to look at the slightly knobby outline of her kneecap, which was littered with several pale scars, down to the curve of her slender ankle bone, to the high arch of her foot and the five toes at the end of it. She had very graceful legs for one so supposedly clumsy.

I looked at her face, drinking in every feature. Like all humans, she was asymmetrical, but none of the flaws seemed to matter. Beneath the moonlight flowing past the ash tree and through her window, she was ethereal, regardless of the chicken pox scar beside her left eyebrow or the puffiness surrounding her closed eyes. Not even the long, jagged scar on the right of her face could sway my opinion of her. She was a beautiful human, I thought.

At one point in the night, I tried to remove my hand from her back, preparing to take my leave, but she immediately whimpered and reached out blindly in the darkness. "Edward."

My muscles locked into place, and I felt my eyes grow wide. Logically, I knew she was asleep. Emotionally, I felt as though I'd been caught in her bedroom, like the creepy monster I was. I returned my hand to her back, hoping and praying she'd not wake.

She only sighed, a small smile playing at her lips. "Edward," she said again. "Don't go…"

I won't, I answered immediately, silently, and I wondered what I was getting myself into. But I was powerless to it, to her.

Could she really be dreaming of me? What were the odds that she might know another Edward in this day and age and be dreaming of him? But for her to dream of me… Why? We had only met twice, and neither time had been what a human would consider "normal."

In the end, it didn't matter. I relished the fact that she might be dreaming of me. It was enough to make me call Port Angeles home, to call Bella home, for I knew without a doubt that wherever she went, I would now follow. There would be no more running away.

Would she send me away?

I decided that tomorrow would be a new day, a day where I would seek her out and get to know her. To do that, I knew I'd have to eventually face her scent and conquer the demon it would inevitably wake.

I could only hope that she would live through the night, that this strange woman wouldn't die beneath my strength and bloodlust. Removing my hand from her back, I took in a shallow, ragged breath.

He eated her. The end. Just kidding! Maybe…

Author's Notes (August 08, 2010): Special thanks to duskwatcher, who has very generously agreed to beta for me; to Aleeab4u, for pre-reading and discussing my shite with me; and to PemberlyRose, for telling me how much blood is in your average bag. (Don't ask how she knows this. She just does.) If you haven't already, check out the stories by these lovely ladies. They all write beautifully. Finally, thanks to Camilla10 for rec'ing me.

Author's Notes (January 25, 2011): Cleaning house / editing.