God, it's been a while. All I can do is apologise. I've been doing some writing of an original story in the vein hope of actually being successful someday. Ha. Ha.

Anyway, I've been thinking about this story and how much I wanted to go back to it, so I hope even after the massive gap, you readers I have so far aren't totally over Thirst. If you're reading this right now, thank you for staying with this story.

Bella

"Charlie."

Before the word fully passes from between my lips in a stunned breath, I fling myself from the edge of Edward's chosen perch upon the cliff with no preamble, no consideration for the drop down.

I only have eyes for my father.

Edward calls my name as I descend, but I ignore his panicked plea, landing gracefully on the bracken below in a crouch. I expect to have the breath knocked out of me from the impact of such a steep drop, but instead feel only a gentle thud, my frame undisturbed. I really am strong.

Not strong enough to deny myself a closer look at Charlie, though. Not strong enough to listen to Edward, or to my gut. Not strong enough to pull myself away and to do as I am told. I propel myself through the trees, eager to reach my father before Edward reaches me. Esme told me that he's fast, so I know I have to hightail it.

I gain more and more speed, hurtling myself over the sodden ground, ducking and swerving around every tree, root and branch. I listen closely, trying to detect the sound of Charlie's footsteps, singling him out, when another sound is alerted to me. A sound from behind.

I don't have to turn and look to know that Edward is following me. The hair on the back of my neck stands on end and a vicious snarl rips from deep within my chest, a warning. Deep within the layers of my renovated mind, I logically know that Edward isn't following me to hurt me. Instinctually, though, I can't ignore the threat of him chasing me down.

I feel him honing in on me and once again, without commanding myself to do so, I snarl, louder. The sound is animalistic, beastly.

"Bella," he calls, "You have to stop, before it's too late! He can't see you, he thinks you're dead! You won't be able to control yourself around him!"

I ignore him. I don't want to hear the words. I need to see my father. That doesn't mean he has to see me.

The memories are faint and cloudy, veiled in a thin translucence that was my mind only a couple of days ago, but they are there. As I flee from Edward and run to Charlie, I dig into my memory, recalling the quietly deep connection between my dad and me. I picture all the times where we should have hugged, but didn't need to, where we should have talked more, yet it wasn't necessary. Our talk was small, our emotions unspoken but strong. Everything is vague, hard to pin point, but it is real.

This life, with which I have had no time to adjust to, the stuff of fairytales, cannot be real. Even as I feel every soft crevice of the damp earth on the soles of my feet, the sweet, woody scented air tickling my scalp and rushing through my hair, I refuse to believe it, no matter how intensely tangible.

I sprint impossibly faster, careful to stay just out of reach, so I can at least see Charlie for a few seconds, just see how he is coping.

Edward's pleas are none-stop, they wrap around me like prayer, a prayer that I refuse to answer. I try my best to tune him out, to focus ahead. I listen for telltale sounds of Charlie, and my wish is granted.

Tha-thump tha-thump tha-thump.

Heartbeat.

Less than half a second later, that telltale sound is accompanied by a telltale scent, and something inside me flips like a switch. Everything about this scenario is compromised, and I am no longer in control. I feel it slip away from me, shedding like a second skin my body will no longer tolerate.

I am nearly thrown back by the force of it. His scent.

All logical thinking dissipates as my throat bursts into flames, scorching me all the way to my lips, wrenching a broken gasp from my lungs. My muscles coil and tense as that now familiar metallic liquid fills my mouth, burning and acidic. My nose feels as though it is being pulled higher to the air and I inhale deeply, feeling my legs carry me forward even more frantically, guiding me to that scent.

Like my first hunt, I register that warm, quenching aroma. Unlike my first hunt, this scent is now the focus of my very being, like a magnet, impossible for me to resist. I can't even match a word that would fit perfectly with the smell that burns my lungs and makes my stomach ache and churn with need.

A deep, guttural moan fills the air around my follower and I as I helplessly bound toward the source of it. I listen to him pace around a clearing up ahead and finally can see him in the distance, past the trees. My eyes lock on his neck, where a main artery throbs so invitingly it makes me feel weak inside.

But I'm not weak. I am a predator, and regardless of who my prey is, I will hunt. It's no longer a matter of the heart, or of choice. There is only truth. I can't resist. I don't want to. I've never desired something so much in my life, old or new.

I am so close to reaching the clearing when a second set of footsteps follow behind me. I begin to feel a gut-wrenching rage that rivals with the frenzy of my hunger. My head swims with an intoxicating cocktail of rich desire and greed.

They want what's mine.

"Get back," I growl. "He's mine!"

I hear the voices of Edward and Alice imploring me, but I don't listen. I simply keep running, growing afraid as Edward chases me, hot on my heels.

Tha-thump tha-thump tha-thump.

I picture it. I let myself imagine positioning my mouth at that sweet, throbbing artery. I allow myself the pleasure of fantasising about how it would really feel to pierce that paper thin layer of skin and to take pull after pull of that impossibly mouth-watering blood.

I watch my prey closely as he turns his head, dark eyes pointing sky-ward, rimmed in red and glimmering with moisture in the dull light of day. His blinks slowly at the clouds, every closure of his eyelid synchronised with his rich, delectable pulse. His thin lips twist and grimace. The moisture shining in his eyes gather and bead at the edges and a lone tear slips from his right eye, tumbling across his cheek before soaking into his sparse, vivid locks.

Pain.

Reality bites at the far corners of my mind strongly enough to make me falter, to let my human side think the name that stops me in my tracks.

Charlie.

It takes every shred of willpower to slam down on the breaks, but mercifully I grind to a halt, my heels forcing their way into the dirt.

I dither as my followers stop just behind me. I expect them to restrain me, almost want them to, but they hesitate, probably wary of my reaction.

My raging thirst and my love for my father swirl around my head like a tornado, building and destroying reasons to do the wrong thing and reasons to do what's right.

I don't focus on that though. I know that if I stay here, now, in the presence of the most painfully good scent on the planet, Charlie will not survive and I will never be able to forgive myself.

So, with the last ounce of my dwindling willpower, I force myself to un-plant my feet...and I turn around to meet the golden eyes of two cautious vampires.

My wild, frenzied gaze shifts from Alice to Edward, back and forth, staring into their gold eyes as if pleading for a solution. Every single cell in my body is telling me to stay, to feed from the man who watched me grow, who loved me. The man who now believes his only child is dead.

To clear my head, I cut off my airways, trying to erase the scent of Charlie's blood. I can still taste him on my tongue, though.

A quiet whimper of desperation escapes me, and I half expect tears to follow, in spite of my new inability to shed them.

I take a step, one tiny, tentative step toward Alice and Edward. It feels wrong, like I'm resisting the force of a massive elastic band between my father and I. The band is stretched to capacity, and I know that I need to move fast if I'm going to tear right through it. Another small step just won't do.

With my new hyper-perception abilities, I catch the look of complete shock on Edward's face, and the look of satisfaction on Alice's as I bolt past them at a million miles an hour, every cell inside protesting as I put more and more distance between me and Charlie. It doesn't take long for Alice and Edward to follow me back the way we came and I am both relieved and aggravated by this. Relieved, because they now act as an obstacle, protecting my dad from my barbaric desire to take his life. Aggravated, because I don't want any witnesses to my turmoil.

I run and I run, bewildered by my new body's everlasting stamina. My intense thirst fights with my pain. Not only was it agonising to turn my back on the thing I wanted most in that moment of ravenous insanity, it was even more agonising to watch Charlie cry for the loss of me.

When the river comes into view, I don't feel relief. I am not at home. Only days ago, I felt an intruder in Charlie's house. Now that I stay with strangers of a fictional stature, it is impossible to pretend to myself that I belong there.

Once we all leap over the water, I stop in front of the Cullen house, my eyes stinging and my gut aching with unquenched desire.

A thousand different emotions pour through me, none of them positive. We are all stone still, unmoving, but as the painful feelings bubble up inside me, overwhelming me, I know I can't maintain composure.

I crumple to my knees on the vibrant grass, balling up my fists against my stomach and letting out a long, agonised cry. A tiny hand touches my shoulder and I half-heartedly shrug her away, my frame jittering with dry sobs.

"I nearly killed him," I gasp out, my heart shredding in two. "My own father. I wanted to."

"Bella, I am so sorry," Edward whispers, shame and regret laced in his words. "I should not have let that hap-"

My bleak, humourless laugh cuts his apology short. "As if I could have been stopped."

"You did stop," Alice argues. "You could have killed him, but you didn't, Bella. We've never seen such strength, such humanity in a newborn."

"Please, don't. Just leave me for a minute."

I don't want to be harsh or ungrateful, but I also don't want to be praised. I hear them go inside the house, quietly seating themselves in the living room. Close enough to keep an eye on me, but far enough to give me some semblance of privacy.

I kneel on the grass for hours, unmoving, before Esme pulls up.

I watch as she quickly cuts the engine and fluidly gets out the car in one motion, her concerned eyes trained on me. She stands still for a moment, opening her mouth to speak and then deciding against it.

I feel her natural tenderness extend to me, essentially a stranger, as she slowly approaches me across the lawn. When she reaches me, she kneels in front of me without hesitance, probably ruining her lovely cream pant-suit on the grass.

She gently takes my hands in hers and holds them between us, as if to anchor me to the real world, which now feels so distant to me, I barely recognise it.

She seems to choose her next words carefully. I can see that with the skill of mother's intuition in her arsenal, she knows something has happened. Yet, with her sweet, caring nature, she can tell that I don't want to explain myself.

"You know, honey, there is no such thing as an easy start to this life," she murmurs, rubbing my hands gently as if to warm them. "We have all faced the pain of coming to terms with a foreign state of being. There will always be obstacles, seemingly impossible to surpass, but we learn from these obstacles and gain strength from them. I don't know what has happened, or why you've decided to isolate yourself, but I do know that if you don't keep your head above the water now, you will find keeping a grip on your humanity much more challenging that it needs to be."

A hollow ache blossoms in my chest. Esme isn't just comforting me, isn't trying to absolve me. She is warning me.

"I don't know how to keep my head above the water, Esme," I whisper, glancing down at the blades of grass as the weave together in the slight breeze. "This is all too much. So...overwhelming."

She gives me a small, genuinely caring smile and squeezes my hands gently. "I know, sweetie. We all know too well what you're going through, and that's why you ought to stick with us. We may not seem like much of a family, but we look after our own, and we will look after you, Bella."

I wilt under her affection. She soothes me like only a mother can and as she rises, I rise with her.

"Let's go inside. I could use your input on my plans for the new house," she smiles.