Disclaimer: I do not own anything from the collective works of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga

Chapter 7: Faulty Wiring

The universe didn't want to let her sleep, Louisa decided. Everybody knew Sundays were for sleeping in. Her dad must not understand this though, because her doctor's appointment was scheduled for nine in the morning. Why people thought it was acceptable to wake up before nine every day was beyond her. What was so important that it couldn't be done at later, anyway?

Sunday also saw the return of her headache, which only served to make her more irritable and grouchy. Not even looking at the gorgeous face of Dr Cullen could fix that. He kept shining a light in her eyes and telling her to follow it. She considered snatching up his light and tossing it out the window, but she didn't think that would go over well.

"And you've had these headaches for about a month, now?" Dr Cullen asked, opening up an official-looking folder. "Have you had any changes in your mood or behaviour?"

Louisa looked over at her dad, who rolled his eyes. "She's been more emotional lately-"

"Have not."

"But nothing that I would consider abnormal."

"What do you think, Louisa? You're with yourself more than your father is," Dr Cullen asked. "Do you find yourself losing your temper often? Or do you cry more than you used to?"

Louisa tried to think back but found it rather difficult. "I threw my smoothie at a group of boys yesterday," she replied. At her father's heavy sigh, she realised that this probably wasn't the best thing to admit in front of your father. Particularly after you had promised not to cause any problems. "They were asking for it," she added as if this somehow made it better.

"Yes," Dr Cullen replied, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. "My daughter told me about that." He pulled on a pair of exam gloves and stepped forward to feel the sides of her neck.

"You should remind her that snitches get stitches," Louisa grumbled. She tilted her head side to side when directed, the slight movement making her stomach roll.

Her father gave her a short rebuke, but the doctor seemed to find her comment funny. "Your file indicated that you have lost some weight. Was this intentional?"

This was news to her but it made sense, considering how nauseous she had been lately. She told the doctor this much. He hid it well, but Louisa could tell that he didn't like her answer. He stepped backwards and scribbled a note into her file. "And your memory, how has it been?"

Louisa had been about to give a witty retort about how she wouldn't be able to give a reliable answer if her memory was bad, but it died on her tongue.

Refuses to make eye contact. Increasing distance. Concerned about something.

"Not that I'm aware of," Louisa said, her head tilting slightly as she observed Dr Cullen. "You think I have a brain tumour, don't you." She wasn't sure how she knew this, but it felt correct. Her father made spluttering sounds from the chair next to her, but she didn't feel like trying to interpret them.

Dr Cullen turned his head slowly, his eyes narrowed. "The thought crossed my mind," he replied hesitantly. He held her gaze for a moment as if waiting for something. "It could be a number of things, but the nystagmus has me concerned. I am going to order a CT scan. We won't know if there is a problem until we can get a look inside of your brain."

Louisa found herself trotting off after her father towards the radiology wing.

"I had that MRI done a few months ago," she stated to her worried looking father. "They didn't say anything then. Brain tumours don't grow that quickly, right?"

Her father gave her a tight smile. "Right." He had no clue; he was a lawyer. His agreement was all he could do to set his and his daughter's mind at ease, though.

"Right," Louisa whispered to herself. She reached forward and caught her father's shirt sleeve and fought the urge to bite her nails.

Mr Collins looked down at his daughter and tucked her under his arm. If he didn't want it to be a brain tumour, it couldn't be, right? He didn't know what he would do if she was sick. He tightened his grip on his daughter's shoulders. She would be alright. She had to be. He led them to a pair of uncomfortable looking chairs after signing into radiology.

There was a lot of sitting around despite being the only two people in the waiting room, Louisa thought. She flipped through an out of date Time magazine, trying to compartmentalise her feelings. Panicking never helped anything, and if she really did have a brain tumour, there was nothing she could do about it at the moment. After having x-rays shot into her head, she was shuffled over to the lab to have her blood drawn.

"Do you need me to come back with you?" Her father asked when she was called back.

"I'm not Dottie," Louisa scoffed.

"So, yes?"

Louisa didn't respond and stomped off after the nurse, resolutely ignoring her father's chuckles as he rose to follow after her. Louisa tossed herself into the chair and rolled up her sleeves.

The phlebotomist was a young man with dark brown hair and incredible cheekbones. He looked up at Mr Collins in surprise but didn't ask why he was present. He probably saw a lot of teenagers who were afraid of needles in his job.

At least that's what Louisa wanted to think.

Louisa tried to focus on anything besides what the man in front of her was doing. There was a poster of a kitten hanging on a tightrope that said 'hang in there!' and a picture of a dog wearing dentures, but neither of these things helped her relax. Especially when the phlebotomist found her vein. She tried to think of happy thoughts, like how nice Jasper's ass looked in his jeans on Friday, but she still jumped when she felt the prick of the needle.

"You should definitely propose to her," Louisa said to the phlebotomist after he placed a Band-Aid on the crook of her arm.

The man jumped in shock, nearly dropping the vials containing her blood. "I'm sorry?"

"Don't be," Louisa replied. She hopped out of the chair and was pleased that she didn't faint as she left the lab. She did hate it when her dramatic exists were ruined.

There was more sitting around after this as Dr Cullen took his sweet time to join them. Louisa occupied her time by attempting to deduce the other occupants in the waiting room, much to her father's annoyance. As if it was somehow Louisa's fault that one of the nurses had a gambling addiction or a sallow-skinned patient in the corner was an avid swimmer. Mr Collins simply ignored her offer to include him in the game.

"Well, the good news," Dr Cullen said, sitting down on a metal stool in front of her, an open file resting across his lap, still somehow managing to look like a model. "Your CT scans looked completely normal, and though your blood sugar levels are low, it is nothing I am concerned about."

"So, it's not a brain tumour?" Mr Collins asked. When Dr Cullen nodded, he let out a sigh of relief and slumped forward in his chair.

"And the bad news?" Louisa asked.

Carlisle turned to face the girl in front of him. Her face wasn't clenched in pain like it was earlier, but she still didn't look comfortable. "I have no idea what it is." He admitted. "I would like to test you for seizures, as soon as possible."

Migraines could be ruled out, based off what she described, but for the life of him, he could think of what type of condition would give her such odd symptoms: debilitating pain, sensitivity to light, shaking eyes, neck stiffness, nausea… the list went on. He had been practising medicine for two centuries (okay, 238 years, but who's counting), and couldn't recall a single text that described all that she was experiencing.

Unless it wasn't natural.

She had described having headaches when she was in large groups of people, so perhaps she was telepathic? Carlisle had only met one mind reader that was human but Edward had been dying of a fever at the time, which didn't give him much to go off of. Both from what he had observed himself and anecdotes from his children, Carlisle knew that Louisa often said things that were too close to the truth. If she wasn't reading minds, her ability to guess what other people were thinking was uncanny. Luckily, living with Edward meant that Carlisle knew a few tricks in dealing with those gifted with telepathy.

Are you reading my mind, Louisa? He asked the girl, watching her closely.

Her eyes were unfocused as she stared at the jar of cotton buds on the counter behind him, but she gave no indication that she could hear him. Well, Edward had said that he didn't think Louisa could read minds, and wouldn't his son know? She was probably just observant, Carlisle concluded. More observant than he felt comfortable with if he was honest.

Carlisle discussed their options with her father a few minutes, explaining how he would like to have an MRI done, instructed Louisa to take acetaminophen the next time she experienced a headache before excused himself from the room and set off towards his office. He wasn't sure what to make of Louisa Collins: His children seemed to think well of her, if perhaps a bit odd, and he found himself having to agree.

If nothing else, she certainly presented a medical mystery. Carlisle just hoped Esme wouldn't mind too terribly that he would be shutting himself in his office to figure it out.

No Stone Left Unturned

The next day, Louisa somehow managed to beat both Rosalie and Jasper to their table in Spanish. She wasn't sure why she found this so interesting but she didn't question it, choosing instead to spread out her class notes over the table. She was fairly certain that there would be a pop quiz today and she wanted to make sure she got the appropriate amount of questions wrong: too many incorrect and Mrs Goff would berate her for 'not applying herself'; too many correct and Mrs Goff would insist on moving her up a level. Honestly, Mrs Goff needed to mind her own business. Pushy teachers were the worst.

"How was your appointment?" Rosalie asked, gracefully throwing herself into her seat. She shoved Louisa's notes out of the way with a disgruntled look.

Louisa had to admit that she admired Rosalie's straightforward personality. "Your father didn't say?"

Rosalie rolled her eyes. "That would be illegal. All I know is that he said 'I have a lot to think about,' and locked himself in his office."

"Well, I'm not dead," Louisa offered.

"Let's keep it that way," Rosalie snapped, pulling her backpack into her lap and digging around for something. "Jasper would be quite bent if you kicked the bucket." Jasper, who had finally arrived, widened his eyes in shock before turning to glare at his sister.

Louisa grinned at the blondes. "It's okay to say that you would miss me, Rosalie. I don't mind." Rosalie rolled her eyes, but Louisa could see a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. Louisa made eye contact with the Babe and gave him a wink. "You can miss me too, Jasper."

"Thank you for the permission, ma'am."

Mrs Goff called the class to order, and after a brief pop quiz and a lecture, she passed out worksheets to complete by the end of class. Jasper snatched it up and began working on it immediately, ignoring Louisa when she reminded him that they were supposed to do it as a group. His fountain pen flew across the page, answering the questions in his neat cursive.

"Please," Rosalie scoffed. "It's not like any of us need the practice."

When she didn't say anything else, Louisa furrowed her brows in confusion. "So, are we just going to sit here and stare at each other?"

Rosalie's head tilted, eyes narrowing as she watched Louisa. "Are you going to the dance with anyone?"

"While I'm flattered by your interest, I do think Emmett would be upset with the arrangement." Jasper the Babe let out a soft chuckle at this, and Louisa's stomach swooped in happiness.

Rosalie kicked Jasper's chair. "So that's a no then?"

"The dance was announced a few days ago, Rosalie. I haven't had time to find a date," Louisa explained, her confusion growing. Sure, Rosalie and she were almost friends, but Louisa hadn't thought that they were close enough to discuss things like this. The blonde had to be planning something: only a few weeks ago, the two had been at each other's throats. What was Rosalie's endgame?

Or was there no agenda in her questioning and this was the type of things that sort-of friends discussed, and Louisa had somehow failed to pick up on this all along? Her friends at her old school never asked her about her date to dances, but then again, she had been pretty vocal on her refusal to attend them. Perhaps this was normal and Louisa had simply been excluded from the girl talk? There didn't have to be plots within plots everywhere. Maybe Louisa had just conditioned herself to look for hiding meanings in everyone's words for too long and had forgotten how people acted.

"Good. You can go with Jasper then."

Jasper's pen snapped in half, spraying the three of them in blue ink.

Nope, Louisa definitely wasn't crazy. But apparently, Rosalie was. Rosalie, the defender of Jasper's virtue and honour, who glared at girls that dared to glance at her brother, was suggesting that she go to a dance with him? Louisa wondered if this was some sort of test and Rosalie was trying to gauge Louisa's loyalty to her, but for the life of her, she couldn't figure out what the test was. Was Rosalie somehow trusting Louisa with her brother, or was she trying to decide if Louisa was only befriending her to get close to her brother?

Body angled towards her, interested in the answer. Eyes narrowed in either hostility or concentration. Hands spread across the table in confidence: delicate hands, hands of a pianist, hands of a mechanic. Results, inconclusive.

Rosalie had information that she didn't, and there was only one correct response that Louisa could give.

Louisa noticed her heart rate accelerating, anxiety slowly starting to flood her veins. She suddenly felt like she was teetering on the edge of a precipice, and one wrong step would send her tumbling to her death. A familiar itch appeared behind her left ear, spreading faster than it had ever before. Pressure began to build in her head, but Louisa refused to blink. Blinking in front of Rosalie could be very dangerous, though she had no idea why.

Focus. What does she want?

"Rosalie, enough," Jasper snapped, his voice harsh. He thrust a handkerchief at Louisa though he kept his glare fixed firmly on his sister. They seemed to be having a conversation, though Louisa wasn't sure that they were even exchanging words.

Louisa picked up the handkerchief with shaking hands and lifted it to her face to dab away the ink that had splattered across it. It had a warm, smoky smell to it that Louisa couldn't quite describe yet found herself enjoying. It reminded her of sunny, open fields; sheets drying on a clothesline; wrap around porches with a farm dog resting on the front stoop; vegetable gardens and horses; gunpowder, smoke, yelling, and so much blood.

"What's going on here?" Mrs Goff asked. Louisa had never felt so relieved to be interrupted by the stern woman. Mrs Goff surveyed the Hale twins, before turning her attention to Louisa, her eyes widening in surprise. "Miss Collins, would you like to go to the nurse?"

Louisa pulled the handkerchief away and was surprised to find the white cotton stained blue and red. It was her blood. From her nose. Her nose was bleeding. Blood was not good. She found herself nodding, simultaneously lightheaded and feeling like her head was about to burst from the pressure. Louisa stood from her seat and allowed a concerned classmate lead her from the room.

No Stone Left Unturned

Louisa told her father about the headache. She didn't tell him about the nosebleed. She probably should have; it was a new symptom, after all, but she just… didn't. She was permitted to leave school early either way and spent the most of the afternoon napping. At some point, Louisa heard Dottie slip into the house, though she wasn't entirely sure how her sister had gotten home.

The sound of Dottie crying made Louisa sit up in bed, the sound distant with a metallic echo to it. Okay, that last bit didn't make much sense, but Louisa was having difficulties focusing on anything besides the pain in her left temple. Throwing back her blankets, Louisa stumbled out of bed and towards her bedroom door, following the sound of Dottie's sobs.

Clouds of condensation left Louisa's mouth as she entered the hallway and shuffled towards Dottie's room, the crying becoming louder the closer she got. Louisa threw open her sister's door, the door banging loudly against the wall. The crying stopped, and as Louisa surveyed the room, she noticed that she was completely alone.

"Lou?"

Louisa jumped at the sound of her name and spun to face the person, only to find it was her sister.

"Lou! You're covered in blood!" Dottie exclaimed.

Louisa glanced down at herself, only to find that her blouse was indeed covered in dried blood. She had forgotten to change when she came home. "Oh, yeah," she replied lamely. "Don't tell Dad."

Dottie watched her sister in concern. "Lou, is everything alright?"

Louisa waved her hand and turned away from her sister to inspect the room again. There was a stack of notebooks on the desk next to an open textbook and a framed family photo. The purple bedspread was pulled up to the pillows, untouched since it was made this morning. "Where is your laptop?"

"It's downstairs, I was working on an essay," Dottie replied. She grabbed her sister's arm and forced her to turn around, taking in the sight of Louisa's pale face. Her pupils were dilated and she was shivering. "What's wrong?"

"I heard crying. Was that you?"

Dottie's eyes widened in shock. This wasn't normal for Louisa. She was clearly awake, and she seemed lucid enough. Was she hallucinating? She pulled her sister closer and felt her forehead for a fever. "No, it wasn't me."

Louisa pushed her hands away and stumbled further into her room. "I heard a woman crying. Did you hear anything?"

"No, it's just the two of us," Dottie replied, trying to steer her sister back into her own bedroom.

The lights overhead flickered, causing both teenagers to jump in surprise. They watched in morbid fascination as the lights pulsed once, twice, three times, before going out completely. Weak daylight from the outside was still filtering through the window, but the room felt off as if it were somehow colder.

"A circuit probably flipped," Louisa explained when Dottie shot her a confused look. "Do you know where the circuit breaker is?"

Dottie trotted after her sister downstairs to the kitchen, where Louisa yanked open the closet where the washing machine and dryer were kept. She watched as her sister clambered on top of the dryer and flipped open the circuit breaker, running a finger along the rows of switches.

"It all looks fine," Louisa said after a moment. She slid off the appliance and turned to face her sister. "It's probably just some faulty wiring. Old houses have those sorts of problems. I can call Mrs Cullen to see what she says about the electricity if you want."

When Dottie nodded, Louisa walked over to the kitchen table where she had tossed her backpack earlier and rifled through it before emerging with her cell phone in hand. She had her sister read Mrs Cullen's number to her, which had been taped to the refrigerator. There were two rings before the call was dropped. Louisa pulled her cell phone away from her ear and stared at it in confusion. Sure, the reception in Forks sucked, but it wasn't that bad. She redialled, only for the call to be dropped again.

"The, um, cell phone towers must be doing some maintenance?" The excuse sounded weak to her own ears, and Louisa could tell that her sister was not satisfied with the response.

"That doesn't make any sense," Dottie snapped. "Try it a—"

The sound of a sobbing woman cut her off and the two sisters stared at each other in horror. It began in the next room until the keening rose to such a pitch that it sounded like it was surrounding them. A shiver went down Louisa's spine and she felt her sister take a step closer to her. The woman sounded like she was in agony as if she had lost someone she loved dearly. The woman sounded… exactly like her father had when the police officers told him that his wife and son had died. She could hear Dottie let out a sob of her own as she reached over to grab onto Louisa's sleeve.

"Did you leave anything on?" Louisa hissed, pulling Dottie behind her so that she was in between her sister and the family room. She backed up until Dottie was sandwiched between her and the stove. Louisa could feel her sister shake her head as it rested between her shoulder blades. "All of the windows and doors are locked?"

"I locked the front door when I came home," Dottie whispered. The crying was so loud now that Louisa could barely hear her sister's reply.

Louisa swivelled her head around, trying to find the source of the sound. There had to be something. There always was a logical explanation. If only she didn't have this damn headache and she could just think.

She glanced down at her cell phone, which had a banner across the screen that read 'no service'. "Where is your cell phone?"

"I left it in the family room." Right where the crying had originated from. There was no way in hell Louisa was going to let her sister go in there.

Louisa reached around Dottie until her hand connected with the knife block. She drew out the bread knife and brandished it before her as if it were a broadsword and not a flimsy kitchen utensil in desperate need of sharpening. "Stay here," she commanded before pulling away from Dottie, despite her sister's best efforts to make her stay. She tried to make her movements appear more confident, to at least act that she wasn't terrified for Dottie's sake, but even Louisa could not pretend that something wasn't wrong. She put one foot in front of the other, inching towards the arch that separated the two rooms. Then she stepped over the threshold.

The sobbing ceased at once, with only the sounds of the sisters' ragged breathing filling the eerie silence.

Louisa wasn't sure what she had expected to find, but as she looked around the room, she could see that it was devoid of distressed women. She glanced back at her sister with a confused look, as if wondering if they had experienced some sort of dream, or perhaps a form of folie à deux. Dottie's bloodless face confirmed that she too had heard the crying.

"Right, executive decision," Louisa said, giving the family room a final look before hurrying back into the kitchen. "You have three minutes to get everything you need. We're spending the evening with Chief Swan until Dad gets home."

Dottie nodded and nervously scurried into the family room where Louisa assumed she was shoving her laptop and homework into her backpack.

Louisa's eyes focused briefly on the lights overhead which were still out. Faulty wiring had to be the blame for that because there was no other explanation for it. No matter how many times that evening Dottie insisted it was because they lived in a haunted house.


"One need not be a chamber to be haunted, one need not to be a house. The brain has corridors surpassing material place." –Emily Dickinson.


A/N: So what did you think? If you have any constructive criticisms for me, I would love to hear them! Also, if you can figure out what is happening to Louisa (and leave a comment when signed in to an account) you'll get a prize. But like, an internet prize, because I'm a broke college student. Lots of Love, CheckAlexa