Alice Cullen was in an absolute panic. She had no clue what to make of Lilah Porter.
First off, she had seen absolutely nothing about her in her visions. She had kept an eye on Forks while the family had been away for the summer and there had been nothing, absolutely, positively nothing about someone new moving to town, and she always saw things like that. It was easy for her to see visions of humans, arguably easier than it was for her to see visions of vampires, sometimes. Even when gazing into the future, knowing Lilah, Alice saw nothing. Like Lilah didn't really exist.
Second, Lilah's blood smelled like nothing Alice had ever smelled before in her life. It wasn't that her blood sang to Alice, that wasn't it. Her blood smelled good, sure, a nice mix of lavender and honey, but Alice wasn't overwhelmed with bloodlust. Because something about her blood didn't smell human.
For lack of a better explanation, it was like how she imagined humans differentiated between food and food scented candles. They often smelled the same, equally delicious, but you knew you could only eat one.
And though Lilah's blood smelled as good as any other humans, there was some primal vampire urge in Alice, previously unknown to her, that told her absolutely not to drink it. Like there was some sort of warning encoded in Lilah's DNA that told vampires to beware—like a fat, juicy caterpillar that turned bright colors to warn predacious birds to stay away.
That did seem rather crude. Lilah was not a fat caterpillar. She seemed like a very nice human woman. Yet Alice couldn't bring herself to believe that. She could not see her in her visions, she did not understand the smell of her blood…either she was the strangest human she'd ever come across, or there was more to Lilah's story that Alice had yet to unravel.
She peeled into the driveway of her family's home, the wheels of her brother's Volvo screeching against the pavement. She had the car parked in the garage and was in the house in a flash, where the entire family had already assembled to greet her, having heard the tires and knowing that something had to be upsetting Alice.
She looked to Edward first, her mind reading brother, hoping that he could make sense of her thoughts. He'd lived with Carlisle and Esme longer, meaning he had more time to learn about the vampire and supernatural world than she had. However, she was disappointed as Edward's brows knit together with confusion, and he gave her a look that showed he was just as flabbergasted as she was.
"Alice, Edward, either of you care to tell the rest of us what's going on in your freaky little heads?" asked Emmett, eyes darting between the two of them. "I'll even open up the floor to anyone else who'd like to chime in if those two have decided to go mute."
"Someone new has moved to town," Edward said.
Alice was grateful he had decided to speak up, as she wasn't sure she'd be able to coherently explain herself, and, judging by Edward's expression, he was struggling to explain her thoughts for her for probably the first time.
"Alice is confused. She never saw her coming in her visions."
"I still can't see her," Alice said. She now looked to her parents, Carlisle and Esme, who always seemed to have an answer between them. "There's absolutely nothing when I try…it's like she doesn't exist, like she never has existed…the only thing I can think of comparing it to is when my visions get clouded by the wolves, but I know she's not a wolf."
"Well, Alice, is this something to be this concerned with?" Carlisle asked. His tone was measured. He was trying to keep Alice, and everyone else, for that matter, calm. Not to allow anything to escalate beyond measure. "Are you worried that not seeing this one human's future is going to harm us, or that it will prevent you from seeing your other visions clearly?"
"Normally, no. Normally, I would be surprised but not necessarily bothered," said Alice. She looked to Edward again, begging for help. "Her blood—"
"Her blood wasn't quite human," Edward said. He narrowed his eyes, hoping he was understanding his sister correctly. "Almost human, but not. Something about it smelled as though we're somehow hardwired not to drink her kind of blood, though it smells almost exactly like any other human's blood."
"Maybe this chick just has really bad B.O.," Emmett said.
He was joking, trying to lighten the mood. The glares from around the room told him it was not the time.
By the kitchen island, Esme and Carlisle exchanged a set of knowing looks that were lost on the rest of the room. Using his power of telepathy, Edward peered into their thoughts, and what he heard within them only raised an exponentially higher amount of questions.
"I've…encountered something like this in the past," Carlisle said, finally speaking to his coven. "I didn't think there were that many of them left, I—"
"Them?" Rosalie repeated. Already, something about that sounded bad to her, like there was a whole army of whatever this woman was out in the world, something that could pose a danger to the one thing she'd cared about in her immortal life: her family.
"Yes."
"And what are they, exactly?"
Carlisle looked to his eldest 'child,' knowing he already saw the answer within his mind, and Esme's as well, seeing as he'd confided everything in her. For a moment, he wondered if it would be easier for the others to digest coming from Edward. He had a way with words.
But, it would be better coming from him, he decided. He drew an unnecessary breath to psych himself up and exhaled.
"Witches."
The rain had been drizzly and soft the previous day. The rain now was furious, ferocious. Like a long forgotten storm god had a great upset and decided to let it all out on the little town of Forks.
Lilah didn't exactly mind the rain. She'd come to appreciate it in her short time having lived in the Pacific northwest. In fact, there was something quite beautiful about it, and how it kept the vast forest so lush and evergreen. She was sure it would look beautiful in a few months when the snow came. Like an old fashioned post card—gentle blankets of snow atop pine trees, little houses lit with Christmas lights.
Not all that unlike Massachusetts, she thought. Where she helped Phoebe make Christmas magical for the littlest member of their hodgepodge family, Zoe. She was just six years old and still believed in elves, Santa, and reindeer, things that Lilah had never been allowed to believe in when she was that age. Even if she had been permitted allowed, she would never have been granted the time to bask in the holiday magic. There was too much to do in the Porter house.
But with Zoe, Lilah always wanted to go all out. To make every Christmas better than the last because there were few things in life that compared to seeing Zoe's bright brown eyes sparkle and her small jaw drop open in awe on Christmas morning, when she woke up to a living room full of gifts and a breakfast buffet of everything sweet and delicious made by Lilah.
She missed that little girl. Her little sister. She missed her other sister, Morgan. She missed Morgan's fiery, stubborn spirit, and all of the times she'd dragged her so far out of her comfort zone and showed her that the world wasn't as scary as her parents had made her believe. She missed her stunning intellect, learning something new from her everyday, the classes they took together at the local state college and the hours they spent at the library, sustained only by coffee and their tired, delirious laughter.
She hoped that within a few months, everything would be figured out, and she could be reunited with them. She'd keep the house in Forks and they could visit in the summer for vacations. They'd all be back at the house in Massachusetts and make their regular visits to New Orleans, and everything would be back to normal.
She hoped. She hoped, because she'd never told them that she was leaving. She'd disappeared into the night and probably scared them all half to death until Constance finally told them what she'd done.
She hoped they'd forgive her. Because she'd done it to keep them safe.
"Behind you, Lilah!"
Shelley's voice caused Lilah to snap back to reality. She was working her shift at The Lodge after a long day at Sullivan's, spent overturning a lot of garden beds to plant a new round of pumpkins. Her back ached and her head throbbed. She hadn't been drinking enough water and she knew it.
Lilah jumped. Spooked, because Shelley had caught her off guard, so lost in her own thoughts that she didn't feel fully present in her body. Her hands, doing their best to go through the motions of chopping onions, jumped in their own way and suddenly, there was a searing, burning pain and a rush of hot liquid.
Lilah cursed herself. Out loud. She didn't know how she did it, but she'd cut clean and deep through the meat of her left palm, right from under her pointer finger, straight down through the fleshy bit beneath her thumb, so deep that there was more than blood visible within the wound. She cursed again, and a third time for good measure, and scrambled, grabbing the nearest dish towel and wrapping the offending wound to try to stop the onslaught of blood.
"…Lilah?"
Shelley had turned back to her again. There was no hiding what had happened. Shelley saw her clutching her hand in the towel, which was turning red and soaking through with blood at a rapid pace.
"Oh, shit," Shelley said. Gently, she peeled back the towel enough to get a look at the wound, grimaced at the sight of it, and wrapped it back up. "We need to get you to the hospital."
"No, Shelley, I'll be fine," Lilah said. She had hoped to slip away to the bathroom, use a little magic, and fix the damn thing herself, but of course, it was rarely so simple. "I'll just wrap it up for a minute, wash it out in the bathroom sink—"
"Lilah, you need stitches!" Shelley said. "That thing will never heal on its own…I can have Olivia or Ryan drive you over there, it's half a mile away, and Dr. Cullen's the best doctor in the state, there's nothing to be afraid of."
There was no time to protest. In an instant, Shelley had called the nearest teen in, who happened to be Ryan, who went pale-faced as soon as he saw the blood that had almost saturated the entire towel. She gave him instructions, helped Lilah put her jacket on and slung her bag over her right shoulder, and lovingly yet harshly pushed her and the gangly teen boy out of the back door, so as not to disturb any of the customers with the sight of so much blood.
And so there she was, in the passenger seat of Ryan's aged pickup truck, watching him as he drove and attempted not to vomit.
"Are you gonna be okay?"
"Just fine," Ryan said. He was straining a smile as he kept his eyes on the road, unable to so much as glance in Lilah's direction. "As long as I don't look at your hand…no offense."
"None taken," she said. The truck turned into the hospital parking lot, revealing the meager building that housed the humble country hospital. "I'm sorry you had to do this, but I appreciate it."
"Yeah…hope you don't mind if I wait out here for you…I really can't handle blood or hospitals, if you didn't notice."
"No problem. Thanks again."
Lilah hopped out of the truck. She looked around, trying to figure out a way out of going to the hospital. It wasn't going to be easy. Ryan had dropped her off right in front of the entrance to the emergency room, and though it wasn't busy, he'd certainly see her if she scampered off behind the building to magically heal her hand on her own. That, and he'd catch on to something odd if she reappeared within less than five minutes with her hand halfway healed.
She sighed. She would have to go to the hospital.
She sucked it up and went inside. Like The Lodge, the walls of the emergency room waiting area were paneled, dated, adorned with historical photos of the hospital that were probably close to a century old. In the corner, a lumberjack with an icepack on one knee slept beneath his beanie, and on the other side, an elderly couple worked on filling out an admission form together. Other than that, it was empty, save for the receptionist, and a couple of nurses heading out back with fresh coffees in their hands.
"Can I help you, honey?" asked the receptionist. She was a bit younger than Bev, Lilah supposed, but with a rounder face and neat, short-cropped curls.
Smiling sheepishly, Lilah lifted her hand and the bloodied towel up just enough for the poor woman to get a look, and said, "I think I need stitches."
"Oh lord, yes you do!" she said.
She was almost as upset about the blood as Ryan, as she hollered to one of the nurses with the coffee to grab Lilah and take her back. Heather, the nurse, had a much stronger stomach and didn't react to the blood as she took a quick look beneath the towel and beckoned Lilah to follow her, working efficiently with another nurse, Nancy, to get her information and while setting her up in a small, clean triage bay.
"At least you didn't cut through any tendons," Heather said, examining the wound beneath a light after cleaning it out some. "You got lucky, even though I'm sure it doesn't feel like it. Dr. Cullen's great, though, he'll have you patched up and out of here in no time."
Lilah thanked the nurse before she left. She leaned back against the firm cot.
She was about to meet the Carlisle Cullen. She didn't know how she felt about that. Nor did she have time to figure it out.