Renewal [Emmett Cullen] (1)

[10- Theories]

"Woo!" Emmett boomed in his deep bass as Florida scored the first touchdown, "Go Gators!"

Florida had an early led and held on to it throughout the game, beating Iowa by 27 points. As Emmett turned to face me, our eyes met. I still didn't understand his interest in me, but he continued to stare at me with penetrating eyes, as if my dull life's story somehow captivated him.

He glanced at his phone, "Its nearly 5. I've got to go, Esme will be worried about me," he grimaced. He retrieved his bag from the dining room and I escorted him out.

"I really enjoyed today. Hopefully we can hang out again," he said sincerely. I smiled in agreement and opened the door for him.

"See you at school on Monday!" I yelled as he walked down the driveway. It was hard to tell with recent surge of rain but I was pretty sure he was grinning from ear to ear.

For the rest of the day, I was elated. Emmett was amazing and we seemed to get along pretty well. I had only been in school for two days but I felt like he was hiding something.

For some reason, something about Emmett wasn't adding up in my mind; his strength, beauty, pale skin, eyes that changed color, and abnormally cold skin. The rest of his adoptive siblings shared the similar features, even though they weren't related. They stood out from the crowd, from personal experiences I knew what it was like to stand out. Being in a wheelchair literally and figuratively gave me a new perspective on life.

The next day, I did what I always did when I was unsure of something, research. I tried to brush my hesitations about Emmett and his family but couldn't. I guess you could call it my mental stubbornness.

I had no idea where to begin but hacking into his computer seemed like a good starting place. It wasn't that difficult, I taught myself how to do it when I was 12. You know how some kids were really obsessed with rubix cubes or horses? Well I liked computers. I would have taken a software course but unlike my old school, Oakridge didn't offer one.

Thankfully he didn't use a proxy or anonymity service to hide his IP address, rookie mistake. Using a remote access Trojan, I then hacked into the families' bank records. This one took a little longer but luckily I was able to bypass the encryption. I was thankful that this one kid back in California taught me how do this.

Their bank statements definitely showed that Emmett was telling the truth about moving from Alaska two years ago but what was fascinating was the places they moved to before that; Ithaca, Pittsburgh, Rochester. Not only did they move a lot, they moved frequently. Their grocery bill, water, electricity, and gas bills were significantly lower than what I would have expected, it was as if they never showered or used kitchen appliances. They didn't even have medical or dental expenses. All these little details I discovered were unsettling, it was almost like they weren't .... human. But pretending to be. It would explain the moving around to avoid suspicion. What could they be?

Ok, so far I had only established that they weren't human. That would cross superhero off the list. What about where they lived? Maybe that could provide some clues as to their identity. What did those cities have in common? Why were they drawn to them?

A quick Google search revealed that Pittsburg, Rochester, and Seattle were some of the cloudiest cities in the US. Odd. So they didn't like the sun. That couldn't be a coincidence.

So that narrowed down my list of possibilities. Angels? Though they looked like something from another realm, I crossed that off my life. Zombie? Nope, definitely not. Vampire. I have no idea why I though of it but it definitely would explain the food situation but the vampires I had read about in books and seen in movies slept in coffins in basements and only came out at night, so that didn't seem 100% feasible.

Another Google search on vampires legends bore similar traits to the ones I had observed. Two stories caught my eye: the Romanian Varacolaci, a powerful undead being who could appear as a beautiful, pale-skinned human and the Slovak Nelapsi, a creature so strong and fast it could massacre an entire village in the single hour after midnight. The descriptions of the vampires and what to look out for seemed to match my own observations of Emmett.

I shut my laptop screen. Could Emmett really be a vampire? No... but maybe. How was that even humanly possible? Why was I even toying with this idea? Why didn't I just move on?

Something outside the possibility of rational justification was taking place in front of my incredulous eyes. It seemed so outrageous but confirmed everything peculiar about him.  I needed to talk to him, hopefully he could give me a perfectly logical explanation.

I considered calling him, demanding him to tell me the truth but I decided to wait. Pretend I didn't know anything, just in case he turned out to be one of the vampires who wanted to suck my blood. That would actually suck.