Pinned but Fluttering

Chapter 40

“I'm not controlled, believe me,” I admitted, frowning; I certainly didn't deserve his praise or their admiration. “I feel as though I'm being pulled in eighteen different directions at once. Believe me, this is so not controlled.”

Everyone backed off when they saw I was getting upset again. So I took a few more deep breaths, trying to center my unstable feelings and locate the elusive calm I sought.

Then another couple of questions popped into my head, and I turned to Esme. “Why do you and Alice call me 'Bella' while they,” I indicated Carlisle and Edward, “call me 'Isabella?'”

“Carlisle knew you when you were a young girl,” Esme answered, “and was in the habit of calling you by your full name...which Edward apparently picked up. But everyone else calls you 'Bella.'”

Of course, her statement raised about twelve more questions. But the burning in my throat was intensifying, and I recognized that they had been right: I needed to drink whatever would help put out the fire in my throat.

I swallowed hard, causing the flames to sear my throat even more violently. But I had to ask. “And when you all say 'hunt,' do you mean that you hunt....”

I couldn't say it.

I couldn't say it, and I wouldn't do it.

It was revolting.

Horrible.

How could I possibly commit murder, just to extinguish the forest fire in my throat?

I would not kill a sentient human being just to slake my thirst, I resolved stubbornly.

My hands fisted at my sides, I shut my eyes tightly as I sought control a third time, slowly shaking my head from side to side as I tried to ignore the insistent flames searing my throat.

I felt hands taking my fists, and I relaxed at the gentle touch, opening my eyes...which I knew were filled with confusion as the battle raged within me, the battle between need and ethics...to see Carlisle standing before me. But the battle continued still: Apparently I needed blood. Yet I refused to kill a human to get what I needed.

What could I do?

How did these people, who seemed so loving and kind, murder human beings, people with families and friends and jobs and lives, for sustenance? My mind continued to whirl as the battle between right and wrong, thirst and need, fought within me.

“Isabella, Isabella, it's all right,” soothed Carlisle, his eyes warm yet worried, his comforting hands on mine.

But his attempt at calming me backfired. I threw his hands off me and glared at him, my anger and frustration rising so quickly to a crescendo of emotion.

“Of course it's NOT 'all right'!” I spat at him. “In fact, it's so opposite of 'all right' that I--”

“Stop it.” Rosalie's cool voice interrupted the beginnings of my tirade. This was the first time she had spoken to me, and the terseness of her tone did indeed halt my fit of temper before I could really get going. I stared at her, but she ignored me, studying her perfect manicure with detachment.

“We don't kill humans, Bella,” Esme stated softly, eying Rosalie with a silent warning. “We hunt and drink the blood of animals. Wild animals. Humans do the same, only they consume the meat while we consume the blood. In fact, some of us have never tasted human blood at all.”

“Some of you?” I asked bluntly. “Why not all of you?”

Carlisle approached me again. “Some of us started our lives very differently. Some of us have 'slipped' and killed by accident. Others have elected to live differently for a while before returning to this way of life,” he said quietly.