The Girl Who Was Taken (Renesme Cullens Twin Sister)

Sixty-Four

Slowly, as I drank, my wound got better. The bleeding stopped, and I was left with a crusty gash that was well on the way to healing over with a deep purple scar. It would someday fade, I thought, if I kept drinking human blood.

It made me remember the day that I was learning how to cook. Sue was teaching me basic things like cutting up vegetables and how to boil water. And I had held on to the pot of water too long, enjoying the heat of it, as the blue flames from the gas stove licked up around the edges. It hurt at the time when I was holding it, just like all the other times I had gotten too close to fires overs the years. It always hurt in the moment, so I didn't know it wasn't the same anymore. I didn't let go of the boiling pot until Sue yelled, "Stormy! What are you doing? Your hands?"

"It's fine," I said, letting go of the boiling hot pot, and looking down at the red spots pressing up on my palms. Hundreds of times before, why would this time be different? "It'll heal fast." She pursed her lips and had me run my hands under water, not too cold because that might make it worse, but colder than room temperature. And it did help with the pain, so I went along with it. It wasn't until the next day, I woke up, and my hands still felt like they were on fire. I could barely use them for a week. And I couldn't understand why they weren't healing as fast as they used to. But now I realized it was because of my diet. I was turning human, with all the pain, weaknesses, and frailty.

But not today. Today was a cheat day, and it was not a day to die from a wound to the shoulder with a sharp wooden stick. When the blood ran out, I sat up, refreshed and revived. I sat on the floor with Demetri, and felt it was almost like being back in the feeding chamber having a family meal with the Volturi. Between Jane and Renesme, the rest of the bodies were drained quickly.

Demetri and I stared at each other for a while, and then I spoke. "Why are you here?"

"After what happened with Italy, we thought it would be best to start looking elsewhere for a home. Find a place to lay low, where there won't be any trouble. I wanted to collect you first."

I wiped my arm over my mouth and looked away from him. When I didn't speak, he went on. "This was the first opportunity I saw to talk to you. First you were with the Cullen's and we'd been trying to negotiate with them all summer, but they're unreasonable. They refuse to meet any demands. And these last two weeks, you've been hiding in a town full of wolves, so I had to stay away until now."

And I knew I had to say it before I was whisked off. "I don't want to go with you." My voice was small. At first I thought he didn't understand what I said, so I said it again. "I don't want to go with you." But it wasn't that he hadn't heard me. It was just that he didn't want to hear that answer.

He stared at me like I was still a puzzle piece he was trying to fit into a puzzle, but he couldn't figure out where I went. "You told me that last time I found you running away," he said.

"Last time, I didn't have a place to call home."

"And now you do? Your home is with the wolves?"

"Yeah. I like it there."

He lifted his knee up and rested his elbow on it with a sigh. He studied the dead person beside us who I just drained of blood. "Sometimes when I come out of a meditation, I still think you're dead."

"I'm sorry," I said, remembering how I had brainwashed him to think that once.

His eyes flickered down, towards my hands holding onto my feet, keeping myself held together now that he wasn't holding me. "You smell like him."

"What?"

"Like a wet dog," he clarified. "It's all over you."

I didn't want to answer that or give him anything else to say. I pushed up from the floor to walk away. He reached out and grabbed my hand, stopping me in my tracks.