17th November, 2012
Holland Park, London
Being a mythical creature of the night had taken less getting used to that I'd have expected. Carlisle and his family had taught me how not to be a monster, and how to live a life - or an existence, if you want to be technical - around humans, doing something of worth. Carlisle told me that Alice had had a vision that I'd take to the life of a vampire, and he'd saved my 'existence' by turning me into a vampire.
He explained all about the attack on me, and told me that the person that attacked me was also a vampire. A nomad called James. Carlisle said that it was likely that my blood had sung to James - that James had been unable to resist it. I was also told that James was a tracker, and would have been hunting my scent. I owed Carlisle everything, but he took nothing.
It had taken me a few months to get over my attack. One minute I was a human, with a heartbeat, friends, and a life, and the next, I was a creature of the night, aglow in the sun and drinking blood. All because of an attack. Alice and I had become fast friends, although she was often frustrated that she couldn't 'see' my future decisions, due to my gift. A shield. Alice helped me immensely to get over it all. Rosalie, however, was a different story. We constantly rubbed each other the wrong way, and she spent all her time sneering at me.
I became a member of the Cullen family, though I had chosen to keep my own name. I was still Isabella Swan. I decided, after a little deliberation, to become a psychologist. I'd never had trouble with human blood, and I enjoyed my line of work. Rosalie turned her nose up at it, but I had ceased to take any of her moods and harsh words to heart..
I loved my family, but I also loved my privacy. I had chosen to live on my own, while Alice and Jasper resided with Carlisle and Esme. Rosalie and her mate Emmett had also decided to live as a married couple. They'd remarried many times over the years, to keep up appearances, as had Alice and Jasper.
I sighed as I looked down the list of people I'd be meeting that day. It was a pretty average day, I thought. A few people that really didn't need my time, it sounded like, and a couple that were stressing over nothing. Then I had one whom I had very little information on. Edward Cullen.
I started. Cullen? Apparently, he was related, however lightly, to Carlisle. I knew that Carlisle hadn't had any children before he was turned, so apparently this was further back than that. I shook my head slightly, and wondered about Edward Cullen a little. Why did I have so little information on him? It was rare. Usually I had something to go on.
My morning passed quickly, and I gave myself a twenty minute 'lunch break', just so that the receptionists wouldn't begin to get suspicious of my non-eating tendencies. I returned to my office and seated myself, after opening the window. I glanced down at my list of people, and noticed that I'd be seeing Edward Cullen. Well, it could either be interesting, or incredibly dull and exasperating.
Ten minutes later, there was a knock on my door. I called out for whoever it was to come in, and Mrs Cope, the older lady that worked on the front desk in the afternoons, showed in a young man of about my 'age'. My physical age, at least. I was just taking in his dishevelled bronze hair and startling emerald eyes, when a scent like no other hit my nose, and invaded my senses.
Holy hell...
Mrs Cope was speaking, but I wasn't listening. I was more interested in this man's blood. I'd never smelt anything so appetising, ever, in my decades of life. I wanted his blood. I needed it. I craved it. I could hear it pumping through his body, and I could smell the sweet nectar. Oh, to break the skin of his fragile neck and to sink my teeth in. Venom pooled in my mouth as I imagined gulping down mouthful after mouthful of his thick, delectable blood, savouring every mouthful.
In that moment, I felt nothing like the humane being I had learnt to become. My emotions were suddenly in turmoil, as they'd been as a newborn, and I felt like the monster I tried so hard not to be. The natural instincts to kill humans that I'd tried to reign in over the years were suddenly unleashed.
I was a predator, and he was my prey.
I needed to hunt him.
I sucked in a deep, ragged breath, and his scent burned down my throat. It was almost physically painful not to leap over the desk and consume every drop of his tantalising blood. I could do it, said a snide voice in my head. Just go over there and drink. I'd need to kill Mrs Cope too, though. But two humans... I could get away with that. People died and went missing in London all the time. It wouldn't be that unusual.
But we'd still have to go. My family and I would have to pack up and leave. And Rosalie would hate me even more. So, with a great, inhuman force, I made myself stay seated in my chair. I gripped the wad of papers I was holding tightly in one hand, and the other fisted around the arm of the chair. I felt it grind between my fingers.
I let out a slight, strangled growl, causing both Mrs Cope and Edward Cullen to look up at me. For a split second, our eyes met, and the monster within me diminished for the smallest length of time imaginable. I felt my eyes darken, and his eyes widened, presumably at the expression on my face, before dropping to the ground.
In the frozen moment of time that our eyes met, I saw my own feral face reflected in his eyes. It was that image that saved his life. Carlisle's face appeared in my mind, he who had never tasted human blood, and I closed my eyes for a moment. I was able to think more clearly, as my own face, with red eyes, after my rebellious years of killing murderous humans and drinking from them, came into my mind too. I wouldn't be that monster again.
I held my breath, and the searing pain in my throat lessened very slightly. My grip on the chair tightened, and I realised that the wood wasn't up to the job of keeping me in my seat. I glanced down, too quickly for the humans to see, and saw the shape of my fingers imprinted there. I'd have to erase that evidence later...
"Miss Swan?" Mrs Cope's voice cut through my bloodlust, and I looked up at her, trying my best not to think about Edward Cullen's blood. I could still smell the remainder of his scent, but it was muted after holding my breath. Bearable. I still wanted to kill him, but I didn't need to. I could survive not doing so. I hadn't even known a scent such as his could exist...
"Yes?" I asked, my voice a little rough. I realised that I'd have to breath again soon, as I'd run out of breath to speak. Perhaps I would have to kill Edward Cullen. I'd never committed a murder like that - never drunk from an innocent human - but I'd have to if I had to breath in his scent again. Perhaps I'd inch my chair closer to the window so that I could dilute the smell.
"Are you ok?"
"Perfectly," I lied.
"This is Edward Cullen. I'll see you in a while," she said, the latter to Edward Cullen. He nodded silently.
Mrs Cope looked across at me, and then she turned on her heel and left my office. Like most humans, my presence, when I was like this, set her on edge. She wanted to get away from me. It had taken me many years to make myself human enough not to repulse humans when they spoke to me, which was important for my job.
I was mildly surprised, therefore, when Edward merely stood awkwardly before the shut door. His heartbeat didn't indicate any fear, and he was shooting me strange glances. What was this - this thing? Some horrific person sent by the Heavens to be my undoing? The anger towards this innocent human, with no knowledge of my world, lessened the desire to kill him somewhat.
Surreptitiously, I moved my chair closer to the window, and then sucked in a breath of slightly cleaner air so that I could speak to Edward. Breathing with him in the room still burned down my throat, causing every nerve ending in my body to alight, but I didn't need to destroy my chair to stay where I was.
"Edward?" I said, trying to keep my voice gentle. He was here for a reason. "Could you sit down, please?"
Silently, Edward moved towards the chair a few feet in front of me and sat down. He didn't look up at me, and instead kept his eyes trained on his lap. He picked at a hole in the sleeve of his jumper, seeming utterly focused on his task. Clearly, this was going to be like pulling teeth... He didn't want to talk.
I clenched my jaw, then took a deep breath so that I could speak. The smell of his blood seared horribly down my throat, and I was grateful that I'd never had a problem with bloodlust, until then. I knew that if Jasper had been in my position, Edward would already be dead. I understood, for the first time, how difficult life was for Jasper.
"My name is Bella Swan," I said, my voice too harsh to be reassuring due to the raging agony his blood caused me. "I suspect that we'll be seeing quite a lot of each other." If I manage not to kill you, I added in my head. I took another, searing breath. "At the moment, I don't know anything about you. I don't know why you're here, or what's happened in your past. I'm only going to know what you tell me. I'm not going to discuss anything that happens in these sessions with anybody.
"I understand that you might not feel comfortable talking about things at the moment, and that's ok. Talk when you want to. I'm going to tell you my story, and if you want to speak at the end, you can. If not, that's ok."
And so, as I had a million times, I told Edward about James' attack, though I didn't mention James' name. Of course, I left out that this was decades ago, and instead said that it was a couple of years ago. I left out the bit about vampires, and instead merely stated that Carlisle had saved me, and that it had taken a while to heal.
I then told Edward about some of the violent, horrible emotions and thoughts I experienced as a newborn, and how I felt lie my life was in turmoil. I explained how it had taken many months for me to get over what had happened, and that it had taken a good deal of support and help from my family, and had caused lots of arguments and 'tears'. What it had actually caused was many fights between myself and Rosalie, and a lot of 'sobbing' in Esme and Alice's arms.
Each breath I had to take was like somebody slamming a white-hot branding iron down my throat. It was torture. If I could just have leapt over those few metres of space towards that one, innocent human and consumed that delectable blood... But I couldn't. I couldn't revert to that monster again. I wouldn't let myself. I swallowed the venom that was pooling continuously in my mouth, certain that my eyes were midnight black, despite having started the day golden.
When I'd finished my tale, there was silence in the room. At least, silence to Edward's ears. Edward's fingers had stopped playing with the threads on his jumper, and I realised that he had been listening to my story carefully. I waited for him to process everything for a few minutes, and then waited a little longer for him to speak. Most people did speak.
"I'm only here because I screamed at my mother," Edward said quietly, looking at his hands, which were clasped in his lap.
I nodded encouragingly, glad not to have to speak. As I'd taken breaths while telling Edward about the end of my human life, it had been agony. I had to distract myself from killing him. It hadn't been easy. I understood why many vampires didn't bother with the 'vegetarian' style of life. It was hard.
"My life is such a mess," he whispered, his voice pained.
I felt a strange tug of sympathy, pulling at my silent heart. Though I empathised with the people that came to me, very rarely did I feel sympathy. And I'd never felt such sympathy as that which I felt for Edward. He'd barely started! But the pain his voice held... I just wanted to take it away.
Then another, equally foreign thought occurred to me. I didn't want him to leave that room. I wanted to steal him away and take him to the forest, where I could sink my teeth into the soft flesh of his neck and savour every drop, until I'd sucked his body dry. He was mine, Goddamn-it, and his blood was mine. I didn't want it - I needed it.
But it wasn't. The only thing keeping me in my chair was the image of my animalistic self reflected in Edward's dead eyes when he'd walked in.
"Why don't you start at the beginning?" I suggested, holding my breath again after speaking. I turned my head to the side slightly to suck in another breath, and I realised that each time Edward's scent scorched its way down my throat, it became very slightly easier not to kill him. Very slightly.
Edward let out a sigh.
"During my final year of school, I began to date a girl-"
"Let's call her Green," I said, choosing the first non-name that came into my head.
"V- I mean Green and I dated for a few years, and then, about six months ago, I walked into the house we shared, and caught her cheating on me. I was furious, needless to say. We broke up, I kicked her out, and didn't see her again for several months. I got over her.
"It wasn't until a month or so ago that things started to go wrong. I found my car keyed, with 'heartbreaker' scratched into the side. I knew that it had something to do with Vi- with Green. Crazy bitch." Edward laughed bitterly. "Then I had a load of calls where somebody was just breathing into the phone, and would then hang up. It freaked me out.
"Then I met some guy-"
"Call him Brown," I said, then took another agonising breath, his sweet honeysuckle scent burning down my throat. If the sun had a smell, it would be that of Edward's blood. Impossible to describe, sweet and savoury at the same time, refreshing but scorching.
"I liked him, at first, and then he went all weird. Freaky weird. He looked... I dunno, like an animal or something."
I froze at Edward's words. Was it possible that whoever this guy was that Edward was talking about was a vampire? If so, then God help the poor guy. I felt a strange, sudden urge to protect Edward from anything and everything in my world. I wanted to step in between him and danger.
"Then one night, a couple of weeks ago, I saw him in my freaking driveway. He grinned up at me, and then just disappeared. I kept seeing him around, randomly, but he never approached me. God, I wanted to put as much distance between me and him as possible. A week ago, he was sitting in my fucking car when I went to get in it. With Green. J- Brown literally dragged me back into my house and told me that I'd pay for what I did to my ex. I had no trouble telling him she cheated on me. He didn't listen.
"He left immediately after he drew my blood. He sort of snarled and hissed at me, looking all feral, and then disappeared. I haven't seen him since, but everything about him... It fucking haunts me. He was so weird. Inhuman. And if my ex got some guy like that to do in with me, because that seemed to be his intention, then God knows what else she'd do."
Left at the sight of blood? Or rather, the smell? Snarling and hissing? Inhuman? Haunting? That guy was a vampire alright, and one that was endangering the human population. I'd have to talk to Carlisle about that. I needed to find out who he was. He couldn't be allowed to hurt anybody else.
As Edward had spoken, his heartbeat had begun to race. When he finished, it was positively pounding, and his breaths were coming in short, sharp bursts. Again, I felt the weirdest sensation of wanting to comfort him. I wanted to calm him down, and tell him that it would be ok. But tugging me in exactly the opposite direction was the baser proclivities telling me that I needed to drain him of his blood and cherish it as I fed.
I pushed the thoughts away.
"I'm sorry, Edward," I said as softly as I could with the war raging inside me.
"You must think I'm nuts," Edward said, his voice bitter. "Everybody else does. Even my own mother."
"I don't think you're nuts," I said gently, shaking my head. For a moment, just a split second, Edward's obvious pain had put my own bloodlust and discomfort out of my mind. What on Earth was happening to me?
"Really?" he asked, lifting his eyes to meet mine for the first time since he'd first walked into the room.
"Really. The man that attacked me seemed animalistic too. I was terrified. There are things you have to see to believe. I have seen it."
"James was more than animalistic; he was fucking insane."
I sucked in a ragged gasp that seared down my throat in agony as Edward slipped, and mentioned the name of the vampire that had attacked him. James. Was it even possible that I was talking to a human that had been attacked by the same person that had attacked me decades before, and ended my life? I had to be sure...
"Did you say James?" I asked.
Edward blushed, and venom pooled in my mouth consequently. I swallowed it harshly with a gulp, and tried to stop clenching the arm of my fragile chair so hard. I couldn't destroy it in Edward's presence, but it was grinding away under my fingertips and I held myself still.
"Yes."
"Did he have blond hair? About your height?"
"Yes."
"Jesus Christ," I whispered.
"What?"
I closed my eyes as I spoke.
"James," I said slowly, "was the name of the man that attacked me. From your description, it was the same man."
"I thought you said that your attack was a couple of years ago? This guy hardly looked twenty."
"It was. James is older than you think. Trust me."
There was a moment of silence in the room, during which I contemplated how I would approach the news of James. After all, a vampire such as he couldn't be allowed to roam around freely; I doubted the Volturi would deal with him, as he wasn't enough of a threat, but he was a threat to the peaceful existence the vampires that currently resided in Holland Park were keeping up. Carlisle wouldn't be happy.
I turned my attention back to Edward.
"You said that you came here only because you screamed at your mother, yes?" Edward nodded. "What were the circumstances? What was it that caused you to scream at her?"
Edward shook his head. "That's something shameful. She wasn't trying to provoke me."
"I'm sure she wasn't, but you were clearly upset and stressed from what has happened to you. Talk to me. It'll make you feel better."
Edward sighed, and looked down at his hands again as he spoke. I had no idea why, but each time he looked down, away from me, I wanted to ask him to look back up. There was something in the troubled malachite depths that fascinated me. Perhaps it was just that his blood 'sung' to me, and was particularly appealing.
"Obviously, I don't live with my parents. But I see them regularly. My mother hovered a lot after the attack. Invited me over all the time, phoned me to check I was ok... It annoyed me, but I knew that she was only being a mother. I tolerated it. Then, one day, she was being - oh I don't know. Not patronising, exactly, but of that line. Overly sympathetic. It was driving me fucking insane. So I shouted and screamed at her."
"What did you say?"
The scent of Edward's blood, while excruciating, was becoming gradually easier to bear. My grip on the arm of the chair was becoming lighter with each breath I took after talking, but the arm of the chair was grinded into a pulp. Thankfully, Edward didn't appear to have remembered much about my original freakishness. At least, it had been put from his mind by other things.
"Something about her smothering me and choking me and never leaving me alone or giving me peace. With a lot of curse words. My father wasn't happy. While I love both of my parents, they've never really understood me. I'm just weird, I guess."
That was ironic. Edward thought he was weird? Huh. Maybe I appeared more human than I believed. Right, I thought with an internal snort. So human I was destroying wooden chairs with my fingers and trying my best not to stand up and drink the blood of the human in front of me. I was a soulless monster. I couldn't possibly be human, not matter how much I pretended.
"What did you feel, at that moment in time?"
"What? I don't know."
"Yes, you do," I said calmly. "Angry? Scared? Frustrated?"
"All of those. I was angry, for obvious reasons, and everybody was being so fucking understanding, when they had no fucking idea heat they were talking about. I was scared, as that nutty bastard is still out there, and he hasn't succeeded in making me pay for Vi- Green's fucking betrayal. I was frustrated, because nobody actually understood anything. I felt fucking alone. And I just felt - feel - so angry all the fucking time!" Edward's voice had gradually risen to a shout as he spoke, and he was positively fuming when he'd finished.
"Good," I said.
"Good?" he roared. "What the fuck do you mean, 'good'? I fucking hate feeling like this! So out of control and angry! I can't be in the same room with anybody I care about without blowing up and hurting their feelings! I'm fucking alone! How the fuck is that good?"
"Venting your anger to me is good. I'm not going to be offended if you call me a heinous bitch and lay the blame for every minuscule fault in your entire life on me. Getting all of this off of your chest will make you feel better. Trust me, I know from experience."
I couldn't count the number of times I'd screeched and shouted at Alice over the months following my transformation. Rosalie perceived it as my 'drama'; as she pointed out, she'd been raped and beaten and hadn't been so hormonal. Whatever. I didn't care what Rosalie thought of me.
"It does feel a bit better," Edward confessed. "But I still feel like the moment I step into a room with my mother I'll shout."
"I know. And I understand that completely. What do you enjoy doing?"
"What d'you mean?"
"Hobbies, interests."
"I don't know, really."
"Do you play sports?"
Edward snorted. "I'm the most uncoordinated person alive. No."
"Music?" I asked, thinking of my own love of playing the piano.
"I listen to it."
"Do you sing?"
"No."
"Writing? Drawing?" I prompted.
"I like to write, I guess. Why?"
I dug around in the drawer of my desk, revelling in the cleaner air further back from Edward Cullen's delectably enchanting smell. I had a feeling that the next time we met, I'd have to go back to the beginning, and learn to control myself all over again. It was going to be hard, but I had a strange need to help Edward. I found what I was looking for, and turned back to him.
"This is just a blank notebook. Whenever you feel angry, upset, frustrated, or just generally emotional, I want you to pick up this, and write everything you think and feel in it. Tear through the pages if you wish. It will help you, I promise."
I held it out to him, and he took it, not touching my fingertips. He did, however, warm them considerably. His warmth reminded me of what it was like to be human again, for a moment, and of what it was like to feel warm, and not continuously cold, like the monster from hell that I was.
"Thank you," Edward said, meeting my eyes again. It seemed to be a rare occurrence, but each time our eyes met, I had the urge to smile. I restrained myself though, and instead shot him a warm look. I wouldn't want Edward to think I was a complete creep, and insist that he change therapists. Actually, perhaps I would want that, for it would mean I didn't have to deal with his blood again. But then again, I did want to hear more about James, both for the safety of the humans in London and for personal interest... yes, and revenge.
"You're welcome. I think we're done for today. Can I see you in a week? I don't work on Saturdays after twelve, or Sundays, but I work early and late every other day. The receptionist will get you a time that suits you. Ok?"
"Yes. Thank you, Bella."
"You're very welcome, Edward. I'll see you in a week."
Edward rose from his chair, and then turned to leave. As he swung open the door, his scent was wafted towards me, before being shut out completely. I allowed venom to pool in my mouth now that I was in private, and thought about the events of the previous hour and a bit. Long after Edward Cullen had left, his scent still lingered, and my thoughts were still on him.