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You would think that it would a while, at least, to find Mr Right. It didn’t, because I found him the second I opened the front door to go to school two days later. My first day at Forks High, and I didn’t know anyone. At least it was the beginning of the semester, not like the arrival Bella had had to endure. That had been in the middle of March, the middle of the semester.
Seeing him made me forget all that, forget that the weather looked dangerously close to sunny, even in January. He was stood on the top step, hand poised ready to knock. When he saw me his face broke into the biggest smile you’ve ever seen.
His dark black hair kept flopping into his brown eyes, so he kept having to raise one hand and absentmindedly push it back. He offered me his hand to shake, and as I grasped it, I noticed how warm it was. Abnormally warm. And then I noticed the smell, the wet-dog smell that usually followed Jacob around.
“Seth?” I guessed correctly. He looked stunned. “Well, I knew there was just you, Leah and Jake in the pack. None of the… others come here. And as you definitely aren’t Leah then…” I trailed off. I realized I was babbling, and worse than that, I’d answered his silent question.
Oops, I thought, and mentally kicked myself. He looked stunned again, and then regaining composure, he raised my hand to his lips. Jeez, his lips were warm.
“Edward’s sister right? His real, actual sister, not adopted?” he asked.
I nodded. His smell was everywhere. It really wasn’t too bad – of course I was used to Jake, and one wolf was pretty much like another, or so I’d thought. I realized, when I caught a glimpse of his thoughts that he was waiting for my name.
“Aimee,” I said, and when he winced I realized I had done it again, except this time I had answered a silent question with a silent answer. “Yeah, so, I, uh, read minds too, like Edward. I really had better get going, so, uh, I’ll see you later…” my voice trailed off again.
“Yeah. I look forward to it.” He replied. And as I climbed in the (borrowed) Audi TT Quattro, I realized I was looking forward to seeing this strange, gangly boy again. As I put the car into first, I smiled a small, secret smile to myself.
I must have been thought-smiling too, for as I drove along the forest road to the highway I was bombarded with vicious thoughts from Edward. It looked like he had picked up on the thought-sending thing too, making thoughts prominent, so that as I scanned their thoughts on autopilot it would jump out at me, practically waving. So the viper fell in love with the dog.
I braked sharply, and selected a few choice swearwords to think to him.
Language. He thought back. Breaking all the rules now, aren’t we? He continued. I tried to ignore him, I really did, but as I reached the limit of how far I could hear, I thought two words back:
Didn’t you?
It was a largely uneventful day, I caused a bit of a stir as the “new Cullen kid” which brought with it a kind of ready-made respect. It was scary though, being the only Cullen at Forks High. All the others had had each other, and I had no-one. I had anticipated the stares, the whispers, the malicious thoughts, but I hadn’t anticipated the loneliness. True, I had acquired a large male fan club by lunch, but it was composed entirely of shallow boys with one thing on their mind. As I sat in my “flashy” car at the end of the day, my heart leapt at the prospect of seeing Seth again. He might be, as Edward had so maliciously called him, a “dog” but I didn’t care. He was already my dog. He needed me.
And so, to the tune of Edward’s delightfully malicious thoughts, Seth and I hung out as friends for the next few days. Although Carlisle knew all about those thoughts, he could do nothing to stop them. Edward had told him that he could think what he liked in his own home, and if Carlisle didn’t like it, maybe he should tell me to mind my own business? Nobody could understand why he hated me so much. Here I was, a living member of his family, and all he could do, all he would do, was try to hurt me. But after the incident, things began to get better.
It happened late one Wednesday evening in February. I was heading out to see Seth, and Esme was doing all the mom-ish things that moms do, like asking me if I’d done my homework, and studied for my Math test tomorrow. As I’d stood there, waiting for Seth to come to the door, just like always, I had suddenly hugged her, and as she hugged me back, surprised, I had whispered into her hair: “Thank you. You’re the mother I never had.” She had smiled at me lovingly, but as she did so, Edward had flung himself out of his bedroom door, down the stairs, and then there he was, pulling her off me, throwing her to the floor, throwing me to the wall. The glass shattered around me, stuck in my clothes, my hair, and he approached me, seething.
Desperately, I curled myself tight into a ball, hands covering the back of my neck, and as I lay there and rocked he took my arm in his hand and crouched down, slowly, deliberately. Opening his mouth, he moved it closer to my arm. I could see it in my thoughts, but I was frozen, with fear, with shock –
My train of thought was interrupted by Esme, bless her, flinging her tiny frame at him. He pushed her away with one arm, and then, in the millisecond before she screamed, he clamped down on my arm.
She screamed, or it could have been me, and it all went black.
I woke seconds later. He was still biting my arm, but as I watched, a huge sandy wolf flung him backwards, into another window. Seth. He stood between me and Edward, and Esme carefully crawled over to where I was. I could feel the venom burning, and my body was racked by spasms as I shuddered and screamed for breath. Between screams, I heard Carlisle running towards me, saw his smart Italian shoes, smelt the leather of his medical bag. In between more screams – they were become less frequent as I lost control of my vocal cords – I asked what was happening, why the venom was burning, if I was becoming some kind of super-vampire.
He laughed, an unnatural, phony noise, and said it was probably just the venom trying to heal my arm. I saw it in my thoughts, a large, angry, red bite mark. I could see flesh, pinky-white, but nothing even close to blood. I managed to say, between spasms now, that I wanted Carlisle to carry me upstairs, to his study, and I wanted him to stay with me, hold my hand, until I was gone, after I was gone. “Gone?” he asked, but picked me up easily. He was surprisingly strong, which I guess should really have been un-surprising.
“Passed… out…” I lied. I wasn’t going to fight. No reason. If I made it, I’d find some way to do it.
“NO!”
Edward launched himself across the room. I knew that would do it. He snatched me from Carlisle, and the look in his eyes told me that there was no point trying to argue with him, trying to fight him off. Frantically he stroked my cheek, hummed to me, whispered. Such sweet whispers: “Please… Meme… please… don’t… I do love you… angry… Esme… did have mother… loved you… too young… Meme…please… no…”
Meme. He hadn’t called me that since we were children. I guess in some ways, I still was a child. I tried to come back, to speak to him, silently. I didn’t get further than “love…” before I blacked out.
Carlisle told me later that I’d just stopped breathing and my eyes had closed. He said that Edward had thrust me back at him and begged him to save me, to do whatever I had wanted. Carlisle had told him I was saving myself but he sat with me for two days. It was always either him or Edward. They told me much later that sometimes I woke up once, screaming for “Daddy” and when Carlisle had told me he was there, tried to calm me, I had stared straight past him, through him, as though he wasn’t there.
When I woke up, however, none of them were there. Except Nessie, who was sat on my legs, and I laughed, and clutched her to me, and then they were all there, hugging me, and I was just glad to be alive.
And so my brother was back. The brother who had helped me raid the cookie jar, had scrumped apples from the Smiths’ orchard with me. He did all the things a brother should do, like stroking my hair and soothing my tears, and when we hunted he would always make sure I was OK. But the time that stood out most was a few weeks after the incident.
We were watching TV, some mushy happy-ever-after in black and white, when I started crying. I couldn’t stop, I didn’t even know why I was crying, but as I sat there silently sobbing he had pulled me onto his lap silently, and cradled me there, my head against his hard, stone chest, his hand stroking my hair reassuringly, until I was calm enough to slide off and slink away with some dignity.
Seth, meanwhile, was becoming closer to me with each passing day, and it came to the point when, as he bade me goodnight, en route to his patrol, he leant towards me and kissed me. It wasn’t like kissing Will. That was too desperate, too passionate. Seth’s lips were hot, and slightly rough, and he was gentle and slow. We kissed for what felt like forever, whilst fireworks exploded in my head and whooshed around my nervous system. Every fiber of my being wanted Seth, here, now, and my hands tangled in his hair as I drew him closer to me. Boy, he was warm. Not too warm, like he would be to a human, but warmer than Edward’s skin, warmer than Nessie’s. I fumbled with my key in the lock behind me and we tumbled through the front door, still kissing… and straight into Esme and Carlisle.
They looked… more than a little bemused, to say the least. As would any parents, vampire or otherwise, who caught their youngest daughter stumbling through the front door at 11 o’clock at night passionately kissing a boy.
Carlisle broke the awkward tension. He coughed politely and stared at the floor, before saying quietly: “So, Esme, show me where that leaky tap is…” and with that they were gone.
I couldn’t believe it! I’d got away with it! Turning, I saw Seth stood awkwardly on the threshold. Laughing, I gave him one final kiss and all but pushed him down the steps to his patrol, calling softly: “See you tomorrow… my wolf boy!” and he turned and smiled – he had the cutest smile – and reply: “Till then… my Aimee!” and with that, he melted into the darkness, phased and stepped back into the light.
He stood there, poised to run, and I realized it was the first time I had seen him in his wolf form since the incident, and therefore the first time I had seen him properly. He was tall, much taller than a horse, and was covered in soft, sandy coloured fur. Running outside, I buried my head in his soft fur, kissed the top of his head, told him: “keep safe” and all but pushed him away. As I walked back into the house, I heard him padding away, and when I turned again he was gone. I could see Alice waiting for me inside, and I smiled and broke into a run.
She hugged me – and then her whole face fell. She looked panicked, and just stood there, rocking, repeating the same four words, over and over: “Blood… so much blood…” Jasper was by her side in an instant, projecting a feeling of happiness over us both, but it was too late. I had seen the pictures in her head, heard the ripping of flesh, smelt human blood. I didn’t know what it was, who it was – neither of us did – but I knew that if it happened, I wanted to have no part of it.
How very wrong I was.
A grand total of two days passed before Seth moved into my bedroom.
I knew he was the one for me. That first time he saw me, he looked as though he was seeing the sun for the first time, and I knew he was imprinting. I felt a warm glow as I realized here was a man who would love me for who I was, not what I was, or how I looked. He would be happy to spend forever with me, although I knew that if he ever decided to cease to be, I would not live without him.
We became close, inseparably close, and I decided what I wanted to do. I wanted to graduate in July (just three months away) as a junior and have a child. That was where my plans were thwarted. Because when I discussed it with Carlisle, he confirmed my worst fears. Vampires, female ones at least, can’t have children. I didn’t care. I said I’d adopt, and that idea fell through too. Because what would become of my human child when they reached seventeen, eighteen? Would I change them, and risk everything I had, we had, or let them go, grow older and older, and die? I realized that he was right, as Carlisle usually was, and so that left me with my final option. IVF. Except there were two problems.
One, I had no eggs to speak of, so if Seth was the father then the child would be, ultimately, human. Two, who would then look after the embryo? None of us were capable of it. I asked Carlisle, and he did the research, and eventually, he found a crazy vampire-doctor who would be willing to try it. The doctor said he’d done it once before, and it had worked perfectly then. But, Carlisle told me, there was one little catch. The womb that the embryo would be placed in would belong to a human.
Now, I had seen it in all their memories, and I didn’t want anyone to go through what Bella had gone through when she had had Nessie. So Seth and I deliberated for hours, and eventually we decided against it. We couldn’t do that to a human, and besides, even if we were willing, we had no way to make the child half-vampire half-wolf like we wanted. That was until Edward stepped in. And shortly afterwards, Leah.
Leah Clearwater.
You could tell that everyone was shocked. Leah, as far as I could tell from all their memories, had been a self-centered girl, with no consideration for others. But then I realized what it meant. Any child of Edward and Leah’s would be half-vampire, half-wolf. They would be at least similar to me and Seth, as Edward and I shared parents, and so did Seth and Leah. So Carlisle phoned this curious vampire doctor, and a meeting was arranged. We would travel to Alaska, Seth, Carlisle, Alice, Jasper, Leah, Edward and I, and come to some sort of agreement.
Which was how I came to be sat on a near-empty plane, with Edward on one side of me and Seth on the other, planning our time in Alaska. We would be in Juneau, the state capital, for three months, which, Carlisle judged, was more than enough time. During that time, he planned to visit the Denali coven, whilst Edward planned on hunting something bigger than usual. We arrived a little late, and found the doctor had left, so we hailed a cab.
It took us to a small complex outside of town, where it left us by the side of the road, eager to leave. We paused temporarily, and looked around us. There were mountains on three sides, snow capped peaks with dark triangles where the trees were. The clinic was a long, low building, lots of tinted glass and pine cladding, surrounded by a high chain link fence.
Then we saw him, making his way to us from the other side of the compound. He looked, from a distance, a little like Carlisle, with blond hair and tanned skin, but as he drew nearer we saw he had a more olive complexion, even under his chalky pallor, and he seemed to be permanently leering. He introduced himself as Doctor Goodwood, and shook us all by the hand – gripping far too hard, for far too long.
I hated him from the start.
He showed us around the clinic, that first day. Besides the medical facilities there was accommodation and a recreation room, as well as two indoor heated swimming pools. But as he showed us to our rooms, we noticed there was one corridor he did not show us, and that sparked my curiosity immediately.
It was long and tiled on all four walls and the ceiling, with a bleached linoleum floor. At the far end was a set of steel doors, comfortably in the range of the CCTV monitor positioned halfway along the corridor.
The accommodation consisted of small bedrooms, each with a small ensuite bathroom and two single beds. He informed us then and there that it was single-sex rooms only, and so it was decided that I would share with Alice, Edward with Seth, Jasper with Carlisle, and Leah, who was not keen on sleeping alone, would bunk in with us.
It became obvious after a few days that he had been warned about me and Edward, for every time we tried to read his thoughts we came up against a brick wall. Literally. He would throw up a kind of mental brick wall, and we would be forced to give up.
After just two weeks he announced that all was going well, and that one embryo had survived. He told us that it was being implanted tomorrow, although when we questioned him further about the human, he become utterly hostile and cold, and simply told us it was a close friend of his, by which we assumed he meant a girlfriend of some description, and assumed that they would be changed after the birth.
We never guessed at the true horrors of the so-called “clinic”, for Dr Goodwood’s eyes were a perfect shade of golden brown. So we sat, and we waited, and a month later our patience was rewarded. One day, Alice simply announced that she saw the birth, and so we diligently wrote down the date. We smiled at each other. We had been in Juneau for just two months.
The night before the due date, she told us to pack our suitcases. Didn’t explain why, she just said she saw us needing them packed and ready, and so we did as we were told. It was a good thing we did.
The next morning, she led us to the set of swing doors. It was the pair I had seen that first day, down the forbidden corridor, that I had never dared to explore.
Inside, a girl lay, drugged, on the table. Her stomach was vastly swollen, as well as heavily bruised, and she looked as though she had been drugged for some time. Sneaking quietly from the room, we left it undisturbed. Two hours later, we were back there, as Alice had told us seconds after entering the first time, at 11:38am precisely. The smell of blood was acrid down the corridors, and as we stood ready to open the doors, the vision Alice had had months ago returned to me. I saw her think of it too, and a split second later, we realized how accurate she had been.
The room was awash with blood, on the walls, the floor, the table. I screamed. Doctor Goodwood looked at me, his face hidden behind a surgical mask, and handed me a bundle. “A daughter,” he hissed. “You have a daughter,” and as he locked eyes with me my terror grew. For in those few seconds, I saw his eyes turn from golden to deep blood red as his contact lenses dissolved, and realized then that this was no girlfriend, he had never intended to change her, she was just his next meal.
We saw why Alice had told us to pack our cases. “RUN!” someone shouted, and I didn’t need to be told twice. I was halfway down the corridor when Edward caught up with me, and he wrenched my suitcase out of my hands and told me to look after my daughter. Looking down, I saw her face for the first time. She was beautiful.
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Part Three coming soon
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