Old Soul

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Vampire Showdown

            "Well, I'm not too sure of the details as I wasn't there at the time, but it was a spring day. You see, my ma and my pa loved each other very much, and it was on one of those warm, humid days that really—"

"Emmett, no!" Carlisle frantically tries to stop his son from giving him the gory details of his conception. Dropping his face into his hand, Carlisle shifts his attention to Edward. "You do it. Hopefully without telling everyone here information they did not need to know."

"Good luck with that." Rosalie's snarky reply travels across the room. She's leaning her hip against the counter, close enough to snag Tanya should she attempt to flee. Again.

"Well, tonight I went to go pick up Bella, who looked absolutely beautiful. Her skin, pale but still with the flush of life that she is so eager to have me take from her in order to become an immortal—why would a human crave this hellish existence? Why do we not have the strength to end ourselves, to rid the world of our kind?"

"Edward," Carlisle warns.

"Ah, yes. Bella. She was wearing a blue dress Alice found, and seeing the color on her is a shock to the system, truly. We were on our way to the dance, I could barely keep my eyes on the road. The shoes, Alice, thank you."

"Anytime." She grins, happy her efforts didn't go unnoticed.

"I got a call from Charlie from that horrid Tyler Crowley, in which he informed me—"

"Edward!" Carlisle interjects. He sighs and turns back to me.

"I hate to do this to you since you clearly need to go to a hospital soon, but at this point it'll be faster for you to tell the story."

"Okay, the TL;DR is—"

"The what now?" A perplexed look crosses the doctor's features.

"Oh, it means too long, didn't read. It's used before a summary." Carlisle nods. "Bottom line, Tanya turned Nathan, my stalker, had him kidnap me and planned to turn me into a vampire and then kill me in order to kill off the old part of my soul. Thankfully, you guys showed up in time, and unless I bleed to death before this discussion is over, you all saved my life."

"This won't take long at all, Raquel. If you were in imminent danger, Emmett would run you to the hospital."

"Funny little story, that is," Tanya speaks up. I'd noticed a calculating look on her face while I spoke, the wheels in her head turning, trying to find an angle she could use to discredit me and make herself innocent.

"Try traumatizing." I throw back. She chuckles.

"I think Raquel must have hit her head. You see, Carlisle, what really happened is that I heard a scream while out hunting in the forest. I needed to do some soul searching after I left your home, to ponder and reflect on the rules of vampirism and whether I felt this was an offense to seek council with the Volturi over. So I was a solid five miles away or so when I heard the human's scream. And, my curiosity piqued, I'll admit, I had to see what was going on. I walk in here to find Nathan, was it? Standing over Raquel's limp body, she had passed out from a hit to the head—she's lucky he didn't kill her with his strength.

Anyhow, I knew that I wouldn't be strong enough to fight him off completely, especially while protecting the human girl. I remembered how fondly Emmett thought of her and knew that I would want you all to do the same for me. So I quickly hatched a plan. I offered to join forces with this newborn under the pretense that he wouldn't have been able to turn her himself due to the bloodthirst. Unfortunately, Raquel woke up at that time before I could explain, and she began trying to fight. Very valiant, I might add. Emmett, you picked a... feisty one."