Moonlight: A Gay Twilight Fan Fiction (Emmett Cullen boyxboy)

Chapter 4: Golden Eyes

Red footprints were all Jo left as he walked out of the little brown barn. Warmth was spreading in his stomach, and his body felt strong. It had been three days since his last hunt, three days away from humans, three days of traveling, and three days of Christine. She had grown colder in the days following their encounter with the Afflicted One, her words sharper and her demands stronger. Whatever he had done to break free of her hold in the forest, he had not been able to recreate since.

Ana was crouched beneath a tree when he returned to their makeshift way station. Dried blood stained her collar. Her hand delicately scrapped along the dirt as she drew a large and complicated pattern.

"You were quick." Jo said as he approached.

"We aren't too far from a town."

After a moment, she stopped drawing. "We should have buried it."

"Why?"

"Because" She looked up. "we of all people should understand what it's like to lose our humanity."

"If that thing would have seen us, it would have killed us." Jo said, leaning against the tree.

"You don't know that."

Jo looked at her. "You're right, I don't. But, if you're so concerned about humanity, why don't you bury the humans you hunt?"

She turned back to her drawing and raked her fingers through the dirt. "I wish I could." She whispered.

Jo stared at her. This was not the same newborn who only a few days ago was so blood crazed she couldn't wait to hunt. "What changed?"

Her voice was little more than a whisper. "I don't know."

Christine had become increasingly paranoid after their monstrous encounter. She had left the two of them specific instructions to hunt, feed and immediately return to the rendezvous point they had found deep in the Nebraskan countryside. She had chosen a spot high on a hill well within running distance of humans with clear visibility in all directions. The Nebraskan plains were a welcome sight to the three vampires after the confines of the midwestern forest. She had forgone hunting herself, choosing instead to scout the countryside in search of the larger pack she was convinced must be in the area.

"How did you do it?" Ana asked. "How did you break her hold? Every part of me was fighting, but my body wouldn't respond and somehow you managed to free yourself. How?"

"I just fought it, I guess. I knew I had to get to you, so I focused on that." He kicked a rock, and it went flying several yards into the tall grass. The field Christine had chosen looked to be an old livestock pasture, untouched for several years. Three miles south stretched a large corn field, and beyond that sat the little brown barn. Jo had stumbled upon the elderly farm hand as he tinkered with a rusty tractor. The old man hadn't even noticed Jo enter the barn before his life was snuffed out. Of his two hunts, this was the cleanest. The old man was feeble and put-up little fight as Jo drained his body, only a small pool forming beneath them. Jo couldn't bring himself to look at the man, crumpled on the floor, cold and lifeless as he left the barn. The blood craze left, and he was alone with more death at his feet. Two kills, two people dead. The hunt thrilled him, the reward strengthened him, and the guilt haunted him.

"Do you want to talk about what happened in the tree?" Jo asked. He was desperate to distract himself, and hoped Ana was too.

"I guess we found our gifts, if you can call them that. Yours is at least." It took Ana longer to recover after she jumped down from the branch than she was willing to let on and she had been very careful not touch Jo after. Jo wasn't entirely sure what he had done to keep the beast from seeing them. Had he turned them invisible? He was still struggling in finding an answer to how he knew what to do. Becoming a vampire had unlocked so many buried instincts, he was beginning to worry how little of his human self was really left.