North Star

20. Visitors

It's early in the morning right now, and I can feel my throat burning the familiar burn when I'm thirsty. I'm sitting lazily at my new spot outside the Denali house on their patio, staring out at the mountain view before me. It's only been a few days since I hunted, but I guess I still need to learn patience on how to control my thirst soon anyway.

It's been a week since the wolves have returned. Leah still hasn't come back and I don't know what the situation is with the whole imprinting thing and whether she is out of the pack now but I haven't seen or heard from her.

After Jake and Ness came back and I learned about Lewis, heard some about Zera and finally knew that Margo was going to be okay, I couldn't help but feel that I should be there. It wasn't Margo or Zera or Lewis getting me all worried anymore, there is a case with my name on it that I need to solve, and I need to be there for myself to see it. I can't just be on the sidelines and only hear things and see from other eyes. Although Ness did help some with showing me images and showing what they did, it didn't help give me the closure I was hoping for. But with everything going on and everyone looking for me, I understand that I should just keep quiet for now and just live as normally as I can, despite this whole un-normal life.

The burn in my throat continues to burn and I try to push my thirsty thoughts to the back of my head and ignore the burning. The minutes turn into hours, and the more I ignore it the worse it burns. The sound of the familiar wolf and hybrid heartbeats become more tempting to me, even when I know their scents aren't appetizing.

About an hour passes and I can't stand the burning anymore, I hear a crack at my hand and look down. I just clawed a chunk of the patio out. Panicked with guilt I place it back in a hurry and attempt to make it look like it never happened, but the crack and the chunk become worse and start to crumble.

Giving up, I groan and get up to head inside. I'm positive everyone heard me tear out that chunk, but hopefully they won't be too mad about it.

When I enter, everyone but Carlisle, Edward and Alice are chilling in their own spots in the living room again; the three are in the study discussing details about my case, they prefer it if I wasn't involved since I'll get emotional. It hurts that they think I will, but they're not entirely wrong. I'll probably get all emotional and turn it out of proportion. Ness and the wolves are still sleeping upstairs.

As soon as I take a step past the threshold into the living room a growl seeps from within me without my consent. Everyone stares at me in surprise. I've been hunting at least once to twice a week and I'm not usually this annoyed when I'm thirsty, but my body seems to not be okay with my delay today.

"Sorry, didn't mean to. Anyone up for hunting? I'm really thirsty," I ask sheepishly, waiting for someone to say yes to join me.

No one speaks up, instead they all turn back to their tasks and wait for the other to respond yes to me. This peaks my annoyance.

"Seriously? Is there no one that wants to go with me?" I demand out with a huge attitude that isn't necessary, but I am so thirsty that I don't care.

"It's not that we don't want to, Cristal. We just went hunting four days ago with you, aren't you at all full? We're all set," Kate responds to me, rubbing her stomach to demonstrate how full she is.

"You're forgetting that I'm a newborn. Blood is all I'm crazy for right now. I'm more thangry than I ever remember myself being whenever I was on my period. I feel like I might snap something in half. So, someone will come with me. Please."

It's still really early in the morning, so I can't ask the wolves or Nessie if they can keep me company. I don't want to bother Alice or Edward as they're upstairs going through files of my case. Especially Edward, he's been having some sort of crabby attitude with me so I'm steering clear of him. Everyone else just went on hunts of their own so they are all pretty set on hunting. I just went on a hunt too but I'm so thirsty I feel like my throat might burn itself off of my body.