Inseparable

Chapter 3

Edythe

'One more year, just one year and then I can go back to college...' This thought is the crutch I use to get me through each day at Forks High School. The dull and often inaccurate subject matter, the droning monotony of my "teacher's" lectures, the petty, depthless thoughts of my "peers", it was enough to bore me to death- that is to say, if I wasn't already dead.

The sound of the bell ringing, metallic and shrill, was a welcome interruption to my thoughts. I picked up my books and headed swiftly for the door, yearning to feel the cool, damp air on my face. Being around the humans was bearable now, the thirst I once felt had been reduced to a dry ache after so many years of practicing self control. If anything was going to drive me to kill it would be the absolutely mind-numbing boredom I felt eight hours a day.

I slipped between a pair of slow moving students and headed across campus to my next class. A heavy drizzle spattered my cheeks and settled against my lashes. I loved the rain, I think I did even when I was still human, though I imagined it was better to feel the rain in this body, the drops being pleasantly warm against my frigid skin. Humans seemed to get cold so easily, shivering and turning blue as their blood flow slowed...

Blood- I could smell it all around me, I could hear it pumping and sloshing through the veins of the students and the faculty. There was once a time when this would've all been too much, when I wouldn't be able to resist sinking my teeth into the children that surrounded me, draining them lifeless in seconds. The blood of children, I'd heard, was far more potent than that of adults, and likely less tainted by unsavory substances. I wouldn't know first hand- the youngest person I'd killed was well into his twenties.

I kept walking, enjoying the moist Washington air and planning a hunt later that evening. It was then that I saw his face for the first time, the image of it swimming through the minds of the people around me. The new boy, Chief Swan's son, had started at Forks High today. He was good looking, tall with light eyes, youthful but no longer boyish. Attractive, but forgettable. Not that it mattered to me- the humans my family encountered were all forgettable.

I didn't realize the boy was walking in my direction until I caught his scent- delicate and woodsy, like warm evergreens and wildflowers and cool rain... unequivocally the most delicious thing I'd ever smelled. Flames torn up the back of my throat and it was all I could do to keep myself from springing onto the boy. A crimson haze fogged my vision as the sickly sweet taste of venom flooded my mouth. 'I must have him!' the bloodthirsty monster inside me decreed. Somewhere at the back of my mind I heard my brother's voice, but it barely registered- all that mattered now was the blood...

'NO!' the last shred of my rational conscious mind screamed. I couldn't kill the boy in front of these witnesses, not unless I planned to dispose of them as well.
'That might not be so hard...' the monster purred. I fought to control myself. I considered running, I was so fast that any student paying attention might only notice a blur as I streaked by, but before I could make a move the boy tripped- his soft, warm body lurching toward me, arms stretched wide, jugular displayed invitingly. He stumbled into my side, and the physical contact nearly unraveled my resolve to escape. I was going to kill him right there, in front of all of these children. My hands curled into claws and I turned to face my prey-

'Edythe, NO!' The sound of Alice's mental voice cut through my predatory haze and for one brief moment I faltered. I could still hear my sister shouting at me in her head, I knew she was coming to meet me, and Edward surely wouldn't be far behind her. I couldn't put my family in danger like this, I couldn't slaughter an innocent boy in front of dozens of witnesses, and if I killed the bystanders too Carlisle would be thoroughly disappointed.