A Thousand Years // Edward Cullen

Chapter 13

Kamber was seated on her bed, cross-legged. She had dimmed the lights so that it wouldn't wake up her siblings across the hallway. She had a black kitten stuffed animal cuddled in her lap and she was flipping through a book she had obtained from the library about bites, scars and other such things.

She flopped back against her pillows and sighed, hugging the stuffed animal to her chest, "Now I know why Glynn decided to not study law! Why is everything so complicated!"
Just then, she heard the slightest of thuds by her window but with her enhanced hearing, she heard it. Sitting up straight and getting into a defense pose on her knees, her eyes widened. Squatting on her sill was Edward. He had a backpack on his back which was something new and he had a smirk on his face.

"Sorry if I startled you," he said, "Please don't jump me."
Kamber chuckled softly and sat back down on her feet, suddenly relieved he wasn't a burglar but also slightly embarrassed for she wasn't expecting him and she happened to wear a blush pink sleeping shirt and pale blue pants... and pink and black polka dot socks. It wasn't that Kamber was one for fashion or looking nice all the time, but her outfit didn't match and clashed with her red hair.

Edward smirked at how the girl's cheeks enflamed at her slight embarrassment and she ducked her face behind her hair.

"Sorry to barge in but I got the photos of the corpse from my dad."
"Oh goodie!" Kamber said, perking up, "I was just looking over different wounds and scars."
Edward sat down on the end of Kamber's bed and sat cross-legged just like she was. He held out a yellow envelope to her and Kamber opened it, spilling the photos on the bed between them.

She shifted through them till she came upon the photo of the major wound. She grimaced at the sight and looked away a moment.

"Okay.... That doesn't look like anything that I saw in here...."

Edward noticed how the blood drained from her face. He was puzzled at first, wondering how a vampire was affected by gore but then he remembered that Kamber was more human than him, eating human food and besides that, her morph was a deer... a vegetarian!

"Does it make you uncomfortable?" he asked.

The girl nodded and Edward quickly flipped the photo over, so she didn't have to look at it. Kamber let out a sigh and smiled at Edward as a thank you, the color reappearing to her face.

"See anything else that could help?" he asked.

The girl scanned slowly over the photos before her hands fell upon one which was a picture of the man's left and right arms.

"That's weird," she muttered.

"What?" Edward asked, leaning over to look at the photo, "The blood on his hand? Couldn't he have just touched the wound?"
The girl shook her head, "I didn't need to look at that wound long to know that it would have killed him instantly. Besides... there is blood going up his arm too... but what is even weirder is his creases."

"Huh?"

"The creases on his fingers. For normal humans, their creases go perpendicular to their fingers... but his go parallel... almost like his fingers were stretched then pushed back in," Kamber explained. "That is so weird."
Edward frowned, "Anything else?"
the girl nodded and held up the photo, pointing to a small name embroidered onto the man's shirt: Winston's.

"A company?" Edward asked.

Kamber peeked over the top of the photo and smiled, "From the look of it, he was killed on his way back or to work. He was dressed nicely, and time of death was 7 in the morning. In that case, we can locate more information on him through the company."
"We already have his address though," Edward pointed out.

Kamber smiled, "Who says that is his only address?"
Before Edward could ask her what she was up to, she had jumped up and grabbed her cell phone. She quickly looked something up before holding out the phone to him. Edward took it and saw she had pulled up the Winston company's website, had located employees and had pulled up Jason Bounds!

"That was fast!" Edward pointed out.

"That's what you get for having a dad as a lawyer. Now, look at the address."
Edward nodded, "Same address your dad obtained. What about?"
"Now look at the secondary address."
Edward looked at it and frowned, "Wisconsin?"

Kamber nodded, "And according to dad, the only family he has are his parents who live in Florida, a sister who lives in Kentucky and a few cousins who live in Texas. All of them way out of their way from Wisconsin."
"Strange," Edward whispered. "We should probably go investigate this address."
Kamber jumped slightly on her knees and clapped her hands like a little kid. Smiling, Edward left her with his phone number so they could decide a time to journey to Wisconsin. As Edward headed back to the window, Kamber followed him.

"I'll give you a heads up before I barge in next time," Edward told her, smirking down at her.

Kamber smiled and jumped to give him a hug but this resulted in the photos being knocked out of his hands and falling to the floor. Kamber went to grab them but Edward beat her to it. Just as Edward was rising back to his full height, he realized that their faces were inches apart. Kamber was looking slightly down at him with her eyes wide and cheeks tinted red.

Edward slowly rose to his height but kept his eyes fixed on Kamber's not letting his intense gaze waver. The girl was looking up at him with startled, confused and rather shocked eyes. Edward's instincts were telling him to hug her or kiss her... but something deep in his gut told him to cherish the girl before him and not make her uncomfortable too fast.

Reaching forward, the boy brushed his ice-cold fingertips across her cheek, earning a soft gasp from her before retracting his hand slowly and smiling at her.

"See you later."

And with that, he was gone. About three minutes later, Calliope was walking down the hallway on her way to get a glass of water when she heard a noise in her older sister's room. Pressing her ear to the door, she heard the bed creak loudly as Kamber jumped on it and she heard a muffled squeal of joy. Sisters!