Twilight: But it's a Thriller and I Never Read Twilight

The blood helped, though the thought of someone else's blood sloshing around in my stomach made me gag. Every morning, I stomached down a bag of blood that Carlisle had collected for me. He told me it was human blood, so every time I finished a bag, I would imagine a young woman or man who had given blood thinking it was going to the Red Cross or some emergency room. Instead, it fed the abomination taking up residence inside me.

In the morning, Edward would sit across from me at the table and watch as I drank down the red fluid. His eyes shifted, taking everything of my visage with cold envy as he watched me drink. All the vampires in the house had their cravings, but Edward had made it his mission to keep me safe while I had my morning meal. If he was worried about Jasper or one of the others, he didn't say. I got the feeling as he watched me, that he was having a hard time controlling his own hunger as it was. He looked at me like prey, even now.

The more blood I consumed, the better I felt, but the taste stuck to my tongue long after I had swallowed it, and no amount of water or other food could take it away. I wondered if this was what it was like to be a vampire, to always taste it, no matter how far it was. For as much as it confounded and contorted my feelings about becoming a vampire, there was some comfort in it.

My fingers had stopped bleeding and my hair didn't fall out as much. Some color had returned to my skin, but the greatest improvement I noticed was that I could, at times and for short distances, walk. The energy that drinking blood gave me was well worth the way Edward stared at me every time I did.

It was nights that I most felt prone to walking. The halls of the house were quiet and empty as I stalked about. Alice and Jasper always spent their nights together and I could imagine Rosalie and Emmett were doing the same. Edward, however, was a mystery. I would often wake to find him watching me in my sleep, but other times, he was gone entirely. He was never in his room and everywhere I walked at night, I could not find him. Wherever he went was his own secret. He didn't feel the need to mention it at all, and I worried a little about what I would learn if I asked.

Nothing about Edward could be explained. I knew how well he loved me, and I knew how much I loved him. That love lived in my guts and twisted them around every time I looked at him. But at times, I felt like I didn't know him at all. He kept so much to himself, and he'd lived so many years. So many lives were hidden from my view, and it felt like a crime to ask about any of them. Would he ever feel like he could show any of it to me? I didn't know.

As I laid up in bed, late one evening, rubbing to protruding bump on my belly, I found myself glancing away from the book in my hand and to the window every so often. I expected to see someone, I didn't know who, wandering through the darkened edge of the woods. Sometimes, I imagined Jacob would come back and try to see me again. Sometimes, I imagined Edward coming out of those woods.

The image of him covered in blood returned to me often. I didn't know why it stuck out to me, but every time I imagined him, blood on his hands and in his clothes, my throat would close up a little from the horror. It flashed in my mind yet again. Edward covered in blood, the torn up deer before him. It never ever left me.

There was a soft knock on my door, and I laid down my book with the spine open over my baby bump. "Come in," I called.

Alice swung the door open and grinned as she saw me. Slowly, she padded over to my bed and sat at the foot, swinging her legs back and forth. She had that charming smile on her face all as she did so. By the look of her, she had something she wanted to tell me.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Oh nothing," Alice said. "I just thought, we never finished talking about a baby name."