User blog:Ha-Za/Shayla's New Moon: Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Running in the snow

Shayla’s POV

I spent the next few days in Alaska, or just one-and-a-half to be exact. During the day when humans would be about in the woods, hunting, hiking or doing whatever they liked to do, we stayed in the cabin, playing chess and having long conversations until sunset. And when night fell that first night, we all went out to hunt.

I always loved the Alaskan wildlife and when we all went hunting that first night, they all saw that. I managed to track down a heard of elk and rounded them up, showing off my very own hunting style, on all fours, running around them like I was a wildcat of some sort.

I snarled at them, feeling the instinctive growl rumble my body, and grinned before leaping at them. I attacked a young female first and locked my powerful jaws around her neck, squeezing tight while digging my clawed feet into her body, and grasping her neck with my equally-clawed hands. Her high-pitched bleats cut off with a gurgle as her air supply was kicked off and I sliced my razor-sharp teeth through her thin tissue and onto her federal artery. I drained her quickly and easily and threw her body aside before tracking down the others that had fled and fed from them as well.

After I finished my quick feeding session, I buried the bodies in a scattered formation under the snow. The others, especially Laurent, seemed fascinated by my hunting style. Whenever we visited them before, I either went hunting alone or with a single family member, usually Jasper, or sometimes Emmett.

“Shayla, your hunting style… it quite perplexes me,” Laurent had mentioned once we stopped in a small clearing to talk. I sat on a boulder as a result of a human habit of needing to sit and when he spoke, I lifted my gaze from watching my claws shrink back into my fingers. When I had first changed, the sensation was uncomfortable, like someone was tickling me as hard as they could, and I couldn’t get to stop. But now, it felt normal, just a small numb sensation just after the final joint on each of my fingers and toes as that was when my claws first sprouted, hardening over the ends and then sprouting long, deadly-sharp silver claws.

“That’s my gift, it’s called animalistic senses, or something along those lines,” I explained. “My senses are sharper, stronger then a normal vampire’s, save for my hearing. I am more animal then human, more like the monster I am destined to be… but the one that I refuse to be.” He still looked confused so I decided to show him more. “And I could also do this…”

With a grunt, I lifted my hands up and concentrated hard. In less then a second, I thrust my hands down to help them thrust out, and then the silvers claws grew out of the skin, sending a tingling sensation down my arms.

Laurent looked worried as he eyed me nervously. I examined my hand casually, feeling a little smug at his uneasiness, and tried to avoid smirking. But then suddenly, we heard music blasting, and it seemed to be coming from me.

''Nice legs, Daisy dukes, makes a man go whoo-whoo! That’s the way they all come through like whoo-whoo! Low-cut, see-through shirts that make you whoo-whoo! That’s the way that she comes through like whoo-whoo!''

My cell-phone was going off in my pocket, with the ringtone being Starstuck by 30H!3. I shrunk my claws back in and quickly managed to snatch it out of the pocket of my coat, which Kate had kindly leant me, and glanced at the screen, to see who it was via the Caller-ID.

Alice.

Why the hell would she be ringing me? We always just texted each other when we were far away from each other. She wouldn’t call me, unless… unless it was an emergency…

“Alice?” I asked as I saw the others flit away, their pale forms disappearing into the snow, as they tried to give me some privacy. “What’s wrong? Why did you call me?”

“Shayla, get home NOW,” she cried into the phone. “It’s a major emergency just run home as fast as you can. There’s no time to explain, hurry!”

The phone hung up with a beep and I stared it. What on earth was going on? An emergency? There were rarely any emergencies that could cause serious worries or threats to a vampire so what emergency could this be?

I didn’t know but I knew what I had to do…

I took off back towards Washington, to find out whatever this emergency was.

I could feel the elk blood in my still veins, absorbing into my tissue. I gritted my teeth and forced myself to run at full speed. The fresh blood, it was like an energy drink, it gave me a boost of pure power. I unleashed it into my muscles, and pumped them as fast as I could.

I flew over the snow-covered ground on my own two legs, dodging every tree, seeing every individual leaf, every scrap and piece of bark on their trunks, and leaping over the black boulders of the Alaskan landscape. I let out a howl as I raced towards home, feeling my vampire side to come to life. This was who I am, my true being. I was not Shayla Cullen if I couldn’t fly through the air like a bird, race across the landscape like a wildcat, and roar my lounges out like a grizzly bear.

The snow slowly transited to dirt under my feet before I reached the rainy rainforests of the Olympic Peninsula. It had taken me six hours to reach there and I had nearly forgotten where the border line was. But I remembered and I raced along it and I reached the river near home in a few minutes.

I immediately leapt onto all fours and leapt like a mustang across the river, before landing upright and racing into the house.

The back room was empty. “Carlisle, Esme!? Emmett, Rosalie!? Jasper, Alice!? Edward!?” I yelled out to them. But then I inhaled and picked up their individual scent trails. Dining room.

I raced onto the dining room and was met by a solemn sight. They were all seated around the table with Carlisle at the head, Esme by his side, Jasper and Alice seated to his right, Rosalie at the other end with Emmett, and Edward around on Carlisle’s other side, with other chair empty. That was where I would sit.

They looked up when I entered. “What’s going on? What’s the big emergency?” I asked them as Esme hopped up and hugged me. I walked around to my seat, passing my siblings along the way. I bumped fists with Emmett and Jasper as I passed them, and touched my sisters shoulder’s affectionately as they smiled at me.

But Edward was still and made no move or sound to say that he acknowledged me. His eyes… they stared without seeing, He didn’t breath and his looked like a lost man. A man who has lost something important, like the thing that he holds most dear to him.

I didn’t know what to think of this.

I sank down into the chair and Carlisle cleared his throat. “Shayla, we have decided that we are leaving Forks.”

Talk about being blunt. As soon as he said those crucial words, I swivelled around in my chair from where I had been facing Edward, stroking his arm in concern as I tried to figure it out what was wrong with him.

“What!?” I hissed at the man who had become a second father to me. “Why the hell are we? We still have a few more years and this is myhome Carlisle. My father’s family has lived in this area for generations! I have only left here for a few times and those were necessary. This is my home!”

Carlisle and Esme exchanged looks. I guessed that they would figure that this would me my reaction. But their look also gave me the impression that they didn’t like the idea much either, and that it was no their idea.

Edward’s voice rang with misery as he spoke. “It’s for the best Shayla.”

I turned back to him. “You suggested this Edward? But, but, why? What about Bella?”

He flashed a look at me and realization dawned on. ''She’s not coming is she? You’re leaving her behind.''

“She’s human, she’ll forget about us,” he answered calmly. “Just like every other teenage girl.

I growled at him, Bella wasn’t like the other girls. “Edward, you idiot! Do you really think that she will forget!? This is going to kill her, it’ll destroy her!”

“It’s what’s best,” he answered, still calm.

I snarled. “What’s best for her? Or what’s best for you?”

“It’s to keep her safe! Can you not understand that?” He finally lost his temper and leapt from his chair, sending it flying backwards. “I love her more then anything in the world! But that birthday party opened my eyes. She will not become one of us! She’ll have a chance to have a normal life, which we couldn’t have! She’ll finish school, go to college, have a career, maybe even get married to someone who can’t kill her and have children! I will not damn her to this life, a life for eternity! I will not take her soul!”

I stood up too and glared at him. “So this is because I tried to kill her? Well, that’s fixable without moving the whole family! I’ll just go away for good. I’ll go back to Australia and stay with my friends, or I’ll go be a nomad! I’ll go anywhere to keep her safe from me Edward! Like or not, she’s my sister too and if I have to stay away from my family to keep you two together…” I took a breath and looked him straight in the eyes. “So be it. This is our home Edward, and I won’t let you take it from us!”

“It’s too late Shayla,” he answered bluntly. “We’re moving to keep her safe from all us, not just you, and me. Especially me. No arguments!”

“Who the hell do you think you are, my father!?” I yelled back at him, tired of his bossiness of the situation, before I stomped up the stairs to my room, and slammed the door with enough force that it cracked down the middle and fell off the hinges, and the whole house shook from the strength of me slamming it.

How could he this to us! Of course, it was my entire fault – if I had been strong enough to resist the temptation and had held my brother down instead of trying to attack Bella as well – we wouldn’t be in this mess!

When a vampire gets into a situation where they just feel the need to let all their anger out, they usually destroy something. And that was what I felt like doing except… well, I couldn’t really do anymore damage to our poor house. I had already broken the door and parts of the doorframe. So I did the next best thing: I put heavy metal/ punk rock on at volume that would’ve sent a human deaf in a matter of hours if they had been listening to it.

The CD I put on was My Chemical Romance’s ''Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. ''A good choice for people who didn’t want to think about the horrible things they had to face and they didn’t want to think about it.

With a sigh I threw myself backwards onto my bed, and pulled a pillow over my face before curling up on my side.

I heard someone walk up the stars, a miracle I thought because of the mind-blowing, head-pounding music, and step into my room. They, whoever it was, shifted the door out of the way, and when they did, a small wisp of their scent fluttered over to my face under the pillow.

My mother sat down on bed near my shoulder and rubbed my arm affectionately. I shrugged away from her touch but she wouldn’t allow it. She pulled me closer to her and removed the pillow. I sighed out of irritation as I sat beside her. “Esme, this is all my fault. I have to go away so you don’t have to move. I won’t let Edward leave Bella.”

She sighed as she wrapped a comforting arm around my shoulders. “Shayla, I love you with all my heart. I cannot bear to see you ripped away from the family. Edward has made up his mind and, as much as I hate to admit it, we do need to move. Carlisle is claiming be to thirty-three now and they’re getting suspicious at the hospital. We’ve done this before, and I know it’s different this time, but we do need to move on before we get caught.”

I ruined and looked at her before sighing sadly run my fingers through my air. “But, Mom… he’s going to die without her. They belong together… forever. She’s meant to become one of us, and now she won’t because I wasn’t strong enough. ”

“It’s not your fault though…” she whispered back. “But I know what you mean. But there are times, when if you love something so much, you’ll do anything to keep them safe.”

I couldn’t help but nod at her solemn words as we embraced each other as we prepared to leave her human daughter, and my human sister, behind.