User blog:Ha-Za/Shayla's Twilight: Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Here comes the human…

Shayla’s POV

“Shayla, come downstairs,” Esme called from the lounge room. I gave a grumble as I headed to the top of the stairs.

“What for?” I asked grumpily over the edge.

“Don’t be rude Shayla,” Carlisle said rather sternly, something that he rarely does, as he walks and comes into view. “And to be polite, Edward will be home soon and you are going to meet Bella.”

“Okay then. Just let me be decent first.” I turned and headed to the main bathroom where Alice is located, brushing her hair in the front of the mirror.

“Why so grumpy Shay?” she asked as she hands me my blue brush. I don’t answer straight away but merely sighed as I thought about what could possibly happen if I do go downstairs to meet Bella. At the same time Alice realised my fear.

“Shayla, nothing will happen. One, you have much better control. And two, Edward or anyone else will allow it to happen.”

I frowned, and looked down. “Yeah, I know. But still, I don’t want to risk it.”

“Shayla, you are going to meet Bella. I can foresee it.”

“The future can change,” I retorted back. Alice turned and tried to punch me in the arm as a joke but I grabbed her hand and forced it down with no effort at all. She stared at my hand before raising her head to stare at my face.

“Sorry Alice,” I mumbled as I turned away to her to search in my bathroom drawer for a hair band. I could feel her eyes burning into my back. She grasped my shoulder–hard.

“Shayla is something wrong? You never used to react like that.”

I shrugged. Alice released my shoulder and turns away. At the same time I lift my arm and traced my scar with one finger. It’s still tender.

“Sore?” Alice then asked. I could see her looking at it.

“A little bit, it’s just a bit tender. It really hurt when he first bit me though so this is an improvement.”

She touched my shoulder again but it a gentler way. “Shayla... Are you in pain?”

I nodded. It did hurt. Not much we could do about it though. Morphine or painkillers wouldn’t work on us and I couldn’t even swallow a tablet to ease the pain.

“Show me it,” she insisted. I allowed her to examine it as I tucked my hair behind my ears with the other hand. “I think there might be venom still in it,” she concluded as she drops my arm. “Maybe you should get Carlisle to –”

“He doesn’t know,” I interrupted her. “And I don’t plan to tell him. And you shall not either.” I fixed her with a glare. “I mean it Alice.”

Alice frowned. “But he’ll find out though.”

“I know. But I don’t want him or anyone else to freak out over this. It’s not a big deal.”

“But– ” Alice started to say.

“Just drop it Alice. Please just respect my wishes.”

“Fine then.” She goes back to brushing her hair. I go to my room and get dressed. I chose to wear my designer jeans (which Rosalie kindly sent to me from her and Emmett’s honeymoon in Paris a few years back) and my favourite plain white t-shirt. I place my black and white Element cap on my head (which Emmett had ordered for me from Australia to make me feel more at home) and head to the staircase. Alice and Jasper had already gone done. I could see all of them in the lounge room. I heard Alice laughing and Bella talking excitingly.

I leant against the rail and just stand there, debating whether I should go down.

Alice made the decision for me.

“Hey Shayla, come down and meet Bella,” she called so Bella can hear.

I smiled politely as Bella looked up at me curiously. “Hi Bella.”

Jasper called up to me as well. “Don’t make me drag you down here.”

“I rather jump over the edge then get beaten by you,” I retorted while grinning slyly. I saw Edward whisper something to Bella who was glancing between me and Jasper. “Ignore them, they bicker non-stop. They don’t mean it though,” he added when Bella raised her eyebrows.

“Go on!” Jasper dared me. He doesn’t think I will. Well some things change, especially when you’ve been away for a year.

I stepped out of his view line before charging at the rail. I propelled myself over the rail with one hand and land on easily, but not generally in a graceful way as Alice would’ve done, on the balls of my feet. I brushed my hair back from my face and grin.

Jasper looks surprised but he then adopts a smile. He seemed to forget that Bella is in the room as he strode towards me to hug me but I, remembering that a human was in the room, sidestepped him at vampire speed before holding a hand up signalling him to stop. A quick look from Alice also does the trick. He looks sheepish and stepped back from me. I decided to introduce myself to Bella.

“Hi, I’m Shayla. It’s nice to meet you.” I offered her my hand and she shook it. She smiled shyly at me and I smiled back. She seemed nice enough.

Bella’s POV

Shayla defiantly surprised me. As Edward and I drove up here, he warned me about her.

“She can be dangerous,” he had said. “She is similar to Jasper in the way that she has limited control. But then again, Shayla is full of surprises. You never know what could happen with her.”

But to me, she was just a nice and kind person. After she’d introduced herself, she had stepped away and stood by Jasper and Alice.

“Shayla had only recently rejoined the family.” Carlisle explained to me. Edward flashed him a look and hissed something too low for my ears before glancing at Shayla. Carlisle ignored him but glanced at Shayla as well.

“What?” she asked, sounding rather annoyed. “You can tell her whatever you want, I don’t really care. But I don’t think it’s necessary”

“I would like to know though,” I said, throwing in my two cents.

“I just met up with some old friends in Alaska, nothing too major.” She gave a shrug. “Tried to get rid of a couple of monsters up there but realised I too was one. So I ran back here to my family to beg their forgiveness. I also headed to Australia to find out more about my human life.”

“I hardly think you had to beg,” Carlisle commented. “We would of accepted you back here no matter what you had done.”

“Thanks Dad. That means a lot to me,” she smiled at him. I noticed that she always has a grin or smile on her face.

There is a brief silence before Shayla spoke again. “Anyyyyyyyway, moving on from my ‘holiday’…”

Jasper and Alice sniggered and Edward coughed, hiding a laugh. I heard Carlisle chuckle and when I looked, Esme was smiling.

“Say Shayla,” I began to say. “Edward mentions that each one of you brought your most dominant feature from your human life into this one. I’m curious, what did you bring?”

I heard her chuckle. “Glad you asked. When I was human, I could communicate with animals well, like I was one with them. So, I brought my connection with animals with me which practically morphed into me being nearly one of them. My sense of smell is heightened and I am more athletic then the others like for example, I have more stamina and better agility. Edward might be the fastest but I can run for longer even though I am slightly slower. I can partly shape-shift as well but only when my emotions become too much for me or when I’m hunting. My hearing is worse them my family’s as well.”

“Why?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Beats me. Maybe someone decided I needed a flaw.”

She didn’t say anymore. I wondered why. Shy perhaps?

Carlisle’s expression distracted me from this train of thought; he was gazing meaningfully at Edward with an intense expression. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Edward nod once.

“Well, I have to step out for a minute. I’ll see you all later,” Shayla said from nearby. She shot Edward a look before running outside.

Shayla’s POV

I kept running at human speed until I hit the woods. At the first tree, I scaled it with ease and leapt to the next, bounding from branch to branch like a spider monkey. I kept going until I am in what is our usual hunting area. I dropped from the branch I had stopped on and started to walk human-speed through the forest. What I was doing I didn’t know but I knew I had to get out of the house. If I acted like my mind wanted me to do Bella… Bella wouldn’t be here and neither would I. I would be a pile of ashes in the yard.

I hunted a herd of deer followed by a few small animals to ease my nerves and to calm down. I started to wash my hands in the river when I smell one of my siblings. The scent was too faint to tell who it was but I knew they were looking for me.

“Shayla!” I heard them call out. It was a female’s voice.

I wondered whether to respond or not. They would find me anyway.

“By the river,” I called, not loudly but as though they were only nearby.

I heard a crash of footfalls and then there is Alice standing in front on me. “Shayla, what are you doing?”

“Nothing. I just needed to be out of the house.” I sat down on one of the large rocks lining the river. “Why did you look for me?”

She gave an exasperated sigh and rolled her eyes. “To get you to come back, duh!”

She thought I was running away. “I’m NOT running away Alice,” I growled. “I am merely staying the hell away from Bella so I don’t kill her and my bro doesn’t end up killing me in return.”

Alice frowned. “That wouldn’t happen. You know perfectly well that as much as I, even without seeing visions.”

I snorted and stood up from the boulder I’m sitting on. “Alice, I had been drinking from humans for almost a year, and have recently become a ‘vegetarian’ again! What did you think would happen!? Seriously! Think about it!” I was angry, angry that she didn’t understand how hard it was for me to resist and to act like her. She could be around humans and still be somewhat normal. Not me though.

She is silent but I know she was having a vision. She exhaled and said softly, “Calm down Shayla or you’ll do something you will regret.”

I scoffed. “Like what?”

She narrowed her eyes. Now, I know I’m not Edward but something about her face gives me the answer.

Me hurting her. My sister, my shopping partner, my best friend…

“No…” I whimpered. “Alice, you are my best friend. I wouldn’t do that!”

“Shayla, Jasper says your rage and anger is over consuming you. That’s why you are going to attack me.”

I tried to calm down but I’m shaking. I gripped the rock that I sat on in an effort to keep myself steady but it shattered like it was nothing more than a clomp of dirt. I stood up from the remains of the rock while clenching my fists and staring at the ground. Others of my family are coming now. Do I care? Not really.

“Shayla…” Alice said as she takes a cautious step forward. “Did something happen in Alaska? Is that what is making you angry all the time.”

Yes, I wanted to say. Yes, something did happen. Something that had shattered me and that had made me like this. But how to explain…

“He did this to me,” I said softly. If I could cry, I would be doing it. Instead a dry sob escapes my throat as I let myself fall to the ground. I curled into a ball and leant my face onto my arms resting on my knees. I stopped myself from breathing.

Alice kneeled down. “Who did this to you?”

I managed to chock out a name. “Adrian.”

“What did he do to you? Tell me Shayla.”

I looked up and manage to silence my dry sobs temporarily. “I though he was the one, my mate. He became the one to hold me when I had done what I did. The one to comfort me when I expressed my longing to return home but when I knew I couldn’t.”

“But...?”

“He changed from the boy I loved. He became a bully. He told me that I belonged to him and I couldn’t go home. He told me I was a monster and I should rot in hell for killing the monsters.” I exhaled as I become angry. “But I knew it wasn’t true. One day he tried to abuse me after I tried to leave him but I fought back. I managed to kill him before he could get a bite in. I knew I had to come back there and then. I needed my family, the one which I had left because I was sick of living by the rules. You know the rest of the story.”

“Oh Shayla…” Alice reached out to me and rests her hand on my shoulder.

“Leave me Alice,” I whispered as I push her hand off.

“But Shayla, you need to come back,” she answered as she grips my arm hard. “Why do you think I’m here? We all want to help you.”

Now I don’t know why but the next thing I know that I do is that I just snapped. All the anger, all the rage that I have been holding in me and that has been building inside of me for months bubbled to the surface. I gave a snarl before I shouted, “Leave me alone Alice!” And I then shove her away, unintentionally with all my strength, from me. She is propelled into a tree, leaving a significant dent in it, before she scrambled to her feet. Shock and horror crossed her face just as Jasper bursts into the clearing. Jasper sees the dent in the tree by Alice and then me in a defensive pose, and he put two and two together.

“Shayla!” he roared as he ran at me. I braced myself for the crash but it doesn’t come. Alice has her hand around his upper-arm in a shackle-like grip and is holding him back. Rage crossed Jasper’s face. Younever attacked another vampire’s mate unless you wanted to die or be mauled.

“Jasper, stop it. I had foreseen it. If it wasn’t me, it could have been Esme or Emmett or Rosalie,” Alice told him. It was true of course. I felt like killing myself. How could I let that basterd of a vampire destroy myself? Hurt my family and friends? He might be dead but I was still wrecked and not me in any way.

And that’s when I decided. That man might have broken me, but I will repair myself and make things right. I would return to being me.

“It’s not going to happen again though,” I stated so firmly that they jumped in surprise. “That was the past. But the future is bright for me, I am home and I will move past from what that bastard has done to me.”

They exchanged looks. “So you’ll start laughing and smiling like you used to again? And you won’t stay cooped up in your room?” Jasper asked. I nod in response.

“And you’ll stop being angry and violent?” Alice asked in a cautious voice but I grin at her.

“Hell to the yeah. Hey, I’ll race you all back!” I answered before running off. I hear them laugh and they start to follow my complex track back through the woods.