With that, I left her. I took care to keep my speed under control, though I wasn’t quite sure how much time was left.

He was still breathing, however faintly, as I entered the room and picked him up. I was acting on impulse, something I’d never done before. After years of indecision, I had acted on a whim. This was what came of growing close to fragile humans.

I took Edward out into the hallway, surveying my surroundings. I thanked whatever god there was that it was dark out, and that the hospital staff was short-handed during this time. I set him down carefully and took him the same way his mother had just went. The rise and fall of his chest was so faint that no doctor I passed noticed, nor did any stop to question. No one else could hear his heart beating as I could, measuring each beat and marking it like a tick of the clock.

The morgue was empty, though only of living. I gathered Edward up in my arms again and ran swiftly out the back door, dropping all pretense and going faster than humanly possible. It was too dark for anyone to notice me as I scaled the building and ran the rooftops toward the place I called home.

As I entered the dim house, I lay him down upon the bed I didn’t need, but used in my charade. He was fading quickly, and I still didn’t know how to go about changing him. I didn’t have time to think, however, so I just leaned in and bit him, quickly recreating the wounds I’d received more than two-hundred years ago.

It was difficult to pull away from the blood once I’d tasted it. However, decades of self-control and morality allowed me to back off from Edward’s now bleeding body.

I stood, uncertain, for five minutes before his eyes opened. They were the same green as his mother’s, I noticed off-handedly. His eyes were oddly detached, as if he were elsewhere. He didn’t seem to register that his surroundings were different.

He gasped suddenly, back arching in pain. He clamped his teeth shut audibly, hissing through them. I couldn’t look away; this was my punishment for damning him. I would endure the pain with him, until the end.