I groaned, and Edward, thinking it was the pain in my hand that bothered me, pulled me faster toward the house.

"No, I'm sure I knew what was bothering her. I just know that the hand had to be dealt with," Edward said.

My hand was broken, but there wasn't any serious damage, just a tiny fissure in one knuckle. I didn't want a cast, and Carlisle said I'd be fine in a brace if I promised to keep it on. I promised.

Edward could tell I was out of it as Carlisle worked to fit a brace carefully to my hand. He worried aloud a few times that I was in pain, but I assured him that that wasn't it.

As if I needed - or even had room for - one more thing to worry about.

All of Jasper's stories about newly created vampires had been percolating in my head since he'd explained his past. Now those stories jumped into sharp focus with the news of his and Emmett's wager. I wondered randomly what they were betting. What was a motivating prize when you had everything?

"Well..." Emmett started, but Edward cut him off.

"Don't you see what your ridiculous betting has done to her?" Edward snapped at both his brothers. It was clear that he would snap about this issue sooner or later, but he didn't have a reason to until now. "You're making her more nervous than she already is!"

"Sorry," Jasper sighed. "I'm sure it was not my intention for her to ever find out about it."

"Jazz, you guys didn't even bet what was going to happen in real life," Alice rolled her eyes. "They're just betting on the books outcome, Edward!"

"Yeah, Eddy, you have to yell at the other Emmett and Jasper... they're the ones you're mad at," Emmett chuckled.

Edward glared at them for a second and then started reading again.

I'd always known that I would be different. I hoped that I would be as strong as Edward said I would be. Strong and fast and, most of all, beautiful. Someone who could stand next to Edward and feel like she belonged there.

I'd been trying not to think too much about the other things that I would be. Wild. Bloodthirsty. Maybe I would not be able to stop myself from killing people. Strangers, people who had never harmed me. People like the growing number of victims in Seattle, who'd had families and friends and futures. People who'd had lives. And I could be the monster who took that away from them.

"Hmm..." Carlisle said.

"What is it?" Edward asked. He was looking down at everything he had read and was surprised to hear the almost hopeful tone in Carlisle's voice.

"I was just thinking that it's interesting how conscious she is about this fact, even before she transforms," Carlisle mused. "It will truly be intriguing to see how she handles the transformation when she's one of us."

But, in truth, I could handle that part - because I trusted Edward, trusted him absolutely, to keep me from doing anything I would regret. I knew he'd take me to Antarctica and hunt penguins if I asked him to. And I would do whatever it took to be a good person. A good vampire. That thought would have made me giggle, if not for this new worry.

Because, if I really were somehow like that - like the nightmarish images of newborns that Jasper had painted in my head -

"And you wondered why I didn't tell her about Jasper's past," Edward sighed.

"Yep," Rosalie said. "Doesn't it seem like a good deterrent?"

"It's putting awful visions in her head," Edward frowned.

could I possibly be me? And if all I wanted was to kill people, what would happen to the things I wanted now?

Edward was so obsessed with me not missing anything while I was human. Usually, it seemed kind of silly. There weren't many human experiences that I worried about missing. As long as I got to be with Edward, what else could I ask for?