Starless Night (A Twilight/Stranger Things Fan Fiction)

Chapter 16: Demogorgon Blood

A few weeks passed, and I could feel the hunger.

We hadn't found Bella. Esme had created a list of potential places the Volturi might be, based on what she knew about the Volturi from Carlisle's time with them. All of the places she'd listed had been empty, except for buildings that had begun to fall apart from the inside, wrecked by natural disasters that humans were no longer around to check. After we'd exhausted Esme's list, we'd tried other places—places that would be secure enough to keep a large group of humans inside and an entire population of bloodthirsty creatures out.

We'd just finished searching the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado Springs when, for the first time in weeks, I met Rosalie's eyes and realized they were pitch black, and none of us had had a drop of blood since we came to this place.

I hadn't bothered with reading the thoughts of my family too deeply, or thinking of anything but strategies the Volturi might employ to keep their food to themselves. I had certainly done what I could to shut out Rosalie's thoughts. She had done her best to keep quiet aloud, but she'd been very whiney in her head for the past few weeks, and begun to worry that we would never find Bella and get back to our normal lives.

We were standing at the foot of the Colorado mountains, in the wilderness, running through a list of other close, secure locations the Volturi might choose, when Rosalie blurted out, "We need to take a break to hunt."

I hadn't been paying any mind to the thirst—the dry burn at the back of my throat, the hollow emptiness in my stomach, begging to be sated by blood. Now it came near the forefront of my mind—always overshadowed by Bella; everything was always overshadowed by Bella in my mind now.

Still, I was incredulous. "Hunt?"

Emmett sighed. "Edward, you might be capable of searching for the rest of your life without a break, but..." He cast a glance at Rose. "The rest of us need to hunt to keep up our strength. It's waning, and..."

In his thoughts, I heard the words he didn't want to say aloud.

And if we haven't fed by the time we find this Volturi stockpile of humans, we're going to drain all of them of blood.

I cringed; I didn't want to take a break, even for this, but I knew he was right.

After a moment, I nodded. "Yes, I suppose we should take a break and hunt now. But... what are we going to..."

I heard the answer in their thoughts, and I cringed again. Esme saw and smiled half-heartedly.

"Maybe they won't be so bad," Esme said.

We took off together, the four of us, moving back toward the trees and moving into crouches. The creatures we hunted were different even from mountain lions and grizzly bears, more capable and even more human in shape. As we hunted, I quickly realized just how much strength I already had lost; I had difficulty catching one of the things. When I looked into the others' thoughts, I saw they were all having the same difficulty. Even big Emmett.

All except Esme, who'd taken down one of the smaller creatures and was already sinking her teeth into its throat.

I watched her thoughts peripherally as I gave chase to one of the bigger, more powerful monsters—the bigger the animal, the more blood, and the longer the blood would sustain me. It was more out of habit than anything that I watched Esme's mind, testing her reaction to the blood out of curiosity, wondering what it tasted like, how it compared to the blood of the lions and bears we usually hunted...

It took me too long to realize something was wrong.

Esme's thoughts slowed gradually. I noted the difference with a vague sense of alarm, but didn't think about it very hard until her thoughts faded away altogether.