Disclaimer: While the attempt has been made to be medically accurate, some artistic license has been taken, and statements made by Carlisle are not to be regarded as authoritative.

Recognizable characters and plotlines are the property of Stephenie Meyer; all original characters and story © 2015 FemaleChauvinist.

Do not post without permission. Do not copy/print without including the above disclaimer in its entirety.

Chapter One: Attack

Fall 2030

Winnie ten

Carlisle

It was my lunch hour, and I was in my office, chuckling over a new medical journal. The author of this article insisted on comparing various new discoveries with nineteenth-century medicine, and it was amusing what barbarians he thought we had been. Not that I didn't realize some of our techniques had been unnecessary, useless, or even detrimental, but some of the things he described had been abandoned by most doctors before the eighteen hundreds. It made me wonder if in a hundred years, some new doctor would be claiming we had still practiced bloodletting in the twentieth century.

I toyed with the idea of writing a letter to the editor…I couldn't admit to having been a doctor a hundred fifty years ago, of course, but I still had most of my old medical journals I could use as references…

I chuckled again at a particularly outrageous statement and then set the magazine aside as my cell phone rang. "Nessie?"

"Papa!" She sounded frantic, and I could hear the sound of a car running in the background. "I just got a call from Winnie's school — they said she bit someone!"

"Calm down, Nessie," I said evenly. "Is the other student…all right?" Alive, I meant, but I didn't want to upset Nessie further.

"I don't know — she didn't say — I didn't ask."

"Then the child is fine; I'm sure they would have told you otherwise."

"But, Papa, what are we going to do?"

"Calm down," I told her again. "This isn't the end of the world." No one had slipped since she had been born; she had no memory of the times we had had to pack up and leave with no warning.

"She's always eaten human food," Nessie mused worriedly. "We just never thought…"

"Nessie. Calm down. Listen to me. I'm on my lunch hour; I can be at the school in two minutes."

"Thank you," Nessie whispered. "Papa —"

"I'd better be going, Nessie. Drive carefully."

I let the front desk know I would be leaving the building, and quickly slid into the Mercedes. I wove easily through the lunch hour traffic, arriving at Winnie's school in under two minutes and pulling into the drop-off area.

The school was fairly small; one room served as both principal's office and nursing station, and Winnie and the other girl sat on chairs on opposite sides of the room. Winnie was obviously upset, curled against the back of the chair and crying. The other girl glared at her; at first glance she really seemed more angry than hurt. She held a cloth to her neck, but most of the blood I smelled seemed to be coming from a badly skinned knee that was slowly seeping through another cloth.

I took note of all this in the first second as I walked through the door. "Hello, ma'am," I greeted the woman who was hovering near the other girl. "I'm Carlisle Cullen, Winnie's uncle."

"Ah. I'm Mrs Hewes. Thank you for coming in, Mr Cullen."

I didn't correct her, but turned swiftly to gather Winnie in my arms. "Shh, Pooh Bear; it's all right."

"B-but I b-bit h-her!" Winnie choked out, clinging to my neck.

"No one blames thee, Pooh Bear," I assured her softly. I rocked her gently as I turned to Mrs Hewes. "What happened?"

"She and Cara were running on the pavement when they both fell." That was when Cara had skinned her knee, I supposed. "The next thing we knew, your niece was biting Cara's neck. Cara screamed, and Winnie jumped up and practically went into hysterics."

So she had stopped on her own; she hadn't needed to be pulled off.

"I d-didn't m-mean to!" she sobbed.

"I know thou didn't, Pooh Bear; I know. No one's mad at thee, sweetheart."

The door swung open and a woman entered, her high heels clicking on the floor. "Cara!" she exclaimed.

Cara came to life then. "She bit me!" she spat angrily. "That little — vampire bit me!"

I tensed, but of course it was a fitting epithet; the child couldn't have any idea how fitting.

The woman turned to look at Winnie, her eyes narrowing.

"Carlisle Cullen, Adelene Burnett," Mrs Hewes introduced us briefly. In a low voice, she quickly told Mrs Burnett what had happened.

I set Winnie back on the chair, touching her cheek reassuringly before turning back toward the others. "I'm a doctor, Mrs Burnett; would you like me to take a look at that bite?"

Her face relaxed slightly. "If you don't mind."

I had set my bag beside Winnie's chair; now I opened it and knelt beside Cara to check the bite. I felt the horror wash over me as I realized how close Winnie had come to piercing the jugular vein; even a quarter-vampire might not have been able to resist that warm rush of blood. And even if she had been able to pull away, the wound would have been bleeding dangerously… I forced the thought away; there was no sense dwelling on what hadn't happened. "This doesn't look too bad," I murmured. I cleaned it and applied a bandage, then looked up at Mrs Burnett. "When was her last tetanus shot?"

"Um…I think two years ago?"

"She should be fine, then. And now let's see about this knee."

I had just removed the blood-soaked wrapping when the door opened and Nessie came in. "Are you all right, Nessie?" I asked under my breath, my hands freezing for an instant in their work. The smell of blood in this small room really was pretty strong…

"I'm fine," she murmured, going straight to Winnie and wrapping her arms around her.

I turned my attention back to my work; Nessie had never lost control, and I had no reason to suspect she would do so now.

Several small bits of grit had been ground into the flesh; I carefully picked them out before cleaning and bandaging the knee. "You'll want to put some antiseptic ointment on these wounds every day; whatever you have at home for cuts and scrapes should be fine," I said to Mrs Burnett as I stripped off my gloves. "Bring her in if either injury appears red or swollen, but I think they should heal without a problem."

"Thank you," Mrs Burnett said quietly. She reached into her purse, drawing out her checkbook. "How much do I owe you?"

I held up my hand in a gesture of refusal. "No charge," I said easily. "It was the least I could do."

She smiled slightly. "Well, thank you then, Dr Cullen. Come on, Cara."

The girl shot a murderous glare at Winnie as she limped out after her mother; I had succeeded in appeasing the mother, but not the child.

I turned back to face the other occupants of the room. Nessie, sitting with Winnie in her lap, looked at me beseechingly. I saw that she felt completely out of her depth in this situation, looking to me as the coven leader — as the head of the family — to know what to do.

Mrs Hewes had returned to sit behind her desk, the expression on her face one of disapproval; upset, no doubt, by the way Nessie and I seemed to be taking Winnie's side.

I rested a hand on the desk. "How does the school typically handle incidents of this nature?" I questioned in my professional tone.

She looked sternly at me over her glasses. "We have never had an 'incident' of this nature, Dr Cullen," she said acidly.

No, I would imagine not.

"However," she continued, "with fights and things of that sort, for the first offense school policy is to call the parents and allow them to deal with it as they see fit." Her expression said that she doubted we would deal with it appropriately.

I nodded. "Of course. I assure you, ma'am, that we look on this as serious; we will do our best to see that it doesn't happen again."

"Well. See that you do."

I turned to crouch beside Nessie and rub a knuckle along Winnie's tearstained cheek. "Shh, Pooh Bear," I murmured.

"Papa, what are we going to do?" Nessie whispered; only I could hear her.

I rubbed my forehead with the back of my hand. "Take her home," I said quietly. "We'll hold a family council this evening…I'll call after Jacob gets home to talk about it. And, Nessie, maybe you'd better stop by the college on your way home."

Nessie nodded, seeming composed as long as I had things well in hand.

"Let me carry her," I murmured as Nessie seemed about to stand with Winnie in her arms. She could easily lift her, of course, but she didn't look as if she should be able to.

I settled Winnie in the front seat of Nessie's car and leaned in to kiss her forehead before getting into my Mercedes and driving back to the hospital.

Next chapter coming next week!

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