With a few weeks under his belt Addy thinks his guess is better than hers about whether that's smart. Although she does advise him not to do his blood generation trick near any humans. Being mid-"hunt" around humans is a bad plan even if "hunting" means "salivating weirdly".

This is an entirely reasonable precaution.

Sure, why not.

"You did not have to grow a new arm. This one would've gone back where it came from just fine if you just licked the stump and held it in place," Addy comments, when she is left holding a redundant arm.

"It was wholly accidental and unconscious," he says, giggling as he pulverizes his extra arm (that's marginally faster and way more fun than just shrinking it back) then reattaches the old one.

"Sure it was."

"My magic has a very protective personality."

"Yum."

"I will stalk you for the first week or two in case you have a newborn moment, and then I'm going to fuck off," Addy says. "I know you'll miss me terribly."

Addy reminds the newborn vampire that her options are baldfaced lies or her mother coming over all dead if the Volturi ever find out or actually turning her mother, which Sadde is not nearly old enough to do yet (even older vampires kill some of the people they're trying to turn, Addy needed a few people's worth of practice before she was willing to bite anyone she wanted alive, etc.) and which will not leave said mother with stealth witchcraft either.

The newborn vampire is aware of this, and reassures Addy that she will not attempt turning Laura anytime soon.

Bye Addy!

Months pass. Laura still does not believe Sadde's tale about that month she disappeared a while back, but has long since stopped pressing; her daughter is a grown woman, she can very well disappear for a month if she wants to, at least she warned first, even if she lied through her teeth.

And then there's the car accident.

Laura's in the hospital. She's in a coma, her spine is broken, and the doctors are not optimistic. Sadde stays with her day and night, a fact that is helped by her not needing to sleep or even to hunt—just turn off smell and drink a lot of blood. She couldn't care about the smell of other humans anyway, her mind is filled enough with Laura that even the thirst cannot compete.

Laura takes a turn for the worse. The doctor tells Sadde to prepare. Sadde prepares. The following day, Laura has mysteriously disappeared from her room, and so has Sadde, who is not reachable by phone or email.

Sadde cannot cry. But there's one thing she can do, and she thinks she's strong enough.

She isn't. She tries to stop, she wanted to save her but she couldn't, she couldn't, she wasn't strong enough, she can't can't can't her mother is dead and Sadde killed her—

Sadde disappears.

Whenever she meets someone, she shifts. No two people see her looking the same way. She can't deal with people. She doesn't turn her sense of smell on again. She can't. She's dangerous, a murderer. It was all for nothing.

She travels, but only to remote areas. She visits wildernesses and uninhabited locations, and she doesn't eat anyone, but she doesn't give herself the chance anyway.

One day, she's contacted, magically. She's told that the Volturi are no more, and that the new administration frowns upon eating people. She's told that there will be occasional eye checks, and that the eyes of "vegetarian" vampires look like so.

Her eyes now look like so.

She breathes again.