Hi, there! I have been working hard on my other fic, Old Devil Moon: Bella Runs, but it is very slow-going because I am really committed to staying in character, getting my facts straight, etc. I decided I needed to have a secondary project that I could just have fun with and not worry about those things. Welcome to that project!

Since this is really just for me to have fun, be forewarned that my characters will be OOC, the language will be really coarse, and there will be sexual undertones. I welcome constructive criticism and suggestions. I hope you have as much fun reading as I do writing!

You all know this, but it bears repeating: all characters and associated material belong to Stephenie Meyer. Sad but true.

I Want To See Red, Chapter 1: Red as a Blush

I had been on this earth more than 100 years. I had been through more years of high school than most people spend on their careers. Through all those years, I had seen more teenage girls than live in the 10 most populated cities in the world. That's a lot of skirts, hairspray, and lipstick.

But the day I saw Bella Swan for the first time, I lost my shit.

She walked into the cafeteria like she didn't belong there or something. Acting all shy, looking around like people were judging her. I dunno what her problem was; she was the most beautiful thing to ever walk through the doors of Forks High, and everyone was practically kissing her feet.

I saw her through the eyes of every guy in the school long before she walked into the cafeteria, but no one's mind registered how fucking good she smelled.

Dear God, between her looks and her smell, my mind had no problem coming up with a hundred things I could do to that girl. None of them in the cafeteria. At least, not with all those people around. The sight would scare the hell out of the even the least naïve, least unsuspecting students. The screaming, the thrashing, not to mention the blood! Oh, I could practically taste it already. Fuck.

"Dude, you all right?" my brother Emmett asked, whispering across our lunch table in a voice so low none but our family could hear. I broke my gaze from the Swan girl.

Emmett wasn't the only one watching me. His wife, Rosalie, her brother Jasper, and his respective wife, Alice, all stared at me with their rapt attention.

I could handle everyone looking at me, everyone but Alice. The more she watched me, the more she was sure to see about what was going through my head. And really, no one needed to see what was in my head at that moment. Movie theaters won't even let people see that shit. You gotta find one of those special video rental places with the velvet rope and the back room and all that. If I considered those things for even one fraction of a second, Alice would see it, and I didn't have so much as a velvet rope to keep her from it.

I looked to Em.

"Yeah, fine. Whatever," I mumbled, swatting away my train of thought with a dismissive hand.

You look spooked, he thought, knowing I would hear. You see something?

What the hell was that, Edward? asked Rosalie. Jasper's mind echoed the same. But Alice's mind was a quiet hum - so quiet I couldn't hear it over the crowd of self-absorbed, over-indulgent students around us – but she kept her eyes on me. It was scary as fuck. What had she seen me consider? Had she gotten a clear shot of skin? Blood? Had she seen me get shot down in ways I could not yet anticipate? I stared at my lunch, which was (and would remain) uneaten. Damn her. Damn Alice and all her fortune-telling shit. Damn Bella for smelling so damn delicious and for looking almost as good as she smelled.

At least I was the only mind reader in the family; it would suck hardcore if Jazz or Em or anyone could honestly see the shit my mind came up with sometimes. Usually, it wasn't nearly as pornographic as the little freak show Bella had just inspired in my head – most girls didn't inspire much in me at all, and I mean that in every way you can imagine – but I had to be careful not to actually consider doing that shit, or else Alice might stumble across a vision of that decision. It was bad enough when I caught glimpses of my siblings' personal escapades. I didn't need anyone seeing mine, real or imaginary or future or non-existent past. And right then I was thinking my family needed to butt out. With everyone staring at me like I was wearing a clown costume, like I would ignite or something at any moment, I felt like even more of a freak show than all of us actually, honestly were; which is something when you consider my ability to hear thoughts, my sister's ability to see the future, and our collective, constant craving for the taste of blood.

I tried hard not to watch the girl eating her lunch. For everyone's sake, it was best if I didn't start staring across the lunchroom, but if I just sort of watched her through other kids' minds... No one would have to know...

The guys at the school seemed to have similar, though somewhat less violent, thoughts about the new girl to mine. The girls' reactions ran the gamut from jealousy to admiration to ambivalence. I changed minds like flipping channels on TV.

So what if she's Chief Swan's kid? She's boring!

...thinks she's too good for us small-town folks, the bitch!

...chatter as much as Jessica. She seems kind of shy, actually. Nice, even

It's not going to work, Edward.

Damn. Alice.

You can't just start seeing a human girl. Especially not one at our high school. She'll know as soon as you touch her that we're all different.

I let go of the vision of Bella's face as seen by one of her classmates and glared at my sister.

"I know all that," I told her, rolling my eyes.

But then, Alice's face went vacant, a look we all knew well from years of witnessing Alice's visions. Flashes started invading my sight, going much to quickly for me to see what they were. Lots of green, bright light, huge billows of white, faces, a spark of red, a swish of brown... I could see Alice's face again. She cocked an eyebrow and gave me a half smile that kind of freaked me out.

"Okay," she said with a twinkle in her eye. "Do whatever you want."

Wtf? So I could pursue Bella, or what? I tried not to consider that yet, with Alice still looking right at me, and instead tried to figure out what Alice had just seen. It had been too fast, too blurry for me. Clearly, Alice had gotten some meaning out of it.

"What the hell was that?" I asked.

Alice simply smiled.

"That was me, changing my mind."

And there is the beginning! If you didn't like how I'm doing this fic, go try my other. It is really different!

And if you did like this one, try my other anyway!

Thank you for reading. Leave a review! I'm just doing this story for fun, so you can say anything you want and I'll be cool with it. :)