Chapter One

Bella

I was in shock, it had all happened so fast, Alice was dead, Edward was taken by the Volturi, and I was on the run. I had thought my life was over when Edward and the family left without a word leaving behind a shell. I walked, I talked, I even functioned robotically but where my heart had been was only a black hole that sucked the light from my world leaving me in a cold dark place with only echoes of the past for company. Jake had tried to help, his love had warmed the cold dark sterility but it was only a watery glimmer which could never bring me back to life. He was willing to take all that I could give him but I knew it wasn't enough, it wouldn't be fair and I loved him enough not to let him waste his life on what was left of Bella Swan. So I ran, away from Forks, from my parents, and from him.

I spent my time living on the edges of society trying to avoid the search for me that must be going on. Life on the streets was hard but then I felt very little as I survived one day at a time. With a constant wariness and a hell of a lot of good luck I managed to avoid the drugs and the abusive relationships a lot of the girls endured purely to give them a little security from the rest of the hostile world they lived in. I'd had a couple of close shaves but having known the far more dangerous world that existed around us I had lost my fear. I knew there was nothing out there that could hurt me worse than I'd already been hurt.

My heart no longer beat but ached and my body was cold and unfeeling but I was determined and willing to fight for the little Edward had left me so I got myself a knife and only once had I been forced to use it. I'd been followed by a young homeless guy who had attacked other girls who slept on the streets. He was notorious for his brutality putting more than one of the girls in the hospital but he chose the wrong target this time. As he knocked me to the ground in an alleyway trying to rip my clothes off I got my knife and stabbed him in the groin three times before struggling from beneath him and running away, my own clothes and hands covered in his blood. I made straight for a small culvert and washed myself as best I could before changing into my only spare set of clothes and packing the washed ones, still wet, back in my rucksack and hitch hiked out of town. I had been heading steadily east and I had no idea why except that it seemed as good a direction as any.

I spent my time watching out for more vampires thinking that if I could see another it would prove I hadn't dreamed the whole thing. They wouldn't be easy to spot but surely I should catch sight of one moving among the street people as I was. After all we were easy prey for the nomads who lived on human blood. No one noticed a few street people disappear, they were invisible anyway, but although I listened out for stories of the missing I didn't hear anything that stirred my interest and I began to truly believe that it had been a wonderful dream with a nightmare ending. Sometimes I wondered what was happening back in Forks with my dad and in Jacksonville with Renee. Did they still miss me? Still wonder where I was and what I was doing? I hoped not, ruining my own life was enough, I didn't want to ruin theirs too.

I was almost in Chicago before I saw my first vampire, standing at an intersection and looking around as if testing the air for a certain scent. I recognised him from the unnatural stillness as he stood, the pale alabaster skin and the sun glasses hiding his strange coloured eyes, either golden or red depending on his diet. Was he looking for someone in particular? His head whipped round and as I followed his gaze my mouth went dry. I recognised the slight figure walking into a mall across the street, Alice Cullen! I watched as he strode across the street following her and I in turn followed him hoping the mall security wouldn't refuse me entry. I looked clean and tidy having used a rest stop and spending a little of my precious money on a new set of clothes and a hot meal. Once inside it took me a few minutes to locate them, Alice was going into the changing rooms with a selection of clothes over her arm but at first I couldn't see her pursuer. Grabbing the nearest thing I followed her seeing the male vampire at last, watching from the concealment of a wide pillar. Once inside I whispered her name and a curtain was pulled hurriedly back, a slim white arm grabbed me and pulled me into her cubicle,

"Bella? You're alive! I didn't see you, I don't see you at all that's why I thought you were really dead. What are you doing here? Don't you know how dangerous it is? Of course you don't, why should you!"

"Alice, of course I'm alive, what are you talking about? What danger? And why are you being tailed by another vampire?"

Her eyes widened in shock,

"Being followed? No, I didn't see that. Did you recognise who it was?"

"I don't know except he's a vampire. He was looking for you outside in the street. What's going on? Why didn't you see him coming and where are the others?"

She pulled me down on the bench beside her and looked at me critically,

"You weren't murdered, you ran away. From Forks, from Charlie?"

"Murdered? No why would you think that? Yes I ran away a year or more ago but that's not important, what about you? What's going on?"

"It's a Volturi guard. They are looking for us because of you."

"Me?"

"Yes Edward asked them to kill him because he couldn't bear to live without you. I told him not to tell Aro about you but he wouldn't listen. Since when did he ever listen to any if us! Since then Aro's had the guard searching for us, we're all under sentence of death for allowing you in on our secret and not turning you. Death or join the guard that's the choice."

"All of you?"

"Yes. Carlisle and Esme tried to talk us into moving to Italy as a way of staying alive. They went with Rose and Emmett. Edward was already there and they wouldn't let him leave. He refused to work for the Volturi so Aro has him a prisoner under sentence of death but he's reluctant to kill him and lose his gift."

"But you and Jasper ran?"

"Jasper and I parted before we heard the news. Edward didn't go to the Volturi straight away. He went into seclusion after hearing the news that you'd been killed. They found your blood stained and torn clothes and a lot of your hair in the forest about three months after you went missing and took you for the victim of a serial killer they'd been hunting. He always left the clothes and hair behind as a signature. Edward thought, like your father and everyone else, that you were dead. What happened Bella?"

"I ran away and in the woods I tripped over and gashed my thigh on a branch that was sticking up like a spear. I changed my clothes because they were bloody and ripped my tee-shirt to make a bandage. While I waited for the gash to stop bleeding I cut my hair short with a pair of scissors. I'd planned on doing it when I got to a rest room, I didn't want to be seen anywhere near Forks once I changed my appearance but I had to rest a while so I decided to do it while I waited. That gash really slowed me down, I had to hide out in a truck headed east, I snuck in among the pigs, it wasn't pleasant but it was warm and gave my leg chance to heal a bit. Then I sneaked back out somewhere in Montana. I've been living on the streets ever since."

"You were lucky, that accident saved you from the Volturi so stay dead Bella. That's why Edward went to Volterra, he felt guilty for leaving you, blamed himself for your death".

"I don't understand why it would bother Edward so much, he left me because he didn't love me, it doesn't make any sense. Anyway where are you living now?"

"I keep moving around but my visions aren't as reliable as they once were, the stress and tension I guess or maybe I feel responsible too, I'm very tired Bella and for a vampire that's a really bad sign."

She stopped talking and gasped putting a hand to her head then grabbed my arm,

"Bella get out of here now. Go to the Palace Motel room ten here's the key. Take my things and the red Camaro parked outside the room. Get away from here and head south to Colorado. Look for a loft apartment, the very top of the building, a grey building in central Boulder. Find Darius, he'll know how to contact Jasper. You have to warn him about Aro, he's the only one who can keep you safe if they find out you are still alive because they'll hunt you down too. Find Jasper and tell him, look after him, you need each other. Go now."

The last was almost a whisper and she pushed me into the opposite changing room stuffing the key and her wallet in my pocket as she did so.

I heard footsteps so I stayed hidden in the cubicle and heard everything. There was a swish of a curtains and a man's low voice.

"Well if it isn't Alice Cullen. I've been looking for you but I thought it would be much harder. You must be slipping. So are you coming with me?..."

"I don't think so Demetri, I don't like Volterra very much."

There was a scuffle then a short silence and a grunt and I presumed she had struggled or fought him because the next thing I heard was a gasp and a quiet muffled scream then I smelled an aromatic smoke, and footsteps moving quickly away as the fire alarm went off. I risked a quick look in Alice's cubicle but all that remained of my friend was a small pile of ash and the perfumed strangely coloured smoke, she was gone. I pulled out the motel key and ran with the rest of the customers who were making hurriedly for the exit, the smell of smoke and the strident alarm scaring them into a run. Outside I pushed my way through the crowds that were appearing as the sirens of the fire engines got closer and made my way towards the motel to which Alice had given me sketchy directions, tears of sorrow at her callous end trickling down my face. Now I knew why it had appeared no one was looking for me, they already thought I was dead, some unknown victim of a serial killer had given me a measure of safety.