A/N Hello my loyal readers, this is my newest story. It will be an alternate Twilight story, for the most part told either from Bella's or Jasper's POV.

Just a few facts upfront, before you bombard me with questions:

1. There will be no Alice. I've had it with her and her manipulations, so I decided to throw her skinny ass out (much easier this way than killing her or something along that line). Sorry.

2. Which means Jasper came to the Cullens on his own (the how and when will be explained later in the story).

3. Esme and Carlisle are just like in the books, acting as parents, Esme staying home, and Carlisle working at the hospital.

4. Emmett and Rose are a couple, but currently not in Forks.

5. Edward and Jasper are both single and seniors at Fork's High School. Their gifts remain the same.

I guess that's it for now. Everything else will be explained and revealed in the upcoming chapters. Oh, one last thing, Bella is very out-off-character, but I hope you'll like her nonetheless.

Enjoy!


Chapter 1 History repeating Part 1

Bella POV

First days at a new school suck. That much I knew even with my limited personal experience on the matter.

But then again, I had no right to complain. I've chosen this. It has been my decision to leave Phoenix, my mother and Phil, to come and live with my Dad Charlie for the duration of my last high school year. No one has forced me to come here.

The decision was made two months ago …

Renee and I sat at the kitchen table, eating breakfast in silence. At first it seemed like a usual morning. My mother skimmed through some magazine, drinking her third cup of coffee, and I had my nose buried in one of my favorite books, munching on my favorite cereal.

Michael, my tutor, was scheduled to come over later and we would go over my chemistry and biology assignments together. Not that I needed a tutor, well maybe for math, but other than that I was doing pretty good on my own. But since I wasn't actually attending school at the moment, a private tutor was the only alternative.

For the last two months he came over twice a week, bringing with him new study material, precisely following the curriculum.

I liked Michael. He was cool, twenty-three years old, and a pretty good teacher. He used this job to finance his studies, to become a bioengineer. In my opinion he would make a pretty good high school teacher, too, with his looks and his casual attitude he would have both the girls and the boys eating out of his hands in no time. When I told him that, he just laughed.

Michael was cute, funny and of course very smart but yet not my type. Sure, he and I did get along very well, sharing more than a teacher/student relationship by now.

I wasn't in any way attracted to him, but even if I was, I wouldn't have tried anything, because my mother always stayed close by, whenever he was in the house. Michael thought that she was acting as our chaperone, that she didn't trust him to be alone with her precious little daughter. I thought it was hilarious, and not to mention completely unnecessary to keep an eye on us.

For one, he had a girlfriend and he wasn't the cheating type. Not to mention he was five years older than me. True, it wasn't such a big age difference, but I was still in high school and he was close to finish his college education. We lived in two completely different worlds. We managed to become friends, but we would never be more than that.

Of course, we've talked about other things than my school assignments. We had a similar taste in music, but other than that we didn't have much in common, interest wise, which was fine.

And of course, he knew something terrible has happened to me. My mother has explained the whole homeschooling arrangement to him, without giving him any details, just the cliff notes. Thank God, he wasn't the prying type. It was a rare character trait nowadays, but certainly one of the main reasons, why I liked him so much.

I knew he would listen, so would everybody else for that matter, but there was no way in hell I was going to tell anybody what had truly transpired that day.

Ever since 'the incident' my mom wore this constant look of worry on her face, treating me with the utmost care. She was afraid that one false word would cause a relapse in my healing progress. That was the real reason why she'd stayed close when Michael was here.

I've tried to tell her countless times that I was okay, but the fact that I've barely left the house for the last three months, other than to take a quick walk around the block or helping my mother with grocery shopping, wasn't working into my favor. She didn't believe me.

According to my therapist I was still suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The good doctor wasn't completely wrong with her psychiatric evaluation, but at the same time she was too gullible to see through my deception. I didn't think that she was completely incompetent, professional speaking. My guess was that she simply lacked the ability to think outside the box, to see what was right in front of her. A girl who knew exactly what happened but decided to keep it a secret, because spilling her guts would cause more problems than solving them.

My therapist was still convinced the reason why I didn't like to go outside was because I was scared to be around people and men in particular. Since the police hasn't found any evidence that would lead them to catch and arrest my attacker, she assumed that I was also scared that he might come back to finish what he had started. I just went with it.

She has been the one to convince my parents to take me out of school for the rest of the year, and I've gladly welcomed that decision. It wasn't like we couldn't afford homeschooling. Phil made pretty good money thanks to his new job as a trainer of some elite baseball team. And he was more than willing to help, because he loved me just as much as my mother.

I appreciated their sympathy for my situation, their efforts to help me, but at the same time I felt awful for deceiving them … all of them. But what other choice did I have?

Everybody believed that I was a mugging victim, one that barely escaped with her life. The man, er, the thing that had attacked me had done quite a number on me, countless bruises, a broken wrist and two fractured rips. I had to spend two weeks in the hospital to recover from those injuries.

But with the knowledge I've managed to obtain ever since, I knew that it could have been far worse.

Physically I was fully healed, mentally … well not completely, but I was getting there.

My therapist and my parents were very determined, doing everything in order to help me get past the unpleasant memories of the attack.

But I knew it was an impossible task. I would never forget.

Withholding vital information was probably delaying my healing progress further, but it was necessary, and probably the best and only choice I had, considering the consequences.

I was certainly not scared to cross path with HIM again, because I knew with absolute certainty that HE was gone for good. No HE wouldn't be back. But where there was one there could easily be another, right? Who knew how many of their kind were running around the city, waiting to finish what he'd started?

That's why I didn't want to go outside. I had no desire to run into another one of HIS kind. Once was enough. I still had no idea how I'd managed to get away, relatively unscathed, and not to mention taking him down instead the other way around. But somehow I was sure, next time I might not be so lucky. He might not have been able to kill me the 'natural' way, but that didn't mean there weren't other ways to accomplish the task. I could clearly remember his physical strength. I wouldn't stand a chance, even with the self-defense training I've had.

The image of HIS demise was forever carved into my mind, causing me to wake up screaming every night, for the first two weeks after the attack. I still had those nightmares from time to time, but somehow I'd managed to learn to deal with them in my own way.

I used every free minute to find as much information as I could. The most difficult part was to separate the facts from the myths.

At first the whole thing had seemed so unreal, like a bad horror movie. But the weird scar on my neck was all the proof I needed. I knew what had attacked me. But I couldn't tell anybody the truth, because that would have earned me a one-way ticket into a nice padded cell for the rest of my life.

I wanted my life back, for sure, but most importantly I wanted to stay free. So in order to achieve both, I kept my mouth shut, and tried to live my life as best as I could.

I looked up from my book. My mother was fidgeting more than usual, and I could tell that she wanted to talk to me about something important, but apparently couldn't find the right way to start. I decided to help her out.

"Mom, is something wrong?"

She looked at me and smiled. It was a sad smile and I hated it. I was at the end of my ropes. I didn't know what else I could do to make her feel better, to convince her that I was indeed fine. "Bella, I think … maybe it's time for you to go back to school after the summer vacation, be around people … even if you don't want to talk to them, it's better than sitting around the house all day, don't you think? I've watched you with Michael and it seems to me that you're doing better. You are better, aren't you?"

The despair in her voice was breaking my heart. "Yes, mom, I'm good." It wasn't a lie. I've come to terms with things, accepted the truth. There were more things in this world than the humans were aware of. I've always expected as much, but now I knew for certain.

"Well, what do think? You could change school, if you'd like. Maybe this way …" she trailed off.

"I wanna go to Forks." I blurted out.

Renee was startled, openly gaping at me. "Really? You want to live with your Dad?"

'Wow woman, you really make him sound like a complete imbecile.' I thought. 'Okay, that is just mean.'

She was just surprised, understandably though. But when she'd proposed a change of venue, the first place that had come to mind was Forks. The further away from here the better.

"Yeah, I think that's what I want." I said, lowering my gaze to my now empty bowl. I felt a little bad for suggesting it. I didn't want her to think that she'd failed.

My mother took a moment to digest my proposal. "Alright, if that's what you want. I'll call Charlie and ask him."

"Thanks, Mom." I said, letting out a breath of relief. I stood up and gave her a hug.

She was visible touched by my reaction, and equally relieved. "Anytime, Bella … whatever makes you happy."

Of course my Dad didn't say no. He never would.

I pulled myself out of my memories and smiled. I knew even before my mother had placed the call that Charlie would be more than pleased about my decision. He was ecstatic. In fact, he'd told me that he'd made the same proposition to my mother once, a month after the attack. At first I was a little mad at Renee for withholding that information, but then again, I had no right to feel that way, since I was doing exactly the same, but for a complete different reason.

I took one final deep breath, before I finally got out of my first very own vehicle, a used truck, courtesy of Charlie's best friend Billy. I loved it.

It was still early, so for now the parking lot was almost empty. I assumed that would soon change when my future classmates would arrive. I walked into the front office to get my schedule.

Ms. Cope, the school administrator, was quite delighted to meet me, the daughter of the Chief of Police. She talked about him, like they were best friends, probably hoping to get me talk about myself in the process. But I had no intention to satisfy her desire for gossip.

When she realized that I wasn't the talkative type, she continued to skim through my papers. "I see you've been homeschooled for the last three months, may I ask why?"

Of course she would ask the one question, that was both logical, given her job, but at the same completely of limits, as far as I was concerned.

"No." I replied brusquely. Her reaction was instantaneous and quite reasonable. She was shocked, probably expecting a better behavior from the Chief's daughter. "Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude … I had my reasons. But I'd rather not talk about it."

"Alright," Ms. Cope conceded, clearly getting the hint. "Here you go, honey." She said with a smile, handing me my schedule and a map to help me find my way around.

I said my goodbye and went outside into the hall.

Well, that went swimmingly. I huffed. But I imagined that things would only get worse from here. I took one look at my schedule and the map, and then I made my way straight to my first class, English. On my way I kept my head down, mentally preparing myself for the usual: the curious stares, the whispers behind my back, all the unwanted attention. And the fact that my father was a public figure wouldn't make things easier, quite the contrary.

I knew I would hate all of it, but I would do my best not to show it.

Deep down, I didn't care if they were going to like me or not. I wasn't here to make new friends, but at the same time I didn't want to make enemies either. I only wanted to finish my last year of high school in peace and be done with it.

One way or another I would make it work. By now I was a pretty good actor. If I was able to fool my therapist, I would have no problem to accomplish the same with some teenagers.

A girl named Jessica Stanley was the first who came over and talked to me after my first class. She was quite obviously one of the in-crowd. She bombarded me with endless questions. I answered most of them truthfully, only dodging the unpleasant ones. She wasn't smart enough to realize it though, probably thinking I was just shy. I let Jessica talk, only half listening to what she was saying.

If only she knew … there was nothing shy about me. Not that I was a troublemaker or a god forbid one of those slutty girls who slept with everything that had a penis.

I wasn't the typical teenage girl, desperate to find a place to fit in. I knew who I was. I was strong-minded and smart. I was loyal and fiercely protective of the people I cared about. I knew how to take care of myself, not minding to spend most of my spare time on my own, studying instead of partying. I didn't give a crap what shallow people just like Jessica were thinking about me.

None of those things have changed after the attack. If anything, with the knowledge I possessed now, I've become only stronger, more determined to learn everything there was to learn.

Until lunchtime everything went fine. Classes were mostly boring, even math was easy, especially after Michael's tutoring. Jessica introduced me to some of her friends, and we all sat together, eating lunch. Everyone was curious about me, but they didn't ask as many questions as Jessica. Maybe she had filled them in on my need for privacy. Whatever, as long as it was working, I didn't care for the reason.

I glanced around the room just out of curiosity and that was when I saw them for the first time.

I froze on spot. I couldn't believe this was happening … again. And here I'd thought in a small town like Forks, with a population of approximately three thousand people instead of four million, I would be safe.

No luck for Bella. How could I be so stupid? There was no safe place for me. I shouldn't be surprised. Deep down I've always known that my past would catch up with me, somehow, eventually.

The urge to flee the room and leave the school altogether was strong. But how could I explain that to Charlie?

Hey, Dad, there are these vampires at school, and I'm scared. Please, don't make me go back there. Yeah, not bloody likely.

Despite the strong urge to take immediate flight, I couldn't take my eyes off of them. They were both male, sitting apart from everybody, pretending to enjoy the meal just like the rest of us. One had the weirdest hair color, I've ever seen. It reminded me of leaves changing color in autumn. The other one was blond. Both were exceptionally beautiful. If I didn't know what they were, I might have tried to get to know the blond one better. Even with him sitting, I could tell that he was tall and quite muscular. Just my type.

Damn it, I shouldn't … no I couldn't feel this way about him, or any of them for that matter. They were predators, and we were their natural prey. But nobody in the room seemed to be fazed by their presence. What were they doing here anyway? Quite obviously they were students here, like me. But how?

"Bella?" Jessica called my attention, probably not for the first time. I hated to admit that it took some difficulty to take my eyes off of them and look at Jessica. She smirked at me, knowingly. "You are not the first one to get drawn to them. But heed my word. It's a waste of time."

"Huh?"

"They don't date." She clarified with a sour look on her face. I understood without any further explanation. They had turned down her advances, and she still wasn't over the rejection. Poor girl … she didn't know how lucky she was.

"It's not like that." I mumbled, risking another glance. That's when the blond one's eyes met mine. Golden met brown, and a strange, but not completely unpleasant shiver went down my spine.


A/N Good, bad? Have I sparked your interest? Please let me know! Thanks for reading.