Chapter One

Uhg. The first day of school always sucks, and this is the sixth time I've had to move and in the past ten years. But I guess it's different this time since I'm moving to Forks, Washington to live with my dad, Chief of Police Charlie Swan. I'm Bella Swan by the way, the new girl at Forks High School home of the Fighting Bears (Jeesh, how much weirder can this little town be?) and secretly a Shape Shifter. I'm not normal, you don't have to tell me, but my parents are and it was hard for them to keep track of me since I change form at the full moon and stuff. So, I opted to move here for the last two years of high school.

As I drove through the little parking lot in my BMW and found my space I remembered the last time I moved to a new town. We had moved to Rochester, New York, and for a while I actually thought it might work living there. I made friends easily enough and no one had a clue that I wasn't human, so of course I figured it was perfect. As it turned out, not quite so perfect. People started mysteriously disappearing and their bodies were found torn to shreds or drained of blood, no one knew what had happened to them, most thought it was some sort of animal, but not me. I knew what had killed those people, it was a Vampire.

Since I'm a supernatural being myself, I know a little about what else is out there. There are others like me, who can change form, and Werewolves, who can only change into giant wolves, and then there are the Vamps. My parents were worried about me when I told them of the Vampire attacks and of course they were disbelieving, Rene and Phil McCormick aren't exactly open minded to others in the supernatural world in which I live. Sure, they believe in me, but that's only because they've seen me change, usually into a tabby cat, just so I can stay in the house. But Vamps were just too much of a horror film for them, sometimes I wonder if they wish I were normal or if they like me the way I am.

A knock on my car window brought me back to the here and now and out of my mental rant. It was a group of kids, they looked about my age. There were four boys and three girls. The girls were dressed surprisingly stylish for such a small town, one was a nice olive tone with straight black hair. She was the skinniest girl I think I have ever seen, she had on a cute purple Areopostale shirt and jeans, with a water proof jacket draped over her arms (along with being very small, Forks is also the wettest place in the continental U.S.) and wore a very genuinely sweet smile. The one next to her was a bit taller, but her smile definitely was not genuine, I could tell her friends had dragged her over here to say hi to me. She had bleached blond hair and wore jeans, and a blue blouse. The other was the prettiest of the little group with gorgeous brown, curly hair, she wore a deep pink shirt and cute holey jeans. The boys were boys, no other way to explain them, there was a tall skinny one with black hair, and a shorter skinny one with brown wavy hair, the third was a the same height as the second, but bigger, not fat, but more muscle, and the last was definitely the cutest he was tall with short blond hair that he wore a bit spiky.

After examining the group, I grabbed my purse and got out of my car. Simultaneously, they all said hi and away the pretty brunette went with telling me the names of her friends, she started with the girls. "This," she said pointing to the black haired girl, "is Angela, and Lauren," the blond. "And Eric," the black haired boy, "and Ben," the brown haired boy, "and Connor" the muscular one, "and Mike." The cute one. "And I," she said pointing to herself, "am Jessica. You must be Isabella Swan!"

"It's just Bella." I corrected her nicely.

The boy named Mike stepped up then, Jessica gave him a flirty smile, she definitely liked this boy. "We can show you to you classes and stuff if you like, you probably have most of your classes with us anyway." He said and smiled at me sweetly.

"Sure!" I said, silently thanking the Lord that I wouldn't have to wonder the halls like nincompoop. I unclasped my purse and withdrew my new class schedule. The crowd came closer to see what classes I had with them, it was already a few weeks into school, so they had their schedules memorized.

My first hour class was English III with Mrs. Simms. "OO! You have English with Ben and me!" Squealed Angela excitedly.

Second hour was German III with Mr. Gartner. "I don't think any of us have German, but I'll show you where it is, since it's right next to my second hour." Connor said, seeming quite happy about this, Lauren scowled at me from the back of the group. I had a feeling I wasn't going to be her favorite person in the world.

Third hour was Pre-Calculus, blec. "You and me have Pre-Cal together." Ben said with a wide smile, he was definitely a math geek, but I'm glad because I am definitely not. "We all have lunch together after that, so I'll walk you there too."

Fourth hour was Biology. "You have bio with me! " Mike was ecstatic about this, Jessica seemed hurt. "And Jessica." he added hastily.

Fifth hour was Art! Oh, thank the heavens! I may not be good at it, but I'm comfortable in any art room, you give me a pen and paper an I'll be happy for a year. "None of us take art, but its right next to the choir room, so I'll show you where it is." Jessica said, beaming at me, I beamed back. " And then you have P.E. with me so we can walk together to the gym too!"

"The bell is about to ring students! Get to class!" The principal was standing just outside the door to the school, his face red, obviously having been yelling at some poor soul just seconds before. As Angela and Ben walked me to Mrs. Simms room she told me about Mr. Greenthorn, the principal, apparently he's a big bully.

I walked out of English relatively unscathed, I had already read the books on the summer reading list so I was golden there, but the teacher did ask me to stand in front of the class and tell them something about myself. I always get nervous when asked to do this, I mean what am I supposed to say "Hi, I'm Bella a Shape Shifter!"? Hell, no! So I stood up there and rambled on about moving here to live with my biological father. I'm pretty sure, if I hadn't been the new kid in a town that hadn't had anything new since movie theatres became popular that I would have bored the class to death.

Connor was already standing outside the class room when I walked out the door, Lauren was right behind him, she had put on the fake smile she had that morning in the parking lot. Obviously she was putting on a nice girl act for Connor, he seemed oblivious to it.

"Wow, you guys got here fast." I observed.

"We were just so excited to get to know you, Bella." Lauren was lying through her teeth about this. I have to lie a lot, just to keep my big secret, so I can pretty easily tell when people are lying to me, like Lauren was. I smiled at her anyway, trying to seem like I didn't know she was phony.

"Lets get going, I can see Mr. Greenthorn is coming." Tyler said, making a face of mock terror.

Tyler and Lauren dropped me of at Mr. Gartner's door, I walked in the room and found a seat in the middle, every one was staring at me, which mad me blush and very mad at the same time. Thankfully, Mr. Gartner walked in the door when the bell and said "Guten Tag, Klasse!"

"Guten Tag, Herr Gartner." was unenthusiastically mumbled back to our teacher by the class.

"Hmm, I see we have a new student with us." Mr. Gartner said, looking down at the role to find my name. "Isabella Swan?"

"That's me, but I go by Bella."

"Okay." He said, changing my name on the class roster. "Why don't you come up here and tell us a little about yourself?" Oh boy, not again.

"Um, alright." I said getting noisily out of my seat and making my way to the front of the class. "Hi, uh, my name is Bel…"

"Auf Deutsch, bitte!" Mr. Gartner called from his desk.

"Oh, uh, es tut mir Leid, Herr Gartner." I said unapologetically. "Hallo, ich heiße Bella Swan. Ich komme aus Rochester, New York. Uh, spielen Guitarre und Klavier gefällt mir. Um, das ist alle, Herr Gartner."

"Sehr gut! Sie können sich hinsetzen jetzt." Embarrassed about only being able to say what my name was, where I was from and the fact that I like to play the guitar and piano, I took my seat. When I was situated and he had assigned me a book, Mr. Gartner started his lecture about the importance of knowing your accusative and dative case prepositions, which I already did, so I sort of dozed off. The bell rang and brought me out of my little sleep, I walked unsteadily out of the room and there Eric was leaning against the wall with his books already in his hands.

"Ready for Pre-Cal? I love the class, I'm pretty good at, I bet you are too, you seem like a smart person. Are you? What's you GPA? Did you take any advance courses in Rochester, I bet you did." He never stopped questioning me as we walked to class, heck, he didn't even give me a chance to answer his questions. We walked into class and thankfully Mrs. Beckmen didn't make me get in front of the class, I hoped I wouldn't have to do that ever again. Mrs. Beckmen's teachers aid passed out a simplifying radicals/sine, cosine, and tangent worksheet, while she started the review from geometry that I had in the 9th grade; I worked on it while she spoke.

The bell rang as I was finishing the last problem, so Eric and his friend Calvin (a very cute senior boy with a shaggy hairdo) walked with me to lunch, they talked about remembering trigonometric ratios being easier freshmen year the whole way there. As we walked into the cafeteria Jessica ran over to me, grabbed my hand and dragged me into the lunch line next to her. She began talking rapidly to me about how the lunches here were really good, but they weren't allowed to go off campus anymore for lunch, I sort of stopped listening after that. The whole lunch room seemed to be gawking at me like I was the most interesting thing they had ever seen, it was horrible.

Today's lunch was pizza, I grabbed a salad and a water and made my way to the table where Angela, Ben, Mike, Eric, Connor, and Lauren were already seated. As I came closer to the table Mike and Eric made room for me to sit in between them, I was going to sit in the empty seat next to Angela, but didn't want to seem like a total jerk so I sat in between the two boys. Jessica came to the table right after I was seated and made herself a space between Mike and Connor. Everyone began talking about the people that were in our lunch with us; the jocks, the cheerleaders, the artsy kids, et cetera. And then I smelt the most amazing thing in my life. It was new, and yet, familiar; disgusting, and yet delicious. I began looking around to see what it was, but couldn't figure it out. I leaned over and took an inconspicuous sniff of Eric, then of Mike, it was neither of the boys. And that's when I noticed them. The Vampires.

Chapter 2

The five Vampires were sitting in the corner of the cafeteria, as far away from where I sat as possible in the long room. They weren't talking, and they weren't eating, though they each had a tray of untouched food in front of them. They weren't gawking at me, unlike most of the other students, so it was safe to stare at them without fear of meeting an excessively interested pair of eyes.

One of the three boys was big, muscled like a serious weight lifter, with dark, curly hair. Another was taller, leaner, but still muscular, and honey blond. The last was lanky, less bulky, with untidy, bonze-colored hair. He was more boyish than the others, who looked like they could be in college, or even teachers here rather than students.

The girls were opposites. The tall one was statuesque. She had a beautiful figure, the kind you saw on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, the kind that made every girl around her take a hit on her self-esteem just by being in the same room. Her hair was golden, gently waving to the middle of her back. The short girl was pixie like, thin in the extreme, with small features. Her hair was a deep black, cropped short and pointing in every direction.

Of course they were all very pale, chalklike. They all had very dark eyes despite the range in hair tones. They also had dark shadow under those eyes, they must not have fed in a while. Why the hell are they here if they haven't fed in days, possibly weeks? Wait! Why the hell are they in high school anyway?! They're supposed to be nomadic unknown freaking creatures of the crypt! WTF?!

Although, I wasn't scared for myself, (I could take at least the little chick in a fight if needed) I was scared for the humans in the room. But, despite my fright, I kept watching them. They were all strikingly beautiful, their noses, well, all of their features were straight, perfect, angular. But I couldn't decide which was more beautiful, the blond female or the bronze-haired boy.

They were all looking away; away from each other, away from the other students, away from anything in particular as far as I could tell. As I watched, the small girl rose with her tray - unopened soda, uneaten apple - and walked away with a quick, graceful strut that belonged on a run way. I watched until she glided out of the room, then my eyes darted back to the others, who sat unchanging.

"Um, Jessica, who are they?" I asked inclining my head towards the group.

As she looked around me to see who I meant - though she probably already knew from my tone of voice - suddenly he looked at her, the thinner one, the boyish one, the youngest I suppose. He looked at Jessica for maybe a fraction of a second, and then his dark eyes met mine.

He looked away quickly, more quickly than me, but in a flush of embarrassment I dropped my gaze. In that brief glance, his face held nothing of interest - it was as if she had called his name, and he'd looked up in an involuntary response, already having decided not to answer her.

Jessica giggled in embarrassment, looking at the table as I had.

"That's Edward and Emmett Cullen, and Rosalie and Jasper Hale. The one who left was Alice Cullen; they all live together with Dr. Cullen and his wife." She whispered to me.

"They are… very nice-looking." I struggled to find the right words to describe the looks of the five Vamps.

"Yes!" Jessica agreed quickly with more giggles. "They're all together though - Emmett and Rosalie, and Jasper and Alice. And they all live together." Her voice sounded disgusted, even for Vampires, that was a bit weird.

"They're all adopted though, well, Jasper and Rosalie are twins, but Dr. Cullen adopted them." Angela added, defending the little group. Why she would want to, I don't know, but she did.

"That's really nice of them - to take care of all those kids when they're so young." I said, trying to make it seem like I didn't know something strange about the "adopted" family.

"I guess so," Jessica reluctantly admitted, I got the impression that she didn't like the doctor and his wife for some reason. With the glances she kept shooting the Cullen children, I guessed the reason was jealousy. "I don't think Mrs. Cullen can have kids of her own," she added, like it took away some of the niceness.

"When did - Have they always lived here?" I stopped myself before asking when they moved here, I'm not supposed to know their dirty little secret.

"No," she said in a voice that screamed 'Duh!'. "They just moved down two years ago from somewhere in Alaska."

As I examined them again, the youngest looked up at me expectantly. I steadily held his gaze, which had an odd intensity, like he was waiting for me to say something. This was interesting behavior for Vamps, even ones as tame as these.

I looked away from him then and said to Jessica, "Which one is the boy with reddish brown hair?" I asked. I didn't need to look back at him to know he was still staring at me, I could feel his gaze.

"That's Edward. He's gorgeous, of course, but don't waste your time. He doesn't date. Apparently none of the girls here good enough for him." She huffed, I wondered when he'd turned her down.

"Oh, I wouldn't waste my time on him." I said before realizing what I was doing. I looked back at him, just to get away from the weird look I was getting from my new friend. He was still looking at me, the slightest smirk on his face, like he had heard what Jessica had said, but his eyes had the same intensity with a tint of frustration. He looked down at his food then, with a frown. The four of them left the cafeteria relatively quickly after that, all of them very graceful as the small one had been.

I sat at the table with Jessica and the rest of her friends until Mike got up and said we should get going to Biology. Jessica chatted with Mike while I walked a few steps behind them on the way to the classroom. When we walked into the room, Mike went to sit a one of the black topped lab tables with his lab partner, and Jessica did the same, but at the table next to Mike's. Everyone seemed to have a lab partner except for Edward Cullen. Super, I was going to have to sit with a Vampire for the rest of the year! That is just great.

Unwillingly, I trudged over to the seat next to him. That's when I smelt it again, the new, but familiar; disgusting, but amazing smell. It was him, the Vampire, that smelt this way, that drew me in more than any other being in the world. No, it can't be, I'm not supposed to be attracted to the smell of these creatures, they're supposed to repel me. This shouldn't be happening! I sat next to him, and moved my hair over to my left shoulder, making a dark curtain between us, in an unsuccessful attempt at masking his scent. Mr. Banner, the biology teacher, started his lecture on cellular anatomy, something I had already studied. I tried to listen anyway, just to get the thoughts of his scent out of my head. But I couldn't help but to tighten my fists into little balls, it was an involuntary response to the painful effect he had on my senses.

The class seemed to drag on longer than any other today. My fists never loosened at all through the long period. As soon as the bell rang, I jumped from the desk, grabbed my stuff and waited, impatiently in the hall for Jessica. She emerged a few seconds later, but it seemed like years, I was ready to get to art and get the mental image of the menacing creature that so greatly lured me in out of my head.

The whole way to the art room Jessica talked about Mike. I listened enough to be able to add the little "Hmm"s and "Oh, really"s that were appropriate. She left me at the door to Mrs. Harper's room and walked into the room next to it, waving the whole way. The art room was like any other; long, with tall windows, paint lining the walls and six large tables with about five chairs at each. I sat at one of the emptier desks, not looking at anyone in the class, I just wanted to be alone.

Once I was situated, I decided to take a peek at the other person at my table, it was the pixie like Vampire. Can I not get away from these things?! I instinctively stopped breathing, but when I did take a breath, she smelt like any other Vamp; metallic, like blood, and musk. There was nothing special about her smell, nothing drew me in, nothing made tinges of pain run through my body. Why had Edward effected me so?

I decided not to dwell on this, and took out my sketch pad I had stuffed in my backpack this morning and a pen. I was just doodling, not really meaning to draw anything in particular. It started with a dot and then somehow turned into an eye. I wasn't paying attention to what I was drawing, so when I finished the face around the eye I was startled. I had drawn Edward Cullen. What is wrong with me? Did I do this to myself somehow? Did he have some sort of power over me? Those and many other thoughts swam through my head at this moment, but the one that stuck out was; He is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen. Sickened by myself, I crumpled up the paper and threw it in the trash can. I spent the rest of the class period in a kind of daze, not really seeing what was going on in the class, sort of like I was watching a very boring movie.

It seemed not long after that, the bell rang, I'm not for sure how long I sat there staring at nothing. I never said anything to girl named Alice I had sat with, I hardly even looked at her after I recognized who she was. I was much more preoccupied on her brother, I had met few creatures like them in my life, but the ones I had never had the effect on me he seemed to. I was so confused I barely noticed Jessica and another girl waiting outside the door when I stepped into the hall. Jessica introduced me to her, I vaguely remember her from my German class, her name was Allison, she was in P.E. with us.

They talked about the song they were singing in choir while we walked the short distance from the art room to the gym. When we walked in the first people I saw were two of the Vampires I had seen at lunch. They were the other boys, Emmett and Jasper, thankfully Edward was not with them. They sat on the far side of the gym on the bleachers away from everyone else, they weren't talking to each other, or looking at each other. You'd think that they would at least say something to the other Vamps, but no, they sat there unmoving, for the most part. Every once in a while one of the would fidget, I guessed trying to look human.

Jessica, Allison and I went to the locker room to change for whatever sport we would be playing today. When I came out I sat with Mike and a group of his friends sitting in the middle of the bleachers. Everyone started to introduce themselves to me, when Coach Clapp walked in and said we would be starting volleyball today. He went through the instructions and started numbering people off into teams. I was on a team with Mike, Jessica, and Allison, we were playing against Emmett, Jasper, and two girls I didn't know, they looked absolutely terrified of the two boys.

Emmett and Jasper seemed to be able to play human quite well. They never hit the ball too hard over the net, though every time I got the chance I spiked it at one of their heads. I needed to get my anger and frustration about them being here out someway. Jessica and Allison hung back, they weren't very good at volleyball, so it was just me and Mike playing against Emmett and Jasper, their partners were more or less too petrified of the ball and the vamps to play.

Coach Clapp blew his whistle signaling that the games were over and we should go change. Mike and I exchanged high fives about beating the other team and gave congratulations to Jessica and Allison. We walked into the locker rooms to change, Jessica and Allison talked about how cute Mike looked while playing, they asked me what I thought, I said I was too into the game to notice. Which was partly true.

Coach let us go ahead and leave since the bell was about to ring anyway. Mike had parked in the space next to me, so we walked to the parking lot together and chatted about the volleyball game. I hadn't noticed this morning, but most of the cars in the parking lot were at least ten years old or big trucks. Mike drove a GMC Jimmy, he seemed proud of it, until he noticed my 2006 BMW M5.

"Your's and Cullen's are the only new cars in the lot." He said without humor in his voice. What he said was true though, I looked around and saw a shiny silver 2008 Volvo V50 (I'm not a car nerd, Phil, my step dad, is though) sitting in the spot directly behind mine.

"Hmm. I guess so." I said, not knowing what else to say, Mike was definitely sullen about the car situation he was in.

I knew when Edward walked out of the school because the once fresh, clean, rainy smelling air was suddenly tainted with his scent, it was all my mind could focus on. I mumbled a brief goodbye to Mike, got in my car and turned the air on full blast to get the smell of him off of me. I plugged my iPod into the stereo, the song I had been listening to that morning was "Fake Palindromes" by Andrew Bird. It just reminded me of him because it's about monsters, so I switched it over to Rammstein. For some reason, having German men yell at me was calming.

Even with the calming effect of the music, I couldn't get him out of my head (or my nose for that matter) and I realized something. I hated him! He and his weirdo family shouldn't be here, and they could screw this up for me, expose me to the humans. Being anywhere near him made me want to change into a large feline and maul him to death! Nothing had ever made me want to do that before, and I hated him for it.