Disclaimer: All the characters are Stephanie Meyer's, however the plot is mine.

Before you begin to read, I sincerely hope you're going to like it. You can write what you think in a review and criticism is well accepted.

Enjoy.

If you find any errors, please tell me since I'm not mothertongue.

Prologue – Coppery devil

"P-please, d-don't! I-"

Bella couldn't help but jump frightened at the sudden and loud bang that filled her ears, echoing through the glade. It had been like a thunder in a bright sunny day. It came and disappeared moments later, leaving no trace of its passage. The clearing returned quiet again as birds continued to escape from treetops, furiously flapping their wings in the haste of evading any kind of danger.

Bella's mouth was halfway opened but no sound came from her rosy lips. The cold air was hurting her cheeks, making them turn from a light pink to an angry red, and winter's wind made her brown locks fly freely around her face.

The scene in front of her was almost surreal. An angel. That was what she thought she had seen at first. She was facing his back so that she could see his wild coppery hair and broad shoulders that changed into a lean back and waist, covered by a long black coat. But those hair. The way they reflected light was surreal.

Bella couldn't see what was crouched in front of him but she could well imagine it. A man.

A dead man.

That loud sound that had shaken her had been a gunshot. Directed towards the man's head. Never in her life she had heard something so loud and yet ephemeral. It came and disappeared. Moments, seconds and everything had returned quiet once again. However, that mere istant had terrified her. Shocked her. Making her tremble. She had fallen in a coma where she could still hear and see what surrounded her. Only, her body didn't seem to be inclined to cooperate with her.

Then, a small thud woke her up.

The wrapped sandwich that was supposed to be her lunch was laying forgotten on the snow covered ground at her feet. Her fingers, cold and in the middle of the air in front of her, had lost their grip on it.

Her chocolate eyes slowly looked down at her feet and tried to focus on her lunch. Lunch. She had decided to skip school that day and hide in her meadow. Hers. She hadn't thought it could had been the perfect place for a murder. Nor she could have thought that going to school that day would have been safer. Much safer. Bella thought nobody knew about her secret clearing. It was way too far from the main road.

She had been wrong.

Everything in her mind was a blur but pieces were slowly sticking together. She was alone in the middle of the forest with a stranger that had just killed another man in front of her. Danger, that was what she was in: pure danger.

And then a thought crossed her mind.

Had he seen her?

Afraid to look up, Bella forced her eyes to move until they rested on the angel in the center of the clearing. She didn't meet coppery hair, nor his back.

She was facing him.

She used only a second to look at him from head to toe. A long white scarf was wrapped around his pale neck and black gloves covered his hands, with big black boots at his feet that protected him from the frozen ground. He would have looked like a common man if he hadn't had a grey gun in his right hand.

His fingers were wrapped around it, almost relaxed. Behind him, red was splattered on the white snow. Blood. Too much blood for her liking. Fortunately, Bella's instinct kicked in seconds later with only a little word dancing in front of her eyes.

Run.