It's always slightly nerve-wracking to start a new story, but this one is special. I don't know how many of you have read "Broken Angel" and its sequels by the amazing drotuno, but it's an AU, all-vamp story about what would have happened had Edward not returned to Bella in New Moon (it's an ExB story). It is quite simply a beautiful piece of work, and I get it confused with canon in my head. Anyway, *SPOILER ALERT* in the sequel, the Cullens (including Bella) return to high school – Portland, Oregon, this time. The girls and Jasper are foster children, whereas Emmett and Edward are adopted by Carlisle and Esme. The story that Edward and Bella are using to explain their relationship is that he saved her from an abusive home environment and the Cullens took her in.

This story captured my imagination, so I PM'd drotuno to ask her permission to turn it into a full AH story, and not only did she agree, but she set me up with her lovely beta, JenRar. Here's a link to "Broken Angel;" you don't need to read it to understand this story, but it's still life-changingly good.

s/5134656/1/bBroken_b_bAngel_b

The title comes from the song that Taylor Swift wrote for the Hunger Games film, entitled "Safe and Sound." Here's a link to the music video:

watch?v=RzhAS_GnJIc

And so… here we go!

She slipped her key into the door and turned the knob as quietly as possible, hoping that her entry could go unnoticed. She wasn't sure that he'd be angry – she could never be sure – but it wasn't a risk she wanted to take. But his car was in the driveway, meaning he'd come home early, and he rarely came home early unless something was wrong.

Taking a deep breath, hugging her bag tightly to her chest with her other hand, she eased the door open and slipped into the house. A swift glance told her that he wasn't in the living room, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Quickly, she scuttled across the foyer and had just put one foot on the bottom stair when his voice rumbled out of the kitchen.

"Is that you? You finally home?"

She swallowed hard, feeling her gut twist up. He was drunk.

"Yeah, Dad," she forced out. "I'm sorry, traffic was bad…"

"Don't want to hear it. Just get in here," he grunted.

Trying to will away the sudden pressure behind her eyes, she took her foot off the stair and trudged down the hall, entering the kitchen with her things still in her arms. He was leaning against the counter, glaring at her, his tie loosened and the top two buttons of his shirt undone. "When are you going to start making dinner?"

She repressed a sigh. "I was going to try to organize my stuff for school tomorrow, but if you want –"

"Shit, girl," he cut her off, "you can do your damn school shit later." He shoved away from the counter and made for the kitchen door. "Broil those steaks tonight."

She didn't watch him leave, and when she sarcastically muttered "Please" under her breath, she didn't think that there was any way that he'd hear it.

The heavy footsteps stopped behind her and she tensed, her back going rigid. She should have known better, she should have known…

"What did you say?" he growled, and she whimpered, squeezing her eyes shut, unable to move beyond that. He gripped her shoulder and swung her around, his fingers digging into her muscle, cutting off her circulation. "Answer me!"

She darted her gaze up to his eyes, internally shrinking back from the fire in them. "N-nothing," she stammered. "I was just starting to – to list ingredients that I'll need to get out. That's it."

He stared at her, his beady eyes scouring her face, his teeth bared. She knew her breathing was shallow, but she tried desperately to keep the fear out of her expression. She knew by now that if she showed her fear, it would only make it worse. Best to just take it, let him lose interest, let it end quickly–

Abruptly, he shoved her away from him, and she stumbled a few steps but did not fall. She caught herself on the countertop and tried to make the action look unnecessary.

"Get on with it, then," he grumbled, and staggered away from her. She heard his boots pound down the hallway and up the stairs, but did not move until she heard the slamming of his bedroom door.

She exhaled, shaking, and passed a hand over her eyes, collecting herself before she turned and began the preparations for dinner.

Not today, then. Not today.

~oOo~

"Kids," Esme shouted from the bottom of the stairs, "you need to get going, please! Come eat breakfast!"

There was a thundering in the hall outside my door, and I laughed to myself. The word "breakfast" was definitely the fastest way to get Emmett out of bed on any given morning.

For my part, I just rolled and stretched, folding my arms behind my head as I stared at the ceiling. Seattle. I would be starting my junior year of high school in Seattle, rather than in Portland, where I'd spent nearly all my life. Granted, not much of that life had been a good one for me and my brother Emmett – our alcoholic stepfather had made sure of that. It was only after Emmett was arrested for possession of marijuana that the state removed us from that household and put us in foster care. Lucky for us, Carlisle and Esme Cullen had just found out that they wouldn't be able to have kids, and Esme, who had been a public librarian, had noticed that I would come to her library every day after school to avoid going back to the group home for just a few more hours. We got to talking, and, long story short, she and Carlisle had started the foster-parents process for me and Emmett before he was even done with his court proceedings. Our adoption was expedited as well, and we had changed our last names to Cullen.

The Cullens had already taken in Carlisle's niece and nephew, twins named Jasper and Rosalie, and they were Emmett's age. Emmett's attraction to Rosalie had been as instant as it had been unexpected, but Carlisle and Esme decided that as long as they were being safe, no one should have a problem with it. That had been two years ago, when the three of them had been sophomores in high school and I had been a freshman.

Halfway through my freshman year, the Cullens had become foster parents of Alice, a girl who had been abandoned by her family because they couldn't handle her extreme intelligence – it bordered on neuroticism sometimes. But we loved her, and she was happy with us. She was happy all the time, now, actually, which was really nice. She and Jasper were just now beginning to explore their love for each other after having lived in denial for nearly two years. I was glad for them.

I'd never felt alone, even surrounded by couples the way I was. I hadn't yet really had time to think about it. Oh, I'd dated, taken girls to school dances, and all the rest of it; I'd even slept with Danielle, who had called herself my girlfriend from the end of sophomore year right up until we moved to Seattle this past August. But I knew I'd been driven more by curiosity than anything else. I didn't love Danielle. And while it had been sad leaving her, my world hadn't gone up in flames or anything. The way I knew it would for Emmett if he had to leave Rose, or if Jasper had to leave Alice.

Whatever. I'd finish off high school in Seattle, and hopefully get a cross-country running scholarship somewhere. Again, it wasn't that I was anxious to leave, it was just… I don't know.

For the first time in a long time, I wondered what my stepfather, David, was doing with his life now. I wondered if my mother was still with him. She'd made noise about leaving him if the courts had allowed us to stay with her, but in chambers, Emmett and I had told the judge that we didn't think she ever would. We knew she didn't love us; our father had also been deemed an unfit guardian, but he still had to send her child support money, which was her main incentive for wanting us back. Once she'd lost us, though, we never heard from her again, although Esme and Carlisle made sure that she knew she could contact us.

Sighing, I rolled out of bed and began digging around for clean clothes. There wasn't any reason for me to think of either of them, especially not now, not on the first day of my junior year of high school, which everyone had always told me was the most important year. I pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt with a black button-down over it, ran a hand through my hair, and slung my still-clean backpack over my shoulder before leaving the room.

"Edward!" Alice squealed as she caught up with me in the hallway, and I grinned down at her.

"Hi, pixie." I ruffled her hair. "You ready for today?"

She nodded happily. "Uh-huh. I'm excited. They let me into AP Physics, Edward, how cool is that?"

I laughed at her. "You've only mentioned that about sixteen times, fun-sized. Come on."

"What about you?" she asked. "We're staying late after school so you can try out for the track team, right?"

"I think so," I shrugged. "The coach said he'd let me do it today, but that might've just been to shut Esme up. Let's not come across as the pushy doctor's kids, though. I mean, if he forgot, I won't push it."

Alice humphed as we descended the stairs and made our way into the kitchen, but then giggled at the sight of Emmett stuffing his face full of toast and bacon. "What?" he grunted at her. "I'm hungry."

"You're always hungry," laughed Esme. "Make sure that you leave some for the others. And Jasper," she added, turning to him were he was sprawled over one of the kitchen chairs, a cup of coffee in his hand, "you need to eat more than just that, sweetie."

"Fine, Mom," Jasper sighed dramatically, extending a hand for Alice, which she skipped to his side to take. He lifted another piece of toast as well as a banana onto his plate before helping Alice build hers.

Esme turned to wink at me. "Edward, sweetie, eat something. This is important."

"'Kay," I sighed, dropping a kiss onto her head. I was almost six inches taller than she was, which almost made me sad. "Where's Rose?"

"Sleeping in–" Emmett started to snort, but was cut off by Rosalie calling out, "Here," as she entered the room. "Nice try, Emmett, and you better have left me some bacon."

"There's plenty!" he defended himself, gesturing at the stove. "Why does everyone assume that I'll always eat everything? God!"

"Because you swallowed a vacuum as a small child," I said, raising my eyebrows at him as I sat down with my own plate. "I was there. I saw it."

"Fu– screw you," he hastily amended when Esme raised her eyebrows at him.

Once we were all settled and eating to her satisfaction, Esme took one of the last seats at the table and began tapping her fingertips together in a gesture that meant that she was nervous. I exchanged a glance with Jasper as we both set down our toast. "Kids," Esme started, "first of all, your father apologizes that he had to go into work early today, but he says he'll definitely be here when you get home. Second," she faltered, and looked almost pleadingly at Emmett, Rose, and Jasper, "you are all right with this, aren't you? I mean, moving high schools the year before graduation?"

"Mom," Jasper laughed, holding up his hand. "Think about it. If we tell people that we graduated from a Portland public high school, they're going to automatically assume that we're stoners. It's fine. And besides, Dad being chief of staff at that hospital… that's pretty cool."

"And it's not like we won't have any friends," Emmett added, grinning as he gestured around the table. "Instant posse."

"Did you just say posse?" Alice demanded, scrunching up her nose.

"Shut it, short shit."

"Language," Esme scolded, but more out of habit than anything else. She was used to Emmett by now; we all were. "Well... if you're sure. I'm glad that they're letting you play football at any rate, Emmett. Rosalie, when is your special tryout for the cheer team?"

"Next Monday," she answered. "But they've already seen my video audition, and I'm pretty sure I'm in."

"Okay," Esme sighed. "And Edward, your cross-country tryout is today?"

I nodded.

"Well then," she started, then paused, and Emmett groaned loudly when it looked like she was tearing up. "I'm just so proud of you all for handling this so well. We kind of sprung it on you."

"And how are you feeling about your new job?" Alice piped up, clearly trying to change the subject. When Carlisle had told us about the job offer in Seattle, Esme had contacted Seattle University through Oregon University, where she had taught at the time, and asked if they had any adjunct positions open in their English department. They had, and she would be teaching two sections of English 252, Readings in British Literature I, from AD 600 to the Nineteenth Century.

Esme exhaled slowly. "Good. I'm glad to get back to English instead of Communications, and it will be nice to have smaller class sizes." She glanced at the clock and made a face that was half smile, half grimace. "You all should get going, you don't know what parking will be like."

We nodded and stood, Emmett shoving one last piece of toast into his mouth, and took it in turns to hug Esme. "You all have a good day, and Emmett and Jasper, take care of the others."

"Misogyny," Rosalie snorted, and Esme smacked her on the arm.

"I just meant that you can take care of yourself, sweetie, and last I checked, Edward wasn't a woman."

I pulled out the collar of my shirt and looked down at my chest. "Definitely not a woman," I affirmed, making them all laugh. With one last wave for Esme, I led the way out the door.

Our family owned four cars, and two of them were specifically for the five of us kids. Emmett and Rosalie took the Jeep while I slid behind the wheel of the Volvo, Jasper taking the seat beside me and Alice skipping into the back. Most of the drive to school was spent with Jasper cursing under his breath and trying to find a good radio station while Alice jabbered on about the required reading list for her English class, but I didn't mind either one of them. They were two of my four best friends, and had been for a long time. The one and only time I had broken down in tears over my other, I had turned to Jasper. He had comforted me, talked me through it, and then never brought it up again. And Alice… it was nearly impossible not to smile when Alice was around.

We had arrived at the campus relatively early, so we were able to find adjacent parking spots. As we left the cars and began moving towards the campus, we attracted some stares from the watching students, but not much. Yes, five new students was kind of a big deal, but not on the first day of school, and not in a public school the size of this one.

Carlisle and Esme had considered sending us to one of the many private schools in the Seattle area, but decided that, since North Pine was a local public high school in the Queen Anne neighborhood – where we lived – with an excellent reputation and that we had all done just fine in our public school in Portland, it wasn't really worth it. Besides, even though Carlisle made a lot of money, there would still come a time when all five of us were in college at once, and that would be a huge financial burden by itself without dealing with high school tuition on top of it.

Class schedules were being handed out by the gym, so we wandered over there, glancing around the campus as we walked. It wasn't the first time we'd been there – registration had been a few weeks ago – but it was the first time we were seeing it populated with students. The buildings were painted white with blue accents, and there were a few small garden patches, but not much. It was definitely pretty, and it looked big enough that someone could become anonymous if he wanted to.

"Okay," sighed Emmett, grinning around at all of us. "This'll be so cool."

"Have you ever had a bad day, Emmett?" Jasper laughed.

Emmett shrugged. "Not since I was fourteen. Anyway, we'll all catch up at lunch, yeah?"

We all agreed and then dispersed in search of our schedules.

Three hours later, I was exhausted.

Not to say that the day had been difficult, because it hadn't. I just had yet to have a class with any of my siblings, and I missed them. And – something I hadn't expected – girls were everywhere.

It was overwhelming.

While this was a huge school, it was down the street from the middle school, which was across the street from the elementary school. Most of these kids had known each other their whole lives, knew everything about each other, had dated pretty much everyone else in whom they were interested. I guess I should have expected it – after all, Jasper and Emmett were both taken, but it would stand to reason that girls would pay attention to me. Alice always teased me about being attractive, but I just wasn't. I studied. I went running for fun. My hair, which was just a couple of shades too dark for me to count as a ginger, thank God, never cooperated with me. I was too tall. I was skinny. My face was too square. That was it.

Apparently, to them, it wasn't.

It wasn't like those girls were getting up in my personal space or anything – even though this one girl, Tanya, had come pretty close. I hadn't actually heard anything she'd said, because she'd gotten right up in my face, and I'd backed away so fast I'd almost knocked somebody over.

"Shit! I'm sorry," I'd gasped as I turned around to help him up, but he hadn't even fallen. In fact, he looked like he was fighting a smile as he eyed Tanya.

"No problem. Hey, you need help finding your next class?" he'd asked me, his eyes quickly darting between Tanya and me.

I'd gladly grabbed the rope he was throwing me. "Yeah, actually. Room three-oh-nine. Where's that?"

"We're on the wrong side of campus from the three hundred building," he'd laughed, and jerked his head at me so I followed. He was a skinny kid with glasses, but he just wouldn't stop smiling, and that had to mean something.

"Thanks," I'd muttered once we were out of Tanya's earshot.

He'd laughed. "No problem. I don't mind seeing her squirm. She's kind of a bitch to my girlfriend."

"Why?"

He'd shrugged. "Angela is quiet. She likes to read. It's been a thing with Tanya since kindergarten. Oh, I'm Ben, by the way. Which one of the Cullen kids are you?"

I'd sighed, but not bothered to ask how he knew. "Edward. Nice to meet you."

"You too. So this is Wilson's classroom," he'd added, drawing to a stop in front of a classroom at the very end of the building. "Angela's actually in here. Really tall, really pretty, dark brown hair, glasses. She'll help you out if you need it."

"Thanks, man." I'd reached out to shake Ben's hand, and he grinned at me one last time before disappearing. I'd taken a deep breath then and gotten ready to walk into my fourth classroom of the day.

An hour later, Mrs. Wilson is going over her syllabus with us, and it's an AP class, so I know it's not going to be easy, but that's okay. Angela had smiled at me and waved me over the second I'd entered the room, and I sighed in relief because I could already see another group of girls eyeing me. In fact, now I was afraid to look around the room, because they were… everywhere. So much staring. I hunched my shoulders and heard Angela try to smother a giggle and wonder for a second if I really want her as a friend.

The bell rang and Mrs. Wilson dismissed us, but over the rustle of everyone packing up I heard her call for me to hang back for a second. I turned to Angela and muttered, "Thanks for… you know."

She smiled sweetly and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "No problem. I don't know if you have plans with your siblings, but Ben and I sit with our friends on the edge of the planter outside the library. Come join us?"

I shrugged. "Maybe, yeah. Depending on what the others want. Thanks, Angela."

She waved at me as she left, and I turned back to the front of the room, expecting her to be waiting for me to approach her. Instead, she was talking to a girl who was standing there almost folded up on herself, her brown hair hanging like a curtain in front of her face and her arms wrapped tightly against the books she was holding to her chest like they could protect her from something. I hovered in the background, not wanting to make it awkward, but I couldn't help but overhear.

"Bella, I don't understand," Mrs. Wilson said, and she sounded frustrated. "I was looking at Ms. Forrest's records on you from last year, and all the work you turned in was… perfect, but that's only when you did turn it in. there are missing assignments, late assignments…" she sighed as she flipped through the file in front of her. "Is there anything I can do to help you out? This is a hard class, and I'd hate to see you fall behind. All your former teachers have such nice things to say about you, and I don't want there to be a problem."

The girl named Bella shook her head once and glanced up. "No, but thank you." Her voice was small. "I'll really try to do better. I was just having a rough time last year, and I fell behind, and then I couldn't get caught up. But it won't be an issue anymore."

Mrs. Wilson eyed her speculatively, but then nodded once. "All right, then. But you let me know the second that it is, Bella."

"Yes, ma'am."

With that, the girl named Bella turned and started to make her escape, but she bumped her hip on a desk and sent the books in her arms tumbling out of them. I hurried over to her to help her pick them up. I thought I saw her flinch when I knelt down next to her, but I wasn't sure.

I stacked her books together and handed them to her. "Here you go."

She quickly mumbled a "thanks" without looking at me before scrambling to her feet and rushing out the door. I stared after her for a few seconds in shock until Mrs. Wilson called my name. Snapping myself out of it, I straightened up and went over to her. "Edward, right?" she checked, and I nodded once, running a hand through my hair, a nervous habit I wish I could get rid of.

"Um, yeah."

"Well, welcome to Pine Ridge," she smiled, and I made myself grin back at her. "Is this your first AP class?"

"No, ma'am, I took European History and Biology last year." She was also my third AP class this year, but I didn't want to get into that in case she thought I was cocky.

"All right, then I don't need to stress to you the importance of the exam." She sat up a little straighter. "Do you have the book for this class?"

"Yes, ma'am," I told her, pulling out the book I'd gotten from the library the day we'd all gone to register for our classes, but she frowned when she saw the cover.

"They've given you the book for the regular class, not the AP text." Still grimacing, she told me to go to the library and change the book out for the right one, and I nodded.

"Thanks, Mrs. Wilson."

"No, thank you, Edward, and welcome. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yes, ma'am."

She waved me away and I walked out of the room and into the crush of people that had appeared in the hallways, heading towards the cafeteria for lunch. I thought I remembered how to get to the library from being here the other day so I tried to move through the hall in the direction opposite to where everyone else was going. Nobody really noticed me in the crowd, and I was kind of glad about that. I'd had enough attention for one day.

Eventually I did find the library, and I kind of sighed in relief when I pulled the door open and slipped inside. It was actually kind of big for a high school, and from what I could tell it was empty of all students. I made my way over to the circulation desk and cleared my throat to get the librarian's attention. The book swap took all of two minutes, and I decided I wasn't quite ready to head out into the school again just yet, so I wandered through the shelves for a while.

I'd just discovered the military history section and was about to pick a book off the shelf when I heard someone stumble in the next aisle over. Quickly, I moved around the shelf to see if anyone needed help, and I saw the quiet dark-haired girl from Mrs. Wilson's class scrambling to collect all the textbooks she'd been holding. Kneeling down to help her, I asked, "Hey, are you okay?"

I thought I saw her flinch at the sound of my voice, but when she looked up at me, I forgot to wonder about that. She had the biggest brown eyes I'd ever seen, but they looked so scared – like she'd been expecting me to push her the rest of the way over or some shit. Her skin was pale, but as soon as she realized I was just trying to help her, she blushed bright red and ducked to hide back behind her hair.

"Um, yeah," she mumbled. "I'm fine. I'm sorry."

"What are you apologizing for?" I frowned, stacking her books together and offering her a hand to help her stand up again. I don't know if she didn't see it or what, but she struggled to her feet on her own, and I stood beside her, giving her books back.

"N-nothing," she stuttered, quickly wrapping the books back up in her arms and turning away from me. "Thanks. I'm fine. And sorry again."

With that, she almost ran down the aisle. Later, I realized I should have gone after her, I should have checked on her, but I was too surprised by her actions to move for a few seconds.

Slowly, I made my way back into the military aisle, but I couldn't focus on any of the books anymore. There had been something about her eyes… she had been more than startled when she'd seen me. Almost terrified.

Only that night, as I was lying in bed staring at the ceiling, did I remember that her name was Bella.

Don't you dare look out your window, darling, everything's on fire.

So… What did you think? Again, super nervous, so let me know if you like it or not.