Been away for awhile but I am back. I am writing again. Several new stories are being developed including this one. Pain of Mating will also be updated shortly!
I do not own the Twilight characters! I just play with them a little.
Chapter One
Routine
BPOV
My screams once again awoke me. I shot awake, panting and sweating, my face drenched from tears I had apparently shed in my sleep. I sat up and winced as I did so, my scalp hurt; it seems I had pulled at my hair during my nightmare again. I would not sleep again now. I look at the clock beside my bed, it reads 03:36. I have slept for three hours. 'Notbad' I muse to myself, at least I managed more than an hour before my dreams and my past forced me to waken.
Knowing I wouldn't get any more rest, I pulled myself out of my bed. Boxes still litter my apartment. I only moved in three days ago and have not yet fully unpacked. I brought this apartment and the bookshop below it. I finished my degree in literature over two years ago. I had gone straight into editing, but a busy, noisy office was no longer a good environment for me. I was financially set for life so the quietness of a second-hand book store appealed to me. I knew I couldn't hide away in my house or apartment – as it is now – forever. I needed to move on with my life. I needed to live. But the thing was I also know that I am broken. I am ruined. I am not the girl I once was and there is no point pretending otherwise. I hoped that running a quite second-hand bookshop would give me the quietness and relative isolation I required whilst still giving me something to do and encourage me to engage in at least some interaction with other people; even if it was just to sell a crappy Romance to a local housewife every other week!
I grabbed my flashlight and gun from the drawer of my bedside table and started my checks. First I went down into the shop and checked all the doors and lights and alarms. I checked that everything was where I had left it and made sure the night underneath the counter was still strapped in securely and the gun in my drawer in the desk of my office was still there. I checked the windows, making sure that the pins I had strategically placed on them had not fallen; nobody had tried to get in. After I was sure the shop was as secure as it could be I locked the door again between the shop and the staircase leading up to my apartment. I jammed a hairpin into the top of it so I would know if anyone had tried to open it. I set a large vase directly in front of it so the smashing of it would alert me if someone broke in and set the second alarm. I made my way back up the stairs. When I got to my actual front door I walked in and then locked it behind me. I set another alarm, checked my security cameras and then dragged the small but heavy side table in front of the door, placing yet another heavy vase on the very edge of it. Any disturbance to this door and I would be aware very quickly. I checked all the windows in my apartment, ensuring their hairpins were in place. I checked the locks on the fire exit and made sure the baseball bat next to it was still there. I then checked my guns, knives, pepper sprays and tasers were all where they should be. Once I was certain I was as safe as I could ever likely be I moved to the sofa, clutching my gun in my hands I curled up under my mother's old patchwork blanket and waited for dawn to come. I did not sleep.