A/N My first try at a Twilight fanfic though I've lurked anonymously a long time.

The Twilight universe is not mine.

This story may involve the Volturi but they won't be one dimensional villains. Edward and Jacob as possessive and contemptible as I find them, will be at most, ancillary villains. I'm trying to do something original here. There will be romance (Bellice), adventure and at the heart of it all, a mystery. I hope you enjoy the story.

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Chapter 1

For Want of a Nail

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

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I'd been in 'lovely' Forks Washington for two days when, and I do hope you'll pardon the hyperbole, my life was changed forever.

Perhaps I should first explain a bit about Forks first though.

It is the rainiest, so far as I know, town in the United States, perhaps in the world.

I don't really know the population but I know it's small, damned small.

And I'd come there from Phoenix, gorgeous sunny Phoenix where one never runs out of fun things to do.

All because my Mother had become a baseball groupie. Of course that in and of itself deserves an explanation. When she'd come home and, out of the blue, announced she was marrying a baseball player, I'd foolishly hoped it was someone like Derek Jeter, you know someone I might possibly have heard of? Nope not dear old Mom, God rest her soul, since he certainly never will mine.

Mother had settled down with Phil Billingham inveterate minor leaguer. Phil was a decent sort, though I never knew him very well. Mom wanted desperately to watch him play winter ball, I think it was in Mexico.

Which leads us back to Forks Washington. It was determined I'd have to finish my senior year at Forks High School. I mean I'd just turned 18, I had to finish my first semester exams early in order to be in Forks by November 23rd. How fair is that?

I was 18 so I suppose I could have dug in my heels and refused but the house in Phoenix was already sold and the job market for 18 year old girls with no high school diploma largely consisted of "You want fries with that?" or dancing somewhere on a pole. Neither of those appealed to me.

Why the hell November 23rd you may ask? Maybe it was something about the beginning of whatever the hell oddball baseball season Phil was playing but honestly I myself have been asking that question for more years than I care to count.

I do know if I'd arrived three days later, my life, and what followed would have been much different. I suppose the old saying, the devil's in the details, really is true.

My father, Police Chief Charlie Swan, had picked me and my meager luggage up at the Seattle airport and embraced me in an lung busting hug.

"Bella! It's so good to see you!" He exclaimed, "And just in time for Thanksgiving!"

I was a bit stunned as honestly this was the most demonstrative I'd ever seen Charlie over anything. He was normally the taciturn, drunken type. When he was off duty that is, Charlie was quite dedicated to his job and not at all mean or nasty when he had a buzz on, he just liked beer. A lot. No use slandering what is basically the memory of a good man.

"Erm, Charlie, my ribs?" I said with what breath I could muster.

He put me down sheepishly, still grinning madly at me.

"You're back just in time for Thanksgiving Bella, and we'll do it up right this year."

Great, translation = Charlie and Billy Black will drink beer while I cook Thanksgiving dinner and Billy's steroid abusing son Jacob will ogle me. I might mention I'd spent the last Christmas at Charlie's while Mom was off in Bermuda with Caroline during her 'experimental lesbian' phase as she later labeled it. I knew the routine and yes my Mother's a flake. Whoop de frigging doo, I remember feeling so 'lucky' to be me.

Resigned to my fate I sighed and grabbed my luggage then said, "Let's get this show on the road Charlie."

And with that we headed for Forks.

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Charlie did not disappoint.

Come November 25th I was in the kitchen cooking, Charlie and Billy were in the living room watching the Cowboy's game and guzzling beer and Jacob, true to form, was in the kitchen making not so vague comments about how we'd date now that I was in Forks. He even went so far as to refer to me as "His new girl" on his cellphone, presumably to another ridiculously overbulked friend, when he thought I couldn't hear him. I was a virgin and frankly Jacob was in no way the type to change that status. When we were away from our fathers I planned to explain that to his roid rage filled, overly macho self in no uncertain terms.

It was at that point I realized we had no cranberry sauce.

"Damn!" I exclaimed, stomping my foot.

"Hey Bella watch it, you gotta eat with that mouth," I heard Charlie admonish me from the living room, exacerbating my irritation. I'd seen this man maybe eight days in the last four years and he's giving me this shit?

"I gotta run to the 7/11," I answered rushing to get my coat, "We're out of cranberry sauce."

Later I was to see this as the single tiny detail which made a rather enormous difference for me for the rest of my time on earth.

Ignoring Jacob's completely transparent attempts to seem chivalrous and escort me I rushed out the door (In retrospect I thought Jake had done himself an enormous favor by being such a cad, but isn't life always that way?) choosing to walk the three blocks to the 7/11, which I was certain was the only store in Forks which would be open. I could only hope against hope they had cranberry sauce, which personally I hated back then but I knew Charlie wanted all the trimmings.

I got to the 7/11 which was inhabited only by a very bored and surly clerk who seemed to be in her mid 40's.

After a moments searching I found a can of the gelatinous tart goo (Which makes one wonder why the hell do they call it sauce?) and exclaimed, "Thank God!" which drew a sharp look from the cashier. Who could blame her? There had probably been no one in history so joyous at finding what was likely a ten year old can of cranberry sauce.

Ignoring 'the look' I paid for the stuff, wished her a happy Thanksgiving, which drew a snort of derision and headed home, cranberry sauce crisis solved, the slings and arrows of minor misfortune averted.

And here's the life changed forever part I mentioned earlier. Just in case you'd forgotten that is.

Now I was not a stupid girl at the time, far from it, and let's face it Forks was hardly a hotbed of crime then or, I suspect, now, but I still checked my surroundings out thoroughly. There was no way anything could threaten me before I reached the relative safety of streetlights and Forks rather quaint answer to suburbia.

Just as I rounded the corner, on a deserted Forks street just next to the woods and the forlorn 7/11, I felt as if there had been a gust of wind then something struck me from behind, knocking me violently to the ground. I tried to scream but couldn't as all my breath had been knocked out of my lungs. What felt like clamps of steel held me down. Suddenly I felt a stabbing, burning pain in my neck then pain such as I'd never felt, which is saying something in a life full of painful mishaps.

There was a sound above me which was akin to two boulders colliding and suddenly I was free. I crawled into the woods, only hoping to escape. My only thought as the red mist took my vision away was I had to remain quiet, I had to stay quiet, no matter what. I knew my survival depended on it.

I don't know how long the burning lasted, though it seemed like an eternity in the fiery pits of hell. It could have been hours, it could have been days. Time ceases to exist when one is in that sort of combustible pain. The thought that I'd died and went to hell did occur to me more than once (and I feared if indeed I was in hell Jacob Black would be welcoming me soon enough) and my only other two thoughts were I had to remain quiet, no matter how bad it got, and praying for death. I could hardly have realized death had already arrived.

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When I finally awoke the pain was gone replaced by a horrible burning in my throat. Imagine the worst sore throat you've ever had and multiply the burn by perhaps 1000 and you might approximate this.

I wondered what horrible disease whatever had attacked me had given me, when, from my hiding place in the woods I saw a man coming round the same corner where I'd been attacked. He was carrying a bottle of wine, I supposed just purchased, and, strangely, at that moment, I noticed it was dark now.

Suddenly my center of perception changed. His scent overwhelmed me, it was beyond intoxication it was as if all the pleasure centers in my brain had suddenly been activated. I'd never been addicted to anything (little did I realize I was even then) but this had to be worse than any addiction. I had to have whatever that scent was.

The next few seconds are a blur in my memory, I scarcely recall even moving, let alone attacking the man. My teeth must have gashed his neck open for my next memory is of exquisite pleasure as I drank the poor unfortunate soul's life blood. He seemed to struggle at first but that was to no avail against my new found and inexplicable strength. I did not stop drinking until the blood stopped flowing and his life ebbed away.

It was only then a wave of utter horror overwhelmed me. I realized I'd just killed this man. I'd drank his blood and drained his life and perversely it had felt so wonderful. In an unexpected irony I'd killed the unlucky wino in almost the exact spot where I'd been attacked. This simply made my horror worse. The rush of self mortification that ran through me defies description. Up until a certain point in my existence I'd always been a coward and the fear that overcame me at that point was all encompassing.

"What sort of monster am I becoming?" I muttered to myself, not even recognizing the musical tone of my own voice. I held my hand to my face and noticed my skin had become snow white, almost like a pearl under the moon's luminescence. I couldn't stand it. I couldn't stand one more second of this.

At that point I began running.

I did not stop for a very, very long time.

In a way I had been running ever since.

No more.

The incident happened 50 years ago in Forks, Washington. Now I understood a lot more. Now I was back in Forks to find out exactly who'd done this to me. I'd faced and defeated horrors they could not imagine and I would not lack for ways to defeat whomever or whatever I needed to.

Now they would pay.

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A/N

Yes the single most important event in this story is the lack of a can of cranberry sauce.

No Bella won't (with luck) stay this bitter. Keep your fingers crossed for her, she'll need it.

I've seen people use various things to separate parts of chapters here, I got my older brother to make me an ascii sword(though it appears this this eviscerates it by disallowing two common ascii keys wtf?) , like? dislike? I wanted something different.

All the best writers here say reviews make them feel very good, I'd love to find out so please review, pretty please?