Preface

"Who knew I'd end up in a place named after dinnerware?"

We had no clue where we were going or where we'd end up but only thing we knew is that we wanted to get out of the city of Kenosha, Wisconsin. We've lived there too long and now it was time for us to break free; my best friend, Alexandra and I had made a promise on her sixteenth birthday that when we were both eighteen we would leave the city we disliked so much. That's how we ended up on her bedroom floor ripping up a map and putting into a hat to do a random draw on where we would go to escape the fate of Kenosha living.

"Hurry, Courtney!" Alexandra chanted as I finished ripping the last part of the map. I was overly excited to do this but Alexandra, living in Kenosha longer than was more excited about our escape plan.

"Alright" I responded to her right as a finished with the last few parts of the map. "You choose." I told her so I wouldn't be to blame for picking a lame location. I gave the hat a few good shakes before holding it out a little above her head. She dipped her hand in a fished around before pulling out a torn part of dead map.

"Washington..." she mumbled looking closer at the location, "Forks. Forks, Washington" she stated holding out the piece of map.

"Forks..." I giggled "That name is goofy. Well, let's start planning." I shrugged even more excited to leave now that we had a location. We were both hoping to leave the cold weather behind but anywhere but Wisconsin sounded more than good enough to us.

Chapter One

Intro

"I should have seen that coming."

Stepping out of the car for the first time in a new location was like a breath of fresh air to me but more than that, it felt like freedom. After a good month of plan before the big move, Alexandra and I were both lucky to land a good job working in retail stores that made enough to afford a decent apartment and cover bills. Though, the first few nights here were going to be lonely without her; she ended up staying back in Kenosha to finish up a few things with her parents and picking out a few pieces of furniture and whatnot that her parents decided to gift to us as a "housewarming" present though there really wouldn't be any housewarming for us considering we now lived a good three-thousand miles away from our family and friends.

The hardest part for me was leaving my family and friends but knowing that I had to do something for myself was winning over my guilt. I am the type of person that has a hard time letting go of things and I rarely think of myself but this whole move caught everyone off guard when I said that I was leaving. My mother near died when I told her about Alexandra and I's plans but my father was more accepting. My other best friend and claimed sister, Tasha didn't take to the news too well, she ignored me for a good week before I left but as soon as I was half way to Washington I got a text message saying she missed me already and I hadn't even been gone for two days yet. That was the hard part of leaving but the easy part of leaving was knowing that I would be able to start somewhere new without having all the lingering drama that ensued over the course of my living there. Leaving all the backstabbers and drama queens behind was the best part.

When I drove through the little town I noticed that I've seen this place in distant dreams, it was odd really because in my dreams there was always this big event; like I change in some way and I'm almost not human anymore. I had also remembered seeing a lot of brilliant colors as if I was seeing people's favorite colors because when I saw these colors they were often around people's face or their entire bodies but I could never place what the dream meant. It had gotten me curious about what the meaning was again though I hadn't had those dreams in years, it seemed to have sparked something in me but again, I just thought I was being silly but I think I should've listen to my first instinct about how things could be in Forks or how they ended up.

Pulling my purse and cat out of the car I headed up to our apartment which was already full of our various boxes and items of furniture that we had shipped ahead of us. I walked into the apartment and could not help but smile at the fact it was "our" apartment, we officially lived here and there would be no parents to tell us what to do anymore, freedom was a beautiful thing. I placed my purse down on a dining room table laying in the middle of the living room floor then placed the cat carrier on the floor and released my cat, October into the apartment to explore his new home; he cautiously walked out and started to sniff his new location. I smiled at him then walked over to the many boxes placed in the corner and slowly started to go through them separating all my items from Alexandra's. After about six boxes I gave up on the adventure of unpacking, I figured it'd get done a lot faster if Alexandra was there to help.

After a good hour of music on my iPod I ended up in town to look around, I pulled up to the local department store and that was the first time I saw them, the Cullens. They had caught my attention the first time I spotted them; they were just walking out of the department store with two shopping carts of what looked to be decorations for a home. They were all very beautiful even the men; all of them were pale white with the same dark circles under their eyes even their eyes were very similar with a golden brown tint, all were very stunning. Two of the men walking within the group looked up at me as I pasted them but they only gave me a two second glance before going back to talking amongst themselves. I heard one of the girls, the smallest one I assumed call out the name "Edward" but I wasn't too sure about that but it seemed to rattle in my brain for the next couple until Alexandra had arrived at the apartment from there we got everything settled and our apartment was finally looking like "our" apartment with both of our styles and tastes flowing together instead of a bunch of random boxes and tables laying everywhere.

Alexandra and I settled into our new lives very well, going to work then coming home for great girl's nights in. The little town of Forks wasn't so bad; I truly had to admit to myself I loved it there. It was peaceful and for a small town there were plenty of things to do on our free time. Alexandra and I did various activities like hiking; which was something we never would've thought to do before. We also added in some trips to local dinners and shopping. Though, there was something stirring in the back of my mind, it was those people I had saw weeks early walking out of the department store, the name "Edward" kept rolling around in my mind and it didn't seem to stop; on many occasions I had dreams about them but in most of the dreams they were this fairytale characters much like vampires and werewolves and I even had a dream about them being fairies. I had mentioned this to Alexandra and she even said she saw them a few times coming into her store and they were her biggest spenders. I kept questioning their reasons for being in such a small dreary town like Forks when they seemed to be loaded with money. Aside from the beautiful cars we've both seen them in to their high end fashionable clothes. There was a mystery about them that neither one of us could figure out. Even with that little glitch in curiosity we went about our lives as normal as possible ignoring the mystery people. Who could've guessed that in that small town of Forks our lives could change forever and I use the forever word to an extreme.

A soft noise had woke me up and I figured it was either October playing around or Alexandra was cooking, since Alexandra doesn't cook and October was actually laying right next to me, I sat up wondering if maybe the neighbors had dropped something upstairs, glancing over the clock I noticed it read, 7:08 am which was not normal for me in the least bit. Two things I never did was wake up early and sleep light. I should have known the day wasn't right when I first realized there was no reason for me to wake up. After my morning shower; that was two hours early, I got dressed and made breakfast waiting for Alexandra to wake up and start getting ready for work. I sat at the dining room table pondering what was so wrong about the day.

"Morning, Court." I heard Alexandra call as she entered the kitchen to grab the waiting breakfast.

"Good morning." I nodded to her as I turned the TV on, the news channel was playing but I wasn't in the mood for hearing about the bad in the world so I ended up changing it to music station then returned to my seat the table to finish eating.

"Why are you up so early?" Alexandra asked looking at the clock a little confused. Since I truly didn't know the answer to why I woke up I just shrugged my shoulders and continued to bob my head to the music playing in the back ground. "So we still up for tonight? Johnny Depp marathon and junk food?"

"Yeah! You bet. Who could miss looking at a man like that?" I laughed getting up to start clearing up the table from my mess. "I got to get to work, I want to pick up my check and cash it so I can put in my half for rent before I end up spending it." I said before waving my goodbye to Alexandra and heading off to work.

At work nothing seemed different, I was greeted by a few co-works, Mike, Jason and Isabella when I walked into the door which wasn't unusual, I got along with everyone at work but something wasn't settling on me, so I ended up brushing it off completely because it was silly to think that that day was different from any other day of my life.

"Where you going? Don't you work today?" I heard Jason ask from behind the counter. I turned and raised an eyebrow at him, "Yeah, I'm just cashing my check. I have bills to pay." I teased making it seem like he got a free ride though he worked harder than everyone at the place because he had a young son he was taking care of along with himself and his wife.

"Ah, gotcha!" he shooed me out the door before I could come up with anything smart to say to him. I went to the bank and waiting in line to cash my check when I heard the name "Edward" being said somewhere behind me. Turning around, there was two of the mystery people I had ran into from time to time. One tall guy with bronze colored hair who was a good six foot if not taller and a small girl with a pixie haircut who looked no older than I did. Both were laughing and talking but they both glanced at me from time to time as if they wanted to say hello to me but were unsure how to come up to me. I didn't look that mean, did I? I knew I was a little sleepy and cranky but I truly wasn't that scary looking when I was like that.

When I got up the counter the lady behind the podium looking like she was on edge but kept her friendly smile until she saw the two people behind me, she politely asked me to wait a second and called their attention.

"Edward has your father made it up to the Newton's shop yet?" she asked him while she processed my check through my account. The man behind me shook his head with a grave look on his face as if something huge had happened. The lady behind the counter smiled at me and handed me the receipt for my account then told me to have a good day and to be save in turn I politely thanked her and headed back to work already five minutes late.

I rushed into the work worried about getting yelled at but no one even noticed as I slipped into the back, not even nosey Jason. Everyone seemed to be a bit off but again, I shrugged it off blaming it on my lack of sleep. I went back out to the counter where Jason and Isabella stood having a light conversation due the lack of customers in the store which in this case I didn't mind.

"Hey guys, how is the day going?" I asked when they fell silent for a moment. Isabella looked at me and sighed a bit, she looked a bit freaked out by something. I hoped another spider wasn't sitting on the counter.

"Good, I guess. Haven't you heard?" she asked as I looked around the counters for the spider but then I realized that there was no spider and turned my attention back to Isabella.

"Heard about what?" I was a bit confused now, as if the day wasn't already confusing enough. "The two other stores that got held up, the news said there were only a few survivors from the hold up." she stated taking a glance at the door.

"Oh, no I didn't anything about that. Is that why we're so empty?"

"Yeah, everyone is paranoid about it because they haven't caught the guys yet." she said folding her arms across her chest.

"Oh wonderful," I rolled my eyes, just what I needed with a day like I was having.

"They were talking about shutting some stores down around the town." Jason added as a customer walked up to be checked out. He helped the customer as Isabella and I stepped out of the way.

"Really? It's that serious?" I asked a bit confused with the small town's reaction. In Kenosha things like that happened all the time and no one gave it a second thought.

"Everyone is on edge, there is like five stores in this town and two are already hit." she nodded, looking like she was about to break down crying.

"That's understandable. Well, since it's so empty I should get some stocking out of the way then..." I said feeling a bit scared myself at that moment. I went to the back to grab a load of shipment and walked back out into an aisle and started to unload things when I heard the door open then close again but I didn't pay attention, the more stocking I got done the sooner I would be able to get home and start the movie marathon.

It was like time had frozen when I heard the first scream and heard muffled voices up front. I didn't know how to react or even what to think in that second when I heard the first gun shot. A little voice spoke to me telling me to run but I was frozen; I just kept my eyes locked on the various items in front of me. It was like I had no common sense at all until I heard the second then third and fourth shot then I sunk to the ground and slowly started to crawl to the back of the store. Hoping I could get to the backdoor before who ever had the guns figured out I was there but I had no such luck. I stopped crawling and was frozen again when a pair of black boots stepped in front of my face, I almost didn't look up but the temptation was too great. I didn't even make eye contact with the boot's owner before I felt a hard pressure then an explosion of pain through my back exiting my stomach. I felt the pressure then pain two more times before I fell to the floor blacking out for a moment.

I couldn't even scream the pain was so intense, so I just laid there waiting for death which I knew would come soon if I was losing blood fast enough but somehow it seemed like years were passing by. After my surroundings went silent I managed to open my eyes and look around; I only saw an empty aisle and the backdoor. I had to escape; maybe it was some sort of animal sense that took over but I slowly started to crawl to the backdoor and managed to get it open without too much of a struggle but being soaked in blood and feeling the pain of three bullet wounds made it a little harder than anyone could imagine. I got maybe about eight feet from the door before I fell again but this time the animal sense told me to stay down and not to get back up, I knew it was my time. My time to die and that's what I was doing.