Chapter 2

BPOV

I find the classroom and slip in just after the late bell.

"Sorry," I say to the teacher, "I got a bit lost."

"That's fine. Miss Swan, is it? Take the last seat right over there." He gestures to the back and I turn to go before lurching to a stop.

The open seat is at a bench next to a very pale and beautiful boy. Super. So far, the avoidance plan is going great. I scan the room quickly but sure enough, that is the very last seat.

"Is there a problem, Miss Swan?" the teacher asks.

"Um, no. No problem."

I grip my bag tighter and slink to the back, pulling out the empty seat and ignoring everyone's stares. The teacher calls the class to order and I'm left with a single gaze from the seat next to me.

I instinctively flex my barrier, which is still in tact.

"Hello," he says in a low and sexy voice. Typical.

"Hi," I mumble back without looking.

"My name is Edward." I glance at him out of the corner of my eye. He is easily the most beautiful man I have ever seen, and that's including other vampires. A vampire's beauty is their greatest weapon because it makes you forget the danger you're dealing with. His eyes are deep and dark, never a good sign.

I nod but don't offer my own name. I try to relax and act naturally but I am so aware of his presence.

I feel another tap at my mind and tense. So this is the one with the power. I'm not sure which power he has precisely but I certainly don't want to find out. I fight the urge to ram that tap back at him. That would be a dead giveaway.

He doesn't speak again and I sit awkwardly for the rest of class, failing to look unaffected. When the bell rings, I jump out of my seat like my butt is on fire and hurry from the class. The sooner I can get out of here and think, the better.

EPOV

I watch her run from the room, utterly baffled. The girl is a complete mystery, inside and out. At the start of class, she had walked in a few minutes late, speaking softly to Mr. Banner. I watched her movement, graceful for a human. Her dark hair fans out over her shoulders as she walks. When she saw me, she stopped short and her shoulders rose as though she was preparing for an attack. I could see in the darting glances of her eyes that she was searching for another place to sit, away from me.

Humans have an innate aversion to my kind, but I've rarely encountered such an overt reaction to my presence. She looked frightened. I tried to make myself look as unthreatening as possible, smiling with my mouth closed. But she never looked over as she dropped into her seat and pulled on her sweatshirt.

I haven't told my siblings that I can't read her mind. They were each sufficiently distracted by Alice's sudden loss of visions. I'm not sure why I held my tongue exactly, except that I want to figure her out for myself before I let the others know. Rosalie and Jasper, in particular, are apt to jump to conclusions and see threats where they aren't present. I had decided to work my way into the girl's mind before I put the family on alert.

So I spent the last forty minutes trying to reach her mind, but met only silence. It's like trying to grasp hold of something only to have it slip through your fingers each time. Blank and unreachable.

I tried to engage the girl verbally, but she had resisted, refusing to look my way or offer a name, which of course I already knew. Bella Swan, Chief Swan's daughter, moved here on short notice from Arizona. I'd heard the information a hundred times today in students' minds. They were all curious about her, yet no one knew the details of why she had left, which made her all the more interesting to the teenage population. Mike Newton hadn't stopped looking over here the whole class. Trying to get the Swan girl's attention.

She kept her eyes on the table and her shoulders hunched. I was so focused on breaking into her mind that I almost missed the other jarring absence. But when she swept her hair over her shoulder to create a curtain between us, I was stunned to realize what else was missing.

Her scent.

I inhaled deeply, pulling in the scents of the room. Each student, the wood grained benches, the formaldehyde frogs in the back refrigerator, traces of chemicals from past experiments.

But not Bella Swan. I sat back in my seat, at a complete loss. Did this girl not really exist, was she a figment of my imagination? I would almost think so if it weren't for everyone else's interest in the girl.

I kept my eyes on her, trying to work out the secrets within her frail little body. When the bell rang, she jumped from her seat and hurried out of class without a back wards glance.

Now, I wait for the other students to file out, trying to gather my thoughts into a conclusion, but nothing comes to me. Finally, I get up and walk to my last class.

Ignoring Varner's lecture on derivatives, I watch Bella Swan through the eyes of her classmates, as she speaks to the gym coach and sits on the bleachers to watch the volleyball game. Her hood is back up.

Mike Newton keeps an eye on her the entire class, watching to see if she noticed his 'superior' spiking skills. I bark out a laugh, earning a glare from Varner. I return it with my own look until he gets nervous and returns to the lecture.

Newton is an idiot.

When the last bell rings, I take my time, watching the gym class break up and Bella slip away. When I can no longer watch her, I go to join my family in the parking lot.

I see them waiting at the car. Rosalie leans against the door looking bored. The boys are focused on Alice. Her visions are still blurred and unreadable. She is trying to sort through them with no success, becoming more frustrated by the minute. I keep a human pace as I walk down the hill, scanning the parked cars for something new.

It doesn't take long, as an antique of a truck roars to life in the back row. Bella Swan pulls it from the space and inches out of the parking lot, looking comically small at the wheel of that behemoth machine. I watch as the truck leaves my sight, listening to the rumbling engine for several miles.

"What took you so long?" Rosalie snaps, crossing her arms as I approach. I unlock the doors instead of answering and we all get in. The ride home is quiet, each of us lost in thought. Alice is trying to force her visions and developing an almost headache from the effort.

"Give it a rest, Alice. You're not doing yourself any good," I say.

Alice glares at me, ready to take out her frustration on the first willing victim. "You try going blind. It's not a picnic to suddenly lose your power when you've always been able to rely on it."

I keep my face neutral, but really, I happen know the feeling quite well. It's unsettling to say the least. But I don't respond. Alice's visions are enough to deal with for the time being.

I will figure out Bella Swan myself.

BPOV

The house is silent as I enter. Charlie won't be home for a few hours, giving me enough time to pull myself together. I decide to start dinner just to keep busy. Charlie's fridge is pitifully stocked, mainly old takeout containers and some questionable orange juice. I get back in my truck and find a corner store—not hard in Forks, there's about four corners.

By the time I get back, pull together the indigents, and set a lasagna in the oven, I've been able to push today's encounter to the back of my mind. I've always been good at compartmentalizing, detaching from bad memories. It's helped especially in recent months.

Charlie walks in at seven and pokes his head into the kitchen. "Something smells good in here." He eyes the oven hopefully.

"Lasagna."

He smiles wide under his mustache, moving to the table.

"It's not ready yet," I tell him, "Go put your stuff down and I'll set the table." He grumbles but goes to remove his gun holster and boots.

We eat in silence for the most part, Charlie humming his praises between bites. I push my own meal around, before an idea occurs to me. Maybe I can get some information.

"Charlie," I begin, staring at my plate and trying to sound casual, "do you know a group of five kids that go to my school who are…um, pale and really pretty? One of them is named Edward."

Charlie nods, still chewing.

I perk up and lean forward. "Well?"

He swallows and says, "Cullens. Those are the Cullens' kids. I think one of the boys is Edmund or Edward. Three boys and two girls, right?"

I nod quickly. "So they're a family, then? And there are more of them? How long have they been here?"

Charlie is less distracted by his food now and looks at me. "Why the interest, Bells?"

My cheeks color and try to rein it in. "Edward is my lab partner, and I saw them all together at lunch. I was just curious."

He takes another bite. "They are, um, rather pretty, as you put it. Seem to be good kids, too. I never get any trouble from them. And Dr. Cullen is well respected at the hospital."

My jaw drops open. "One of them is a doctor? Of people?"

Charlie chuckles. "Well, he's not a vet."

I try to imagine a vampire doctor, and nothing pretty comes to mind. Too many blood bags and 'dying' patients. I push past that bizarre detail and focus on the important one. "So they've been here for a while, then."

Charlie nods. "Couple of years." He takes another big bite.

I sit back in my chair, feeling my insides uncoil with relief. They've been here for years, which means they haven't come to collect me.

The relief is short lived as a slew of other concerns sink into its place. There is a large coven of vampires living in my town. Living as in staying. That isn't usually the way vampires function, as far as I know. If they've set up roots here, they'd have spread their hunting around to keep it quiet. One is a doctor, so they must have their teeth in the community somehow.

I watch Charlie finish up his dinner. All this time, I'd been thinking I was the one skirting danger, but Charlie has been sitting here in tiny Forks with vampires. My gut tightens with the guilt of not keeping a closer eye on him. The past few years had become so dark, I thought it better to leave him be.

He groans and leans back in his seat, rubbing his belly. "That was wonderful, Bells. I could get used to coming home to a meal like that."

I force a smile. "You could do with some proper meals. Leftover Chinese is not a food group, you know."

He grumbles a defense and I roll my eyes.

"I'm going to get some homework done before bed," I say, standing.

Charlie nods. "I'll get the dishes, you go on ahead."

"Thanks, Dad."

He grunts but I can tell he likes that I called him dad. I remind myself to do it more often. As I walk up the first few stairs, Charlie calls after me.

"Don't forget to call your mom soon, let her know you've settled in."

I flinch, my hand gripping the banister. "Of course," I lie, "Goodnight."

I shut the door to my room and sink down on the bed, turning out the light. Moonlight slips through the curtain, offering a sliver of peace to my troubled mind. I lied about the homework, but I do have some puzzles to work out.

The Cullens. A 'family' of vampires. I do not like the sound of that. They live here, so they didn't follow me here, but I can't let that drop my guard.

The Cullens could still be connected to them. I don't know how far their network goes beyond Phoenix. If they got wind of where I ran to…

I shudder, pushing that thought away. They won't find me. I made sure of that. If they go to Mom, looking for me… Well, I made sure Mom wouldn't remember either.

I roll over onto my side and wrap my arms around myself. My fingers instinctively reach up under my shirt and trace the jagged cut along my side, not yet a scar. Remnants of my last encounter with my dear mother.

Guilt mixes a queasy cocktail in my stomach. I had to do it. It was the only way to escape her and them. I can't go back to that life.

I won't.

Bella sat in the garden, getting dirt on her new jumper. Today had been her first day of Kindergarden and Mommy had dressed her up real pretty. When they got home from school, Mommy had gone to lie on the couch and told Bella not to bother her, so Bella decided to play with the flowers instead. She put her face up real close to the big pink buds, her favorites, and watched ants crawl over the tightly closed petals.

She watched as an ant crawled back and forth over the bud. She thought he might want to get inside the flower, but it was too closed up for him to try. Bella felt bad for him. She touched her finger to the pink bud and gently stroked it. She said hello to the flower in her mind and felt the flower say hello back, as they sometimes did.

The bud slowly grew under her touch, each petal curling back and opening wide until she was looking at a pretty pink flower in full bloom. The ant crawled between the petals and disappeared inside. Bella smiled at him, happy to have helped.

She heard a sharp gasp from behind and Mommy's voice shouting, "Bella!"

Bella turned around to see Mommy standing close by, watching. Bella got nervous that she was in trouble for her dirty jumper. But Mommy didn't look mad. She was looking at the flower with a big, big smile.

"Oh, Bella!" she shouted again, but really excited this time. "How did you do that?"

Bella tried to think of what to say, but her young mind couldn't come up with the words to describe the connection. "I talked to the flower. To help the ant." She was still worried she was in trouble for something.

But Mommy scooped her up from the ground and swung her around, laughing in a happy way Bella had never heard before.

"Oh, my darling girl! How special you are. This changes everything."

Bella didn't know what that meant, but Mommy had never looked at her like that before, with bright eyes and a really big smile. So she couldn't help but be happy.

Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed the first chapter, I hope you keep with me.

Lots of love,

Evie