Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight of its characters. You know who does.

Everything was arranged. My bags were packed. My plane tickets had been bought. I was leaving Phoenix the next day at seven AM. I was trying to go to sleep so I wouldn't get tired on the plane – when you Dream things that make you thrash and scream, sleeping near a lot of people is a really bad idea. But I couldn't sleep. I was dreading the move to cloudy Forks too much. I'm sure I wouldn't have slept at all, but suddenly, the choice was taken away from me. A dull ache started to build behind my eyes and I became nauseous. I groaned. I knew that feeling – I was about to get sucked into a Dream. The headache grew worse, and I started to feel dizzy, like I might pass out. I rolled to the edge of my bed and rifled around in one of my drawers in the dresser next to my bed, looking for the duct tape. I found it just as my stomach plunged and my head started spinning. The black pull behind my eyes felt like someone was jabbing an icepick into my skull. Quickly, I ripped off a piece of the duct tape and clapped it over my mouth, about one second before I fell into unconsciousness.

And I wasn't Isabella Swan anymore – Isabella Swan wasn't even born yet. My name was Stephen Dodde, and it was May fourth, nineteen thirty-one. I was shuffling down Sixth Street in Portland, Oregon, and was about to pass the Silver Screen Theater. It was boarded up now – but that wasn't a surprise. The Depression had done that to a lot of businesses. I took another swig from the whiskey bottle I had in my right hand, and staggered drunkenly when the action almost threw me off balance. Yes, I was very drunk tonight. But I wasn't afraid of getting arrested – I wasn't afraid of anything. Besides, most of the police were in the same bar I had just come out of, trying their hardest to forget their numerous problems. I chuckled at the memory of their desolate faces. They needed to be more like me – someone who took care of their problems and made them go away, one way or another. Beth had been a problem, but I'd taken care of her, hadn't I? I still remembered her face, all white and scared, and her shrill screams, insisting that she had been true to me from the start, that she'd never betrayed me. Her screams had been annoying..... until I'd crushed her throat in one large, strong hand, and her face had turned blue, and, finally, she'd stopped moving. I swallowed another mouthful of whiskey – not that I was drinking from guilt, mind you. In my book, any wife who cheated on her husband deserved what she got. Getting drunk was just my daily habit. I grimaced slightly, still remembering. Yes, my wife hadn't made another sound, but then the children had started shrieking loud enough to hurt my ears, and I'd had to shut them up, too, the same way I'd made Beth be quiet. My grimace became more pronounced. Killing he girls bothered me a little bit..... but oh, well. They probably weren't even mine anyway.

I'd passed the theater now, but there was an alley just on the other side of the building. I walked into it unsteadily to relieve myself. Once I'd finished, I turned to go back out into the street – but someone was blocking my way. I squinted, trying to see. It was a man. I couldn't see his face – it was dark, and he was too far away. He was tall, but too slender to be stronger than me. After I registered that fact, the second of worry passed – this person, whoever he was, was no longer a threat. "You might want to move," I slurred. "if you know what's best for you."

The man cocked his head to the side, but didn't move. I still couldn't see his face. His failure to get out of my way angered me. I was Stephen Dodde, and no one stood up to me. With my tall, burly frame, no one wanted to disobey me. This wasn't acceptable. I wasn't going to let some fellow make a fool out of me. The man moved closer, and then I could see his face well enough to see that he wasn't even a man – just a boy, maybe in his late teens. Very pale, with reddish-brown hair. And he was.... what less of a man than myself would call attractive. Maybe even beautiful. I still couldn't see his eyes. "If I were concerned for your feelings," he said slowly, enunciating each word, "I would point out that no one needs to make a fool out of you – you do that quite well on your own." It took me a little while to get past his cultured way of speaking and figure out that he'd just insulted me, but then my head pounded in fury. This skinny little pretty boy had no idea what was coming. "No," he continued calmly, moving even closer. "you are the oblivious one. This, ah, how did you say it? This 'skinny little pretty boy' is going to make you regret what you did to your wife and daughters."

I was stunned for a moment before I started to panic. Had I said that pretty boy bit out loud? I didn't think so – but maybe I was drunker than I thought. And how had he known about Beth and the girls?! I definitely hadn't told anyone that, and I had gone through a lot of trouble to make sure the bodies were disposed of properly. The boy ghosted even closer. His shoes made no sound on the pavement. "Did it never occur to you," he began, and his calm mask started to crack, revealing the fury underneath, "that maybe, just maybe, Beth was telling the truth?" His expression was truly frightening now. I stumbled back a few steps, but he kept up with me easily. "And even if she wasn't, and she had been with another man, did your daughters deserve to die for her mistake?" He was so much closer now, and there was nowhere else for me to go – my back was pressed up to the brick wall of the back of the alley. The strange, terrifying boy shook his head sharply. His eyes were still in shadow. "You," he declared, his voice a deep growl, "are a monster."

Since there was nowhere to fly, my fight instinct kicked in. I tried to punch the boy in the face, but his hand shot up from his side, a white blur, and, instead of hitting his jaw like I had planned, my fist smacked into his open palm, which was as hard as the brick wall I was up against. I heard a bone crack, and I gasped in pain. I tried to pull my hand back, but the boy's long, white, cold fingers rapidly closed over my fist, and I couldn't get my hand away. It hurt to even try. Another inhuman growl rumbled deep in his chest. His hard fingers tightened over my fist so that his fingertips pressed into the back of my hand. My alcohol-clouded mind tried to make sense of what he was doing and failed, but I figured it out when his rock-like fingers pressed the bones in the back of my hand so hard they broke. I drew in a breath to scream in fear and pain, but his other hand clapped over my mouth. The action brought his face even closer to mine, and I could see his eyes now. The sight made me want to scream again. Most of his irises were as black as pitch. That wouldn't have been as unusual. But they weren't entirely black. Around the outside of his irises was a ring a crimson. Like blood.

He saw my wide-eyed stare, and bared his teeth in a feral approximation of a smile. Then, in a movement so fast I couldn't really see it, his head shot forward, toward my neck, and a split second later, I felt a sharp tearing pain in my throat. The pain only lasted a second before the world went black.

I gasped through my nose and woke up. I was Bella again, and I was back in my bedroom in Phoenix. I peeled the duct tape of my mouth with a shaking hand. Ugh. I hated vampire Dreams. They were always so full of fear, and not all vampires killed their victims quickly – some of them like to play with their food. I shivered. What was different about this Dream, however, was that the vampire had killed Stephen because Stephen had killed his family. Vampires didn't choose victims like that. They just killed whoever happened to be in the right place at the wrong time. There wasn't that much forethought. I wished I could ask my Gran about it, but Gran had died when I was thirteen

I was so lost in my thoughts that I jumped when my alarm clock went off about two minutes later. I rolled out of bed with a groan, and got dressed. Two hours later, I was on a plane to Seattle. Unfortunately, my plan to get a good night's sleep the night before had backfired – thanks to the Dream, I was even more tired – so I kept myself busy during the flight so I wouldn't fall asleep. I wrote the strange Dream down in my journal, reread my grandmother's journal that I had with me in an unsuccessful attempt to find another Dream like mine, and read another book, unrelated to Dreams. Luckily, right after I finished that book, the plane started to descend – I was out of things to do.

Charlie drove me to his house in his police cruiser, which slowed down traffic, but we made it to his house in fairly good time. He left me alone to unpack, and only called me down stairs when dinner – which consisted of burnt fish sticks – was ready. I promised myself that I would take over the cooking from then on. I took a shower and washed the rain out of my hair, then – exhausted – went to bed. Charlie didn't comment on the early bedtime – I had such deep circles under my eyes that a blind man could have seen them. I collapsed into bed and fell asleep instantly.

Thankfully, I slept without Dreaming, so I felt better in the morning. Not quite ready to take on my first day at Forks High School, but I doubted I would ever be ready for that. I got ready slowly, dragging my feet, but I was ready to go soon anyway. I shrugged into my heavy coat – necessary in Forks – and trudged out into the rain to my truck. The old red Chevy had been my homecoming present from Charlie. It was big, with a bulbous cab, and I loved every red, rusty inch of it. It looked sturdy, which was good for me. It's only flaw, as far as I could tell, was that it was very loud. Other than that, it served its purpose of getting me to school perfectly. A few heads turned when I pulled into the parking lot, but I went mostly unnoticed at first. But that stopped as soon as I set foot in my first period English class. Everyone turned to stare at me, and they didn't stop staring until the teacher started his lecture. Even then, they all managed to sneak glances back at me every few minutes. My face was scarlet the whole time. After class, a boy named Eric offered to show me to my next class, and he didn't look like he would take no for an answer, so I didn't try to dissuade him. A few other people introduced themselves in the other classes before lunch, including two girls named Jessica and Angela. When lunch finally did roll around, I sat with them at their usual table with some boys named Mike, Tyler, and Ben, and another girl named Lauren. She looked about as happy to be sitting with me as I was to be sitting there, which is to say, not very.

I was trying to answer the flood of questions they aimed at me, wishing I could sink into the ground, when I saw them. My heart stopped. There were five of them, three males and two females. They were too pale, too beautiful, to be anything other than vampires. The females were opposites. One was tall, curvy, with long blond hair, and the other was short and very slender, with short, spiky black hair. One of the males, the biggest one, was dark haired and muscled up like a professional wrestler. Another was just as tall as the big one but not as built, and blond. He looked subtly dangerous, like a sheathed sword. The third male, the youngest, perhaps, was also tall, but he was the most slender. Not that it mattered – he could crush every one of us humans. He had messy bronze-colored hair, and – to me, at least – was easily to most beautiful out of the three males. He was also very familiar. I had just Dreamed about him two days ago. This was the vampire who had killed Stephen Dodde. Deja vu.

My heart beat faster. Sure, I'd Dreamed a bout vampires several times, but this was the first time I'd seen them in person. It was especially horrifying because I had seen firsthand what they could do, what they did regularly. And I couldn't act on my fear and run away from the cafeteria like I wanted to – they would surely notice and eventually realize that I knew about them, and then they would kill me. That was the rule, after all – no one must know about the existence of vampires. But it was so hard to sit in the same room with them!

I gritted my teeth and made myself sit still. My new "friends" had finally started eating and talking amongst themselves, so I didn't have anymore questions to answer at the moment. But maybe I should be asking a few questions. I nudged Jessica. "Who are they?" I breathed in her ear. I knew they could hear me anyway.

Jessica followed my eyes to the table full of vampires, but before she could answer, the bronze-haired male, the one I'd Dreamed about, looked at her for a fraction of a second, and then locked eyes with me. I felt the blood slither from my face. I dropped my eyes immediately, even though the vampire had already lost interest in me and looked away, too. Jessica giggled, her cheeks pink, and responded, "Those are the Cullens. They're Doctor Cullen's foster kids."

I frowned slightly. This Doctor Cullen must have been a vampire, too – there was no way a human could live with vampires and not notice something different about them. That made six vampires all posing as a family – a huge group, by vampire standards. Vampires either traveled alone or in pairs outside the Southern armies and the Volturi. But this was not the South, and the Volturi's headquarters was located in Italy. And they were going to school – with humans, no less. This was beyond weird. I looked back up at the group, wondering why they were so different from others of their kind. My eyes were drawn to theirs, even though I mentally shied away from the thought of red irises, but the Cullens didn't have red eyes. Their eyes were, as far as I could tell, dark brown. I knew that contacts could fake it, but their eyes looked natural. My frown deepened. "Have they always been here?" I asked. I didn't think so, but I wanted to know how long they had been living here.

Jessica shook her head. "They moved here two years ago from Alaska."

Two years. They had to have hunted a lot during that time – which was a long time for vampires to stay anywhere in the first place. How had they hidden their victims? Obviously, they weren't stupid enough to hunt in Forks, but even so, six vampires would have killed a lot of people in the surrounding areas in two years. "You said they're Doctor Cullen's foster kids?" I asked.

Jessica nodded. "Yeah. The Hale twins, Rosalie and Jasper, the two blonds, are Mrs. Cullen's relatives or something. They adopted the others."

Mrs. Cullen. So seven vampires. This was ridiculous. Vampires did not get along with each other as a general rule – another vampire was hunting competition. What made this coven so different? I glanced up at them again – only to see the bronze haired male staring at me. I looked away quickly, and asked for more information to distract myself. "You told me who Jasper and Rosalie are – who are the others?"

Jessica warmed easily to the subject, so I assumed there was some good gossip coming. "Okay," Jessica began. "the big dark-haired guy is Emmett, the short black-haired girl is Alice, and the other one, the one with the reddish-brown hair, is Edward." She sighed, and looked off into space for a little while, probably contemplating Edward's hotness or something, before she got back on topic. She leaned forward. "And you know what's really crazy?" she asked, then continued before I could respond, "They're all together! Like, together, together. Emmett is with Rosalie, and Jasper's with Alice – and they all live together!"

I tried to pretend to be surprised, but I wasn't really – with so many vampires traveling with each other, some of them had to be mates. So the one I had Dreamed about was named Edward. I sneaked another glance at him, and this time he was frowning at his hands, which were folded on the table in front of him. Jessica saw me looking, though. She snickered. "Don't waste your time," she suggested. "Edward may be the only single one in his family, but apparently it's by choice. He doesn't date – I guess none of the girls here are good enough for him." Her voice had soured toward the end, and I hid a smile. Someone had gotten turned down.

"Don't worry," I assured her. "I don't intend to wast any time on him." I shivered at the very thought. Then the bell rang, and I walked to my next class, Biology, with Angela. It was a quiet walk, much to my relief. But when we got to the classroom, I froze for a second. Edward Cullen was in this class, and the only open seat was right next to him. I would have to be his lab partner. Would my bad luck ever end?

"Bella?" Angela murmured, "Are you okay? You look a little pale."

I felt pale. I briefly considered playing sick and skipping the class, but my pride rebelled. Edward Cullen couldn't make me run away. Besides, I needed to pretend that he was normal. I forced a smile at Angela. "I'm fine," I promised. We continued forward into the room. The science teacher, Mr. Banner, nodded his head at the open seat beside Edward, and, trembling, I went to sit beside him. I gingerly sat down in the chair, and didn't look at Edward. But out of the corner of my eye, I saw him turn to look at me. He inhaled like he was going to talk to me. But he didn't. Because as soon as he breathed in, he went as rigid as a statue in his seat. I looked up at his face, startled. And then I almost fainted.

The lines of Edward Cullen's beautiful face were hard and stiff. His eyes were narrow, glaring, and pitch black. There was a murderous rage in his eyes. He was looking at me like there was nothing he wanted to do more than kill me. And, in his case, drink my blood. I'd seen the same look Edward had on his face on the faces of countless other vampires in my Dreams, right before they sank their teeth in to the throat of whoever the poor victim was. I'd seen that look in my Dreams, always right before the person I Dreamed about died. And now it was happening again. Only this time, it was happening in reality, to me. Edward Cullen was thirsty. And I smelled good.

I was frozen, unable to do so much as scream. He was going to kill me. Right here, right now, right in the middle of a classroom full of kids. They would all panic, when they saw Edward lift his head from my soon-to-be-mangled neck, his lips coated in my blood. They would scream..... and Edward would have to kill them all, too. No one can know the secret. Killing me would be a dead give away, and Edward would have to clean up after his mistake. I sat there, paralyzed, looking into Edward's black eyes. There was nothing I could do. I was so slow, so frail, so weak, compared to him. It was all over..... but then Edward tore his gaze away from mine, and turned his face away. He stopped breathing. I trained my eyes on my desk, shaking violently. What was he doing? Why didn't he just kill me and get it over with? But he didn't move or breathe again during the class. It almost looked like he was.....resisting. But why would he do that?

That Biology class was the longest hour of my life. I kept waiting for him to snap and attack me, but he never did. He just sat there, tense and unmoving, until the bell rang. Then Edward jumped out of his seat and darted out of the room, before the bell even finished ringing. I still didn't move. I was stunned.

For some reason, I was still alive.