A/n: I do not own Twilight our it's characters.

Thank you to all the people who read, reviewed and are following my story. You really made my week.

Viva La Revolution

Chapter 2

It was official. Neon orange was not my colour. My bright orange jumpsuit made me look like a pumpkin. Too bad the prison system didn't stick to the classic black and white stripes.

I sighed and let out a long breath. I had learned two important lessons in the last twenty four hours.

Lesson one - Never get arrested on a Friday night. If you do, your ass will be stuck in prison all weekend while you wait for the courts to open for your bail hearing on Monday. Not that many of us had anyone to bail us out. Fuck, we couldn't even afford a lawyer.

Lesson two - Living in a square white room with harsh florscent lights and an open shared toilet isn't fun. At least I had Jessica as my cell mate. Some of the rest of our girls weren't so lucky. Alice and Leah had some pretty hardcore gangster-looking chicks in with them. Although, if Jessica was going to keep asking me what I thought Jacob was doing right now, I might ask Alice to switch with me.

It was our first night here in the slammer. We spent last night locked up at the cop shop. After being strip searched, fingerprinted, photographed and asked a million and one questions, we were all divided into two different cells that smelled like piss and vomit. Early the next morning they took all of us girls on an enjoyable ride to the state prison where we spent our day in a lovely communal shower, eating food that closely resembled dog shit and meeting our new "welcoming" inmates.

I know I sound bitter and perhaps I shouldn't be because we all knew that what we were doing was technically illegal, but it didn't feel like it was. It felt like what we were doing had purpose and meaning. We were providing a safe, loving home for youth that weren't given that from their families. The problem was with all of us being runaways, none of us had enough money to afford a large enough place to rent for all thirty of us to live in. So, for about a year before I found them, Jazz, Alley Cat, James, Vicky and Jacob had taken matters into their own hands and found an old abandoned warehouse to live in. We all knew the building belonged to someone but no one ever showed any ownership over it. It had been falling apart before the gang had found it.

I lived there happily for a year and a half. Until six months ago, when Jazz read in the Seattle Times that some wealthy landowners had bought a large portion of the western area of Seattle. And that area included our beloved warehouse. They wanted to gentrify the area by ripping down the old manufacturing buildings and replacing them with over-priced condos.

Over those six months my thinking about our illegal occupation of this warehouse changed. At first I just thought we were living in a community taking care of each other. But Jazz had been right, it was so much more than that. It was about showing the wealthy landowners that everyone had a right to have a roof over their head. Just because money was exchanged between powerful people's hands it didn't mean that they had a right to push us out of our home. That's when I started to read all the books that Jazz had recommended about revolutionary movements. The books caused me to look deeper at our society and the work we were doing by maintaining this community. Of course we all knew in the end that the wealthy would win. But it had been important to make our stand.

Jessica was lying on the bunk above me. I could tell from her breathing that she was almost asleep. I, on they other hand, couldn't relax enough to fall asleep. Every time I closed my eyes all I could see were the faces of my dearest friends.

I found my friends the first day I landed in Seattle. It should have taken me three hours to drive there. But it took me six fucking hours. By the time I reached the outskirts of the city my truck started to make what can only be described as the sound of death. And thick plumes of smoke started puffing out of the engine. At that point I knew it was offical, my truck was a piece of crap. I pulled off of the highway at the first exit I came to. I pulled over on the first quiet side street I found. I stopped the engine and hopped out of my truck to take a look. I walked around to the front of my truck and opened the very hot hood of the engine. Ahhhh shitters, there goes my truck.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to try and push out my growing frustration. I slowly exhaled and opened my eyes to take in my surroundings. Crap, my truck would have to die in what looked like a really bad area of town. There were boarded up windows on old industrial buildings that were falling apart. The brown bricks of the buildings were covered in graffiti tags in various colours. I looked up at the sky and noticed that the sun was beginning to set. Just then the wind picked up and blew a chilly gust of air and quiet drops of rain started to fall. It was the middle of October and you could tell fall was here. I shivered from the cold wind and went back to my truck, hopped in the cab and closed the door. I grabbed my favorite hoodie with the soft fuzzy insides from my duffle bag. I started to drum my fingers on my steering wheel and stared out my windshield as I thought about what the hell I was going to do.

Perhaps I should have thought things through more. My whole 'take charge of your life, change things on the spur of the moment' plan didn't seem like such a good idea now. Maybe I could have tried to find somewhere to stay that was closer to home. No, I couldn't have done that. I had reached my breaking point and needed a fresh start. Yes, things would be hard on my own, but I could do it, couldn't I? Was I taking control of my life or was I just running away from it?

I was suddenly snapped out of my train of thought when I saw a flash of movement in my left side view mirror. I started to turn to see what or who it was when my driver side door was ripped open. A large hand roughly grabbed my arm and threw me on to the damp pavement. I landed on my elbow with a loud crack. A bolt of pain shot up my arm. I screamed out in agony. Two rough hands picked me up off of the ground and pulled me up into my attacker's face. His dark eyes looked into mine as he shook me violently. He started to yell at me to give him all of my money. I tried to tell him to take my envelope full of money, take my duffle bag of personal belongings, fuck, he could even take my crappy truck. I tried to get these words out but couldn't. I was paralyzed with fear. Everything started to spin and go black. I was going to pass out when an arm wrapped around my attacker's throat and jerked him backwards. He let go of me and I fell to the ground. It had gotten so dark out I could hardly see what was happening. I thought I saw three men trying to subdue my attacker. Then one of the men lifted his head but I couldn't make out his face.

"Alley Cat, help the girl," he shot out in a breathless voice.

I felt a small gentle hand on the small of my back; another hand rested on my lower right arm. A small female voice whispered, "Come with me. I'll keep you safe."

She helped me to my feet and we slowly made our way down the street. When we came to the end she turned us to the left. We hobbled on down the street with her arms still cradling me. My breathing was frantic, my left arm was in agony and I was shaking so badly from fear that I could hardly walk. We trudged on for two more blocks in the darkened streets. I could smell fire wood burning somewhere close to us. Then she stopped walking.

"Down this alley way," she murmured.

I pulled myself out of her grasp. I was unsure if I should trust this stranger. Yes, she had saved me from danger. But, I didn't know what the fuck was down this alley.

"I would never hurt you she," she said.

I decided to follow her, feeling like at this point I had nothing to lose. We walked in silence halfway down the alley. Then she stopped in front of a set of large metal double doors. She pulled and jerked them open with her tiny frame. They opened with a loud creak.

"This is our home," she said, a hint of pride in her voice. Dim light from the inside of the building lit the alley. For the first time I could get a good look at her face. She was around my age and height. She had short black spiky hair and a lip ring. Her skin was pale and beautiful. She was wearing a dark denim jacket, a black mini skirt, ripped fishnet stockings and dark combat boots. She looked up at me with a smile.

"I'm Alice." She extended her hand out to me. I smiled back and shook her hand with my good arm.

"Hey, I'm Bella. Thanks for saving me back there."

She didn't answer but her smile grew wider. "Come on in Bella, welcome."

She gestured for me to walk in ahead of her. I slowly stepped through the doors. And I couldn't believe what I saw. I opened my mouth in shock. It was simply incredible. Then I felt a firm hand on my shoulder. I turned around to find three young men standing behind me in a row.

The one on the left had a messy pony tail, blue eyes and my duffle bag slung over his shoulder. He was wearing a dark blue hoodie and jeans. The man on the right had a huge grin plastered across his face, short cropped black hair, russet skin and colourful tattoos up and down his arms. He was wearing a tight black t-shirt and dark jeans. The man in the middle was the one with his hand on my sholuder. He had curly blond hair that was shoulder length, pale skin and stubble on his face. He was wearing an old dark brown fedora, a red bandana around his neck, a green army coat and dark pants.

The man in the middle dropped his hand and took a step towards me. He lowered his head and began to search through his pockets. He pulled out a cigarette and a lighter. He lit his smoke, then lifted his head and adjusted his hat so that it was tilted at an angle. He put the cigarette to his lips and took a long drag. As he slowly exhaled his mouth turned up into a smile. He looked at me intently and said in a deep, clear voice, "Viva la revolution, darling."

Eventually, reliving the good memories of life with my friends had me drifting off into a peaceful sleep.