Chapter 1
Another Bella
Jen opened her eyes, blinking at the bright light above her. She gasped in pain as she shifted her body and cringed at the sterile smell. She felt cords and an assortment of other objects sticking on or in her arms.
A man walked in and smiled.
"You're finally awake," he observed.
On a normal day she would have mad some kind of smart comment like 'I've noticed,' but not now.
The man had blond hair and eyes that she couldn't focus on to tell the color.
"You came in here a week ago," he told her. "We don't know what happened to you. We couldn't find an ID on you and your prints aren't in the system. No one has filled a missing persons report on you."
He picked up her charts as he spoke, examining them.
"Everything seems in order. Are you hungry, miss?"
Jen shook her head, unable to find her voice. He walked up next to her and pulled out a penlight.
"Do you have a headache, miss?"
"No," she replied hoarsely, "and my name is Jen Larken."
"It is very nice to meet you Jen. I have forgotten my manors. I am Dr. Cullen."
"Dr. Cullen? Are you serious?" Jen asked laughing. "Sorry," she continued after her laughing subsided. "It just a bizarre coincidence."
"If that's too weird, you can call me Carlisle."
"Carlisle," Jen whispered before passing out.
Jen saw nothing of Dr. Cullen until the day before she was scheduled for release.
"Miss Larken," Carlisle said, "I apologize for giving you such a scare the other day."
"It's alright," Jen replied. "It's just Carlisle Cullen is a character in a book I read. It's about a girl who moves to a suburb of Seattle and meets a boy. It's kind of a sappy romance. The boy's father's name was Carlisle."
"Do you have anywhere to go, tomorrow?"
"I don't know. I don't live with my parents."
"How old are you?"
"Seventeen."
"I could take you somewhere tomorrow. Shouldn't you be in school? The year is just starting. What are you, a junior?"
"I graduated last year. I've been in night school for the last year and a half."
"We'll have to figure out where you're from. I'll take you out to lunch tomorrow."
"Sounds good. See you tomorrow, Carlisle."
Carlisle arrived at the hospital around noon to pick up Jen. The nurse, following hospital procedure, wheeled Jen out in a wheelchair, and Carlisle helped her into the car.
He pulled up to a small coffee shop and helped her out. Jen looked out at the park across the street and smiled.
After the sat down, Carlisle asked, "What do you do? What are you studying to be?"
"I- I'm a- I don't remember. I don't remember anything."
"No family? No friends? No address?"
"The one thing I do remember is that I didn't have any friends. I was the school nerd. There were some jokes that went along with the book, but whatever. I was happier to be alone."
"What book?"
"Twilight, the one I told you about yesterday. Well, seeing as I'm useless from a conversation standpoint, tell me about you. I know you're a doctor."
"Alright then. My wife and I have adopted five kids. She's always had a maternal instinct. Esme and I have three who are in college and two who just graduated this past year. Rose, Emmett, and Jasper and Edward and Alice. Edward has been dating a girl for a couple of years now, Bella."
He looked at Jen who was frozen, her face in shock.
"Jen?"
"It's true."
"What's true?"
Jen's eyes snapped to his.
"Can we go somewhere else, somewhere away from human beings?"
He looked at her in concern.
"Will the park be alright?"
"Fine."
They walked into the park across the street. Jen shivered as an icy wide blew, the clouds threatening to start raining. Carlisle shed his jacket and gave it to her.
"I don't need it," he said.
"I know."
"What was that about?"
"You, your family, everything. I know about you, but I don't understand. Where are Edward and Bella?"
"On their honeymoon. Why?"
"Breaking Dawn hasn't happened yet," she said, more to herself that him "Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse have but not Breaking Dawn."
"You've lost me."
"How much are you fighting it, right now?"
"Fighting what?"
"You can stop pretending. I know."
"Know what?"
"I know what you are," she whispered, "everything about you."
"What am I?" he asked with a smile.
Jen looked around for people and, seeing none, whispered, "Vampire."
Carlisle froze, but quickly regained his sense. He stepped right in front of her and looked down into her face.
"You don't scare me."
"How do you know about us?"
"It's complicated."
"Do you work for the Volturi?"
"No, I've never been to Italy, though it has been a dream."
"I never mentioned who the Volturi were."
"Yet, I know, none the less."
He stepped away form her and pulled out his cell phone, dialing.
"Edward," he said into it, "we need you home now. We have a problem in the form of another Bella."
Jen smiled at the phrase. Carlisle hung up the phone and turned toward her.
"You're coming with me."
"Where?"
"My home."
"By the way, I like the description. In the form of another Bella. Meaning a human who knows too much about the vampire world for her own good."
Carlisle stared at her in amazement.
"You know more than Bella did when she first met us."
They got into the car and headed out of Seattle, in silence.
