Authors Note:
Big thanks to PTB and toriesurfergirl who edited some of these chapters, not all of them and not this one, just the original ones. Also credit to AImmyarrows high for introducing me to the Five things trope, which I then expanded into thirty.

Some violence and swearing this chapter, as well as derogatory terms that may make some readers uncomfortable. If you're weirded out by a hip-hop rap video this may not be the chapter for you.

Every chapter will be different, so if this chapter isn't your cup of tea, stick around. This is a story about getting into people's minds and secrets. Some minds will be happy and fluffy, others-not.

This chapter is a not, but don't fear there will be fluff and sexy-times, too.

Next chapter will be completely different in character focus, and theme. Although, disclaimer, we won't get any Bella until the final chapter. This is really a fic about all of the Characters in the Twi-universe.

Just to clarify the names at the top of the picture refer to who the chapter is about, but the whole story is done in EPOV.

twipschallenge . blogspot . com / p / post-secret-prompts . html

Also, to all those who are wondering where Morphing Games update is, I here you, it's coming. The current chapter is taking extensive re-writes. I'm sorry for the delay. Keep in mind that all this is pre-written. It's not like I'm writing this /instead/ of Morphing Games, I promise.

001. Paul Lahote

"When I say I'm a do somethin I do it,

I don't give a damn what you think,

I'm doin this for me, so fuck the world"

-Eminem

It's an ungodly hour in the morning and I've got so much five o'clock shadow that I feel like I'm channeling Tom Hanks in Castaway. The weather's tropical enough, too, which is odd for Forks. Not the humidity, but the warmth and the sun.

I am standing at the locked door to Forks High, waiting to be buzzed in. I give a wink to Mrs. Cope, a whale of a secretary who doubles as our security detail for Forks High. I use the word "security" lightly. I'm sure if a guy carrying a gun with plans to shoot up the school was hot enough, she'd let him right in.

"Edward," she simpers. "Doing year-book photos?"

"Yes," I say tersely as I push through the double-doors with my back; my arms are full of equipment.

I used to pour on the charm thicker before I saw the inside of her mind and exactly what kind of thoughts she gave to students that flirted with her. Let's just say I enjoy watching porn, not starring in it.

By seven thirty I have all the equipment ready in the cafeteria: mirrors, lights, standard gray-cloudy background. Photos are all about light and angles and making sure your subject doesn't look like a douche-bag or a fat-ass. Highschool's awkward enough as it is without making double-chinned-you immortal.

The thing about pictures is they don't tell stories; they're just little surface samples of someone's day to day existence.

Well, most pictures.

"Yo!" hollers a gruff voice from across the cafeteria. "I take my picture here, right?"

I stand up from my kneeling position-marking the place where the students are supposed to put their feet-to see the first victim of the day.

"Yo?" I ask, half mockingly, half afraid.

Paul Lahote elicits that kind of reaction from people. The mocking he gets because he's text-book try-hard testosterone. He's the kind of guy with a moldy knuckle-sandwich for brains-I know because I've seen inside his mind.

But the reason I'm raising an eyebrow as he walks over from the door to the the walled off area where I'm taking pictures? It's also the same reason that I don't fully meet his gaze.

Paul's stupidity makes him dangerous and wild, like a rabid dog. He could rip me to shreds if he wanted.

With no ceremony he stomps over to the X and sits on the little, black stool, legs so far apart I'm certain his low-slung jeans are about to rip open at the crotch.

His boxer shorts, plain black, are showing at the back. My smart-assery and my self-preservation brawl in my brain about whether to say anything.

As usual, smart-assery wins. "Your boxers are showing, Paul."

"Just take the mother-fucking picture, albino," he growls from the corner of his mouth.

"Alright, alright." I would throw my hands up in a conciliatory gesture, but said hands are currently holding the camera and pressing down the button to take the picture.

Here. We. Go.

Flash.

Paul's mind is like an action movie, all quick, hard cuts and no voice over except for cussing and hip-hop dub-step.

Sweat. Piss. Cigarettes. In Paul's mind, the smells of Port Angeles are pungent.

The inner-loop highway branches above him like a a cathedral of concrete. I vaguely recognize this under-pass, but even if I didn't Paul's mind labels it. This is the meeting place for the Pack-the gang he runs in. We're a long way from Forks High. I wonder if Paul walked here, as far as I know he didn't have a car. Judging from the fire in his chest, I'd say he probably ran.

The gravel underneath Paul's feet crunches as he leans away from the looming figure of Sam Uley.

If Paul's the kind of guy who is manipulated by violence than Sam's the kind that uses violence to manipulate. His eyes are flinty, so dark you can't get anything out of them.

The second crunch comes when Sam takes a step forward. "Didn't think a pussy like you would come."

"You're the pussy," Paul spits out.

Internally, I wince. Really? This is what's passing for snappy dialogue. I mean I didn't have high expectations, but still.

Sam cracks his knuckles above his head lazily. "Nah, man. I'm just tryin' to keep the Pack free of faggots. If you ain't fucked Rachel then-"

A third crunch-this time bone.

In slow motion, I can almost feel Paul's balance shift as he lunges to Sam and his first connects right with the his nose. Sam's jaw turns in slow motion-just like the movies- and spittle trails from his lips. I'm not sure if this is how this really happened, or if this is just how Paul remembers it.

I watch through Paul's eyes as he shakes out his fist wiping off his knuckles on his wife-beater. The blood looks more brown than red against the dirty ivory of his wife-beater, but pride spreads through him like a sickness at the sight of the blood all the same.

One hand leaning against the concrete wall, Sam isn't even panting from the blow, just grinning. His scars stretch out oddly from the expression. "I was right. You hit like a homo." Then, without looking away from Paul, he flicks out something right by his knee. It glints in the light filtering down through the holes in the lattices of crisscrossing highways above them.

A switchblade.

Instinctively, Paul's hand goes to the elastic band of his boxers, where he keeps his own stiletto butterfly. He worked for months to afford that shit. Real Italian. Never used.

But there was something else he waited months for. Actually, Sam's right; he's still waiting for it.

The vision of it, the memory inside of a memory, is superimposed over the urban shit-hole that is the underpass.

Rachel Black's face.

She is a pretty girl in real life, but in Paul's memory she looks like a cross between an angel and a rap-star's girlfriend. Huge ass, but a graceful smile. She floats, ghostly, right over the scar-pocked face of Sam Uley.

The corner of Paul's eye twitches and closes as Sam tilts the blade of his knife, sending a spot of sunlight right over Paul's left iris. "Here, pussy cat, here pussy cat."

As Paul closes his eye against the glare, he remembers sitting on the raggedy couch his hand on Rachel's thigh as she moaned his name.

"What if something happened to you?" Her french-manicured fingernails played with the stubble of his buzz-cut right on the back of his neck.

"Nothing's gonna happen to me, babe." His hands tried to be smooth as they searched out the the button of her jeans, but she had eyes everywhere, back of the head included, and she caught them.

His eyes didn't meet hers, but he could almost feel the force of her glare.

"I told you. I'm not sleeping with you while you're still in that stupid gang." Her words were harsh, but her fingers were still at the back of his neck-gentle.

"I can't quit, babe. It's too late for that."

Paul opens his eyes, pulls out his switchblade, and flicks it open.

"That's more like it, bottom-boy," Sam sneers, but his eyes trace the curve of Paul's knife like it's a picture from Playboy.

Paul's angry. I feel it in the tightening of his shoulders, the intensifying of his heart-beat. I can practically taste the liquid-clear adrenalin running through is veins with the potency of a particularly good cut of cocaine.

And the feelings good and all, but he wants something else.

"Fuck you Sam, I'm out," Paul says, and drops the knife. "You can rule over your cock-sucking gang yourself."

Sam's eyes widen, and he looks just as in pain as if Paul really did shove a knife into his gut. Maybe even more so.

Before Sam can charge him or anything else, Paul's running back to home to Forks, dodging cars and hobos, in order to make the 45 bus line just in time.

Because no matter how far you've gone, you can always turn back around.