Another

Time to continued to pass, and nothing changed at all. Bella and Edward were both exemplary students, although isolated from others and never fully participating in the college life style. At the beginning of each new lecture group, when there were a few fresh faces, there would always be an influx of invitations to social gatherings. Bella received a lot of attention, girls who wanted to befriend the most beautiful girl in the lecture, and boys who just wanted to get lucky. Edward received less attention, usually from boys who thought he might be interested in joining some form of sporting activity. Both always politely declined the invitations, and they would stop for that course, only to start again 4 months later.

Bella sighed, feeling frustrated at everything. For reasons unknown to her, she was feeling extremely unsettled deep inside, and had been for many years now. It was like a growing tension, building each day, waiting for a climax. She couldn't explain the feeling, despite trying consistently. She thought that Edward was getting sick of listening to her concerns, and honestly, didn't think he understood. But how could he not understand? They had killed Aro, and there was no way that Caius would allow them to get away with that forever. After all, Caius wasn't going to die anytime soon either. Vampires had long memories, and even longer to plan and organise the perfect revenge. If she was in their positions, she knew that she would be plotting. It was this fact that probably caused most of her anxieties. After all, Bella classed herself as a peaceful individual, and if she was willing to kill someone for hurting one of her family, what would a sadistic blood thirsty maniac like Caius do?

No, Edward didn't understand. He had told her time and time again that she was being silly. "Worrying over nothing," was the phrase he used the most. The fact that they hadn't heard from the Denali clan in over a year didn't seem to bother him either. Bella and Kate had developed a really strong friendship, and they rarely went more than a month without talking. The last she had heard from them was that Kate and her new love, Garret, were going on a tour of the world. While Bella expected to have limited contact over this time, after a year, she should have heard something. Alice hadn't seen anything in regards to Kate, or any of the Denali clan, but she had been having problems with her visions. No one seemed to want to admit it, but after her near death experience in Italy, her visions had been patchy at best. Whereas she use to be able to see the weather perfectly a week before hand, we were lucky to get a correct prediction a day before. Visions with vampires was even worse; Alice was unable to call them at will like she was before, and she hasn't had a vision about a human in seventy five years. Carlisle was trying to help Alice with her visions, and recently they have improved a small amount, but not enough to be relied on anymore.

Looking around the room, Bella tried to keep her thoughts occupied on something else. Edward was right about one thing, worrying never helped Bella. The lecture she was in was on cognitive neuro-psychology, and today they were focusing on memory loss after strokes. It wasn't something that she found particularly interesting, and after her second lesson, she was already regretting taking this module. Reluctantly, she focused her attention on what the lecturer was saying.

"... difficult to understand exactly what I'm trying to show you by looking at pictures on the board. Instead, I have the permission from the Dean to do a brain dissection today for you. Hopefully this way, I can show you all in much more detail what parts of the brain are responsible for making sure memories are stored correctly!" Bella groaned inwardly. If she was like a normal vampire and relied on using all her senses, she would have smelt the blood on the brain and just skipped this class anyway. However, as part of her "gift" was to shield her, she often shielded her sense of smell as it made it significantly easier to not murder her peers. By this point, the lecturer was asking people to come closer to the front so that they could all see clearly what he was doing. Even more reluctantly than before, she moved closed, and stood close to her class mates, being careful not to touch them. Luckily, most of this group had been with her for other modules and knew to give her space. She ended up getting a front seat view.

"Fantastic," Bella muttered under her breath, too low for others to hear. Or so she thought, because someone definitely laughed in reaction to it. She looked around for the culprit, but couldn't tell who it was. The lecturer was talking by this point, and she turned to at least act like she was paying attention, but her mind was racing.

How could they have heard? She knew that she muttered too quietly for any human to have heard her! Unless they were laughing at something else, which would be more likely, considering the circumstances she was in. There was a lot of low chatter around, a lot of the humans being apprehensive about seeing a brain cut up in front of them. Bella idly wondered how her brain would differ to that one on the table. She knew for a fact that she could definitely remember more than anyone else in the room.

Lost in her thoughts, she wasn't paying attention to the lecturer at the first cut that he made. There was trickle of blood coming out of the brain, and the crowd gathered round mostly made noises of disgust. From within the groans and gags, there was a sharp intake of breath. The type of breath that people take when they can smell something that they shouldn't, the type they try and hold for as long as possible. Again, she began to look around her classmates, more frantically this time, to find the person making those noises. She was beginning to think that she wasn't the only supernatural being taking cognitive neuro-psychology this term. Now Bella really wasn't paying any attention to the lecturer, and only became aware of the blood spurting towards her as it hit her face. It quickly dripped down, landing on her clothes as well.

There were more groans from the crowd, and the lecturer came over with a cloth, apologising profusely, while trying not to laugh. Grimacing, Bella accepted the cloth from him, and tried to wipe away as much as the blood as possible. This was the closest she had been to human blood for her whole life as a vampire. Despite not using her sense of smell, the burn in the back of her throat flared at the sight of it. She was glad that she hunted recently, but felt her resolve weaken slightly. She'd have to hunt again tonight.

"Thanks," Bella said, passing the cloth back to the professor. He had a small bemused smile, but concern was apparent in his eyes. "If it's alright with you, I think I'd like to leave now and get myself cleaned up completely."

"No worries and I apologise again Miss...?"

"Mrs Cullen," Bella said automatically, forgetting that she wasn't registered as married. Here she was just Bella Swan again, who happened to strike lucky and fall in love with the amazing Edward Cullen. Snickers surrounded from around the room, from her peers who thought she wasn't married. Inside, she fumed, at herself or them she didn't know, but outside she tried to look as embarrassed as possible. This is actually quite difficult when blood doesn't flow to your face anymore. "Excuse me," she said, making her way out of the room. Just as she passed the last of the crowd, she made eye contact with someone she had never seen before. His bright topaz eyes met her, and she glimpsed the shade of blue behind that, and in that moment, Bella knew that he was the one who laughed.

...

She was definitely unnerved. After she had got off campus, into the woods surrounding it, she ran. She knew that Edward would be able to follow her scent, but so would that stranger. The other vampire. She cursed herself for not using her sense of smell more often. She would have smelt him in the room as well! Panic flooded through her. Why was he there? Was he part of the Volturi, coming to pay them retribution? Or was him a nomad, trying out college life? His topaz eyes suggested that he didn't feed the normal vampire way, and he was able to contain himself while a human brain dissection was happening. It just made no sense.

She glanced at her phone, and saw that Edward's lecture finished fifteen minutes ago. She had been running for over an hour. She phoned him.

"Bella, where are you?" he sounded confused.

"We have to leave. Follow my scent, but be careful."

"I'm on my way." The phone call ended abruptly. Bella decided to carry on running. She needed space to think as far away from the college as possible. Edward was faster than her; he would be able to catch up anyway. And what about the other one, is he a fast runner? Would he catch us up as well?

...

Before she knew it, she was back in Forks. It was funny how this was her place of safety. She went straight to the Cullen's old house, which was empty as everyone was off in different parts of the world at the moment. She waited in the garden for him, knowing he wouldn't be long. She had been there for about 10 minutes when Edward arrived. She smiled when she saw him, and he came and held her before pulling away, a horrified look on his face.

"Bella, you smell of human blood. What have you done?" He was panicked, holding her at a distance, trying to survey the damage.

"What? Oh, yeah, I didn't change. There was a brain dissection in the lecture. I wasn't informed that front row seats come with a spurt of blood to the face". Bella made a face, which made Edward laugh.

"Well, I guess that explains it. How come you went to the lecture if there was going to be a dissection? Surely you smelt the brain... Unless of course you've been cutting your senses off again..." He rolled his eyes at her. Edward couldn't understand why Bella did it. Yes, it made things easier when it came to be able to interact with humans, but it could put her in such dangerous situations.

"Yeah, I know. But that's not all Edward... There was another vampire in that lecture." There was silence after that, as Edward let the fact sink in.

"What? How is that even possible? We would have noticed, surely? Why are they there?" And that was the crux of the problem. Why was there another vampire at the college that they enrolled in? Out of all the colleges in the world, why that one? Why the psychology course that Bella was doing?

"I don't know," she whispered quietly. Edward and Bella looked at each other, hoping they would be able to provide a reason. There was a noise in the trees to the left of the house, the sound of a twig snapping.

"Would you like me to explain?"