AUTHOR'S NOTE: It has come to my attention that I've been misspelling Dimitri's name for…well, four fics now. Apparently it's actually "Demitri", and thanks to dyingimmortal for the heads up, I've been misspelling it. To which I have to say: oops. And that's basically it, because it would be way difficult for me to track it back through four fics and change it. Sorry, Demitri! You just get to stay misspelled. Apologies :).

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"Leave me alone!" I yelled back over my shoulder at Dimitri, who had refused to get less than three feet away from me ever since he'd showed up. Currently, he was trailing me back to the cabin, while Carlisle followed a good distance behind. Probably to make sure there was no homicide.

"Not going to happen, mia stella," he said. "I was sent to solve the problem, and the problem is you. Get used to having me around."

"Somehow I get the feeling that could be annoying!" God, I hated the Volturi! They were so bossy and clingy, and they thought they could just control everyone all the time. Also I hated them because I wanted to be them. Bossiness was okay when it was my bossiness, and otherwise, absolutely not.

I did a quick bit of wondering about who was next in line in the Volturi regime. Technically, Aro, Marcus, and Caius were supposed to be able to live forever, but I think we only thought that because no one had yet keeled over dead. I had met them once, too, same backpacking trip, and I swear I could see right through them. They seemed to be just—fading. I wondered what would happen if they faded all the way. I wondered who was next in line, and more importantly, whether I could seduce that person. I think I would like to be queen of the world.

I wondered if it was Dimitri. I knew he was one of the more high-ranking of their minions, I just didn't know what the pecking order was exactly. As I swung around to yell at him some more, I did a quick up-and-down assessment, trying to figure out whether he would be a good king to my queen. Whether I could stand him for eternity, and whether it was worth it to pretend.

The answer was an immediate no. "I would so not marry you," I let him know right as I figured it out, and I hoped that confused the hell out of him. The problem was, I wasn't in love with him. After decades with Carlisle and Esme, I knew that it was going to have to be love. Nothing else was going to be nearly good enough. Trophy wife used to be my ultimate goal, but not anymore.

"Excuse me?" he asked calmly, shoving his hands in his pockets. He didn't seem overly concerned about marriage being off the table. I was almost offended.

"Let me help you," I said. "Here's the gist of any conversation we might have for the rest of our lives: leave me alone!"

"Not going to happen," he repeated.

"Carlisle!" I pleaded as he caught up with us. Not sure exactly what I intended Carlisle to do, but he always had a solution for everything. Trouble was, I knew what his solution was for this.

"I'm sorry, Rosalie." He walked straight past me and opened the door, kicking his boots off as he got inside, and he gave me a smile that said he would absolutely help me, when I was ready to make the right decisions. "You're going to have to deal with this on your own."

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Looking on the bright side, at least Dimitri wasn't trying to kill me. He very well could have been—the Volturi weren't exactly known for their tolerance and kindness. Basically their philosophy was, if it's a threat, kill it. If it looks like a threat, kill that to, if it sounds or smells or seems at all like a threat, it was dead. They'd lived a long time on that philosophy.

I was pretty sure Dimitri wasn't killing me because he thought I was cute. I was okay with that. As long as he kept not killing me, he could think whatever he wanted. In the meantime, though, I mostly just wanted him to go away.

I'd at least convinced him that he should sit in the audience during my second runway show. There was just no good way to explain him backstage, though everyone I knew now thought we were dating anyway. That was what happens when a tall, attractive vampire man decides never to leave your side.

I knew I wasn't going to get rid of him for very long—I didn't actually have any long-term plan for solving this problem—but I knew that if I could just get away from him, I could buy myself maybe an hour or so, and I needed an hour or so. I hadn't been alone in almost a week now—he even followed me to my apartment every night. He'd been sleeping on the couch.

So I went out through the roof. I'd been scanning the backstage area for steps or ladders all night, but there didn't seem to be any. No problem. I just climbed. I waited till no one was in the room, got my hands on a few uneven boards, and spidered my way up to the skylight and out. Being a vampire meant you were good at everything—including climbing walls.

Now that I thought about it, being a vampire was actually perfect for me, after all. I mean, I wouldn't exactly have picked it if I'd had a choice, and there was the downside of possibly being damned for eternity. That was a bummer. But hey, I had to admit, the perks were wonderful. I got to be beautiful for my entire life, I got to be eighteen and thin and blonde. There were people who would sell their souls for that on purpose. It was good for me. I was a natural vampire.

That did not mean my life was perfect, however, which was annoying. None of my vampire abilities were particularly helping me out with my current dilemma, except for of course making it easier for me to climb onto roofs. They weren't making me happier—they weren't making me calmer. I knew what I needed for that.

Some people went to day spas. Some people kickboxed, some people turned the music up and danced. I went to the zoo and watched the polar bears.

I'd kept away for more than a week now, afraid of that guard and what he might have done after I left that night. Had he told anyone? What would they do even if he had? Up the security in the polar bear exhibit? Pass around a picture of me? Yeah, good luck, I smirked to myself as I vaulted over the fence by the peacock exhibit. I'd just end up on half these guys' locker doors, anyway. Being a night guard was a job for people who were lonely. Lonely people were the only people who were ever up this late at night—if you had somebody, these were the hours when you were with them.

Well, whatever. I had polar bears. I poked my head inside the polar bear room cautiously, searching the shadows for anything that wasn't bears. Just as I did, though, the scent of human hit me hard and fast, specifically the scent of human sitting right there on the bench. Great.

Just as I pulled back and got ready to run, though, the person stood and walked quickly forward, one hand out to me. In the white-blue reflection of the water, I could see that it was him, it was Emmett, no mistaking that one. Funny how even though he was human, a thousand times weaker than me, my breath still caught as he stood, blocking out half the tank with his shoulders. There was just something very colossal about him, something that extended even beyond just his size. He would be a difficult person to ignore.

"Stop," he said, and there was no question of ignoring him now. I stopped for no reason, even though he couldn't literally stop me. I stopped anyway. "Hey, sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."

"You didn't scare me," I said stiffly. I still hadn't moved. "What are you doing here?"

"I work here." I hated the smile that I could hear in his voice. He thought I was funny? He thought I was funny? Really?

"Were you waiting for me?" I demanded, crossing my arms. "What, did you call security? What's the plan here?"

"I am security."

He kept doing that. I suppose it was my fault, I kept setting him up for those kind of answers. "Are you going to have me arrested?" I'd decided to ignore it and move on. "Have you been sitting there every night since you saw me, just sitting here waiting to nail me?"

"Nail you?" he said, with that same light, innocently amused tone.

I winced in the darkness. Bad choice of words. "To catch me," I corrected determinedly. "You've been waiting to catch me. That's so lame. Don't you have better things to do with your time? Hallways to walk? Animals to guard? What do they pay you for around here?"

"I didn't call anyone," he said.

"Oh," I said, deflated. "Well, you better not!"

"Okay," he said, and this time I could see the smile, flashing white against his silhouette.

"You're not afraid of me, are you?" I demanded, vaguely offended.

"No," he said matter-of-factly. "Should I be?"

Good point. It wasn't like he knew who I was. Still, most people were afraid of me even on a human level, intimidated by me. If not afraid that I would eat them, then at least afraid I would yell at them. "I guess not," I lied.

"So," he said. "You want to tell me why you're here?"

Well, that was a problem. Because I didn't even know why I was here, and even if I did, I wasn't going to explain it to some random human. Except that I sort of wanted to. For absolutely no reason that I could think of, I felt strangely off-balance around this guy, like I desperately needed to explain. Like I wanted his approval, of all things.

I never did have to explain, though, because my hour had run out. I heard Dimitri come in the side door, and it was a good thing that door wasn't alarmed, because we seemed to just be in an out of it this week, didn't we? "Hi, Dimitri," I said heavily.

Suddenly the atmosphere changed completely. For some reason it had been okay when it was just me and Emmett, he didn't mind me being here and I wasn't threatened by him. Dimitri was a different story. We both tensed like we'd suddenly been jerked up by a puppetmaster, and I could see Emmett's hand going to his hip. He was just a security guard, he couldn't have a gun, right? Maybe a tazer? I guess it didn't make a difference.

"Rosalie," Dimitri said. "That was very clever. And annoying. I wish you'd stop postponing the inevitable."

"And what's the inevitable?" I said acidly. "You kill me?"

"Hey, whoa," Emmett said, realizing for the first time that something bigger was going on here. "Kill you?"

"Who is this?" Dimitri said, focusing on Emmett. Bad bad bad. "Don't tell me you finally got hungry, Rosalie."

"Don't be stupid," I snapped. "He's just a security guard."

"Oh, well then do you mind?" he said, walking a little closer, sizing Emmett up like he was deciding which steak to order. "I haven't eaten in awhile."

"Do I mind?"

"All right, what is going on here?" Emmett asked uneasily, clearly weirded out by the hunger on Dimitri's face. This was not going to end well.

"I mind!" I yelled loudly, grabbing Dimitri's arm. "I mind, okay? We're going now."

"Rosalie," Dimitri complained, but he let me pull him backward toward the door, and then push him out of it ahead of me. Good thing he'd decided to behave, because in a throwdown between me and Dimitri…well, I still wasn't sure who would win.

"Hey," Emmett said right as I was about to follow him out. "Are you going to come back?"

I stared at him, surprised, unsure. This was the second time tonight he'd managed to floor me, and that just didn't happen. Things did not shake me. Things did not catch me off guard. I just wasn't used to it. "Coming back?" I repeated lamely. "I don't know. Maybe. Probably. I don't know."

"Well, you should," he said simply, and I was almost frozen to the spot. "What's your name?"

"Rosalie," I said before I could stop myself. Well, if he hadn't reported me by now, he probably wasn't going to. Right?

"I'm Emmett."

"I know," I said, and I shut the door behind me.