Stephenie Meyer sadly owns Twilight!

Ch. 8

I awoke with a jolt from my strange dream. For some reason my visit with the Cullens had brought back a memory of a legend Ali's father had once told me.

In the dream I was in the woods. It was drizzling and I was running from a huge wolf.

Ali's father belonged the Quileute tribe, supposedly descended form wolves.

At the end of the dream, right before I woke up, I saw a pale flash of skin in front of me and then it was on top of the wolf. Ali's dad had once told me about the Quileute treaty with the "Cold ones," but they had left town a while ago, so said the legend. I never questioned it again. I got up and turned on our old computer.

We were lucky to have it but it was just so slow! I finally got the Internet open and typed in the search box "cold ones." I scrolled down until I found a promising site. When it finally opened I jumped. There was a picture of a pale-faced man, leaning in with a menacing look in his blood red eyes. I read the paragraph next to it:

COLD ONES:

The cold ones are believed to be pale and amazingly beautiful. They are viscous creatures that feed by night on human blood. They usually lure their prey with their looks. They can also "change" a human into one of them by letting their venom into the blood stream without draining the blood although this is found to be rather difficult…

I looked below at the related links and gasped. One of them said vampire. Everything clicked and I started hyperventilating.

I ran upstairs, tripping a few times, and got Ali out of bed without waking her. I walked down the stairs this time so I wouldn't fall and outside, locking the door behind me.

I didn't know where I was going to go. I couldn't go to my mom or dad but just knew I couldn't stay here.

~oOo~

It was raining again and I was on a bus with Ali, still asleep, in my lap. It was just like the day this strange occurrence of events had began, but this bus wasn't heading to the mall. It was going to Los Angeles. It was going to be a full eight hours, not including stops. The worst thing was I didn't want to be on it any more. I wanted to go back and see Edward. I loved him even if he didn't love him back, although what happened yesterday was still a confused jumble in my head. I knew I should be afraid like I was at first but I just couldn't feel it. I had freaked out a little, but now that I had calmed down I realized I had just overreacted. I had made up my mind.

We were getting off at the next stop. When we finally reached one I lifted Ali up, still sleeping, and went and sat on one of the benches to wait for a bus back to Phoenix.

~oOo~

A cold hand gently pushing my shoulder awakened me. It was Edward.

"Bella."

"Huh?" I asked groggily. I looked around. I was still in the bus station so I guessed I must have fallen asleep. Edward gave me a second to wake up before he spoke again.

"You know what we are." He wasn't asking. He knew the answer. "You're scared." He guessed.

"No."

"Then why'd you run away?"

"I freaked out, but I'm fine now." I looked at him cautiously. He almost looked mad and was pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Are you mad at me?"

"No. I'm mad at myself. I shouldn't have let you near me. I shouldn't have come and found you now. I shouldn't have even talked to you on the bus, but I can't stay away." Maybe he did like me back. I flushed bright red and he touched his fingertips to my cheek, but my heart sped up and he pulled them away. I was sure he could hear it.

"What happened yesterday… that wasn't me, well in a way it was, but it was Jasper's fault. I'm sorry. Why don't you come back to our house, if you want to, and let us explain." He was giving me a choice. All of the sudden I broke down. Everything from the past few days had finally caught up with me. He wrapped his arms around me and let me stain his shirt with my tears.