Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight.
Author's Note: So my updates have been pathetic. Yeah, I have realized that. And I apologize sincerely, and say a very passionate thank you to all who have been waiting patiently. I have a lot more time on my hands now that it's summer, and I'm hoping that my updates will be more often then they have been this year. I also know that I said in my last A.N. that this chapter would be another flashback chapter, one that was in Steven's P.O.V. However, I felt a little nicer, and decided to end your misery and let you guys find out what happened after our last chapter left off. Okay, fine, Bella made me do it! Alrighty, then, let's get to it!
MAJOR SAP, ihateviolabuddies. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Italics are flashbacks, people.
Chapter 9: Yours, Wholly and Completely
Bella P.O.V.
Before Steven, my life was as uneventful as any average human's. And every day, the routine seemed to snatch more and more of… me until I was nothing but my schedule. I needed adventure, and Phoenix just wasn't going to give it to me. And it was for that reason that I begged my mother to allow me to move to Forks. I was fifteen years old, and knew nothing of the horrors and miracles that lay ahead.
I remembered that day, as I stared into Rosalie's warm, forgiving eyes. And it was the flashback that stopped me from speaking as I opened my mouth to lie.
"Please, Mom!" I winced, noting how whiny I sounded.
My mother was frantic, her hands in her hair, her eyes panicked. "Bella, I don't understand. Why do you want to move?"
I glanced at her and sighed deeply. "I need a change of scenery. Please let me go!"
Finally, she calmed down, collapsing into the plaid couch in our living room "Do you really want this?"
I nodded, my head bobbing at an alarming speed.
"Fine," she said, giving in. "I'll call Charlie in the morning."
Smiling, I threw my arms around her. "Thank you thank you thank you!"
And so I packed my bags and left, arriving in Forks on Saturday morning and hauling everything I'd brought- which wasn't much- into the back of Charlie's police cruiser. It was the middle of my sophomore year, and I was nervous about facing all of the other students at Forks High.
Charlie seemed glad to see me, at least. He drove the car slowly, always careful to abide to the speed limits of Forks, and asked a grand total of three questions: how are you, how is Renee, and, do you still like blue?
I smiled, told him I was fine, Mom was fine, and of course I liked blue. He smiled as well, his brown eyes crinkling at the corners as he had pulled into the driveway of my new home.
_
Rosalie snapped me out of my reverie. "Bella, are you okay?"
I nodded, yet my mind refused to still. Thoughts travelled around my brain at a hundred miles an hour. What was I going to say?
And while I wanted more than anything to pretend that I had no idea what she was talking about, to act as if Steven Caligary was nothing more than a boy I'd regretted ever having sex with, and whom I blamed for getting me pregnant and then dy- No. I refused to think the word- I couldn't. Because the words that rose to my lips were not lies, but truths.
"Steven was my first boyfriend," I began, and I lowered my gaze to the satin sheets, fingering the lace of the pillowcase. "I met him when I was fifteen, about to turn sixteen."
"Today we will have a new student," the teacher said, and I could almost hear a note of excitement in his voice. Sheesh. I thought I needed to get a life.
I knew what was coming, though, and I cowered behind him, trying to avoid giving an introduction of my own.
"This is Isabella Swan."
If possible, I blushed harder as the whispers began. I ran to the first seat I could find, and collapsed into the chair. I turned to face the boy beside me, and froze. His eyes were fixed on my face, and the golden shade to them was dark and alluring. His dirty-blonde hair was straight but messy, and he had muscles that rivaled any of the other boys in the class. He looked way to old to be fifteen or sixteen.
"Hi," I mumbled pathetically. "I'm Isabella, but I prefer Bella." Shrinking into my seat, I stared at him, hoping I didn't sound too much like an idiot.
Instead, he nodded, and I noticed that his eyelashes were dark, framing his eyes beautifully. "Steven. Steven Caligary."
_
At lunch, a bouncy girl with brown curls approached me eagerly. After introducing herself as Jessica, she dragged me to her table, where I met Mike, Angela, Eric, and a quiet boy named Ben.
I ate silently, but Jessica had other plans. She talked and talked, prattling on and on about different people in the school. My eyes, of their own accord, travelled across the cafeteria, landing on the table where Steven Caligary sat alone, his fingers drumming against the plastic table subconsciously, muscles rippling down his arms as he did so.
"And then there's Steven."
My fork dropped to my plate embarrassingly as I turned to face her, finally interested in what she had to say. "Yeah?"
"Well, he mostly keeps to himself," she whispered, and Angela smiled at me, rolling her eyes slightly at Jess' attempt to make everything dramatic. I liked her already.
Jessica plowed on, "He moved here last year, and the creepy part is, no one knows much about him. I don't know if he even has parents, 'cause he never has any friends over. I don't think he has any friends. He just kind of sits there, at the same table every day. But the stories they tell……" She trailed off meaningfully, taking a sip of her water bottle before she continued further. "Well, some kids were saying that they heard that he lost his temper at this kid, and beat him up, like, so badly he was bruised for months."
Angele shook her head no. "Come on, Jess. I don't think he'd do that. He's kind of alone over here, you know?" she asked me, and I nodded in understanding. I didn't think that Steven, no matter how weird he seemed, would ever critically hurt someone.
"Believe what you believe," Jess said ominously, "but I think we should just admire from afar."
I bit my lip to keep from laughing, but couldn't help but to agree. Steven was an enigma, and he had my complete attention, right from the very first second I had met him.
_
Edward P.O.V.
Until I met Bella, I couldn't understand the fascination some of my kind held for humans. They were predictable, their minds shallow and, at times, disturbing. And in my darkest hours, the years I spent hunting them down, I had come across the evilest of creatures. Some were willing to do anything for money, their greed beyond rationality. Others were simply self-centered, ever thought revolving around just them, as if the whole world didn't matter.
And when Rosalie spoke up and told Carlisle quite determinedly that she would be adopting a child, I shook my head in disbelief. Because humans whose lives crossed paths with vampires', especially in the intimate, delicate way of parenthood, led to nothing but trouble. And in the end, when Rosalie would be forced to let her child grow old and have a family of his own, she would be devastated. I loved her as if she were related to me by blood, but I was shocked to discover that Carlisle actually had sighed and then smiled, allowing Rose to go through with her plans. You must understand, however, he had said, that eventually you will have to tell the child about what you are. Rosalie glanced at Emmett, who had squeezed her hand reassuringly, and then nodded. And so the search had begun.
Isabella Swan. The name, up until just weeks ago, meant nothing. And then I was called, quite rudely, I might add, by Alice into her hospital room. Her scent had blown across me, so powerful it threatened everything I had worked for. But I refused to succumb to my instincts, and with the help of Alice, and Jasper, once he too had calmed down, I was able to walk away without harming the girl. I knew, from Rosalie's thoughts, that Bella's boyfriend, the father of her baby, was dead. And my heart ached for her.
She was intriguing, and I had never come across anyone like her. I could not read Bella's thoughts, and at times I was filled with frustration, wondering what she was thinking as she furrowed her brow, or as she blushed. I was…..charmed. Stolen, quite unintentionally, I am sure, by her quiet, selfless mannerisms. And I was lost. I had learned not to bet against Alice, and Alice had seen Bella's death.
Cowardly as I was, I ran. But I couldn't stay away. And just a day after I had left, I turned back, flying over the snow as I hurried to return to Forks. I just didn't know what I would find there, and the thought of losing Bella, of her dying while I was running, broke my heart.
Bella P.O.V.
Day after day, I practically skipped to English in my haste to see Steven. He was always polite, but his distance was annoying.
"Hi," I muttered, on the second week, and he nodded in response, his pencil still whizzing across a page in his notebook as he doodled.
I sighed. Over the past ten days, I had noticed from my ashamedly frequent staring that he did, indeed, always sit alone. He never spoke to anyone other than teachers, and he rarely ate. Sometimes he didn't buy a lunch tray at all. The fluorescent lights danced across his pale skin, the alarming shade of white shocking to me, even though I was practically an albino. He dressed okay, and he didn't seem to notice as many girls, including myself (damn it, Bella, cut it out!), watched him like he was the next best thing on the Soaps network.
Unfortunately, English rarely called for us to work together, as the teacher, Mr. Renolds,
preferred for us to work individually. The times that we did work together, however, I noted that he was incredibly smart. He liked to draw, I gathered, from his always doodling in the margins on his class work, and he wasn't half bad, something I learned from peeking at his work.
Steven was different from anyone I had ever met, and though Jess and Angela were nice, and Mike a little too friendly, I wanted to know this boy. I wanted to know the boy that avoided contact with everyone else.
Edward P.O.V.
The lights were dimmed in the house, and I could hear the thoughts of my family buzzing in my ears. I blocked them out impatiently, searching for the heartbeat I so desperately needed to hear.
Locating the thumping sound of her heart, and hearing the whooshing sound as her blood rushed through her veins, I inhaled deeply in relief. I crept silently around the back of the house, and I heard Bella say to Rosalie in a dark tone:
"I know what you are."
Author's Note- AGAIN!
Yay! I'm donnnnnneeeeeee Chapter 9! So…. do you guys want to know what Bella said to Rosalie? Or do you want to know what Steven was up to? You tell me. I am your faithful servant.
I'm so happppppy I finally finished! And in one day. Wow. I practically threw everything else I had written out and started from scratch. I know I sound freakishly excited right now, but nothing makes me happier than writing. Nothing at all.
REVIEW!
Also, I have included (6/22/09) a preview from Volterra of Secrecy.
Sacrifice is a painful concept. And though hard to believe, necessary in all that we accomplish in a lifetime. This for that. Death for life. It is a constant. And in my world, nothing will stop the vicious cycle from taking someone you love. Loss is imminent and regret is sure. No one can understand what might drive someone to this place of hurt except for the three of us. You see, there is but one thing that drew me here, and that is power.
Marcus
I had, perhaps, stared at the same ceiling for weeks. It could have been months, I was unsure. The fact remained, however, that as a vampire, minutes seemed to melt together, and then hours, until time was unimportant, simply something that existed, threatening to humans yet nothing to us. Jagged cracks split the yellowed plaster, and I was slightly bothered by the imperfection. Heidi was away, and until her return, Felix would be anxious. Ah, an anxious Felix was such a wonder to witness. It was laughable really; Felix's size providing one with the illusion that he feared no one, when that was so far from the truth. Though it was possible that losing Heidi was the only catastrophe he was concerned about, he still brooded most adolescently.
"Sir."
My head turned in the direction of the quiet, awed voice. "Yes, Gloria?" She was new, her blood enchanting. Aro had wanted to turn her, however, Caius convinced him otherwise. I could not help but to understand his point of view. Gloria was a perfect candidate for blood-harvesting, as gruesome as it may sound. And, of course, we had recruited her quite willingly. Though it may be shocking, most humans were so intrigued by the idea of joining us, they wore the robes by their own choice. We had our number of forced members, obviously.
"Aro is requesting your presence in the main hall, sir," Gloria said quickly, her pulse rising. It became clear on her very first day that she harbored a deep attraction to me, something I found unnerving.
I nodded, my expression unchanged. "Very well."
_
As I glided under the stone arch, I raised a tentative eyebrow at the sight before me. Aro sat in a throne-like chair while Caius looked on jealously. It wasn't exactly a secret that Cauis wished to be sitting in the ivory chair. It was where I wished to sit as well. For now, though, it was obvious that Aro had gained the right to be called 'master'. Even if it bothered me.
"There, there, my brother," Aro sang. "You know the rules." Yes, yes we did. And though we appeared to be amiable towards each other, this was just a carefully perfected act.
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