Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Twilight series

A/n: I actually had this chapter written out before I had the last one. And I've been dying to post it. Remember: reviews make me smile. So review, dammit! -shmiley face-

And our lips collided.

It was one of those moments were everything in your life just seems to fit perfectly into place. The kind where you almost expect heavenly music to play from above with the accompanied light bathing everything in shimmering gold. Like in a movie. All the bad just vanishes, leaving only the good. Every wonderful detail of your life is aglow. Illuminated. Shining. Magical.

Kissing Bella was… ah, there weren't even words for it. Should I even try to describe it?

She tasted sweet. Oh-so very sweet. And dangerously addictive. She was a drug to me. The most appealing kind. And cool. Pleasantly cool. Like frozen candy. To her coolness, a fire was lit inside of me. Burning, reaching, aching. A flame that she lit. A flame that burned for Bella. A flame that yearned to devourer more. To devourer her whole. All of her.

Kissing her was the single most amazing feeling in the world. If there was ever a moment where I though I could be floating, surely I was two inches off the ground just now. My heart made me feel like I was running a marathon. Pounding in a distinct drumming, so loud, I was sure Bella could hear it loud and clear. That is, if she couldn't feel it, we were so close together. Yet it was essential that she be closer.

I think it was in that instant that my instincts kicked in. My arms locked around her petite waist, creating an iron-grip cage. I pulled her even closer. Her chest was shoved against my own in my haste to have her closer. There was no gap between our bodies. Still, I had to have her closer. I needed her closer.

My analogy to a drug was proved to the fullest extent with our lips against each other's. I not only desired her. I needed her. The most powerful of urges. A physical need to have her. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I would die without her. The idea of even letting go to breathe was painful. Should I have my choice, I would never release her. The world could keep on moving, but I would stay firmly planted to her succulent mouth.

Unfortunately, Bella choose that second to make her strength better known. She shoved me. Just a flick of her hand, but I was shoved backwards, stumbling. I bend over; my hands on my knees, catching my well needed breathe. I was actually panting from that kiss.

I looked up to see Bella, once again, at the farthest edge of the field. She was huddled on the ground, her hands holding her face, her hair flailing about her as she shook her head. I noticed that her frame shook. Then it registered that she was sobbing. My stomach dropped then.

"Bella?" I cautiously stepped towards her.

"Stay away, Edward!" She shrieked forcefully. I was frozen from the urgency in her voice. "Just stay right there! Don't you dare take another step towards me!"

I obeyed, folding my hands behind my back, as I watched the tiny creature try to pull herself together. I couldn't understand what had created this reaction from her. I thought back to the kiss. She seemed to be enjoying it. I could have sworn Bella even had kissed me back. But then… why was she like this now? Did she regret it? Had it been a mistake, on her part?

That was the only explanation I could think of. Bella was still considering leaving me. And now I had just screwed up royally. Clearly, I had made a mistake. If she had wanted me to kiss her, she wouldn't have run away. She wouldn't be sobbing as she was now. I cursed to myself for hurting such a beautiful young woman.

I ran my fingers through my mess of hair, my eyes unable to leave Bella's shaking form. I couldn't help but to think how unfair it all was. I fall in love with a girl. She obviously has feeling for me too, or so she says. Then said girl turns out to be a vampire. As beautiful as she is deadly. Before I could blink, she could kill me, from what I had seen of her talents.

But, for as dangerous as she was, I still didn't want to leave her. It was beyond stupid, really. She could be the death of me. But I would die without her as well. Should she… slip up, as she put it, well, that would be it. And honestly, how could I blame her? I was a stubborn human, her food source, who simply wasn't smart enough to keep my distance. If Bella did kill me, I would be to blame.

Cats eat mice. Lions eat meat. Vampires eat humans, in a manner of speaking. That was how things worked out. The circle of life. We didn't choose to be what we were, but that doesn't mean we should try to change it. If Bella were to drink my blood, it wouldn't be her fault. It was instinct. And I was a source of nutrition. A little crude to think of, but it was nature at work.

Instead of feeling sick at the thought of the girl I love draining a human's body, of taking their life, I could see nothing wrong with it. Okay, maybe those weren't the right words for it. Since she was a vampire, it was normal to drink blood. Horrifying to humans, but customary for her race. I could accept that, right?

It was strange how quickly I could wrap my mind around the thought of Bella -of her whole family- being vampires. I always knew there was something special about her, but I didn't consider that she wasn't alive. And if I did suspect her of not being human, her being an angel would have gotten my vote.

Suddenly, I was curious about vampires. There were so many thinks I wondered about. Did they really have fangs? I had never seen them with Bella. What about the sunlight? Could they really melt? And I thought vampires would be dark creatures, gothic in a way. But Bella and Alice -I cringed; my best friend was a vampire too- were anything but. They were cheerful and bright. Happy and sweet.

I was fascinated at the thought of a family of mythological creatures living in my same town. The stuff of legends lived as a houseful of high schools. Honestly, it sounded like a horror novel. My Lab Partner's a Vampire! The title came to mind. It was laughable. I wondered vaguely if I was going into hysterics.

Finally, Bella's quivering stopped. I stood perfectly still as she slowly rose from the ground. The first things I noticed were her eyes. Yet again, they were a murky version of the breathtaking topaz I had come to adore. The dark lines under her eyes were fuller now, more pronounced. And her mouth was in a tight frown. I waited for her to say something.

Finally, she broke the silence. "Are you stupid, Masen? Do you have any idea what could have happened? Do you know how close I was to-to losing control!" Her hands were once again balled up. She glared at me fiercely, rage obvious on her face. She was too adorable when she was angry. I smiled back.

"Well," I started, tapping my chin. "As an answer to the first question: maybe. What could have happened? I have a vague notion. And I don't have the slightest idea about your control, but from your sudden departure, I would hazard a guess at pretty good." Her mouth hung open. "If your control wasn't good," I continued nonchalantly, "I would be dead by now, no?"

Bella simply stared at me for the longest time. Her eyes were wide at my simple tone as had I spoken so calmly about what could have been my death. Perhaps she thought I was crazy. For all I knew, I may have been.

"You're not sane," she mumbled was an air of shock. "You know I could have killed you, yet here you stand, cool as you please, as if it was the average outcome to a kiss. A possible murder. Your murder."

I shrugged. "Technically, I suppose it is a probable outcome when one is kissing a vampire. Then again, control, as you stated, would come into the equation. As well as thirst, right?" Bella nodded her head lightly. "Well, are you thirsty?" It was a strange thing to ask when I knew perfectly well what was the only liquid that could satisfy a vampire. Thankfully, she shook her head. I smirked.

"But that doesn't mean I can't mess up." She interrupted. "You don't understand. Our… thirst isn't only present when we haven't feed. It's always there when we are around humans. Nagging, in the back of out minds, to sink our teeth into the soft flesh." She frowned. "Don't get too confident. I may… you may die yet." Bella whispered.

"You say that as if I shook be afraid." And I was a bit, but I don't want to hurt her feelings. I wanted her to stick around, to feel she could be honest about what she was. I didn't want her to think I would just up and abandon her because she wasn't alive.

"You should be." She paused. "But you aren't. Such a strange human…"

"We all die eventually." Perhaps not at seventeen years old, but that was beside the point.

She echoed my thought. "Not at seventeen. You're still young. You're whole life ahead of you. Family, friends, people who care about you. How would they react if you were to just… die? You know it would kill your mother to lose you."

Ah, that was the weakness in my façade. I turned my eyes downwards, for once not being able to come up with a response. She nodded her head in an understanding way. "You see? Don't be so foolish as to throw away your life. And over something as pathetic as a monster, you must be joking-"

That angered me. "Don't you think for even one second that you aren't just as important to me as my life. I know what you are. I know what you could do to me. I know what your instincts are telling you to do. And still I refuse to leave you. Does that not prove how much I need you. How much I love you? That I would rather die then be away from you."

"You don't know what you're saying!"

"Oh, don't I?"

"How long do you honestly think this will last?" Bella hissed. "My control, ha! It's only a matter of time before I lose it. And then what? You will be dead! Don't. Be. Foolish! Leave while you still have the chance."

I sighed. "You need to listen more. I told you. It's too late. I can't leave you. End of discussion, Bella." I beckoned her over. "Now, since the cat's out of the bag, how about you finally open up to me. I want to know everything about you. All of it. So start talking

Bella hesitated for a second before joining me back in the center of the grass. I sat and she mimicked. "What do you want to know?" She blocked.

I rolled my eyes. "Let us start with the basics before we dive into your past. Tell me everything about being a vampire. You don't seem like the vampires from the movies."

She laughed reluctantly at that. "Those vampires are ridiculous. So fake. Books like Dracula are the biggest joke within my family. How humans have such imaginations is beyond me. I mean, honestly."

"So, separate fact from fiction, love." I rested my head on my hand as I watched her.

"Well, for starters, we don't melt in the sun." Bella looked up at the sky. "But we do have a strange reaction to it. You see, we sparkle, in a way." She held up a hand, as I was about to interrupt. "Let me finish. Now, I'm sure you've noticed how cold my skin is, right? It comes from the lack of blood in out body." She grimaced. "We have blood in us, sure, but strictly from feeding… Our bodies do not produce blood like humans do.

"Your body gives you the warmth you possess. We don't have it, thus we are cold." She took my hand in hers. I shivered, but not from the low temperature of her skin. "We are also quite solid. Like granite, really. That's why it's so ridiculous that humans think a wooden stake can kill us. It would shatter on contact. I doubt anything a human could do could ever hurt us. So, in recap, we sparkle, we're cold, and we're basically living stone. Got it?"

"You sound like a diamond. Sparkling, tough, and cool to touch. But mostly beautiful." I smiled. "I'd love to see you sparkle sometime."

She grinned. "It's a strange sight. And very distracting. Prisms of light bounce off us like little rainbows. That's why humans can't see us in the sun. It's beautiful but so very inhuman. We'd stand out for sure."

"As if you don't already." I thought back to how her whole family didn't fit in with the average students of Forks High. "Your family sticks out like a sore thumb. Not in a bad way, but it makes you all seem different from the rest of the town."

She crossed her ankles. "Yes, I know. It's another trait of ours. We're beautiful." Bella stated modestly. "It's so we may draw in humans, our intended prey. Another tool that makes it so unfair. We don't need it to be so easy to murder innocents." Her face darkened. "Aren't you curious as to why we try to blend in with humans?"

"Yes. Why do you bother?" They were much better then the humans. Why try to be what they exceeded over? It seemed pointless.

"We don't like being monsters. Killing humans… it doesn't sit well with our family." She drew herself up proudly. "I can happily say I've never drunk from a human since I was first changed."

I raised an eyebrow. "Two questions: when you say changed, that means you were once human?"

"Yes. That is something Hollywood got right. If a vampire bites you, you can be changed into one of them. But it's an odd process, one I don't feel like explaining. But rest assured, all vampires were once human." Bella plucked a flower and placed it behind my ear. My heart picked up speed again. "And the other question?"

I blinked a few times, trying to refocus. "Err, right. You said you hadn't fed off a human since you were changed. How does that work? Don't you need blood to survive?"

Bella laid her head on my shoulder. I reached my arm around her. "We do need blood to survive. But who said it had to be human?" She laughed at my confused expression. "Animals have blood too. And did we not eat animals as humans? It's our more humane diet. Our family calls ourselves vegetarian vampires, a joke among us. Sadly, we are in the minority when it comes to our food source. The others of our kind stick to the more well-known ways."

"So you don't drink from humans?" I asked, euphorically.

She took a second to answer. "No, we don't. But, like I said, it's all a matter of control. Human blood still tempts us. You have no idea how sweet it smells. We can survive off animals, but humans smell so much better since they are the ones nature decided we would feed from. Mistakes can happen."

Bella fell back into a pool of despair then. Wanting to take her mind off her depression, I changed the subject. "Before, you mentioned others of your kind. How many of them are there?"

"Not too many. I can't be sure the exact number. Most of the older of our kind reside in Europe. They just don't adjust to the century well, still considering America the 'New World' and foreign to them. They stubbornly refuse to change, even after hundreds of years."

"Wait, hundreds of years?"

She beamed. "Yes. Several vampires are hundreds upon hundreds of years old. Appearances are deceiving, Edward. And before you ask, I'll will tell you my actual age. But the story of my human life is for another time." She pointed upwards. "The sun will be setting soon. I'm sure your mother is growing impatient. Though I'm sure Alice saw this coming and called to make something up."

I stood up and offered her my hand. "Saw this coming?"

Bella allowed me to help her up and we started to walk hand in hand to the Civic. "Yes. Something else about vampires I forgot to mention. Vampires had special powers. Carlisle, my father, has a theory about it. He believes we carry our most powerful trait from our human lives and it is magnified several times over now.

"When Alice was human, she had a nifty little talent of seeing things before they happened. She could foresee certain things." Bella shrugged her shoulders. "She was born in the early 1900s, a time when being different was looked down upon. Alice's little gift got her a cell in a mental institution. Long story short, she was taken away from there and bitten by a vampire. And now, her gift is she can see the future. It's a bit subjective; the future can change depending on ones choices, after all."

I opened the door for her to sit in the driver's seat. I was sure I would get lost if I tried to drive back home. "And what about you?" I asked as I got into the passenger's seat. Now I was curious about what Bella could do. "What trait did you carry into this life?"

She turned the keys and started up the engine. "Mine is a bit stranger. As a human, my life wasn't going too well. Something… bad happened. It left my family less." Her eyes turned sad. "Nothing was going well. And all I had left was memories of a life that seemed so far away. I became dependant on those memories. I lived off them. It was actually very unhealthy."

Bella shook her head as if to clear her thoughts. "Anyway, my gift is I can now see other's memories. Everything they've ever lived through is opened up to me. All it takes is a single touch of their hand and I can see it all."

I paused, wondering if I wanted to know the answer to my question. "You've held my hand before. What did you see?"

"Nothing too strong," she admitted. "It's a rude thing to do, diving into a person's personal memories. It should be private. I try not to use my gift too often. But sometimes it can't be helped. I have learned how to block my power, I can successfully touch a person's flesh without being assaulted by visions of their past."

A blur of trees passed us by before she continued. "However… if the person in question is always remembering their past, dwelling upon memories, my control falters. Some people don't want to move forward, and then their past controls them. Much like my sister Rosalie. But that is a tale for another time as well. We're here."

I was startled to realize she was right. We were sitting outside my house. The lights were all on in my house. Bella turned off the car and jumped out. I brought her over to the tree in the front yard. We sat down, watching the sky fade to a bluish-black color.

"Do you need my car to get home?" I asked after a bit.

"No, my brother should be coming to pick me up soon. I'll just wait until he shows up. If you don't mind, of course."

"Of course I don't mind." I pulled her into my lap, laying my head into the hollow of her neck. "I'm becoming spoiled," I admitted. "I cringe at the thought of losing contact with your skin, Bella. Your touch is addictive." I shrugged sheepishly.

"Good addictive or bad addictive?" She joked, rubbing her icy cheek against my burning one. Bella tugged my arms around her flat stomach.

"Dangerously addictive," I honestly replied. "I know this can't be healthy, how much I want you. How much I need you. Heh." I brought a tiny hand to my lips, lavishing it with a kiss. "Oh, yes, do I need you. My own personal drug."

She seemed breathless at my touch. "Yes, a drug, that's perfect. It's a good thing that you can recognize to associate me with something deadly. So tell me Edward, exactly how much do you need me? How dependent are you upon my presence?" She teased, leaning her head backwards to stare at me upside down through her large, golden orbs.

"Are you a light alcoholic?" Bella stoked my cheek, causing me to intake suddenly. She smirked. "Perhaps a mild addiction to nicotine?" Her slender nose caressed my neck, sliding up and down painfully slow.

I released that breath suddenly to gain back the ability to speak. I pulled her slight body around so she turned on my lap to face me. Our noses centimeters from touching, I responded, "Do not insult yourself, my sweet siren. You are nothing less then heroine to me. I crave you to the point of dependence on you. And death is the result without you." I kissed her lips lightly, not wanting to startle her again. My lips tingled from the touch, as fleeting as it was. The fragrance of freesia flooded my brain. "Ah, yes. You are exactly my brand of heroine."

A beeping horn drew us out of the moment. A huge red Jeep Wrangler had pulled up to the curb. In the front seat, I recognized Emmett Cullen. His head was rested on the steering wheel, his fingers tapping, clearly in an annoyed gesture. He jerked his head, telling his sister to hurry up, obviously.

Bella sighed as she stood up. "That's my brother. So… I'll see you tomorrow?" She hopefully asked. Bella pulled a slip of paper from her skirt and put it into my shirt pocket. "That's directions to my house for you to pick me up. Is 11 o'clock okay?"

I smiled and nodded. "I'll be there."

"Good." She hopped on the tip of her toes before gracing my mouth with a chaste kiss. The horn beeped again, louder this time. "Coming Emmett." She waved and then hurried to her brother's vehicle. I watched her jump in gracefully in awe. "Night, Edward!" Bella called before Emmett raced off.

A/n: That "Brand Of Heroine" quote was for Ana. Hope you liked the chapter.

And before you say Bella's power is exactly like Aro's, let me tell you something. Hers is a bit more limited. She can see everything, but she doesn't know your thoughts too, like Aro. And while his power inflicts a bit more pain, shuffling through your memories, she merely sees everything through the person's eyes. Like she is the person. I picked this power because it is related to Aro's (like Edward's is) and it is the complete opposite of Alice's. I thought it seemed cute.