Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight, the wonderful Stephenie Meyer owns it all (good for her)

Authors Note: Thanks for the all the really great reviews and for putting me on your favorites and alerts lists. you all rock ;) The more the merrier.;)

Chapter 10

They walked slowly through the giant viridian green trees of the forest, all through the afternoon, both deep in thought they sat down on the stony shore by the crescent lake. Bella threw some shiny purple pebbles into the water. She stared down, within her soft hand the pebbles shone in purples, heathers, greys and pinks, she hadn't notice the colours before, some of the stones shone with gold flecks through them." These are so beautiful" she thought.

Just then a disturbance in the water caught her attention. It was out in the middle of the lake, she saw someone swimming. "Who's that swimming, Jasper?" she asked surprised, after what had happened to her, why would someone be out there now with that thing lurking in the deep black waters below.

"I think its Emmett, he likes the water" They watched him swim then disappear under the waves.

He didn't come back up. "Is that normal he's been down forever" she stood up, sounding worried, fear grabbing her.

"Yes, as I said he likes the water, he's a fantastic swimmer"

"But that things still in there…Doesn't he need to breathe" she shook her head trying to understand.

"Of course he does look, "he laughed looking towards the lake.

"I don't find this funny ….how is that possible?" She pointed as Emmett came splashing out to meet them with a smile.

"Hi Bella, how you doin' ?" said a very soggy Emmett.

"Not great, just waiting for Jasper to answer my question "she looked pointedly to Jasper.

" How is it possible ?...How is it possible you can jump one hundred feet in the air, move and run so fast that no one can see you? Have super strength to knock down a tree with one punch ?

I don't have an answer for you Bella. You're not the only one who's changed..." he said looking deep into her serious tawny brown eyes

Emmett frowned at Jaspers answer, worry shone in his eyes as he watched the two of them.

"What's that supposed to mean? ..."she shouted

"Every one of us... have changed in one way or another" Desperation dripped from his soft velvet voice.

"Why didn't anyone mention this before?" she said with suspicion.

"Bella, we didn't want to frighten you, you had been through enough. …We weren't sure if you would change... What we guess is that we were altered in some way. No one knows exactly how or when but Angela and Jacob have some ideas" He sighed in defeat.

"Okay "She breathed slowly. "Do you want to tell me or do you want someone else to explain?" she questioned visibly shaking.

"We'll visit Angela, she's much better at explaining, than me. You coming Emmet?" he said grabbing her hand to lead her to their cabin.

Angela and Jacob were relaxing on the bench soaking up the afternoon sun just outside their sturdy cabin. Both looked surprise to see Emmett with Jasper dragging Bella along behind him. He smiled and waved, excitement showing in his sparkling silver eyes.

Angela waved back, she looked across at Jacob he shook his head and smiled back reassuringly.

"Hi Emmett, Bella, Jasper this is a surprise" she nodded towards them.

"Yes "Jasper said with a knowing smile.

"Bella made a startling discovery today. We were both quite surprised" he said softly, his eyebrow raised.

"Really; what was that then dear ?" Angela said looking more interested than before.

"Bella's discovered she's faster than before and exponentially stronger" he said with pride in his voice.

They all sat down beside Angela and Jacob. Jasper described the intense training from this morning, the increased speed; the phenomenal jump and the decimated tree. Jasper also explained that he had told Bella that the others had also been changed. But he wanted Angela to explain it to Bella. They both sat and listened intently.

"Ok ...You want to know how Jacob myself and the others are different." Angela looked at Bella.

"Yes, I think I deserve to know" she nodded.

"Well, you've told us your changes. It seems only fair to tell you ours."

"Please try to remain calm, what I'm about to tell you doesn't make us evil or monsters. We are still the same people you have come to know and hopefully trust. We did not wish for this curse, but now we have to live with it, as will you."

"Jacob is telepathic; he can read minds so can Jasper and Edward" Bella looked startled.

"I'm a shape shifter and so is Jacob. Emmett and Rosalie are too, although Emmett and Rosalie prefer the form of aquatic animals. Both Jacob and I prefer to travel in wolf form. Edward and Jasper both have vampire like tendencies and drink the blood of wild animals. Edward and Jasper both need little or no sleep and only drink fresh blood. None of us had theses abilities before we arrived. I'm sure it's something to do with this planet. Jacob thinks it's to do with the terraforming of the planet. You explain Jacob." she prompted.

"OK, what I know is that this planet has been terraformed, I can tell by some specific signs, The formation of sedimentary rock and no fossil record within the sedimentary rocks. Do you remember I told you what my profession was before I woke up here?"

"Yes" she nodded, still in shock.

"Well it costs not only financially but also takes a lot of time to terraform a planet, a lot of planning and investigating. The whole planet is analysed to ensure there is no natural life forms or Bios, present anywhere on the planet, planning permission and a lot of bureaucratic nonsense ensures that nothing goes wrong.

It would take about 40 years to terraform a planet, to achieve the present level of maturity. However as soon as it's complete, the buyers immediately organise the migration of their people. They start to move people and drones onto the planet, usually to build small cities and communities.

Something must have gone very wrong here, it's empty. I think, and Angela agrees, that there was something here before the terraforming began. They missed it at the initial investigation. The likelihood is that there is something in the earth, water, air we breathe and food we eat. Angela likes to call it microscopic spores, we think that anyone who comes here is changed on some genetic or molecular level, but we have no proof."

"I don't know if it's symbiotic or parasitic, if I had medical equipment I could at least run some test. But I don't even have an antiseptic spray" Angela sighed shaking her weary head.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Bella asked, feeling quite indignant and deceived.

"We didn't know if it would happen to you, this isn't an exact science …..we didn't want you to suffer too." Angela spoke quietly.

"Well it looks like I have, it would have been better to have been told "she said sitting down on the verdant grass.

Emmett and Jasper got down on the grass beside her.

"Ok, I'll explain some more about us…. shape shifters have to hunt in our chosen form. I say chosen form but it's the first original form our body takes, if we don't, we become weak and may eventually die. Edward found this out at the beginning. As you're well aware, we are programmed not to feed on sentient beings. It's so alien to our mind that it makes us physically sick to even consider it. In the beginning Edward had refused to hunt even though he craved warm wet blood. Eating our normal food he started to lose weight and energy, he was near starvation before his vampirism took over his mind and body and his vampire instinct overcame his basic instinct. He had no control; he brought down three large stags and drained them of all their blood before he finally obtained some mind control".

"We do eat in our human form also but there something in our blood that can only be satiated in our other forms. Emmett and Rosalie hunt in the crescent lake that's why you were warned to keep away at night. She spoke softly staring intently into Bella's eyes.

"The telepaths can hear thoughts; they can communicate with each other without speech; they can also control the thoughts of others."

"Mind manipulation is forbidden on our home world so we try not to use this. However it's sometime more difficult to control than we originally thought, we are only human" she said shrugging.

Bella let out a sigh. "That makes more sense, especially the secrets" she said looking around with fear in her eyes.

"What are we some kind of sick experiment?" she cried putting her head in her hands,

"And the thing in the lake that tried to drown me, was that Rosalie?" she looked up staring directly at Angela.

"Yes" she said softly. "I didn't realise how unstable she really was. Emmett had to change form to catch her and bring her back. She's back at her cabin now recuperating"

"Recuperating! She tried to kill me, why would she do that, it doesn't make sense? I should just go by there and kick her ass for that stunt." she fumed, anger bubbling up inside her.

"It's not you ... when Jasper explained to you about Rosalie's infatuation with Edward he wasn't telling you the whole truth. She had some kind of nervous breakdown, the shock and despair she felt when she arrived overwhelmed her. In her eyes, Edward was the only person who cared. All that time she completely ignored Jasper. Edward tried his best to help her; he did the best he could, making conversation, keeping her active with walks and exploration of this world. In her fragile state of mind she read the signs all wrong, she thought Edward loved her; a compassionate man but he didn't. I arrived five months later and she was far from pleased. However once she saw that I wasn't a threat to her so called love Edward, it was ok.

I've been working with her for some time now; she's been much better since Emmett arrived. He's just so in love with her, I thought that would help. But when she saw Edward laughing and swimming with you she just snapped. I'm sorry Bella, she now knows how wrong she was, especially when it was Emmett that had to save you" Angela said quietly.

A hand touched her shoulder gently, she knew it was Jasper. She looked up the tears rolled down her cheeks. "Come on" he said "time to get you back to the cabin. It's been a very stressful day….. and you look exhausted"

They said their goodbyes; Jasper took Bella's hand gently and led her back to the cottage.

They didn't talk, she had nothing to say, everything was a lie, who could she trust? Rosalie had even tried to drown her; what kind of sick bitch would do that? Deep in thought she moved silently through the dark forest.

Suddenly from somewhere behind them she heard a noise like a branch snapping, her hand tightened its grip on Jasper's arm he had heard it too, glancing back over his shoulder. Were they being followed? He looked into her eyes and nodded once. He could read minds; he nodded again.

They kept walking. Bella listened more intently - she could hear someone breathing, no she could make out three people breathing and she could sense three life-forces.

"How the hell can I sense a life-force?" she thought, surprise running through her mind.

Jasper was staring at her too, surprise and caution in his eyes.

Bella then heard Jaspers voice, it was inside her head.

"Run!"

They ran through the trees both silently and swiftly until the life forces Bella had detected were far, far behind them.

They reached the safety of the cabin; Jasper bolted the windows and doors. Bella had lit the lights then lit the fire that had been set earlier that morning. She shivered, rubbing her arms and felt apprehensive. Jasper came over and put his arm gently round her, he started to rub them slowly trying to get some heat back into them.

"Ok" he whispered "I'm not leaving tonight... I don't know who they are, but they want you... They landed the week you fell into that coma. They've been looking for you. That's why Edward couldn't find any trace of them at the site. They been trying to track you." he said hurriedly

"You read their minds?" she whispered in surprise.

"Yes, they've seen you now, but they're not quite sure it's you. It was very dark... If they can identify you, they could communicate that back to their ship. They plan to take you off world." He looked surprised and suspicious

"Are they here to rescue me?" she said hope in her eyes.

"Err, No ...that's not it. There something else. The men down here don't know. I'm not sure..."He said through clenched teeth.

"Are you ok" she touched his arm, gently. He relaxed "Yes, Yes. I'm fine just angry"

"What are they doing now" she whispered.

"They're waiting till tomorrow, once you go back outside, they'll see if they can ID you. If you're who they think you are then they will try to take you" he whispered close to her ear.

"Not without my permission "she stated vehemently.

"No, I'll be going nowhere, until I know where that is. No more being dumped on planets. I'll just fight them" It wasn't a question it was a statement. There was fire in her eyes, she was furious now.