AN So basically you guys rock.

I will definitely keep posting, you guys have just got to meet a 5 review per chapter minimum. That alright by you? Good I thought so

I'm also going to make an effort to make them longer cuz I've been hearing that my chapters are too short. Here's my first attempt…

Chapter 9 Rude Awakening

After I had collected myself a bit from that dream and showered off the sweat, I turned to look in the mirror as I brushed out my hair.

But something was different.

I couldn't put my finger on it but there was something definitely different in my appearance. There was nothing drastically different but the harder I looked, I noticed some subtle differences.

My eyes were a little lighter and more defined. The whites of my eyes were also incredibly white and there were flecks of red interspersed through the brown.

My lips looked like they had been active lately: very full and the blood was flowing very heavily to them.

My cheeks were flushed, but that could have been from the shower.

But then I noticed my hair. It was still the mousy brown it had always been, but it looked like it did in the sunshine. There were red highlights in it and they glinted in the mirror as I brushed through the strands.

I dropped my hairbrush and ran back into my room. I tripped on the way but no damage done due to my new shield so I hurriedly slammed the door behind me and turned to my full length mirror. It turns out I wasn't imagining it, I looked… well… sexy.

But there was a dangerous aspect to the look as well. I face was so much more intense than it had been last night. I was kind of scared just looking in the mirror.

I didn't want to let anyone see me like this, but I had school in a couple hours and I couldn't afford to miss another day. I put on some jeans and a hoodie and put my hair up and under the hood.

But I didn't know what to do about my eyes. I looked outside and saw that it was one of those rare sunny days Forks so I figured I could get away with sunglasses. I grabbed some and slipped them on and inspected myself again.

Final verdict: my lips were still a little too full but otherwise I looked like normal Bella.

I spent half an hour eating breakfast until I finally felt I could leave for school. I would still be way early, but not suspiciously so. I grabbed my shoulder bag and headed out to my truck. I was scraping away some rust from the door handle when I spotted a black widow sitting on the hood of my car.

Out of habit I jumped backwards and fell on my butt, barely managing to stifle a scream. It took me another 30 seconds to realize that if a vengeful vampire couldn't hurt me, then a tiny spider probably couldn't either. I picked myself and walked over to the spider.

I had always had a fear of spiders, not arachnophobic proportions, but still they creeped me out. I decided I had time to conquer my fear so I put out my hand and encouraged the spider to crawl onto it. It sat in the palm of my hand as I inspected it. It was then I noticed the small bundle of white attached to my car where the spider had been. She had been lying her eggs on my car… rude.

There next to it though, was another black widow. This one happened to be quite dead. I looked back at the spider in my hand and laid her on a piece of wood next to the driveway and brought the eggs over to her and got in my car. As I drove to school I thought about the dead spider I had brushed off my truck. I vaguely remembered learning in Biology that female black widows kill their mate after he has fertilized the eggs.

Pretty creepy.

But I was proud of myself, I had handled one of my fears and even saved her eggs from being destroyed on my car.

When I finally pulled up to school, I was so proud of myself and rejuvenated from an amazing yet weird sleep that I almost forgot to put the sunglasses on. Almost. I had looked in the mirror to see if I had anything in my teeth or something only to find those red-specked eyes staring back at me. Needless to say, I threw them on before stepping out of the cab.

I nervously watched out to see if people noticed my sudden change in appearance, but I was so well covered nobody noticed anything. Then again, nobody noticed me anymore at school anyway. After he left I had cut everyone off and in the last few weeks I was just too distracted by the new developments in my life to make my presence at school more, well… present.

I walked with my head down into my first class and got my books out, prepared to sit through another boring day of school. I sat there for a while until I noticed some of the girls giggling about me. I didn't turn to them and pretended I didn't hear them until one of them said, "Omg, she totally has bj lips!" and another responded, "Oooo, I wonder what she did this morning???"

I flushed and turned to them and gave them withering glance.

"What's with the sunglasses, Bella?" Lauren asked teasingly.

"It's bright outside.." I mumbled.

"You're from Arizona right? Shouldn't you be used to it?" That bitch was ruining my good mood by the second.

"Yes I am, but I was always told that…"

"Hey!" Lauren interrupted me and said to the teacher who had just walked into the room. "Bella won't take off her sunglasses in class."

The teacher looked disgusted at Lauren's obvious cattiness but looked curiously at me. Obviously my decision to wear sunglasses wasn't working out too well.

I sighed and slipped them off, then figured I might as well let my hair down too if I was going to reveal the new me. I pulled my hood down and ran a hand through my now voluptuous hair.

Silence.

I looked around and everyone was staring at me with jaws wide open. I didn't realize the change had been all that drastic but the way everyone was looking at me, I must have underestimated it. I figured the teacher would call everyone to order, but when I looked up at him, he was just as entranced as his students.

It was then I started to notice a growing buzzing. I looked around to find its source but it seemed to be all around me. Nobody else seemed to notice but the more I listened, the more I realized that the buzzing was coming from the other people in the room.

And as the buzzing grew, their faces changed from fascination to interest and then lust started to bloom on some of the guys – including my teacher.

My eyes widened and I had no idea what was going on. I stood up and shouted, "What the hell is going on? " No reply, just more fanatical staring. "Stop it!" I screamed as I ran out of the classroom and into the bathroom.

I slammed the stall door behind me and burst out crying. Why the fuck is this stuff happening to me? I went from being a normal, albeit mentally untouchable, teenage girl to suddenly being physically invincible and now some kind of sex dream/dreamer in less than a month!

I sat in the stall for an indefinite amount of time until I ran out of tears. I put my sunglasses back on and put my hair up again and decided I would just go home. I left the stall and washed my face with some cold water in the sink and headed out to the nurse.

I'm sure I must have looked pretty sketchy sitting in her office with my sunglasses and hoodie but she noticed I had been crying and gently gave me a sheet so that I could go home.

Once I got in my car though, I realized I was too emotionally exhausted to be driving around in a less than reliable truck. I removed my sunglasses and hood and just sat in the slowly warming truck trying to gather the fortitude to make the short drive home when a knock on my window startled me.

I looked out the window and there stood Mike Newton.

Great I thought.

I rolled down my window and was about to ask him what he wanted when buzzing suddenly took over my hearing. It overpowered my senses and transformed my fatigue into a hunger. But this wasn't a hunger I was used to, this felt like those rare moments Edw… he and I used to have together when I would forget he was a vampire and I was a weak human and let my body take over.

I was suddenly hungry for Mike Newton's body, and whether I liked him or not, something was going down.

oooo cliffhanger! I know this is still kinda short, but im working on it really:)

love

alicat