I know, I know! I'm sorry!

I didn't mean to take so long. I swear, I didn't. But... Harry Potter! The Deathly Hallows!! You have to understand, don't you?

Anyway. This chapter didn't take me too long to write because I already had it all up in my head, and some of it was on paper, too. So this is it. The big chapter. The preface chapter. And, I am pleased to announce, that there will be one more chapter before the Epilogue. XD

I absolutely adore the reviews. Do you hear? Adore them. [sigh I'm so needy. XD

Sooo, I owe my deepest thanks to Simply Kiwi, BellyGnomes, Edward-Addiction, Monkey-en-TuTu, Hello floor i'm bella, HeartlessMagic, Vampiratelvr, Italian-swim-chick, paypay07, A Rose in the Night, "Banana", Rachel Ann Potter, ridiculouskopec, TwilightGirl93, quietandclear, and i.love.oreos.

You're enthusiasm is infectious.

The song for this chapter is Given Up by Linkin Park. That's the song I imagine blasting out of the speakers in the club.

And, so, without further distractions, the preface chapter.

12. A D A P T A T I O N S

I thought I might be mistaken at first, that the wild fear and intoxicating scent and the pulsing beat of the nightclub had finally gotten to my head. As the door opened, I did not see some dark, looming figure as I had expected, nor did I see Jacob bound and gagged in a corner. Actually, what I saw made relief cascade over me in overpowering currents.

The room was small. It was obviously designed for couples that were going to get overly friendly out there on the dance floor to come into and keep themselves decent. It was a tiny cube with scarlet red walls and black lampshades. A large bed was pressed against the far wall and a small door to my left indicated a bathroom. But the person who had shocked me was sitting on the bed, her breath becoming raspier and shallower and faster with each passing moment.

"Raychel!" I exclaimed. "How did you get here before me? Oh, never mind, did you kill the Reddings guy? Is it over already?"

Raychel stopped her disoriented pattern of breathing and looked up at me with her wide, calculating eyes, a sinister gleam poking through the haze of glee that had overtaken them. "It's not over," she said, and I was utterly surprised to hear that her voice contained not it's usual musical, softness, but a hard edge and projection that was not, could not be hers. "Not yet."

I stared at her, trying to make sense of what was going on. Was Raychel possessed with some mind control? Surely she was not acting of her own accord? As she studied my face, her vibrant, crimson lips twitched upward at the right in nearly a perfect imitation at Edward's crooked grin. I felt my throat tighten, realizing what I had walked into.

I searched for unfound words, not sure of what to say. When I finally did speak, my voice was but a mere whisper. "It was you."

And Raychel's red lips cracked over her teeth, taking form of a sincerely malicious grin.

"Good girl, Bella," Raychel cooed in the voice that was not hers. "Honestly, I was a bit disappointed. I had expected you to figure it out much sooner. Not here, on your deathbed." She had raised her body from the silky black sheets of the queen-size bed she'd been resting upon, and her boots clicked loudly on the linoleum floor. It was not loud enough to be heard anywhere else, though. Nothing would escape these walls to the ears of a bouncer through the roaring bass that was ripping out of the speakers.

"Now, Bella, as you know I know, the others will be here in a few minutes time, and I simply cannot be here when they arrive. So, I'd like to get this show on the road." She stood a few feet away, now, her breathing returning to the raspy shallowness again.

"Wait! You… You have to answer my questions first, right? You can't kill me ignorant of this brilliant – genius, dare I say – ploy to kill me." I knew my words were coming out too strong, that she'd be able to tell that I was trying my hand at flattery, but it didn't matter. If I could get her to talk, to give me a few more minutes, maybe I had a chance.

She cocked her head, gazing at me. Her eyes had taken on a searching nature, and suddenly I felt very naked under her wide stare. "I can," she spoke at last, "and I will."

I raked my brain, desperate for any excuse. Just a few minutes, it was all I needed…

But what could I say that would stop this predator from attacking its quarry? The game was over, the jig was up, the cat had finally caught up with the mouse. There was nothing I could say that would stop this.

"What about Jacob?" I tried, in vain attempt, now. "Jasper said you loved him for real…"

It seemed I'd hit the nail on the head. Raychel's complacent expression faltered, and it was replaced by hesitation, insecurity, and when she spoke next, a bit of her softer voice had mingled into the harder one.

"Unforeseen complications…" she mumbled, almost unwillingly. "Nevertheless, it's not important now…"

She began to advance again. "It's everything now! Jacob's why I'm here!" I screeched. "What have you done to him? Where is he?"

And to my utter surprise, Raychel's face crumpled in agony. "I don't know!" she shouted. It seemed she was yelling at herself rather than me. "I looked for him everywhere! He wasn't out there, I couldn't find him!"

I couldn't remove my eyes from the tortured woman that stood in front of me. Why was she taking it so hard? She hadn't been able to find Jake, big deal. It made the whole taken-by-hostage lure much cleaner and easier for her.

"So you don't even have him?" I asked, relief sweeping over me, again.

Raychel looked up and seemed to regain her composure. "No," she said, straightening out her face. "No, it was a lie to get you to come here."

That was something else that was still a mystery to me. "Why are you doing this?" I asked, uncertainty mauling my voice. "Did you… did you find out about Emmett? Look, Raychel, we're really sorry it happened! He never meant to… to… well, you know. Emmett's a good guy, really. You just… so happened to be his la tua cantante. His singer. Your blood had an unexpected pull on him. He's always been an animal drinker, so he never would have done that if he could have controlled it…" I was rambling on now; desperate for a few more long minutes that Edward could save me in.

Surprising me, again, Raychel trilled a laugh that sounded like a measure of soft music in the rumbling guitars that were coming from the lower level, making the floor vibrate beneath my feet. "Oh, please. You think this is because of that buffoon?" Her laughter was becoming more of a harsh bark and less like music. "I recognized who he was since the moment I set my eyes on him. No, Bella," Raychel sneered my name with uncharacteristic distaste, and her eyes narrowed to slits as she growled, "this is about you."

My confusion only mounted higher.

"I… don't… understand," was all that I could manage to get out. I beseeched her with my eyes to explain, and she sighed as if tired by my stupidity.

"Bella, do you know who Collin and Conner were?" Her voice had taken to a mocking tone now, falsely sweet and dripping with danger.

"Of course," I answered promptly. "They were the Reddings' coven."

She smiled with a mixture of honey and insolence. "Correct. Anything else?"

"That… they…" I raked my brain, searching for any information that I knew, "had powers over the mind… and they were building an army…"

"Were there any others in their coven? Hm?" she asked in that falsely sweet voice again, picking at something under her fingernail.

I could almost feel the blood drain from my face.

"You're… their…" I gasped.

"Sister," she sneered through gritted teeth. "Raychel Reddings, the only remaining member of the Reddings' coven. You killed my brothers, Bella. And for that, I must kill you."

I could do nothing but stare at her. Something more than fear started to bubble under the surface of my skin – betrayal. I had trusted her. Numerous times, I had been alone with her, inches away from death. I had stood up for her when Edward suspected her. I had become what I, roughly, called friends with Raychel, and her intentions had been cruel all along.

"So everything you told me," I let the words come to my tongue, not thinking about what they were until they were already out of my mouth. "It was all a lie?"

"No, of course not. I merely told half-truths," she said dismissively, waving her hand as if it meant nothing to her.

"Your mother?" I gasped.

"Don't be ridiculous," she snarled, glaring. "Of course I didn't kill my own mother. She died of leukemia, just as I told you."

But that was not the direction I had meant to send the conversation in. "No… it… it was you, killing the mothers in Forks? It was you, all along. Edward was right…"

The glare picked up off her face and she smiled benignly. "Oh," she giggled like a school girl talking to her crush, "that. Well, yes, I suppose I did kill them."

"Why?" I mouthed. "How? How were your eyes still topaz all the way through it?" Even now, on the edge of death, I had not failed to notice that her eyes still retained the amber color of all the civilized vampires.

"Well, I didn't drink them, of course," she rolled her eyes at my apparent incompetence. "I've told you, I've never drank a human's blood. But I've spilt it at my hand," her eyes were gleaming with malice.

When I spoke now, my voice was shaking not with fear, but with rage. "Why would you kill them," I started through clenched teeth, "if it was not to live off of them?"

And now Raychel's eyes took on a new kind of emotion. Not hatred, or anger. Not even grief. What I saw reflected through her wide eyes as she answered me was none other than pure insanity. "Why should those girls have a mother when I could not? Why should mere humans enjoy that luxury when I, I the ultimate form of human, could not? They shouldn't. So I took it from them."

I began to realize just how much danger I was in.

"But how… how did you resist their blood? Once they were bleeding, how could you just walk away?" I was no expert, but I didn't think that Raychel Reddings possessed the same willpower as Carlisle Cullen.

The insanity and the twisted smile became more prominent on her face as Raychel answered, slowly. "Who said I had to do it in vampire form?"

And it struck me then as it had never stricken me before.

It had been Raychel in Alice's vision, Raychel who'd killed my father, Raychel who had been the young werewolf that we smelt two unbelievably long weeks ago, sitting in Edward's bedroom, and it was Raychel in front of me now, about to morph into her dogged form, and murder me with the same indifference as she had murdered those poor women in Forks.

But it struck me as odd. Jacob was the only vampire I knew that could change into a werewolf – how had Raychel pulled it off? And, what was more, how could she have been Emmett's singer if she was a werewolf? They smelled repulsive to our kind.

"How? How can you be a wolf? How is Jake a wolf? How is all this possible?" The words came out in somewhat of a desperate tone as I searched for the answers I so strongly yearned.

Her expression became agitated as she answered. "Jacob died in werewolf form at the hand of a vampire while he was fighting for… for someone he loved. The… the emotion that was pulsing through him caused him to seem more human than wolf while the venom spread. His brothers died because they were fighting purely for themselves. Jacob was fighting for… you." It seemed to bother Raychel to say that, and I remembered what Jasper had told me – that Jacob still loved me more than her.

But, it had been proven to me tonight that Raychel's feelings about Jacob were true. She had wailed at the prospect of his disappearance, but did not try harder to find him and actually take him hostage. She hadn't meant to fall in love, and it merely complicated things on her part.

"I did not become a wolf until after my transformation – not until recently, actually," Raychel's voice began to grow in confidence. "You see, Bella, I have a very special power. An… adapting power, if you will. Once I kill, I can cling to certain characteristics of the thing I have killed and use them at my own free will. For example, I've taken the transforming characteristic and the characteristic in which Alice cannot see my future. That should explain her recent lack of surefire visions, should it not? I've been around and, because she cannot see me, her visions have been infected. As for your dear Edward, though, you are the only person whose mind he cannot read, correct?"

My expression was completely blank. I had listened in utter disbelief. How could anyone have such an evil yet useful power?

"And seeing as I could not kill you until now, I have had to block my thoughts with a mind numbing amount of effort. It's always a nice break to be out of his range," she sighed.

"And the army?" I immediately asked. "Why are you building an army?"

She looked at me skeptically, as if expecting me to say, "Just kidding!"

"Well, to overthrow the Volturi, of course. It's about time there's been a change over in Volterra. But, that has to wait. Vengeance is much more important. To me, at least. Now, Bella. Does that answer all of your questions?"

I froze. The time had come. There was no more stalling I could do, no more precious time to waste. It was now that I faced my impending doom with a strained face.

I had expected Edward to come. I had expected the door to burst open behind me and him to come in and help me rip this witch to shreds. And then, we could go back and live happily ever after, just the two of us. We would conquer all the evil that was thrown our way, and we'd always come out unscathed. That was how things should have been, how I'd always expected things to be.

But, now, as reality sunk in, I could see that I was closer to death than I'd been since I was human. There was no way to prevail, now. No confidence in me that I could make it out of this one alive. There was only one thing I was certain of – that it was too late. Edward's moment had passed, and he had not come. And now, as I watched Raychel's breathing pick up and her fingers start to twitch and tremble, I knew that it was my own fault for trusting her. My fault, for ripping any doubt out of my husband's head. My fault, for this. I had brought this upon myself.

The woman – if you could call her that – that stood in front of me was the very epitome of everything that I had come to hate. Not only was she a murderer, but she thoroughly enjoyed it. She wasn't like the rest of our kind, she didn't kill because she needed to, she killed because she wanted to. She got off on the exhilaration, on the feel of the warm blood gushing over her sadistic hands. She stared at me from across the little room, panting hard. I wasn't sure why she was panting so hard; it wasn't as though she needed to breathe. Perhaps it was for effect. After all, she had raced against time and bent over backwards to get here when she said she would be here.

Her black eyes took in my carefully composed face and her red lips twisted to one side and her breathing came slower. She straightened her posture and flipped her long black curls over her shoulder. As much as I wanted to hate this woman, I simply could not force myself to do it. I wasn't sure why, as she was the quintessence of Hell, itself. Perhaps it was because she had wormed her way into my life long before I knew of her intentions here. If anything, I thought, that should make me hate her more. But I simply could not bring myself to the loathing that the creature before me deserved.

A single tear leaked out of my left eye as the click of her high-heeled boots alerted my subconscious mind that she was coming in for the kill.

With an earsplitting bang, she exploded from her small, black outfit and an enormous white wolf replaced Raychel's slight form. The size of the wolf was nothing new to me. Nor were the guttural snarls coming from deep within the beast's throat. Growling, the werewolf locked eyes with me, and I could see the resemblance of Raychel in them, just as I could see Jacob in his own wolf form.

A pang of regret twanged inside my chest as I realized I'd never asked Jacob why he'd turned silvery white instead of remaining his usual russet colored self when he was in the form of a wolf. I'd always figured it'd been because he'd changed – he was a vampire now – but how could I be sure?

The wolf that was Raychel let out one more snarl before leaping through the air, jaws aiming right for my face.