A/N: I think this is the first previously unpublished chapter of the story. Some of it was written over two years ago. Some of it was written just recently. I'm nervous about it because I really don't want it to feel disconnected from the rest of the story. But here goes—there's just a few chapters left.

Bite to Break Skin

Chapter Twenty One

Bella

Days come and go and Mike continues to push. I've figured out that it's just his personality. He's a pusher. I have tried to have empathy for his situation. I would likely be pushy, too, but still… Understanding Mike's position does not make him any easier to deal with. Except today—today Mike is absent and he's ignoring my phone calls and text messages. He wasn't in biology or gym yesterday, either. Rosalie was in gym, and wasn't that interesting? The day after our talk in the woods, Mike had told me that I could call him at any time and he gave me his phone number. I'm really worried about him. I don't know if he's just busy or if he's had to be destroyed. The thought sickens me. He's not a toaster, he's a person.

Alice has been watching me, nervous it seems. She's waiting for something, something big, I think. They all are, but Alice's gift allows her to sense it. At night, after I'm supposed to be asleep, I tiptoe around the third floor. Sometimes I hear Jasper and Alice talking on the floor below.

Every few minutes there's a smile in one of their voices. It sounds like happiness. It sounds like love. The way Jasper's voice, smooth as silk, calms Alice, and brings her down to a more natural level of excitement is wondrous. I lay down on the floor, from whichever spot I hear their voices at, and press my ear to it.

I shouldn't spy on anyone, least of all Jasper. He doesn't deserve the invasion of privacy, even if his mate does. I can't bring myself to stop, though. Their conversations range from the intimate to the scary. They talk about things I know that I shouldn't be hearing.

He's going to come for her, isn't he?

Yes.

Soon?

That, I can't tell. And it frightens me.

Then, perhaps, you're wrong?

No. I've seen it and no matter what we do, or where we go, we can't change the outcome. He wants her.

I record every bit of the conversation in my Freaky Facts journal. Upon last entry, I noted that I was running out of pages; another reminder of how far from normal my life has come. Who he is, I haven't a clue. I should be more hung up on that, but I can't bring myself to be. My days are clouded by more pressing thoughts.

Edward is gone. Nobody talks about him. They all walk around and act as though he doesn't exist. It's as though he was never here. But he was. I can feel him in everything. When I sleep, his scent suffocates me.

He's everywhere.

Esme changes all of my bedding, even going so far as to buy new. My carpet has been scrubbed fresh and clean. All of my clothes and towels have been cleaned and replaced. Even my curtains have been replaced with new ones. At first, I didn't realize what she was doing. But now I do.

She's getting rid of him.

I got rid of him.

And that's when I start with the tears again. And they're endless.

And of course, Emmett knows about his Jeep. He doesn't care, but Rose does. When she saw the damage she looked livid. For a brief moment, I shrunk back into myself, still fearful of my temper-ridden sister; but then I remembered our talk in her room that day, and whatever fear I had just melted away. I stood up straight, stuck my chin out and crossed my arms in a show of defiance.

You will not intimidate me, Rosalie Lillian Hale McCarty!

Unfortunately, mom was standing by watching the whole thing and she didn't care that I was merely trying to show Rose that she can't intimidate me; mom saw it as a show of disrespect for another person's possessions. So now my driving privileges are revoked. Not that The Warden and his Mrs. let me go anywhere anyway. When dad sat me down and told me that driving was off limits, I may or may not have uttered a slew of profanities that now has me grounded. One profanity in particular earned me a Bible Study session with The Warden himself. I tried to tell him that vampires and God don't really mix, but that didn't go over so well.

So now I've spent the past week walking around the house and kicking things at random. My favorite thing to kick is Emmett because it makes him laugh. He says such big outbursts from such a small, little human are hilarious. I considered kicking Rose once because she made a sly comment that "somebody" should come home and control his mate; but Alice dragged me out of the room before I could act on it. I begged her for a good five minutes to let me go back in there and get a piece of her, but Alice wouldn't hear of it.

Apparently, had I gone through with that one, I'd have a nasty scar on my face that not even becoming a vampire would totally mask. I guess I should be happy she wouldn't have killed me. It's times like these when it sucks not being a vampire.

That was this morning. Rosalie and I are good now. This morning at school, Lauren Mallory gave me a dirty look and I asked her what her problem is. Since then, Rose has been shooting me small smiles. For some strange reason, she likes it when I'm bitchy. I can't even begin to process why.

Now, I'm seated across from Grandma Marie at the dining room table, picking at my dinner. Everyone else is out hunting their dinners, giving us the space to talk. I may be slow, but I eventually figured out that Grandma Marie is probably the puppet master that Jasper was talking about. At least, I hope she is, because if she's not, I'm back at square one. But that doesn't mean I know how to broach the subject with her.

We sit and eat in relative silence for most of the first course- strawberry and almond spinach salad. Eventually, though, I can't take the silence. "How was your day?" I ask. I care, or, I want to care at least. Hey, it's a jumping off point, okay?

"Your mother and I headed up to Port Angeles to do a little shopping and I got a manicure." She's bubbling with real excitement that I asked. For a split second it's like old times- talking about our days, sharing inane little tidbits. But then she wiggles her fingers, showing off a bold, dark red nail polish on her fingers. It looks like the color of blood, and I'm reminded that I hate nail polish. I don't understand its purpose. Even when Alice has assured me that it won't chip, it does. She says I'm like a cave woman, truly barbaric in the way I handle daily life. She always swears her nail polish should never chip. But it does. I've always hated empty promises. Even more now. And it leads me to wonder: Who is this woman with her fancy red nails?

"Are we even related?" I ask, though I know it sounds more akin to an accusation. Grandma Marie drops her fork, startled, and gives me a sideways glance.

"You are my granddaughter in every way that counts." If I had a nickle for every time I heard that line...

"Who is my father?" I ask, without missing a beat. Inside, my stomach is doing flips and my heart feels like its collapsing in on itself. Esme and Carlisle tell me that I'm theirs in every way that counts all of the time. It's supposed to sound loving and supportive, but all I hear is, "You're not really mine." It means that I'm alone. It means that I don't really belong to anyone.

"You are a Swan first and foremost-" I cut her off because I can't stand anymore lies.

"Stop lying to me!" I shout and stand up from my chair. Marie's eyes fill with tears and she shakes her head. "I know about James!" I'm crumbling under the topic and so is she. She places her head in her hands and cries. My body feels like it's made of bricks and I burst into tears.

"How did you hear that name?" she shouts. I shake my head, refusing to answer. She doesn't get to ask me questions right now. Not in this moment at least.

"Tell me about him. Please." I'm begging now.

"He's a monster. You don't want to know about him. Just forget he exists."

"But he's my father." I place my hands on the table before me and try to control my sobs. This changes things for Marie. Her entire body jerks and she stands up, sending her chair over as she rises.

"That bastard is not your father! Charlie is your father! Carlisle is your father! But not that man! Not that murdering bastard!" She's screaming and in her hysteria, she moves around the table and grabs my arms. Standing behind me, she's gripping me in panicky, unrestrained hands. I don't move, I just cry.

"But he is," I whisper.

"He's not! He's going to use you, Bella. He's disgusting. He ruins things. He kills things." I don't know what to say. This is the most I've heard about James. I want to believe her, and my gut is telling me that I should. Though, I can't get Mike out of my head. If James is such a monster then why is Mike with him? And why does Mike want me to meet him? It doesn't add up. One of them is lying and if I had to place bets right now, my money would be on Mike.

I try to calm myself, to force the questions to come to me. I have plenty, but my mind is quiet. And then I remember Jasper's words. Marie is the puppet master. She's the one who's made the choice to lie to me. I break free from her grip and move around her, standing a few feet back wearily.

"Why did Edward leave me?" She can't seem to stop herself from crying. It's either that or she just refuses to. She won't meet my eyes, either, but the tension in her body tells me that I'm onto something. "Tell me. Please."

"He couldn't stay, Bella. Please understand. He just couldn't." And it's then that I know Jasper was right. That niggling feeling in the back of my head ever since he said it was spot on. I knew it. I just didn't want to believe it.

She sent him away.

"I cried out for him!" I scream. "All those nights, I cried out for him! I begged you to let me see him. I told you about the dreams. And you lied—every single time." I wipe the snot that is dripping from my nose. "You told me I was imagining him. I thought I was crazy. You made me think I was crazy." I back away, no longer able to deal with this, and I rush up the stairs. I clear the first flight with ease, but on my way up the second to the third floor, I trip. My foot lodges in between the risers. When I dislodge it, I see a dent in the riser above where my foot is lodged. The risers are made of solid wood and my shin should be broken and bloody. But it's not.

I pull my foot out and inspect my shin by pulling up my pant leg. It's clean, without damage. The riser, however, looks like it got into a fight with a wood chipper and a baseball bat. A human shin would have been hurt. Not a vampire or hybrid shin, though. For that single moment, I forget about all of the lies and betrayal. But it's just a second before the tears start again.

I stand up and take off running up the stairs again. All I can think about is the attic and Rose telling me to go there. I reach the third floor and pass my bedroom as I rush up the stairs for the attic. My lungs should be caving in on themselves and my legs should be aching with exhaustion. But they're not.

I make it to the top of the stairs, thankful that the door is wide open. I stop momentarily at the doorway before I take a deep, unnecessary breath and step inside. Our attic is abnormally clean—but then our entire house is abnormally clean. Mom always says that with seven people in the house who don't sleep and only one of those who has a real job that there's absolutely no reason to keep a messy home.

To my left is a small nook that is neatly packed with cardboard boxes which have been labeled "Christmas." There are nearly a dozen of them. Up ahead is a large collection of furniture ranging in age from the exquisite regency era up to the (unfortunate) style of the 1960s. Though Alice won't admit it, the "groovy" furniture belongs to her; she's a closet fan of the decade. To my right are three wooden filing cabinets. I take a quick look around the room and determine that the filing cabinets are likely my best bet.

The drawers in the cabinets are each labeled with a decade. I stride over to the cabinet marked "1990s" and open the drawer. Inside are hanging folders marked with the years with photo albums in between. Both 1990 and 1991 each have one thin photo album. 1992, however, has three thick photo albums. I pull out the photo albums from 1992 and sit on the floor. The first album from the year I was born has one page of photographs from the summer before I was born. There is one photo that catches my eye—it's in the bottom right corner of the first page. The photo is of my mother—who I have only seen two other photos of (and both were from when she was a teenager.) She's heavily pregnant. I touch my face realizing how very much she and I look alike. We have the same dark hair and large brown eyes. I can't imagine what my father looks like. I think of Mike and his light blond hair and blue eyes and have trouble imaging what James's hair color might be.

I flip the page and see photos of myself as an infant. These I've seen a thousand times. On my mother's bedside table there are eleven framed photos: one of Rose and Emmett; one of Alice and Jasper; one of Edward; and one of Carlisle. The rest are of me in various stages of my youth. When I first moved in the number of photos of me that Esme put around the house was a bit overwhelming, but then dad explained it. Esme always wanted to be a mother and because of the whole vampire thing she never had gotten the chance. That was when I stopped turning the photos around.

Halfway through the album I see the first photo of me and Edward. He's holding me and I can't be more than a few weeks old. We're in the front parlor at Grandma Marie's house in Chicago. I take my time looking through picture after picture of us. In every photo a smile is spread across Edward's face. I set that album aside and go for the next one. There must be hundreds of photos from my birth in September to New Years.

I pull out the next year's albums and see more of the same. I age quickly, Grandma Marie slowly, and everyone else stays exactly the same. And still, in every photo, Edward is smiling.

I fly through the 1990s and it seems as though the only thing that changes is me. Eventually I grow hair and I learn to walk. Edward holds my hands as he guides my little feet along the wooden floor at the house in Chicago. Every holiday, every birthday, every moment it seems, they were there. I let a tear fall as I realize how much of my life I have forgotten. How could I have forgotten?

Strangely enough, it isn't until 1993 that Charlie appears in any of the photos. In the earliest photos he is among the crowd not really paying attention to me. As I become more mobile, Charlie appears more interested. But still—it isn't until I'm a toddler that he's holding me.

My heart sinks as I realize that the man I idolized as my father didn't seem as impressed by me as I remember being impressed by him. I don't allow myself too much pity. I find myself cracking up at the later photos where Charlie and Edward fight for my attention. They don't seem to dislike one another which is a good thing, but Charlie definitely seems to be trying to steal me away from Edward every chance he gets.

By the time I reach my sixth birthday, they're gone. And so is Charlie. All of them are gone. No more Alice stuffing my chubby little arms into poofy pink dresses. No more Emmett carrying me like a football. No more Carlisle holding my hand as we walk through the house; me wearing his stethoscope and he wearing a grin. Even Rosalie holds me in the photos and is smiling. And Edward is in nearly every photo—either in the corner with his eyes on me or holding me or right at my side. He's always there and then he's just gone.

Like now, he was sent away.

I think it over and realize that I've reached a dead end. I came up here with the intent to figure out the truth about my parents and as much as I'm enjoying reminiscing over old family photos, this isn't helping me reach my end goal one bit. I shove the large pile of albums aside and retrieve the slim album from 1991. There isn't much in it; a few photos of Rose and Emmett's wedding that year (their sixth, I think) and that's about it. I pull the 1990 album and find very little. I peek in the drawer and see that I've exhausted the 90s.

I let my head hang in frustration and slam the drawer shut. I hear a little thump thump from inside and pull it open in confusion. The drawer was empty so what could possibly be making noise? Just as I thought there was nothing inside; only at the very bottom a thin line in the wood. I poke at it and discover that it's not a line in the wood. The bottom is actually made up of two pieces of wood. I push and pull at the wood until one of the pieces wiggles free. Something tells me that I'm on to something.

Beneath the exposed bottom of the drawer is a collection of letter all in their envelopes and addressed both to and from Grandma Marie and Charlie. I pull them out and hold them to my chest. Not that I want to have been lied to or have had secrets kept from me, but it is what it is and these right here are important—I just know it. Nobody, not even the Cullens, hide unimportant letters in a hidden compartment in an attic underneath a bunch of old photo albums.

"What on earth are you doing up here?" Grandma Marie's voice fills the space around me. I spin around with the letters clutched to my chest.

"Figuring out the truth," I say with more venom than I intend to.

"Don't do this," she says. Her voice begs me to stop but I can't. I hold the letters tighter to my chest.

"I have to," I say.

"Why?" she asks. This isn't a conversation between an adult and a child. For the first time in my life I feel like we're just about on equal footing.

"Because I don't know who I am!" I yell. "I don't know anything about my parents. I barely know who my parents are let alone what they are. I need to know that stuff!"

"Fine," Grandma Marie says as she huffs out a breath. "You want to know about your parents?" I nod my head. "If I tell you about your father and your mother it's going to hurt you; Disgust you even." I close my eyes and take in a shaky breath. I nod my head. Disgust? That's pretty severe and I'm not totally sure I want to know something about my parents if it's going to disgust me. But how can I turn around now?

I can't.

Grandma Marie nods her head and gestures to the door. "Come, let's talk in the living room." I follow after her, the letters still clutched to my chest. I feel lighter than I did before she interrupted my trip down memory lane. We've made it down to the third floor when my cellphone rings. It's Mike and even though I'm worried about him, I just can't deal with that right now—especially not when Grandma Marie is about to finally divulge the goods. I might not get this chance again. By the time we reach the second floor, my cell phone has ringed two more times. I silence each call assuming it's Mike and he's just being his pushy self.

"Would you just answer that damn phone, Isabella?" Grandmother says as we reach the first floor and my cell rings again. She turns around and gestures for me to answer it. I look to my phone and see that it is indeed Mike.

"Hello," I say into the phone with absolutely no enthusiasm.

"Hello, Bella," says a deep, slick voice I don't recognize. A shiver shoots up my spine immediately at the sound. I'm silent, unable to speak. This is definitely not Mike even if the call is coming from his phone. "I can hear you breathing, Bella."

"Who is this?" I ask; half creeped out and half perplexed.

"I think you know," says the voice. Again with the shiver. The only person I can think of who would be calling me from this number aside from Mike is… James, my father. My stomach clenches and I close my eyes afraid that I'm right.

"James," I whisper. My gut feels like it's been put in a blender. The voice on the other end chuckles.

"Of course," James says. "Edward and I were just having a conversation about you." I gasp and look to Grandma Marie.

"Edward?" I say. My voice trembles. Grandma Marie stares at me. Her face has gone blank and she's lost her color.

"Yes," James says, "Edward is most eager to make his way back to you. And I would send him, but I worry that I would never have the pleasure of meeting you—not with all the lies that Marie Swan is undoubtedly telling you." I shake my head. I'm losing my composure with every second that passes. James sounds like he's threatening Edward. And he doesn't sound very friendly either. Who is this person?

"Send Edward home," I say with more determination than I knew I was capable of.

"Now, now, is that any way to speak to your father? Honestly Isabella, I'd much rather you come get Edward." It's not smart but I can't think of anything but getting to Edward. It feels as though a cloud of confusion has set on my brain.

"Where is he?" I ask, determined to figure out what's going on. Is James just being a jerk—and why would he do that?—or is he some kind of sicko and that's why everyone wants to hide the truth from me? The entire conversation is surreal and I can't make heads or tails of what's going on.

"The clock is ticking, Isabella. Please do hurry. I fear poor Edward's exhaustion is setting in. I'm not certain how long he will last," James says.

"Don't hurt him," I warn.

"Do calm down, little one," James says, "and hurry."