Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight.

Author's note: Sorry this up after 9 days instead of the marathon 7 or fewer I've been accomplishing over the last 3 months. I had to teach two classes this week and prep work takes a lot of time (by the way, if you know a teacher please go give them a hug. That shit is hard).

Author's note II: I listened to "Kadjiro and Grace" by Armand Amar and "Figlia del cielo" by Roberto Cacciapaglia while writing this...better suited to the 2nd half though.


Alice whooped with joy when she sent Emmett's, or rather his avatar's ass flying across the screen.

"I thought you were a pro at this?" She leered, playfully. "Mister undefeated warlord and all?"

"You cheated and you know it," grumbled Emmett.

"Did not!" She protested indignantly. "Jasper, tell him I didn't cheat."

Jasper barely moved an inch from his place beside Rosalie. "Kinda busy here hon," he mumbled. Trying to keep Rosalie calm for more than a few minutes took just about every ounce of skill he had with his gift.

"See?" Alice stuck out her tongue at her giant of a brother. "I didn't..."

Her eyes glazed over, a tell-tale sign of an impending vision. Next to her, Emmett grumbled again about psychic cheaters and his poor, now defeated warlord. He turned to grumble loudly at her some more but the look on her face stopped him cold.

"What is it?" He whispered, worried.

"It's-"

Rosalie's phone rang.

"-Bella."

Alice didn't wait for Rosalie to finish the call with Bella before she called Esme and Carlisle downstairs.

"She needs us," she answered Jasper's unspoken question.

"Edward, no." Alice turned to the boy who had come down the stairs following Esme and Carlisle. "You'll only upset her more."

Edward rolled his eyes and held out his hands in mock surrender. "Fine. Wouldn't want to damage our precious human."

He turned around and walked back up the stairs, though not before exchanging a poisonous glare with Rosalie, who was no doubt yelling obscenities at him in her mind as she had whenever their paths crossed over the last month.

"What's wrong?" Esme asked Rosalie softly.

"She wouldn't say," Rosalie replied, clearly upset. They all turned to Alice.

Alice swallowed. Sometimes she really hated this stupid gift of hers. It was bad enough having to put up with seeing the limitless paths decisions lead to...but to also have to play the role of a real live spoiler alert had to have been someone's idea of a sick joke. Thank god she had the wits to draw the line in the sand when she needed to.

"She'll tell us soon enough," she insisted quietly, marking her line. "Let's go."


Bella sat against a huge boulder and waited. It was quiet here on top of the cliffs...just the occasional nocturnal bird and the moan of a gentle breeze, but none of that found a way to Bella's ears. The only sound her mind could comprehend right now was the beating of her own heart.


Against all odds, she had managed to get through the rest of the evening at Jacob's house without breaking down or acting suspiciously. After spending a few minutes looking through his comic books, Jacob took her to his workshop. There, they spend the rest of their time tinkering with the old motorcycle he had salvaged recently.

"I'm gonna keep checking that yard...see if another one shows up. Then we can ride together!" He exclaimed happily.

Bella's voice remained light as she steered the conversation to keep him talking. "How'd you learn so much about cars and motorcycles anyway?"

He shrugged. "Walk around the rez and you'll see that most of the cars here are pretty old. Easy to learn when things break down all the time."

Bella had spent countless hours helping Rosalie in her garage, often with car parts lying around without any problems. This time was different. She squatted, handing Jake the tool he requested and tried not to let the engine parts strewn all over the floor take her back to a place to which she had no desire to go. Jacob said it was a closed coffin funeral. Bella wasn't surprised. The accident she caused...the state of Sarah's car...her body. She shuddered and closed her eyes. Don't go there right now, she reminded herself. You can't do this alone. Not anymore.

"Sorry about my dad," Jacob apologized sheepishly. "He can get pretty riled up about the Cullens."

"It's ok," she said. "As long as he doesn't try to actually hurt them, I guess..."

"Nah," Jacob laughed. "He's nuts but not that nuts. All he's managed to do so far is get our people to boycott the hospital."

"Shame," she replied. It was getting harder to keep up this unaffected facade. She needed to leave. Soon. "Carlisle is an amazing doctor."

And he's never done anything to harm any of you, she thought. Not like me.

She didn't have to wait for much longer, thank god, before Charlie called her name to announce the end of their visit. Charlie and Billy came out of the house together and, though they shook hands and exchanged friendly goodbyes, both men exuded tension. What did they talk about? Did Billy press on about the Cullens?

"Don't go till you see the motorcycle. Your daughter's going to be learning on it after all. Jake!" Billy called to his son. "Show Charlie your bike."

Charlie sighed in exasperation though he covered it up quickly. He and Jacob exchanged an amused look before walking into the workshop together. A twinge of jealousy overtook Bella for a moment before she stamped it down. Charlie had put his arm around Jacob's broad shoulders as they walked. He had never touched her, not once since she moved in...not for eight years.

Billy's wheelchair creaked on the asphalt as it rolled behind her. He wanted to talk to her alone. That much was clear.

"So, Bella," he cleared his throat. "I hope you're enjoying living in Forks."

"Yes, thank you," she replied. "I am."

"It must have been a hell of an adjustment to make with our weather," he continued.

"Yes, well...I managed."

He paused, and Bella stopped shifting in place to look at him. He eyed her back and dropped the pretense.

"Bella, the Cullens and I go way back," he said. "My...intolerance, as you father puts it, is not without merit. They're not good company to keep."

Bella took a deep breath and thought carefully before she spoke. Flames, visible only to her, danced their way down the house to Billy's wheelchair. "I thought they just moved here a couple of years ago? Did they do anything to you...or anyone else, in that time?"

Billy smiled grimly. "It's...more complicated than that. I'm serious, Bella. The Cullens are dangerous."

"They're no more dangerous that I am," she replied quietly. "I appreciate your concern Mr. Black, but it's not really necessary. They've been nothing but friendly with me the few times we've hung out."

Rosalie's singing. Esme's cooking. Carlisle in his study, she chanted to herself.

He nodded. "So you only see them occasionally?"

"Sure, I mean we share a few classes but not many," she said casually. Maybe toning down her friendship with them would help end this awkward conversation.

"But it's enough to start dating one of them?"

Shit. Shit. Shit! She struggled not to show that he'd gotten her, but it must have shown because the look on his own face was one of knowing triumph. For a fleeting moment, Bella saw his knowing expression transform to the tortured, beaten expression of the squirrel.

"My relationships," she said through clenched teeth, "are-"

"Nobody's business but Bella's," Charlie finished as he walked towards her fast. The flames died down. "The bike looks good. I'm sure Jake will work his magic and make it safe to ride. You ready, Bella?"

She nodded quickly. Whereas she had failed, Charlie's tone of finality succeeded in putting an end to Bella and Billy's conversation.

"See ya, Jake," Charlie waved to the boy. "Billy," he nodded, then got into his cruiser and pulled away, Bella following in her truck.


An hour later, atop the cliff she had chosen, Bella finally made the decision and picked up her phone. She waited, her hands pressed flat down on the grass as they burned whatever they touched to nothing. It was a new moon tonight and Bella couldn't see clearly more than dozen feet in front of her. She saw the edge of the cliff and little beyond that. There was a new moon that night too, four years ago. Plenty of stars, as always in the desert, but not enough to improve visibility.

A branch snapping alerted her to her family's arrival. All of them marched through the foliage, unhindered by weak human eyesight, and headed right for her. Some of the tension that had built up in her shoulders disappeared as Rosalie and Jasper sat on either side of her. Their mates joined them a second later as did Esme and Carlisle.

There was no sign of Edward.

She squeezed Rosalie's hand and closed her eyes. Telling them would remind them that she was a killer. Bella was so much more, but everything that she was paled in comparison to this part of her life. 508...the number was bad enough. The laundry list of facts she had collected on each of her victims was bad enough. Telling them this story...this one encounter with one individual whose luck ran out the moment she and Bella met...how can anyone, even Vampires, multiply that by 508 and think she deserved any sort of forgiveness?

"You're afraid," Jasper whispered. "I hope, not from anything you think we will do?"

Bella swallowed and looked down.

"What you're afraid of...it's not going to happen," Alice said gently. Bella looked at her and the girl nodded. She knew, Bella realized. "Most of us have been through this, Bells. We understand."

Nodding, Bella shrank deeper into Rosalie's embrace and clutched at her jacket.

"Jacob's mother," Bella's voice came out raspy. She swallowed and started again. "Jacob's mother died four years ago. I killed her."

Emmett and Carlisle shifted in surprise. Rosalie squeezed her tighter, and she let herself take in a few lungfuls of her scent which calmed her better than Jasper's gift, before continuing.

"Everything was so much harder back then," she said, finding strength in Rosalie's unwavering grasp on her. "I didn't have the wind at that point, so just making it through each day was a challenge. Food was the hardest of all. I could get by with dirty clothes for a few weeks, but having to put something in my stomach everyday meant I couldn't stay away from civilization for too long."

The hunger was unbearable at times. Sometimes it was hard to tell what was worse, it or the loneliness. Still, for years she had managed. Before she ever developed the ability to unlock doors with a glance, she had gotten pretty good at picking locks and would sneak into libraries, schools, and small stores at night to scavenge for food. She used to let herself into people's houses, especially when she was younger and in places like Iowa that didn't have much in the way of buildings to begin with, but she put a stop to that when she lost control one night. The family dog caught her in the pantry and faithfully barked to alert its owners. Bella, then 12, was so frightened of the heavy footsteps coming down the stairs right on top of her...That family didn't have a chance. Six dead. Not to mention the dog.

"After I turned 13, I started heading back west. I think I was a little homesick to be honest. Or I just got sick of farms. The west is so much wilder...That appealed to me for some reason."

Moving west also made it easier to blame a freak fire on geography. By then, Bella had read enough to be proactive about her movements through the country. Too many fires and puzzling accidents meant more attention, the last thing Bella wanted.

"I had never seen the Grand Canyon," she smiled warily, "and I really wanted to. So I started hiking. It took several months but I managed to cross into Arizona by February. Then...I did something incredibly foolish. The last section of the trip was 80 miles across open desert. I purposefully planned every mile of the journey so there would be minimal contact with humans. There was a small town where I had planned to stop to restock my pack with food and water. I decided instead to keep going."

It's not like she hadn't gone without food for days at a time before. That, unfortunately, was too common an occurrence especially when her emotions got the best of her. But water...that was a different story.

"Heat has never bothered me, and even in the desert I never felt overheated. But I ran out of food, then water halfway through. It was...bad. I tried every method I knew to collect water, but what little I managed to get barely made up for the effort getting it. By the third day, I was sure I was close to dying."

Rosalie flinched at the word and hugged her closer. On her other side, Emmett sighed and squeezed his wife's hand.

"I broke one my rules," Bella whispered. "What energy I had left, I used up going in a different direction...towards a road a few miles away. I remember my feet hitting pavement. And then I collapsed. When I came to, Sarah was pulled over beside me...and she had water."

Bella thought she was a mirage at first before tasting the cool liquid on her lips. She must have downed two full liters before she realized what was happening, that there was a woman watching her not two feet in front of her. Talking to her. An actual human being.

"If I wasn't so weak I might have exploded then," Bella said ruefully. "But I was so, so tired. She coaxed me into her car where she had a few snacks. I devoured everything. The food helped get my mind running again. She was obviously pretty concerned, but didn't ask too many questions except if there was anyone else I was with that was still out there. There wasn't of course and I told her as much before I fell in and out of sleep. She had classical music on the radio. That helped calm me."

She pushed back the pang in her chest as she remembered feeling the woman brush her hand on her forehead. There was definitely a tear or two...it was the first benevolent touch she'd felt in years.

"It was dark when I finally woke up for real. She said we had driven only an hour and that we were close to the Grand Canyon visitor center." Bella paused and looked at her feet, ashamed. "I should've run for it then. There were so many people, more than I'd had to deal with since...since the first time. But Sarah was so...nice! I liked hearing her voice. And she was so gentle...not pushy at all about how I ended up alone in the desert. I...I let her steer me to a small diner. She bought me dinner. She told me she was at a relative's wedding in Texas and that she was taking the scenic route home. She talked about her family, her children. She was a painter."

That had gotten Bella's attention. Renée used to paint too. Sarah must have seen her peaked interest because she pressed her about it, and Bella reluctantly told her of her mother's hobby. Before she knew it, the woman had gotten her to reveal that she was homeless and had been for some time. What the hell was she thinking that day? Bella often asked herself that question. Was she just so starved for attention that the minute someone showed interest (and Bella let them) she tossed the towel on all her rules? Deep down, she knew it was simpler than that. She was 13. She missed her mother. And Sarah had saved her life, fed her, and talked to her the way her mom used to. Add to that, her physical and mental exhaustion from the trying days before and Bella was a goner in the face of Sarah's kindness.

"I followed her back to the car," Bella said through the tears that were starting to fall. "I shouldn't have. Or I should've asked where we were going. I finally thought of that question when we had driven for a few minutes."

She gulped and felt intense calm from her right, from Jasper.

"She said we were gonna go to the nearest city on her way...and that she'd drop me off at their police station."

Even the memory of the terror that Bella had felt when Sarah announced her intentions had her shaking. The edge of the cliff lit up. Thin lines of fire made their way through the dirt and grass at the cliff's edge, and then through the air when Bella ran out of ground. The family watched, apprehensive but enthralled by Bella's artwork.

"I panicked," Bella whispered. "I tried to talk her out of it but I'm sure I sounded like a silly child. There was so little time...I felt my body react and I knew we-she had just seconds. I cried. Screamed for her to stop the car. She thought I was just scared of social services. She didn't stop. We were at a bend in the road so she slowed down...and I managed to get my door open and jump out. The trees on the other side of the road exploded as soon as I hit the ground. It would've been the car if I was still in it. But it didn't matter in the end. The explosion distracted her and the car swerved heavily."

She paused, drawing a breath before she continued.

"Hermit Road is open to private vehicles only three months out of the year because of how dangerous it is, and because of the popular views," she swallowed and looked down in grief. "The bend where she lost control...it's called the Abyss. It's the only section of the canyon that's sheer cliff...nothing but air when you look down. Sarah's car went over the edge. She fell 3000 feet to her death."


Esme closed her eyes and felt herself deflate a little. Jasper was leaking Bella's emotions and she was not accustomed to feelings of this...magnitude. How many times has she gone through this? 180 after the first night...

If just one person made Bella feel like this...she shook her head sadly. Getting this child to forgive herself was a herculean task. For a split second she feared she might not be up to the task until she remembered she wasn't alone. Every Vampire sitting around her favorite human loved her deeply. Every one of them believed in her. Rosalie wasn't the only one who would always bet on Bella.

Her daugher held Bella in her arms as she cried out the remainder of her tears on her shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Bella," she whispered repeatedly before lifting her head up to face her.

Whatever Rosalie saw in Bella's eyes, none of them were privy to. It was the bond between mates...the unspoken language of glances and facial expressions...more subtle though far more powerful than telepathy.

"There's more," Rosalie said slowly. "Isn't there?"

Bella didn't answer and instead looked down once again...before furtively glancing at Esme.

And Esme understood.

With a sinking feeling that was entirely her own, she subconsciously covered her mouth with her hand and listened to Bella finish her story.

"I heard the car crash," Bella said. "It took so long to hit the bottom. My leg was bleeding pretty badly from hitting the ground, but I crawled to the edge anyway. I tried, but couldn't make anything out. It was dark, and it was so far down."

She gulped and looked at Esme again, who could only nod back sadly. Rosalie glanced between the two of them quickly before recognition crossed over her face and she fell back in shock and horror.

"I'd never felt so desperate or so alone. Even though this was by no means the first time," she whispered. "I killed that woman hours after she saved my life. One more widower. Three more children who had to grow up without their mother. How many more would there be? I hated myself. It...it wasn't a hard decision to make. At that moment it felt like that would be the only good think I'd ever do...the only contribution I'd ever make. How many lives would it save?"

Rosalie balled her fists over what was left of the grass at Bella's feet, and Esme's heart broke when she looked up and saw the anguish written all over her daughter's face.

"You jumped," Rosalie whispered.

Bella nodded and never took her eyes off of her mate. "I jumped."


Author's note III: Omg it's 5:45 am and I have to be at work in less than 4 hours. AGH! Please make this day, which will be difficult enough without adequate sleep, go by quickly by REVIEWING!

I'm really sorry that I haven't replied yet to last chapter's reviews. I swear it's because of how swamped with work I was this week. That and I figured you'd all rather I get this chapter up sooner. BUT I will spend tomorrow (er, 4 hours from now) responding...you know, in between yawning.