Bella was conscious long before she opened her eyes.
She could feel the chill against her skin, the iciness of her fingertips that were too cold to move (but she could still feel them, as there was only the edge of pain that made them tingle and buzz), and one of her first thoughts as her body awoke was—
No, not frostbite. It was a certain type of cold, like the fading of winter, which was enough to cause shivering but not enough for chattering teeth.
The awareness of the chill began to spread. She could now feel her hair, long and dark, and something else, something strange. A heaviness, and a cold so deep it felt like death.
My hair is wet.
Wet? How strange. It didn't rain in Phoenix. In fact, it was hot in Phoenix, far from this horrible cold. And then, with an effort, she was able to recall something. She was in Forks. Yes, of course, she was. She had been here for . . . well, it couldn't be more than a couple of days. And today?
Her thoughts were muddled. She was in a deep blackness, unable to lift her head or move any muscle, not even to flex her fingers or toes. School, came a small voice from the back of her brain. Today was your first day at school.
Yes, yes. She met some people, didn't she? Their names were . . . oh, she couldn't remember. A few girls. Two boys. She tried to think of anything else. She remembered her truck, and Charlie. And something beautiful.
No. It wasn't something. It was someone. Multiple someones. There were four. No, five. Six? Bella couldn't think. But they had to have names. She remembered asking about them. There was one beautiful stranger in particular. A boy with black eyes, coppery hair, and the face of an angel looking at her with hatred. She remembered feeling upset. But that was the last she saw of him that day. After school, she walked out to her truck. And then . . .
What?
Nothing. She must've gone home, but she couldn't remember. She had her keys in her hand, but she couldn't recall wrapping her fingers around the car door handle. Had she fainted? No. If she had, someone would've rushed to her aid. She was in the school parking lot, after all. People were everywhere. And she didn't feel like she was in the school (or anywhere near it, for that matter; she had never felt such a strange cold).
Bella's awareness sharpened again. There was something around her wrists.
Where am I?
Her first thought was dead, that someone had hit her with their car, but her awareness was sharpening like iron on iron, faster and faster, and she could feel the air moving in and out of her lungs. She was leaning against something—
A wall.
—and her head was throbbing. Her lips were numb, her eyelids heavy, but as her muscles awoke she was able to open them just a little.
She was in a dim room, a very wide room, perhaps a basement. The walls were brown and stained blackish by the rain. She could smell the unpleasant scent of soggy, rotting wood, and her eyes searched for windows. She failed to find one (though there was something in the wall opposite to her, a newer looking set of wooden planks, and she suspected they covered a window that had been there previously). There was a door on the wall to her right, a few feet away from where she sat, that was not made of wood but of a dark steel. As her senses returned somewhat back to normal, she shifted her foot. There was a strange clicking sound, and she looked to see that her ankles and wrists were shacked, a rope of chains tangled on the floor like Christmas lights. She tugged on the chain only to find that it was nailed into the wall behind her.
A wave of fear coursed through her. Wasn't Forks supposed to be one of those little towns that nobody heard about? A town that was supposed to be safe? Her mind tried to reason with her that this wasn't actually real, that she had not in fact been (and she couldn't even bring herself to think of the word, for it was too horrible and scared her too much). But she knew that nobody would ever fake a thing like this. It had to be real. She considered screaming but couldn't breathe.
She inhaled as best as she could. The biggest mistake anyone could make in this situation was to panic. If she wanted to get out, she had to be rational. Was there anything else in this room that could save her? She looked up to check again, but this time her view was blocked by a person that she had not seen enter the room. There was a boy sitting down in front of her, his beautiful face twisted into a crooked smile.
"You're awake," he said, black eyes glinting.
Bella's heart hammered—not from fear but from the sight of his smile. It was wonderful in every possible way she could imagine. His name came to her lips without her even having to remember it:
"Edward."