AN: Hey all! Hope you're all doing well. Just wanted to update you on the potential new update schedule - I'm going to be aiming for an upload every other week on Fridays, rather than weekly, going forward. This may still slip and will depend on my having the chapter ready in time, but I think it's going to be a realistic timeframe for me.

We're creeping ever closer to the most exciting parts of the story! XD Enjoy!

Chapter 7: Nightmare

Charlie was home when we got back, most of his attention focused on a basketball game he was looking forward to; he didn't seem to notice how quiet I was during dinner, or the looks Beau kept shooting me that were far too assessing for my liking. I suddenly wondered if Jules had ever told him the same stories – did he believe them? A part of me wanted to ask, but most of me was still afraid he would think I was completely bonkers.

I went to my room as soon as we were done eating, claiming I was extra tired. It wasn't entirely a lie; I was feeling fairly emotionally drained. I looked for something to occupy my mind, but none of my books seemed appealing in that moment. I turned to my music collection instead. It wasn't extensive by any stretch of the imagination, but there was a decent amount of variety. As I skimmed through, I found a Linkin Park album that Phil had given me for Christmas. I hadn't been particularly enamoured with it when I'd listened to it before, but for some reason I found I wanted to give it a try today. I put my headphones on and cranked the volume as loud as it would go; the heavy bass and loud, shrieking vocals made it impossible to focus on anything else. Even so, I concentrated on the lyrics, playing the CD over and over until I had all of them memorised and realised that, past the noise, the band wasn't half bad after all. Eventually, the volume could no longer combat my exhaustion, and I fell asleep.

I was almost instantly aware that I was dreaming, but the landscape of the dream was familiar: the path from the beach to the tide pools that I'd walked earlier in the day. The dark tunnel of trees was claustrophobic and oppressive, and I wanted to find the sun. I began following the sound of waves crashing on rocks, when suddenly I was pulled up short by a hand on my wrist. I turned, and Jules was there, trying to tug me back into the darker forest. I resisted, confused by the abject terror on her face.

"Jules, what's wrong?"

"Run, Bella," she entreated frantically. "Come on, we have to run!"

"This way, Bella!" I heard Beau's voice echoing from the opposite direction, perfectly calm.

"It's okay," I said to Jules, trying to soothe her. But she just broke away from me and dropped to the ground, convulsing violently. Before I could shout her name or try to help, I blinked, and the slender young girl was replaced with a lithe, almost fox-like wolf, with red-brown fur and dark eyes. It faced the lighter trees, snarling fiercely.

"Come here, Bella!" my brother shouted, but the wolf was blocking my path and I couldn't get around it.

Then Edward stepped out of the trees, glowing faintly as if he were the source of the light. His eyes were coal black and dangerous, but his smile was inviting as he held out a hand to me. I stepped forward, and the wolf tensed, growling.

"Trust me," Edward purred, honey voice dripping through pointed teeth.

I took another step, moving around the wolf.

The animal suddenly sprang forward, arcing across the space between us and the vampire, canines headed for his neck.

"No!" I screamed, jerking upright in my bed. The movement yanked the headphone wire painfully and pulled the CD player off my bedside table. I blinked, dazzled and disorientated by the bright light still on in my room. The clock on the nightstand read 5:30 am. I'd fallen asleep completely dressed; I was even still wearing my shoes.

Groaning groggily, I kicked off my boots and wriggled out of my jeans, then turned out the light and crawled under the covers. But my brain, left to its own devices, had dredged up all the thoughts I had been trying to avoid and now they were too loud to ignore – or sleep through. I decided to put off facing them properly for a little bit longer while I got myself feeling halfway human again.

One too-short shower later, I was feeling slightly better. A glance out of my window established that Charlie was gone – I vaguely remembered him mentioning a fishing trip – but I moved as quietly as I could while I got dressed and fetched myself some breakfast so as not to wake my brother. I'd switched on my outdated computer before I got my food, giving it time to groan to life, and by the time I had eaten and done some time-wasting tidying up in my room, it was just about ready to go. Using the Internet was a nightmare here, especially if Beau and I were trying to get on at the same time, so I generally avoided it. Right now, I had no choice.

Closing down a plethora of irritating pop-up ads, I navigated to my preferred search engine and typed in the word that had been quietly haunting me since Jules first said it.

Vampire.

After an interminable wait, I had a lot of results to scroll through before anything promising came up. Movies, TV, makeup, music, video games – I dismissed it all one by one, until eventually I found 'Vampires A-Z'. The site was what it sounded like: an alphabetised list of vampire myths and stories from all around the world. I began clicking through the entries, at first randomly and then more systematically, mentally checking each one against what I knew about the Cullens. Speed, strength, beauty, pale skin, shifting eye colour... I mixed in the elements from Jules' story, namely blood-drinking, immortal, cold and enemies of werewolves. To my surprise and disappointment, few of the stories met even one of the criteria. Most stories were about ensuring people got buried properly, or warned about demonic incursions, beautiful seductresses and the untimely deaths of innocent children – superstitions and excuses for prevalent infant mortality or infidelity. Hardly any of the creatures described even drank blood or had any connection with it whatsoever.

Of the few that did catch my attention, one was particularly striking.

Stregoni benefici: An Italian vampire, said to be on the side of goodness, and a mortal enemy of all evil vampires.

That was all that was written in the entry, but it was something of a comfort to find that one tiny shred of evidence that perhaps a good vampire did exist.

For the most part, though, the site seemed to debunk my latest theory more than it confirmed it. A lot of the common threads between the stories weren't backed up by anything I had seen so far. Crucially, there was one aspect of vampires that almost every myth agreed on – they were nocturnal. Some were spirits who only rose at night, some used the cover of darkness for their nefarious deeds, but most stories – not to mention the few books and movies I could think of – agreed that sunlight was deadly to vampires. I didn't think that even Forks' cloud cover was enough to combat UV death rays. Frustrated, I shut off my computer abruptly. I was being completely ridiculous, getting swept up in stupid stories and mad speculation. I felt the sudden need to be out of the house, away from the whole sopping wet town with its weird alien greenness that made this stuff seem even slightly plausible. But there was no way for me to get away that wouldn't involve days of driving and essentially stealing my brother's car, so I would have to settle for a walk.

I yanked my boots back on and marched down the stairs, intent on the backdoor though I diverted to the front hall for my jacket out of habit. Unfortunately, my preoccupation with all things vampiric had made me forget that I wasn't currently alone in the house, and I made just a touch too much noise. As I approached the back of the house, the door to Beau's room opened and my brother's bleary-eyed head emerged.

"Bell?" he mumbled, seeming still half asleep. "Whatcha doing?"

"Just going for a walk," I tried to reassure him. "I can't sleep, I think I need some fresh air. Go back to bed, I'm fine."

Beau shook his head, both denial and attempt to make it clearer. "Hold on a minute, I'll come with you." He held up a hand to silence my protests. "You shouldn't just go wandering around on your own, sis. At the risk of turning into Charlie, it's not always safe. Two seconds while I throw on some clothes, okay? Grab my coat for me?"

I conceded with poor grace, about-facing to collect his jacket. But, true to his word, he was dressed and ready to go by the time I got back, though still yawning.

"Come on, if it's too many thoughts keeping you up, I know a great place for thinking." As so often happened, he'd hit the nail on the head in his assessment of what I was looking for. He led the way across our back lawn and onto the slim trail that led roughly east away from the house. We hadn't gone far, less than five minutes, when he turned off the path, disappearing completely for the two steps it took me to catch up with him. It wasn't quite a clearing, just a bubble of space created by a fallen tree that was now moss-covered and provided a nice little seat. Almost like a restaurant booth but made of forest. Beau sat and patted the patch of green beside him; when I sat down, I could tell at once that we were completely hidden from anyone passing on the trail. I closed my eyes and leaned back against the living tree behind the wide trunk. The weak early morning sun struggled to penetrate through the thick canopy, and I turned my face up to catch the ghosts of warmth it offered. When I opened my eyes again, the dappled light was enchanting. The forest felt like another world, a world of magic, a world where things that had seemed ridiculous in my staid little bedroom suddenly seemed entirely possible.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Beau said softly, breaking my reverie. I knew saying it all out loud would only confirm the craziness of the theory I'd formulated, but I had the sudden burning urge – no, the need, to share my suspicions with my twin, my closest confidante in the world.

"Do you ever..." I started slowly, trying to find just the right words. "... wonder about the Cullens?"

I felt Beau sit up a little straighter on the log. "What about them?"

"Everything." I shrugged, struggling to stay noncommittal. "How beautiful they all are, how much they seem to have in common, even when they aren't blood relatives." I continued, raising a hand to start ticking off fingers. "How they keep to themselves, how they make people uncomfortable, how they sometimes talk like they're from another time. The way they move, the colour of their eyes, how it keeps changing. They never eat lunch, they never get sick, they appear out of nowhere." I'd run out of fingers, and Beau hadn't said a word. I found I wanted him to understand, so I pulled out the big one. The strangest sense of guilt gnawed at my insides, the feeling that I was betraying the promise I'd made to Edward. But I'd promised Beau, no secrets.

"Edward didn't just push me out of the way of Tyler's van," I said, barely more than a whisper, blending into the hush of the forest. "He stopped it. Just reached out and grabbed it, with his bare hands. And he held it up out of the way, so it didn't crush my legs." I shook my head; it was like the hospital confrontation with Edward all over again. "I know it's completely bonkers but... Beau, I don't think they're human. He isn't, at any rate. And they're all so alike, even the doctor... it has to be all of them."

He was silent so long I wondered whether he had heard me. Then, in a whisper as soft as mine...

"What do you think they are?"

My head whipped round to look at him. I'd expected laughter, flat denial, maybe concern for his clearly loopy sister. But Beau was deadly serious.

"Jules..." I swallowed hard. "Jules told me a story yesterday, and not all of it makes sense... but it's the only thing that comes close. She called them Cold Ones..." I braced for his reaction to the next word. "Vampires."

Again, there was no laughter, no protest, nothing I expected. He closed his eyes, and his expression battled between relief and disappointment.

"I'm right." I didn't have to ask. "I'm right... and you already knew."

His eyes popped open and the guilt in their blue depths was immediately clear. "Bella, I-"

"You knew," I cut him off, accusatory. I stood up, looming over him for once. "You knew and you didn't tell me, when you have to know... you have to see... how I..."

I trailed off, quickly losing steam, unable to build the wave of anger I wanted to unleash. It felt wrong, treacherous again somehow, to voice the next part to Beau first. Before I told him.

"I thought we didn't keep secrets from each other." I finished in a sad little whisper.

"We don't," he insisted, standing so we were toe to toe. "But, Bella, you have to understand, it's not my secret to tell. There's people, if they knew that I know, that we know, they'd come after us, after the family." He squared his shoulders, determination in his eyes now. "I have to protect Edythe."

"From me?" I countered. "You think I don't want to keep her safe too? That I don't care about her too? Or am I just too fragile to handle the truth?"

"No, no, that's not it." He sighed, frustrated, and ran a hand through his hair, making it stand up at odd angles. "I'm not explaining this right. Come on."

He moved around me back on to the trail and grabbed my hand, towing me back towards the house. I tried to dig my heels in but that just made me stumble and I didn't want to risk pulling both of us over.

"Beau!" I protested instead. "We aren't done talking about this!"

"I know," he assured me, barely glancing back. "But I need help."

"Help? What-" I started to ask, but he just shushed me as we reached the back door. He hustled me inside and through his bedroom door, closing both firmly behind us.

I hadn't been in Beau's room for a while, but it was pretty much a mirror of mine. He had plain blue walls, a Seattle Mariners pennant the sole decoration, with the stripe of purple under the window. There was the small bed, the desk, his own aged computer, and a scattering of small framed pictures; I couldn't see them clearly but there was a flash of bronze in one that had to be Edythe. He had a slightly smaller wardrobe than me, and in the corner was a squishy blue beanbag in place of the rocking chair I had upstairs.

I turned back to face him. "Okay, now what?"

He ignored me, his eyes scanning the room. "You can come out, she knows."

"Beau, you have officially stopped making sense," I said, completely perplexed.

"Good morning, Bella," a soft female voice spoke up from behind me.

I whirled around, my heart skipping a beat. Edythe was perched calmly on the corner of my brother's bed, as if she had always been there. Her expression was pleasant and calm, just a hint of tension around her eyes.

"How… Where…" I spluttered, still trying to catch up with what was happening.

"Hiding in the closet, probably. She's been here all night," Beau answered my half-formed questions, moving around me to sit beside Edythe. "She's here almost every night, actually. And before you ask, nothing inappropriate happened. Fully clothed cuddling only."

I wrinkled my nose and shook my head hard. "Ew, Beau! There are some things a girl doesn't need to hear about her brother."

"Agreed," Edythe piped up, and helpfully changed the subject. "So, you've finally figured it out. We were wondering how much longer it would be."

"Who wins the pot?" Beau asked, grinning slightly. "Alice?"

"Of course. Although I think Ellie was close. I'm a little annoyed, I was sure Edward would tell her himself." She saw my frown and explained. "I'm sorry, Bella, my siblings and I have an awful gambling habit. We had a wager going on how long it would take you to discover the truth. I hope you will forgive us for trivialising something so monumental."

I blinked, struggling to keep up with the conversation. "It's… okay, I think. I'm very confused."

Edythe nodded sagely. "Understandable. I'm sure you have a lot of questions. Please, ask me anything you would like to know."

There were too many questions; it was hard to prioritise, my brain still circling around the fact that an idea I had been dismissing not half an hour earlier was in fact the truth. Eventually, I settled on one. But it was for my brother.

"How did you find out?" I asked him. "Did Edythe tell you or..."

Beau shook his head. "No, she didn't. It was kind of the same as you, to be honest. When Bonnie Black found out I'd been on a date with a Cullen, she kicked off big time, trying to get Charlie to forbid us from seeing each other. I didn't understand what was going on, and when I tried to talk to Bonnie, she just said that they were a dangerous family. Eventually I pestered Jules about it so much that she caved and told me the legends. Cue a few days of mild panic..." He smiled at Edythe and she gazed indulgently back. "... before I asked Edythe on another date and confronted her with what I knew."

"He was very calm," Edythe chimed in. "Remarkably so, in fact, given what he had discovered. I already knew that he knew, but I couldn't imagine why he wanted to talk to me. I was very surprised to be told that his feelings about me hadn't changed, and that he simply wanted to hear things from my side rather than taking the word of the Quileutes."

That led me to another question, but one I thought I might know the answer to already. "Jules mentioned something about a mind reader... is that you, or someone else?"

Edythe shook her head. "No, that's Edward. And it's less reading minds and more hearing thoughts, a second sense of hearing, as he calls it. To him, it's as if everyone is always talking, all at once."

I cringed. "Sounds annoying."

She laughed, the sound ringing like a bell. "Yes, well, perhaps that explains his consistently sour mood. He does say he's able to tune it out most of the time, he's certainly had enough practice."

I thought about asking how long he'd been practicing, then thought better of it and chose another question. "Is that... normal? I mean, you said you can't do it, but other people..."

She wobbled her head from side to side. "Yes and no. There are a scattering of other telepaths of various descriptions around the world, and many other special powers too, but not everyone has one. Carine has a theory that every one of us has a particular prominent trait that is enhanced by the transformation process. For some, that means a strong aptitude or physical characteristic, but for some it manifests as a tangible supernatural ability, which we call a gift or a talent. We have quite a few in our family, actually."

I was beginning to feel awkward standing in the middle of the room and getting the impression this was going to be a long conversation, so I crossed to the desk chair and sat down. It had the handy side-effect of letting me collect my thoughts before I asked the obvious follow up question.

"Will you tell me about them?"

"Of course." Edythe was smiling softly, invitingly, no hint of judgement in her eyes. I understood that she really would tell me whatever I wanted to know, without hesitation. My brother, on the other hand, looked a little nervous, like he was worrying about my reaction. At first, I thought Edythe was ignoring this, but then I spotted her thumb rubbing soothingly back and forth over the side of his hand where she held it in her lap.

"As a family, we're a fifty-fifty split between quote-unquote normal vampires and gifted ones," she began. "Carine's... enhancement, for lack of a better word, is her compassion. Earnest's is his ability to love unconditionally, Rosalie's, her beauty, and Eleanor's, her strength. Edward was always very intuitive, even as a human, which manifested as his gift. Likewise, Jasper was very charismatic in his past life, and now has the ability to sense and exert a subtle but distinct influence over the emotions of those around him."

"Like, making people happy when they're sad?" I asked.

"Potentially," she replied, tipping her head a little. "Usually he uses it to calm down people who are agitated, but he has a few other tricks up his sleeve. Alice, now she's an interesting one."

"How so?"

"She's psychic," Beau chipped in, looking a little more comfortable and obviously feeling left out of the conversation.

Edythe rolled her eyes and patted his hand. "Clairvoyant would be a better word, my love. Alice sees things that may come to pass, in both the near and distant future. She spends most of her life two steps ahead of everyone else, and she can search the future for specific outcomes, but every now and then she has visions, spontaneous images that come to her on their own."

I frowned. "What kind of trait gave her that ability?"

"That's the big mystery, I'm afraid," Edythe said with a small sigh. "Our best bet is that it's something she could always do, to an extent, but she doesn't know for sure. Generally, our memories of our time as humans fade away gradually after we change. Alice is unique, as far as we've found, in that she doesn't remember being human at all. Her first recollection is waking up alone in a forest, with no idea of who or what she was. She would most likely have gone completely feral, had she not had visions of Jasper and the rest of us, and known we would all be together one day."

That brought up an interesting question. "Did she see me coming?"

Edythe smiled. "Something like that. She sees a lot of possibilities at the moment, lots of different ways that things could go. So much of the future is based on decisions, and too many people are undecided right now for her to see anything with certainty."

"I suppose that makes sense," I mused. I was definitely feeling confused about the future, though perhaps a little less so than when I first woke up. "And you? You said half the family was talented, so you are too, right?"

"Yes, I am. My gift is something like my brother's, I suppose. More specific in some ways, broader in others. When I was human, I was what you might call a people pleaser. I always had an innate sense of what people wanted from me, and more often than not, I wanted to give it to them. Now I can sense a person's inner desires, simply by looking at their face."

"Their desires?" I fidgeted a little uncomfortably.

"Yes. A quick glance will give me surface details, what they want for lunch, how they plan to spend their evening, the grade they're hoping to get on an assignment. The longer I look, the further I see – romantic interest, long term goals, pie-in-the-sky dreams for their future. I'll admit, it's a fascinating way to see the world." She gave me a knowing smile. "I suppose you're curious to know what I sense from you."

I felt my cheeks start turning pink. "I mean... maybe?"

Edythe chuckled. "Don't worry, you have nothing to fear. Believe me, I've seen it all at this point. Nothing you could want could possibly shock me. But it's a moot point, regardless – I can't sense anything from you at all."

That startled me a little. "Really, nothing?"

"Nothing," she confirmed. "My brother can't hear your thoughts either. He finds it mildly infuriating."

A few confusing moments and comments suddenly made more sense. "He said I was difficult to read."

"Quite so. He relies so much on that gift, having it not work was extremely disconcerting for him."

I took a moment of quiet, processing everything that I had heard so far. It was... a lot, to say the least. But I felt like maybe I was beginning to have fewer questions than answers.

"Was that all you wanted to know?" Edythe prompted. "No more questions?"

"Oh, believe me, I have more," I assured her. "But... does it make sense when I say I need to hear some of the answers from Edward?"

She nodded, as did Beau. "Completely. However, there is one that I'm surprised you haven't asked yet."

"Really?"

She hummed. "Our diet? You aren't at all curious?"

"Oh, right. That," I winced slightly. "Jules said you didn't... feed from people."

Edythe's bell-like chuckle was incredulous. "So blasé! I really can't believe how calm you are."

I shrugged. "I figured if you were really dangerous, Beau wouldn't still be here. Or he wouldn't be with you anymore, at least. He's not that stupid."

"Thanks so much, sister dear," Beau griped. "You aren't afraid I've been bewitched by her mysterious vampire powers?"

He wiggled his fingers at me, then drifted them over into Edythe's face. She batted his hand away gently and rolled her eyes at him.

"Oh, you're bewitched alright," I said with a smirk. "But it's got nothing to do with what she is and everything to do with who she is."

Of this, I was supremely confident. Beau might have originally been drawn to the otherworldly beauty of his girlfriend, just like everybody else. But after months of observation, I knew that their bond was more than that. They had a fundamental understanding of each other that transcended all differences – including species, apparently.

Beau, as usual, knew exactly what I was talking about. "Fair point. So, that's it? No more questions for us?"

I thought about everything I still wanted to know, but it was all either trite nothings or things I really needed Edward to tell me. "No, that's it."

"Are you sure?" Edythe was beginning to look concerned now. "There has to be a story you've heard, or a concern you have..."

Of course, I had more concerns, but at this point they weren't really vampire related. If my brother and I had been alone, I might have voiced some of them, but I didn't feel like Edythe and I were quite close enough yet for me to ask her, even if there was a good chance she knew the answer. Still, she looked so intent that I felt the need to ask her something, purely as a courtesy.

"Um... do you sleep in a coffin?"

Beau fell about laughing, collapsing back onto his bed. I swung my foot out to kick him, but he was just a little too far away; I barely caught the toe of his boot.

Edythe, for her part, only smiled. "No, that's a myth. We don't sleep at all."

"Ever?" I was surprised by that.

"Ever," she confirmed. "We keep to a loose day-night schedule because it makes sense for our lifestyle, but the night is more a time for privacy and personal pursuits."

I nodded. "That makes sense. Okay, that's it, at least for now."

"Let me ask you just one thing," Beau said, sitting up, serious as a heart attack now. "Does it matter?"

"Matter?" I echoed.

"Does it change anything, knowing what he is? Does it change how you feel?"

I gave the question all the careful consideration it deserved. And yet, it only took a moment for me to recognise that the anxiety of separation, the prickle of tension that had been background noise since I had last seen him, hadn't faded away. I wasn't any less eager to see him tomorrow. I didn't ache any less for his voice, his eyes, his bizarre mood swings. I was the sort of person who agonised over decisions, but once a choice was made, I stuck by it. My choice was made now.

"No," I said at last. "No, it doesn't matter."

Edythe sighed heavily. "Oh, my brother is in so much trouble."