A/N: I know you've all been wondering where I've been a little recently, and so, here's where. I got a writing bug for this story and I haven't been able to write anything else. Hope you guys at least enjoy this, even though it's kinda different than anything I wrote before.

Extra A/N: WARNING! THIS IS AN EXTREMELY SLOW BURN. Sadly, I decided to torture myself, and so the main character is going be a pain in the butt with the whole romance thing...and everything else too.

Chapter 1

Riley Redwood always had a way of getting into and out of trouble, but even she had to admit she got in way over her head this time.

"Come on guys, can't we talk about this?" Riley asked nervously, hands held up as if she could ward off the gang of very scary looking people slowly cornering her. "No one wants to stay out in the cold rain, right?" Despite everyone's soaked state as rain continued to pelt them, not one person looked ready to nod in agreement and go home. Fuck. "I'm sure this is just one big misunderstanding." Damn it, how had they known she would go this route through Seattle? They had known just where to be to corner her, and damn did they do a good job.

"You seduced our boss, stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from her, and then tried to run away," one of the men snapped. "There ain't no misunderstanding here, girly."

"Okay, maybe not," Riley admitted sheepishly. "But maybe we can see this as a learning moment? Now Nat knows not to trust super sexy bitches like me, and I know not to go after super rich mafia bitches. So, can we all just-"

With a pretty pathetic attempt at a snarl, one of the men rushed her, yelling about how dare Riley disrespect their boss. He was swinging a pipe at her-a super cliche, honestly, but Riley figured Nat had told them to drag Riley's ass back alive-and time seemed to slow.

"For fucks sake, now I have to be all fancy and shit," Riley complained under her breath. "What a way to stay under the radar."

As the pipe swung toward her, Riley aimed and rammed her palm into the guy's wrist. The guy howled as his wrist cracked, his grip on the pipe loosening enough for Riley to easily snatch it out of his hand. The guy slid to a stop, nearly tripping over his own feet due to the slick ground. He was about to start screeching about his now limp wrist, but he didn't even have a chance before Riley swung her recently confiscated pipe right at his jaw. Just enough strength to knock him out, but not enough to kill him; she knew things would be worse for her if she accidentally killed any of the goons.

"Somebody take this sorry son of a bitch to the hospital," Riley yelled at the stunned onlookers over the rumble of thunder. The wind started to pick up, almost howling, and Riley definitely felt like a bad bitch. She twirled the pipe in her hand in a show of skill, hoping to discourage at least some from jumping her. "Now, the rest of you, come at me! It's been a while since I've had a workout outside of the bedroom." Confidence and intimidation was key in getting people to back off, Riley knew that from all of her time on the streets, and right now she was a perfect example of both. It made all of her potential assailants hesitate; it was one thing for a group to take on a girl with intent to kill; all they had to do was take out their guns and start shooting. Even Riley wouldn't be able to dodge enough bullets to come out of it alive. The problem was that Nat wanted her in one piece and living, and if Riley was killed, even by accident, they would be the ones dying next.

"Nat told us to watch out for her," one of the other grunts grumbled. "That the bitch had all kinds of tricks up her sleeves. It was Jiz's fault for rushing her like that."

"Jizz?" Riley asked in disbelief. "What the fuck kind of nickname is Jizz? God damn, right when I think the guy can't get anymore pathetic, you guys have to go and call a guy Jizz?"

"It's spelled with only one z!" one of the random, more pathetic looking guys protested in a squeaky voice. Like only having one z would make everything better. "Jiz thinks it's cool."

"Well Jiz is a goddamn moron-"

"Enough!" one guy, bigger than the rest, boomed. Riley recognized him as one of the big underbosses that acted as one of Nat's many right hands. "Either we bring this bitch to Nat, or we're all on the boss's shit list. Now, which is it gonna be, you fuckers?"

Ah, shit. Riley might've been a scary sight to them, but Nat was a thousand times scarier. All of the once hesitant goons found their backbones, and they started to inch toward Riley with more confidence. Twenty something guys against one girl? There was no way Riley would be able to get away from them all in such an inclosed space. Not to mention the rain was already making it hard to see.

"Fine then," Riley muttered, realizing she wasn't going to be able to scare them into backing down. Holding the pipe high above her head, pointed at the sky in a super badass last stand pose like Riley had always dreamed of, Riley shouted, "Come at me, you sorry sons of bitches!" Above her, thunder rumbled, and Riley had never felt so fucking cool.

That was, of course, the moment lightning struck the pipe, struck Riley. Excruciating pain overtook her, and as she screamed, everything faded to white.

"What the fuck?" Riley gasped, eyes flying open. She was in pain, everything hurt, but her old "prepare for a shit show at any moment" instincts kicked in. Riley tried to flip to her feet, but her aching body had other ideas, and instead her arms stopped working the second she tried to put her body's weight on it. She fell on her side in a muddy puddle, flopping around like a dying fish.

Thank god no one saw her in that state. It would've ruined any street cred she had and then some. Since flipping like a badass wouldn't work, she struggled to her feet and looked around, ready for the worst. Yet Nat wasn't in sight, none of her goons were in sight...in fact, Riley was alone in a forest filled with…trees. Trees and grass and plants.

Of course a forest is filled with plants, you dumbass, Riley scolded herself, shaking her head in disgust. Shit, bad idea; now everything was spinning, and she was seconds away from falling on her face. Luckily for her, a tree was a lot closer to her than she realized, so instead of a face plant, she managed to catch herself on the tree-with her face-instead.

"We really need to work on how you support random bitches about to fall on their ass," Riley told the tree, patting its trunk only to wince as pain jolted through her palm. Ouch, fuck, okay no talking bad about trees.

Riley looked at her palm with a grimace, and her eyes widened as she saw the mark on her palm. There was a leafy looking pattern, seeming to be thickest in the center of her palm before branching out all the way to the tips of her fingers. The mark was red and angry, growing worse the longer Riley looked at it.

Shit. Riley really had been struck by lightning, and she survived no less. Now she was...here...did lightning transport people? Riley could've sworn that was more hurricane and tornado territory, but how else would she have ended up in a fucking forest? After what she had done, there was no way Nat would have just dropped her off in a forest, and none of her goons would either. At the very least they would have buried her alive.

Slowly, Riley registered how her body was tingling and shaking. Adrenaline rush? Realization that she survived a potentially life ending event? Riley didn't care why she was shaking, only that it was a sign of weakness. Weakness meant getting taken advantage of, meant possibly dying, and like hell would Riley let herself show weakness. It was one of the things Sasha had taught her, back before her adoptive sister's early demise.

Thinking of Sasha always caused Riley to feel more emotional, more angry, and it was that anger that allowed Riley to center herself. "You never know what can happen out there. The world is cruel. They don't give a fuck about the homeless people on the street, whether they be teens or kids. Something happens to you? People will turn a blind eye. Don't expect help. Always assume you're on your own. It's up to you to survive, up to you to fight. Don't show your weakness or you're screwed."

No weakness, Riley told herself one last time as she closed her eyes. She took a deep breath, and once she knew she would be nothing but a bad ass bitch again, Riley opened her eyes.

"What the fuck?" was all Riley could mutter at the scene before her. Well, not really before her; it was definitely yards away, so far away Riley shouldn't have been able to make it out, but instead, she could see everything clearly.

A black man with dreads and wide red eyes, clearly terrified and running for his life at a speed humans shouldn't be able to run. Behind him? A shit ton of giant wolves, lips lifted in snarls, clearly intent on catching the man and ripping him to shreds. Riley watched with wide eyes, stunned at the sight-hallucination?-that had just played out in front of her. Suddenly, an old memory hit her.

"Why do you read those books, Sasha? They're stupid," a younger Riley grumbled as she glared at the book in Sasha's hands.

"I don't know," Sasha murmured thoughtfully, almost to herself. "I just feel drawn to them for some reason."

Riley scowled. She had read through those books to see what the big deal was, and really couldn't understand why Sasha read them over and over. "Why? Is it because there's characters with our names in it?" Riley asked, unable to hold back her distaste.

"Maybe." Sasha tapped her chin thoughtfully before putting down the well worn Breaking Dawn book.

"But why?" Riley hated the way her voice cracked, how whiny she sounded. "The books are just using our names, the characters are nothing like us! You would never risk your family for some immortal child bullshit, and I would never…" Riley gagged at how much of a pathetic tool the Riley of those books were. Unable to come up with a proper explanation over how much she hated the character's actions, Riley simply blurted, "I'm not even a man!"

Sasha's laughter was such a surprise, Riley was momentarily blindsided, her anger abating. "Yes, I'm aware," Sasha said, eyes dancing with mirth. Her smile turned a little sad as she stared down at the books. "But there's more similarities in the book than you realize."

"Oh yeah? Like what?" Riley asked hotly.

"Like my desire for a normal family," Sasha said softly. Her eyes held Riley's, strangely serious. "Your unquestioning loyalty. The blind faith you put into those you finally trust. Your willingness to do anything for those you care about." Riley didn't even try to hide her grimace, so Sasha added lightly, "And your love for beautiful women."

At being called out, Riley blushed a bright red. "I only like blondes!" she protested, trying to put some more distance between her and the Riley character.

Sasha arched her eyebrows, twirling her golden hair between her fingers. "So are you telling me I'm in your strike zone?"

"Ew!" Riley almost threw up at the thought. "Ew ew ew! You're like my sister!" As Sasha started laughing at Riley's expense, Riley gave one last glare at the books. Fuck Twilight, Riley was never going to have anything to do with that stupid book universe again.

The wolves caught the man, and the man's screams were drowned out by the snarls as they ripped him apart. Then, to Riley's amazement, one of the wolves turned into a very naked boy. Kindling was gathered by the wolves, along with the body parts. The boy ran off, returning with a lighter, and they set the pieces of man on fire.

There was no way in hell Riley could deny what was happening in front of her.

This was some Twilight shit.

Tearing her eyes from the scene of the wolves and dude standing around the fire, Riley hid behind the tree despite her current state of shock. She had really just witnessed a scene straight out of that Twilight book. Sometimes her near photographic memory was a blessing, sometimes it was a curse, and right now Riley had no clue which it was. On one hand, she knew exactly what was happening if she really was going through the Twilight universe. On the other hand, there's no way in natural hell that this was reality, which meant Riley was probably losing her mind.

Fucking lightning, screwing up her above average brain…

To make matters worse, her body was aching, the cold weather was starting to sink into her bones, and Riley felt ready to collapse again. Obviously Riley didn't want to collapse in the middle of the forest, she knew just what could happen to an unconscious girl in the middle of nowhere, but how was she going to get to somewhere safe when she had no idea where she was?

The wolves...they were meant to be protectors of humans, right? Riley really didn't want to take the risk, but she knew she didn't have a choice. Already, it was getting harder to stand, her body felt like it was turning to jelly, and her head started to pound. Who knew what else lived in this forest, what else might decide she'd be a tasty snack.

Damn it. This was definitely going to be a one time thing.

"Someone?" Riley called at the top of her lungs. "Anyone out here? I need some-" Riley didn't even manage to finish her sentence before darkness overtook her. She fell, expecting to land face first in the dirt, only for strong arms to catch her.

This savior bitch better not kill me, Riley thought before slipping into unconsciousness.