They arrived at the shallow river late.

Not Lizabel's fault. Charlie had a responsibility at the station and she waited for him to finish, despite going in different vehicles. On the way there, the gray and brown of buildings faded away to the thick green forestry of the natural land. Lizabel could probably hide in those woods for the rest of her life.

Harry Clearwater was already wading in the river, at a head start for fly fishing. As typical, he also dragged his two children to the event. However, another person was also there. Jacob Black, looking like a thirteen year old, stood next to Seth, who was the actual thirteen year old. Leah, tall, thin in the athletic way, and extremely pretty, was off to the side, either texting or habitually flipping open her phone to check her messages.

"Hey, Charlie. Bella," came Harry's gruff voice.

Greetings went around, ranging from Seth and Jacob's energetic "Hi' to Leah's disinterested '...yeah' when acknowledged. They set up with fishing rods and smalltalk. Besides Billy, the most recent point of change had been Lizabel's moving.

"What's the high school like?" Jacob asked, getting into his waders.

Lizabel paused, trying to formulate an affable response, but only had one answer. "White, average education, everyone gossips."

"Except for the white part, it sounds a lot like our school," was Leah's sardonic response.

Harry and Charlie had what they called their 'man time' together: concentrated on their task, no talking, standing fifty feet away. Jacob and Seth were opposite if that in nearly every way. They stood nearly shoulder to shoulder, talking loudly, and disturbing the water with their play fighting to such an extent that the actual adults had to move farther down the river.

Technically a legal adult, Leah was never one for fishing. She sat in a green foldable camping chair, occasionally looking up from her phone whenever Seth made too loud a noise. Lizabel sat on one of the coolers, getting used to the ambience. She didn't have a friendship with Leah, but Lizabel's personality was mild mannered enough that a pleasant conversation wasn't uncommon when she visited.

Between them, no one talked, however. Just as it had been last year when Leah's problems with Sam Uley had been fresh. Lizabel was fine with silence, usually when she was actually doing something though. She couldn't hike out too far from their location, was expressly forbidden from climbing trees, and had forgotten her CD player at home. Fishing was tolerable in the summer, but in early spring the water was cold and Lizabel didn't feel like a reintroduction to hypothermia.

Leah sighed, and rolled her head lazily to her left, where Lizabel was. Apparently, the texting buddy wasn't texting back.

"What's with you?" she asked in a blunt, albeit not malicious, tone.

Lizabel kicked a stray rock. "Surviving as always."

"That's not what I heard."

"Forks gossip travels all the way to the rez?"

Shifting her slouched form the other way so that she got an open view of Lizabel, she said, "It does with a landline and busybody dads. Charlie was complaining to dad about how he thinks he gave you anxiety."

"Oh my god," Lizabel said, loud enough that Seth and Jacob looked up from far away. She lowered her volume. "Why is everyone still on about that? Let me rest for a week before people call the ambulance."

"They aren't talking about me if they're talking about you," said Leah with a self-deprecating grin.

Stretching her legs, Lizabel shifted on her cold, plastic seat. "First loves aren't last loves. Everyone knows Sam couldn't match you anyways." She paused. "He's also ugly as shit."

Leah laughed, throaty and mean-spirited. "Have you even met him beyond introductions? Mhm, it doesn't matter." She leaned in close to Lizabel, hot breath ghosting the side of her face. "People still talk about him and say he's struggling, which helps keep my head held high."

Probably not the best coping mechanism, but people have survived on anger for many years. Seth and Jacob approached them, shirts wet from when they were flicking water at each other.

"There's no fish here," said Jacob as he retied up his long hair. "It's completely out of season."

"You guys were literally screaming so loud the birds flew away," Leah said.

Seth rolled his eyes. "I thought the magnetic pull of our charisma would attract the fish."

"You would need some charisma to make it work," replied Leah instantly with a smirk on her lips.

Jacob walked closer to Lizabel. "Hey, Bella. How's it been?"

"It's been as it's been," she said, her tone mild.

Jacob Black, very friendly, liked to initiate small talk and then fail at holding the conversation when Lizabel wouldn't hold up her end. She didn't do it out of enmity. It was just that time hadn't yet given him the maturity or experiences to be interesting.

"Not fishing today?"

Lizabel smiled. "I think you and Seth did enough of that."

Scowling, he replied, "Not like we caught anything." Just as quick, his features smoothed out to something more genial. "You're pretty good at it, though. Can you teach us?"

'It' meant hand fishing- something which that particular river had perfect conditions for. At least in summer.

"Isn't it possible for you? Just be patient." Lizabel really didn't want to imagine how icy the water was.

Jacob shifted, looking away. "You're very good at it." If he were a dog, his ears and tail would be down.

She got up. "Fine. But if I get hypothermia I'm blaming it on you."

As they walked away, Leah made a short comment in the tribe's native language. Seth made a sound of discontent and responded back. Jacob hunched his shoulders and walked faster.

The river had plenty of fish, so they walked around to find a deep, slow-moving water flow near the bank. While Jacob was dressed for wading, Lizabel wasn't. She removed her jacket, revealing a black Muse t-shirt. Laying down with her forearm in the water, Lizabel felt first her fingers freeze, then her hand, and the cold continued to travel up her arm.

She twitched her pointer finger to mimic a worm and watched in the muddy water river as various fish reacted to the motion. Now would usually be the time for talking, for waiting, but Lizabel was on a time limit and entirely focused on the task. Jacob seemed to understand that and stayed silent. Or maybe he simply couldn't think of a suitable conversation topic.

Thirty seconds before the internal timer she set would force her arm up from the water or risk damaging it, a trout came close enough for her to get her fingers under the gills, grabbing firm to the cartilage and bone. Lizabel brought it up, out of the water, and tossed it off near the trees. She shook her hand and held it close to her stomach.

"Christ, that's cold."

"Wow, great catch!" Jacob seemed torn between retrieving the fish and staying to watch Lizabel try to restore some life back into her arm.

Slowly, her appendage was starting to warm back up. Unfortunately, most of her body was already too cold to do much. Lizabel stretched out her arm to Jacob.

"Are your hands warm? Help me heat it up."

After some hesitation, his dark hands met her skin, the difference in temperature stark enough to slightly hurt. Jacob could have stayed still, but he started rubbing the forearm quickly as if to start a campfire. More likely to give her a friction burn.

"Umm, your skin is really soft."

Lizabel raised her eyes to the sky in exasperation. Teenage boys.

"I hope you learned enough, because that was your entire lesson."

North of Sappho on Highway 113 were numerous mountain ridges, cut along by rivers and a wide lake. The way they undulated reminded Lizabel of broken off granite and moss. Air was different there, so crisp it nearly cracked her lungs when she breathed in. The deep green of the trees invited her in deeper. And so she hiked farther, higher than she should have. Lizabel had enough equipment for staying overnight, even though she planned to be back at her truck before six. Planned to go to school the next day. She checked the watch on her rucksack: 13:40. It was just enough time to get back.

Still, she lingered. If Lizabel went north long enough, she would find the Salish Sea and Canada on the other side. Ignoring borders and governments, all she had to do was walk.

It had been lightly snowing since noon, a rare occurrence considering the low altitude. Ground level was going to be just as cold in a few days. The white dusting across the landscape gave off a pure, untouchable feel. Lizabel was the only person there for miles.

Out in solitude and the earth, she could imagine she were in a different world, a different reality. One where concrete jungles decayed and flora intruded any which way it pleased. Where anyone could pick a spot and set down their roots as long as they could defend themselves.

It wasn't a good reality. Wasn't safe or nice or peaceful. Lizabel didn't know why she missed it. The people she knew there were gone, as good as permanently dead just like she was to them. Death and re-death were facts of life. There was no sadness at the severed connection.

And yet.

Lizabel hadn't realized it then, hadn't been philosophical enough to think about it, but she had walked the thin line between life and death like it was the only path for her. Not just from being in life-or-death situations, or knowing that her death could lead to a walking corpse causing the death of others. Staring mortality in the face had been the defining part of Lizabel's world and soul.

Both were ripped away from her when Isabella Swan was born.

Lizabel blinked away the thought, too dark for her to linger on. She stood up from her seat on the ground and admired the view once again- at the edge of a cliff. If Charlie were here, he would tell her to back away. He liked to caution her against thousands of things Lizabel had done thousands of times. Not everything, though. Looking concerned but not prohibitive, Charlie merely ordered her to borrow his cellphone when Lizabel told him she was going hiking.

She walked along the edge, feeling a thrill in her bones at the open air to one side of her. This feeling would likely be the closest-

falling.

.

.

.

Lizabel's hands scrambled along the jagged walls, desperately looking for a hold. Surface skin broke to open up blood. A few feet down, the upper portion of her body hit a small overhang. Which knocked the wind out of her. And the velocity of her lower half dragged her down until it was just her hands on cold rock preventing a very long way down.

Hanging there, very much aware of the dwindling strength in her arms, Lizabel took stock of the situation.

She looked down- it wasn't a sheer drop. There was a slight hill after three meters, after which was around six meters of steep slope before flat ground. Vegetation surely soft and cushy covered the area. Snow was fluffy, right? Add a tally to the 'probably survivable' category of the current situation.

Dropping would still mean broken something. Hopefully arms or a single leg. Spinal injuries to paralyze her from walking down the mountain alone would not be ideal. Lizabel had a mobile phone. Shame there was never service in the woods. One tally to 'survivable', one tally to 'uh oh'.

Lizabel could do a pullup. Could do at least two pullups with the adrenaline coursing through her right now. Now, could she lift herself up with the added weight of her rucksack and a terrible grip? She tried. Unused muscles straining, she got five inches before having to gently lower herself back down. Another one to 'uh oh'.

Her left foot found a ledge in the cliff to partially rest on! It broke off the second she put weight on it. Okay, none of that counted.

Charlie knew where she was. Lizabel had even used an extra map to draw out her exact route and given it to him. If she died, he would likely find her animal-eaten, half-frozen body. She had heard mothers and fathers keen over children they thought would outlive them. It destroyed them so much worse than a gun or infection ever could. Tally towards 'survive'?

More points towards survival than not. If Lizabel dropped right now then she would retain energy that would have been lost if she waited for the strain in her arms to force the fall. She closed her eyes. Snow is supposed to be soft. Let loose her hands.

falling.

Something was holding onto her rucksack. Her armpits ached from the weight of her entire body being pulled down by gravity while her backpack pulled her up. Without thinking, Lizabel reached up to grab at the thing grabbing onto her. Firm steel wrapped in cloth. Her arms nearly slipped out of her straps and a claw dug thin, dull attachments into right arm.

Lizabel opened her eyes. Gray-brown of the cliff blurred to be replaced by brown-brown of steady ground hitting her knees, being dragged across away from the cliff edge. And the black of polyester trousers. Legs. A person. Based on the reaction of her quickly relaxing body, Lizabel had a sense of the type of person she was kneeling in front of.

Edward Cullen from biology still had his hand on the top of her rucksack, on her arm (Lizabel was grabbing his arm too).

Staring at his wild, shocked face, an idea came to her that he was her savior. But Edward was looking like he was going to claw at her until her guts were hanging like Christmas lights. So maybe just a very pretty devil off to send Lizabel to hell.

"Are-" Edward stopped.

Are you okay? Obviously. He was responsible for her current state.

"Bandages," he forced out and released his grip on her. Yanking her arm away harshly to break her own hold over him, Edward stepped five feet back within a heartbeat. He turned his head to the side and then looked back at her. "Do you have them- bandages?"

Clarity was touching her stunned brain like seaweed wrapping around legs swimming in a lake. Lizabel gave the smallest of nods, removed her rucksack. Just as it was free from her shoulders, Edward snatched it from her. He opened the lid, pulled out everything inside it (sleeping bag, clothing) and, when he didn't see any medical supplies, went over to the next pocket to do the same thing. Her entire bag was empty by the time he threw her the gauze. Next, water bottle and first-aid cream.

He could have just started with the front pocket. Better yet, Lizabel could have easily retrieved the items she packed herself. It was over dramatic- her hands covered in blood, dirt, and half-detached skin. Edward was treating it like life-or-death. He had some of her blood on his sleeve when she grabbed it. Amazing that he wasn't taking his shirt off and burning it right then and there.

Lizabel cleaned off the wounds with water. The bleeding was slowing down, especially with her steady heart rate. She put on Polysporin and then the gauze, which was a little over-reactionary and a lot hard to do with both to her hands, but it was managed. Throughout the procedure, Edward paced a slow circle around her. So slow, considering how fast she knew he could be. It was nothing but the gait of a predator.

Glancing around, Lizabel spotted the items to the far left of her. "Gloves."

A second later, the fingerless climbing gloves were thrown at her. She put them on. Looking up revealed Edward, standing close but at least not on top of her, seemingly alert and cautious. As if the previous five minutes hadn't been him causing all the commotion.

"You're surprised at my presence here," Edward said, voice too smooth and words too minimal to be anything but a bad joke.

Between their last meeting and their current meeting, Lizabel had run out of fucks to give. A cold-bloodedness took over her; she said what was on her mind.

"I'm surprised you decided to save me," she replied, rather empty.

His perfect eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"Just a few more seconds, I could have gone splat,' Lizabel flicked open her hands in dramatic affect, "and you could have had the pleasure of licking my remains off the snow like shaved ice."

Edward stepped back. She didn't know what bothered him: the imagery or how serenely she said it.

He looked up at the sky. "I wouldn't do that."

"Yes, you didn't. You saved me from more than a bit of pain." Then, because Lizabel remembered when he was the strongest likelihood towards her death, she added, "No take backsies."

His eyes were back on hers, golden and so bright they nearly shone. It was the color dragons hoarded for centuries. "I wouldn't do that," he repeated in a slow, heavy voice.

There was the image of dripping, warm molasses in her mind. Before Lizabel could reply with 'thanks', Edward spoke quickly.

"Why did you think that I would lick- that I would want to do anything close to that sort of action?" That's not a very human thing to do, went the unsaid words.

She stared at him, because she sure as hell couldn't give a proper reply. They probably wanted to keep it a secret. Edward's alarm was overtaken by confusion as Lizabel continued to give such a calm look. It certainly wasn't the face of someone who had been caught knowing they knew a world-shattering secret. Even though her finger wasn't to a pulse, she could count the unhurried pulsing of her veins. Lizabel's brain wasn't fogged by fear as she tried to come up with an excuse; there simply wasn't a plausible way to deceive Edward from the raw fact that she knew. So she went on the offensive.

"So it's going to be like that? We dance around it and pretend we're blind?"

Hypocrite, considering she couldn't even say the word out loud, but if he pointed it out then Lizabel could drag him into a petty argument that didn't touch the heart of the matter. She stood up from the cold, snowflaked ground and he tensed, like she held his world with the weight of her knowledge.

"You know." It wasn't a question. "Since when did you know?" He answered in the next breath, quoting her words, "From the very first day. '... look like corpses'."

Edward's expression was switching between looking like he was considering something extremely disadvantageous to Lizabel (premeditated homicide) and awed at a human girl having figured out his secret so quickly.

"But you weren't afraid. Never afraid. Why?" he asked, unnaturally still and unblinking. After twenty seconds he said, "You won't reply?"

"I'm sure if I stay quiet enough, you'll explain it to me." Lizabel couldn't be as still as him. She wanted to shift, to breathe loudly, to scratch her nose. But everything she did was going to be examined by Edward under a microscope and weighted against the value of her life.

She waited another thirty seconds (for what?). The walk up to her was slow and with the crunching of sticks and foliage, Lizabel realized she hadn't heard his footsteps at all when he circled her before. She tilted her head slightly to keep up with his gaze.

Eventually, he answered with words said so delicately it was a wonder they didn't break under the strain of importance within them. "Because you know I won't kill you."

Well, fuck, Lizabel didn't know that until the very second. Tension in the air that had been building like ozone dropped to breathable levels. There was still an intense look to his eyes, one more ambiguous than murderous. Edward looked at her like she was the only thing in his life.

"What gift do you have?" he asked.

Lizabel… had lost the plot. She barely had it to begin with, but Edward ran with it all the way to an unknown place in Canada.

She opened her mouth to reply. "Gift?"

Edward, who hovered in anticipation of her words, twisted his lips down when he heard her. "Yes, a… special ability or strong talent. Something no one else has other than you. What let you know what I am, to be so bold, to be undecipherable?"

That was a lot. A long story, one which might not even be the answer to his question. Lizabel didn't want to tell it. Maybe not to Edward ever. Certainly not now, when her feet were cold and it was late. She had a government quiz tomorrow.

"What time is it?"

Edward blinked. Finally.

Lizabel went on. "There's a blue watch somewhere around here. What's the time?"

Caught by the suggestion of surprise, his eyes removed their sights from her and glanced around the ground.

A moment later, he held her watch in his hand. "Two thirty-seven."

"I have to go." Honestly, even if time had gone backwards, Lizabel still would have said she needed to make a deadline.

Edward was incredulous. "You can't think you'll get out of it this easily?"

"Or what- you'll kill me?" came the flippant response. "If I'm not home by four, not only will a police report be made about me, a chief of police will also be looking for me."

Possibly, she shouldn't have put a target on Charlie's back so casually. She didn't want to care. Was it possible to be so exhausted by being calm? Her mind was constantly assessing the situation and it made the decision that she needed to gtfo now that the immediate danger passed.

Edward stepped back, looked away. "We'll talk on the way back."

"Mhm." Lizabel pointedly looked down around at her pulled out sleeping bag, her maps, her trail mix everywhere. "So…" she started, and he was already picking up her things, packing them in her rucksack to the best of his ability.

Surprising, although it was his fault.

Then he was near her again, rucksack slung around his shoulder, and there was the most baffling expression on his face. Demure?

"May I carry you?" What. "It's faster to go down the mountain that way." He handed her the checkered scarf she had packed.

Slowly, Lizabel wrapped it around her throat and zipped up her jacket. There was some sort of strangled noise from her that Edward took as assent. He turned his back to her and bent slightly. A piggy-back ride. Not that she wanted to be carried bridal style, but couldn't it have been the more dignified fireman carry? When Lizabel hesitantly placed her hands on his shoulders, Edward tensed.

"Try not to go near my neck or head."

Of all the things she had done in both lives, this was in the top twenty of the most fucked up based on sheer ridiculousness alone. Lizabel held him awkwardly, underneath the armpit on one side and grabbing onto the rucksack on the other.

As a child, she had ridden piggyback on Charlie before. This was not similar. Edward moved elegantly even with her added weight. She couldn't feel his weight shift as he moved one leg after the other; it was a smooth movement between point A and point B, a machine. The speed in which he carried her caused a slight blur as he ran past trees, leaped down inclines when it was steep enough. If he revealed he could fly, she wouldn't be surprised.

Beyond mental capacity, these zombies were not even close to what she knew of. Heat didn't emit from Edward's torso and she used that sensation to reconfirm her judgement. He was a walking dead thing and that was something she was very familiar with.

Speed, strength, that eerie, intense way he focused on her when he was contemplating taking her life- Lizabel didn't have a chance to kill him or the rest of the Cullens. That was why her instincts, perhaps everyone's instincts and just hers more noticeably, didn't go into fight-or-flight mode, heart rushing to pump out blood just so it could waterfall the ground when a limb was torn off.

They got to her truck despite not having followed an official trail. Perhaps he followed her scent trail. Unhooking her keys from the rucksack, she opened the driver's side.

"Could you roll down the windows?" Edward asked.

Lizabel obliged despite it meaning she would need the heat on all the way home. They drove silently for a while, reluctant to restart the serious conversation on the mountain. When she was on the highway, he opened his mouth.

"How did you know what we were?" Edward nearly had to yell it from the wind and the distance he put between them in the vehicle.

"I saw it. I even commented on it and you all heard me." She was much quieter, figuring straining his ears wouldn't be a problem for him.

"And yet no one without prior knowledge has been able to discern it from looks alone."

Slowing down so she could hear him better, she said, "Didn't you just answer your own question? I had prior knowledge."

Despite leaning up against the side of the window, Edward was still watching her. "How? In Phoenix?"

"I don't know what state I was in." Back then, no one cared about dead government borders. "I just…" Lying by omission and obscurity was a well-honed skill of Lizabel's. She used it because life before Renée was hers alone. "One of my friends was infected. That… was a very close up experience." Spent twenty minutes trying to hold back the inevitable.

"I'm sorry," he said, despite thinking he was the thing her friend had turned into. "If you witnessed that friend and survived, then they must have cared for you deeply to control themselves."

Lizabel barked out a laugh, hollow. "Or she just got to her girlfriend first." Both a friend and a sister dead in under an hour. "Next question?"

Notwithstanding his previous somber words, his next sentence was instant. "You know and yet you're not afraid of me."

"Not a question." She passed one lone car on the road, a family of three in a black hatchback.

"Usually people will give a response to my observations." He sounded frustrated.

Good. Now they were both annoyed. Misery loves company.

"Here's one: ask a question and you'll get a higher probability of being answered."

Edward said his next sentence without upward inflection. "Why aren't you afraid of me."

"I am." She ignored his harsh scoff. "I hide it because my survival instinct isn't suicidal and panic makes me too stupid to talk my way out of danger."

"Staying silent to my words is 'talking' your way out of danger?" Rhetorical. Lizabel wasn't going to answer that. "There's nothing to be hidden because it's not there in the first place." Again, not a question.

A pause in conversation followed that statement, long enough for Lizabel to feel the dryness in her throat. It was the longest active conversation she had in a while, excluding Renée's rambling which required some 'hmmms' and 'ahhs'. She reached for the water bottle in her bag to the right and Edward cringed away, sticking his head out the window like a Cocker Spaniel. What she would give to smack it with a stop sign.

"You just carried me down a mountain after being directly up in my face. Isn't that too excessive?" He acted like she had cooties.

"That's different," were his words after he moved his head back inside. "I was distracted; the air was still enough to not blow around your scent."

Lizabel turned off the heat, which had been blowing warm air around her. The cold was getting too used to settling into her bones. She took a sip of her water.

"How did you- anyone survive high school with this sensitivity?"

"Not just anyone smells like you," he answered, wry.

Imagine if this entire thing could have been avoided if Lizabel used different shampoo. They were getting close to Forks now, close to Charlie's house. He probably wouldn't be in danger, but Lizabel was now playing with not just her own life. When they passed Newton's Olympic Outfitters, Edward spoke again.

"Can you control it? Your obfuscation- it's like an emptiness."

Just to be in apparent character, she replied with, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

A sigh and then nothing else until they pulled up to Charlie's place. For a fleeting moment, there was the thought that she shouldn't have shown Edward where she lived. As if everyone in this small town didn't know the chief's house.

Edward reached inside her rucksack, pulled out her watch. "It's three fifty-two."

An inconvenient time. She would have to wait until six to fix dinner for Charlie and herself when her stomach was near empty already. For some reason, her trail mix had spilled all over the woodland ground.

The reason in question spoke. "There's no one home." Yes, being the chief of police required long hours, even on the weekends. "We can talk inside."

"Why?" The word came out more drawn-out than Lizabel would have liked. "Does it have to be right now? Are you on a time limit? I'm not." She wanted a shower, to sleep, to be out of Edward Cullen's forcefully stunning presence.

There was scrutiny directed at her beseeching face, her dirty clothing and slouched posture. His features softened, giving an approachable handsomeness. Edward was looking at Lizabel as a person who could be tired. Unfair, considering he only showed her his diamond side: blinding and strong enough to cut.

"I suppose I should also get home," he said slowly. As if Edward just remembered, he added, "To talk things through with my family."

Lizabel got out of the truck, thinking it would finally be over. When she turned to open the front door, Edward was there, holding the rucksack she had left. She took it without a word and shut the door in his face.

Showering and sleeping put her in a better mood. Charlie came home, they ate fried fish, he noticed her redone bandages.

"You got hurt while you were out?"

She flexed her fingers. "Just a little fall."

"A fall," he repeated and looked her over, expecting to find a hidden missing leg.

"A scrape on my hands and nothing else."

Monday had expectations to be better only to fall apart during lunch.

"The Cullens are looking at you. How did you manage to piss them off within a week?" Lauren said, taking a bite of her fruit salad.

"Maybe the same reason as to how I pissed you off at first sight." Ignoring Lauren's sarcastic smile, Lizabel used her spoon to point to the person left of her. "Maybe they aren't looking at me. Maybe they're checking out Tyler's tattoo."

"As cool as my tat is," said Tyler, already almost finished with his burger, "I would not want Edward Cullen to be checking out any part of me."

Surprise stopped her breath for a moment. Ignoring Conner's follow-up question ('So you'd want Emmett and Jasper checking you out?'), her eyes flickered to the Cullen table. Jessica was right, all eyes were on her with varying degrees of hostility and curiosity. Childishly, she had thought her first presence in biology had repelled Edward from the school. Not the case.

"Anyways," Lizabel said tactlessly, while turning away from the guys' discussion on how much gay was too much. "How are we getting to Port Angeles?"

"My car, obviously. It's bigger," said Lauren.

"Oh!" Jessica's eyes lit up. "You haven't been there, have you? We're gonna take you to all the best places."

The conversation delved into better areas, Edward forgotten until she started walking to biology.

"Angela," Lizabel said, pulling on her arm and considering if she'd be able to convince the normally diligent student to skip. "Save me." She drew out her voice, adding a little whine for effect. "Edward Cullen is a horrible lab partner. Skipping school and you saw how scary he was to me last time. Today, he just might stab me with a pencil." Unlikely, it would actually be a straw.

"I don't think he'll do that," said Angela, voice as if she were consoling a little sibling who had a nightmare. "He's smart enough to wait until the dissection lab and use a scalpel."

Lizabel couldn't contain the shocked, brief laugh. "I've been betrayed."

Leaning down closer, Angela said, "But seriously, I can help you talk with Mr. Banner if you want to switch. He really shouldn't have treated you that way."

She thanked her for the kind words, not legitimately considering Mr. Banner as an option. If it wasn't biology, Lizabel would have met Edward somewhere else. Possibly in a place without people and where would she be then, limbs strewn about?

They got to the classroom and she lingered just off the doorway. Her hair was in a bun today, but she took the effort of pulling out the bobby pins and letting the tail rest over her neck on the side that would be closest to Edward. Next, Lizabel pulled her waterproof jacket off her waist and put it on properly. She was wearing long sleeves anyways, but an extra layer never hurt. Fingerless gloves were already on, despite scabs and partial healing having formed yesterday. If Edward complained about her scent, Lizabel was going to buy perfume at Port Angeles and suffocate him with it.

She sat in her spot, chin resting against the palm of her hand and waiting while Mr. Banner handed out lab materials. Lizabel noticed him first through her body and then the movement of the chair next to her.

"Hello," came a docile voice. "My name is Edward Cullen. I didn't have a chance to introduce myself. You must be Isabella Swan."

She laughed, sharp and crackling like fireworks. Everyone around them looked up to watch the spectacle.

"We are beyond introductions," Lizabel said just above whisper level. She turned her head slightly to view him from the side.

Edward had cleaned up. There was nothing particular about his light colored clothing, however the air around him was like smelling lavender soap and purity.

"I know," he assented. "I apologize. I plan to fully account for the damage my emotional actions caused."

Mouth twisting, Lizabel didn't respond as the mitosis onion lab was explained to the class.

Edward slid the worksheet closer to himself, touching his pencil. "Can I write? Unless you don't want me near any dangerous weapons," he said without any resentment. An attempt at a jest.

So he heard. For a young looking boy, he really did share the traits of a helicopter parent. Renée had been like that early on, needing to know all that she did. And as a teacher in the same elementary school, Renée did know every word out of her mouth. Thankfully, both of them had grown out of that. Lizabel wondered how she was going to pressure Edward out of it. If she could.

They worked the slides quickly, done within seven minutes.

"Do you like Forks?" Edward asked, striving to be Ms. Congeniality.

"Like living in Forks," she muttered.

The smile didn't look so sincere now. His gaze flickered to the left of her.

"Working well?" said Mr. Banner after he checked their papers. "Or is Mr. Cullen monopolizing the microscope?"

Edward spoke up for her, the teacher moved on, and silence didn't last long.

"I found a watch and thought it might be yours," he said. "Electric blue, right? Unfortunately, I left it in my car."

Blinking, Lizabel turned entirely towards Edwards. He had stolen her watch yesterday. She stared at him openly, just as he did to her; it was a smart move. They had to talk sometime and this would force her to attend unless she wanted to throw away a fifty dollar gift.

"I can't get it today- I have plans. Tomorrow is fine."

"Okay," he said easily enough, dropping the topic for a new one. "I hear you like hiking." She raised an eyebrow. "My family does some camping too. Perhaps you would get along with them."

Lizabel's voice was dry. "I would have thought you to be the type to hunt."

Without a wince, Edward's reply was immediate. "Sometimes, but we try to be humane about it. Is the hiking good in Arizona?"

What was his aim? Maybe looking at him directly was making her stupid. "It's fair, but hard to survive off the land."

He nodded in agreement. "And that's why you liked being here in the summer. Why did you come to Forks?"

"My father lives here and it creates a light in his life when I visit." It was awkward to talk about her family dynamics. How would he like it if she asked how he felt being the unpaired child?

Edward leaned closer, hopefully out of emphasis and not temptation over her smell. "But you're not visiting here. You live here permanently. You come to school here." He said the last part like an accusation.

"Yes, that's very true."

Waiting for a defense he realized too late would never come, he bit out, "Why did you decide to move here?"

"Why did you decide to move here?" Lizabel countered quickly. She was here first, even if just in summer.

"I asked you first," he said just a touch quicker. His volume was too low to be heard by eavesdroppers, perhaps out of embarrassment over his childish response.

She shifted nearer to him. "You're the one who has issues with me being here."

"You're the one who reacted with a panic attack in the custodian's closet."

It took a second to register with the disconnect between his smooth voice and the barbarous words. As Lizabel found out with Emmett, physical activity could override her natural calm response and, oh, Edward was so fucking fortunate that she couldn't rip apart his chest like a vivesected frog right then and there in biology.

Lizabel turned away from him, looking at the board, and spoke as coldly as a glacier. "I'm done with this conversation. Only speak to me if someone's about to die."

Predictably, he didn't shut up. "Was that a sore spot?" And he honestly sounded unaware.

When Mr. Banner wrapped up the lab period to start lecture, Edward rushed out his words. "I didn't think it would be a low blow. Curiosity became the better of me and I worded it incorrectly."

Lizabel grabbed her pencil and started to write down notes. She concentrated on class up until the bell rang. Once again, Edward was the first to rise.

"Again, it was wrong of me to say that." Out the door he went.

She breathed out a long sigh. If he were human, Lizabel would have refused any more contact with him. As it was, predators didn't get into verbal spats with their prey, didn't apologize to them. She was still furious. Her standards for Edward were low enough to be in hell and he barely met them.

Mike was with her as she walked to Gym.

"All those slides looked the same." He shifted his bag. "You looked lucky to have Cullen as a partner. Really cozy up there."

"Is that so? I didn't find him to my liking."