Trigger warnings for blood.

Cause vampires.

And not a handful of blood like in the movies.


Angela couldn't move. She knew she was bleeding out. The blood from her wound had travelled down her neck and down to her dress, staining her dress a deeper red. She felt weak, her limbs unable to move from where she lied on the forest floor. The earth was hard and cold underneath her and the blood left that metallic acrid smell in the air. She didn't know how long since Maria and James left.

She wanted to call out for help but the blood was thick in her throat making it hard to make out words. She was having trouble breathing. The sky was above her, the stars brighter than she'd ever remembered them and if she tried hard enough she could pretend she was back at the Hall of Mosses with her dad as he thought her about the constellations. Things were so much simpler when she was a child and the monsters in the dark were all in her head.

There was rustling in the darkness and she was afraid for a moment that the animals would be coming to finish her off. Vampires weren't the only things that lurked in a forest. She was too tired to even cry. She had screamed and pleaded as Maria bit her and the woman hadn't cared. She felt exhausted and all she wanted to do was sleep.

"Lauren, I don't think Angela would be in here..." Her ears perked up as she recognized Mike's voice. Mikey came for her. "She probably just went for some air somewhere and-"

"Mike, shut the fuck up!" Lauren exclaimed, impatient. "Something is wrong, okay? I can feel it. Angela wouldn't have left without telling one of us!"

Oh Lauren. Lauren who protected her and pushed her because she knew that's what she needed. Lauren knew there was something wrong and got everyone together to look for her. Angela willed herself to cry out, to tell them where she was but she was so tired. Even turning her head to where she thought they were took a lot of effort.

"They never caught the bear," Jessica said, fear and panic in her voice. "What if the bear got her?"

"Come on, guys, this is Angie," Mike tried to reassure them. "Angie would never get attacked by a bear. Even the bear would like her and-"

She finally yelled out as loud as she could even as the blood was thickening in her throat choking her. "Mike!"

"Wait, is that…" She could hear them running and they burst through the circle of trees, their faces worried and shocked. Mike's face went pale when he saw her and he got down on his knees. "Oh my God, Angie. What happened to you?"

She couldn't speak, she was choking and she couldn't breathe. She grabbed unto Mike's hand desperately, clinging as hard as she could. She didn't want to die yet. She didn't want to die and leave them all behind. She had so many things she still wanted to do.

"It was the bear," Jessica gasped. "It had to be the fucking bear."

Lauren snapped out of the shock she was in and turned to Tyler and shouted, "Get help! Now!"

He didn't even hesitate as he turned and ran. Lauren got down on her knees beside Mike and assessed the wound on her neck and the amount of blood. Her fingers came out red as she touched the stream of blood. Always calm Lauren turned to her and tried to keep herself collected.

"You're going to be okay," She said, even as she sounded unsure. "Tyler is getting help and you're going to be recover from this."

Jessica sobbed. "I don't think she's going to be fine, Lauren-"

"Shut up, Jess!" Lauren shrieked. "We don't need you falling apart right now!"

"Look at her, Lauren. She's dying-"

"No, she's not!" Lauren held on her to denial with her stubbornness. She didn't want to believe that Angela was fading. "She's going to be fine!"

Mike's eyes were wet as he held on to Angela's hand tighter as her grip started to loosen. "You can't go, okay? You promised me Europe, remember? You and me? We'd go to Italy. Finally eat authentic Italian food?"

Angela couldn't speak. Black spots were beginning to cloud at her version. Lauren and Jessica were still shouting at each other and even through their anger she knew they were just scared. She wanted to tell them to stop. That fighting wasn't good for them and that they loved each other.

Mike sensed she was weakening and was crying, begging profusely. "You don't get to leave me, Angie! You promised me you'd go with me to Europe and…and…please. Please don't go. I'll do anything. Please don't go…"

She didn't want to go. She wanted to tell him "I'm sorry, Mikey" and tell him that she wanted to go to Europe with him and make sure he stayed out of trouble. She loved him and she loved Lauren and Jessica. She loved Eric and Tyler. She loved her family.

She was going to miss listening to her dad's sermons at Church. She was going to miss cooking with her mom. She was going to miss hugging her brothers. She was going to miss Jessica's singing and Lauren's laugh. She was going to miss Eric and Tyler and riding with them in their car. And she was going to miss Mike and how he would annoy her and she wanted to punch him every time he opened his big mouth. Oh, she was going miss all of them.

Her heart sunk as she realized Jacob wasn't there. He hadn't come in time. He couldn't even say goodbye to her. This would destroy him. She wondered who was gonna put him back together.

Lauren had stopped shouting and was shaking her roughly, angrily telling her to stay. Jessica was crying hard, she sounded like a wounded animal. Mike wouldn't let her hand go. And she wanted to tell them that it was okay. She wasn't tired or cold anymore.

She wouldn't be cold for a very long time.


She thought she was in hell. The excruciating burning she felt from the top of her head down to her toes must be punishment for her sins in her mortal life. She didn't know what sins she committed but she was sorry. She hadn't meant to be bad in her human life. She didn't know sins she committed against God but she wanted forgiveness, she wanted to be better.

The pain stopped like water being poured over the hellfire and she opened her eyes to lights that blinded her. She thought maybe she was in Heaven. That God had answered her prayers and forgave her. When she turned she found no angel or saint, it was Dr. Cullen. He looked remorseful as he stared down at her.

"I am so sorry, Angela," He said. "You don't deserve this."

She wanted to ask what he meant but she looked down and realized she was lying on a metal table and only covered by a sheet. She tried to sit up and stop at the sight of her arm. Her freckles were gone and her skin was as white as snow. Slowly, her fingers made their way to her breastbone right above her heart and felt nothing. She familiar thumping in her ribcage was gone.

She turned to Dr. Cullen in dismay. "Am I…"

Maria came back into her memory. Her blood red eyes and her teeth in her neck, taking the life from her flashed into her mind. She had told her something about being a 'gift'. For Edward.

Dr. Cullen pulled a palm-sized mirror from his lab coat and handed it to her. She stared in fascinated horror at her face but it wasn't really her face. All her freckles were gone, her skin smooth like porcelain. The slight roundness in her cheeks from baby fat had melted off to show off the more angular contours of her face. And her eyes were the most shocking, red as blood.

"I am sorry this happened to you," Dr. Cullen told her. "We left so this wouldn't happen but…"

She couldn't even hear what he was saying anymore. All she cared about was the deep burning hunger in her throat. She wanted to eat. Her throat was boiling and she wanted to just eat something-

Dr. Cullen's arm was a vice on her arm that kept her from getting up. He handed her a blood bag and she didn't even hesitate to rip off the tab and to drink the contents. Blood dripped down her hands and covered her mouth. He stared at her with knowing eyes.

She finished the blood bag and dropped the plastic down on her lap. Realizing what she had done, she wanted to vomit it all up. Her hands were still covered in blood and she wanted it gone but she also wanted to lick it off and-

Dr. Cullen found a napkin and started wiping the blood from her hands. Then, he gently wiped the blood around her mouth. He worked quickly and didn't meet her eyes as he did so. It reminded her off her father when she would make messes as a child and he would clean it up without a word. She always felt worse when he never berated her…

Oh God. Her father. He didn't know that she was…he couldn't know that she was…

"Hush," Dr. Cullen pulled her into a hug and she realized she didn't find him cold. They were the same temperature now. "It's going to be okay. You're not going to be alone."

She didn't really believe him. Things would never be okay again. She accepted his comfort anyway and she cried into his chest and wished it was her father that was with her. She wanted to go home but she knew she couldn't. She cried for herself and for everyone she could never see again.


She had been declared dead for three days. In those three days, they had a funeral for her and buried her. Her parents had opted for a closed casket which helped the Cullens to sneak her body out easier. She had slept through all of it. And for the first few days after she woke up, Angela wondered if she ever escaped hell and was just in another circle of it.

She was essentially imprisoned in the Cullens' house and most of it was by her choice. The first time Emmett and Jasper took her out to go hunting, she almost attacked and killed the group of hunters nearby. They had to drag her back to the house and Jasper had to use his abilities to calm her down. When she had snapped out of the blood lust, she was horrified at herself.

Control felt fragile in her grasp as she clung to her humanity, fearing the monster that lived inside of her that only wanted blood. She didn't want food anymore, finding the taste of anything but blood abhorrent. Like ashes in her mouth. She no longer had organs to digest them and found herself vomiting the bite of bread she bit into.

It made her sadder than she ever thought, never being able to cook and eat what she made. It brought the loss of her mother more poignantly. Her mother had been the one to teach her to cook and it had been a way for them to bond. The ritual of cooking together was one Angela had taken for granted until she could never do it again.

She had burst into tears at the sight of the large wooden cross they kept in the house. A reminder of her father and her faith cut deeply into her. Her father would hate what she was. He would think her unnatural and cast her out. And as for God…

She didn't know whether God would care for what she was. She had not taken a life but she had wanted to. She could empathize with Jasper and his problems with control. Resisting human blood felt painful, her instincts turning into itself and started feeding through her own blood. Why the Cullens continued to put themselves through this torture by surrounding themselves with humans she could not understand.

She couldn't get herself to pray, fearing God would refuse to listen to her anymore. She didn't think she could bear to lose her faith and still survive immortality. She found herself staring up at the cross and hoping God hadn't abandoned her. She wanted so badly to be good.

It was on one of those sleepless nights that Dr. Cullen came to sit beside her and they stared up at the cross. He'd told her of his life before he became a vampire. The son of an Anglican pastor who led hunts for witches, vampires, and werewolves. Every life taken was an innocent human accused of crimes they didn't commit until Carlisle was able to find a coven of vampires. Then the vampire hunter became the vampire.

"I hated what I was," He confessed smiling wryly. "I tried to end it but…was unsuccessful. I could not accept what I had become."

"You still can't," Her perceptiveness had sharpened in her transformation. "You still hate yourself."

"Yes," He stared up at the cross again. "I was taught that God would never accept what I was and the loss of His love is…"

"Unbearable," She finished. "This existence is unbearable."

He grasped her hand. His grip had the steadiness she learned to expect from him. The vampire that controlled his blood thirst to become a doctor and used his immortality to do good instead of evil. He refused to give in to his nature and become what he hated. He gave her hope.

"When I was a child, I spoke as a child," She quoted her father's sermon what felt like a lifetime ago and in a way it was. "I understood as a child, I thought as I child…"

"But when I became a man, I put away childish things," He ended the quote for her, smiling. "Corinthians was always my personal favorite."

"There has to be a way we can exist and not hate ourselves," She reasoned. "Doesn't God look at our deeds and not the vessels we are in? Our bodies are just bodies. What we do is what defines us."

"Perhaps, but…"

"A soul can't be tainted if we refuse to let it," She continued, holding his hand together. "If we are immortal then spending our days repenting for our existence we consider a sin is hell. We don't need to die to be there."

"I…" He looked at a loss for words and he stared at her as if seeing her for the first time. He closed his eyes and his shoulders sagged in relief. "I suppose I never wanted to see it like that."

"You know us, pastor kids," She joked softly. "Big know-it-alls."

He opened his eyes and smiled at her, nodding. He straightened up and considered her for a moment before speaking. "I know you're mourning losing your father like this. And I know I can never replace him but if you'd let me, I'd like to be something similar for you."

Angela who had wanted somebody to just take care of her and make things better since all this started tearing up and nodded. She would never get her parents back and there could be no replacement but being somebody's daughter again was a gift and one she could never spurn.

"I would like that."

"Good," He patted her cheek, almost the exact same way her father used to do. "Because Esme and I already consider you one of ours."


The wolves came in the morning. Angela was afraid she would attack them but instead found their smell appalling. She held her breath, her lungs no longer needing air to survive, as she watched from the window. Carlisle went outside to greet them, Emmett and Jasper behind him. She recognized Jacob at the front and she felt a pang as the gravity pull between them had withered and died when her heart stopped. She wondered if he felt the loss as keenly too.

"Hello," Carlisle greeted. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"

Jacob shifted back to his human form, uncaring about being unclothed. "You broke the treaty."

"Our treaty states if we ever bit a human," Carlisle reasoned. "We have not. It was done by another vampire named Maria."

"No. It stated if a human was bitten, we will retaliate," Jacob bit out. "Don't try to weasel your way out of this."

"Perhaps, we can come to an agreement…"

"No," Jacob growled. "You've done more than enough. I will give you until the end of the week to disappear and to never return or there will be war between us."

The wolves behind him started growling, baring their teeth. Jasper and Emmett tensed up, ready to defend Carlisle if they attacked. Angela stared at Jacob and the way he held himself, taller and harsher. It seemed he had finally taken the mantle of Alpha and threw away the boy he was in the process. She mourned for the boy that would never be again.

"End of the week and only because…" Jacob looked up at where she was standing by the window, his expression pained. He looked like the very sight of her was killing him. "Please just go. I can't live like this anymore."

Angela touched the glass of the window. There was more than that barrier between them now. Vampirism didn't kill any feelings she had for him before and a part of her still loved him. Though they hadn't had the chance to say the words to each other, she had loved him. With his sunny smile and rumbling laugh and the way he held her like she was the important thing in the world.

"Jacob Black," She whispered, hoping a part of him could hear her. "I am so sorry."

Carlisle nodded solemnly. "We'll be gone before the end of the week."

Jacob shifted back into his wolf form, turned tail and ran, his pack following dutifully behind. She lied back down on the couch and closed her eyes as the tears came. She couldn't control them no matter how much she tried and it was all she seemed able to do. She was so sick of saying goodbye to people.


Her favorite part of the house was the large balcony that had a view of the forest around them. If she concentrated her vision, she could even see the animals turning in for the night. She wasn't allowed on the balcony by herself, lest she jump off the ledge and go looking for a human to feed on. The Cullens took turns watching over her day and night.

Jasper and Alice were taking their shift. Alice was sketching out a new dress on her notepad, the scratchy noises of the pencil gliding on the paper making her ears itch. Jasper regularly checked on her moods and made sure to tamp down on any bloodthirsty urges. Since she refused to go out of the house, her diet consisted of blood bags Carlisle sneaked out from the hospital. As a result, her eyes were still that startling blood red instead of golden like everyone else's.

Jasper had told her about Maria and how she turned him during the Civil War. She had been part of the vampire wars for territory in South America and used him as her most powerful General. When he finally realized she felt no real love for him, he left her army along with a few friends and wondered America until he found Alice. Maria had never been able to accept his abandonment.

"She turned you because of me," Jasper admitted, guiltily. "She thought that by turning you it would make us want to join her war against the Volturi."

"Who are the Volturi?"

"Vampire royalty," Alice explained and pointed out the painting downstairs of the three pale men on a balcony. They were dressed for a few centuries earlier. "Carlisle was one of them back in the day before he left. His lifestyle was too different from theirs. They govern vampire kind and enforce the law to hide our existence from humans."

"Maria said something about me being a gift," Angela said. "Why does she want to overthrow the Volturi?"

"It's more a coup than a war," Jasper sighed. "She loves power and she wants the biggest territory of all."

"She wants to be the Queen," Alice shrugged. "She doesn't succeed by the way, no matter what she tries. It's not meant to be. I've seen it."

"Not quite true, my love," He smiled at Alice. "There was one future she succeeded."

"Yes," Alice conceded. "But that involved getting Carlisle on her side and him getting the help of all the friends he's made over the years."

"Newborns are good pawns," Angela remembered Maria's words that fateful, terrible night. "But we need the bigger pieces to win."

"Checkmate," Jasper looked tired, understanding exactly what she was saying. "It's time I put at an end to her. She's done too much."

Angela stared at him in shock. "Do you mean…?"

He nodded. "It has to be me. This is my mess and I have to clean it up."

"Our mess," Alice reached over and patted Angela's hand. "We'll be leaving as soon as we get you to Alaska. The Denalis will help teach you control."

"Who was James?" Angela asked. "The man Maria was with."

Alice stiffened. "A vampire who is good at tracking. He's the reason I'm a vampire."

She explained her human life and being able to see visions as a human and being called unnatural by the people in town. Her father murdering her mother, the terrible treatment from her cruel stepmother, being sent to the asylum and the inhumane treatments found there. A nomadic vampire passing through town that liked her scent and being turned by the kind vampire that worked at the asylum to save her life. James abandoning her as a newborn and her clinging to the future she knew she would have with Jasper and the Cullens to keep herself alive.

"He's infatuated with Maria and he doesn't know she's just using him," Jasper explained. "We'll have to deal with him too. And that Frenchman they travel with."

"Laurent," Alice supplied. "He followed you around town while they were here and distracted the wolves during the dance. I believe he's also the one that killed the football coach."

"And they also killed your English teacher when they went back to town," Jasper grimaced. "Once we leave, this should never happen again."

Angela was saddened by leaving the only home she'd never known. She knew it was for the best as the Cullens' presence not only attracted more vampires but caused more of the Quileute to shift. She remembered Jacob telling her that his father never wanted this life for him and he had no choice in it. She could understand that as she hadn't chosen to be a vampire either. Life had a way of pulling the floor underneath your feet. And she still felt like she was falling.


Part 1 of the Edward ending. Where is Edward? He's in the next chapter.

1. I hated Bella's "I was born to be a vampire" story line in Breaking Dawn. Absolutely abhorred her being this special vampire who can do no wrong and had no real struggles with her new condition. I hated the vampire baby story line (that CGI monstrosity still haunts my nightmares). It was all garbage so I threw that away and showed Angela actually struggling because that makes more sense. And Angela has no special ability as a vampire because her ordinariness is what I loved about her.

2. Vampire strength seems to make no sense in the Twilight universe. Meyer said the younger the vampire, the stronger they are which with that logic should make the Volturi the weakest vampires in the world and they would have no way of keeping their power when an army of newborns can just come in and kill them. Our example of this is Bella being stronger than Emmett but Felix is stronger than Edward (and Felix is older than Edward by over 900 years). The inconsistency annoys me. I decided to go with The Vampire Diaries' logic for vampire strength and go with older vampires being stronger than younger vampires. The older you are as a vampire, the stronger you will be. Carlisle being able to handle a newborn Angela in the morgue by himself would be easy as he is significantly older than her.

3. The conversation between Carlisle and Angela was important for me as they had a lot in common. I loved the parallel between her quoting the same Bible quote she heard from her birth father to her new father. Family was always important to Angela so having a new surrogate family was the biggest comfort she could get. Carlisle responds to Angela telling him to forgive himself for what he is because he knows she understands his struggles on a deeper level as they were brought up in a (somewhat) similar manner. I just love their father-daughter bond.

4. The Bible quote about growing up is not just for Angela but also for Jacob. They are now adults and must put away their childhood.

5. The rules of imprinting aren't specified in canon whether it would stay if their imprint becomes a vampire and essentially 'dies'. For the sake of this story, the imprinting broke after Angela was turned. Jacob can find another imprint but his feelings for her are still there. I feel sorry for both of them really.

6. The books/movies never touched on it but Laurent was French and was born in 1700s Paris which I thought was interesting.

7. Chapter title comes from a Hayley Williams song.