DISCLAIMER: SM owns all Twilight characters and settings. No copyright infringement intended.

Well, lets see, its been four or five months since I posted a chapter, no excuses or promises to expedite the next chapter since we know how well that worked out the last time. Assuming anyone is even reading this, just a reminder we are back to young Edward again.

Excerpt from Chapter 14

"Bella you need to tell me what's going on. If you don't tell me I can't help you."

"What makes you think I need help?" Bella sniffed and rose from the floor stuffing another childhood remnant in a box to be discarded later.

"I can just tell, this isn't just about a secret. You need to tell me. Alice will be here to get me soon."

"Alright…alright." She agreed, plopping herself down again. " Like I said, my mom didn't kill herself not like they said…like the police said, like they told Charlie. She couldn't kill herself. It wasn't her fault…she wasn't very strong."

"It was an accident then Bella, she just forgot to turn off the car and fell asleep." Edward thought maybe Bella's mom had been drinking, like George did…or his dad did, but he didn't think it was polite to mention that.

"It wasn't an accident ED…WARD." Bella emphasized the WARD and glared at him, leaving him speechless.

"My MOTHER didn't kill herself and she didn't die accidently."

Edward's eyes widened. He finally got it. "Someone killed her?"

Bella looked relieved and nodded, taking his hand in both of hers.

"Who Bella, do you know who would do that…how do you know…are you sure?" Edward sputtered.

"Oh I'm sure."

"How do you know…how are you sure."

"Because I did it, Edward. I killed her. I killed my mother."

At least Bella had the decency to look sad about it

They're demons, ya know," Bella said from somewhere above him.

"Who is?" Edward replied, studying the tree branches carefully.

He couldn't figure out how Bella had gotten so high up in the tree and she was so fast. No sooner had he suggested they climb the tree and she was gone, winding through the maze of branches like a monkey, quickly disappearing in the foliage.

When she didn't reply he asked again, louder this time.

"Who are demons?" He found the stepladder of branches that Bella had undoubtedly used to shimmy up the tree and followed after her.

"Your family," she replied, emphasizing the word family; her callous tone, a painful reminder that they were not really his family.

"That's not very nice, Bella," he scolded. He knew she wasn't trying to be spiteful, but her emerging, very adult, very pragmatic attitude made him feel childish and put him on the defensive. He hoisted himself up on a particularly thick branch and saw her sitting in a crook on the same branch, several feet from the truck of the tree.

She bounced a little and he smiled. He had no fear of heights and apparently neither did she.

"How did you get so good at climbing trees? Last I heard, there are only cactuses in Arizona." He straddled the branch and inched his way out to her.

"I didn't spend all my time in Arizona, ya know. I was here every summer and that's all that Jake and I ever did."

Edward winced and was glad that Bella was too busy repositioning herself to notice. He was an idiot. Bella spent a lot of time with Jacob; of course she would learn how to climb trees.

"Oh yeah, that's right." He mumbled.

He didn't ask Bella to elaborate about the Cullens. He didn't want to know. She had been acting pretty strangely lately and if he pointed it out, she got all weird and angry with him. He had figured out pretty fast that it was best to ignore the things that didn't make sense and pretend they never happened. It had worked with the Cullens for years.

The tree's branches swayed in the breeze and they sat quietly, listening to the sounds of the wind whistling through the leaves. The sun was shining and there was barely a cloud in the sky, not something that happened too much around Forks. It was nice to just enjoy the good weather while it lasted.

"We should go for a swim," Bella said suddenly, startling him. "Doesn't that water look delicious?"

Edward looked over his shoulder at the river. He wouldn't have described the water as looking delicious, but that was just how Bella talked sometimes. He knew what she meant. With the sunshine reflecting off the water, it did look nice, even inviting, but he knew better. That water was cold, ice cold; full of the melted snow that ran down from the mountains causing it to spill over its banks. It was never really warm enough to swim in that river, even in the middle of summer, not that he hadn't tried it a time or two.

"It's too cold," Edward said.

It doesn't look too cold. It looks nice."

"Fine, don't believe me. I'll take you down and you'll see how cold it is for yourself, but for now, can we just sit here and do nothing."

Too his relief, Bella nodded and settled back against the tree branch. He was worried that she might try and argue with him or climb down the tree to test it out herself. She was unpredictable that way. She always seemed to be going in ten different directions, wanting to try everything and all at the same time. Sometimes she made him dizzy. But now she appeared satisfied to just sit in the tree with him and for that he was thankful.

The best way he could describe his time with Bella since she moved from Arizona was bewildering. It wasn't that she was so different from the previous summer when he first really started noticing that she didn't act the way most girls her age did. He liked that she was different, noticeably so, because it made him feel special just to be considered her friend. He didn't care that she didn't really fit in at school or that the other girls thought she was strange, mainly because he felt the same way; out of place, like he really didn't belong there. Now that he had Bella to eat lunch with and sit by in some of the classes they shared, he felt more like he belonged then he ever had before.

He tried to ignore it when the girls and sometimes even the boys, twirled there finger against their temple whenever Bella described something like she was reciting it from a book or danced and twirled down the hallway, jumping over objects that weren't there; and most of the time he succeeded, especially since it only seemed to annoy Bella when he came to her defense.

When they weren't in school, Edward went to Bella's house almost every weekend and sometimes on weeknights too. He got to see her almost as often as he liked and though she still went to the reservation from time to time, it was pretty obvious the way Bella moped around and pouted whenever she couldn't be with him, that she preferred him to Jacob Black.

Playing at Bella's house all the time though confining and repetitious, was tolerable in the winter months, even with Charlie hovering over them. He never left the two of them alone very long and never allowed her bedroom door to be closed. Edward could feel the tips of his ears turn red whenever Charlie reminded Bella of that rule that made no sense to her, but a lot of sense to Edward.

He couldn't say exactly why things changed at Bella's house, though he remembered precisely the moment when it happened. A call from school and Charlie's hushed voice had alerted him that something was up. The questions came soon thereafter. First they were directed at Bella. Edward never really got a good grasp of what Charlie was trying to find out, but Bella's annoyance with her father was obvious and her defiance earned her a grounding from seeing him for a week.

Bella was never one that could be bullied into anything, not even by her own father, but the same couldn't be said for Edward. Charlie's questions sounded innocent enough at first, just casual comments about what he and Bella did all day, what they talked about and how things were going at school; but then Edward noticed the change; though probably less of a change on Charlie's part and more of awareness on his. Charlie was interrogating him like Edward imagined he might do if he was talking to a suspect in a crime. He had seen it done plenty of times on TV.

The questions became more specific, more about Bella, more about the things Bella said and did and they didn't sound like questions that a father should ask about his own daughter, especially directed to his daughter's friend. Surprisingly the questions had nothing to do with Bella's mother or how she died or even how Bella was handling the death which was probably a good thing.

Keeping a secret wasn't something Edward was good at. Bella knew it, he knew it, even the people he was supposed to be keeping the secret from knew it, so it was an understatement to say he was relieved that Charlie never ventured down that path, never even implied he was suspicious about the death of Bella's mother.

Not that Edward didn't have misgivings about keeping that secret. It seemed to him that someone should probably be told when the words "killed" were involved. He didn't like to think of it as murder. Bella wasn't a murderer. Whatever happened that night her mother died surely had nothing to do with murder. And he knew there was a difference. Killing someone was not the same as murdering them. He recognized the distinction. Bella never said she murdered her mother, only that she killed her and that could be interpreted a lot of different ways. Not that Bella was willing to talk any more about it. She had remained pretty much mum on the entire subject except to remind him that she didn't want to talk about it and that he better keep her secret.

As much as he loved being brought into her confidence that was one thing that he wished she had just kept to herself, all things considered. He had no one to talk to, couldn't tell anyone if he did and Bella refused to elaborate any further, so the entire matter gnawed at him whenever he thought about it which he tried not to do.

Then he had Charlie to worry about. Charlie was a cop, trained to sniff out the bad guys even when they didn't appear all that bad. Would his cop instincts work on Bella? Would he be able to recognize his own daughter as a killer? Edward wasn't sure, but every once in a while he caught Charlie looking at Bella in a peculiar sort of way and he wondered what he was thinking; could almost see the wheels of Charlie's mind turning, like he was trying to figure out what exactly was going on with Bella, but couldn't quite put his finger on it which Edward guessed was why Charlie asked so many questions.

It was taking a toll on Edward. Esme commented on it first, how skinny he was getting, that he needed to eat more, but no matter how much he tried to tell her he was eating all the food he could possibly hold, she didn't believe him, not even when Carlisle said he was just a growing boy and there was nothing wrong with him.

But Carlisle was wrong. Edward wasn't eating, not nearly as much as he could. His stomach hurt, he was nervous all the time and he didn't have an appetite, so he spent a lot of time swirling the food around on his plate or hiding it in a napkin and refusing the treats and snacks that Esme was always offering him.

It was wrong, everything was wrong; ever since Bella had come to Forks to live for good, things just hadn't been right and nothing about Bella's behavior was making him feel any better about his secret or his friendship with her for that matter. The more time he spent with Bella, the more uneasy he became, because this Bella was different, even different then the girl that he knew last summer and though a part of him told him that it was because of the secret she kept and the way her mother died, he wasn't completely convinced that that was the only problem Bella had.

He never really paid much attention to Bella's oddities. If he noticed them at all, it was only to cherish something new and special that he discovered about her. She was like no one he ever met and so of course she would be different and her uniqueness probably explained why he was so enamored with her. He knew that they shared a special connection, one that went beyond the normal childhood friendships he had with others his age. He never criticized her or laughed at her or smirked behind her back when she said or did something unusual or inappropriate and even Jake couldn't say that. She had told him as much.

The trouble might have started with Bella's proclamation that she killed her mother, but that was only the tip of the ice berg. It was only what started the ball rolling and made Edward more aware of the things that Bella said and did. He became more protective of her, more concerned for her well-being which he never had been when she had lived in Arizona. He found it hard to leave her house when Carlisle or Esme came to pick him up on the nights and weekends he was allowed to visit and made excuses to stay longer even going so far as to hurt Esme's feelings by telling her he was bored at home with no one but adults to do things with.

Finally Carlisle had a talk with Charlie and Bella was granted permission to come to his house on some of those weekends and even on weeknights sometimes, especially when Charlie worked. For a brief time, maybe a few weeks or even as long as a month, Edward's apprehension eased and he even felt happy again, happy that Bella could finally come and play at his house and see his room and enjoy all the things that a life of living with the Cullens had to offer. He was finally able to share his life with someone else.

But Edward should have known it wouldn't last, should have known it from the very first moment that Bella stepped foot in the door. It was just the way it was with him, nothing good every lasted very long and he should have come to expect it despite the fact that had been living with the Cullens for over five years now and so far that good had lasted.

It wasn't that Bella was any less weird when she came to his house, but she hid it better, didn't make some outlandish statement about how the TV was talking to her or how giant words were floating in the air above his head making it possible for her to read his mind which she certainly could not. Oh, she might stare suspiciously at a snack that Esme brought up to them even if it was something as simple as an apple, turning it over and over in her hand, looking for any sign that it had been contaminated or poisoned, but she never did that in front of Esme.

No, Edward's latest source of stress came from a completely different, completely unexpected source.

Carlisle.

It had never occurred to him that Carlisle might be a bigger threat to Bella then Charlie was. He was too excited to have Bella with him and proud to show his best friend off to the Cullens to even consider that any of them, but particularly Carlisle would pay much attention to Bella. He'd never had a visitor before, never once had he brought a friend home or had a sleepover or done any of the things that normal kids did. He never got to have that Halloween party that Carlisle had briefly mentioned a few years ago, never asked about it, never pursued it. It just reinforced how special Bella was that Carlisle would actually ask Charlie if Bella could come over for visits and that lulled him into thinking that Bella was safe in his house away from Charlie's inquiring questions and suspicious looks.

It was the third or fourth time that Bella had been to the house. Edward had grudgingly gone upstairs to clean his room, rather than sit by the window in the entryway to wait for her like he normally did. One of the few chores he had was to keep his room tidy which he never really took seriously until Esme laid down the law and told him that he had to clean it spotless before Bella could come over and play. It was his fault. He had gotten so involved in a game of chess with Jasper the night before that he had completely forgotten about his room.

He heard the car door of Charlie's cruiser slam shut and imagined Bella running up the driveway to the front door where he should have been waiting for her. The doorbell rang and Esme's voice called out for her to come in. He just finished shoving his Xbox under his bed and calmly walked to the top of the stairs to wave Bella up when he froze.

Carlisle had most likely been in his office, because he was standing in the hallway off to the side of Bella, right in front of his office door. She hadn't noticed him. She wasn't even looking in his direction. Instead, she was staring at the ceiling; her head was tilted back as far as it would go, almost to the point that it might be painful. She was watching something; even from where Edward was he could see her eyes moving back and forth and up and down. If he didn't know any better he would have guessed that a bird had flown into the house and was flying around, frantically trying to find a way out. It had happened before, someone…well him…had left the door open and a bird flew in, flying throughout the house, banging off of walls, trying to find its way back outside until it finally flew into one of the huge picture windows crumpling to the ground, dead of a broken neck.

But Edward new better.

There was no bird flying around now. There wasn't anything moving around the room except the intermittent shadows created from the trees outside whenever the sun peeked through a cloud. Tell that to Bella. She was staring so long and hard at something, craning her head still further back, unable or unwilling to turn around to get a better look.

As disturbing as Bella's behavior was, it was Carlisle that caught Edward's attention almost immediately. He was standing as still as only he could, not moving, not even breathing as far as Edward could see, watching Bella, observing Bella, analyzing Bella. Edward could almost see the flow of thoughts that raced through Carlisle's mind, even though Carlisle's face remained rather expressionless.

He wasn't looking at Bella like a concerned father or a teacher or even a friend. Carlisle was looking at Bella as a doctor, trying to understand what was happening and why she was behaving that way; and that scared Edward, it scared him enough that Bella's name burst from his lips the moment he saw Carlisle. He wanted to pretend that he was just calling her upstairs, but he knew by the way her name escaped him like a squeak that it didn't come out that way. It came out like a warning and thankfully, it broke Bella out of her hypnotic fascination with whatever she saw on the ceiling, but it also drew Carlisle's attention.

He smiled at Edward and even touched Bella on the head as she ran by him and up the stairs, but Edward saw the look of concern on his face before he covered it up and that's when he was reminded that good things never lasted.

From that day forward Carlisle became a lingerer; always around. Not that Edward necessarily saw him, but he knew he was listening, eavesdropping on their conversations; finding reasons to interrupt their play to ask questions, questions that were usually directed at Bella.

And when he wasn't asking questions he was watching them whenever he could. If they were outside, Edward would often see Carlisle's silhouette by the window; if they were in the family room, he would announce that the light was better there and settle into the recliner to read his big medical books.

But it was the things that Carlisle heard that bothered Edward the most, because that was when Bella's idiosyncrasies were most apparent. Edward new Carlisle heard everything and Bella was never shy about inquiring about something only she saw like where Edward had gotten all those tiny BMX bikes that raced around the wall of his room, but never bumped into each other and never fell to the floor for which he had to explain in a low hoarse whisper, that it was just part of the wall paper and they weren't moving at all.

When Carlisle asked him later why Bella had been talking about when she mentioned that her head hurt because Wednesday and Saturday were screaming at each other over which Xbox game they should play, Edward would only shrug and say that he and Bella were playing a game of make believe. How else could he explain that all the days of the week, but especially Wednesday and Saturday, routinely fought inside of Bella's head. And even if he could explain it, he knew it wasn't normal and there was a very good possibility that Carlisle might tell Charlie and then things would just go downhill from there.

He started speaking to Bella in whispers, cupping his hands around Bella's ear and she would listen and nod her head when he told her she couldn't talk weird at his house because Carlisle was listening, but then the very next minute she would point at the TV and tell him that they could never unplug the TV because then the TV people would have nothing to do and would spill out into the room and not all of them were good guys.

So Edward stopped inviting Bella over to his house and wished he never suggested it in the first place wishing he had kept his life with Bella separate from his life with the Cullens. But Bella still came over, even when Edward didn't invite her. Charlie didn't like leaving her home alone according to Bella and oddly, both Carlisle and Esme seemed reluctant to let him go over to Bella's as much as they use to.

So between Charlie's questions and Carlisle's silent observations, Edward was beginning to feel that lump in his stomach, the one that visited every now and again, churn and grown, until he felt he might burst with the burden of knowing that something was seriously wrong with his Bella and it had nothing to do with being special.

But then the weather turned nice and that helped. It gave Edward a little piece of mind that he could have Bella over and they didn't have to spend all their time in the house with all the listening ears. He could direct Bella to the great expanse of Cullen property where they could wander and explore or just sit and read in the grass. And inside or out, Bella seemed pretty content when she wasn't talking about how the fibers of the carpet screamed in synchronized agony whenever Rosalie decided to play the piano

That was how she ended up being at his house on that beautiful spring afternoon and it made him almost forget about Bella's disturbing comment and how both Carlisle and Charlie seemed a little too concerned about Bella's state of mind. It was only later, long after the sunlight had been smothered under a blanket of oppressive black clouds that Edward was reminded why it had been a bad idea to have Bella over to play outside. The house, despite the prying ears, offered a safety net of sorts, one that didn't exist outside and though he never felt in danger when he played around the house, he found out pretty quickly that there were plenty of dangers for a girl that saw things in the shapes of the leaves that he couldn't see or heard voices in the whisper of the winds that he couldn't hear and he was ill equipped to help her despite being her best friend.

"I think you should come live with me," Bella said softly, her long brown hair spilling across her face and down over her shoulder as she embraced a tree branch, her arms and legs wrapped around it like little kids did when they were carried by adults.

Edward felt a warm fluttering in his belly, something that came and went depending on Bella's mood and was nothing like the feeling he had when he thought he might be in trouble for something he may or may not have don

"Why is that?"

"I told you," Bella said, looking over her shoulder at him.

He was straddling the same tree branch as she, but was leaning back into the tree trunk. He shrugged. She might very well have told him but he never knew when Bella was serious, when she was kidding or when she was talking to Wednesday or Saturday or the people on TV.

She rolled her eyes and lifted her hand from under her chin, pointing at the house.

"Because THEY are demons."

The warm feeling in his belly left as quickly as it had come.

"Bella….don't say that, they might be able to hear you." Edward didn't think they could but sometimes the warning kept her from talking gibberish.

"I'm sure they can hear me. Demons have special abilities that you and I don't have. That's why you need to leave, now. I don't know why they've kept you alive so long, but your time is running out…tick tock….tick tock." She was whispering, the words coming out in one long breathless burst.

Edward sighed and glanced at the house. From that distance he could barely make out the patio furniture, but no one was sitting on it, he was sure of that. Esme wasn't working in her garden either. The Cullens didn't come out when it was sunny, not with Bella there, but he wasn't going to tell her that.

"They're no more demons then your dad or anyone else, unless demons are just everyday people that go to school and work as doctors and take care of kids."

There was no arguing when Bella got on one of her tangents, no convincing her that she was wrong, but he felt protective of the Cullens and it hurt his feelings to hear Bella call them names, even though he was beginning to understand that some of the things she said and did weren't really her fault.

"Well you're just a dumb boy if you can't see it, Edward Masen. In fact, I don't even know why I have you as my friend." She looked over her shoulder at him again, and smiled a little. "Oh yeah…to keep you safe from all the demons."

"Okay Bella, tell me why you're calling people names that have only ever been nice to you." His stomach grumbled a little. Great, now he was hungry. He couldn't very well take Bella, the demon hater, back to the house for something to eat until he knew where she was going with it.

"I'll tell you exactly why, you non believer." She sat up abruptly and adjusted her position in the branch so she was facing him. "First, demons have black eyes, black as night, blacker than night, eyes so black that you wouldn't be able to see your hand in front of your face if you were lost in such blackness."

She hesitated, crossing her arms smugly and waited for him to reply.

He squinted his eyes at her, warily. "What does that have to do with the Cullens? They have really light eyes. Lighter than yours."

"Are you trying to tell me that you've never seen their eyes change color?"

"Well…no…I mean mostly they're light brown but sometimes…" Edward, looked back at the house. No one was outside. He leaned closer to Bella and whispered. "Sometimes they look dark brown, but that's just the light."

"Ha." Bella snorted. "Dark brown, my butt. I've seen their black eyes myself. Demon black. Demons disguise their eye color whenever they want. People's eyes can't change color, only demons."

Edward didn't say anything. She had him there. The Cullens' eyes did change color from time to time. He'd asked about it once and Carlisle had told him that it was a medical condition that made their eyes dark. That was why he and Esme adopted Emmett, Jasper, Rosalie and Alice. They all had the same medical condition.

"Well your wrong, Bella. Carlisle told me why. I forget what it's called, but it's some kind of disease."

Bella rolled her eyes.

"That's why their skin is so white and their bodies are so cold. It's all related to the same thing."

"So you noticed it too?" Bella didn't look convinced; in fact, she looked excited.

"Well I noticed they were different, but different doesn't mean bad." He was thinking about Bella right then. Bella was different, really different. Did he feel the same way about the Cullens? He hadn't really thought about it before.

"Demons are cold, ice cold and their eyes are black and they snort fire from their noses. Have the Cullens done that; is that part of their disease?"

"You're being silly, Bella. Of course they don't shoot fire from their nose." He stretched his arms over his head, suggesting that it might be time to climb down from the tree and head for the house, now that she had gotten that off her chest.

"And demons have super-duper hearing and can run really fast, faster than the fastest man. Can your Cullens do that or is that just part of their disease?"

That unpleasant fluttering touched Edward's belly. He swung his leg over the tree branch and surveyed the ground below him. Was it too far to jump? Probably, but he suddenly had a great need to get out of that tree.

"You know it's true Edward, you just won't admit it. I see it because I'm an outsider. You've lived with them too long and you don't want to see it. I'm talking to Charlie tonight; you need to come live with me."

Edward glared at his beloved Bella who looked surprisingly invigorated. "You'll do no such thing, Bella."

"Oh I will Edward. It's for your own good. Sometimes you just wiggle down into a little hole and refuse to peek out and see what's going on all around you and right in front of you. It's up to me to make you see what's really happening. That's why we make such a good team."

"Why is this any different from all the other things you think are real?" Edward snapped.

He scampered down one tree limb and walked out onto the branch so that he was at eye level with Bella, still sitting the branch just above him.

"You can't be saying all this silly stuff about the Cullens or about how the pictures on the wall paper move or that voices are talking to you that no one else can hear or about the TV people that might jump off the screen and hurt you. It's not real, none of it is real and if you keep saying stuff like that….they….Charlie….he's going to make you go to a doctor."

He turned and jumped feeling an unpleasant tingling shoot up through the bottom of his feet. Without looking back he marched towards the house, calling over his shoulder. "Now if you're done talking so dumb, let's go get something to eat; I'm hungry."

A moment later, he heard Bella's soft footsteps.

"Wait Edward."

But he didn't wait, he just kept walking. The conversation with Bella about the Cullens was hitting too close to home and even if she couldn't help it, he was still mad at her.

"Wait," Bella grabbed his arm, her voice breathless against his ear.

"What?" He stopped and looked at her. They were the same height, but if he stood up really straight he thought he might be taller.

"The river…you promised…I want to go see how cold the water is." She looked contrite, almost apologetic, but there was a little smile on her lips that made him think she wasn't all that sorry.

"Do you promise no more of this stuff about the Cullens?"

She nodded and immediately turned, skipping towards the water.

The river meandered its way around the Cullen property, creating a barrier of sorts that kept him from straying off the property or anyone else from wandering onto it. It was deep, the current strong and unpredictable. Only the south side of the property wasn't enclosed by water. Edward had long ago learned to respect the river and the dangers it presented especially at that time of year and he was dismayed to see Bella heading right for the nearest river bank, one that offered the best view, but was not easily traversed if a feel for the water temperature was what was at hand.

"Not there, Bella; we have to go where the bank isn't so steep." He was pointing further out, a place where the mowed grass touched the water's edge; the spring flooding making it easy to feel the frigid coldness of the water without ever having to leave the safety of the lawn.

Bella had heard him, he saw her cock her head in his direction, but she continued skipping toward the river bank. The fluttering in Edward's belly changed to flip flops, but he casually jogged after her. Bella was fine, just fine. There was no reason this had to turn into a sprint. He didn't want Bella to think this was a challenge, a race to the river's edge that would conclude with the winner jumping off the high bank, taking the exhilarating plunge directly into that delicious looking water.

"You're going to get me in trouble," he said under his breath. Relief filled him when he saw Bella stop, her gaze fixated on the water below her.

Edward knew what she was seeing from that vantage point, though he couldn't yet see it himself. There was no angry currents, no sounds of water crashing off of rocks; no tumultuous rapids frothing and spewing; she would just see the dark deep water flowing by her and even if she laid on her belly she wouldn't be able to reach it.

"Bella, we have to go over there." He didn't know why he pointed. Bella's back was too him as he approached her.

"They're watching us, Edward. We have to be careful."

She was standing ramrod straight, her voice carrying out over the water, but Edward heard her. He didn't want to ask who was watching, because he didn't want to hear her try and tell him that there was something in the water, something only she could see, its beady little red eyes peering up at them; or maybe it was the shadows across the river, shadows that moved between the trees but as far as he could see, were just the play of sunlight against the swaying branches. To Bella, they might represent a sinister threatening presence. But he had to ask, he always asked even when it sent chills up his spine to hear her describe what clearly wasn't there.

"What's watching us, Bella? I don't see anything." He approached her cautiously, not wanting to startle her or make her think he was anything other than her best friend.

He heard her sigh, saw her shoulders rise and fall, like she was taking in deep breaths, trying to calm herself. It would be too late before he understood what she was really doing.

"They are watching us…the demons." She hissed; another deep breath.

Edward had just enough time to grasp what she meant; who she meant and he snuck a peek over his shoulder, catching a glimpse of someone standing just outside the back door by Esme's garden. If he had any conscious thought of who it might be or what they were doing in the backyard, he didn't have time to contemplate it. For right at the moment he reached Bella's side, he felt her hands on him, pulling him forward with her. He didn't have time to think about what she was doing or why she was doing it, but he resisted the grip of her hands that were tangled in his shit and tried to pull back from her.

Bella looked at him confused. He had never pulled away from her before. She shook her head a little as if he had asked her a question and pulled harder. This time he stepped forward, just curious enough to want to know what she was doing. But then it was too late. He didn't need her to tell him that they had to escape and jumping into the river was the only way. By then, her intent was pretty obvious. Still, she said it out loud anyway, just before she took another deep breath and pulled him with her.

The plunge into the frigid water, took just a fraction of a second, but he had plenty of time to think about how icy cold that water was going to be; he remembered how numb his hands had gotten when, just a few days before, he tried to catch minnows in the flooded grass. It was deep too, even in summer when the water was at its lowest, it was still well over his head.

He gasped when he hit the water and it filled his mouth and lungs. He gave no thought to Bella or where she had gone. Instead he tried to swim, tried to break free of the icy embrace that pushed him down and rolled him over and over. Sheer terror overrode every other emotion he was feeling or had ever felt in his life and though he thought his eyes were wide open, he could see nothing, just blackness like the blackness of demon eyes that Bella described. He opened his mouth to scream and was briefly surprised that he could taste the river, but he wouldn't be able to recall the taste afterward and couldn't explain it if someone asked, though no one ever did.

Nor could he recall the moment when he was no longer in the water, no longer struggling to breath and fighting for his life. He only remembered coughing again and again, painful choking sounds that eventually cleared his lungs enough for him to breathe and when he could breathe he was able to look around. He could see the far river bank that contained the shadows that danced around beneath the trees, but he realized he wasn't standing or sitting on the ground looking at them.

Esme was holding him like she had when he was a child with his chin on her shoulder. He could feel her cold embrace, briefly thought about how strong she was and felt comforted by her soothing motherly tone that he couldn't deny he had missed hearing as he had grown older. Her caramel colored hair was plastered against her back and he was startled by the thought that she had been in the river and pulled him out. How had she managed it?

He tried to squelch the uncontrollable shuddering of his body, only then becoming aware of how god awful cold he was and how her body offered him no comfort. She seemed to realize that and deliberately held him a few inches away from her body even as he tried to pull himself closer seeking warmth that she couldn't offer him.

He was aware that they were moving…fast and the movement along with the jostling of his body against Esme's unyielding grip served as the trigger he needed, suddenly clearing his mind, making him remember. He gasped, choked again, then frantically struggled in the embrace that he knew from experience, he had no chance of breaking.

"Bella," he croaked, barely a whisper, but Esme heard him, for in the next moment she turned a little so that he was no longer facing the river, but Bella, wrapped in Carlisle's arms.

She appeared lifeless. Her mouth was open a little and her eyes were dilated and unfocused. He wanted to scream out to her, but could only produce a strangled sputtering cough as the last of the water was expelled from his lungs. The terror he felt in the river was nothing like what he was feeling now, but just as he thought he might burst with the agony of knowing that Bella was lost, he saw her blink and focus on him.

She had said that a person's eyes never changed color, but he was pretty sure that Bella's were as dark as they had ever been, no longer the deep warm brown eyes that fascinated and enthralled him. There was a look on her face, feral and savage that he had never seen before; a tautness around her wild eyes, a frailness in the way her hands, balled up in fists, pressing futilely against Carlisle's chest. She appeared to writhe in agony, her legs kicking at the air, arching her back, a keening sound emanating from her like no noise he had ever heard before. Her eyes held his, but nothing in her gaze reminded him of Bella, his Bella and for the briefest of moments, he thought all of Bella's crazy talk about killing her mother and seeing things that only she could see or hearing things that only she could hear finally made sense.

He thought that maybe…just maybe…there was such a thing as demons; only he didn't think Carlisle or Esme or any of the other Cullens were demons, but his own Bella and thinking about that made him do something he hadn't done in a long long time.

He started to cry.

Not that anyone remembers, but I had promised to reveal how Bella's mother died in this chapter. Sorry, that it wasn't included, but I couldn't make it work in this chapter.

Next chapter will continue with young Edward and Bella.