(Bella POV)

I was reading on the sofa, except it couldn't really be considered reading. More like, staring at a page with words on it while trying to ignore the clanging and bashing of the pots and pans in the kitchen next door.

At first my new 'family' had forgotten about my human needs. But when I mentioned innocently that I was a bit hungry, Emily took up the task of making food for me with far more enthusiasm than sanity demanded. She had gone out to buy supplies and returned home a few hours later with a trunk full of only what she had deemed 'absolutely necessary,' now the kitchen was probably better stocked then all of my previous homes combined.

"Bella!" She yelled, her voice a few octaves higher than normal. "I'm done I think! Come try it!"

I walked wearily over to the dining room. The table was set for five, even though I would obviously be the only one eating. Everyone of the Fei coven whizzed past me and sat down in a seat. This was odd, why would they want to watch me eat?

I was pondering that while I absentmindedly pulled out the chair to sit down, but my train of thought was interrupted by the site of what Emily placed in front of me.

I had asked Emily earlier what she planned to make for me, and she had said fish, which seemed innocent enough. But fish was supposed to be small. Fish was supposed to look edible. Fish wasn't supposed to be the length of my arm and still have scales stuck onto it.

"I think I did something wrong." Emily said, seemingly to herself. William burst out laughing. Apparently, I had found the one thing vampires couldn't do better than anyone else. Even me.

I didn't want to disappoint my personal chef, and I cautiously took a fork full of the fish, picking a place with no scales to eat from. I stuck it into my mouth. Emily, and the rest of them, looked at me, waiting for my reaction. The fish was mushy. It tasted like oatmeal, but with an ocean-y taste that was anything but appetizing. I swallowed hard to get the thing down while plugging my nose. My natural reaction was to spit it back out and make a mad dash to the bathroom, but all I could do was smile weakly.

"She looks like she's going to be sick, Em." William snickered. "I remember human food better than all of you, and that doesn't look good. Or edible."

Emily pouted. "I guess I'll need to practice." Zaciel looked wary. Emily's face cleared and she turned back to me. "C'mon, Bella. Get in the car. I'll take you somewhere to eat out. We'll have the meeting when we come back." Then I realize why they were all gathered here, Emily had called the meeting we had talked about for tonight. I wanted to start pummeling them all with questions now, but I was still hungry, and thinking was better done on a full stomach.

I walked out into the night with Emily close behind me. We climbed into the car, a dark blue BMW convertible that belonged to Emily.

"So. Where do you want to go?"

"I don't know." I replied. "Let's go to Port Angeles. We'll pick something when we get there. She nodded, and we were off. Emily drove fast, but not as fast as the guys. I was more comfortable with her.

With her speed, we were there quickly. The sun had already set, so Emily could come out and walk with me. I was growing paranoid with all the guys that were staring at us; Emily seemed to be able to ignore them, but my self-consciousness never wavered.

"How about there?" She pointed. The sign above the restaurant said La Bella Italia. I felt a lump growing in my throat and I didn't trust myself to talk, so I just shook my head. Emily looked questioningly at me, but decided not to press it. We walked a little more, and decided on another Italian restaurant a little more down the street. She asked for a seat on the balcony because no one was up there, the night was a bit chilly. We sat down and I ordered, while Emily seemed fascinated by the way restaurants worked and stared at the waiter with wide eyes. The waiter's face was flushed and he squirmed around a lot, then he tripped on a table leg while walking back to the kitchens.

She was playing with the silverware while I was eating. "Hey, Bella?" She said, not taking her eyes off the napkin she was prodding with her fork. I looked up at her. "Why were you in that forest in the first place? You looked absolutely horrible when I first saw you." She turned to me now, confusion and sympathy in her golden eyes.

I suddenly realized that, while I was all mad at myself for going into stranger house, the strangers didn't know anything about the person they were inviting in, either. I debated briefly whether or not I wanted to tell her, whether or not I could handle telling her without breaking down. I decided that they should, as Emily had said to me, trust me, too. So I took a deep breath, and told her everything.

My voice cracked when I was telling her about what he said to me in the forest. Emily's face was composed and unreadable through my babbling. I knew a lot of the things I said weren't making any sense, but she seemed to understand what I was trying to say.

"And then you found me, and all this happened." I concluded, waving my hands. Emily was silent for a minute. I looked at her, expectant.

"I see." She said finally. Her lips were set; she wasn't going to say anything else. I kept staring at her, unbelieving that after all I had said, that was all she was going to reply with.

"… Aren't you going to say anything?" I asked, brow furrowed.

She stared icily back. "No." Her tone was just as cold as her face. I felt suddenly uncomfortable, to say the least; the first time I've ever had in Emily's presence.

I decided to keep quiet and went back to my food. I thought about her reaction while sticking a meatball into my mouth. She seemed mad. At me? Why? Maybe she thought I was stupid, that it was completely irresponsible to be involved with vampires in the first place. Maybe she thought that I was nosy, that I shouldn't have tried to find out about vampires in the first place. I felt myself shrink in my seat.

"Are you alright?" Emily asked. Her face was same as usual now, but there was still some coldness to her features. I nodded. Suddenly, she smiled. "Sorry. Did I scare you?"

I stared at her. She laughed at me. "I'm not mad at you, don't worry."

"Oh. Uh, right" I smiled half-heartedly. "But you were mad." I added seriously.

She sighed. "I wasn't mad at you. This Edward person, what he did wasn't nice." She looked like she was about to say something else, but thought better of it. "Edward was 'he', right? The one you kept mumbling about when we found you."

"I really don't want to talk about it." I said, exasperated. She nodded understandingly. But her face was still searching mine, brooding as if she wasn't finding anything useful, brooding… like in the picture hanging on her wall.

"Why are you a vampire?"

I had blurted it out before I could stop myself. She seemed taken aback, as if surprised at my boldness. I felt my face heat up. "What do you mean?"

"Like, what happened when you were human? Why did Zaciel change you?" I asked, still embarrassed by my outburst.

She understood what I was trying to ask. "Hmmm," She said thoughtfully. "Well, this seems a good place to start as any. See, I was… unusual. When I was human."

I waited for her to continue. She paused, but then started talking faster than before. "My eyes were blue when I was human, you know." She said, looking into my eyes. "If you know anything about genetics, you'd know that black hair and blue eyes is an incredibly rare, almost impossible genetic combination. It was take generations to make a child who had the combo if you really wanted to do it. But no, Zaciel and my mother were completely normal—"

"Zaciel was you father?" I asked, incredulous. No one had bothered to tell me that, and Emily had always called him Zaciel, not dad or father.

"Oh yes!" she laughed. "He didn't tell you? Oh, dad. He's overbearingly protective, too. You should've seen the fuss he made when I announce Roran and I were going out." She shook her head, smiling at the memory.

I was still shocked, but this just made me more curious as to her past. She had said Zaciel was the one who changed her. What father would want that for his daughter? Okay, well, it does look appealing to outsiders, the immortality, the beauty. But Zaciel must've already known the downside to that type of life, if it could be called that. So why…?

"Anyways, back to me." Emily broke into my thoughts. "Yes, my parents were normal. At first, they didn't think much of my eyes. Lots of babies are born with blue eyes, they go through a transition into the color they're supposed to be. But after a few years, it was obvious my eyes were going to stay blue. It didn't really matter, of course, and my mother rather liked the attention I got." She said this about her mother with a hint of bitterness in her voice. Did she not like her mother?

"But then, I started getting sick. Really sick. I had to be hospitalized. I heard the doctors complaining about my DNA being messed up, which also damaged the cells in my body. My mother had been taking all kinds of illegal dugs during her pregnancy. In the village where she grew up, girls were taught that they weren't as good as boys, because they couldn't help in the fields or go to school. When she learned the baby in her stomach was a girl, she didn't want me. Her family was much too poor for an abortion, so she tried taking drugs." I listened in horror. What kind of mother would do that? What did it matter what gender her child was?

"So, because of my mother's prejudices, I was sick for the rest of my human life." Her voice was flat.

"Zaciel 'changed' when I was about 7 years old. He worked at a construction site. Working conditions in China in those days were horrible.

"He fell. From the eighth story of a building while fixing the frame. Landed on steel rods and fell unconscious. No one even noticed because of the shear number of workers. Next thing he knew, he woke up as a vampire. We don't know who changed him. He did mention that there was an extremely beautiful lady who watched him work at the site," she smiled. "He was ashamed at first when he realized what he had become. He couldn't control himself, and he didn't want to be with me or my mother in case he lost control. He hid from us. My mother didn't mind, how had left her enough money. I didn't mind, either. My parents weren't exactly loving, it was an arranged marriage. After 10 years, he met me on the streets by chance. The disease had been on and off for a while. It was quite easy to recognize me, my eyes. He had enough self control by then to stay with me. Obviously, he couldn't tell me about what he was, he thought up the strangest excused for why he hadn't changed at all in 10 years.. But he apologized for being an inadequate father, and I forgave him. We built a bond after that, he later told me that was when he decided to hunt animals instead of humans. I guess you can see why he's so protective now." She laughed again.

"But then the illness came back, this time with a vengeance. The doctors said I'd only have a little while left. Zaciel panicked and helped me in the only way he could. He bit me."

She leaned back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap. Then she smiled at me.

"And that's my story."

We were on the drive home. I was still thinking about Emily's story. It's hard to believe that someone like Emily could have such a dark past. I sighed, thinking about how I was always full of self-pity and wallowing in my own sadness, when there were far more tragic people trying to comfort me.

I thought back to my first night with the Fei coven. There was almost so much to people than meets the eye. Our conversation had been cut short then. Emily was saying something about William…

"Hey, Emily?"

"Mhm?"

'You know when we were talking the first time, you were saying something about William? Before I revealed my all knowing nature?"

She laughed. "Oh, yes. I remember. My scatterbrained self blurting that out without thinking at all about the present company." She smiled. "What I was trying to say is, Will is still a newborn. That's why his eyes are still red, and why he couldn't stop himself from jumping at you in the forest. He hadn't quite grasped our lifestyle yet, and he's struggling. He's only about a year old, so please don't hold that against him. All things considered, he's doing extremely well." She frowned, though I'm not sure why. She seemed confused about something.

We spent the rest of the drive in silence. When we got to the house and she pulled into the driveway, she showed me to my room and kissed me on the cheek.

"Good night."

"You too." She laughed and I realized she wouldn't be able to sleep. "Yes, I will. I'm going hunting with Roran and Zaciel. So William will be keeping an eye on you. Alright?"

I felt a bit squirmy about being alone in the house with William. I convinced myself it was because of his lack of control.

I changed into my pajamas and was just about to get into bed when I heard a knock on my door. I walked over and opened it, and William stood outside the frame.

--- Chapter 3 END

A.N.: Aaaand we learn about Emily. Ick, I still haven't thought of anything good for William and Roran. Roran is Emily's mate, by the way. Help me? D:

You might think the sexist opinions of Emily's mother were something of the past, but it's not. My own grandparents are like that. My brother gets all the attention. They come over and give him a bag of candy, and I'm just sitting there going, 'what am I? Moldy socks?'

Should I make Bella more miserable? xD;

Anyway. Review! I won't have enough enthusiasm to write anymore if I don't get reviews. SO REVIEW. KTHANKS.