Bella the human may have been graceless and clumsy, but it turns out Bella the vampire loves to dance.

It's delicious torture, surrounding myself with so many heated human bodies, pulses racing, blood pounding in their veins. Assaulting the very ragged edges of my hunger. In the bowels of a club, bass thundering, hands pressing on hips, my mind gets too full to think of anything else.

I know it's a dangerous game. Night after night, I grind against them, barely restraining my strength or my thirst.

If I was still human, I imagine this sort of bender would mean drinking, drugs, the artificial stimulants I can smell racing through the blood around me. Self-destructive behavior is harder for the immortal. I have to find my own boundaries to push, venom flooding my mouth, as the music crashes over me and lights up the flesh and the heartbeats and the heat.

It's been three months since I left the Cullens, and it's fair to say I don't really see the point in being careful any more.

I let Alice's calls go to voicemail. They are always filled with false cheer, prying to see what I'm doing, even though she must already know. Optimism laced with unwanted pity and concern. I've at least learned from her messages that Rosalie and Emmett are back. One aspect of this stupid plan seems to have worked.

When I left Chicago, I thought I would spend time experiencing the Big Apple and then set out on my world travels. I had grand ideas about backpacking through Cambodia, Thailand, Laos. Spending time on the beach at night in Kerala, visiting cathedrals in Germany. I even bought copies of Lonely Planet guides, tagging pages with brightly-colored Post-its.

But as each day slid inexorably into the next, so too the motivation slid away. What was the point in travelling the world on your own with no one to share it with? Lonely Planet wasn't going to tell me where to hunt, noticeably lacking a section for "Vampire Travellers". The books began to gather dust in a corner of the tiny roach-infested studio apartment I'd rented. I knew it was silly, really, trying to save Carlisle's money, but I just hated not being able to take care of myself. I shopped for clothes in thrift stores. Alice left me horrified messages, begging to be allowed to courier me new outfits. I deleted them.

As the weather began to warm it was easier not to go out at all during the day. I wasn't hunting that often, and my thirst took on its own, discordant personality, driving me out of the apartment at night to surround myself with temptation.

I won't lie. I enjoy the attention. At night, my pale skin and crazy eyes don't seem as unusual, and as Edward once pointed out, everything about me is purpose-built to draw people in. I get propositioned every night. Every night, someone who isn't Edward tells me I'm beautiful. And it's something, even if it's nowhere near enough.

Night after night. Bar after club. An endless succession of sweat and desperation, and every time ending up always, miserably alone.

The seasons turn again, scarves wound tight around the necks of passers-by, and I finally bring myself to venture out during the day. I'm sitting in a deli, minding my own business with a cup of coffee cooling rapidly in front of me, when a perfectly manicured set of nails slams a copy of Post down on the table in front of me.

The pictures in the Page Six spread aren't great, but you can certainly tell it's me. The headline reads 'Bella of the Ball'.

I look up into the furious, piercing black eyes of Rosalie Hale. She looks stunning, wrapped in a cream fur coat that would have PETA in conniptions. Her blond hair is swept up in a tight French roll, diamond earrings flashing in the cheap fluorescent light. The Rosalie I remember passed for a high school girl. Standing before me now is a cold, Upper East Side princess, and she is steaming mad.

"I've been patient," she seethes. "I really have."

"Hello to you too, Rosalie," I reply lightly, waving at the plastic chair opposite. "Take a seat." I have no idea how she found me, but if she is expecting passive, terrified little human Bella, she has another thing coming. Her glare is intimidating though, and I wind up looking at my lap, picking idly at the shredded black fishnet poking out from below my inappropriately short skirt.

"You're a moron," she spits, and grasps my upper arm tightly. I think briefly about resisting. I am still stronger than she is, but it will only cause a ridiculous scene and so I let her drag me from the store and across the block into the Park. Autumn leaves crunch under my boots, and my breath makes little puffs in front of my face.

As soon as we are alone she rounds on me, her eyes filled with hatred.

"You are being unforgivably stupid, and you are putting us all at risk."

"I didn't know there was a photographer there..." I begin. To be honest, I don't even know which night the photos were taken, or in which bar. They blur together.

A jogger, dressed in a bright red shell suit with a windburnt red nose to match, runs past us and looks back over his shoulder, tripping briefly before recovering his stride. I imagine we make quite the pair. Rosalie all pristine, clean glamor, and me looking like Courtney Love's bastard step-child.

"No, I can see how you might have missed that, what with your face all pressed up in that guy's neck, and with his hand halfway up your skirt. God, what are you wearing?" she snarls, taking in my appearance for the first time. Her voice is filled with undisguised contempt. She shakes her head slightly as if to clear it.

"If you want to die, Bella, go to Italy and do it properly. Don't bring the Volturi down on the rest of us, and don't break Charlie's heart by making him think you might still be alive."

The mention of his name feels like a slap. I sink to a park bench, and put my head in my hands.

Rosalie taps a sharp cream stiletto impatiently in front of me. "I don't care, really, whether you decide to destroy yourself or not," she hisses. " But I do care about you destroying my family, so you need to get your shit together, and you need to do it now."

Part of me wants to scream at her, scratch at her flawlessly made-up face. She's not my mother, she's not my anything. She's always hated me. She doesn't get to tell me what to do now.

But I owe it to Alice and Jasper, to Esme and Carlisle. I owe it to Charlie. I scrub at my eyes with the heel of my hand, it comes away covered in last night's eyeliner.

"Emmett's on his way to that rat hole you call a walk-up. He'll get your stuff. You're coming to stay with us."

I stare at her incredulously.

"Why on earth would I do that? You may be right about my behavior being too visible. But there is no way in hell I'm going to live with someone who can't stand me."

Rose snorts indelicately.

"You really are a moron." She turns on her heel and begins to stalk away. "Hurry up!" she snaps over her shoulder.

I examine my chipped black nail polish for a minute, thinking about my options. I could change cities. Hell, countries, even. Lay low for awhile.

Rosalie is a good hundred feet away and not slowing at all, but when she speaks I can still hear her as if she was standing next to me. "If that crest around your neck means anything, you will get to your feet, come with me, and stop dishonoring Carlisle's name."

In retrospect, she should have opened with that.