Disclaimer: Ms Meyer still owns Twilight, amazing ain't it! The character of Christopher Harte actually belongs to Jodi Picoult I am making no reference to The Pact at all; I started of with the Hartes and decided to add in a brother, and I like the name 'Chris' for an older brother. Just thought I'd drop the disclaimer in to be on the safe side.

I'm so excited about this; the first real chapter of my first real story!! XD *grins manically and does star jumps*

Please review and let me know what you think. If you have any questions/ ideas leave them in a comment and I'll try to get back to you.

Chapter One: The All Knowing Alcohol God

EPOV

"We'd better get going Ed" said Emmett slapping me on the back with his spade of a hand.

I looked up in annoyance, I was in the middle of a shots competition with Jack, I wasn't going to back out now; I could do with the money.

"Why?" I asked "What's the rush?"

"It's half one, we should've been home an hour ago. Esme's gonna fucking kill us."

"Shit!" I exclaimed as I more or less flew out of my chair.

"Where are you going you pussy? We've only just started!" said Jack gesturing rather wildly at the shot glasses and bottle of Vodka. Jack has never been one for handling drink well that's why we all accept his challenges, he thinks he's the father of all drinkers, but he always looses.

"It's not finished Cullen!" he yelled, slurring his words as my brother and I left the room. He staggered after us for a few paces, and then promptly keeled over.

"I'll collect my money at school tomorrow" I laughed "See ya Daniel!"

"See ya!" Daniel replied as he dragged Jack into the corner of the room.

We carefully manoeuvred our way down the stairs, past lone figures cradling their cans of beer and couples playing a bit of tonsil tennis. Finally we made it out of the front door. The cold night air hit us full in the face; we turned up our collars and strode of down the street.

We took a shortcut down one of the little alleys running behind the houses, the silver sickle of the moon hanging in the soft blackness of the night sky, and far below the streetlights created golden pools of light around themselves. Not a soul stirred, aside from us. There is always something eerie and slightly magical about the hours of the early morning, when it is still dark and the world is sleeping; you can pretend you are the only person in the entire world. Suddenly the silence of the night was rent in two by a piercing shriek.

"What the fuck was that?" I asked.

Then we heard it again, a person screaming. We broke into a run. As we rounded the corner we saw four figures. Two boys were standing around laughing as a third pinned a girl against the wall. Emmett charged at the nearest boy sending him flying. Thank God for my battering ram of a brother. I went for the third boy shoving him off the girl with my shoulder; it would've been pretty spectacular except in my slightly intoxicated state I managed to trip over my own feet, sending us both into a heap on the ground. He rolled on top and went for my throat, but I shoved him off and wacked him over the head a couple of times to little affect aside from he looked rather dazed and pretty pissed off. He struggled up and stepped towards me. CRASH. He fell to the floor in a shower of green glass. Emmett stood in his place holding the jagged neck of a wine bottle.

"Where did you get that?" I asked.

"It was just lying around" he replied gesturing vaguely at the ground.

I turned to look at the girl. She was sitting on the ground, hugging her knees to her chest, her long blonde hair covering her face. I stepped towards her.

"Are you alright?"

She looked up. Damn! She was gorgeous! Shit! What was I thinking? I sure as hell couldn't be thinking like that. This girl had just been sexually abused, she was vulnerable…and she was so fucking gorgeous…No! Edward Anthony Cullen, control yourself! She was sobbing softly, her body shaking. I crouched down next to her, putting my arm around her, she collapsed against me, burying her face in my jacket. After a while she quieted and sat up.

"I'm sorry" she whispered

"Why are you sorry?" I was surprised "You don't have anything to be sorry about"

"For crying all over you" she mumbled

"It's fine, you're welcome to cry over me whenever you want to"

She laughed half-heartedly.

"What's your name?" I inquired.

"Aphy, Aphy Harte. What's yours?"

"I'm Edward Cullen and this is my brother Emmett."

"Nice to meet you" she laughed "If it was any other situation I'd offer to buy you a drink."

She had a sense of humour then. I smiled.

"We should get you home" Emmett said "Do you live round here?"

"A couple of streets away…but I can't go home!"

"Why not?" Emmett gave me a dirty look. God, what was I supposed to say? Oh! That's fine; we'll just leave you here.

"My mum'll realise something's up, she'll get it out of me"

"Just tell her, then you…"

"You don't understand!" she cut me off; she was getting worked up, her eyes burning. "If I tell her my brother'll find out, and he'll go after those guys and he'll…he'll kill them. He'll fucking kill them and he'll go to prison and it'll all be my fault."

She started to cry again.

"Hey, it's alright" I soothed. "You can come round to our house for now."

I took her hand and helped her to stand up and then scooped her up into my arms.

Emmett opened the wrought iron gate and we walked up the path to the front door. All the lights were on, a glowing beacon in the darkness of the cul-de-sac. However the darkness was slowly creeping away, pushed by the rising sun; we were a lot later than we'd promised, I could imagine Esme going out of her mind with worry. As they say 'speak of the devil and he shall appear', but in this case it was Esme rushing out of the front door. Her face was like a battlefield, anger, and worry, and relief struggling for victory. The worry triumphed.

"Edward! Emmet! What happened?"

"We're fine mum" Emmet responded reassuringly.

"Wha…"

"In a minute mum" he said as he gently, but forcefully cleared a path towards the living room. I followed behind and laid Aphy down on the sofa; she had fallen asleep in my arms a while ago and now she shifted slightly into a more comfortable position. We retreated from the room.

Our sister Alice was waiting outside; I guessed she had been watching the goings on from the top of the stairs. Her eyes locked with mine and I could tell she had a pretty good, if not complete idea of what had happened. Alice is very perceptive; she always knows what's going on, so it's very hard to keep secrets in our house. Some people would call her down right nosy, and Esme is forever telling her that curiosity killed the cat, but she just likes to know things. I suppose in some ways it's a sort of safeguard, if you know everything people can't surprise you. Anyway, the three of us walked into the kitchen where our parents were seated at the table.

"Well?" queried Carlisle.

I exchanged a glance with my brother he nodded at me; as usual I would be doing the talking. I gave a sigh and began.

The only interruptions throughout my telling of events had been Emmett adding in extra information and his point of view; now a blanket of silence hung over the room as everything I had said sunk in.

Alice was the first to speak. "Did they rape her?" Blunt and to the point as usual, most people would've dithered around the question, that is most normal people, but I doubt anyone would call Alice normal. I had been avoiding this question, pushing it aside whenever it popped up in my head, because I wasn't sure if I wanted to know the answer.

"I don't think so. I'm not sure" Not really an answer, but I really didn't know.

She scraped her chair back from the table and left the room. The austere blanket reinstated itself on the room.

APOV

There was a voice in my head. Not good, not good at all. A couple of drinks and I'm going crazy. Ok, maybe not a couple of drinks, but it really wasn't that much. I'm normally fine when it comes to alcohol, its Shanice who can't deal with it. Maybe this is some kind of reckoning, the god of alcohol saying 'right missy, you've had your fun now its time for consequences'.

Why wouldn't it go away? I could hear it calling me, though I couldn't work out what it was saying. That wasn't surprising though, gods probably don't speak English. Do they even use words?

"Aphy" it said.

Ok, so it was using words now. And it knew my name, what was that all-knowing shit, umnicent or something like that.

"Aphy, can you hear me?"

Omniscient! That was it. There were others too, something about potions. What was it?

"Aphy"

Annoying voice of all-knowing alcohol god, let a girl think.

"Aphy"

"Fuck off" I mumbled.

"Charming"

A sarcastic god, that can't be right. I struggled to open my eyes, it was like there was a lead weight pinning them shut. The blurry shapes came into focus. There was a face peering down at me, it was rather strange and pointy, like a pixie. Great, now I was seeing a floating pixie head. The pixie's mouth broke into a smile.

"Oh good, you're awake" it said.

I scowled and it laughed. What was so funny about being smited by the god of alcohol and him sending a floating pixie head to piss you off? Nothing, that's what.

"I'm Alice" the floating head said.

What kind of a pixie name is Alice? I didn't realise I'd said this aloud until she laughed.

"What's so funny you evil smiting pixie?" I asked glaring at her.

"I'm not a…um… 'evil smiting pixie'" she replied.

"You're not?"

"Nope, I'm a very lovely human being"

"And why should I believe you?"

"Look around Aphy, does this look like fairyland to you?"

I stared at her for a while and then allowed my eyes to take in her surroundings; our surroundings.

The first thing I noticed was a door, a perfectly ordinary white-painted door. Then I observed the walls spreading out on either side, painted a pale shade of yellow, making the room feel sunny and bright. For now I saw we were indeed in a room, a living room I decided from the armchairs and the TV in the corner. As my eyes took their fill my other senses came into action. I was lying on something soft, but solid; a quick glance confirmed it as a sofa. I could also smell something strange, rusty almost; it took me a moment to place it, blood. I lurched forwards and threw up over the soft white carpet.

They were rich; I could tell that much from the little I had seen of their house, two rooms including the kitchen in which I now sat. Esme had cleaned up my sick saying not to mention it and that I'd been through a lot, as I apologised profusely. Alice, the not-evil-smiting-pixie had found a plaster for the cut on my arm which had caused the little occurrence. She had then led me into the kitchen where she introduced me to her dad, Carlisle and her two brothers, Emmett and Edward; my 'rescuers' it seemed. They then told me what had happened.

It was starting to come back to me now. I remember going to the party with Shanice and Mara. I know we drank a hell of a lot and I remember smoking something considerably dodgy. I also remember seeing him. That's when it fades into the huge blankness which lasts until the alley. I know for a fact I hadn't been there for long until Edward and Emmett turned up. I also know that nothing serious happened. That's the way Carlisle put it. I looked at him blankly for a period before Alice came to the rescue with "Did they rape you?" No. No, they didn't, but they might as well have.

EPOV

Part of me, probably the rational part, was asking why oh why did I volunteer to walk Aphy home? The now predominant, irrational part was coming up with some pretty good arguments. Number one, someone needed to walk her home, we couldn't just throw her out the front door. The reasonable part argued Emmett or Alice or someone else could've. Its irrational counter-part told it to fuck off and to concentrate on reason number two; why would anyone not offer to walk someone this goddamn beautiful home? Mr Rational huffed and retreated to the far corner of my mind where he started to build up barricades for his own protection so that when my head was clearer he could regain his territory.

"Almost there" she said in a sing-song voice.

She was astonishingly cheerful for someone who had almost been raped, but I got the idea that she was a strong person, probably able to bounce back from anything. She was walking a few paces in front of me, her blonde waves bouncing off her shoulders. She turned around and flashed me a mind-blowing, heart-wrenching smile.

We turned round one more corner and she came to stop at the gate of a blue painted house.

"Here we are" she pronounced.

I looked up at the house. It stood out from the rows of red brick and white paint, a splash of colour in a black and white photograph. The grass running along the path was long and unkempt, but it looked right somehow. She was watching me.

"I know it's nothing special" she began.

"I like it" I stated "It's unique"

"If that's polite speak for weird…"

"No, seriously!"

"Ok, Ok!" she held up her hands in defence.

"Look, I wanted to thank you for…"

I interrupted her "You've said thank you countless times Aphy, there's really no need"

She smiled and turned towards the house again. A flash of movement by an upstairs window caught both our attentions.

"Play with me, Ok?"

"What?" I started, but then she leaned in and kissed me.

That's right; she kissed me full on, on the mouth. It was amazing; I think every single drop of blood in my body rushed to my head, mixing with hormones and adrenaline to form a fiery river of lust. I wrapped my arms around her waist, pulling her body towards me as I kissed her back. She broke away abruptly and looked at me with her head on one side. Then she turned smiling and ran into the house. She paused in the doorway and waved, and then she was gone.

Who remembers the lovely green button from last time? If you do...brownie point to you...and go clicky!!

Reviews make me happy, and happy Libi means a Libi who does her school work more quickly, and so can write more story and update sooner. See it all works out :D

Love you,

Libi xxx

P.S. Next chapter up soon