Twilight

Chapter One

"Oh." Alice turned to Edward from across the room, the irises of her wide eyes clouding in a familiar way. "Oh, no."

Faster than sound itself, Edward was standing next to her, a worried expression on his face. "Alice, what is it?" he asked, tenetively touching her icy cold shoulder. "Alice?"

Gazing into her face, he knew he would not recieve a verbal response. Alice's eyes were glazed over and she was completely unaware of Edward hovering over her.

"Alice…." Edward trailed off as he let her thoughts enter his mind. She was having a vision—it didn't take telepathy to know that—and he needed to see what it was in her vision that had her worried. As her emotions became tangible thoughts and sights in his mind, Edward closed his eyes against reality to better percieve what his sister was seeing.

Almost immediately, Bella caught his eye. Her beautiful copper hair was flowing behind her as she ran, and she was running as fast as her human body would allow. Edward paled as he noticed her terrified expression, her chest heaving frantically and the sweat or tears that glazed her cheekbones. His whole being ached to help her, and he desperately wished he could, but he was somehow stuck in place, unable to move. She ducked under a low hanging branch and leapt over a small brush, and he almost expected her to trip. He exhaled in relief when her two feet managed to find the ground. She dodged around several more trees, trying to lose her attacker, and Edward's breath hitched in his stoney throat when he realized she was running through the Black's forest—Quiluete territory.

Suddenly, with a look over her right shoulder, his Bella suddenly dug her heels into the damp forest floor and slid to a short stop. She threw herself behind a large, dead tree, and squatted, hunching her shoulders over her in an almost protective gesture. She closed her eyes as she continued sucking down all the air she could through her open mouth.

"Edward…," Bella whispered to herself, panting so heavily her breathing almost drowned out her voice. She opened her eyes and looked upwards, as though she could see him in the branch covered sky. "Edward, where are you?"

A twig snapped and her head spun towards the noise, her hair twirling wildly and beads of sweat falling from her face to the ground. "Who's there?" she squeaked.

Silence.

Bella's frail body shook with terror and adrenaline.

"I—know you're there," she said jerkily.

This time, there was an answer. A low moan sounded like a foghorn through the surrounding forest, causing Bella to gasp and shut her eyes tight.

"…Please," she whispered, squeezing her arms tight around herself, making herself smaller.

"P—please," a voice echoed, even more shakily than Bella's. Edward's hackles raised at the young man's desperate call to his Bella.

"Bella, don't turn around," Edward whispered pleadingly, knowing that she wouldn't be able to hear him. Bella's breathing began to slow as she searched once more for the owner of the voice.

"Pl-ease," the disembodied voice wavered again, clearly pained. Bella's chin jutted out and she looked to the side, trying to see who the voice belonged to without having to turn. She couldn't. "Help…."

"Bella, don't turn around!" Edward begged.

Bella stood to her full height and spun. She gasped in horror as she looked on beyond her hiding place and—

"Edward!"

Edward inhaled sharply as he was brought back to reality, away from Bella, away from whatever lay beyond the tree.

"Edward!" Alice called again, her mind radiating with fear. "Did you see it? Did you see what I saw?"

He looked into his sister's small imploring face as she searched his eyes. He could feel himself shaking.

"I thought she was with Charlie…," he whispered and Alice grabbed his wrist soothingly.

"Listen, Edward, don't worry," she told him seriously. "We'll find—"

But she never finished her sentence, for Edward ripped his arm out of her firm grip, turned, and ran. Not even taking the time to use the door, he jumped through the window, shards of glass shattering all over the Cullen driveway, and he ran as fast as he could, faster than the speed of sound, to the Quilette forest. He would have to risk them being angry with him for trespassing on their territory, but saving Bella would be more than worth that risk. Bella was his life. Bella had to be saved.

He was there in less than half a minute. He stopped, closing his eyes in order to focus on anything he could find. He was unable to hear anything with his mind, but then, to his surprise, he heard her voice.

"Edward, where are you?"

It was a faint whisper even with his super-human hearing, a hundredth of the volume it was when he had heard it in Alice's vision. He tried to pinpoint where exactly it came from, but was nervouse about wasting any more time than he already had. "I'm coming, Bella."

He ran as fast as he could towards her voice, constantly pushing himself faster. And then he heard her voice again, louder.

"Please!" her frantic whisper echoed in his ear, her beautiful voice begging.

Then he heard the other voice.

"P-please," it whined pathetically. It was startling, hearing the voice, because he was unable to sense any thoughts in the forest at all.

But in less than a second, Edward found her. Before she even knew what happened, he had her in his arms, holding her protectively.

"Edward!" she cried, wrapping her arms around him. "How did you—!"

"Shh!" he silenced her. He set her down gently, stepping past her so he could finally see what was beyond the tree.

Both Edward and Bella gasped at the same time.

A boy no older than seventeen was laying face down in a small puddle of red. His hair was matted, his clothes torn and sweaty, and he looked absolutely filthy. Edward took a hestitant step forward and bent down to inspect Bella's supposed attacker. The boy was just human. His muscles were shaking, and the tears in his clothes exposed cuts in his flesh. And, as Edward noticed with heart-stopping horror, the small lacerations weren't the only thing that had torn him apart. There were bite marks on his neck, where blood was freely and quickly escaping his body.

"Pl-please help me," the boy suddenly gasped, as he tried to pick himself up with his arms, startling both Edward and Bella. They watched as his arms failed him, and he fell back to the earth, unmoving.

"Oh my god!" Bella cried, grabbing onto Edward's sleeve. "Edward, what—!"

"Bella, why are you out here?" he asked harshly, brushing asid Bella's hand as he bent down to pick the boy up into his arms to let her know just how furious he was.

Bella cringed. "I—Jacob left a message on my cell, telling me he was in trouble," she said quietly. "You don't understand, Edward! It sounded like he was crying! I had to help him!"

Edward's amber eyes flashed as he looked at her. "You could have called me!"

"I wasn't thinking." She lowered her own eyes to the ground in embarrassment. "Anyway, I heard a noise when I was running in the forest, and I got scared."

"You were lucky Alice saw you. Get on," he said, motioning to his back with his shoulders, and Bella complied without a word. "And hold on."

Almost instantaneously, they were off. Bella squinted against the oncoming rush of wind in her eyes and bit her lip against the sick feeling the tunnel of barely visible passing trees gave her. She decided instead to look down, around the back of Edward's head, to get a better look at the unconscious boy.

He was pale and posessed a full head of messy black hair. The red symbol on his dirty white tee was no longer legible because of a long gash that ran through it and the blood that was everywhere. Bella scrunched her nose; the smell and sight of blood gave her stomach an even worse feeling than the passing trees. She tore her eyes away from his messy clothes and broken body to study his small face. He was nowhere near as gorgeous as Edward, but there was something rather attractive about the boy's rounded face. His face looked too young for his tall, lean body, and it was this imbalance that threw Bella off. Where Edward lacked the naievety most kids lost when they became teenagers, this boy couldn't have had more angelic features.

And of course, just as soon as she had gotten comfortable on Edward's hard back, he came to a stop.

"We're home," he whispered, no longer any anger laced in his beautiful voice.

Bella slid off Edward's back with a small nod, and followed him as he walked up the Cullen driveway and into the house. As soon as he opened the door, the members of the Cullen family rushed at them, surprisingly much too worried about Bella to notice the smell of blood wafting from the boy's body.

"Is Bella all right?" Alice was the first to ask, her shrill voice ringing from somehwere behind the group of tall vampires.

"Is she okay?" Emmet growled.

"Oh my god, Edward!" Alice cried pushing through the family, as their attention was drawn to the boy in Edward's arms. "Who is that?"

"Carlisle," Edward whispered, ignoring all their questions. "Please…."

Carlisle pushed forward from the group and took the boy out of Edward's hands. He walked to his office and layed him down on the lenght of the couch.

"He's bitten," Edward informed Carlisle. Carlisle nodded, and began to study his new patient.

"Everyone, out," he said quietly and everyone left his office. As soon as they had left the doctor and his patient in peace, the interrogation resumed.

"Edward, who is that?"

"I don't know. Bella found him," Edward answered tiredly.

"I did?" Bella was shocked. She had run from him—she hadn't found him.

"What happened to him?"

"I don't know…."

-

A good half hour later, Carlisle emerged from his office. Everyone sitting at the dining room table looked up to him expectantly.

"He's alive." Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Having a dead person on your hands is never a good thing, vampire or not. "But he's been severely injured."

"And the bite?" Edward asked, worried.

Carlisle tiredly raised a hand to calm his adoptive son. "Taken care of," the doctor assured with a smile. The smile soon faded, however, when he looked backwards in the general direction of his office. "Someone should stay with him through the night. I don't know if he'll—he'll be able to…"

"Survive the night?" Bella finished quietly for him, and everyeone turned to her in surprise. "I'll stay with him."

Edward's answer was almost instantaneous. "No, Bella, you need to sleep."

"I found him!" she said, protectively, crossing her arms.

Edwrad exhaled heavily, knowing more than anyone how stubborn Bella could be. "Fine," he growled. "But I'm staying with you."

Bella smiled and quickly slid her cell phone from her pocket. Raising it to her ear, she dialed Charlie.

-

Later that night, Bella found herself on the reclining chair in the spare bedroom, wrapped in Edward's strong arms. The both of them stared almost unblinkingly at the sleeping boy on the bed. Carlisle had managed to clean the boy up. He was no longer filthy, but completely washed. His left arm was in a splint and on his right, a row of stitches ran from his shoulder to his elbow. Bella imagined that he must also have stitches on his torso, but Edward's spare oxford button-up shirt covered it. His neck had been bandaged so that the bite marks could no longer be seen, and on his face, unprotected cuts too shallow to have anything done to them spotted his left cheek to his jaw. There was no denying that he had been very badly hurt and in this state, he wasn't the most beautiful of sights, but they kept staring in curiosity, willing him to wake up, to keep living.

Bella had almost closed her eyes and drifted into sleep when she heard the scraping of fingernails on sheets. Her eyes snapped open and after regaining focus on the boy in front of her, she looked him over.

His fingers twitched again and a soft groan escaped his lips. Bella flung herself out of Edward's arms to the side of his bed, and patted the stranger's shoulder soothingly.

"Mom…?" the dark haired boy whispered in a quiet, raspy voice, his cracked lips parted as he awaited an answer.

"…No," Bella whispered sadly, glancing at Edward when she felt him brush her shoulder with his stoney fingers. She found herself wondering not for the first time just what, exactly, the boy had been through.

She was surprised when he didn't ask who stood at his bedside, but rather switched topics.

"Water," he begged, and Bella looked up to Edward in silent communication. Edward nodded and exited the room, heading for the kitchen.

"We're getting you water," Bella smiled encouragingly. Her breath caught in her throat when the boy's eyelids flickered and slowly opened. His eyes were such a startling color blue, and Bella found herself staring openly. They shone brightly in the moonlight, the most beautiful shade of aquamarine. His brows furrowed together at the sight of Bella standing over him.

"Who—?"

"Here's water," Edward interrupted, appearing in the doorway with a glass of cold water in his outsretched hand. Bella took it from him and brought it to the boy's lips. He drank half the cup before choking and spilling water all over himself and the sheets. She took the cup away as he coughed and cleared his throat.

"Who was after you?" Edward said without pause. "Do you know?"

The boy shook his head slowly as if it hurt to do it, and his eyes welled with tears as memories returned to him.

"They have…my sister," he whispered, shaking, as his head fell back onto the pillow. When he closed his eyes, a small tear slid down his thin face. "My f—family—…They…have—they…."

He didn't say anything more as he drifted out of consciousness. Bella sighed, shaking off the intent concentration she had given their conversation, and she sat back down in the chair, curling into herself. She struggled against sleep as she waited for the boy to wake once more, but eventually her eyes closed and she gave into her strange dreams.

A/N: This was already written, I just changed a few little details in ordere to improve a little bit upon the horrible writing I managed to produce a year ago. I'm also going to take the time to tell you that one, I only read the first two books of the series, and two, I hated them both with a passion. But people really like it, so I thought that I would give writing about it a try. Also, thank you for reviewing!