"You are so soft, so fragile. I have to mind my actions every moment that we're together so I don't hurt you. I could kill you quite easily, simply by accident. If for one second I wasn't paying enough attention, I could reach out to touch your face and crush your skull by mistake. You don't realise how incredibly breakable you are."

I don't think either of us fully realised exactly what we were getting ourselves in for.

Once, after I nearly snapped his wrist, I realised that if I really wanted to be with Eddie, vampire-me had to take a seat on the sidelines as I dialled back my strength and base impulses to a level where he could keep up with me. But Eddie, being male, flatly refused to admit whenever I was wearing him out. I think on some base level it irked him out being with a girl who was physically stronger than he was, without even realising it.

I didn't go back to the council. I knew that when they wanted me, they'd think of some way to find me. For a while, I thought about just leaving. Maybe convincing Eddie to come with me, and we could start over somewhere.

But I knew that Eddie would never leave his family behind when he felt that he was still needed.

And I also knew that no matter how much fun we were having right now, it wouldn't last. How could it? I was going to be seventeen for as long as I existed, and sooner or later I was going to realise that Eddie was aging before my eyes. Could I do that to myself? More importantly, could I do that to him?

I decided that at the moment it didn't matter.

I was sitting alone at a table in front of the town's pokey little bakery when the chair opposite me was pulled out.

"Hi." Alice Collins said cheerfully. "You mind?"

"No. Sure." I watched as she sank down into the chair, suddenly feeling positively goblin-like next to her perfect pixie proportions. She smiled at me, and I envied her ability to never let anything get her down.

"Alice." She offered her hand across the table.

"Ella."

"Nice to meet you." Alice's grin was cheeky, but her eyes were curiously deep and studied my face as if looking for something. Seemingly finding her confirmation in my features, she leant back in her chair, satisfied.

"I'm sorry, can I help you?" I was a little confused. Was this normal behaviour for her?

"I just saw you there and thought I should come over and introduce myself." One of Alice's eyebrows quirked. "Considering you're doing my brother and all."

I didn't think my blood circulation was strong enough to summon up a blush, but I did, and brilliantly.

"We're not – that is, we haven't-" I stammered. How do you explain to someone that you haven't slept with your super buff, hunky boyfriend yet because you're afraid you might hurt him?

"I know." Alice said casually, stealing a fragment of cake off my plate. "It's written all over your face. I just wanted to see what kind of reaction I'd get."

I frowned, but it was practically impossible to summon up any real anger against her. "Eddie... told you about me." I wasn't sure whether I should be unnerved or pleased.

"Not in so many words. Emmett caught him in a headlock and wouldn't let him go until he told us why he's been acting so weird lately." She let out a little chuckle. Then her smile faded. Alarm bells went off in my head, and my muscles tensed, ready to flee.

"But there's something he's not telling us. I've known Eddie long enough to know when something's wrong." Alice cocked her head to the side. I couldn't hold her stare, and averted my eyes.

"I'm sorry, Ella. I had to come over to talk to you, you see. I have..." She closed her eyes and opened them again after a moment. Her bubbly exterior and massive personality gave way to someone I didn't recognise, someone mournful and solemn.

"I have visions. And most of the time, they come true."

I sat staring at her, unsure of what to say. My first impulse was to call her crazy, but as a vampire, I really had no right to say anything was too ludicrous. "I still don't understand why you're telling me this." I finally said carefully, and it was true.

"Because I know what you are." Alice said softly. "I knew it because I saw you step of the bus months before you did. I saw your conflict and your desires. You must be careful, Ella. Chose your friends carefully."

I thought of Mike and Jessie, who had gained my trust and then used me.

"Alice..." My voice cracked.

"No, listen to me. Yesterday, I had a vision. Eddie walked into Carl and Esme's house, only it wasn't Eddie anymore."

Mum walked into Carl and Esme's house, only she wasn't my mum anymore.

"He was like you, but different. He was... so cold. Empty." Alice shivered slightly under the hot sun. "He was there to kill us." She said in a small voice.

"I still... don't understand..."

Alice reached across the table and grasped my hands. Her grip was stronger than I expected, and her eyes bored a hole through my skull. "Something big is going to happen." She said. "And it's heading straight for you, and everyone around you is going to be caught up in chaos." As she spoke, I noticed that her eyes seemed to slip out of focus. "He's coming."

"Who's coming?"

As soon as it had begun, Alice snapped back to reality. She smiled at me, and patted my hand in a consoling manner. "I have to go now." She said softly. "You're about to get an important phone call."

Alice left me staring at her back in confusion. Apparently Eddie wasn't the only one of the Collins family that was good at speaking in riddles and then leaving me hanging.

True to her words, five minutes after Alice left, my phone began to buzz in my pocket. I flipped it out and saw that it was Eddie's number. I rose an eyebrow, and connected the call.

"Hey, sweetie. After a booty call already?" I joked.

For a moment all I heard on the other end of the line was a woman talking. And then my man's voice came in, strangely hesitant. "Erm, hi, Ella."

"Are you okay?"

Suddenly, he was back. "Sorry, Esme's got my ear." He paused again, as the woman in the background began prodding him to do something again. "Listen, do you want to come around to my place? My parents want to meet you. Or rather," He corrected himself. "Esme wants to meet you."

I thought of Emmett and the headlock. "Do you really think that's wise?" I asked carefully.

"Probably not, but 'wise' seems to have gone out the window right about now." He said wryly.

"Point." I said, and somehow I found myself meeting the parents.

It was only later that I began having serious doubts, and not just because of the whole daunting 'parent' thing, will they like me, won't they, blah, blah. Dr Carl Collins was a fairly seasoned vampire hunter. Problem: me.

I followed the instructions Eddie gave me, half wondering whether I had taken a wrong turning somewhere as the gaps between houses became further apart and the bush became more overgrown and tangled. I was starting to watch my fuel gauge with worry, when the ground evened out and the yellowed grass had a slightly more looked after hue. Finally I found a gravel drive, and trundled along it in the hope that the Collins' house would be at the end.

I'm not sure that I expected. Maybe that a family of vampire hunters would be living in an old fortified castle or a beat up old trailer park or something, but it wasn't this.

"Holy crap."

The Collins family house was three stories high, wood panelling and glass walls. A paved path led out to an overgrown garden, and an adjoining building housed several vehicles, three motorbikes and four quad bikes. I pulled up behind a sporty red convertible and climbed out, suddenly feeling incredibly self conscious as I plucked at the holes in my jeans.

I crunched up the gravel of the drive to the door. Stepping up to the two massive doors, I reached out for the doorbell.

Chimes tinkled somewhere inside the house and I scuffed my shoe on the step. It wasn't long before the doors were wrenched open and a woman was standing before me, a massive smile across her face.

"Oh my goodness, you're even prettier than I thought you would be." She exclaimed, before folding me in a hug. Her caramel-coloured hair smelled of flowers, and it wasn't hard with the enthusiasm I received to guess that this was Esme Collins.

She held me at arms length, and took me in all at once. Once again a suffered a mini attack of nerves. "I'm not, really." I managed to get out.

"Oh, but you are." Esme smiled. Seemingly only just remembering, she offered me her hand. "Esme Collins. Call me Esme."

"Ella." My rougher palm rubbed against her smooth skin. Esme ushered me inside, and my jaw hit the floor as I looked around. A massive staircase dominated one side of the room, and the ceilings had been removed, leaving bare the wooden support beams.

"All the others have taken their dirt bikes out the back." Esme said. I followed her through the house, rubbing at my forearm. I spied a grand piano, but Esme led me through a pair of French doors and onto a patio looking out onto the back garden, and beyond, a strip of land that I could hear the vague sounds of motors emanating from.

"Dr Collins dirt bikes," I said slowly, not sure I had heard correctly. Somehow the idea was more ludicrous than the image of Alice and the indecently beautiful Rosalie biking.

Esme looked like she didn't entirely agree with her husband's pastime, but she had reluctantly conceded that there were worst things he could be doing. "Tea?"

I wasn't a tea person, but I couldn't exactly refuse. "Sure."

Esme and I settled down on the outside furniture and sat there in silence for several minutes. And then she asked me the strangest question.

"Are you a good person, Ella?"

I choked on a scalding hot mouthful of tea. "I suppose... I like to think I am."

Esme gave a little nod, apparently pleased with my answer. "Then I'm glad he found you."

"Eddie?"

She carefully set her tea down. "He's not really my son, but I think of him as mine." Esme said softly. "Ever since his parents died, God rest their souls, I don't think he's ever been able to get properly close to anyone."

What was I supposed to say to that?

After a moment, figures appeared on the hill. I spied Alice, with one arm around Jasper's waist and the other flung around Eddie's neck. The boys were leading beat-up old farm bikes and the three of them were laughing, covered from head to toe in dust. Emmett came up behind, riding a blue quad bike, Rosalie clinging to his back, the blonde beauty looking terribly out of place in a flannel shirt and scuffed work boots. I found myself grinning as the five of them approached the patio, leaving the bikes beside the outbuildings.

Alice walked over and gave both Esme and myself quick hugs before perching on the edge of Jasper's chair. Jasper gave me a quick hello, and Rosalie nodded her head curtly, acknowledging my presence. Emmett, in contrast, gave me a big grin and a wink. With no free seats, Eddie sat on the arm of my chair, draping his arm around my neck to keep his balance.

"What did you do with Carl?" Esme asked her adoptive children shrewdly.

"I'm here." I heard the doctor's smooth, rich voice and he came trudging up through the farm gate. I hardly recognised him from his clean-cut image in the surgery with his blonde hair in disarray and mud streaked across his clothes.

"What happened to you?" Esme exclaimed, trying not to laugh.

Carl ran his hands through his blonde locks, pushing his hair back into some order. After a moment, he came over and gracefully sat down on the patio near his wife's feet. He had the air of someone who seemed older than he actually was. "Ella." He nodded, sidestepping Esme's question. "Good to see you again."

I had to think for a moment before recalling the morning that I saved Eddie from being crushed. The accident and trip to the hospital seemed so long ago now. "You too, Dr Collins."

"Carl."

"Carl." I smiled. Emmett reached across and casually patted my knee. "Nice to meet you, girl. We were starting to think that Eddie made you up."

"Hardly." I smirked. "His imagination isn't that good."

Rosalie smirked behind her hand, and Emmett laughed uproariously. Eddie tugged at a strand of hair that had fallen from my casual up-do, but when I looked up, his eyes were sparkling.

And so my meeting with the Collins family somehow passed without bloodshed.

More than once I caught Carl Collins eyes on me, looking at me as though I reminded him of someone. I caught him staring once or twice, and did my best to divert my unusual-coloured eyes as quickly as possible. But all in all, it was rather nice. My mother was a drunk and my father didn't even know I existed until four years ago, so this family setting was all new to me.

There was another surprise in store for me when Esme announced that Eddie was going to play the piano for us. I sat, hunkered down in a ball at the foot of the stairs, and watched as his fingers flew across the keys, a foreign melody washing over me, temporarily taking away all my troubles. The beautiful melody made me see something so clearly.

Eddie was adaptive, versatile, strong and stunning, but also so terribly, awfully fragile.

I sat with my chin on my hand, my mouth open slightly as I finally realised what I had to do, with the Collins' and the council and the looming Fawkes war. As soon as Eddie had finished his set, while everyone else was talking, I reached out to grab his wrist.

"Outside. Now."

Eddie raised an eyebrow but had enough sense not to reply with a flippant remark as I dragged him back out onto the patio, closing the French doors behind us.

"What is it?" He reached out to take my arms, but didn't actually touch me. Something in my frantic stare aroused his own worry.

"I'm going to ask you some questions, and I need you to answer them absolutely truthfully." I said sternly.

"Oh...kay." He said slowly.

I took his hand in mine. I knew my grip was almost painful, but I wanted his full attention. "Why did you move to Fawkes?"

Eddie looked at me, apparently taken aback by the one simple question.

"Ella-"

"And don't you dare say it was because of lower house prices or your dad's work or some other bullshit. I want the truth." I wished so much to be able to read what he was thinking, but over the years Eddie had become adept at hiding his true self behind a smokescreen that I couldn't have penetrated if I tried.

"We... ah..." He trailed off and raked a hand through his dark hair, trying to look at anything besides me. Finally he sighed in defeat. "We came here two years ago." Eddie began, speaking in a hushed whisper. "Carl... got a tip-off from one of his old college buddies."

"About what?"

"The Fawkes disappearances, the ones that started about two years ago. You've bound to have seen the notices in the paper." Eddie said. I nodded. "There had been a few... a few vampire hunters here before us. They must have found something, because none of them were... ever seen again.

"So Carl and Esme asked us for our own opinions on the subject and we just all uprooted here, looking for the source. That's why we've been out of school so much, because Carl sort of inherited all the previous hunters' notes and we've been going over old ground, trying to pick up the scent, so to speak."

"Have you found anything?"

"Ella, what's with the questions?"

I sighed, and looked down at my sneakers. "Not that long ago, I was made to meet the vampires of Fawkes." I said. "They wanted me to get close to you, to all of you, so they could kill you. They think that you're the ones responsible for the missing people."

Eddie looked confused. "But that makes no sense." He finally said slowly. "Everything leads to the vampires killing innocent people."

"But they're convinced that you guys are hunting them, and the missing people are vampires." And the age-old peace treaty that had held sway in Fawkes for so long had fallen off the knife's edge.

"Something's not right here." Eddie said, his brow furrowed in thought.

The two of us stood in silence for a moment, and then I suddenly remembered something.

"Toby Harker!" I exclaimed.

"What?"

I looked into his eyes. "There was a third faction in the treaty."

Understanding dawned on Eddie's face. "The original inhabitants of the land."

"Crap."

"My sentiments exactly." The two of us turned back toward the patio doors.

"We can't do this alone, Ed." I said, almost desperately.

"I know, babe." Eddie sighed, knowing what was coming next. He took my hand firmly in his as we walked back through the doors. All conversation died off as the Collins' spotted our dark expressions.

"Everyone, there's something I have to say to you all." My voice was scratchy and I didn't sound like myself at all, but I carried on.

"My name is Ella Swain." I said.

"And I'm a vampire."