Oh hello there everyone! New readers, and old friends! I know that I have another story that's a work in progress, but this idea just wouldn't leave me alone! (I won't be abandoning the other story, but progress will be slower). Now! Before we begin, just a few warnings:

This fiction is rated as an M for mature content. If you are below the age of 18, please evacuate the area immediately in an orderly manner. This story includes swearing, mentions of suicide, underage drug and alcohol use, and mature sexual content.

If any of those things make you uncomfortable, and you still wish to read, please proceed with caution. This story also contains supernatural themes, but please keep in mind that these are not the monsters that Stephanie Meyer created and not everything is as it seems...

Anyway! I hope you all enjoy this new story! Happy reading! ~W.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Twilight Saga or any of the characters in the story.

Chapter 1

When the plane landed it was raining, and I wasn't surprised.

The sky looked like a piece of paper smudged with graphite. Dark gray and streaking while the clouds leaked out the kind of rain that stung your face when you walked through it.

We had taken a charter plane from the Seattle airport to the town of Port Angeles that was much closer to our destination of Forks, Washington. While Claire had been a trooper throughout the plane ride from Arizona to Washington, she had fallen asleep after we had boarded the charter plane. Her tiny body was now in my arms as I tried to shield her face from the stinging rain. The other gentleman that had taken the flight with us, and older man named Garrett had kindly offered to carry our luggage into the small waiting office on the airfield.

After he had seen us inside and I had situated myself onto a chair with Claire's unconscious body draped across mine, he left with a slight smile and a nod, hoping that we did well on our trip.

I tried hard not to roll my eyes and snap at him that this wasn't a fucking vacation we were on.

The anger bubbled up inside of me and the words were on the tip of my tongue. But as I had been doing for the past two weeks, I swallowed them back down like a bitter pill. It would be pointless and in the process of cussing him out I probably would have woken up Claire. And God knows she needed her sleep.

For the first few days after everything had happened, we had stayed at our neighbor's house. She was an elderly woman named Mrs. Kittridge. She'd been widowed for almost seven years, and her house smelled of cat pee and cabbage. Floral drapings covered almost every surface, and the bedsheets in the guest room crackled, and stunk of must from years of no use.

It had all been so wrong, and even I hadn't been able to sleep. Claire would crawl out of her bed every night and cuddle herself up beside my body. She would ask when we were going home, and every night I would have nothing to tell her.

What do you tell your four year old sister?

How do you tell her that you had found your mother's body, lying in a pool of her own blood?

Are there any words to use to tell her that she would never be going home. Mom was never going to pick us up. We were going to have to uproot everything and leave because our mother had left us.

As if she could sense the dark twist in my thoughts, Claire stirred in her sleep. A soft little noise escaped her tiny body, and her head shifted on my shoulder. Her blonde hair was pulled into to curly little pigtails, and I could feel the small puffs of her breath on my shoulder where my t-shirt had fallen away.

Trying to calm myself down, I looked around the small office. There was one woman manning the desk on the other side of the room, and I could hear the distant rumble of thunder, and the tapping of rain on the roof. Suddenly, the front door to the office opened up and in stepped a rain drenched man. For a second I was going to ignore him, but then I realized that he was exactly the man we had been waiting for.

I hadn't seen my father Charlie in almost ten years. He'd send me birthday cards with some money every year, and he'd always call for special occasions. He'd never even met Claire. Although, considering she wasn't even his, I didn't think he was expected to. But that hadn't stopped him from sending cards to her too.

His curly brown hair was thinning on his head, and his brown eyes looked a bit water. He was also wearing his police uniform, and I wondered briefly if he'd driven the cruiser.

I had always been told that I looked more like Charlie than… my mother. I had his brown hair, brown eyes, and pale skin. As well as his short temper and difficulty showing emotions. Claire was entirely my mother though, which was good since Renee couldn't remember who her father was. Claire was all blonde hair, blue eyes, and dimples. Though she hadn't smiled for two weeks.

"Isabella?" Charlie said hesitantly as he drew closer. I stood carefully, trying not to jostle the sleeping girl in my arms.

"It's Bella now, actually," I corrected quietly as I leaned down to grab our bags.

"Here I'll get that," Charlie quickly intercepted and grabbed the two simple duffle bags and the backpack that had been our only luggage.

"Thanks," I said simply, and then followed him out of the office, nodding slightly to the woman behind the desk, who had been watching the interaction.

Once again shielding Claire's face, I followed Charlie out into the parking lot, only to see that he had indeed driven the police cruiser to pick us up. Opening the back door, I slid into the backseat and rearranged my little sister once again. She whimpered slightly in her sleep, and I smoothed her hair back from her face, trying to soothe her. During the times she had managed to fall asleep over the past two weeks, she had always woken with nightmares. I always consoled her, while I thought to myself that if I had been able to sleep well enough to dream, then I would be having nightmares as well.

Charlie finished putting our bags into the trunk and slid into the front seat. There was a metal grate between the front and back seat, as there was in most police cars.

It was quiet for a long moment between us, just listening to the rain outside.

"I just want you to know how sorry I am for all of this, Is- Bella. I loved your mom a lot, and I just hope that I can make this a good enough home for the both of you," Charlie finally spoke, turning around to look at me through the metal grate.

Turning my face away, I looked out the window at the water sluicing down the glass, "It's not your fault she's dead Charlie. That's all on Renee," I spoke softly, though my words had a clear bite to them.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Charlie nod, and the car rumbled to life. As we started to drive, the thick forest trees on either side of the road blocked out all of the remaining light that was in the gray sky. I could feel the familiar burn of tears threatening to break from my eyes, but I deepened my breathing. Determined not to let them slip out.

I had done my crying. I had screamed, I had yelled, I'd thrown things and beat the walls bloody with my hands. There was even a new scar four inches long on my thigh where a piece of the mirror I had punched had fallen and sliced open my skin. I remember how I had just stared at the blood that covered my hands and seeped from the slice on my thigh.

I hadn't seen my own blood.

All I had seen was the pool of sticky red that had surrounded my mother. Her lifeless blue eyes were clouded over, her mouth slightly ajar, and so much blood. The teal peasant skirt that had always been her favorite was soaked into a different color. It was dark, and wrong. Just the thought of it made my stomach turn, even now, driving in this car, hundreds of miles away from Phoenix.

Washington hadn't been my first choice. I begged the police officers and the child protection agents to let me keep Claire on my own. Next year I would be turning eighteen. What was one year in the scheme of all that had happened?

I explained to them that I had practically raised Claire on my own so far. My mother was so flighty that I had learned at a young age to do things for myself. By the time I was nine I had been sending in bills on my walk to school to make sure that our water or electricity wasn't shut off. I could cook, and clean, and when Claire had been born, I was the one to change her diapers and wake up in the middle of the night when she cried, and our mother was passed out in a stupor on the couch. Unable to even help herself.

I begged them to let me be on my own. I didn't want to go to some tiny town in the North Pacific. There was nothing for me there. I hadn't seen my father since I was seven and I'd decided that spending the summer with him wasn't nearly as fun as I'd thought it was when I was four. But they had all stated that the law was clear, and that until I actually turned eighteen, I would have to live with my father. Even if that meant leaving the house that Claire had known through her entire life and moving to some kind of bumfuck town in the middle of the pacific Northwest.

I wasn't sure how long I had been lost in my thoughts, but when the car finally stopped, I realized we were parked in front of the house I'd spent my first few years of childhood in. The street lamps cast it in a dim, yellowish color, and with that little light I could tell that it needed a paint job. But for the most part, it looked exactly as it had when I had left ten years ago.

"I'll bring in your bags, the door should be unlocked. I haven't cleaned out your old room entirely, so there's an air mattress-"

I didn't bother listening to the rest of what Charlie had to say. I got out of the cruiser, and walked quickly through the gravel to the front door, opening the front door and stepping into the entryway. Reaching out in the darkness, I slid my hand along the wall until i felt a light switch, and turned on the lights in the hallway.

From behind me I heard Charlie stepped through the doorway, and shut the front door behind him.

"The living room is right-" Charlie started, but I cut him off again.

"Through here, I know. I can remember," I said softly. Turning to my left I walked through the archway that led into another dark room. I heard the click of a lamp being turned on and the room was suddenly illuminated. The battered old blue couch was still pushed against the closest wall, and a leather chair sat next to the bay window that faced the front yard. Although the old television set had been swapped out for a flat screen TV and I could see that my school pictures up until seventh grade, when I had stopped sending them, were still sitting above the fireplace on the mantel.

On the ground there was an air mattress already blown up with several blankets piled onto it, and a couple of pillows. Gently, I kneeled down next onto the floor and pulled back the top blankets on the bed to lay down Claire. Careful not to wake her I gently eased her out of her pink rain coat, and her little boots and sock, then I slowly eased the small elastics out of her hair and let her soft blond curls fan out.

Leaning back on my heels, I felt as though I was going to cry. Her face was completely relaxed in her sleep. She looked so untroubled. When she was awake, she would sometimes cry, or get angry, asking when mom was coming back from her trip. And each time, another aching crack would appear in my chest when I had to tell her that mommy was never coming back from her trip. She had gone to see the angels up in heaven, and she was never going to see mommy again.

There would be no more midnight wake-up calls to go and drive to the canyon and watch the stars. No more making pancakes, but instead having a war throwing batter at one another, until there wasn't even enough in the bowl to make breakfast and they had to settle for cereal. Never again would they wake up on Valentines day, or any other random holiday with either a basket full of goodies, or a note apologizing for how she was out with a friend and that she'd left money for pizza. No more hugs scented like incense, no more random fads of yoga, or knitting, or building fairy houses for ebay. All of it was gone.

And I had no idea where to begin again.

"Are you going to be okay down here, Bella?" Charlie asked in a gruff whisper.

It took me a long time to answer him, but eventually I breathed in deeply and turned to look at him.

"Yeah dad, I'll be fine," I replied. I hoped that he could see at least a part of my apology in my eyes. How do other people find the words to explain how they're feeling?

I'm sorry I'm not good at this.

I'm sorry I'm scared.

I'm sorry that I'm so angry and sad, and just broken into little pieces.

"That's good… I guess I'll see you in the morning then," Charlie said and looked down at his shuffling feet.

"Sounds good… Good night," I said again. He turned and left the room, and I watched him walk up the stairs towards the second floor. I could hear him walking around in his bedroom for a while, and then the loud creaking of something, probably his bed, and then silence.

The thunder still rumbled in the distance, like the purr of a giant beast. The rain tapped against the window, and the street lamps flickered slightly. Sighing I reached for my duffle bag and pulled out a pair of shorts and a tshirt for bed. Knowing Claire, she was going to be laying on top of me within five minutes of crawling into bed, and for some reason, her little body gave off the same amount of heat as a sauna.

After changing quickly and throwing my hair up into a messy bun, I turned out the lamp in the living room and shuffled onto the mattress under the blankets next to Claire. As predicted, her little hands searched me out under the blankets and I pulled her little body in close to my own. Her breathing was against my neck once again and stray hairs tickled my nose.

With a shaky breath I settled in for another sleepless night, with only my dark thoughts, and the equally dark night to keep me company.

Leave a comment if you'd like to! Thank you for reading.