Disclaimer. All publicly recognizable characters, settings etc., are the property of their respective owners. The original characters, ideas and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. I only do this for fun.

The Chronicles of the Fallen

A/N:BIG NEWS! Read my Author's Note at the bottom of the chapter for details!

This story is written as a collaboration by both Xo Bella Italiana oX (my new pen name) and dramaqueen1917. If you have any questions or comments, post them in my reviews and I will answer them in my next Author's Note. We hope that you enjoy the story and look forward to reading your reviews. – B

Chapter 23
(Isabella's POV)

I sat down in the kitchen with Charlie as I waited for Anna to finish getting ready and come downstairs. Today was her first day of school, and Charlie was talking to me about possibly looking out for Anna, since she wasn't the 'put herself out there' kind of girl. I agreed, of course, and was currently waiting to take Anna with me to school for her first day, rather than her drive herself or follow me, since she wasn't all that familiar with the directions.

As Charlie sat back in his chair and opened the newspaper, I couldn't help the way that my eyes widened at the story that was posted on the front page of the Seattle Times. It spoke about the strange recent increase of animal attacks around the northwestern parts of Washington. However, I knew immediately by the descriptions that there was no way that an animal was the cause, but a vampire; possibly a nomad or two passing through the area with sloppy feeding habits.

Hearing Anna coming down the steps, I rose from my seat at the kitchen table, placing my dirty plates in the sink, rinsing them off before putting them in the dish washer.

"Morning!" Anna smiled as she entered the kitchen and took a seat at the table, reaching forward for one of the poppy seeded bagels siting on a plate with the works arranged in the center.

"Good Morning, Annabelle," Charlie grinned at his daughter from over the top of his newspaper.

"Morning," I nodded from over my shoulder as I dried my hands over the sink.

"You ready for your first day of school, today?" Charlie asked as he picked up the second half of his bagel and took a bite.

Anna shrugged, but didn't respond with much more than that.

I waited patiently for Anna to finish her breakfast before looking over at the clock and announcing that we needed to get going if we wanted to be there early enough for Anna to be able to sign herself in without being late for first period. She nodded, popping the last bite of her bagel into her mouth and brushed the crumbs off her hands over her plate. Slinging her bag over her shoulder, she, then, picked up her plate and quickly rinsed it out in the sink and stuck it in the dishwasher.

"All set?" I asked as I picked up my book bag and slung it over my right shoulder.

Anna sighed with another shrug. "As ready as I'll ever be, I guess."

I gave her a small smile. "It's not that bad, I should know. I was a new student there not so long ago. There won't be nearly as many students there either as there was in your old school. And we might even have some classes together since they combined a lot of the classes together, like with the sophomores and the freshmen and the seniors and the juniors."

"See, kiddo? You'll be fine, and Bella will be there to help ya out if you need her, right Bells?" Charlie smiled at the two of us as he buckled his gun belt around his waist.

I nodded, "Yep!"

Anna gave her dad a small smile and nodded, "Alright, I'll see you after school, dad."

"Have a good day, sweetheart." He smiled back before Anna and I headed out the front door and jumped into my silver F-250 rather than my Evo, (A/N: Evo's are what they call the Lancer Evolution for short.) throwing our bags into the spacious back seat.

"You have a nice truck," Anna said as she looked around the cab. "Is this a DVD played?"

I nodded, "Yeah, this baby is fully loaded." I grinned. "I bought it myself just after I came to Forks around the same time that I bought my Evo. I figured that it would help during the bad weather that we sometimes have rather than driving a sports car." I told her as I began to back out of the driveway before putting the truck in drive and taking off down the road.

She nodded, looking thoughtful for a moment before she spoke. "Not to be rude or anything, but how were you able to afford all that?"

I looked over and smiled at her as I slipped my seatbelt on over my chest, reciting the story that Charlie and I had agreed on. "When my parents died, they left everything to me. They were on the wealthy side and had a lot of investments. They had invested in Apple back when they were still in their experimental stage, so they got a lot of money on the return. Plus, over nearly the last two decades, you can imagine the interest that the savings accounts and stuff have built up. I've been offering to help pay for things around the house, and even offered Charlie rent, but he just won't take it. So I've had to do things without him knowing."

She smiled and nodded, "Yeah, Charlie's like that."

Anna and I made small talk as we drove the rest of the way to school, mostly about what it will be like during her first day and what the students and teachers were like.

"I have to admit that aside from the Cullen's, I didn't really get to know the other students much – well, aside from Angela, Jessica, Mike and their gang. I'm telling you right now that Jessica is going to be stalking you like a vulture throughout the day."

Anna frowned at this. "Why?"

"Because she craved being the center of attention, and since you're new and everyone will be curious about you, she will want to insert herself into your life, just like she did with me. She's a bit of a gossiper, but don't worry, she's harmless. It's her best friend Lauren that you have to watch out for. She gets jealous easy and can be quite the evil bitch, if you know what I mean."

Anna nodded, "Yeah, we had one of those in Jacksonville."

"But Angela is a sweetheart and wouldn't say a bad thing against anyone. I think that you two will get along. She's also very smart, so she will probably be in some of your classes." I told her as we took a right turn into the school's nearly empty parking lot, grinning at the fact that I had my choice of the lot.

I found a good spot half way back on the far end of the lot near the side entrance of the school where Emmett usually parked his overly large jeep.

Getting out of the cab, we grabbed our bags and headed towards the office building to get Anna signed in with Mrs. Cope before making our way back out to the parking lot, waiting for school to start.

Out of the Cullen's, Jasper, Emmett and Rose arrived first, saying that Edward and Alice had to stop to drop something off at the hospital to Carlisle and would be back in time for second period.

I wrapped my arms around Jasper's waist as I introduced Rose and Emmett to Anna.

"Guys, this is Charlie's daughter, Annabelle." I introduced them. "Anna, this is Jasper's twin sister, Rosalie Hale, and her boyfriend Emmett Cullen."

"It's nice to meet Bellsie's new sister," Emmett smiled, his dimpled grin lighting up his whole face. Rosalie, on the other hand having never been fond of humans for what I learned was because they had abilities that she didn't, just nodded, eyeing her from Emmett's side.

Anna stared at the two wide-eyed, obviously taking note of Emmett's gigantic frame and Rosalie's extravagant beauty.

Finally, noticing that we were waiting for her to speak, she shook herself out of her stupor. "It's nice to meet you both," She said, and gave them both a small, embarrassed smile as a light pink blush stained her cheeks.

As this happened, I felt Jasper tense up in my arms, immediately holding his breath. I quickly pushed out my mental barrier over his mind to keep his thirst his own and to keep his coven mates' blood lust from affecting him. Immediately feeling the difference, I felt him relax, giving me a small squeeze in silent thanks.

Before we could delve into any further conversation, the first bell rang, signaling the ten minute warning for first period.

I leaned forward out of Jasper's arms as Rosalie and Emmett began to head toward the building, peaking over Anna's shoulder at her schedule. "What do you have for first period?" I asked her.

"Um…" she peered down at her schedule. "It looks like I have English with Mr. Mason, then Spanish with Miss. Short."

I smiled at that. "We have English together, but I'm afraid you're on your own for Spanish. However, I have Miss Short for third period and she's really easy going. As long as you know the basic 'O' 'as' 'a' 'amos' 'an' and when to use each one at the end of the word, you're golden."

Anna gave me an appreciative smile and we made our way towards the English building with Jasper's hand in mine. Though, Anna's glances at the two of us didn't escape me and I couldn't help but wonder what was going on in her head that made her so curious about our relationship. Either way, it wasn't on the top of my list of questions, so I decided that I would let it go, for now.

With a quick kiss, Jasper and I parted ways at the double doors that led to the English building as he began to make his way towards the gymnasium, which was the next larger building over.

Pulling one of the doors open, I held it for Anna to pass through and she smiled her thanks. But as we entered the hallway, it was like my first day here at Forks High all over again. People stared at Anna and I with curiosity as they whispered, fueling the gossip mill, once again with new information. Thankfully, the story that Charlie and I came up with and began to spread around town prior to Anna's arrival had taken and no one seemed to question it.

"Here we are," I gestured to room E206 and pulled open the heavy wooden door – well, heavy by door standards.

We approached Mr. Mason, who sat at his desk, grading papers for the afternoon classes and I cleared my throat politely.

"Mr. Mason? This is my sister, Annabelle. She's just starting today." I introduced her.

He looked up at smiled, holding out his hand for her pink slip to sign. "Welcome to the class, Annabelle."

"Anna, please." She courteously corrected him.

He nodded once and corrected himself. "Anna." Signing the slip, he handed it back to her, along with an orange vocab book and a copy of 'Leaves of Grass', the book that we were currently reading and discussing in class. "Why don't you go ahead and take a seat in the empty desk behind your sister." He suggested, gesturing to the desks, which were quickly being filled with their assigned students.

The two of us made our way towards the back and took our seats, getting our school books settled.

"Hey Bella," Jessica's voice echoed over the mindless chatter around me.

I turned to look over at my neighbor, who happened to be the very same Jessica that I had spoken to Anna about on the ride here.

"Hey Jess," I smiled, noticing the way that she was eyeing Anna, behind me. "Oh, this is my sister, Anna." I said as Anna waved shyly. "Anna, this is my friend, Jessica Stanley."

Immediately, Jessica began to dig for details and possible gossip to add to the rumor mill. "So, you're sisters, huh? You don't look very much alike."

I rolled my eyes at this as Anna answered her, selectively deciding on not paying her any more attention.

The class went by relatively fast as we read the next chapter of 'Leaves of Grass' as a class and did a section of our vocab books, having to finish the rest for homework.

"So, Anna, you have Spanish next, right? Me too!" Jessica's voice rose with happiness, though I knew it was for the wrong reasons. It's not that I thought that she was a bad person, just a little too self-motivated and a complete gossip queen.

I couldn't help but to hide a smile at the look that Anna shot me, silently conveying to me that she now knew what I meant when I spoke of Jessica in relation to a vulture in the truck on the drive over here. I mouthed the words 'good luck' to her, leaving Jessica the privilege of walking her to her next class in the foreign language building.

And God Speed…

A/N: And there you have it; the next chapter to The Chronicles of the Fallen! Any thoughts on it so far? What will the rest of Anna's day be like? Will everything continue to go smoothly for Bella? What do you think will be happening in the next chapter?! Review!

BIG NEWS! Due to the continuous requests that I had about my old story called 'The Way that the Chips Fall', I have decided to do a rewrite and repost it! The first chapter has just been posted this week, so make sure you check it out!

To refresh your memory, here is the summary:

The Way that the Chips Fall: (All Human) To save her family home, impulsive bookstore owner, Bella Swan, makes a deal with the devil in the form of billionaire Jasper Whitlock – the powerful man who once shattered her heart. Jasper doesn't believe in marriage, but in order to inherit his father's corporation, he needs a wife and needs one fast. When he discovers his sister's childhood friend in dire financial straits, he offers Bella a bold proposition: a marriage in name only with certain rules. Avoid entanglement. Keep things all business. Do not fall in love. The arrangement is only for a year, so the rules shouldn't be that hard to follow, right? Except fate has a way of upsetting the best-laid plans. – Inspired by 'The Marriage Bargain' by Jennifer Probst.

If you have any questions or comments, post them in my reviews and I will answer them in my next Author's Note!

To see more, go to my page: Xo Bella Italiana oX

If you enjoyed this story so far, check out some of my other stories on my FanFiction page! Also, I am still accepting Stories that need beta'ing. I will accept OC characters as well as other Fan Fiction stories aside from Twilight depending on the other lead character. PM me for details!
- Bellisma -
Xo Bella Italiana oX