A/N: I'm so so so so so so sorry! It's been an insane amount of time since I've updated and once again, I'm so very sorry.

Well, here it is and still not quite what I wanted it to be. This chapter has taken me forever to write but I figured if I kept trying to fix it I would never post it.

This chapter is mostly an establishing one. I needed the foundation for the plot and for Bella and Edward's relationship so now I can get into the more exciting things.

I'm going to try and update more frequently (even though just updating is doing more than I have been,) but I can't make any promises. I've been incredibly busy the last few months and I've actually been writing my own story so I'll be focusing on that.

Once again, sorry that it's taken me this long but you won't have to wait so long again.

Please tell me what you think!

Oh, and don't worry about me abandoning it. I really want to finish it and now that school's finally out I should be able to.

He didn't quite know what to do.

He was awkward in his too tight shirt and too big pants and he didn't know quite how to walk even though it wasn't something that he had learned just the other day. His fingers were twitching and he longingly thought of going home and just screaming with his fingers against his piano.

He could almost hear it, angry and terrible and so completely miserable.

He walked carefully through the entrance of his new school and pretended that he didn't really care that everyone was staring and he didn't really mind that he was thinking about how in the exact moment, he hated them all.

He rolled his eyes at his pathetic thoughts and wasn't paying attention until he bumped into someone.

The apology was already on his lips but it decided instead to go back the wrong way and make him choke.

There was laughter around him but it was the bell like laughter that had his wide eyes staring at the small girl in front of him.

The girl looked up with swirling gold eyes that were placed in a delicate perfect face. She picked up her textbook that she had dropped during the collision and did a little hop skip backwards and beamed up at him.

"Hi Edward," She said, and it would only be until later that he would wonder how it was that she knew his name, but at the time it wasn't something he questioned.

He gave a small uncertain smile and was able to say, "Hi," In return.

She gripped his arm that had been resting at his side and gave a theatrical hand shake but her eyes were knowing as they looked up into his. It was then, with all the seriousness in the world, she said, "I'm Alice, and you're my new best friend."

"June twenty-fifth," Bella whispered to the ghosts and Edward's forgotten form in the corner of the room covered in shadows.

His head tilted in her direction but he didn't move his eyes from the crack in the stone that was resting just above his right hand.

"The date," She elaborated. Thinking that maybe he didn't remember that he had asked her the night before. Two days, she thought to herself. She had been there for two days. Edward had forgotten how long he had been there. Would she, in time, forget too? Would the days blend and the nights fade into one long scream of never ending darkness?

Although, the days were not light either. Had she confused the days and the nights? Was it really the day, or was it the night?

Bella shook her head sharply. The walls seemed to move closer.

Was insanity already there? Was it already creeping towards her? Would she know?

Edward made a soft sound. His form straightened but he had never seemed so small. His narrow sharp face was twisted into something that she couldn't fathom.

"What year?"

The world fell still.

Her voice chocked. "2009."

Something relaxed in his face.

"Seven months," He gave a tight laugh that echoed through the walls. "I thought it was longer than that. Much," The word didn't seem enough. "Much, longer."

And Bella understood.

Seven months seemed like an eternity. Just as two days had seemed like forever. Bella understood why Edward's hands shook. Although, she was certain that she would know even better in a few months. That is, if she was still alive.

She couldn't handle another day of silence. She didn't care if the conversation was forced. She didn't care if they both spoke at the same time. The screams wouldn't stop keening through the air and no longer did she try to tell if there were people or if they were in her mind.

Edward had only smiled when she asked.

She hadn't asked again.

"Where are you from?"

He moved just slightly. "Chicago," He told her indulgently. "You?"

"Originally from phoenix but now I live in Forks," She didn't need to say that 'now' wasn't exactly now. Edward understood.

His eyes peeked at her. "Forks? Never heard of it."

Bella gave a grimace she thought was a smile. "Not many have. It's a small town in Washington. There's nothing but green trees, moss, and rain."

Edward smiled at her. "You like it there." It wasn't a question but Bella answered nonetheless.

"Yeah," She nodded. "I didn't like it there at first. Actually," She paused, considering. "I absolutely hated it. Still do sometimes. It was hard the first year I was there but I adjusted eventually and came to kind of like it." She shrugged helplessly.

"Do you have a lot of friends?" His voice was better today. A smoother drawl that she could tell would be a pure rumble in time.

Yesterday when she had asked him if he was sick he had given her an odd smile and said, "No, I'm not sick, just hoarse in the morning. It'll go away eventually."

Bella didn't bother mentioning that it had yet to go away.

She shrugged. "I have a few. We're not really close though. We mainly just hangout at school and sometimes call each other." She shrugged again as if to prove some point.

Edward leaned back against the wall. His shirt made a soft rustle of sound. "I had one good friend," he confided quietly. "My family and I moved to another part of the city and I needed to change schools," He paused and there was something suddenly dark in his face but the next second all Bella could see was a faint smile. "I haven't talked to him for two years now."

"I'm sorry," She whispered, feeling the oppressive mood and tried not to allow the silence fall once more. "Do you miss him?" What a stupid question.

He didn't say anything but after a few beats nodded.

"Did you have other friends?"

Edward's head bowed but glimmering green eyes looked up at her through bronze bangs and Bella's breath was stolen. "I met some people. We got along okay." He suddenly laughed and the sound was so distorted Bella's ears rang. "One of them absolutely hated me and didn't mind showing me as well as telling me as often as possible." His hand tightened on the stone next to his ripped sneakers that were no longer much of a shoe. "But the others were nice."

His voice became an odd assortment of what was and never will be. "The others were nice," He said again. His laughter fell wrong and shattered and his smile became an untouchable thing that wasn't recognizable.

Bella wondered how long it would take to pick up the pieces.

He looked up at her and his eyes glimmered. He moved back to rest easily on the wall once more. Bella hadn't noticed him hunch forward.

There was a message concealed in there and Bella wondered what it could possibly be and wondered why Edward couldn't just tell her.

Perhaps telling made it real.

Yes, she thought, watching the tremors that had been easing into soft shivers rake through his body once more. Something horrible had happened and curiosity did not wish to be quenched.

Edward searched for something to say. She could see it in the way his head bowed ever so slightly and his eyelids flickered in thought. He chewed on his chapped bottom lip and his fingers played a tune on his jeans.

Piano fingers, her mind whispered.

She waited for the words to travel up his throat but he turned away from her and his lips remained shut. There was a freefalling sensation but she pretended it wasn't there. His small dismissal wasn't actually a dismissal at all but…

She grazed her fingers along the stone next to her shoes. She leaned against her propped up legs and pressed her chin on her knees. Her nails made a soft hiss in the darkness of their cell and she scratched harder until the noise seemed to shout.

Edward turned back to her and her fingers stopped hurting.

"It's hard to be here," he told her easily as if speaking of something else. But he did not speak again. It seemed to be enough to him. Like he had given the comfort that he had intended and decided she didn't need anymore.

Bella needed more.

Her hands brushed against her jeans and she moved her head until her cheek was cradled between her knees. She brushed fallen hair out of her eyes.

He licked his lips and then licked them again. His chest rose in a deep sigh and said, "I'm sorry."

She attempted to say that there was nothing to be sorry for but all she could do was close her eyes and pretend that he hadn't spoken at all.

Because telling made it real and Bella couldn't make it real.

She had been trying, trying so very, very hard to brush away the rush of hysteria that kept creeping back to torment her. She had been trying so hard to ignore the way her body was shivering and the way that her jaw clenched and the way she couldn't look up from the ground for more than a few seconds, only seeing Edward in brief frozen images that she would later interpret.

Bella worried.

If she was already like this and she had been there for only a few days what we she be like when she had been there as long as Edward had? How had he survived this long? How had he remained able to speak to her and act as if nothing was wrong? How had he…?

But then again, Bella's mind whispered, he hadn't really survived.

Her eyelashes flickered as she closed her eyes tiredly and pretended that she couldn't hear each hollow rattle the echoed in Edward's chest each time he breathed and pretended that she didn't see his hands curl into fists and then release again.

How horrible it must have been to be alone this entire time.

Bella's head rose fractionally. "Edward," Her voice said. "Were there others with you? Before me I mean."

Edward made a low sound in his throat as if hurt and said. "There were others."

Bella's muscles seized. There were other people in this place. Other people locked up and sitting right were she was sitting, but there was no comfort in that thought. Those people weren't there now and Bella doubted they just got to walk away.

Edward's neck titled and his eyes turned to the black never ending ceiling. "They forget about us for long periods of time," he said offhandedly. "Time is not the same to them. They don't age at all. A thirteen year old will forever look like a thirteen year old." He nodded to himself. "Because they don't age they don't have to worry about things they need to do because really, they have all the time in the world." Here he paused and looked down at his shirt. "They forget that we don't have all the time in the world."

He seemed to not be able to say more. His murky green eyes filmed over even more and his head lolled to the side.

Bella understood that now would not be the time to press him about what happened. But thoughts and images plagued her without his answer.

Edward obliged. "Her name was, Gemma." He gave a sad little smile that was a mere twist of his lips. "She was visiting with her church. They were building someone a home just outside the city." His smile sharpened. "She wasn't religious at all and would tell anybody that listened that it was her aunt that made her go because she believed that she needed to be 'saved'. She was the standard Goth," He made a motion with his hand, "You know, the black clothing, chains, black hair, black nails."

His hair fell into his eyes and as his hand moved to brush it back his fingers traced the scar that she had seen earlier.

"She didn't cope well," He whispered, his words heavy with some unseen burden. "She always thought that they," his voice was a hitching purr. "Were attacking her and that they were always there…always watching." He swallowed. "I tried to stop her once because she kept scratching herself but I just ended up having her scratching me instead. She wouldn't stop screaming." His voice hushed until Bella could hear the horror in the chord.

He continued. Bella whished he hadn't. "The sound annoyed them and when, Jillian, came to leave the food." Bella remembered the girl that had come in just the day before to give them food and placed the name with her face. "Gemma ran out and they decided that she no longer was worth it."

He made a soft sound. "There were others of course. Just a few, but I think you understand."

Bella didn't even try to push away the rush of hysteria.

Edward said, "I'm sorry," like he had failed her. "I shouldn't have told you." He liked dry lips and coughed. "But you have to…you have to understand."

Bella bit her jeans and imagined that she was home. Imagined that she was alone and that the walls weren't screaming and Edward wasn't repeating, "I'm sorry," over and over again.

Bella pretended.

She thought that maybe in time she might believe it.

It was that thought that was more frightening than anything else.

Dawsten moved silkily through the halls and gave the slightest of smiles when he saw Shauna turn down another hall when she saw him. He wanted to purr. His chest rumbled with a soft laugh instead.

His leather coat brushed against the floor and he moved a long fingered hand through long gold hair.

"Dellia," He hummed to the shadows and the walls. "Dellia," he whispered again.

There was a brief noise to his left and his smile sharpened. Red eyes watched him.

"Dawsten," Dellia acknowledged, her tongue tasting the words awkwardly.

He bowed his head ever so slightly.

"Do you speak the truth," She questioned, turning to stare at the ceiling.

He licked his lips as an emotion swept through him. He would later call it triumph. "I do."

She nodded as if she had expected his answer. She rose from her sitting position and walked distortedly on blue high heals.

She stopped before she turned. "If you do what you say," Her hollow cheeks were black in the light . "Then you have my word."

Dawsten did not bother to hide his smile.