Chapter Two- Go To Sleep.

Bella Swan's P.O.V

Bella Swan smoothed down the rumpled skirt of her dress as the bitter nights wind blew past her as she stood at the entrance of Forks high school, huddled near the brick wall waiting for Angela to come join her. It was time to head home, all Bella wanted to do now was have a long soak and then hit the hay, especially after having the night she had. Surrounded by her peers, teachers and friends in a dress of all things, she couldn't help but feel out of place. Like an old tea cup placed on the top shelf along with the glass and crystal ware.

It had nothing to do with her surroundings, a harmless parents evening housed in the gymnasium of Forks high, tacky student painted banners and cheap balloons included. It had nothing to do with the people still milling about behind her, back inside the building, cheerful and smiling students, parents and teachers happily chatting about the year to come and what they would do once they left school for bigger and better things. No, it all boiled down to her. She just didn't feel like she belonged, no matter where she was or who she was with. The ugly duckling among ducks didn't quite fit her or her situation right, Bella thought she was more of an odd looking lizard among ballerinas.

It wasn't a new feeling for Bella Swan, in fact by now displacement was like an old annoying friend that came round for lunch every other day eating everything in her cupboards, leaving only crumbs for herself. It wasn't even a misplaced belief of egotism that she deserved better than this. In fact, Bella would be happy to live out her days in a trailer park, leopard print slippers and dressing gown on with rollers in her air at four pm, if it meant ridding herself of this feeling. The best way Bella could describe the feeling was it was more like a quiet current of detachment that simmered underneath her skin constantly. Every place she had ever lived in, which was a lot with a flighty and hair brained mother like Renee, just never felt... Right, no matter the charming locals or local attractions.

Of course Bella played her part well, with smiles and the right words in the right places, the mask of contentedness strapped on tight, but it was always there underneath it all. Like a haunting tune that played in the base of her skull, a music box she couldn't turn off or ever ran out of notes to sing too. Then the Cullen's came along and for once in her life the tune had quieted down to a slow and rhythmic hum. She finally thought she had found what would ease her loneliness, detachment and all over numbness, but she was wrong. She was always wrong it seemed. If life was a test, there was no doubt at the moment she was scoring a big fat F.

Edward had left and in doing so, dragged his family along and the sense of half belonging with him. He had left her in the middle of the woods, no man's land with night rapidly approaching to die alone of hypothermia in the twigs and broken foliage on the damp muddy ground, like a bird that had decided to fly the nest too soon, she had crashed and fallen broken to the unforgiving earth. The bastard didn't even have the balls to finish her off himself. Instead choosing to let almighty mother nature to do his dirty work... Coward. As unlikely as it was, if she ever saw him again she was unsure of whether to thank him for getting out of her life when he did, or try to set him on fire and avidly watch him evaporate into purple plumes of smoke.

The month following their breakup, Forks being so small it seemed to be talked about everywhere she went, everyone had taken her silence and blank face for depression over a lost loved one, a broken teenage romance that just wasn't meant to be. Even her own father Charlie, who was meant to know her better then anyone, believed the same thing as the nosey citizens of Forks. She had never felt the need to punch and slap as many people in her life as she had in that single month.

Bella Swan however felt no such thing as depression. She was an introspective and pensive person. When things went down hill and bullets started firing, she internalized things, churned it over in her mind. Not to mope or moan about the circumstances or situations, but to digest it, plan for it, and get over it. Above all else, Bella Swan was and likely always would be a thinker. She thought through her pain, she thought through her choices and she thought through her mistakes. It was the type of person she was. Apparently the good people of Forks, her father and mother included, didn't or couldn't understand this and pegged her down as 'depressed'. They couldn't have been more wrong.

During that month of retrospect on the Cullen's and herself, Bella came to the revelation of three simple things. It was in fact all a game to Edward as he had told her that fateful day, the Cullen's were not as innocent as they portrayed to the outside world and she hated herself for falling into their poorly hidden trap so readily and willingly. Honestly, she liked to think she had average to slightly above average intelligence, her actions over the last year not only disputed this belief, but labelled her a full out moron when looking over the past events. What the hell had she been thinking over the last year to make herself fall so low?

She had been desperate for a true family, unlike her real and very fractured one, Renee and Charlie hardly ever speaking, if they did it was to have vicious arguments, having to bounce between the two and keep both happy since she was a small child. She had been so hungry to find a place to belong, to not have to worry for everyone around her. Because of these two things, she had stupidly looked over the blaring warning signs that she had refused to see at the time.

The real problem? The more time that passed between the Cullen's departure and the present, the more fuzzy and blurry her memories got of the Cullen's. However, she could remember all the facts about what they were. Cold skin, fast, venomous, monstrously strong. She just couldn't remember them personally, their faces becoming more like a Picasso painting each day. Some memories were completely gone, one moment she remembered doing this or being there, but then the next thing she could recall was she would be somewhere else seven hours later. The memories she could remember got worse every day, like looking at a TV from being underwater, the waves getting harsher each passing second, distorting the already deformed images.

She knew it was to do with what they were, Cold ones, instead of the flimsy excuse Edward had given her, that her 'human' mind was like a sieve and she would soon forget them. God dammit, she remembered her test scores from fourth grade. No, they had done something to her, or influenced her some way, they had violated her mind. She almost felt sick thinking about it. And for what? The name of the game? The chase? She hoped the finale in that woods were fucking worth it for Edward.

Even with her anger at the Cullen's, that inferno was nothing compared to the blazing heat of anger she felt towards herself. She was the one to give them the chance to use her, the get out of jail free card, the green light. That blame laid solely on her own shoulders. She was so emotionally frail then, but if there was anything she would and could promise herself and keep it, it was she would never be that weak again. No one would ever control her again. Never. She would rather slit her own throat first before letting that whole fiasco replay like a hellish teen sit-com.

It was six months after Edward had left for greener pastures that Bella really believed she was doing a good job at finally getting back to basics and re-discovering herself. Some days were harder then others, the urge to just pack up and leave, tell everyone to go fuck themselves with something pointy, was so strong and pulsing inside that it very nearly crippled her. But she stayed and adamantly pushed that urge down, as hard as it was to do, even knowing for definite that it would rear its head again in the future. If she felt out of place in Forks and every other town she had lived in, what where the chances that would change out on the road? Nil.

It didn't help that Jacob, one of the rare few she had classed as a true friend had stopped calling, picking up her calls, popping over and answering his door two months ago. It had more than stung to be tossed to the side-walk like last weeks trash... Again. However this time around she was more comfortable in her own skin, more confident.

Pitiful and affection starved Bella had died out in those woods Edward had ditched her in. In her place stood someone new, stronger, who frankly didn't give a damn to people who wouldn't spit on her if she was on fire. Maybe that was what growing up was, maybe she was changing or maybe she was just finally being true to herself. All Bella Swan knew for absolute truth was she actually liked herself for the first time in her relatively short life. She didn't want to change herself. She adamantly refused to let her new found pride crack and shatter by going begging to Jacob for his, in reality, unneeded friendship. If he didn't want hers she sure as hell didn't need his farce of one.

In the following months after Jacob's departure, Bella felt freer than she ever had before. The weight lifting off with every step she took of discovering herself, each ounce of confidence hard gained. At first, right in the beginning, she felt like a pet kept too long in too small of a kennel, when the kennels door was left open by the Cullen's she was hesitant to step through it. Afraid of what was lying in wait on the other side for her. Even slightly afraid of herself and who she would become, or who she would see in the mirror staring back at her from the shiny polished surface.

Ironically, the break-through had came from the most unlikely of sources, the gruesome two-some Jessica and Lauren. It had been at lunch and just like every day since the Cullen's had left, they had been making petty and snarky remarks about Bella running them off, how Edward had likely found someone hotter by now and how amazed they were by Bella even capturing his attention in the first place, both fully aware that Bella could hear every word from two seats down, when Bella had finally broke. The flood gates opened and before she could think or restrain herself, her tongue was in movement and words were spilling out.

"You know Jessica, Lauren, I envy you. I really do. Most people think it's better to let people believe you're an idiot rather than opening your mouths and proving it. That takes balls. Kudos for you two."

Their faces had been the best reward Bella could have ever asked for, plus the remarks stopped after that. That was also when Bella realized the mistake she had been making her entire life, again, again and again. She had let other people, responsibilities not her own, their perceivance of her and the worry of fitting in govern her life and every choice. Every word spoken, every action taken. Well, not any more. Her shoulders felt ten times lighter when she just let go of it all, her spine ran straighter, her eyes now looking ahead instead of glued to the floor in self deprecation.

In a strange and round about way, she had Edward to thank for it. Even though it was harder day by day to remember him, or his family, she still felt comfortable enough in her sanity to believe they were real and not just a conjuring's of a demented mind. Edward may have taken all the photos, the presents, every last drop of their memory from Forks, but there was one thing he could never take. Glancing down at her wrist, Bella idly ran the pad of her thumb across the raised and smooth scar of James's bite. Or was it George's bite?

Bella dropped her arm back down to her side, letting it swing back into place and ran a tired hand down her face and then through her tangled main of curls. It didn't matter what the vampire's name was, just that she hadn't imagined it all and wasn't completely loosing her mind, that padded room in an insane asylum would have to wait for her. Another cold blast of nights air ruffled through the skirt of her dress and Bella had half the mind to curse Angela black and blue when she finally got out here. Angela knew how to use puppy dog eyes, and use them well she did.

Over the last month or so, the two brunettes had grown close. When Angela had shyly asked Bella to wear a dress so she herself didn't stand out so much, Bella had reluctantly agreed once she saw Angela's eyes flickering over to Ben when asking Bella for the favour. It didn't take a rocket scientist to know why Angela wanted to wear a dress, but obviously her shy friend didn't want to stand fully out of the crowd. So Bella gritted her teeth and dawned a dress that she had kept stashed in the back of her closet for family birthdays, if only to stop the extremely shy and hesitant Angela and Ben to stop making moon eyes to each other and finally get together. Or at least have a conversation.

So here she was, in a dress, collecting the reports and documents she would have to take home to an empty house, to Charlie who couldn't make tonight because of a last minute call in from the police department about a murder. Which was shocking itself. The two words, Forks and murder didn't seem to fit together. But then again, Bella didn't think Cold ones and herself fit together but they had still irrevocably collided. If this murder was going to be anything like Bella's disastrous relationship with the Cullen's, then Forks was in for a shit storm.

"Hey Bella, you ready to go?"

Bella nearly jumped a foot into the air from the voice piping up behind her, spinning around, thankful she had worn flats instead of heels like many of the girls tonight, she spotted a smiling Angela, who on closer inspection look liked she was holding a laugh in, her lips pinched and her cheeks turning rosy. Bella chuckled and crammed the folder full of reports in the crook of her arm. Bella cursed herself for not bringing a jacket. Unusually that day in Forks had been warm and the sun had even graced the sky without a single cloud to block its glow. When Bella had left her home for school, bringing a jacket didn't even cross her mind. She now regretted that decision fully as her skin goose-bumped at the frigid air brushing against it.

"Yeah. You ready?"

Angela gave her a soft nod and the two set off across the dark car park, heading towards Angela's ford parked right next to Bella's own humongous truck. Angela only lived down the road from Bella, it was easier just to drive with one another, safer too when out at night. They had just reach halfway, the sound of their footsteps being the only noise to break up the deathly silent night when Angela came to a blundering halt, huffing as she eyed Bella apologetically.

"Damn, I forgot my bag. I'll be right back."

Then Angela was turning around and darting back for Forks high school with pounding steps on the asphalt, her hair bouncing side to side as she jogged for the red brick building not waiting for a reply. Bella blinked, looked around her and decided to head for her truck. Even if Forks was small, where everyone knew everyone, she wasn't tempting fate by standing smack bang in the middle of a dark and empty car park. At least growing up in bigger cities had taught her some life lesson's. The incident in port Angeles hammering that point home securely.

Making it to her car, Bella slid the key into the lock and was about to twist it open with a flick of her small wrist, hop in and turn the heater onto full blast when a sound from behind her caused the hairs on the back of her neck to hackle up in apprehension, stalling her movements momentarily. Gurgling growls were drifting on the slight breeze blowing around her, tickling her ears into attention.

With wide eyes Bella glanced behind her and searched frantically, only spotting a car a few feet away from her own, one she knew. Jessica's car. Bella almost laughed at herself. If this was Jessica's way of getting back at her for sticking up for herself, the girl needed to go back to the drawing board and do some more brain storming. Another gurgling splutter followed by a deep growl made Bella loose her temper. Turning the key to her car, Bella yanked the cars door open, flung the folder inside clumsily and placed her foot on the flooring of the buggy, ready to slide in and shut the door behind her. Before she pulled herself up, she turned around and shouted over her shoulder.

"Alright! Quit it. I know it's you Jessica and I'm not buying it."

Using the top part of the door frame, Bella reached up, grabbed the rim and hoisted herself in, sliding onto the worn leather seats. Reaching back out, she reached for the door handle, fingers wrapping around the handle, Bella was just about to slam it closed behind her when a head rose up from the other side of Jessica's car, blocking her view of the persons body from the shoulders down.

It was a man, curly blonde, medium height, dressed in a dark suit, the lack of light not letting her be able to tell whether it was a dark grey or black. He kept his face down, almost looking at the floor to the side but not quite, from the angle she could tell he had sharp features, almost too sharply sculpted. Automatically, as if not in control of her own body, Bella followed his line of sight and choked on her tongue. She couldn't breath, couldn't think properly or move for what felt like a lifetime but was nano seconds in reality.

Between the slither of space between the bottom of the car and the floor, Bella could see half of Jessica's face staring lifelessly in her direction, something black, but would likely be a vibrant red in daylight, pooling around her torn apart throat. Bella sucked in a gasp and the man's face jerked upwards, his eyes landing squarely on Bella and she saw what she was most afraid to see. Blood was smeared down and around his mouth, chin and neck, the same black as the pooling blood around Jessica's body. Jesus Christ!

With that horrific sight burned into her brain, Bella leapt into action on instinct, slamming the door shut and flicking all the locks down. Sliding to the drivers seat, sending the folder tumbling to the floor of the buggy in a flutter of papers, Bella fumbled with her keys as she tried to slip them into the ignition slot and get the fuck away from what she believed to be a Cold one, having no time to register or process she had just seen Jessica dead on the floor of a car park. Just as the key found a home in the ignition slot, a groaning tear ripped through the still air as the door to the passenger side was torn of its hinges, going flying and skidding across the car park, making little sparks of orange light flare up as it careened away from the car lighting up the night in stark orange flashes.

Bella jerked up and saw the same man from before, staring at her with mossy green eyes. Before he could reach in, snatch her up and likely do the same thing he had done to Jessica, Bella slammed her shoulder into the drivers side door, simultaneously unlocking it with a slam of her hand and forcing it to swing open wide with her body weight. Her feet hit the ground with a thud and skid of spread legs. Bella wasted no time in running for the School building, to imagined safety, trying to get the hell away from the blood soaked man.

As she got ten strides away a thick, warm-ish arm wrapped around her neck, sending her flying back into a chest, something wet and warm seeping into the back top of her dress. The abrupt stop in movement sent her legs flying out from underneath her and she had to scrabble with the arm to find purchase once more. The arm tensed and Bella found herself unable to breathe due to the constriction of her air pipe. Funny enough, all she could think about was the temperature of the arm squeezing the life out of her and the eye colour she had just seen.

It was warm, not overtly so, but nothing like the glacial ice of a cold one. His eyes were green, not the ruby red they should have been. This man, this killer wasn't a cold one. That meant she stood a chance. Pulling and clawing at the blazer clad arm wrapped around her neck, struggling for breathe, Bella tried to recall everything Charlie had taught her. Foggily she remembered his voice, as if he was there, speaking to her in the shell of her ear. Go for the feet, knees, crotch, throat or eyes. Attacking the bottom half of the man was out of the question, he was choking her and with him being significantly taller, she had to stand on her tip toes to alleviate what little of the pressure squeezing her jugular as she could. He also kept her tight to his chest, back pressed to front and off to the side slightly, the angle all wrong for her to strike at his throat. Eyes it was then.

With her dwindling energy and awareness, Bella threw her hand back in the direction where she believed the man's head to be, feeling something soft, wet and squishy go pop from under her bent and stiff thumb. The man howled and for a split second his arm loosened and that was all Bella needed. Spluttering, coughing and huffing for much needed air, Bella pulled herself away, stumbling as she did so and made a mad dash for the school building, hearing the echoes of growls, grunts and snarls radiating from behind her.

Her legs were cramping, her breathe staggering in coughs and wheezes as she ran as fast as she could to the school building. As she made it to the door of the school, Bella ran through, skidding on the linoleum as she went. Looking up after gaining her balance, still running full pelt, she saw a man coming out of one of the doors to a classroom. She remembered seeing him around school before, he was a lit teacher, dressed in a plain Oxford shirt, woollen vest and brown slacks. She couldn't remember his name, but a few months back the school had did a mini fund-raiser for him and a cancer charity. By his gaunt and sallow face, and his wheezing cough from the speech he had done at the fund-raiser, he would soon have to leave his job for the hospital in Seattle. Bella's voice was raspy and broken in places as she yelled for all she was worth.

"Hey! Call the cops! Call the fucking cops!"

The man jolted at her shout and eyed her, his eyes narrowing before smoothing out, a thin grin spreading across his face. Bella went to run past him, her speed slowing down due to exhaustion when his skeletal hands reached out and snagged her by the shoulders, effectively bringing her to a stop.

"Calm down lass, I can't make out a word you are saying. Take a deep breath and tell me what's wrong."

Bella ignored the man and span to face the entrance door to Forks high, half expecting the blonde and bloodied man to be standing there like a phantom, having caught up with her and ready to pounce. When she found nothing of the sort, she frantically turned back to the man, trying to drag him further down the hallway by his arms, trying to get him away from the murderer lurking outside, but the man wouldn't budge an inch.

"Please... We have to go now. We have to call the cops... We don't have much time. A girls hurt...Dead... There was this blonde man... He tore her fucking throat out!"

During her tirade and effort of trying to drag the man down the hallway and closer to safety, they had span around, with the man's back to the empty hallway and Bella's to the wall near the door of the class room the man had just walked out from. Bella was tired, her breathing still wasn't right, her heart was galloping like a horse and she was sure due to the pain and aches radiating from her throat that there was surely a lovely deep bruise blooming on the skin of her neck. The man however just smiled at her wider, his eyes crinkling at the corners as if she had just told him a joke. His hand dived into his slacks pocket, pulling out a thick white handkerchief. When he spoke, each word that passed his pale thin lips made dread sink her gut further and further.

"Don't Worry. You'll be fine once it's all over."

Bella stiffened and went to run once more but her movements were too slow and the man managed to slam her into the wall, her head knocking against the brick and plaster harshly making her vision swim. The next thing she knew was the handkerchief was over her mouth and nose and in such a rookie move, she had gasped for breath after having it knocked out of her by the wall. Chemicals burned her nostrils and mouth, cloying and twirling down her throat on a path of burning rampage to her lungs.

She managed to struggle for a few moments, but the man held fast despite how thin and small he was. Too soon, but what felt like a lifetime, her limbs grew heavy, her vision blacking out only to zoom back to focus with startling clarity, it was disorientating to say the least. Bella slumped to the floor in a pile of tangled limbs, her head lolling to the side. In her tipsy-turvy state, she thought she heard two voices speaking, one with a thick German accent.

She tried to fight the pull that was trying to drag her down to the depths of oblivion, but it felt useless, like trying to out swim a shark. Her eyes grew heavy and just before she fell into nothingness she blearily saw the sharp featured blonde man smiling down at her, blood still around his mouth, only this time blood was trickling down his cheek from his closed right eye. His lips were moving but Bella could only hear the words coming out seconds later, like a botched video or one of those dubbed Chinese movies. It was too late anyway, just as the words registered, she was gone to a forced but deep slumber, idly wondering if she was ever going to wake again.

"Just go to sleep Bella... Greensworth get the car ready and get us to the air port..."

Preview Of Next Chapter: Bella Swan didn't know what these... People were, what they wanted or what they would do to her when they arrived at the place they were taking her to. None of it really mattered in the grand scheme of things. For as soon as they would drag her of this plane she found herself on when she awoke, as soon as the blonde one's back was turned, or his focus slipped for one second, she would take down that snivelling poor excuse of a man called Greensworth and escape. She promised them that...

A.N: So here is chapter two! I hope you guys liked it. A big THANK YOU to everyone who followed and favourited! If you have time, please leave a review, they let me know if people actually like how this is going or not and gives my muse food to nibble on! ~Sparks94