A/N: Hi! First I'd like to wish you all a very happy Christmas! Second, thank you so much for your nice reviews and PM's. As a little present for you here is another chapter. Hope you'll enjoy it :)

EDIT: 08/10/2018 - some minor corrections made.

Chapter four

I thought dinner would be a quiet event as usual. But I was wrong. Charlie'd apparently decided that it was time he found out more about my sudden departure from Britain.

"Bella," he started, looking hesitant.

"Hm?"

"Ehm… You know I didn't want to upset you so I didn't ask why you'd left Britain," he said.

"Yes and I appreciate that, Dad," I said slowly.

"Well, I think it's time you told me about it." He looked directly into my eyes.

I looked away. I knew he hated making me uncomfortable but I understood that he had the right to know. I just didn't know if I would be able to talk about it.

"Dad." I sighed looking back at him. "I don't like talking about it."

"I know," he said. "But I'm worried about you. You said it wasn't safe for you to stay there. And I want to know why. Does anyone want to hurt you?" He looked terrified of the very thought.

"Yes."

"Who and why?"

So I told him. About Voldemort (of course I avoided the name) and his anti-muggle policy and that muggle-born wizards weren't considered proper wizards anymore and if I hadn't left they would have brought me in front of a commission that would have probably arrested me or worse.

Charlie went pale and looked utterly terrified.

"Why- why didn't you tell me before? That there are people like him?" he demanded. "I wouldn't have let you go there."

"That's exactly why I didn't tell you," I said with another sigh.

"But why would you want to go to a place that was dangerous for you?"

"It wasn't always dangerous, Dad," I pointed out. "Only after You Know Who returned. But even then there was still Dumbledore. With him at Hogwarts we were safe."

"So where is this Dumbledore now? Did he leave?"

"No, Dad," I whispered. "He was killed."

After that I got up and ran into my room, I couldn't stand it anymore. I lay down on my bed and burried my face into a pillow.

Several minutes later I heard knocking on my door.

"Bella? Are you ok?" Charlie sounded upset. I must have scared him.

"I-I'm fine, Dad," I sobbed. "Just need time."

"Ok, honey. If you need something, I'm here."

"Thanks, Dad."

Next morning I woke up quite early. I lay for a while, thinking about today. I felt strangely excited about seeing the Cullens again. Or rather – him. I didn't understand why. He was a vampire, I was sure about it now. I should stay away from him. But there was something mysterious about him. I wanted to know why he'd seemed to hate me the first time we'd met. I wanted to know what was behind his sudden interest in me yesterday.

And there was other reason why I wanted to think about his secrets – I'd rather think about anything but the situation in Britain.

It had taken me ages before I'd fallen asleep last night. Charlie had made me think about things I didn't want to think. It was driving me crazy that I didn't know what was going on. How many people had died since I left? How many of them were people I knew?

I blinked back tears. I wanted to do something. I needed to do something. As soon as I was seventeen I needed to try and train myself. I decided that I would learn all the spells we were suppposed to learn this year. I had all the books here with me. I had managed to buy them before I had to leave.

But I had another problem. I had to learn how to apparate. I needed someone who would teach me how to do it and I had no idea where to find them. I didn't know any witches or wizards in America, except for the lady who had come to tell me I was a witch when I was eleven. And I had no idea where she lived. I would have to work something out.

I glanced at the alarm clock on my bedside table. It was time to get ready for school.

When I came in the kitchen, fully dressed, I could see that Charlie had already left. I thought he didn't want to make pressure on me with more questions. I appreciated that. I didn't want to scare him even more.

I looked out the window to check today's weather. It wasn't raining but the street was wet. There was something strange about it. I squinted at the street for a whole minute before I realised what it was. There was ice on it.

I groaned quietly. How could it be so cold in September? According to the calendar it was still summer.

I opened the window to make sure I wasn't dreaming. The freezing air hit mi in the face so I quickly closed it again.

I sighed and went to change my clothes for something warmer. I couldn't resist putting my Gryffindor scarf on and it made me feel a bit better.

When I stepped out of the front door, I tightened the thick jacket I'd dug out of my trunk and carefully walked to my truck. I was panicking a little. I still wasn't a good driver and I'd never driven on a frozen road.

I drove very slowly, even more than usual, but my truck seemed to have no problem with the ice. Still I didn't want to risk it.

When I got out of my truck at school, I saw why I'd had so little trouble. Something silver caught my eye, and I walked to the back of the truck – carefully holding the side for support – to examine my tires. There were thin chains crisscrossed in diamond shapes around them. Charlie had gotten up who knows how early to put snow chains on my truck. My throat suddenly felt tight. I wasn't used to being taken care of and Charlie's unspoken concern caught me by surprise.

I was standing by the back corner of the truck, struggling to fight back the sudden wave of emotion the snow chains had brought on, when I heard an odd sound.

It was a high-pitched screech and it was fast becoming painfully loud. I looked up, startled.

I saw several things simultaneously. Nothing was moving in slow motion the way it does in the movies. Instead, the adrenaline rush seemed to make my brain work much faster and I was able to absorb in clear detail several things at once.

Edward Cullen was standing four cars down from me, staring at me in horror. His face stood out from a sea of faces, all frozen in the same mask of shock. But of more immediate importance was the dark blue van that was skidding, tires locked and squealing against the brakes, spinning wildly across the ice of the parking lot. It was going to hit the back corner of my truck and I was standing between them. I didn't even have time to close my eyes.

Just before I heard the shattering crunch of the van folding around the truck bed, something hit me, hard, but not from the direction I was expecting. My head cracked against the icy blacktop, and I felt something solid and cold pinning me to the ground. I was laying on the pavement behind the tan car I'd parked next to. But I didn't have a chance to notice anything else, because the van was still coming. It had curled gratingly around the end of the truck and, still spinning and sliding, was about to collide with me again.

A low oath made me aware that someone was with me, and the voice was impossible not to recognize. Two long white hands shot out protectively in front of me and the van shuddered to a stop a foot from my face, the large hands fitting providentially into a deep dent in the side of the van's body.

Then his hands moved so fast they blurred. One was suddenly gripping under the body of the van and something was dragging me, swinging my legs around like a ragdoll's till they hit the tire of the tan car. A groaning metallic thud hurt my ears and the van settled, glass popping, onto the asphalt – exactly where a second ago my legs had been.

It was absolutely silent for one long second before the screaming began. In the abrupt bedlam I could hear more than one person shouting my name. But more clearly than all the yelling I could hear Edward Cullen's low, frantic voice in my ear.

"Bella? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine." My voice sounded strange. I tried to sit up and realised he was holding me against the side of his body in an iron grasp.

"Be careful," he warned as I struggled. "I think you hit your head pretty hard."

I became aware of a throbbing ache centered above my left ear.

"Ow," I said, surprised.

"That's what I thought." His voice, amazingly, sounded like he was suppressing laughter.

I stared at him unable to say anything. I just realized that he'd used his vampire speed and strength to save my life. He'd risked exposure of his kind to humans.

I knew I had to be quiet and not to say anything in case anyone asked how had Edward gotten to me so quickly. I wondered if he knew I'd seen him standing so far from me.

His eyes were searching my face no doubt to find whether I'd noticed him before or not. I lowered my gaze and tried to sit up again. This time he let me, releasing his hold around my waist and sliding as far from me as he could in the limited space.

And then they found us, a crowd of people with tears streaming down their faces, shouting at each other, shouting at us.

"Don't move," someone instructed.

"Get Tyler out of the van!" Someone else shouted.

There was a flurry of activity around us. I tried to get up, but Edward's cold hands pushed my shoulder down.

"Just stay put for now."

"But it's cold," I complained. It surprised me when he chuckled under his breath. There was an edge to the sound.

I narrowed my eyes trying not to think about the searing pain above my ear. I'd had much worse.

"Why did you do this?" I whispered, quite sure he could hear me perfectly.

"What?" He looked confused.

"Nothing," I said quickly with a slight smile and looked away. I could still feel his intense gaze on my face but I closed my eyes. I knew that if I continued looking at his face, I would probably said more than I should.

It took six EMTs and two teachers – Mr. Varner and Coach Clapp – to shift the van far enough away from us to bring the stretchers in. Edward vehemently refused his and I tried to do the same, but the traitor told them I'd hit my head and probably had a concussion. I almost died of humiliation when they put on the neck brace. It looked like the entire school was here, watching soberly as they loaded me in the back of the ambulance. Edward got to ride in the front.

To make matters worse, Chief Swan arrived before they could get me safely away.

"Bella!" he yelled in panic when he recognized me on the stretchers.

"I'm completely fine, Dad," I sighed. "There's nothing wrong with me."

But I understood the irony. I'd left Britain because of a crazy murderer only to be killed by a stupid van and saved by a vampire. I had to laugh out loud and the EMT who was with me in the ambulance looked at me with a startled expression.

Naturally, the ambulance got a police escort to the county hospital. They put me in the emergency room, a long room with a line of beds separated by pastel-patterned curtains. A nurse put a pressure cuff on my arm and a thermometer under my tongue. Since no one bothered pulling the curtain around to give me some privacy, I decided I wasn't obligated to wear the stupid-looking neck brace anymore. When the nurse walked away, I quickly unfastened the Velcro and trew it under bed.

I closed my eyes again and imagined myself in the hospital wing at Hogwarts. I was sure that Madam Pomfrey would check me and release me in a minute and would only give me some potion to ease the pain.

There was another flurry of hospital personnel, another stretcher brought to the bed next to me. I recognized the boy from my History class but I couldn't remember his name. I thought they'd called him Tyler though. He had bloodstained bandages wrapped tightly around his head. He looked a hundred times worse than I felt. But he was staring anxiously at me.

"Bella, I'm so sorry!"

"I'm fine, but you look awful, are you all right?" I didn't dare to call him by name in case I got it wrong. As we spoke, nurses began unwinding his soiled bandages, exposing a myriad of shallow slices all over his forehead and left cheek.

He ignored me. "I thought I was going to kill you! I was going too fast and I hit the ice wrong…" He winced as one nurse started dabbing at his face.

"Don't worry about it, you missed me."

"How did you get out of the way so fast? You were there and then you were gone…"

"Umm… Edward pulled me out of the way."

He looked confused. "Who?"

"Edward Cullen – he was standing next to me." I was used to lying so I had no problem doing it now.

"Cullen? I didn't see him… wow, it was all so fast, I guess. Is he okay?"

"I think so. He's here somewhere, but they didn't make him use a stretcher."

They wheeled me away then, to X-ray my head. I told them there was nothing wrong and I was right. Not even a concussion. I asked if I could leave, but the nurse said I had to talk to a doctor first. So I was trapped in the ER, waiting, harassed by Tyler's constant apologies and promises to make it up to me. No matter how many times I tried to convince him I was fine, he continued to torment himself. Finally, I closed my eyes and ignored him. He kept up a remorseful mumbling.

"Is she sleeping?" a musical voice asked. My eyes flew open.

Edward was standing at the foot of my bed, smirking but there was this constant spark of curiosity in his eyes.

"Hey, Edward, I'm really sorry - " Tyler began.

Edward lifted a hand to stop him.

"No blood, no foul," he said, flashing his brilliant teeth. I had to bit my lip so I wouldn't smile. He moved to sit on the edge of Tyler's bed, facing me. He smirked again.

"So, what's the verdict?" he asked me.

"There's nothing wrong with me at all, but they won't let me go," I complained. "How come you aren't strapped to a gurney like the rest of us?" I said that mostly for Tyler's benefit.

"It's all about who you know," he answered. "But don't worry, I came to spring you."

Then a doctor walked around the corner and my mouth fell open. He was young, he was blond and of course, handsome. And like Edward, he was a vampire.