Hunter

I want to clear up a few misunderstandings about this. I'm so sorry if you're feeling confused. I was going to make this into a crossover between Twilight and Supernatural, but I decided not to make it a complete crossover. I'll explain a bit about the show, Supernatural so don't worry about that. Please be patient.

Lynxgoddess gets a cookie for spotting the Rolling Stones reference. "Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name." I freaking love that song!

On a different note, does anyone know what's going on with the "In The Dark" contest? I heard they were going to post the results weeks ago. My mom is driving me nuts because she thinks it's a hoax.

Oh, and do you remember that poem from the first chapter? I got it from a Supernatural video on you tube, but I can't seem to find it. Does anyone know which one it is? Thanks.

-

Bella's POV

Do you remember when you were a little kid? The dark was a scary place, wasn't it? It didn't matter how many times your parents told you there was nothing to be afraid of; you knew something was waiting for you, creeping along in the darkest corners of your room, especially under the bed.

Guess what, you were right.

-

I woke up screaming. I was glad the house was empty. I was loud enough to wake the dead; pun totally intended.

I raced to the bathroom and leaned over the toilet, gagging. Images and sounds filtered through my head.

(A sharp knife glinting in the dark-light)

(The rattling as the hooks and chains dug into my skin)

(The burning)

I panted. "Stop it!" I closed my eyes. I pictured Renée's face. She smiled happily at me. She was alive…not in a hospital bed…nobody was telling me that she might not make it through the night…the social worker wasn't talking about foster care…

My head hurt. The pain centered on my left eyebrow. I tried massaging my temples as I headed back into my bedroom. My alarm clock read 4:46 a.m. I was kind of an insomniac. I couldn't remember the last time I'd slept for longer than four hours. I searched inside my duffle bag for my aspirin. I took two out and headed to the bathroom for some water to rinse them down.

I was still starving. If there was one good thing about getting out of hell, it was that food tasted so much better. I pulled out my Lucky Charms and finished the rest of the box. I stuffed a couple twenties into my duffle bag and left it by the door. I'd need to go to the store after school.

Ugh…school.

I'd never been a big fan of public schools. Not only was I too busy worrying about my mom, I was also bored to tears. Bobby was right when he said I was smart. I'd learned to read at the age of three. Renée made me her official researcher when I was five. It made me feel important that I could help her save lives.

I'd read newspaper articles and look up local legends at the library. At school, they'd make me put my books away so that I could learn my ABCs. And people wonder why some of our high school seniors can only read at the fifth grade level.

I dumped the empty box of cereal into the garbage and turned on the television. I actually had a few decent channels. I found a Simpsons rerun and prepared to do an hour-long workout.

Renée was very strict about staying in shape. When I was younger, we'd run a mile every morning. Renée never made me do anything she herself wouldn't do. It made me respect her a lot more than my out of shape Gym teachers. When Renée would leave me alone, sometimes for days at a time, I'd just find some cartoons and do a few exercises in front of the TV.

Once the show started, I began to do some sit-ups. I felt so energized. After doing two hundred and fifty, I switched to push-ups, the guy kind, not the pansy girl ones. By the time the ending music came on, I had done almost two hundred.

I still had plenty of time before I had to leave. I took a long shower and picked out two green, long-sleeved shirts and jeans. I ran a brush through my hair and let it hang down to my waist. At least I'd managed to get all the dirt out. I brushed my teeth and rinsed my mouth out. I still couldn't get the taste of sulphur out of my mouth.

I checked my watch. It wasn't even 7:00 yet. It wouldn't be good for my image if I showed up half and hour before everyone else. I wouldn't want them to think I cared or anything. I sighed and went back downstairs to watch some more TV.

After searching through the channels, I decided it would be best to show up a little early in case the principal wanted to talk to me about my schooling. Ugh.

I put on my leather jacket, grabbed my duffle bag and headed out to my car. I roared the engine and put on some Metallica. The soothing sound of James Hetfield's voice made the trip a little more bearable. I found the high school and parked near the entrance. Only a few other students were hanging out near the picnic benches. They were probably copying homework or something.

Ugh. Homework.

I grabbed my duffle bag and walked toward the school. There were no metal detectors. That was good. It meant I wouldn't have to leave my knife in the car.

"Hey, nice ride!" one of the kids called.

"I know!" I called back as I headed inside. The halls were deserted. I really was too early. I found a room labelled "Front Office" and went inside. I scanned the room quickly for threats. A red-haired woman with glasses looked up as I entered.

She smiled at me. "How may I help you, dear?"

I shrugged. "I'm new here. I figured I should pick up my schedule or something."

Her response was comical. Her eyes widened and she seemed to look me over as if she were studying an alien species. Her gazed focussed on my duffle bag and my leather jacket. "Of course, you must be Isabella Swan."

"Bella Colt," I corrected, cringing at my full name.

The woman frowned and shuffled through some papers. "It says here that your last name is Swan," she told me, holding out an admittance form.

I frowned and looked it over. "My last name is Colt, and everyone calls me Bella. Would you mind changing it, please?" I asked, remembering my manners.

"Actually," a man's voice interrupted us. "I was wondering if we might talk. My name is Principal Greene," he said, holding out his hand. I shook it, squeezing tightly as he assessed me. "Chilly?" he asked, noticing the layers of shirts I was wearing.

I nodded. "I just came from down south," I explained.

"Of course," he responded. "Would you mind stepping into the councillor's office with me? I'd like to discuss some things with you."

"Sure," I said. I followed him into the councillor's office and sat down on one of the chairs. My eyes scanned the room automatically. There was a camera in the far corner. The window was shut, but not bolted. The ventilation shaft was directly over the desk. I'd have easy access to it if something went wrong. Other than that, the room had pasty white walls and little cartoons pinned up. There was one with a cat hanging off a tree that said, "Hang in there". I tried not to barf.

The councillor was a normal-looking guy. He had a friendly, plain face and dark hair. He smiled at me and I smiled back, intent on acting normal.

"Hello, Isabella," he began.

"It's Bella," I corrected, smiling.

"Bella," he nodded. "I was wondering if you might tell me about why you were transferred here."

The principal gave me a strange look. His eyes kept searching my face, as if he was trying to see if I was going to lie.

I was, but come one, do you honestly think he was smart enough to catch on?

I leaned back and looked up. People look up when they're trying to recall something. "I thought it'd be a good idea to finish high school out here. Renée's been pretty busy with her new husband, so she hasn't had much time to work with me on my education. Charlie left me his house, and a good deal of money. I think he'd appreciate it if I spent some time at a real school."

"Did you miss school?" the councillor asked. I checked his nameplate. It said Mr. Landon.

"Look, Mr. Landon, I'll be honest with you," I said, leaning forward. "I really hated school."

"Was the work too difficult?" he asked.

I threw my head back and laughed. This startled them. I shook my head. "No way, it was too easy! Renée was always telling me to read and stuff. By the time I quit, I was so far ahead of the curriculum; I was just wasting my time."

Landon hmmed and leaned away. He kept his eyes locked on mine. I waited for him to say something. He seemed to get uncomfortable with my silence because he looked away. "Well, since you've been out of school for so long, I feel you should take an entrance exam so that we know what classes should be open to you."

I stood up. "When do I start?"

Greene looked wary. "Would you like to use the morning to study? The test is very difficult."

I waved my hand. "I'll be fine. How long will this take?"

Landon said, "The time limit is three hours. It's unlikely that you'll finish them all, but do your best. We can get you settled into your classes after lunch."

"Sure," I said. They led me into a room with several desks. I figured that was where they kept the in-school suspended kids. Mr. Landon gave me a thick stack of papers and told me to do as much as I could. I checked out the room and spotted another camera. I hoped there weren't a lot of those around. I set my bag down at my feet and began writing.

The questions were pathetically easy. Once I finished, I stretched. My shoulders and knuckles popped loudly as they loosened up. I stacked the papers neatly and checked how much time was left. I still had over an hour.

Great.

I grabbed the test and walked into the councillor's office. Landon looked up as I approached. "Do you need some help?" he asked.

"I'm finished," I said.

I had the satisfaction of watching his eyes bug out and his jaw drop. I stifled a giggle and held out the test. He grabbed it and began flipping through it. His eyes scanned the answers as he pulled out an answer key from his desk drawer. He kept looking back and forth, disbelief clear in his eyes.

"You've never seen this test before?" he asked. I shook my head. "And no one helped you?"

I tried not to roll my eyes at him. "I was in an empty room. The camera was on me the whole time. Maybe your tests aren't as hard as you thought. Are you sure you gave me the one for eleventh grade?"

He nodded absently, still staring at the answers. "All of these are right," he whispered. Awe was clear in his voice.

"I would certainly hope so. It would be embarrassing if I couldn't do something as easy as that." Landon gave me a stunned look and I smirked at him.

He seemed to snap out of his daze and began searching his computer. "We have a few AP courses that are right up your alley. English and Gym are mandatory for all four years, so that's two. We have Calculus and Biology. How about those?" I shrugged. He nodded. "Right, so that's four. What do you enjoy?"

"Art," I said. "I'm good at drawing."

"Okay, we have an opening in Ms. Ackley's Art class. Anything else?"

I leaned in and studied the courses. "What's this?" I asked, pointing at a course labelled, "Supernatural".

Landon seemed embarrassed. "It's just something we thought would get kids interested in history and culture. It's mostly about psychic phenomena and supernatural explanations for strange occurrences."

I leaned away. "Sign me up, I love stuff like that."

"Are you sure?" he asked. "We have some more…useful courses."

I almost laughed in his face. It was true, I probably wouldn't learn anything that I didn't already know, but still, it would at least keep me from dying of boredom.

Landon reluctantly signed me up and printed off my class schedule. I read it over. 8:00-8:55 a.m. was English with Mr. Mason, 9:00-9:55, Art with Ms. Ackley, 10:00-10:55, Calculus with Mr. Varner, 11:00-11:55, Gym with Coach Clapp, then it was lunch until 1:00 p.m. when I had Biology with Mr. Molina and at 2:00, I had my coolest class with Mr. Banner.

"Sweet," I said, taking the schedule from him and stuffing it into my pocket. "Thanks, Mr. L, I'll catch you later." I turned around, intent on making it to Calculus, when he called me back.

"I just have one thing to ask you about. It's very important."

I sat down. Landon leaned forward. He folded his hands in his lap and looked at me, trying to gauge my expression. "I need to know if there was ever any…abuse in your home."

I gave him my "what the hell?" look and shook my head. "Why would you think that?"

He pulled out several sheets of paper. "This is a list of all the times you've been hospitalized for injuries. It's obviously much longer than an average teenager's should be. If there was anything going on between you and your mother…I mean…she was very young when she had you and this can cause a lot of stress on a single parent, not to mention her own background-"

"Whoa, whoa!" I held up my hands. "Renée never laid a hand on me. And what do you mean "her background?" Renée had great parents. Sure, we moved around a lot, and I got into a lot of fights, you know? We never had much money and some kids thought it was funny to pick on me. Trust me; the other guys looked a lot worse when I was through with them. Honestly, Renée's a good parent."

Landon didn't look convinced. "Well, if you ever need to talk about something…"

I covered my ears with my hands. "Dude, no chick-flick moments! Did you drink an oestrogen cocktail this morning or something?"

My outburst had the desired effect, Landon felt so embarrassed that he let me go free. I headed out into the hallway in search of my Calculus class. I still had five minutes, but I didn't know the layout of the school very well. I managed to locate the classroom and hung around outside until the bell rang. As the students came out of their classrooms, they stared openly at me. I cringed and headed in to class. I scanned the room for immediate threats. The most dangerous weapon seemed to be the stapler on the teacher's desk. There were three large windows that I could easily climb out of. The ventilation shaft would be harder to get to.

Mr. Varner was one of those teachers who thought he was smarter than everyone else was. I took an instant dislike to him as his beady hazel eyes looked up at me from behind his thick glasses. He frowned at my attire and my duffle bag. I would have to remember to find my locker soon.

"Hello, I'm Bella Colt. Mr. Landon just finished assigning my classes." I held out my schedule for him to see. He lifted his glasses and squinted at it. He frowned heavily as he finished.

"You're taking that ghastly supernatural course?" he asked.

It took all of my willpower not to smash his teeth in. Luckily, the room began to fill with students. There were too many witnesses. I smiled a predatory smile, the one I'd used when I'd taken that knife off the table and used it to carve-

I quickly cut off that train of thought. "I like knowing everyone's opinions about controversial things."

Varner sneered at me. Oh yes, he was so lucky there were witnesses. "Fair enough. I hope you don't have too much trouble with this class."

"I won't," I said stiffly.

Varner looked at the door as the bell rang. A few students tried to slip in. "Late slips," he told them. The students looked down and trudged out of the room sulkily.

"Asshole," I muttered, too low for him to hear.

Varner stood up and addressed the class. "We have a new student with us today. Miss Colt, would you be so kind as to tell us something about yourself."

I knew my standard answer of "No, thank you" wouldn't work on this guy. It would just make me look weak. So, I turned around and leaned up against his desk. "Hey guys, my name's Isabella Colt, but everyone calls me Bella."

There were a few muttered replies of, "Hey, Bella."

I laughed. "Well, looks like some of you have been to the meetings."

There were a few bursts of laughter as they recognized the AA meeting reference.

I continued. "Varner here thinks I might have some trouble with this class. Honestly, the only reason I'm here is because Landon couldn't find anything more difficult." More students started laughing. The late slip kids looked confused as they returned. Apparently, there wasn't much laughter in Varnerland.

I looked back in time to see Varner's face turn bright red and for him to start sputtering. "Save your breath dude, you're going to need it to blow up your date tonight."

The laughter turned to hysteria. Varner held up his hands to try to quiet the students. Of course, it didn't work. I took a seat next to an Asian boy with acne and pulled out my notebook. I folded my hands on my desk and sat there looking like an angel.

Varner sputtered out an order to do the work on pages 74-78 and marched out.

"I'm Eric," the boy next to me said.

I held out my hand. "Pleased to meet you Eric, hope you guess my name."

Eric shook my hand, but I could tell he was confused. "I'll grab you a textbook," he said. He walked to the back of the room and took out a large, blue book.

"Thanks," I said, taking it from him. I opened the book to the correct page and started on the assignment. It was something on the Taylor Series. I remembered reading about that in sixth grade. It is a representation of a function as an infinite sum of terms calculated from the values of its derivatives at a single point.

Did you get that?

I finished quickly and leaned back in my chair. I started counting the dots on the ceiling tiles and was almost at a hundred when Eric interrupted me.

"You're finished already?" he asked, bewildered.

"Yeah," I answered. I saw his shocked face. "I was home-schooled. I had a lot of time on my hands."

He leaned in closer to me, interested. "You were home-schooled?" he asked.

I shrugged. "My mom and I moved around a lot. It was easier," I explained.

"Huh," Eric grunted. The bell rang and I quickly gathered up my things. I checked my class schedule and found where my locker was. I decided I would put my stuff away at lunch. I had gym.

I loved gym.

I found the locker room and headed inside to talk to the coach. Coach Clapp was one of those out of shape teachers. Why was it they tried to preach what they didn't practice? He found me a uniform and I changed in the bathroom. The last thing I needed was questions about my tattoo.

We were playing volleyball. George Carlin once said that volleyball was nothing but racketless team ping-pong played with an inflated ball and a raised net while standing on the table. I couldn't argue with that.

Clapp didn't give me any crap about introductions. He divided the students into even teams and we set about trying to hit our opponents on the head with an inflated ball…or at least I did.

As class ended, a blond boy walked over to me. "Hi, I'm Mike Newton. You're Isabella Swan, aren't you?"

"Bella Colt," I corrected shaking his hand. He smiled one of those smiles that would make a normal teenage girl melt. I scanned him for weapons.

A girl from my team rushed over to us. "She's pretty good, huh?" She had her blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. "I'm Jessica."

"Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name," I said, shaking her hand.

She giggled. "What?"

I shook my head. "Nothing, it's an inside joke." The corner of my mouth tilted up.

"I heard what you did in Mr. Varner's class. I've never seen him so furious in my life." She giggled again.

"That was you?" Mike asked. His eyes became star struck.

I flipped my hair back. "Who else? He ticked me off. I don't like it when people insult me."

"Awesome," Mike breathed.

Jessica noticed the way he was looking at me. I saw a flash of jealousy on her face before she smiled at me. "You should totally sit with me and my friends at lunch. It'll be great."

"Great," I repeated.

After all, what was the worst that could happen?

-

I got the day off school today. My mom needed me to stay home. She just had an operation. She feels like crap right now. I have to go change her bandages.

On a high note, I'm going to be eighteen on December 26th!

Happy holidays!

I'll catch you later.