Waking up, I saw dad storming in and Edward rising to leave my side – and I saw dad frowning at my hand in Edward's. And then I realized I was in the ER, not in the school infirmary.
"What was that Cullen boy doing there?" dad asked as he was driving me home, frowning at the road ahead.
I shivered with cold and wrapped the coat tighter around me. "Just trying to help."
He raised his eyebrow at me.
I explained, leaning my head against the window and closing my eyes: "One girl was harassing a disabled girl and I... got into a fight with her about it. He stepped in to help me, I got sick and he tried to stabilise me before taking me to the nurse." I coughed and wiped away sweat from my forehead. I looked at him and I whispered, wishing we were home already so I could go to sleep: "Maybe there's more good to him than meets the eye."
"Humph," he made, unconvinced. "Maybe a momentary lapse. Or he took fancy to you and is just trying to get into..." he glanced at me and cleared his throat, staring ahead again, "impress you. You may not be a cool kid, Bells, but you're surely about the prettiest girl at the school."
It sounded like a statement of fact rather than a compliment. And a fact that didn't seem to please him very much. I looked away. Strange. He didn't ask any of the logical questions a parent would ask in such a situation – and stranger still, I didn't feel much like sharing, though I still felt every kick, despite the Tylenol. And I thought of the girl with the Toulouse-Lautrec. Toulouse-Lautrec. Her bones are fragile like crystal goblets; they shatter and splinter at the slightest fall, they likely prove an obstacle to many of her dreams. Most probably that leg she dragged behind herself was broken – and nobody gave a damn. It hurt. It hurt with all the force of déjà-vu. It was like seeing Julia all over again.
"Bad day at work?"
He frowned even more and pulled over to the left. "Not worse than usual. Old Hopkins got drunk yesterday night and made a mess at the diner this morning. Couple of teens ditched school and crashed into a dustbin with their car, high on weed." He shrugged. "Just the usual stuff, Bells."
"Who's old Hopkins?"
"A local figure. Moved in after... well, you couldn't know him. He keeps getting drunk, I keep trying to get him in a rehab and his lawyer nephew keeps getting him out of it. Same old story every year."
"He dangerous?"
"Nah, just gets on people's nerves. But thanks to him I get all my meals at the diner free," he smirked with dry humour.
That was an improvement. I gathered my courage.
"About that disabled girl, dad, Ginny – could you maybe do anything about it? Scare the girl that bullies her with some charges or something so she would leave Ginny be?"
"That depends," he muttered dryly. He glanced at me. "Who's the girl?"
"Lauren-"
"Lauren Mallory," he scoffed a little and clenched his jaw. "Sorry, Bells. I can try, but I doubt it will work."
"Why?"
"She's the Mayor's daughter."
Well, that would explain her initial cockiness.
"Leave it be, Bells. Don't meddle in that."
Not for the first time I've noticed dad powerless and resenting it, how people with more power, connections and money than him always thwarted him in his efforts to do the right thing to keep Forks a safe place.
"Dad... it was her who beat me up."
"And you want to press charges."
"I don't want her to get away with it."
He sighed and clutched the wheel tighter. "Neither do I, Bells, but she will anyway. And the Mayor will be after my neck even more than he is already. That's just the way it is."
I didn't want to get him into trouble. I decided to think it through when my head is clearer.
"Will you come home for dinner?" I asked him after a while, staring at the drizzle that began to dot the windshield.
"Not likely," he replied without a trace of emotion in his voice, focusing on the road. "I've promised Sue and Leah I'd help them repair some stuff at their home. I guess I'll dine there. So just rest and don't worry about it."
I glanced at him. His face was tense and unreadable. I gazed back at the dots of rain, folding my hands in my lap. "You've spent the whole weekend fishing with them again," I said quietly.
He cleared his throat and his knuckles on the steering wheel whitened. "Yeah. They're having it rough now, Leah especially. You know her dad died few months ago."
"Yeah," I whispered, looking away at the rain. "I can imagine Leah's having it rough."

xxx

I listened to the evening's sounds outside from my half-sleep and jerked awake whenever I heard wood cracking or something, moths probably, crashing into the windows like sharp knocks of fingers.
It started to rain again and the forest murmured in an uneasy rhythm, lit by half of a moon that hid the other half behind a cloud; for a moment, I wished I were that cloud, not to feel any weight, just float as the wind takes me here or there, nothing but the flight and immeasurable lightness under the face of the moon.

I do not know how much time passed, but it may have been an hour before I heard the doorbell ring. Sleepy, not quite thinking yet, dazed from the painkillers, I went down, but as I opened the door, there was nobody – only a bouquet of white asphodel lilies tied with a white silk ribbon and a note written in a beautiful, a bit old-fashioned script:

Get well soon.

E.

And then I saw him, at the horizon, walking away with his hands in his pockets, bare head attacked by the rain, his jacket drenched. He didn't look back and I didn't call out to him. I picked up the asphodel and hugged it, as if it could bestow warmth and comfort, and watched the rain glide down from the canopy of the trees and moss above the road, and him, until he vanished from my sight. Then I put them in a vase and carried them up to my room, gripped by sadness I couldn't quite explain.

xxx

As I was falling asleep once more, I heard some car pulling in and parking, but it didn't sound like dad's. Then the doorbell rang again and I slowly, my head spinning a little, gathered myself up and crawled off the bed. This time my mind was clear enough for me to look out of the window first to see who's there – and to my surprise it was Angela. I trudged down the stairs, wincing in pain because the Tylenol had worn off, feverish, and I shuddered with cold as the icy evening air got in when I opened the door.
Angela shifted weight from one leg to the other, soaked and dripping, and gave me an uncertain smile. "Hi."
"Hi."
"I heard they took you to the hospital, so I figured that you've missed the last class – and I... I thought I'd bring you the notes from today," Angela took them out of her bag and offered them to me. "I dunno which one you were to have, so I took them all."
"Thanks," I took them, taken a bit aback. We stared at each other in an uncomfortable silence for a couple of seconds. I cleared my throat. "That's very nice of you. How did you find me?" Which was the same question I had in store for Edward.
She grinned a bit sheepishly, her hair soaked and lank. "Everybody here knows where Chief Swan lives." She peeked over my shoulder, knitting her eyebrows, looking somewhat worried. "You alone here?"
"Yep, dad went fishing." She frowned, her anxiety growing. I opened the door wide and made way. "Would you like to come in? Have some hot tea or something?"
Angela grinned and teased: "Tea? Sounds great. Got any milk to put into it?"
I chuckled and shook my head, leading her in. "I am afraid, my dear, that this household is regrettably lacking in any dairy. I shall have to have a word about that with the cook. The negligence of the servants these days is absolutely shocking."
She chuckled, too, but she quickly became serious and uncertain again. "Nah, it's okay, Bella. I just wanted to talk to you."
I blinked and said: "Alright."
We went up to my room and sat down opposite each other in the reading nook.
She glanced around and smiled, tucking her hair behind her ear while I put the notes away. "Nice room. I think I should shabby chic mine up a bit, too."
"Thanks. You sure you don't want tea or coffee?"
"Yeah, I'm cool," she nodded and gazed at me, shy, vulnerable. "Look, Bella... I'm sorry. That I didn't help you. I tried to stop them, but... I should have done more."
I shrugged and smiled at her, wanting to go back to sleep. "It's okay, there was no point. You'd only have gotten yourself beaten up, too."
"Yeah, but... that doesn't make it right all the same. I should have called for help or something."
I patted her hand. "It's alright. I know what it's like, to be in the situation you were in. I don't blame you at all. And it's not like we know each other or something, you really didn't have to."
"Yeah," she hung her head. "Thanks."
"Is that what you wanted to talk about?" I asked softly.
She sighed and shook her head. "No. I mean, yep, but... no, it's not the main thing."
She appeared troubled. I waited for her to speak.
"Bella..." she sat closer to me. "You look like a nice girl and I think you've been through a lot. Look, as you said, we don't know each other, right, but I don't want you to get hurt."
I felt the kicks sharply then and I grimaced in pain, gripping my stomach. "Sorry," I muttered and stood up to get some more Tylenol. "Hold onto your thought, I'll be right back."
"Hey, wait, I'll get it for you," she jumped to her feet and pushed me back to sit. I closed my eyes and rested my head against the bookcase built into the reading nook, praying the nausea will go away quickly – I really didn't need to frighten Angela even more by scurrying away to vomit. I still felt quite light-headed and that wasn't a good sign.
"Here," she handed me a glass of water and Tylenol. I smiled at her and swallowed the pill.
"Thanks, Angela."
"For nothing," she sat down again, watching me with forehead creased with worry. "Look, shouldn't I call the ambulance? I mean, you look so sick, maybe you shouldn't be here alone."
"Dad will come home around nine or ten," I replied, squeezing her upper arm. "It will be fine. Don't worry."
"Okay. So... I'll just say my piece and let you go back to bed, right?" she attempted a smile and I nodded. She bit her lip. "How well do you know Edward?"
I knit my brows. "I don't know him at all, why?"
"Really?" she was taken aback. "I had thought... you know, when he carried you and stood up for you and all... he never does that. He keeps to himself. He's not exactly a friendly type, you see."
I shrugged, tired. "We met only once before, I was sick and he helped me out, that's all."
"Right," she muttered and leant back, frowning and as if hesitating whether to say something or not. "I see. Well...," she bit her lip. "I heard Edward went with you to the hospital, is that true?"
"Yep, he did," I sighed, rubbing my face. "I don't really understand why he did that, but it was nice of him. Though my dad wasn't thrilled to see him there."
"No wonder," she murmured.
"Why? Because of that car and that incident in Biology?"
"That... and...," she wavered and then took a deep breath and said, looking at me with some urgency: "I guess your dad didn't tell you he's jailed Edward for a couple of hours, before Dr. Cullen's lawyer got him out?"
I stiffened. "No, not a word. Why? On what charges? When was it?"
"Last April," she replied and swallowed. "And the charge was murder."
I froze. "Murder?" I whispered.
"Yep. Aggravated first degree murder. That's what they said it was when her murder was prosecuted."
I felt a strange chill. "So the victim was a girl."
She folded her hands in her lap. "Yep. Bree Tanner. She was my friend."
She stared at me for a moment intently while chills were crawling all over me, and tugged at the edge of her jacket, biting her lip.
"Go on," I prompted her softly.
"She kept saying Edward's such a looker and that it's horrible that he's so all alone. That it's no wonder he doesn't want Jessica or Lauren, because they are such bitches, especially Lauren. That day, before she was murdered, I and a couple of other guys saw her at school arguing about something with Edward so hard. They kept their voices low, but I could see he was mad. You know, she had such a big crush on him, was bringing him gifts, kept trying to run into him by chance, tried everything to make him talk to her, but he always just brushed her off. She... she told me she'd ask him out for the Spring Dance, just that afternoon before that when we were in Port Angeles picking dresses-" her voice broke and she took a couple of seconds to steady it.
"What were they arguing about?"
She shook her head. "I don't know – but I'm almost sure, that..." she trailed off and took several deep breaths. "You know," she lowered her voice, "that day before she'd ask him out she told me she's found something that will make him go out with her and give her a chance. Something about him, something bad."
"What?"
"She wouldn't tell me," Angela shook her head, anxious. "But two days later she was dead."
"Oh God," I whispered and gripped her hand, pulling her into a hug and laying her head on my shoulder as she shook with suppressed sobs. "Oh my God."
After a while she extricated herself from my hands and sniffed, reaching into her pocket. "Look – this was her," she showed me a photo of a beautiful, pale, dark-eyed brunette teen. I took it from her and looked at it for a moment.
"She looks like a nice person," I murmured. "She had such a lovely smile."
"Yeah," Angela attempted to smile and took it back, staring at it. "She really was nice. Had it tough at home, her dad was a jerk, always in some kind of trouble. I guess that's why she went after Edward. Gorgeous, from a stable family, smart, polite when teachers spoke to him, always knowing the correct answer, always so clean and smelling so nice – and a loner with no friends. She just thought he's unhappy and needs a girl who'd love him to be fine."
She teared up and turned her head away. I patted and squeezed her upper arm and she wiped her tears away with the back of her hand and went on: "Old Hopkins saw her getting into Edward's car. That was the last anybody saw her alive. Well, except for the murderer, I guess," she sniffed and rubbed her face. She was silent for a moment and I, numb, shaken, stared off at the asphodel, pale, white, the silk ribbon gleaming softly in the electric light. Then I forced myself to look back at her. She wiped her eyes again. "The lawyer said Old Hopkins was drunk and seeing things, because Edward was picking up Nurse MacFadyen at the hospital to drive her to Seattle. The nurse confirmed that and because the police didn't really have anything, your dad had to let Edward go." She hung her head, playing with the photo. "One guy later confessed to it, a soldier on leave, said she was hitchhiking and he picked her up, but he was drunk and tried to feel her up, so she burst out screaming and he got scared and tried to make her shut up."
"How... how was she killed?"
Angela shuddered. "Her neck was snapped."
Hair bristled up on my skin and I stiffened.
She broke in a sob and buried her face in her hands. "So you know, that guy was jailed for that, but..."
"But you still think it was Edward who did it," I finished, stunned, and she nodded in tears.
"That's why Lauren's scared of him – and about everybody else. I dunno why he's nice to you, but you should be on your guard. I dunno what his secret is, but it must be something nasty if it's worth killing over."
I couldn't find any reply to that.
"So look, Bella..." she took my hand and bit her lip, "it's really none of my business, but I don't want another girl killed. Will you promise me to stay safe and avoid him?"
I couldn't find any reply to that. Instead, as her face twisted with unshed tears, I hugged her tight and held her till she cried it out.

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Author's note: As always, big thanks to all who read, reviewed, favorited or subscribed to this story - I really appreciate it:-) How do you like it so far? What do you expect to happen next? Tell me in the reviews:-)