Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. Edited by Sjdavis84 and StillDreaming85.

WARNING: This story contains mature themes and is intended for mature readers.

ISABELLA SWAN

I couldn't shake it off this odd feeling as if someone was following me, watching my every move.

All week it has been driving me mad. At first, I thought nothing of it. New York City was a small city with a very large population.

There were over eight million people in New York City on any given day, the chances were someone was looking at you.

Today was different, I noticed things, things that may be the cause of this sudden feeling of dread. I felt scared even though I don't know what for. I felt panicked, but I don't know what there was to be panicked about.

I noticed the car that seemed to appear everywhere I was. It was parked out front when I left the house this morning. It was outside the cafe as I waited for my coffee.

I noticed the man leaning against the hood of the car smoking a cigarette while another sat in the driver's seat staring straight ahead.

By lunchtime, I was freaked out. The same car was outside the college as I left with Charlotte for lunch and as we ate, it was parked opposite the dinner too.

I memorized the plates of the silver Lexus. I memorized the man leaning against the hood of the car. His blonde wavy hair pulled back into a ponytail. His RayBan's with the reflective lenses. His dark jeans, gray sweater and leather jacket. Everything about him screamed danger.

But surely he couldn't be following me? This was paranoia, it had to be. Why would anyone follow me?

But by the time Charlotte and I finished lunch, when I looked back out of the window, the man and the car were gone, nowhere in sight.

I let out a big sigh of relief, much to Charlotte's questioning glare. I felt almost euphoric realizing that my panic had been for nothing.

"You okay?" Charlotte asked.

"Never better," I said.

"You've been acting weird all day. Spit it out Swan."

"I have not been acting weird," I said, throwing a scrunched up napkin at her. "I have to go, I've got practice. I'll see you later alright." I stood up and put some money down on the table and put my coat on.

"You are my lifesaver. I'll be in your debt till the day I die," she said, blowing me a kiss.

Charlotte had a big assignment due tomorrow, and she has done zero work on it. College wasn't really Charlotte's thing. She had struggled with her school work since the start of the semester. I wouldn't be a good friend if I didn't help her out.

Charlotte was a great friend, but she was more interested in having fun. In many ways she and I were complete opposites. She liked the clubs, and I liked my quiet time. She had tried to convince me on more than one occasion to come out with her, but the idea of sweaty bodies bumping and grinding together was enough to put me off.

It's not that I didn't like to have fun, but she and I sometimes have a different idea of what is fun.

"I'll see you later," I said, kissing her on the cheek as she attempted to give an awkward hug from her seated position.

Dancing was more than just an outlet for me, it was a passion. My mother had taken me to my first ballet lesson at the age of three and I haven't stopped since.

I have always been a shy person, I never enjoyed attention or praise.

But whenever I perform on stage I feel almost liberated. I close my eyes and shut myself off from the world.

I can easily forget I am dancing in front of hundreds of people, because when I'm on stage, it's only me and the music that I hear and see. Sometimes the audience applauses and the spotlight startles me back to reality.

I had received a scholarship to Juilliard for my dancing and I had never in a million years thought that I would get in. It was an honor that I would not take for granted.

By the end of practice, I was beat. My feet and toes were killing me as was my back, but it was worth the pain. Mr. Cole, the ballet director had assigned me a part in his college production of Coppélia and he had given me the part of Coppélia herself. I was speechless to be given such a role, but grateful nonetheless.

"Isabella, you need to better your brisé. When you are up, you have a tendency to bend your knee. Keep it straight," Mr Cole said. "Alright, I shall see you all tomorrow."

~DINY~

My parent's have always been crazy, and crazy in love with each other. No matter what life threw at them, they faced it together. I always hope that one day I will be able to find someone who will love me with as much passion and intensity as my father loves my mother. He loves her even though she's almost burnt the house down on more than one occasion.

As I walked into the kitchen the sight and smell of the burnt meat in the pan made me laugh, as too did the containers of Chinese food spread out on the bench.

"Chinese?" I questioned. "At least you didn't burn the kitchen down this time." Mom was never a good cook, she managed to burn toast most mornings. She had tried all the cooking classes, but it didn't make any difference. Cooking was something that she didn't like doing no matter how hard she forced herself to try. Looking down at the now cold Chinese food, I was thankful I had ate dinner at Charlotte's.

"Don't make fun of your mother. Aren't you hungry?" Mom asked.

"No, I ate at Charlotte's," I said, leaving my parents in the kitchen. I was halfway up the stairs when dad called me back.

"Bella."

I turned back around to look at my father and ran down the stairs into his arms. He looked so stressed, so worried. He's been working on a really big case for over a year now, that's about all I know. But whatever the case was about, it's taken a lot out of him. He's never spoken to me about his cases, no matter how much I tried to push him for information. He would sometimes tell me bits and pieces, things that he thought were alright for me to hear, but with this case I got nothing.

"What is it dad? What's bothering you?" I asked.

"Nothing's bothering me." He defended.

"You're a horrible liar, dad."

Charlie has always been the sort of father that you'd read about in books, or only existed on the good TV shows. In eighteen years he's never once missed one of my performances, he's always been there front row center and he always cried.

"I feel like we haven't spent any time together. I miss you, kiddo," he said.

"Hmm, are you free tomorrow morning? I don't have any classes until after lunch. You can be my breakfast date and we can gossip about all the weird people that walk by us?" I laughed.

"It's a date," he said. "I love you kiddo."

I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek. "I love you too, dad."

Some time during the night, I jolted awake. I felt as if I couldn't breath, as if there was something heavy on top of me.

There was someone hovering on top of me straddling my waist, he had one hand secured over my mouth while with his other he had my wrists locked in a vise grip.

I tried to make out the person's face, but it was too dark, there was no light coming from the window even though I had left the blinds open. My TV, I was sure I had left it on, was now turned off. My bedroom door was wide open, but there was no light, no sound coming from the hall.

I screamed as loud as I could, but there was no point, the sound was muffled by his hand. I tried to kick, to somehow wriggle out of his grasp, but it was a pointless task. In the position he was in, his knees trapped my thighs in such a way I could not even lift my knee up.

"Shh," he said. "What's our time?" He spoke, although not to me.

"Three forty two," someone else, another man said.

I tried to turn my head in the direction of the other person in here with us. From the corner of my eye I could make out a tall shadow. The shadow was holding a gun and that gun was pointed at me.

He's going to kill me, I thought. I screamed, I sobbed as much and as loud as I could against the hand that covered my mouth. I tried moving my body in whatever direction I could get it to move, but there was no use. The man above me was to big, to strong.

My heart was beating so fast, my head was spinning. I was going to die, they were going to kill me, right?

"Stop moving," the shadow on top of me said. "Listen to me very carefully, Isabella." How did he know my name?

"I'm not gonna hurt you, but my friend over there," he said, gesturing with his head in the other man's direction. "He's a little trigger happy. He won't have a problem killing you and then he'll go and he'll kill your mommy and daddy too."

I sobbed harder into his hand. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening. This had to be some horrible dream. Yes, that's what it is, a horrible dream, a dream where I am going to wake from any second now.

"This is what we're going to do. I'm gonna take my hand off your mouth. If you say one fucking word, if you scream, he'll kill you. You got that sweetheart?"

I nodded my head. Slowly he removed his hand from my mouth. I took a deep breath. The man with the gun now stood right by my bed.

"I am going to get off of you and you are going to get up and you are going to come with me."

"Please," I whispered through my tears. He grabbed a hold of my chin roughly.

"I told you not to say a word," he hissed. "Sweetheart, we can do this the easy way, where you walk out with us without a fight or we do it the very hard way," he threatened.

I didn't want to find out what the hard way was. As he let go of my arms and climbed off of me, he pulled me up to my feet.

I didn't fight, I couldn't. I thought of my mom and dad, of them doing something to them, hurting them or worse.

There was no escape, not for me at least.

"Good girl," he said. He pushed me towards the door. The man holding the gun stood behind me with the barrel of the gun pushed into my lower back. I fought back a sob that threatened to rip through me. I would keep quiet, for my mom and dad, for their life.

We went down the stairs. I held my breath, the fifth stair from the top had loose board that would squeak if someone stepped in the right spot. I prayed that I didn't, I prayed that they didn't. I was thankful when we made it down without a sound, mom and dad's bedroom door was opened.

How had these monsters gotten into our home? We had an alarm, with dad's line of work, he was sometimes a little paranoid and overprotective. Dad would always set the alarm every single night, he never once forgot. How did they get into our home undetected?

Out the front door. We went out the front door.

There it was at the bottom of our stoop, the silver Lexus I had seen earlier that day. These were the men that were following me.

The blonde man, and his driver, they had been following me, I was right.

I tried to get a better look at the blonde man in front of me, but there was no light anywhere on the street, it looked like a blackout, that's why our alarm didn't work, that's how they got in.

The blonde man opened the back door and the other pushed me in. He climbed in beside me while the other man climbed into the driver's seat. The car sped off down the street and behind us, another car appeared from out of nowhere.

As the car drove away, the streets became illuminated, a faint light shone in the car. I could see his face for the first time. He looked back at me with cold blue eyes, his face was dead serious. He had a scar below his left eye about one inch long.

"I have her," he said, speaking into his phone. He opened the window and threw the phone out, the car behind us flattening the device.

"Stop crying, it's not going to help you," he said.

"What do you want from me?" I cried, my fingers digging into the leather seats.

He shrugged, never offering me an answer. I turned my whole body in his direction when he took a long rectangular box out of his leather jacket.

He opened it up to reveal a syringe. Pure fear and adrenaline struck me. I moved to the other side of the car and tried the handle, but the door was blocked.

"Stop it," he warned. "I'm not drugging you. It's nothing bad, it's only going to put you to sleep."

Was that supposed to make me feel better? Was I supposed to move next to him and let him inject me with god knows what?

I couldn't fight, I should have known that, I had nowhere to go, no escape. He pushed me down on the backseat, his whole body covered mine. I screamed in his ear as I felt the prick of the needle in my arm.

My body became heavy, my legs felt like jello. I fought against it for as long as I could, but the darkness won.