13

Bella sat on the highest tree branch she could find, as far away from the house as she could go without drawing too much attention. Her eyes were closed, and she was trying to hone her senses, so to speak. The last month had passed in the blink of an eye. Of course, it hadn't helped that they didn't sleep, they didn't need to hunt as often as they would have had to eat had they been human. Nor did it help that they watched her.

All the time.

They were waiting for her eyes to glow again, for her to take someone else's power the way she had stolen Edward's, Jasper's, and Kate's, apparently. Stolen them like they toys and she'd ripped them from their hands and was taunting them. They watched her every movement, and it reminded her of the way her classmates watched her after they found Fred, when her classmates found out that she had cancer, afraid she would pass the cancer onto them.

It was fear. They were afraid of her, and she didn't blame them. She was afraid of herself. This life she had agreed to scared her, these gifts they insisted she had. For once, she had hoped not to be they freak, yet once again, she felt like a circus act, on display for everyone to watch.

"Figured I'd find you out here," Edward said, climbing onto the branch next to her.

Of course she hadn't heard him, like she should have been able to. Carlisle suspected her shield kept her senses duller than they should be. She smiled and nodded and said of course that made sense, even if it didn't. Before Edward had bitten her, her sense were on overdrive. She'd heard the rain before anyone else, and smelled the wolves when she shouldn't have been able to, yet the minute she woke up, for the lack of a better term, her senses were so . . . human. Normal.

"I like it here," she said, gripping the branch above them. "They don't hover here, or stare, or whisper about me."

Edward smiled, though it didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Sorry," she murmured.

"Don't be sorry. You're allowed your feelings, Bella."

"I just. . . ." She shook her head. "I talked to my mom this morning."

"And how is Renee?"

Bella smiled. "Happy. She and Charlie have settled in Phoenix, something I never thought I would see. He hated Phoenix. Always said it was hotter than Hell, which compared to Forks, it was," she added with a laugh. "But at least they're together."

"Does it make it easier? Knowing they are together?"

She nodded. "I still miss them, but knowing they're together, knowing they at least have each other . . . I don't know that I can explain it."

"You're lucky," Edward said, quietly. "When I was a newborn, I didn't have anyone to worry about, Bella. My parents were already dead, and all I had was Carlisle."

"Where was Esme?"

He smiled. "She didn't join us until 1921."

"Oh." Bella paused. "What about the others?"

Edward frowned. "Carlisle found Rosalie in thirty-three, she found Emmett in thirty-five. Alice doesn't know when she was changed. She, um, just remembers waking up a vampire."

"She doesn't remember her human life at all?"

"No, she, um, she just knew her name was Alice. She found Jasper in the early fifties, and they came to us not long after. She'd seen them joining us, of course."

"When was Jasper changed?"

"1863 or so."

"Oh, wow," she murmured. "He's the oldest of all of you?"

"No, Carlisle was changed in 1663."

"Holy shit," she cursed, covering her mouth with her hand. "Sorry."

Edward laughed. "Don't be sorry." He shifted on the branch. "It's refreshing that you're so honest with your feelings."

She scoffed. "Refreshing?"

He nodded, and brought his hand up to her face. "Very."

Her eyes closed, and she leaned against his touch. "Why do you always know how to make me feel better?"

"I didn't know I did," he said, leaning forward and pressing his forehead against hers. "You make me feel better, too, if that helps."

She smiled, bringing her hands up to the side of his face, but before she could kiss him, she felt him tense and lean away, and it took all she had not to roll her eyes, knowing someone was coming. They looked down to the ground, and running toward them about a mile away, was Rosalie and Emmett. She turned Edward's face back toward her, trying to use her shield to keep them out of his head, but when he groaned, she knew she failed. What was the point of having this 'amazing' gift if she couldn't use it when she wanted to?

"Yo, Eddie," Emmett yelled as he and Rosalie skidded to a stop under the tree they were perched in. "Alice sees someone coming. You and Swan need to shake a leg."

"Okay," he called out, but waited until they turned and hurried away before he looked back at her. "We'd better go."

"Who's coming?"

"An old friend of Carlisle's. Name is Garrett."

Bella nodded, though she would prefer not to meet anyone new. She was already overwhelmed. They leapt from the tree, landing on their feet before starting their run back to the house. When they got there, she was unsurprised to find Carlisle, Esme, Rosalie, Emmett, Alice, and Jasper standing out on the porch with Eleazar, Carmen, Tanya, Irina, and Kate in the yard, the latter five looked at her with fear. They hadn't hidden the way they felt, especially Eleazar. Every time he looked at her, she remembered the way he screamed for them to get her out of there, that she was a danger.

"How'd Garrett know we were here?" Edward asked.

"I don't know," Carlisle said, shifting his eyes to Edward and then to Bella before looking away. "He must have come by the house in Forks. Maybe figured we'd come here seeing as we didn't exactly have time to settle our affairs in Forks, like we normally would."

Though nobody said so, Bella understood the underlining meaning behind his words. They'd left Forks because of her, because her mother and father had asked Carlisle to change her, to save her, and what good had it done? Sure she was alive, but they didn't trust her. They thought she was dangerous, and maybe she was.

"He's coming from the Southeast," Edward whispered, sliding his arm around her waist, and leaning in so that his lips were just outside her ear. "He's different."

"Different how?" she asked, but before he could reply, she saw him.

Even from the distance, she could tell that he was tall, broad in the shoulders. He had shaggy, messy dirty blond hair and bright red eyes. In the last month she'd learned how red eyes equaled human blood. Edward had explained her eyes stayed red after her change due to the human blood that lingered in her system after the venom changed her. Even now, a month later, her eyes were still a dull red, which frustrated her. It was just another way she was different than everyone else.

The vampire named Garrett stopped fifty yards away, his head tilting to the side, and his lips curling into a wry smile. "Carlisle, my old friend, you're a hard man to track down."

"Why were you looking for me?" Carlisle asked.

It may have been Bella's imagination, but it seemed like Garrett's eyes flickered to her before he replied. "Thought I might catch up with an old friend."

"Haven't heard from you in almost a decade," Carlisle countered.

Garrett smiled. "Things have changed. I mean last I checked, you weren't stealing human girls away and changing them into one of us."

Bella could feel everyone shift their eyes to her. Everyone but Carlisle and Edward, of course. Garrett's smile grew as his eyes shifted to her, as well. In that moment, she didn't like the vampire named Garrett.

"How'd you find out?" Carlisle asked. "Nobody else knows."

"Word travels quickly, especially when you are involved, Carlisle. You know how the brothers feel about you, and your family."

Bella shifted her eyes between the two of them, before turning to Edward. "By the brothers, he means the Volturi?"

Edward nodded. "They don't agree with our way of life, one could say. Feel like we're wasting our talents by not joining their guard. Especially Alice. Aro's been after her for a very long time."

Bella shifted her eyes to Alice, who didn't seem bothered. "And they know about me?"

"No," Garrett said, drawing everyone's attention back to him. "At least not yet, but word is getting around. About a war between you and some shapeshifters from the Quileute reservation. Told you that treaty would backfire on you, Carlisle, but did you listen?" He shook his head, making a tsking sound with his tongue. "I told you that you can't trust anyone."

Carlisle tensed, looking over his shoulder at her. "She's worth it."

"Is she?" Garrett asked, and when Edward snarled, the vampire laughed. "Not saying she's not, just questioning. Of course, you could introduce me."

But before either of them could utter another sound, Bella pulled herself away from Edward, running in the opposite direction. She'd just had enough being the circus freak.

—Stay—

Bella ran until she found herself standing on the edge of the cliff, overlooking a deep valley. She'd closed her eyes, taking an unneeded deep breath. That had been another oddity she'd had to get used to as a vampire. Not needing to breathe.

"Bella."

Snapping her eyes open, she turned and found herself face to face with Emmett, of all people. He was standing twenty, maybe twenty-five feet away, his hands shoved into the pocket of his blue jeans. He was larger than he had seemed when she was human, yet softer at the same time. He smiled, two dimples digging into his cheeks.

"Sorry," he said. "I forget you can't hear us coming, like we can you."

"You followed me?" she asked.

"I did," he admitted, shrugging his shoulders. "It wasn't easy, either. Jasper practically had to sedate Edward, while Rosalie attempted to hold him down. He, um, put up a fight, though. I'll give him that."

She smiled. "Why would you stop him?"

"Because he gets this real annoyed look on his face," Emmett said with a smile. "Won't lie, Bella, it's fun fucking with him like that."

"I see." She turned back and looked over the cliff. "So why did you follow me? Afraid I was going to do something stupid?"

"Pretty much," he said, and when she looked back at him, he smiled widely. "When I was a month into being a newborn, I would never have been able to control my thirst the way you can. Guess I wanted to be close in case you came across a human. Wanted to see that super-shield in person."

"Super-shield?" she quipped, folding her arms in front of her. "Do you regret being changed?"

Emmett shrugged his shoulders. "Didn't really have a choice. Rosalie found me in in the mountains of Tennessee after I, um, lost a fight with a bear."

"A bear?" she asked, laughing.

He grinned. "A grizzly. Found that bear after I was changed, though, and settled the score, if you catch my drift."

"A grizzly bear," she murmured, shaking her head. "Do you regret them changing you, though?"

"No," he said. "I have Rosalie. She's . . . Well, she's my world, so I can't regret finding my world, can I?"

"Suppose not," she whispered, turning and looking back over the edge of the cliff. "I feel like I don't belong. In this life, or," she turned around, "as a human. I've always been the freak, the girl with cancer, who was dying. And now . . ."

"And now?"

"And now you stare at me, waiting for my eyes to glow, waiting for me to use this power that I'm supposed to have, and I . . . I don't know. I guess I feel like I'm still the girl, dying from cancer."

Emmett tilted his head to the side. "It's not the power that makes us watch you, Bella."

"Then what is it?"

"It's the way you love him."

"Him?" she asked, quietly.

Emmett laughed. "Rosalie and I . . . we didn't want to change you, Bella. We didn't because you were a threat to our perfect world, but when Edward fought for you, when he told us you were important, different, I knew he was right. It's hard. Change, I mean, it's hard, but from the moment we saw you in his arms, the way you held onto him . . . Well, he became your world, and you, Bella, became his."

Emmett took a couple steps backward and looked over his shoulder, his smile growing. "He's worth it."

He turned and ran back toward the house, and that's when she saw him.

Edward.

She couldn't stop herself from running toward him, meeting him halfway. Their arms wrapped around each other, their lips meeting in a fiery kiss, and just like before, when his lips touched hers, Bella felt a strange warmth spread through her body, from the tips of her toes to the tips of her fingers.

Can you hear me?

Edward gasped, pulling his lips away from his. "I can." He brought his hands up to her face. "Your eyes are glowing again."

I'm scared.

"Don't be," he whispered, pressing his lips against hers again. "I'm right here, sweetheart."

Promise?

Edward smiled. "I promise."

And though she wasn't sure she was ready, she and Edward started running back toward the house, knowing Carlisle and the others would be curious to see her power in person. Maybe this life wasn't for her, after all.

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