Bella's POV

My head was hurting intensely and my entire body ached. I felt nauseous and dizzy and confused. I opened my eyes slightly, and saw the bright ceiling of an unfamiliar room. God, who did I go home with last night? I turned around on my side, before making eye contact with a pair of gorgeous, golden eyes. I blinked at them, before closing my own eyes completely and shaking my head.

"Ow," I groaned, putting a hand on my forehead. I shouldn't be shaking it, when I already had a splitting headache.

"Bella," my angel's voice said gently. "Are you alright?" A cold hand started stroking my hair soothingly, and I leaned into the touch, before trying to get my head straight. This couldn't be real! He was gone, and he was never coming back, no matter how much I wanted him to.

"This is the weirdest fucking dream, I have had in a while," I sighed, rubbing a hand over my tired face. My voice sounded raspy and my neck was hurting intensely all throughout it.

"You aren't asleep any more, Bella," the voice sounded puzzled, and something cold but gentle grabbed my hand that was rubbing my face, and tried to pull it away from my eyes.

"How are you feeling, Bella?" said a different voice, though still beautiful. It sounded almost like… Carlisle?

"I feel like absolute shit! I hurt everywhere," I groaned, and wondered why I was answering these imaginary questions? "And I think I have finally gone absolutely insane!"

A bell-like chuckle came from somewhere in the room, and the voice of my one time best friend said "I don't think you are as crazy as you think you are!"

"Damn, how many figments of my imagination can be in one dream," I mumbled into the couch. I must have gotten absolutely wasted yesterday, for my mental state to be spiraling like this. I remember drinking in my room, before going to the party and then drinking even more! But then it was blurry and dark, I could feel rough hands on my body, before everything became red.

"You are not dreaming, Bella!" my angel's voice insisted again, as my mind tried to keep up with everything that happened. I shot up into a sitting position and gasped loudly.

"Oh god, I'm dead! I actually got myself killed this time," I exclaimed, recalling the pain and the red blood from last night. Jacob had warned me time and time again, to not do reckless things, to not get utterly sloshed when going out, but I had never listened…

"Jake said this would happen if I wasn't careful! Oh, he'll be fucking furious," I groaned, feeling so bad for my best friend. After everything the pack had done to keep me alive, I went and got myself killed while drunk. In front of me three vampires were looking confused at each other, unsure how to handle this entire situation.

"Bella," Carlisle said slowly yet firmly. "You are not dead. You are not sleeping. We brought you here, to our house, after an incident occurred last night, and you needed help."

"Wha- What kind of 'incident'?" I asked, feeling confused and unbelieving of what he was saying. They had never shown up when I needed them, at least not after they left Forks.

"Your classmate, Matt? He spiked your drink last night," Alice said softly, looking into my eyes.

"Holy shi- I'll fucking kill him," I exclaimed, jumping up from the couch in rage. I obviously had heard all the warnings about druggings; Don't leave your drink unattended, don't take a drink that you didn't mix or open yourself, always stay with friends who'll take care of you, et cetera. But I, naively, never thought it would happen to me! Even though I usually took my precautions, last night I had been so agitated that I hadn't followed those rules. I stopped violently, in my search for the door as I remembered what had so upset me yesterday. Their names being called in my class, Alice confronting me in the parking lot, me yelling obscenities and all my most secret thoughts and feelings at her… My face was becoming red with embarrassment, hurt and anger as I rushed out of the room, trying to find an exit to this godforsaken house. I wasn't dead, I wasn't dreaming, I was actually here with them and I wanted nothing more than to get as far away as possible. My hands automatically started searching my pockets for a pack of cigarettes, before I realized I wasn't wearing my jacket or any of my own clothes. Alice, seeing my frustration, was suddenly by my side handing me a carrier bag that was full of my clothes from last night. I snatched it from her hand without a word, and sped towards what looked like a front door. I slung my jacket over my shoulders, it smelled newly washed and clean, and dug through the pockets for my smokes and a lighter.

"Bella, wait! Please," Edward pleaded, following me out onto the front porch, Carlisle and Alice close on his heels. I finally put a cigarette in between my lips and lit it with shaking hands, looking around the landscape. The house, of course, was in the middle of the woods, far from the rest of humankind! I didn't even know what direction to start walking in…

"Bella, he is already dead!" Carlisle said, looking at me with sympathetic eyes.

My eyebrows frowned at them as I said "What? Who?" before realization hit me. They probably thought I was still just upset about the drugging and Matt. I started, as his words sunk in.

"Wait, Matt is dead?!" I exclaimed, almost dropping the smoke, feeling utterly confused. My head was spinning and I was feeling nauseous, as images from last night were penetrating my mind. My breathing was becoming irregular and loud, as my entire body started shaking. Edward reached for my swaying body, but I flinched away from him shrieking "Don't touch me!"

I dropped to the ground and curled in on myself, my head between my knees. I closed my eyes and tried to take deep breaths, letting the cigarette fall from my hand. Everything from last night was a dark blur, but I distinctly remembered the feeling of being harshly pushed against the cold brick wall, fingers brutally fumbling between my legs, and rough hands closing around my throat. Then the blood was spurting out of the mans, Matt's, neck and chest as I repeatedly brought my armed hand down on him, before he fell over in a pool of blood. I had killed him…

Sick was erupting from my throat as I turned over and emptied my stomach of its meager contents on the forest ground. My eyes were overflowing, and I was gasping for air that didn't seem to enter my lungs. Alice slowly crouched down beside me, putting a gentle hand on my back, and started rubbing soothing circles there.

"It's okay, Bella. Just breathe! Nobody will hurt you now. It's over! He's dead and buried and gone," she whispered, pulling me tenderly into her arms. My fingers were grasping at her shirt, as I started taking deep breaths, feeling myself slowly becoming more stable. I knew it wasn't natural for my panic attack to diminish so quickly, and my suspicion was confirmed as I spotted Jasper standing on the porch, staring in my direction.

Their entire family was now watching me from the porch, except for Edward who was sitting on the ground just out of my reach. He had a pained expression on his face, as he watched my fragile state. I hated feeling this weak, this out of control. I hid my embarrassed face in Alice's shirt, as I continued crying quietly. There was an almost unnoticeable sound of shuffling as they all went inside and out of my sight.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, pulling back slightly while still sniffling. "It's been a while since I've lost it, like this… Probably not since everything with Victoria…"

"It's okay, Bella… I'm just… I'm so sorry. About everything! About this, and Laurent and Victoria… If I had known sooner I would have done anything to make it better… You shouldn't have had to go through it all alone," Alice said, looking like she herself was about to cry.

"I wasn't alone," I sniffled. "God, if I had been alone, there was no way I would have survived any of it…"

Alice's head tilted slightly to the side, her face looking confused. She was hesitating slightly before giving in to her own curiosity.

"Bella, how… How did you survive it?" she asked gently. "I thought… Thought that maybe Laurent and Victoria had let you go-"

I scoffed loudly at that. "Oh, please! I took her three fucking months to catch me, she would never have let me go willingly…"

"But then… What happened Bella? If you don't mind me asking," Alice said softly, looking guilty.

"It's…" I sighed loudly, looking into Alice's golden eyes. "It's a long story…"

"I have time all the time in the world. But only if you want to tell me," Alice whispered, taking my hand and squeezing it gently. My other hand searched the ground for my dropped cigarette, as I tried to gather my thoughts.

"I don't even know where to start," I murmured, before lighting my cigarette again. Alice's nose wrinkled slightly from the smell, but she stayed right next to me.

"Just start… Wherever you think it makes sense," she said, giving me a small smile.

"I guess I should start with the motorbikes," I said, before taking a long drag from the cigarette.

"One day when I was driving back from work, I came across two motorbikes. They were free, as it would probably cost more to fix them than they were worth. I brought them with me to La Push, to get some help from Jacob Black. My old truck used to be the Black's and I knew it was only still running because of Jake's handiwork, so we made a deal to fix up the bikes together. It must have taken us weeks, just to scrounge up all the missing parts. But we became really good friends in the process, and I met some of Jake's other friends during it all. Embry and Quill. Well, one day Jacob told me that Embry was acting all weird. Stopped going to school, didn't hang out with him anymore, cut his hair off, and started constantly being with Sam Uley and his squad. Furthermore, Sam was constantly eyeing Jake up, looking at him funny, expectantly… Jacob was scared, and thought that Sam was running some weird teenage cult in La Push. He tried talking to his dad about it, but Billy held Sam in high regard and constantly defended him. I told Jake that if it got worse with Sam that he could stay with me and Charlie…

Anyway, one day Mike Newton was pressuring me to go out to a movie with him, for like the 100th goddamned time, and I finally caved in on the agreement that we just went as friends. Well, I really regretted it later, so I invited a bunch of other people-"

Alice was chuckling by now, looking at me with fond eyes.

"You invited a bunch of other people to your date?" she said grinning.

"He promised it wouldn't be a date! So he couldn't judge me for inviting others to come too," I mumbled around my cigarette, blushing slightly. "Well, everyone except me, Mike and Jake got sick, so the three of us had the most awkward double date of my life!"

Alice's bell-like laugh shook her body wholeheartedly, as she waved me on to continue my story.

"Soooo, Mike was being an ass, as usual, and Jake was getting more and more annoyed. As he dropped me off he was looking sick, and he felt as if he was burning up. When I called their house later that night, his dad said he wasn't feeling well and to give him some space. Later they told me he had mono and couldn't see me, but he wouldn't even speak to me on the phone! Around the same time, several hikers had been found dead in the forest around Forks. My dad and the other cops thought that they had been mauled by bears or something… Well, I thought the chances of me running into a bear were pretty slim, so…" I said, sighing.

"You went out into the forest even though you knew people were getting mauled by a bear, didn't you?" Alice said, looking at me with judgemental eyes. I bit my lip, before nodding slowly.

"Well, it wasn't a bear!" I said trying to defend my own recklessness, and took another drag of the cigarette.

"Laurent and Victoria?" Alice guessed, taking in my agitated demeanor.

"Only Laurent, thankfully. We started talking; he was asking me all sorts of questions about where you all were, how often you stopped by, you get the drift. I tried lying, but I obviously didn't do it well enough, and he had already been by your house, seeing it had been vacated. That's about when I noticed his eyes… They were almost completely black, but with a slight red ring around them… I knew I was screwed by then, but I still tried keeping him talking. The longer he talked, the longer I lived. He told me he had been living in Denali for the past year, but that he found your 'lifestyle' hard. That he sometimes cheated…" I sighed, as I took the last drag of the cigarette, before stubbing it out.

"Oh, Bella," Alice said, looking at me with pity.

"Well, I just blurted out, asking if Victoria ever found him. That at least stopped him in his tracks for a short while. He told me that he was actually in Forks, doing a favor for Victoria. She wanted to know how easy it would be to get to me. She was pissed at Edward about James, and wanted to kill me as some sort of 'revenge'. She obviously didn't know we weren't together anymore. Then, Laurent suddenly said that Victoria wouldn't be happy about 'this'. I asked him 'about what', and he said about him killing me. That he was out hunting at the moment and I just smelled too appetizing. I started begging him not to, but he said I should be grateful that he found me first. That Victoria wouldn't be as quick as him…" I said in a quavering voice. Alice put her arms around me, as I tried taking a few deep breaths.

"He… Attacked you?" Alice asked quietly, while stroking my back.

"Yeah," I whispered, not wanting to go into details, before clearing my throat. "Well, suddenly a pack of wolves, fucking enormous, horse-sized wolves, charged into the clearing. Laurent jumped off me and the wolves started attacking him. I just… ran away. I ran faster than I ever had before… I had no idea why they would attack him, when I, a warm-blood weak human, was right there, but I didn't even have time to think more closely about it… When I got home, I told my dad, and Billy Black he was at our house at the time, about the huge wolves I had seen. How it was them, and not a bear, that was killing the hikers," I finished quietly.

If Alice hadn't already figured it out, she definitely understood now what the wolves were.

"So, your friend… Jacob Black?" Alice stammered.

"Yes, he is a wolf," I sighed. "I still hadn't figured that out, though. But a couple of days after the… incident, I went to La Push, to talk to Jacob. I ran into his friend, Quill, on the way there. He told me that Jake was now following Sam around, wasn't going to school, cut his hair, all of that. I finally got a hold of Jacob, but he just completely dismissed everything I said, and told me to stay away from him… I was angry and confused, and just yelled at him. He looked so angry, started shaking, which was all very weird as Jake had always been so mild tempered… But Sam and the rest of the pack came over and practically dragged him off.

I think he could see how much it all hurt me, so he showed up at my window that night. He asked me if I remembered the La Push legends, he had told me about a year prior. He was the one who, accidentally, had told me what you guys were. Later that night, after he left I realized what that meant he was… I however, hadn't gathered that all the killings were Laurent and Victoria's doing, I still thought it had been done by the wolves… So, the next day I went to La Push to confront Jacob about the killings-"

"You went to talk to him, even though you knew he was a werewolf, and thought that they were killing people?!" Alice exclaimed, staring at me.

"He was my best friend! I thought I had to, at least, talk to him, try and get him to stop killing people…" I said, trying to justify my actions.

"You have got to be the most tolerant, lenient, open-minded person I have ever met," Alice sighed, looking at me both fondly but also somewhat concerned. I had a feeling that she was purposely using more positive descriptions of me, then she wanted to. She could easily have called me dumb, wide-eyed and naive.

"Anyway, we got into a huge fight. Jake was calling me a hypocrite, and I tried pleading with him, that if you guys could find a way to live without killing people, couldn't he try as well. He finally realized what I thought they were doing, and told me that it wasn't them. That it was the 'blood-sucker' who had attacked me, and this other red-headed one that they still hadn't caught.

That she kept getting away, but still kept coming back to the area for something, but that they didn't know what…" I fished another cigarette out of my pocket and lit it, before taking a long drag. Alice kept staring at me with sympathetic, yet guilty eyes.

"I told Jacob that it was me she was after… About what had happened with you guys and James, and how she wanted revenge… We decided to talk to the rest of the pack about what I knew. There were certain discussions about how to handle it all. Paul didn't think they should risk their lives protecting some 'leechlover', but Sam and Jacob argued in my favor, saying that it was their duty to protect any human in the region. For the next weeks, months, I spent every waking moment in La Push with at least one of the wolves by my side."

"Is that how you got injured? Hanging out with werewolves?" Alice asked frowning, waiving at the scars on my neck.

"No, this happened when Leah was forced to rip Victoria off my fucking throat," I snapped back, feeling myself becoming angry.

Alice recoiled slightly at my tone, looking guilty. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"I would have been maimed and killed a long time ago, if it wasn't for them! It's not that I wanted to put all my faith in a bunch of temperamental teenagers, but I had no other choice!" I shrieked, while getting to my feet.

"But Victoria got past them! She caught you at the end," Alice said, pleading with me.

"She didn't get past them! I went to her!" I yelled, as I felt my eyes start to overflow again. Alice looked utterly stunned at this revelation.

"But… But why would you…?" she muttered, standing up opposite me, reaching for my hand. I flinched away from her touch, continuing to take shaking drags of the cigarette, as tears fell down my cheeks.

"Bella? Why would you go to her?" Alice asked me gently, as I was staring down at my feet.

"She almost killed one of them… Seth was the youngest of the pack… hadn't even turned 15 yet…" I whispered slowly, remembering that horrible day all too clearly.

"I'd graduated earlier that week, and we were celebrating that evening, while Seth was keeping watch in the woods. It had been months of them trying to catch Victoria by then, but she just kept getting away… I couldn't start college anywhere, as I had to stay near Forks and the pack. They were all putting their lives on hold, barely attending school anymore, just to keep me alive… When Seth got hurt his older sister, Leah, tore me a new one. Said that the entire pack was going to get killed trying to protect me, a leechlover… How Victoria had killed more than 20 innocent people in the area in her pursuit of me… I couldn't keep seeing others get hurt because of me… I just couldn't live with myself like that…" I said quietly, as I started sobbing in earnest.

Alice's lips were quivering and she started to cry, tearlessly, too. She reached out to me, putting her arms tightly around me, holding me as I sobbed loudly.

"I'm so sorry, Bella…" Alice cried in my ear. "We would have come back for you, if we had known… We just assumed you were safe…"

I slumped against her, too exhausted and too broken to say anything as I continued crying.

"Let me take you home, Bella," Alice said, looking into my tired eyes."I shouldn't have made you talk about this all now, you were already worn out, after everything that happened last night. I'm sorry!" She began dragging me towards the garage, while I tried to stifle my crying slightly. Soon we were in one of their cars, driving out of the woods. I pulled down the sun visor mirror and was shocked at my own appearance. I gasped as I examined my swollen cheek and the vivid bruises on my neck.

"I know, it's pretty bad," Alice sighed. "We cleaned you up the best we could last night, and Carlisle assessed your injuries. Luckily, he didn't think anything was broken."

"Fuck," I whispered. "I can't let anybody see me like this… What happened to… to him?"

"We buried him deep in the woods. No one will find him there, but I am worried that some kind of investigation into it all will begin," Alice said, glancing at me sympathetically.

"Motherfucker," I exclaimed angrily, as tears started filling my eyes again. "What am I supposed to do now?! Will the police come after me? Will I even be able to go to school on monday?!"

"I'm not sure to be honest," Alice said, reaching out and taking my hand. "But we will be here for you, no matter what! Let's start off with going to your place and getting some things. You can stay at our house for a while if needed."

"I don't think I should stay with you… I can't handle staying with…" A lump was filling up my throat making it impossible to finish my sentence.

"Edward?" Alice guessed, squeezing my hand. "Won't you please talk to him? He has a lot he wants to say and-"

"There is nothing for us to talk about! He left me, and I don't want his pity now, just because he has seen what a fucking mess I am," I raved at her, as tears started falling down my cheeks.

She recoiled slightly from me, but still looked at me with insisting eyes.

"I'm not saying it has to be today, just… at some point. When you are ready… Please?" Alice's eyes were practically begging me, but I just looked away. I couldn't deal with any more hurt at the moment.

AN: I know in New Moon that Bella says Seth is around 15, however in the illustrated guide it says he is born in 1992, which would make him 14 at the time of his transformation. So, I tried taking both thing's into consideration and made him almost 15, when this all happenend.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter and will continue reading :)