Book One

Chapter One

The Fire

Bella Swan

December 2004

"Yeah, Dad, I'm excited too." I lied as I readjusted the phone at my ear and turned on the cars brights.

Dad sighed on the other end of the line, "Bella, you're a terrible liar."

I knew that, of course, and I bit down on my lip as a new wave of anxiety coursed through me. I had been lying about my excitement (or lack thereof) over moving to Forks, Washington to live with my dad so often these days that I thought I was beginning to sound more convincing. Guess you can't lie to a Chief of Police that easily. I'd have to remember that come January when I would be living with one full time.

"Dad, I am happy to be coming to stay with you." I promised him. "It's just...you know how I feel about Forks. And I can't help but worry about leaving Mom, you know how she is."

"I know, Bells." He sounded sad. "But I promise I'll make sure that you have a great time while you're here. You'll make lots of friends and we'll get you involved in clubs or maybe a sport-"

"Dad-"

"Okay, okay, maybe not a sport." He laughed, sounding more like himself, and I could picture his eyes crinkling at the edges as he smiled. "You know you get your clumsiness from me, right?"

"Yeah, Dad, I know." I laughed. "Mom's been on a sand volleyball kick here lately. She does a great job. If I tried to play, then I'd give someone a concussion."

"Probably yourself." Dad laughed loudly.

The road had been mostly empty, the late time of night contributing to the lack of motorist, but a car suddenly appeared and momentarily blinded me.

"Ow, bright lights." I muttered, before honking the horn at them to get them to turn off their brights.

"Are you driving? At this time of night?" Dad worried for me. "What are you doing out so late?"

"It's only 9:30. Some of the girls from student council wanted to get together and go to dinner and see a movie as a kind of going away party for me. Mom let me borrow her car since she and Phil are at a baseball thing tonight." I explained. "I'm almost home now. I'm just rounding the corner with the ballet studio."

"Okay, well-"

He continued taking, but I wasn't listening anymore. There was suddenly a dark figure standing in the middle of the road right ahead of me.

I had turned off my brights when I had passed the car a moment ago, and so I could hardly see anything as I attempted to swerve around the figure at the last moment. But, in my panic, I overcompensated and jumped the curb of a buildings parking lot. The car hit a low concrete barrier before it fell completely over onto its passenger side with a hard crash. My head hit the steering wheel hard during the impact. I could smell the sickening metallic scent of blood and felt it trickle down my face. The seatbelt burned where it was clinging tightly around my ribcage. I was breathless from how tight it was restricting my body as it held me in my seat. My arms were outstretched as gravity pulled me downward, but I was strapped in so tightly that I couldn't move.

"Bella? Bella?" Dad's yelling came from my phone somewhere in the floorboards of the car. I struggled to stop my panicked screaming in an effort to not scare him even more.

I took in a few ragged shallow breaths before I began to cough from the pain of the seatbelt restricting me. My head ached as I tried to blink through the sudden dizziness. There was an ear-splitting noise and a rush of dry desert air as the drivers side door beside me was torn off the car.

How had help arrived so quickly? I couldn't hear any sirens, or any other car on the road, so it seemed too soon for any help to be there.

I was starting to think I must've passed out when I hit my head against the wheel. I stopped worrying about that when cold hands reached into the car and grabbed my arms. The strange hands held my arms to my chest and supported most of my weight with one hand while the other hand undid my seatbelt. The hands caught my full weight when gravity attempted to pull me down. With skill I didn't think anyone possessed, the stranger lifted me from the wreckage and laid me down on the asphalt. I was still dizzy, from the sudden accident or the head trauma, I wasn't sure which, so I could barely make out the face staring down at me.

I couldn't see much of my savior in the darkness, but they were tall, well built, and dressed in dark clothing that blended in with the night around us. Dark hair with equally dark eyes. The only thing not dark about the figure before me was their skin, an odd pale color that seemed to pulse and glow faintly in the moonlight. They stood above me, head cocked to one side as they stared down at me, as if they couldn't believe they had managed to save me. I tried to speak, to thank them, but the pain radiating from my head and chest stopped me.

A terrifying sound, a deranged hissing and growling, escaped the persons mouth and sent every nerve in my body on edge. I was suddenly terror-stricken and wanted to be far away from this person.

"She won't be happy with me for doing this." My savior-turned-sinister captor hissed again as I struggled to sit up. The pain in my chest made me think I had broken a few ribs. "But you smell so good." His surprisingly beautiful voice sounded like it was purring somehow.

At that, I scrambled onto my feet and sprinted towards the nearest building as best I could manage without falling down. I realized that it was the dance studio I had taken lessons at as a child and felt relieved. It normally stayed open very late at night for the older dancers to practice. I reached the door and pulled at the handles, but a shocked panic took over me. The doors were locked. A cheerful-looking sign said "closed for winter break" in big letters on the door.

I gasped loudly. The pain in my chest was becoming unbearable. I tried to think through what little self defense I knew. Knee to the groin, obviously, and then hook your finger in the eye socket and pop the eye out. Then-

Then I was screaming. My attacker snatched me by my arm and started dragging me back towards the wreckage of my mother's car. I beat my hands on his back and kicked at him wildly, but he seemed to not even feel my attempts. It didn't even faze him. My stomach sank in defeat.

I could try all I had in me to stop him and it wouldn't be enough. I was bleeding heavily from a head trauma, and I probably had some broken ribs and internal bleeding too. What could I possibly do to stop him?

He threw me to my back on the concrete and my head hit the ground hard enough to give me a concussion. After reaching down and jerking me up by my shirt collar, the man pulled my face to his.

His eyes were a terrifying red. I couldn't believe what I was seeing as he seemed to laugh at my pain, "You're a little fighter, aren't you?" He grinned, his face to close to mine.

Why did this person save me just to torment me? Nausea hit me and I turned my head and threw up on the concrete. There was blood in the mess. I wished for a car to drive by and see me. Maybe I wasn't too badly hurt and could get to the hospital in time, if someone managed to get this man off of me anyway.

"Please," my voice managed to rasp out," let me go." I was begging him now.

My attackers eyes were on my bloody vomit, then on the gash across my scalp, and, before I even realized what was happening, he had me pinned against the concrete again. He had one hand across my face and the other on my chest, keeping me forced against the ground. The pain was so bad that I screamed.

Then there was a new pain. Sharp at my neck. It was biting, stinging, burning.

I cried out in agony, my voice breaking from the intensity and the lack of air. The man's grip on my throat was too tight. The pain at my neck became worse as the burning sensation spread across my shoulder and down my back. It made a circuit back up my neck and across my head. I had to be on fire somehow. A numbness followed the path of the burning. It made my limbs feel heavier and my breathing more labored. I felt my heart shudder in my chest. With a sinking feeling, I knew.

I was dying.

A wild scream of anger scared me out of my daze, and then the burning was back in full force. It was somehow even worse than before. Stronger and hotter somehow. The fire scorched me from inside my bones while flames ran down my arms and across my chest. I started to scream as the burn seared my flesh, but something held my mouth closed. A hand?

I felt chilled night air breeze against me as someone began to move me, but the chill didn't bring any sense of relief. The burning inferno under my skin wasn't easing up. Through the burning, I could feel a sensation of ice against my body. Arms were curled underneath me while whoever held me ran. Had help finally come? Was it too late?

I couldn't think of anything but the fire as it spread throughout my body. It felt like it was slowly licking its way through every cell. My throat was dry and painful, and I realized I was still screaming.

Time didn't seem to exist anymore, as I was far too gone to think of anything but my torture and when it might be over. I knew I was writhing against the hold I was in, jerking uncontrollably with every wave of fire I felt. The person carrying me never faltered once.

Hours, days, years passed by as I burned alive. It was all I knew. All I could grasp onto.

"Couldn't wait!" A shrieking woman's voice came to me through the flames for a second before I was pulled back under. She was speaking very quickly, in a sharp tone, but I couldn't make out her words. I recognized at some point that she was speaking Spanish. I only caught a word or two between her and someone else.

"Wait..."

"Weak...soldier..."

"When..."

"A day..."

And then the fire consumed me.