Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I woke beneath a ceiling I did not recognize, though I knew with dreadful certainty that I had seen it before. The ceiling was white, but not the pure white of sanctity — rather, the chalky pallor of hospital walls or the washed-out bones of the long dead.

My hands trembled as I raised them before me. They were smaller. Paler. Feminine. A girl’s hands — the hands of Isabella Marie Swan, known to the world as Bella.

The knowledge did not arrive gently, like a whisper or a slow recollection. It struck me like a verdict, final and irrefutable. I was Bella now. A character from ink and paper. A fiction, and yet a prison of flesh.

I sat upright, heart hammering. The air in the room was dense, oppressive, like stage smoke before the curtain rose. The curtains themselves hung heavy, greenish, sagging under the eternal gloom of Forks. Even the light that seeped through seemed scripted, as though the sky itself had been instructed to play its role.

Forks.

The name dripped in my skull like stagnant water in a crypt. A town of perpetual drizzle, of forests that swallowed screams, of a story already written. A stage, waiting for its actors to arrive.

The thought horrified me most of all: I was not free. I was written.

And yet — I felt it even then, a strain in the seams of the tale, as though the script could be torn, if I were clever enough.

The door opened.

“Bells?”

Charlie Swan stood there, a man made of sighs and worn-out uniforms, his presence like a half-extinguished candle in a room already too dark. His mustache twitched faintly, a father’s nervous tic.

“Dad,” I said, though the word did not belong to me. It slid across my tongue like a foreign incantation.

His face softened in relief, as if he had feared I might dissolve into mist should he look away. He shuffled his boots on the floor, awkward and guilty, a man ashamed of love he could not voice.

“Your room’s all ready. Figured you might want to rest before school tomorrow.”

Tomorrow.

Yes. The first day of school. The script tugged insistently at me — the cafeteria, the stares, the Cullens. Pale, predatory gazes like marble statues awoken. Already, the machinery of fate turned its wheels.

But I smiled faintly, lips painted with borrowed blood. I would not play Bella’s part. I would not swoon in marble arms, nor be prey to the glittering gods.

“Thanks, Dad,” I whispered, though the word Dad tasted of lies.

When he left, I rose and crossed to the mirror nailed crookedly against the wall.

She looked back at me — not I, but Bella. Long hair dark as damp soil, eyes too wide, lips unpainted, skin pale from the embrace of clouds. A face unremarkable in its plainness, yet to me it was a mask, a costume forced upon my bones.

But even masks can be painted. Even marionettes can cut their strings.

I leaned close to the glass, my breath fogging against it, and swore in silence: I will not be her. I will make her mine.

Forks could keep its gloom. The Cullens could keep their marble. The Volturi — ah, I felt them even then, faint shadows stirring in the marrow of my thoughts — they could keep their thrones.

I would carve a new part in this play. A darker one. A truer one.

And so the curtain rose.

Outside, night pressed against the house like a shroud. The sky, veiled in endless cloud, smothered the stars until the world felt claustrophobic, half-buried in shadow. The rain fell in a slow, steady pitter-patter, each drop a metronome keeping time with destiny’s heartbeat. Branches swayed and whispered in the wind, brushing against one another like skeletal fingers in secret council.

The trees formed a wall of green-black depth, slick with rain and heavy with silence. Water clung to the needles and leaves, dripping like tears onto the mossy earth below. Somewhere within, an owl called, its mournful note swelling and vanishing, a funereal bell for the life I had lost.

I closed the curtain with a slow, deliberate pull, severing the view. The storm might belong to Forks, but the storm inside — that belonged to me.

Turning, I crouched before the suitcase set against the bed. Bella’s bag. No — my bag now. I dug through the clothes: denim, tank tops, hoodies. A costume for a girl meant to fade into the scenery, waiting to be defined by those who hungered for her blood or her heart.

Not anymore.

Not this time.

This would not be the tale of a girl who withered beneath marble hands, abandoned, broken, stitched back together with someone else’s child. That Bella was a ghost, and I refused her haunting.

This would be mastery.

Chapter Text

Forks was not a town so much as a bruise on the earth.

From the upstairs window, I studied its streets: narrow veins pulsing with damp light, headlights drifting through the mist like will-o’-the-wisps. The houses were low and ordinary, their roofs hunched against the drizzle as though ashamed of their own existence. Even the grocery store glowed faintly, its fluorescent sign haloed in fog, less a beacon than a mockery.

To the west, the forest loomed — a black wall where the trees knitted their branches into a single suffocating mass. It was beautiful in its cruelty, vast and unyielding, like the bars of a cathedral cage. I imagined it swallowing Forks whole, dragging the houses back into the moss until the people themselves became myths told around ghostly fires.

Downstairs, Charlie coughed — that awkward, throat-clearing sound of a man trying to summon presence where words failed. I descended, schooling my expression into something softer, something daughterly.

“Hungry?” he asked without looking at me. He was bent over the refrigerator, a man who knew only how to provide, never how to offer.

“Yes,” I said simply. My voice was mild, agreeable. It was the sort of answer Bella Swan would give, the girl this town expected: quiet, grateful, forgettable.

But inside, I was cataloguing everything. The way Charlie’s boots were still flecked with mud, though the rain had long washed the streets clean. The way his badge sat crooked on the counter, as though discarded in exhaustion rather than pride. The way his shoulders curved inward, not from age but from years of silent apology.

I ate the dinner he prepared — overcooked steak and under-seasoned potatoes — with murmured thanks. He seemed relieved. He mistook my obedience for comfort. Let him. It was easier this way.

Chapter Text

The morning was damp with resignation. Forks never woke so much as it stirred, like a corpse nudged reluctantly from its grave. Mist curled along the pavement, draped over roofs like shrouds, and clung to the skeletal trees as though unwilling to part.

Charlie was already at the kitchen table, uniform half-donned, badge glinting wanly in the pale light. His coffee steamed, but his eyes—ringed in gray fatigue—never warmed.

“Big day,” he muttered as I slipped into the room. He gestured vaguely toward the counter. Eggs, burnt at the edges. Toast, blackened. He had tried.

“Thanks, Dad,” I said softly, the words shaped like gratitude but hollow with calculation. Each syllable was a mask, perfectly donned. I ate without complaint, though every bite was ash. He relaxed, mistaking my quiet consumption for comfort.

Charlie cleared his throat again, the same awkward habit as the night before. “Truck’s all ready out front. Runs fine.”

Truck. That ancient, rust-pocked behemoth he’d bartered into my life as if he were gifting me independence when in truth it was a coffin on wheels.

Still, I smiled faintly. “I’ll take good care of it.”

He nodded, shoulders easing. He wanted reassurance. I gave it. I wondered if he would notice, weeks from now, how little of Bella Swan remained in the girl who wore her face.

"First day nerves," he commented, mistaking my careful detachment for shyness. "Got to be difficult. But you're a smart girl. You'll fit in."

The words were well-meaning, almost fatherly, but they were uttered in the manner of a man more accustomed to comforting the dead than offering advice to the living. I let my gaze drift to the window, where the trees outside swayed like a sullen crowd on a funeral route, and I wondered which one held the answers I sought.

"I'll be fine," I replied softly. "You don't need to worry about me."

It was a line borrowed from the script, a reassurance I didn't believe. Yet, the words had their effect. Charlie's shoulders loosened; his frown smoothed itself into a faint, hopeful smile. He trusted me because I let him believe I was worth trusting. For now.

The rain drummed against the kitchen window, a hollow rhythm like distant funeral bells. I traced my finger along the edge of my plate, feeling the chipped porcelain—real beneath my touch in a way nothing else in this borrowed life was.

Charlie cleared his throat and stood abruptly, keys jingling in his rough hands. "Well," he said, gruff as always but with something softer underneath—something almost hesitant. "Just... be careful out there."

It wasn’t just about driving the truck or navigating Forks High’s hallways for the first time—it was an unspoken admission that he knew this place wasn’t kind to outsiders… nor to quiet girls who kept their eyes down too long under predator-gaze skies where golden-eyed things lurked behind human masks waiting for prey like me… but not anymore.

I met his gaze and nodded once before turning toward my coat by door without another word spoken between us two strangers bound by blood yet divided by worlds both real imagined alike–me stepping forward into fabricated fog while he remained rooted firmly inside reality unaware how much danger truly waited beyond threshold home could provide no protection from whatsoever once night fell again over evergreen corpses lining roads leading nowhere good...

The truck greeted me like a relic exhumed from earth—red paint dulled to brown, metal freckled with corrosion, its engine coughing to life like a consumptive poet gasping out his last verses. I ran my hands across the cracked leather steering wheel. It was ugly, laughably so. Perfect. Nothing drew suspicion like mediocrity.

The road to school stretched before me, bordered by trees whose spines arched overhead in gothic cathedrals of green. Their branches reached like fingers, interlocking above the mist-wrapped asphalt. Forks was a town of shadows, and I its newest phantom.

But first, a detour.

The convenience store at the corner was almost luminous in the dim morning, its flickering sign humming like a fly trapped behind glass. Inside, it smelled of stale sugar and wet cardboard.

I walked the aisles with purpose: a cheap silver lighter, cool and weighty in my palm, and a small aerosol can of hairspray slipped easily into my basket. Insurance. A weapon disguised as vanity. The kind of thing no one would ever question if found in a teenage girl’s possession.

The cashier, a boy with acne scars and vacant eyes, rang up my purchases without interest. I wondered briefly if he would remember me at all by nightfall, or if I would already have blurred into the fog of Forks High gossip—the Chief’s daughter, the new girl, the Swan girl with the too-dark eyes.

The truck sputtered to life again, and I tossed the plastic bag onto the passenger seat. As I pulled out of the parking lot, a flicker of movement caught my eye—something pale darting between trees at the road’s edge. Too fast for human eyes to fully register. Too graceful for anything natural.

My lips curved into a cold smirk as I rolled down the window just enough to let in a gust of damp air—and with it, an unmistakable whisper of something sweet and coppery beneath all that pine and petrichor.

Run, I thought toward whatever was watching me from those woods. Run now while you still can.

Because soon?
They’d be running from me.

(But first—high school.)

The parking lot at Forks High was an anthology of mediocrity. Shiny cars in muted colors lined the spaces like smug chapters in a book no one wanted to read. My rusted truck drew eyes, of course—derision, curiosity. Let them look. They saw a clumsy human trying to fade into the scenery. None of them saw the girl beneath who catalogued their glances like weapons stored for later.

Faces approached. Names followed, spoken like offerings.

Jessica Stanley: eager, nervous, a magpie of gossip who mistook kindness for intimacy. She wanted to befriend me, not out of generosity but of calculation—proximity to novelty. Her chatter was white noise.

Angela Weber: quiet, observant, kind in a way that was not weakness but choice. She intrigued me. A candle in this swamp of shadows. Perhaps worth cultivating.

Mike Newton: loud, smiling too wide, his attention a spotlight I neither sought nor welcomed. His interest in me was not me at all but the idea of me—the new girl, the novelty. Disposable.

Eric Yorkie: overcompensating intellect, eager to impress. A dog straining at his leash. Useful, perhaps, for information.

Each introduction was met with my mild smile, my carefully measured tone. Outwardly shy, inwardly clinical. I filed away their faces, their desires, their weaknesses. Allies, distractions, pawns.

The hallways themselves smelled of damp paper and over-polished floors. Lockers rattled, fluorescent lights buzzed like trapped wasps, and everywhere eyes followed me with idle curiosity. Forks High was a stage, and I its unwilling lead actress.

But I did not intend to play Bella Swan’s role.

In the cafeteria, I felt the inevitable. The Cullens.

They were exactly as the script promised: alabaster skin, eyes like molten topaz, beauty sharpened to cruelty. They sat apart, five ghosts pretending at life. The students whispered their names—Cullen, Hale—half in awe, half in superstition.

Edward’s gaze was inevitable, too. Gold meeting brown across the crowd, predatory fascination mistaken for romance.

I did not flinch. I did not blush. I let my lips curve, faintly, mockingly—as though I had already dismissed him.

He stiffened. His family noticed. Alice tilted her head; Rosalie glared; Jasper trembled; Emmett smirked.

The story wanted me to falter here, to stumble, to begin my descent into obsession. Instead, I looked away first, deliberately, as if he were nothing but a page I had already read and discarded.

The cafeteria buzzed, unaware. But I knew. The first string had been cut.

Bella Swan’s fate was already unraveling.

The cafeteria was a hive of noise. Whispered rumors, laughter. Lunch trays slid across tables; forks scraped across Styrofoam. To every bystander, it was a mundane scene of ordinary teenagers at lunch. But beneath that veneer, something else lurked—tension, like the air before a lightning storm.

I felt their gaze, sharp as a hunter's knife. They were watching me, the newcomers, their golden eyes cold and calculating. I tried to imagine what they saw when they looked at me. Some clumsy, naive girl, perhaps—the perfect prey for a coven of monsters.

The conversation at the nearby tables was inconsequential—gossip, meaningless chatter about the latest school events. But each word seemed to echo with hidden meaning, like a secret language whispered among strangers. I couldn't help but wonder if the vampires knew this dance, too—if they had listened to humans and their secrets for decades, maybe centuries.

In the midst of it all, I caught a familiar glance. Edward's, again. This time, there was no mistaking the look. It was challenge, a test. He wanted a reaction. I gave him nothing.

That night, I journaled again.

The school is a menagerie, the students its restless animals, each performing for an audience that does not care. I catalogued them, dismissed them, placed them on shelves in my mind. Allies are scarce, pawns plentiful. Forks High is a stage set aflame, and I the arsonist hiding among the crowd.

Edward Cullen looked at me as if he had discovered prey. He does not know I am not prey, but plague. Let him watch. Let him hunger. I will not dance for his teeth.

I closed the book and leaned back, my reflection staring from the windowpane, pale and sharp, eyes outlined in black shadows.

Bella Swan was a chrysalis. And tomorrow, I would begin tearing it open.

The script unravels faster than I anticipated.

Edward Cullen stared at me today like I was a puzzle he couldn’t solve—an equation that didn’t balance. His golden eyes burned with something between irritation and fascination, as if my refusal to follow the established narrative offended him on some primal level. Good.

(Let him choke on his own curiosity.)

Jessica Stanley is predictable—a social moth fluttering too close to flames she doesn’t understand. She gossips without thought, feeds information freely, and watches the Cullens like they're celebrities rather than predators. Useful for now, disposable later.

Angela Weber… different. Observant in a way that suggests she sees more than she lets on but lacks the pieces to assemble the truth yet. Maybe an ally—if carefully handled.

A plan is forming:

1. Study them. Every glance, every whisper from Forks' porcelain court of liars wearing human skin will be mapped until I can predict their movements before they make them (especially Edward's)...
2. Weaponize doubt. If Rosalie hates Bella in canon for "endangering" them all by existing near Edward? Good then — let her see how much worse it gets when I'm not swooning over him but instead dissecting their coven with clinical precision behind polite smiles... Let paranoia fester among monsters who think themselves gods among insects.
3. Burn bridges before they're built — starting with any semblance of Bella Swan's wide-eyed innocence so none mistake me for prey again once claws come out fully later down this road drenched red already waiting ahead unseen by anyone else walking blindly toward fate’s knife except ME because unlike original-Bella? I remember how this story ends. And it won't be happening twice under my watch while breath still fills these lungs human or otherwise moving forward into whatever comes next when games turn deadly soon enough–

The pen digs deeper into paper here before lifting away...
Watch closely, vampires of Forks… You aren't hunting me anymore.
We hunt each other now.

Chapter Text

The mirror offered me no solace, only challenge. The girl who gazed back was plain by mortal measures, but I knew masks could be painted and shadows could be stretched into majesty. Bella Swan was meant to be overlooked, a smudge of brown hair and bitten lips drifting through a cafeteria like a ghost nobody thought to name.

But I would not permit myself to be overlooked. Not here. Not ever.

I tugged the hem of my shirt into sharper lines, rolled my sleeves just enough to expose fragile wrists—pale as ivory—but without suggesting fragility. A deliberate contradiction: aloof, untouchable, yet intriguing. A candle seen from across the crypt, dim but irresistible.

Then, the finishing touches:

• A touch of dark liner beneath my lashes—not enough to be obvious, just enough to sharpen my gaze into something too knowing for an ordinary teenage girl.
• Lips bitten raw and left unchapped—natural but intense, a whisper of mortality that made vampires ache (I had read their thoughts in ink long before they'd ever fixated on Bella's pulse).
• Hair mussed slightly as if by wind rather than effort—wildness contained just enough to be mistaken for accident rather than intention.
  
  

  The effect? Unsettling in its subtlety. Look at me, it said without screaming it. Try not to look at me. A paradox wrapped in human skin—the kind that lingered behind eyelids long after glancing away...

  And when Edward Cullen inevitably tracked his golden stare across the room toward this new version of "Bella," what would he find? Not prey flustered by his attention but something far worse: A mirror reflecting his own hunger back tenfold.

  (Let him choke on that.)

  By the time I reached the school parking lot, I was already performing. The truck coughed, groaned, and shrieked its age into the damp morning. The students turned their heads, curious, pitying, expectant. I gave them nothing in return. No smile. No blush. Just the posture of someone who had seen too much rain to care whether it drowned her or not.

  Inside, the fluorescent light buzzed like a swarm of dying flies.

  Lockers slammed. Shoes squeaked on linoleum. Laughter echoed too loud, too forced—teenagers trying to carve normalcy out of a town where nothing was normal beneath the surface.

  And then—silence. A hush that slithered down the hallway like fog over gravestones at midnight...

  The Cullens had arrived.

   

  The hush that follows them is almost comical. Students part like waves before a ship—no, not a ship. A predator’s glide through shallow waters.

  Edward walks at the center, his siblings arranged around him like extensions of some unearthly shadow. Rosalie with her venomous grace, Emmett all brute strength coiled beneath laughter, Alice darting ahead as if choreographing their movements before they happen… and Jasper—that one—watching me too closely for comfort.

  (He knows something’s off about me. He feels it in the air—the absence of fear where there should be trembling.)

  I let my books slip from my grasp just as Edward passes by. They crash to the floor with purposeful clumsiness; papers scatter like startled birds taking flight against tile floors reflecting artificial light above us both now standing still amid sudden quiet spreading fast down crowded halls full onlookers holding breath waiting see what happens next–

  His hand twitches toward me instinctively (noble monster playing human again) but I’m already kneeling to gather them myself without glancing up once into those gold-flame eyes hungry for contact he won’t get today or ever if I decide otherwise.

  "I'm okay," I say without looking at him. There's something almost clinical in the words, an aloofness calculated to intrigue. "Thank you, though."

  Edward shifts. His family remains quiet, their gazes sharp as scalpels. Even Alice appears intrigued, her usual cheer replaced by a keen curiosity lurking beneath a smile. Jasper studies me as if seeing me for the first time.

  he moment my fingers closed around the fallen books—without his help, without so much as a glance upward—his breath caught. Almost imperceptibly. But I heard it.

  Edward Cullen does not know what to do with a girl who refuses to need him.

  (Good.)

  Alice tilted her head, her doll-like face flickering with something unnervingly close to... amusement? As if this deviation from the script delighted her. Rosalie’s lip curled in disdain (predictable), while Emmett openly grinned, intrigued by whatever silent tension crackled between us like static before lightning strikes. Only Jasper remained unreadable—but then again, he always was the wild card among them: the soldier who felt too much and understood even more than he let on…

  I stood slowly, deliberately arranging my features into polite indifference before meeting Edward’s gaze at last. Not shyly. Not with awe or fascination or any of Bella Swan’s canon reactions—but coolly assessing him as one might examine an exhibit behind glass: interesting but ultimately untouchable.

  His golden eyes darkened momentarily—surprise? Irritation? Something else entirely? Whatever it was burned away just as quickly beneath that perfect marble mask all vampires wore so well when pretending at humanity for audiences too blind see through act–

  But I wasn’t blind anymore than ink dried upon pages forgotten by authors who thought their stories ended where they said did… And mine? Mine had only just begun rewriting itself inside hallways haunted things far older than high school drama could ever hope be–
  
  

  He watches me now.

  Not the way Edward Cullen is supposed to watch Bella Swan—like she’s some fragile thing to be coveted, protected, ruined. No. He watches me like I’ve slipped into his periphery uninvited, a shadow where there should be light.

  (Let him look.)

  I walk these halls with my shoulders straight and my steps measured—not clumsy, not uncertain. Just there, solid in a way that makes human eyes skim past but vampire ones linger too long (too hungry). The Cullens are used to being the most dangerous things in any room; what must it feel like for Edward to realize someone else might be playing predator here too? Even if only in his head… for now…

  Jessica grabs my elbow between classes. “Do you see how he stares at you?” Her whisper is shrill with excitement (as if this were romantic instead of lethal). “It’s insane! No one gets looked at like that by a Cullen unless—” She cuts herself off dramatically because even she knows better than say unless they’re about become lunch.

  Angela doesn’t ask questions when I slide into the seat beside her at lunch. She just nudges an apple toward me silently (understanding without needing words why sitting alone today isn't option when golden eyes burn holes through cafeteria walls seeking weakness they won't find again soon enough–)

  "There are sheep prettier," I mumbled as I began picking at my lunch with my spork, knowing I had inhuman ears listening.
  
  

  I watched the Cullen family through my lashes, pretending not to notice the way their conversations hushed as if suddenly aware I might listen.

  "They say he's never shown interest like that in anyone," Jess breathed, her eyes fixed on Edward.

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Of course, everything Edward did was special, another mark of the Cullen mystique.

  "You think he's interested?" Angela chimed in, her eyes wide with naive curiosity (and something deeper, more calculating).
  
  "I couldn't give any less of a damn than I do at this precise moment," I muttered.
  
  

  That got their attention.

  Jess's eyes widened. "But... but why not?"

  Angela tilted her head, studying me. "You honestly don't care? You're not the least bit… curious? Intrigued?"
  
  "I'd rather be disembowled," I say, grabbing my bag.
  
  

  The cafeteria noise dimmed for a single, surreal second—as if the universe itself paused to process what I’d just said.

  Jess gaped. Angela’s lips twitched like she was suppressing a laugh (or maybe a scream). And behind me—where the Cullens sat in their usual pristine, predatory silence—there came the faintest crack of splintering plastic.

  I didn’t turn around to see who had crushed their fork in half.

  (But I hoped it was Edward.)
  
  

  The famous moment was supposed to come here, Edward Cullen stiff with the scent of my blood, I shrinking beneath his marble glare, in that biology classroom.

  
  But I denied the script.
  
  

  I sat straighter than Bella ever had. I let my eyes skim him as one skims a portrait in a gallery—brief, clinical, dismissive. I knew the stare he expected, the human awe, the pull of gravity toward something so cruelly beautiful.

  Instead, I dipped my pen into my notebook and wrote a line I knew he could see:

  Marble cracks when struck with enough pressure.

  His jaw tightened. He looked away first.

  I smiled without smiling.
  
  

  Marble cracks when struck with enough pressure. Heh...

  The words dried dark on the page, ink-stained rebellion. Edward’s fingers twitched where they rested against his desk—not from hunger (not this time) but something else. Frustration? Curiosity? The gnawing realization that for once, he wasn’t the one holding all the cards in this twisted game between predator and prey…

  I exhaled slowly (steady now) as Mr. Banner droned about mitosis, my nails tapping once against the dissection tray between us—just loud enough for vampire ears to catch beneath human chatter filling classroom air thick with formaldehyde fumes masking everything except tension humming taut as piano wire stretched too far before snapping–

  Edward went very still beside me. His golden eyes flickered to my wrist where blue veins pulsed faintly beneath skin he could tear open with barely a thought… But instead leaning closer like script dictated? He shifted away. Just an inch—almost imperceptible unless you were watching for it (and oh darling reader you better believe I was).

  Across room Alice stiffened suddenly her gaze locking onto mine from rows away wide unblinking seeing something future hadn’t shown before now while Jasper’s hand clamped down hard on Emmett forearm stopping whatever comment about ready make at sight brother discomfort unfolding live stage set high school horrors–

  And then bell rang scattering students like rats fleeing sinking ship leaving behind only silent aftermath what just happened here today between girl who refused play victim boy wasn't sure wanted hunt anymore now rules changed midgame without warning...

  (Let them choke on it.)
  
  

  I walked from class without glancing back. I didn't need to. I could feel their gazes prickling between my shoulder blades, that unsettling mixture of confusion and interest that made me feel like a lab specimen on display. Or some kind of puzzle they couldn't solve.

  I wondered, briefly, if this was how Bella felt before her canon was hijacked. Probably not. The old Bella had relished the attention, the mystery of it—had been honored beyond measure by Edward's "interest", even though it was doomed from the start.

  Me? I wasn't some swooning damsel.
  
  I was the hunter.
  
  During gym, amongst the insufferable smell of teen hormones. I was there, dressed out, eyes tracking the crowd's movements.

  In canon, Bella was meant to stumble, bruise, and humiliate herself for the audience’s amusement. But I was not her.

  The ball thudded across the floor, and I caught it clean. My arm trembled with effort—I was not strong yet—but I kept my form. I let them see calculation in my eyes, not clumsiness. Every misstep I turned into a deliberate choice, as though my mistakes were choreography.

  I knew there were whispers as I moved. I didn't care. Let them whisper. I knew the Cullens were watching and I relished it. I was no prey, no plaything, no girl to be toyed with at their leisure. I was the one holding the reins here, even if they didn't know it yet.
  
  

  When I nearly tripped, I converted it into a spin. The coach barked something approving. Students laughed, but not cruelly—more bewildered, uncertain if I had erred or if they had failed to perceive intent.

  That was power: to make weakness appear as strategy.
  
  

  My muscles ached from the effort, but I refused to show weakness. I'd rather be sore tomorrow than let them see the cracks in my facade today. I had to keep up the act. For now.

  Beside me, Jessica panted heavily. "How are you doing that?" she gasped. "You're not even sweating."
  
  

  "Maybe I just have better control," I muttered, throwing her a sideways glance.

  Jessica's eyes narrowed, taking in my smooth brow, my steady limbs. "Or maybe you're just a freak," she said quietly.

  I smirked. If only she knew how much of a freak I really was.
  
  But I didn't offer that detail. Let them think I was merely a girl with better control. Let them underestimate. For now, ignorance meant safety.
  
  By lunchtime the following day,

  the experiment had grown teeth. Jessica prattled, Angela watched, Mike hovered with the desperation of a dog waiting to be adopted. I leaned into stillness, eating little, speaking less.

  “Bella, you’re so mysterious,” Jessica gushed.

  Perfect. The word was a crown placed upon my brow.

  The unremarkable had been recast into the uncanny. And I had not even begun.
  
  

  Jessica continued, "It's like you're from another planet or something."

  I resisted the urge to smile. If only she knew how right she was, in a way.
  
  

  But I merely shrugged, feigning nonchalance.

  Angela's fingers drummed the tabletop. I met her gaze across the table, holding it for just a second too long. There was curiosity in those gentle eyes, wariness… and the faintest glimmer of understanding.

  Angela didn’t voice it aloud, but the tilt of her head was question enough: What are you?

  I answered with a slow, deliberate blink—like a cat might before pouncing. Her breath hitched. Good. Let them all wonder.

  Across the cafeteria, Edward’s fork screeched against his plate again. His family stiffened in unison at the sound (like hounds catching scent of blood). Alice twisted in her seat to stare openly now, lips parted as if she were watching some fascinating car crash in progress—one that even she hadn’t seen coming until it was too late–

  And then came the voice.

  "Bella." Edward stood abruptly beside our table (when had he moved?), looming like marble given life by sheer force of will alone—golden eyes burning holes through mine while human ones around us gasped at rare spectacle Cullen deigning speak mortal girl unprompted...

  Jess squeaked beside me; Mike looked ready throw himself out window escape sudden tension thickening air between us all thick enough choke on–

  But me? I just took another bite stale sandwich chewing slowly before meeting his gaze dead-on without flinching once despite venomous way he said name like curse rather than endearment...

  Because game wasn't fun anymore when prey refused play along nicely now was it darling?

  I swallowed slowly, blinking at him. "Do I know you?" My words lingered in the air as I fought off the smirk that threatened to tug at the corners of my lips.
  
  

  Edward's expression was unreadable—a perfect mask hiding whatever thoughts whirled beneath his marble countenance. "Not well," he admitted, each syllable like ice. His family had fallen silent; I imagined all of Forks leaning in to catch every word of this strange dance. "But I think I would like to."

  Oh.

  That certainly raised the stakes.
  
  

  Jessica swooned beside me. I resisted the urge to gag. Angela remained strangely silent beside my elbow, watching us like some fascinating game unfold across cafeteria.

  "Would you now?" I said, my voice carefully measured.

  Behind Edward, the rest of the Cullen family watched me with a mixture of interest and suspicion. Rosalie's lip curled as if I tasted unpleasant. Jasper's eyes darkened; even Emmett's expression had turned serious now.
  
  

  Only Alice smiled, her head canted to the side as if already envisioning what might come next.

  Edward's gaze never wavered. "Yes." He took a step closer.
  
  "Too bad I don't," I turned away, refocusing on my half-eaten sandwich. 
  
  

  Jessica's gasp was high-pitched.

  Edward went very still. "Pardon?"
  
  "You're pardoned," I barely glance at him, "This time..." I mumbled before taking the final bite of my sandwich.
  
  

  An awkward moment passed as I chewed. Edward watched, speechless for what I imagined might be the first time in his life. I swallowed deliberately before looking up with a faint frown.

  "Cat got your tongue?" I quirked a brow as if the situation amused me.

  It did.

  Edward's eyes widened—just barely—before he regained control of his expression again. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it, as if weighing some internal argument I wasn't privy to hearing.
  
  

  The words came at last, carefully chosen and delivered. "You don't like me." It wasn't a question.

  "Astute observation," I said dryly.
  
  

  A muscle in his cheek twitched. I wondered if he was fighting the urge to smile or hit something. Perhaps both.

  Beside us, I could see the others watching the interaction with increasing interest; Emmett's brows had reached his hairline as if he'd never seen Edward humbled this way. Even Alice appeared curious about how this would end.
  
  

  "Is there a reason...?" Edward asked, the question hanging in the air like a blade.

  I met his gaze, my own expression cool and composed. "Does there need to be a reason?"
  
  Edward seemed taken aback, as if he'd expected a confession of some silly schoolgirl crush instead of this defiance. "Most people find me... agreeable."
  
  "I don't," I deadpanned, grabbing my bag. "But by all means, perhaps you might try Jessica here," I gestured to the girl, "I'm sure she'll agree."
  
  

  Jessica looked like she’d just been handed an award—her mouth hanging open, her eyes flickering between Edward and me as if waiting for one of us to take it back.

  Edward did not spare her a glance.

  “You’re different,” he mused instead, his voice low enough that only vampire ears could have caught the words beneath cafeteria noise. A challenge—or an accusation?

  I adjusted my bag strap with deliberate slowness before meeting his gaze again (gold meeting brown like fire licking at deadwood). “And you,” I said simply, “are exactly as expected.”

  Then walked away leaving silence behind me thicker than blood pooling cold between us both now...
  
  

  At home that evening, Charlie asked about my day over his muted dinner.

  “Fine,” I said. Outwardly polite, inwardly cataloguing his loneliness like an antique under glass. He loved me in his awkward way, but love was only one more lever waiting to be pressed.
  
  

  As if sensing the thoughts, Charlie shifted uncomfortably in his armchair.

  "Meet any of the kids at school?" he asked hopefully.

  I leaned back, resting my hands in my lap.

  "Define 'meet.'"

  He frowned, lowering his fork. "You know—talked to? Hung out with?"

  I took a sip of water, slow and deliberate, watching him over the rim of my glass.

  "Some tried to meet me. I didn't return the favor."

  Charlie stared at me like I'd grown horns. "That's not how friendships work, Bells."

  Exactly, I thought as knife glinted in lamplight between us both...
  
  I smiled, just enough. "I'm well aware how friendship works. But you can't force friendships, right? You have to let them happen organically."
  
  Charlie considered that. "True," he said grudgingly, "But sometimes you have to put yourself out there. Take a risk."
  
  

  "And what's the risk?" I mused, tracing my fork across my plate. "That people might actually like me? That they'll want something from me—attention, time, emotional labor? No thanks. I'm not here to be consumed."

  Charlie set his beer down with a thud.

  "Since when did you get so... cynical?"

  I shrugged one shoulder. "Call it self-preservation."
  
  

  Charlie sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. "I just want you to be happy, kid."

  I softened despite myself. He meant well, even if we didn't see eye-to-eye.

  "I'm happy, Dad. I really am." I flashed a smile. "I don't need friends to prove it."
  
  "And besides, I doubt any of them could teach me how to fish," I suggested, looking at the man. "What do you say, Dad?"

  Charlie's face lit up like the Fourth of July. "Well damn, Bells—you're finally speaking my language!" He shoved his chair back with a scrape. "Grab your coat; we'll head out at first light tomorrow."

  The conversation veered into lures and licenses, his loneliness momentarily forgotten beneath the weight of planning.
  
  And if there was part of me that felt bad for exploiting it—for using my new father's loneliness as leverage against him, well... I ignored the pang of guilt and smiled back.
  
  

  Later, in the seclusion of my room, I stood before the mirror again. I flexed my fingers, studied the thin wrists, the pallor, the softness of a body not yet hardened by discipline. Bella Swan had been brittle, prone to fainting, incapable of running ten steps without faltering.

  But I would carve strength into this body.

  I began with small movements—squats, lunges, push-ups modified against the floorboards. The body trembled, but trembling was not defeat. Trembling was the hymn of muscles waking from their coffin.

  I wrote in my journal before sleep.

  To be feared, one must first master the flesh. To be adored, one must master the mask. I will be both.

  Forks rained on. The town dripped with shadows. But in that dripping silence, I felt it: a storm gathering not in the skies but in myself.

  Tomorrow, the mask would be darker. Tomorrow, Bella would be more mine.
  
  

  The following morning, I dressed carefully, choosing clothes that were both comfortable and practical. I didn't want to attract attention, but neither did I intend to look like a complete outsider. My black jeans were faded, my shirt grey and oversized, the flannel beneath it red. In all, the effect was casual but functional. I tied my hair back with a black ribbon, grabbed my boots, and went to join Charlie at the door.

  He looked up as I approached, grinning. "Ready?"
  
  

  I nodded, slinging my coat over my shoulder. Ready as I'll ever be.

  Charlie looked pleased. "Good. Let's go catch us some fish, kid."
  
  

Chapter Text

The cafeteria was too bright, too polished, too alive with chatter to be anything but theater. Forks High School’s true cathedral was here, where trays clattered like cymbals, where gossip swirled with the thick scent of grease.

The narrative tugged at me. I felt it — a string pulling my chin toward the table in the far corner.

And there they were.

The Cullens.

They did not eat. They were not made for eating. They were marble miscast as students, gods pretending at mortals, five statues dragged into fluorescent light.

I felt the script lurch: Look at them, Bella. Stare. Be caught.

I blinked slowly and turned away. Let them starve.

“Bella, Bella — look.” Jessica’s nails clicked against my sleeve, dragging me back into the role she wanted me to play. “Remember Edward Cullen? Those are his adoptive siblings, Rosalie, Emmett, Alice, and Jasper. Aren’t they gorgeous?”

Gorgeous. A word like stale perfume.

“They look… pale,” I said, deadpan.

Jessica’s mouth twisted. “Well, yeah. That’s kind of their thing. But everyone says—”

“Everyone says a lot of things,” I murmured, letting my voice carry just enough to draw Angela’s eye. She looked up, cautious, testing whether I was mocking or merely skeptical.

Good. She was listening.

Mike Newton dropped into the seat beside me, all eager elbows and desperate energy. “So, Bella — uh, how’s your first week so far? Getting used to the rain?”

“It feels like the whole town is rotting,” I said, and bit into my apple as though the rot pleased me.

He blinked. Jessica giggled nervously. Angela looked down, smiling faintly. Eric Yorkie leaned in with his usual eagerness, voice pitched too high. “That’s so… poetic. I could totally use that for the school paper. Forks: A Town of Rot.”

I let him bask for a moment before dismissing him with a tilt of my head. “Take it. Just don’t expect me to sign the byline.”

Jessica’s laughter returned, brighter this time, aimed more at me than at Eric. Already, she wanted my approval.

Good.

I felt the eyes of the Cullens burning now from across the room, their table motionless as the tide lapping at an empty shore. I refused to look their way, but I knew they were watching. They were always watching.

The question was, why?

I could feel their gazes on me - cool, curious, calculating.

A part of me wanted to look back, but I refused. I knew better than to reveal any interest in them.

But the longer they sat there like that - perfect and unmoving - the more my curiosity grew. What were they waiting for?

Jessica's chatter was like a buzzing fly beside me. I half-listened as she prattled on about the strange Cullens.

They're watching me. Not with the vague, disinterested curiosity reserved for humans, but with sharp focus—like chess pieces assessing a new player at the board.

Alice’s fingers tapped an erratic rhythm against her untouched soda can. Jasper’s gaze lingered a second too long before flicking away (as if sensing something off about me but unable to pinpoint what). Rosalie examined me like roadkill she might deign to step over. Emmett looked amused, as if waiting for Edward to make his move already—

And then there was him. Gold eyes darkening by the minute, jaw tight enough that I wondered if he’d crack a molar just from clenching it this hard…

I took another slow bite of my apple. Let him chew on that instead.

Edward Cullen’s chair scraped faintly against the floor. He had looked at me once, expecting—what? Swooning? Shyness? The human girl ensnared by his gaze?

I gave him nothing. My smile, faint as a crescent moon, belonged to Jessica instead.

And he burned with it. His stillness across the cafeteria was louder than any voice. A simmer, a storm contained by marble skin.

Alice whispered to him. Jasper’s golden eyes narrowed. Rosalie’s lip curled. Emmett smirked.

But Edward stared, waiting for the script to resume.

I turned my back to him and touched Angela’s sleeve.

Angela stiffened slightly, her gaze darting toward the Cullens before settling back on me. "You're... not curious about them?" she murmured, hesitant but perceptive in a way none of the others were.

I exhaled through my nose, eyes flicking down to my lunch tray—half-eaten sandwich, an apple with one precise bite taken out of it (not unlike how a predator might test its prey).

"Curiosity is dangerous here," I said simply.

And for the first time since arriving in this rain-soaked town dripping with secrets... someone understood without needing further explanation. Angela’s fingers stilled against her notebook as something unspoken passed between us: You see it too.

“You’re quiet,” I said softly, low enough that Jessica and Mike had to strain to hear. “Quieter than them. I like that.”

Angela blinked, startled by being addressed at all. “I… I just don’t always know what to say.”

“Better to say nothing than to echo noise,” I told her, watching the pink rise in her cheeks. “Words should weigh something. Don’t you think?”

She nodded, too quickly, but her smile was genuine. Already, she wanted to be chosen.

Jessica, noticing, leaned closer to reclaim me. “Oh, Bella, you’re so different. Not like everyone else here.”

“Everyone says that too,” I said, and sipped my milk as though it were sacrament.

It was only when I stood to toss my half-eaten lunch into the trash that I caught them watching again.

The Cullens.

All five were eerily motionless, their stares tracking my every action with hawk-like intensity. I felt like a fly under a microscope, pinned by their scrutiny—but I didn't falter. Instead, I raised my own gaze to meet them head-on. It was a stare meant to unnerve.

This, too, was a gamble.

Lunch was no longer about food; it was about placement. Angela’s loyalty could be cultivated with gentleness, with whispers that made her feel seen. Jessica’s vanity could be fed with crumbs of approval. Mike and Eric could be kept chasing like moths around a candle — never close enough to touch, but close enough to glow.

I left the cafeteria with both girls at my side, Jessica chattering, Angela silent but thoughtful. Behind us, I could feel the Cullens’ stares like knives pressed into my back.

The script wanted me to fall into their marble arms.

I would not.

I would make my own marble.

They watch. That’s fine. Let them.

I don't walk to class—I move like water, sliding between currents of students who part unconsciously in my wake now (they've begun to notice something too... something they can't name). Jessica clings, Angela hovers at my elbow like a shadow given sentience—both unaware just how perfectly they fit into my game rather than theirs.

By the lockers, Edward steps into my path abruptly (too fast for human eyes tracking but not mine, never mine)—his voice low as winter wind when he speaks: "You keep turning away." Like it's an accusation. A challenge wrapped up in frostbite silk—

So I meet his gaze full-on for first time today and let silence stretch until even vampire patience frays before offering only this "And yet here you still are." Then step around him without breaking stride once because if there’s one thing monsters hate? It’s being treated like background noise...

Edward fell into step beside me, long-legged stride matching mine effortlessly (his irritation a nearly-audible something in that eerie quiet he carried like the scent of a storm brewing beyond clouds on the horizon).

Angela noticed, casting a confused glance in my direction. I pretended not to see.

"You're not afraid of me," Edward murmured.

"Should I be?" My own voice was even. Unruffled.

He blinked, momentarily thrown—as if he’d expected me to stumble over my words, or flinch away from his closeness.

“Most people are,” he admitted carefully. His golden eyes traced my face for any sign of fear or fascination. He found neither.

I turned a corner sharply (forcing him to follow if he wanted this conversation to continue). “Then it seems I’m not most people.”

A beat of silence between us—heavy, charged like the air before lightning splits the sky in two—then,

Edward laughed suddenly; an unexpected sound low and rich as polished mahogany cracking under pressure after years spent holding its shape too tightly... The kind of laugh that made Alice perk up instantly from across courtyard where she sat perched on fountain edge watching us with rapt attention (had she seen this coming? Or was even her vision finally failing when it came someone who refused play by rules written long before arrival?)

Edward's laughter faded into a thoughtful hum. "No," he conceded, tilting his head just slightly—like a predator reevaluating prey that had suddenly sprouted claws. "You're certainly not."

I could feel the weight of the entire school's attention now—whispers fluttering like moths around us, Jessica’s scandalized gasp from where she hovered near my locker (she’d never heard Edward Cullen laugh before). But I didn't care.

"Tell me," he murmured, stepping closer—close enough that his cold breath ghosted over my cheekbone as he spoke low for only me to hear. "What are you?"

The question slithered between us; an unspoken challenge wrapped in velvet danger. Because we both knew normal girls didn’t stare down vampires without flinching…

I smiled slowly (all teeth). “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Then walked away leaving him standing there amid swirling autumn leaves and hushed student voices rising behind me like tide coming in—

And oh how sweet it was feeling eyes burning holes into my back all way down hall knowing they'd follow every step until very end...

The rest of the school day passed in a haze of whispers and sideways glances. Every classroom felt charged—like the air before a thunderstorm, heavy with anticipation. The Cullens didn’t approach me again, but their presence lingered like shadows stretching too long in afternoon light.

By last period, even Angela was stealing nervous looks at me between notes. “You talked to him,” she finally whispered as we packed up for the day, her voice hushed with disbelief (or was it awe?).

I shrugged one shoulder, feigning indifference even as satisfaction curled warm in my chest. “And?”

Angela hesitated before answering carefully—words measured out like stepping stones across treacherous water: “…No one talks to Edward Cullen.” Her eyes flickered toward where he stood motionless by his car (waiting? Watching?). “At least… not like that.”

A pause stretched between us—then she added quietly: "It's like you're not even afraid of them."

I smiled without smiling and slung my bag over my shoulder (heavy with secrets unspoken). "Maybe they should be afraid of me." Then walked away before she could ask what that meant—leaving behind only autumn leaves skittering across pavement behind me...

And five pairs of immortal eyes tracking every step until I vanished around corner.

(Let them watch.)

That night, I wrote in my journal beneath the dim yellow lamp.

The Cullens are not gods. They are statues carved by an author’s hand, waiting to be worshiped. I will not bow. I will crown myself.

The rain rattled against the glass like applause.

Jessica and Angela were already waiting when I arrived to school in the morning.

Angela looked up as I slammed car door, her eyes still tinged with the wariness from yesterday. But Jessica was back to her old self, chattering as usual beside my locker. “Bella, you missed the latest news,” she chirped as I approached.

I didn't even bother feigning excitement. “Oh?”

She clapped her hands together excitedly. I almost laughed at how easy it was, like she was a puppet I could make dance with a twitch of my fingers. “It's all over the school—Edward Cullen was asking about you yesterday,” Jessica confessed, breathless.

I blinked. “Me?”

She nodded. Angela looked up, interest piqued; even she looked a little curious now.

My blood hummed. The pieces were falling into place. “What did he want to know?” I asked calmly, adjusting books in my bag as if this piece of gossip was of little interest to me.

Jessica glanced around, as if worried Edward might appear at any moment. “I'm not sure,” she said in a conspirator's whisper—low and dramatic. The kind you'd hear at sleepovers. "But he was asking everybody who they thought you'd go to prom with...”

"Not him," I say with finality in my tone, wanting the conversation to be done already. As I turned to root through my locker, would homeschooling be easier? The thought, as brief as it was, sounded tempting, but the thought faded when Jessica spoke up.

"Like I said, I'd rather be disemboweled." The words left my lips as my locker closed with a clank. Homeschool definitely was tempting, at least then I wouldn't have to hear Edward this or Cullen that.

Angela hid her smile by taking a long sip from her water bottle.

Jessica, however, spluttered with outrage, hands fisted on her hips. "What's wrong with you? Everyone wants to go to prom with Cullen. He's the hottest guy at school!"

"The man's hair resembles a briar patch, Jessica." I said as we walked through the halls, "But by all means, if you think he's attractive, have at him. I wouldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole, and if I did, I'd probably slide off because of the amount of product he uses in his hair."

Jessica stared at me like I'd announced I'd grown three heads. "You…" Her lips worked. "You're crazy."

But Angela snickered at my side. "She's got a point," she murmured, and I resisted the urge to smirk.

Angela is learning. Jessica? Still a lost cause, but amusing nonetheless.

The halls of Forks High were littered with fools and followers—students who idolized the Cullens like minor deities draped in designer clothes. But Edward’s latest stunt—asking about me as if I were some puzzle to be solved—only proved one thing.

He didn’t know what to do with a girl who refused his narrative.

And that was power I could wield like a blade.

(His hair does look ridiculous.)

Chapter Text

Charlie had set the table before I came down. Two plates, two glasses, two knives laid at awkward angles as though the arrangement might summon a sense of family that had never lived in this house. The light above the kitchen table buzzed faintly, its yellow glow limning Charlie’s face with all the gentle melancholy of a photograph that had been left too long in the sun.

He looked up when I entered, his mustache twitching as if startled by the simple act of me joining him.
“Made some venison steaks,” he said, almost apologetic. “Thought you’d like something hearty.”

I sat. I smiled. I became a daughter.

Fork and knife in hand, I let the illusion wrap around me. For him. For this man who wore loneliness like an old jacket, too weathered to take off, too familiar to discard. He spoke of the station, of Billy Black’s gossip, of weekend plans.
“Thinking of heading out fishing again soon,” he said. His eyes flickered toward me with that hope I recognized too well — the hope of the forgotten, the solitary, that someone might actually want to spend time with them.

And for a moment — damn him — I remembered the last trip. The lake, slate-colored beneath a sky full of ravens. The tug of the line, his patient voice showing me how to reel in, and the rare feeling that my bones weren’t made of glass, my mind wasn’t always a mausoleum.

“I’d like that,” I said softly. And part of me even meant it.

We ate. Silence folded around us like the fog outside the windows. I watched him — tragic, stubborn Charlie — and thought: you are a ghost already, haunting your own life. And I, your unwanted phantom daughter, am the only one who sees.

As I swallowed the last bite of venison—gamey, rich with a tang of iron that clung to my tongue—Charlie wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, hesitating before speaking again.

"You seem... different lately," he ventured, eyes fixed on his empty plate as if it held answers. "Good different. Just... noticed."

I let my fork clink softly against porcelain (a sound like a bell tolling in some far-off cathedral). Different. As if there had ever been an original version of me for him to compare this to. As if he'd seen me before at all.

"Maybe I am," I said instead, watching him from beneath lowered lashes—studying the way his shoulders tensed at even this much acknowledgment between us (how long had it been since someone really looked at Charlie Swan? How long since anyone cared enough to lie for him instead of just around him?).

A pause stretched too thin between us before breaking when he cleared throat gruffly: "Well... good." And then more quietly: "I like having you here kid..."

The words hung there in quiet kitchen air — fragile as spider silk glinting dawn light—until clock above sink chimed hour and moment passed unremarked upon by either one us any further…

Outside rain began again whispering against glass while inside two ghosts sat together at table pretending not see how other was made entirely out shadows now.

The rest of the week passed in a blur.

Jessica and Angela still hovered like nervous moths (like the rest of the student body), but Edward stayed away from me. Not that I cared of course. He was a boy, like any other. A marble statue that looked best from a distance.

Still, he watched—that much was obvious—and as the tension built, even Jessica and Angela noticed the sudden absence of him.

They call it the calm before the storm. But in Forks, there is no calm—only a held breath, waiting to be exhaled.

The halls of Forks High felt different now. Not because Edward had stopped watching me (oh no, if anything his gaze had only sharpened). No—it was others who noticed first. Whispers slithered behind lockers: Did you see? Cullen hasn’t spoken to her since that day in the cafeteria… What did she say to him? Why doesn’t he just—?

Jessica alternated between awe and frustration when I refused to explain what happened (as if there was anything to explain at all). Angela simply observed, quiet but more alert than ever—like she sensed something brewing beneath my indifference.

And then came Friday afternoon:

Alice Cullen materialized in front of my locker with all the subtlety of a falling guillotine blade. Petite as a doll with razor-wire grace and eyes like polished onyx; smiling as if we were already friends while her fingers drummed an impatient rhythm against her crossed arms...

"Bella," she chirped (too bright), "We should talk."

I blinked at her. "And you are?" I stared her down.

Alice's smile wavered. She hated not being instantly recognized. The fact that I had deliberately pretended not to know who she was did absolutely nothing for her mood.

"Alice Cullen," she replied, eyes flashing a warning. "Edward's sister."

"Who?"

Alice looked almost apoplectic now. I saw the moment her patience snapped like a rubber band stretched too thin.

"You know Edward," she stated with forced civility. "Edward Cullen. My brother."

Alice Cullen has the temper of a lit match held too close to gasoline.

I let my lips curl into a slow, bored smirk. “Oh, him.”

Her tiny hands clenched at her sides (so easy to provoke—how had she lasted this long without throttling someone?). “He’s been watching you,” she hissed low enough that only I could hear.

“And?” I tilted my head like a bird studying something mildly interesting before deciding it wasn’t worth pecking apart after all. “Tell him if he wants an autograph, he can ask nicely.” Then stepped around her while humming under breath—leaving Alice standing there vibrating with fury behind me as hallway erupted into whispers…

(Checkmate.)

The whisper of my footsteps on the linoleum was the only sound in the sudden hush of the hallway. Alice remained frozen behind me, a porcelain doll wound too tight. The air crackled with tension—every student holding their breath as if waiting for lightning to strike.

Jessica’s mouth hung open. Angela's eyes darted between us like she was watching a tennis match, gripping her notebook so hard her knuckles paled.

I didn't look back.

Let them watch.

Let them wonder.

This game had only just begun.

Later, I wandered town, restless, needing to steep myself again in shadows that weren’t my own. Forks was small enough that every street felt like déjà vu. I slipped into the bookstore — hardly more than a crooked room of paperbacks and forgotten hardcovers. Gothic novels, when I sought them, hid among romance and self-help, as if embarrassed by their own morbidity.

That was where Angela bumped into me. Literally. Her arm brushed mine, and her books scattered like fallen leaves.

“Oh, Bella! Sorry—I wasn’t looking,” she stammered.

Angela Weber. Sweet, quiet Angela. A girl who watched more than she spoke. A girl who, I had decided, was wasted on the background of someone else’s story.

“Don’t apologize,” I said, kneeling to gather her books. “Maybe it was fate.” My voice slipped easily into velvet, my smile curved with just enough mystery to catch her eyes.

We lingered together after that — a stroll through shelves, idle comments about the poor selection, a shared glance at the rain streaking the windows. She told me she loved photography, that she liked catching small moments no one else noticed.
“And you?” she asked.
I tilted my head. “I like seeing what people hide. Everyone hides something, don’t you think?”

Her silence was answer enough.

Angela’s eyes flicked up, meeting mine with an uncharacteristic sharpness. “And what do you want to be?”

The question hung in the dusty air between us. Not accusing, not teasing—just curious in a way no one else here had been.

I smiled slowly (a knife hidden beneath silk). “Myself.” Simple answer, vast implication.

She studied me for a long moment before nodding once—almost to herself—and turning back to her book with quiet understanding that didn’t need words at all...

(Another piece shifted into place.)

By the time we left, dusk had swallowed Forks. Streetlamps hummed, their light watery on the wet pavement. She walked beside me, close enough our shoulders nearly brushed.

I leaned just slightly toward her, and she flushed. Such a delicate thing — so unused to being seen this way.

In her, I recognized a canvas. Not the fragile one the canon had consigned her to — a backdrop for someone else’s obsession — but something I might shape, seduce, claim.

I let the thought linger, heavy and deliberate. Why waste myself on Edward’s marble hunger when I could unravel Angela instead? or Mike, or literally anyone else, Stephine Myer, I will unravel your plot with a seam ripper.

When we parted ways, I caught her hand just a beat longer than necessary. Her pulse jumped beneath my fingertips. She whispered a shy goodnight, already ensnared.

And as I walked home through the rain, I smiled — not the brittle mask I gave the world, but a sharper, secret smile.
Dinner with Charlie had reminded me ghosts crave company. Angela had reminded me I could make the living into ghosts of their own choosing.

Angela.

A soft canvas, unassuming in her quiet corners like a doll left forgotten on a shelf. She would need a touch as gentle as silk—just enough pressure to coax her out of her shell and reveal the real gem underneath.

(And I knew just how to coax.)

The sun shone through my window in beams of warm gold light, cutting a pool across my bed and bathing the sheets in gentle warmth. I smiled into the sun—a feeling so alive —as I dressed and wrote in my journal; the words felt like a dance on the page.

But my good mood was interrupted by the sound of a phone ringing from downstairs.

I padded to the stairs and listened.

"Hello?" Charlie's voice carried up the steps, muffled at first but growing clearer when I went closer.

"...Yeah, she's upstairs. Hold on—"

A pause. A shuffle of footsteps. Then, louder:

"BELLA!" (his police-chief bark making the walls vibrate slightly). "PHONE!"

I didn’t move immediately—just let my fingers linger on journal page (who would be calling me? Renée wouldn't unless it was an emergency; no one else had reason to—) before snapping it shut with deliberate calm and descending stairs like nothing in world could rush me...

(Curiosity killed cat but satisfaction brought it back.)

When I took receiver from Charlie's hand (his eyes already glazing over as he retreated toward kitchen and his waiting coffee), voice that came through line was sugar-sweet poison wrapped up in velvet:
Alice Cullen.

I gripped the receiver, my fingers pressing just a little too hard against the plastic.

Alice. Of course it was Alice.

She didn’t wait for me to speak—just launched into her sugary command like she expected me to obey without question. “Bella,” she chirped, voice dripping with faux cheerfulness that barely concealed steel underneath, “We need to talk.”

I let silence stretch between us like a wire pulled taut—long enough that even Alice’s forced patience frayed at edges—before answering flatly:
"No."

A pause on other end (so satisfying). Then:
"You don't even know what I'm going to say," she huffed—petulant now (predictable).

And oh how sweet it was letting silence swallow next few seconds before responding in slow deliberate monotone while examining nails disinterestedly: "Don't care."

Another beat of dead air — then click as hung up without waiting for whatever desperate retort bubbled up behind those perfect teeth...

(Small victories were still victories.)

Behind me Charlie coughed awkwardly from doorway where he'd been pretending not listen (bad liar). "Everything alright?" he asked gruffly.

I turned toward him smiling wide and empty as polished knife blade before replying easily.
"Just wrong number."

"But if at any point a girl with a pixie cut and the surname Cullen," I look at my father seriously, "I'm not here."

Charlie stared at me for a long moment like he was trying to decide if I was joking or not. When he realized I was perfectly serious, his eyes widened—the expression of a man realizing far too late what sort of person he'd welcomed into his home (too late now to change course even if he wanted to). Then he rubbed his neck, exhaled heavily through his nose, and nodded. "Right. Got it."

I watched him slowly retreat into the kitchen, taking in the tired slump to his broad shoulders and weary lines around his eyes.

Poor man, I thought, feeling a pang of almost affection (almost). He was in deep over his head.

I let him go, turning to face the silent phone still gripped between fingers (almost smiling now, just in case someone was watching). I'd won this round—but the war was only beginning.

Later

Despite my win earlier, it was no surprise when the phone began ringing an hour later.

I stared at it like it was a bomb about to explode as it rattled on kitchen counter—until Charlie, emerging from his basement workshop, finally noticed. He reached out with a rough hand, picking up receiver before I could and grunting into into it like he meant to intimidate whoever was on other end into never bothering us again (adorable).

"Who is this?" he growled.

The voice on the other end was smooth—too smooth. Like oil over water.

"Chief Swan, it's Carlisle Cullen." A pause, perfectly timed for politeness. "I hope I'm not interrupting."

Charlie stiffened instantly (his cop instincts never quite turned off). His grip on the receiver tightened just slightly before he cleared his throat—suddenly aware that this wasn’t a wrong number or telemarketer but the town doctor, someone with enough clout to make things awkward if Charlie handled this wrong.

"No," he lied gruffly, already shooting me a suspicious glance (since when did Cullens call his house? Since when did they even know where Bella Swan lived?) "What can I do for you?"

Carlisle’s response was measured—a surgeon’s precision in every syllable:
"I wanted to invite Bella to dinner tomorrow night." A beat of silence where Charlie’s eyebrows climbed toward hairline before adding smoothly:
"Edward speaks highly of her.”

I frantically shook my head no.

Chapter Text

The thrift store smelled of mildew and lavender sachets long dead. My fingers skimmed over cracked leather spines and swollen paperbacks until one seemed to twitch beneath my hand, as if eager to be chosen.

The Prince.

Niccolò Machiavelli’s slim, ruthless treatise, translated in the 1940s, its margins stained by coffee and time. I bought it for a dollar and fifty cents, the cashier eyeing me like I’d picked up a cursed relic.

The pages smelled old and faintly like tobacco. I found Chapter 18 easily enough—a marked passage entitled Fortresses, which began with the words "He that builds upon foundations other than his own is engaged in the most hazardous of enterprises."

My eyes paused on one line in particular:

People are more disposed to believe what they see than what they hear.

(That was true enough.)

Another:

Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, for everyone can see and few can feel.

(That was definitely true.)

Even a third, later on:

The injury that is not felt is not remembered.

My gaze lingered on that last line for a long moment.

Of the three, that was the most true. The words sunk into my mind like a seed in fertile soil, roots stretching as if they’d always been there, ready to bloom at a moment's notice.

I glanced around the thrift shop, studying it for the first time since I'd stepped through the door: the shelves lined with outdated novels, the peeling wallpaper, the dusty knick-knacks left behind by previous owners. No one paid attention to me here. The cashier was too busy watching a soap opera in her peripheral vision. The woman browsing through the racks was humming to herself, completely lost in her own little world.

No one would care if I was here for hours. No one would notice if I read the entire book cover to cover right here, curled against an old armchair with worn fabric and broken springs.

No one except myself.

Because I could afford to be patient. I could afford to sit back like a spider in my web, waiting for events to unfold while other people scrambled like mice in a cage.

I slipped The Prince into my bag with the same care one might use to conceal a weapon. Not because I was afraid of being caught—no, this town wouldn’t notice if I walked down Main Street naked and screaming—but because some things deserved reverence. Some strategies were best kept close, studied in private where no watchful eyes (golden or otherwise) could trace the shape of my thoughts.

Outside, rain had begun to fall again, soft as a cat’s paw against the pavement. I tilted my face up toward it briefly (cold, always so cold here) before stepping off the curb toward home—where Charlie would no doubt be waiting with more venison and stilted conversation about fishing trips he didn’t actually expect me to join him on...

But that was fine.

(All pieces moved at their own pace.)

The rain is my ally now—it washes away footsteps, muffles voices. It keeps secrets.

Charlie watches me over his newspaper at breakfast like I might evaporate between sips of coffee. He’s trying to piece together a puzzle with half the parts missing (Good luck with that).

Meanwhile, The Prince sits beneath my mattress like a coiled snake. Some lessons are best absorbed slowly—poison in careful doses until immunity becomes strength becomes weapon.

(And oh, what weapons I will forge.)

I made it through most of the day without incident. The rain stopped at some point, leaving everything with that too-bright wet sheen after a storm. School was predictably boring (Jessica's gossip was the same as always—Jessica-shaped nonsense about who kissed who at a party that, of course, I wasn't invited to). Angela and I slipped outside to spend lunch together on our favorite patch of grass outside the cafeteria.

Angela sat beside me, her lunch untouched as she flipped through the pages of a photography magazine—"Look at this shot," she murmured, pointing to a striking black-and-white image of an abandoned church swallowed by ivy. "It’s like the ruin is alive."

I tilted my head to study it (yes, exactly like that—like the vines were fingers dragging stone back into earth), when movement at edge of my vision snagged attention:

Edward Cullen.

Leaning against oak tree across courtyard with that infuriating marble stillness—watching us (watching me) with those unsettling gold eyes while Alice perched beside him like an impatient sparrow ready take flight...

Angela followed my gaze and stiffened slightly (she noticed too then; good) before whispering under breath.
"He’s been staring since we sat down."

I hummed noncommittally (as if his presence meant nothing) while turning page lazily in magazine Angela held. But inside? Fire licked up ribs because — oh — this was fun. Let him watch what he couldn't have. Let him burn slow over something as simple as being ignored...

(Let them all learn.)

We continued reading together. Well, Angela read; I read and watched in periphery, studying Edward for any sign his attention might break. But he stayed motionless as a statue until the bell rang; even in his boredom, he kept staring directly at me.

The moment stretched, thick with unspoken tension. I could feel the weight of his gaze—like a physical touch tracing the line of my profile, trying to decipher me like some riddle he refused to admit he couldn't solve.

Angela’s breath hitched beside me (she was too perceptive for her own good).

I turned another page in her magazine—slowly, deliberately. A silent dare: Look all you want, Cullen. You’ll never unravel me.

And then—just as the courtyard began bustling with students heading back inside—Edward finally moved. Not toward us, not away, but just enough to shift his stance into something sharper... more predatory (if such a thing were possible for something already carved from marble and old hunger). His lips curled faintly—not quite a smile but close enough that it made Angela shiver beside me without realizing why.

Alice bounced impatiently on her toes before looping arm through his like she owned him (perhaps she did) and tugging him away with an audible huff about "wasting time watching pointless things."

But Edward's eyes never left mine until they vanished around corner.

(Victory tasted sweet today.)

Later, back in my room, I opened the flyleaf. Someone long before me had written: To rule is to suffer the loneliness of the wolf.
How quaint. How perfect.

I annotated in my own cramped hand, bending Machiavelli into my gospel:

• It is better to be feared than loved, if one cannot be both.
   → “But why not both, if one knows how to sew love into the fabric of fear?”

• The ends justify the means.
   → “Or perhaps the means are the ends, if manipulation is the art itself.”

• A prince must learn how not to be good.
   → “Done.”

I felt the pages mirror me: a manual for remaking fate. Meyer’s script had handed me martyrdom and blankness. I would annotate that story too, until it became mine.

"It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles."

Meyer wrote me as a lamb—bleating, fragile. Waiting to be devoured by wolves or princes alike. But Machiavelli whispered something far more useful: Wolves are predictable when you study their teeth first.

Let the Cullens think they watch from shadows while I let them see exactly what serves my purpose. Let Edward’s gaze burn holes through air where I allow him to look—because control isn’t in hiding; it’s in crafting the stage itself.

I closed book with deliberate finality (the weight of centuries pressed between palms). Outside my window? Forks stretched endless under gray sky — ripe for rewriting… one careful cut at time...

The following morning, my first class was art.

Mr. Marshall was half-asleep at his desk when I walked in—a man too preoccupied with his own life to notice anything else as long as I didn’t cause a fuss. He nodded toward one of the few remaining easels, then settled back in his chair as I set my canvas and began mixing paint.

Every color held hidden meaning: red for fury, blue for cold, black for death, white for innocence, gray for indecision.

And green for envy. A poison green.

Mr. Marshall watched me with lazy disinterest at first, then leaned forward in his chair with a frown as colors blended across blank canvas. He rose slowly to come stand over my shoulder, peering at the image taking shape.

"That… that is very interesting," he murmured as paint continued to bleed across canvas, dark and dangerous as something unearthly. I nodded without taking eyes off my work.

As the painting began taking shape gradually a Translucent white face began to take shape snow white hair hair fallen to his still shaping shoulders and dark red eyes clouded with an anger unknown of unknown orign.

Mr. Marshall blinked like he needed to clear his vision or was afraid of what he was looking at.

"It's very—" his tongue darted out to wet dry lips before continuing "...haunting."

Another pause. Then "Who is that?"

Let them see what I want them to see.

Mr. Marshall had gone pale under his stubble when the portrait took its final form—Caius’s face, carved from the pigment like a specter rising from the void. His lips parted in silent horror at those dark red eyes staring back with unnatural hunger (because no one really wanted to know what lurked behind polite society’s veneer). He didn’t ask me again who it was (wise man).

Instead, he backed away slowly—like prey realizing too late it had wandered into a predator’s den—before retreating to his desk with all pretense of grading abandoned for rest of class period...

(Art wasn’t meant be safe. And neither was I.)

The bell rang eventually; students shuffled out whispering amongst themselves while casting nervous glances my way. Jessica hesitated near door before bolting without usual attempt at small talk (good). Angela lingered though—eyes flickering between painting and my face with something akin fascination rather than fear…

She would stay useful then.

Meanwhile? Edward Cullen hadn't shown up once today (how telling) but Alice had lurked by lockers earlier watching me like chess piece moved out turn —

I smiled then: razor-thin and knowing. Because games were best played when opponent didn't realize they'd already lost...

I stood with bag slung over shoulder, looking like any other student, until Angela called:

"Bella."

I paused, tilting my head curiously.

Angela glanced nervously down hall where students milled toward exit, then lowered voice:

"Can I ask you something?"

I leaned against metal, raising an eyebrow.

"Sure."

Angela bit her lip before continuing—still wary of what might get overheard.

"It's… kind of personal."

I kept my gaze steady.

"Ask."

Angela glanced both ways one last time before swallowing hard. Then, so quietly it was almost a breath:

"Do you…"

She bit her lip again, looking like she wasn't sure if she wanted to finish.

"Do you ever feel like you don't fit in?"

I didn't expect that.

"What do you mean?" I kept tone flat—uninterested—even as every muscle snapped alert.

Chapter Text

The air in the biology classroom was thick with the dampness of a hundred coats steaming dry. Fluorescent lights buzzed like angry wasps above our heads, and the faint stench of formaldehyde clung to every surface.

Edward Cullen was already there. His pale hand drummed once against the table before curling into stillness as I approached. His desk was the stage, my seat the trap. Canon wanted me here. Fate wanted me here.

I smiled. And then I ruined it.

Sliding into the chair, I angled my body away from him, unspooling my hair so it curtained half my face. Mr. Banner handed out onion bulbs for dissection; I let the knife hover over mine like a scalpel, never looking at Edward though I could feel his stare burning through my hair.

He inhaled sharply (a hunger, a memory, a compulsion). I slammed the blade down, slicing too deep, the onion collapsing in a ragged mess. A ruined experiment. Banner frowned, but I only smirked as the acrid sting of onion filled the air.

Edward shifted away. As though I were poison.

The narrative strained at the leash. I could feel it—threads tugging, forcing proximity, begging me to look up into golden eyes, to tremble, to be lured like prey. I denied it with the simplicity of indifference. My notes remained immaculate, deliberate. I did not speak to him once. When the bell rang, I swept from the room with all the grace of someone who had already dismissed him.

Let him puzzle over the silence. Let him choke on it.

No eye contact, no words, no attention (even Edward Cullen's gaze lost it's power when he had nothing to grasp). I left him behind—but not without a reminder of who controlled the stage.

This was how you kept the upper hand with predators who expected to always rule, always conquer, always feed. By letting them think they had a choice until you showed them just what they could lose.

Edward Cullen stalked me through the rest of my classes. But still, I managed to avoid him.

Until art.

My easel stood in the center of the room, a canvas waiting for inspiration. I arrived early as usual, slipping paint across canvas with mechanical quickness—until, with sickening certainty (I could feel him now), Edward entered behind me. I could feel the weight of his gaze crawling down my back. Waiting.

I briefly considered keeping with the theme and painting Aro or even Marcus just to mess with the Cullens' minds even more than I already had with Cauis's portrait. 

But Edward's presence loomed like a hungry beast. He stood on the other side of the room now, watching me. No doubt he expected something gruesome and ominous this time.

But I gave him something else entirely.

My fingers picked up speed, transforming the painting into something almost… angelic. I painted with the same precision that had become instinctive, every stroke purposeful and calculated.

By the time the bell rang and the other students filed in, I was half done.

Jessica was the first to break the silence, her usual chitchat punctuated by confused frowns.

"Is that...an angel?" She said the word with such distaste you'd think I had painted the devil himself, let alone a celestial creature of pure light.

And that is how I won my first battle.

I packed my paint in methodical precision, avoiding Edward's gaze in favor of studying him out of the corner of my eye. He was still a statue of fury—a predator denied its meal. He might have been trying to burn my easel down with those golden eyes, but I only took it as a compliment. Because that meant I had gotten under his skin.

Angela Weber met me outside the classroom, hovering with that blend of quiet loyalty and nervous energy I had come to savor. “You didn’t even talk to him,” she said, awe tangled with disbelief.

“Why should I?” I asked, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. The gesture lingered, deliberate. Angela froze beneath my touch, her breath quickening almost imperceptibly, eyes darting away before finding mine again.

She wanted an explanation, but explanations were not currency I dealt in freely. Instead, I let silence do the work, a silence heavy as velvet. Her blush deepened, her lips parted with a question she did not ask.

“Some predators,” I murmured finally, “aren’t worth feeding.”

Angela swallowed hard. And stayed by my side the rest of the day.

Angela thinks she understands now—that my silence is strategy, not fear. That’s only half-true.

Silence is a scalpel. Distance? A weapon sharper than any Cullen fang ever could be. And while Edward fumes in his marble castle of entitlement (how dare Bella Swan ignore him), I’m stitching loyalties into place with nothing but the weight of a glance or the careful brush of fingers against skin...

(Why hunt when you can orchestrate your prey to walk willingly into your jaws?)

The rest of the school day passed as easily—or as close to easy with Edward Cullen staring holes through me, and Jessica glaring from a distance like she couldn't decide who to hate more. I ignored them, kept my head down through last period calculus, kept my body closed off through chemistry, and finally made it outside in time for sunset.

The rain had started again, so I hurried to my truck. Of course, Edward beat me there. He always seemed to beat me everywhere, like a curse following, waiting.

His hand was resting on the hood of my truck, casual as if he owned it—as if he owned me. Rainwater dripped from his marble features, catching in his eyelashes like frozen jewels. He didn’t blink.

I slowed my steps but didn’t stop walking until we were nearly toe-to-toe—close enough that I could smell the unnatural chill clinging to him (snow and something old, something dead). His lips parted—poised for some velvet lie or another—but I cut him off before he could speak:

"Move."

A single word. Flat as a blade against stone.

Edward went very still, eyes widening just enough to betray surprise (did no one ever deny him?). Then came that infuriating smirk, slow and sure like he'd already won whatever game this was supposed to be:

"You're not even a little curious about me?" His voice was honey over poison, designed to lure fools into traps they couldn’t see coming...

I tilted my head slightly (let him think I was considering it) before leaning past him just enough to wrench open the truck door myself. My reply came low under the drum of rain:
"No."

I didn't need to look to imagine his reaction. I could feel it: the subtle inhalation of surprise, the hitch of frustration as if he were used to being pursued.

When I slid into the cab and closed the door, his gaze burned through the wet windows—not leaving even when I backed out of the parking lot and vanished into the afternoon traffic.

I took a different route home than usual, taking turns down dirt roads and weaving through the forest just to see if he was following.

No pair of headlights appeared in the fog behind me.

I could feel it in the air though—the pressure of unseen eyes.

Edward wasn’t following me home.

But he was near.

I smiled as I turned onto my street, rain slapping against the truck so loud it sounded like applause...

He didn’t follow.

That was the first surprise—the first real proof that Edward Cullen wasn’t just a predator, but a strategist. Because the worst kind of opponent isn’t the one who lunges at you in broad daylight; it’s the one who knows when to wait. To watch from shadows, gathering weaknesses like arrows for later use.

But here’s what he doesn't realize: I noticed his absence too.

And now? I know two things for certain—

1. He wants me off-balance.
2. He thinks silence is his weapon.

(Let him.)

Because while he's busy calculating my next move? I'm already three steps ahead... painting angels and carving pawns into place without him ever realizing he's the one being hunted.

That evening, the house was quiet when I returned. Charlie’s cruiser was still gone, his jacket still on the hook. He worked too much, ate too little, and lived on the sort of half-hearted meals that kept him barely tethered to life. A tragic figure, shuffling his way through grief and monotony.

I could have left him to it. I didn’t.

Instead, I ransacked the meager pantry, coaxing something finer from its depths than either of us had a right to expect. Pan-seared salmon (purchased with my own money, wrapped in brown paper from Newton’s grocery), a sauce of lemon and dill, roasted vegetables salvaged from bruised corners. The scent filled the house with warmth it had not known in years.

When the clock ticked past nine, I packed it neatly into covered dishes, drove the rusted truck to the station, and carried it in like an offering.

Charlie blinked up from his paperwork as if I were an apparition. “Bella?”

I set the meal before him, metal fork glinting under fluorescent lights. “You forget to eat,” I said simply.

His throat worked around words he couldn’t find. “This looks… amazing.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” I replied, lips curving faintly. “Taste first.”

He did. His eyes closed briefly, like the act of chewing was something holy. And for a moment—brief as a ghost—his grief loosened its grip. He looked at me not as a fragile daughter to be protected, but as someone who had resurrected a warmth he thought buried with my mother.

I smiled at him across the desk. A predator’s smile hidden in the guise of a dutiful daughter. Because kindness, too, could be a weapon—when wielded deliberately.

I watched him savor every bite as he wolfed down the meal with unguarded relish. He was halfway through the plate when the door opened and Billy Black wheeled up beside him.

Charlie startled, wiping at his chin. “Bella bought me dinner. Can you believe it? I didn’t even realize it was so late.”

Billy Black’s eyes flicked to the half-eaten meal, then back to me. His face was unreadable, but his eyes gleamed with something I had learned to recognize. Knowledge.

Wisdom.

He smiled. “I think that’s the biggest grin I’ve seen on Charlie in years.”

Charlie finished every bite. Not because he was hungry (though he was), but because the act of me feeding him—of caring in ways my mother never bothered to—knocked the wind out of him. His hands shook when he set down the fork.

Billy watched it all with that knowing stare, like he could see past the gesture straight into my calculations. Maybe he could (old wolves always recognize younger ones). But what did it matter?

Because while Edward Cullen sulked in shadows and fate tried dragging me toward his fangs... I rewrote my own script. One carefully placed kindness at a time...

I left the station with Charlie’s stunned gratitude lingering in the air—a weaponized warmth, already at work.

Billy didn’t try to stop me on my way out. He just watched from his wheelchair, fingers tapping a slow rhythm against the armrest like he was counting beats to a song only he could hear.

And when I slid back into my truck and turned onto the empty road? The forest loomed dark around me, rain turning fog into ghosts between trees. Still no headlights followed (Edward had gotten smarter). But I knew—felt it in marrow-deep certainty—that somewhere beyond those branches... golden eyes burned through blackened pines toward my retreating taillights like embers hungry for kindling…

(Games are always more fun when both sides play.)

Later that night, I lay in bed with Machiavelli open beside me, the rain gnawing at the windows. Angela’s blush replayed itself in my mind, Edward’s hunger curdled into silence, Charlie’s stunned gratitude hanging in the air like incense.

Three pawns moved across the board today. Each in their place. Each toward the inevitable.

And I? I was both player and piece, annotating fate with every breath.

And so that was how it went for a week.

Edward Cullen stared at me from under the trees with teeth bared each day.

Angela Weber blushed in my presence.

Charlie Swan ate the meals I cooked for him.

My hands painted angels.

I didn’t speak.

I didn’t acknowledge him.

But even the silence was a weapon.
Even the smile was deliberate.
And Edward knew it.
Knew he was being puppeteered without even being able to see the strings...

On Friday, another painting stood in the center of the classroom—another angel standing with wings outstretched as if it could fly from the canvas at any moment. I spent the hour adding a few finishing touches, ignoring Edward as he burned holes through the back of my neck.

Class ended. Jessica made another snide remark about “holy art” before flouncing off to complain to Mike, and Angela lingered like she was waiting for something.

When I finally turned from my easel, she took a quick breath, cheeks warming to that familiar blush.

“Can I walk with you?”

I raised an eyebrow, but there was no reason to refuse. She was loyal (and loyal pawns never strayed without reason). So I nodded and packed my bag with studied nonchalance. Angela matched my pace, keeping one step to my right like she already had a place by my side.

We crossed the courtyard without speaking. It was still raining, puddles splashing under our feet that she made a point to avoid, but I walked straight through them without even noticing. The dampness didn't bother me. Nothing did.

Outside the school, students raced toward buses and parents' cars to escape to the safety of weekend reprieves. Angela glanced back, almost as if she expected to see Edward behind us.

But he was still in the classroom—a statue staring at the angel I painted.

She followed my gaze. The wind blew damp hair across her face, and she shivered, rubbing her arms.

"Aren't you cold?"

I glanced down at myself—coatless, skirt whipping around my bare knees.

"No."

The lie was instinctual, but it only made her shoulders bunch tighter. She pulled the collar of her jacket higher as rain caught in her eyelashes.

"You're going to catch a cold."

I almost laughed.

"You sound like my dad."

Angela frowned, concern deepening to frustration. "Then maybe you should listen."

I raised an eyebrow. She was bolder than expected. Or maybe she was bolder with me—like everyone else.

"Are you my guardian now, Angela?"

She flushed, cheeks warming up like always.

"Someone needs to be."

The words hung between us—half challenge, half surrender. Her gaze flickered away, then back, as if she were afraid I might disappear if she blinked too long.

I leaned closer just to watch her breath hitch.

"And what exactly," I murmured, tucking a rain-soaked strand of hair behind her ear with deliberate slowness, "do you plan to guard me from?"

She swallowed hard—not answering—but the way her fingers curled into fists at her sides told me everything I needed to know: She was already in too deep.

It should have alarmed me.

It should have made me back away.

It certainly should have given me pause that Angela was falling so quickly into step with me, as if she actually liked being my loyal pawn…

…but for whatever reason, I felt something that wasn't caution.

Something far closer to anticipation…

Chapter Text

The rain had turned Forks into a drowned cathedral. Fog curled through the streets like incense, each streetlamp glowing dimly behind its veil. It was the kind of atmosphere that pressed on the ribs, damp and heavy, demanding reverence from anyone who dared walk beneath it.

That night, sleep dragged me into its theatre, and Edward Cullen followed.

But not as the canon promised.

No golden-eyed savior appearing from forest shadows. No velvet hand outstretched.

Instead: a figure of marble, faceless, jointed like a mannequin, strings cutting down from darkness above. A puppet. His limbs jerked and spasmed in some grotesque pantomime of life, the joints cracking like splintered porcelain. His lips were carved, immovable, yet I heard a voice anyway—low, velvet, beckoning without breath.

Come closer.

I tried to laugh, but the sound tangled into silence. My body moved without consent, my feet dragging toward him. The strings were on me too. I only noticed when I stumbled, tugged forward like prey in a pantomime. His head tilted, the motion wrong, jerky. The dream stank of formaldehyde and wet stone.

When his hand brushed my cheek, the cold burrowed in deep, deeper, until I could feel marrow crystalizing in my bones.

I woke with a gasp. My room swam in the half-light of dawn, and the rain tapped the windows like skeletal fingers. My breath still fogged in the air though the heater rattled at my feet.

Edward Cullen. A mannequin. A puppet. Fate wanted him as dream-lover, but I’d already turned him into nightmare.

Dreams are not prophetic—not for me. They’re battlefields, and I weaponize them as ruthlessly as waking hours. Edward Cullen wasn’t meant to be my nightmare. Fate wanted him painted in gold, bathed in moonlight, all tender predator gentleness (how laughable). But dreams answer to me, not canon.

So I turned his marble skin into a cage. His voice into silent hunger carved between clenched teeth. And when he reached for me? I made sure it felt like frostbite.

Because if destiny insists on stitching us together—let it be by puppet strings I can cut myself...

By morning, Forks was soaked in a silence more profound than usual. The town’s edges blurred beneath gray, houses sagging like weary bodies. Even the forest seemed to lean in closer, dripping shadows between each trunk.

At school, Edward didn’t speak to me. Of course he didn’t. He hadn’t all week. But his silence had grown teeth. He stared like silence itself was a siege, his eyes heavy with all the words he refused to utter.

I let him. His silence only amplified mine.

Instead, I turned my attention elsewhere.

Angela sat beside me in trig, her pencil trembling faintly where it touched paper. I brushed my fingers lightly over her knuckles when I reached across for a textbook. She stiffened, then relaxed into it like a spell breaking. When I leaned closer to murmur a question about the assignment, her pulse fluttered at her throat.

Subtlety. Always subtlety.

Mike Newton was easier. All it took was holding his gaze half a second too long, letting my smile crook into something that wasn’t quite innocent. In gym, I let him catch me steadying my own balance on his arm, the faintest impression of warmth left behind as I moved away. He nearly tripped over his own feet after.

Pawns moved easily when you gave them the illusion of choice.

That afternoon, Angela lingered after class.

I felt her nerves crackling the air before she even spoke.

"Can we talk?"

I packed my bag slowly. She took another step closer. Her voice lowered in a whisper, like she was scared of being seen.

"Alone."

I raised an eyebrow, studying her in the sterile silence of the empty classroom. Her gaze dropped first.

"Please."

I considered saying no just to watch her shoulders buckle under the disappointment.

Then again, she was my pawn.

So I nodded and shouldered my bag, waiting for her to lead the way.

She didn't waste time. The second I fell into step beside her, words spilled out in a jumbled tide.

"Can I ask you something?"

Angela waited until we were beneath the dripping eaves of the school’s side entrance—far enough from prying ears but still close enough to feel the pulse of human chatter in the distance. She hesitated, then turned to face me with a resolve I hadn’t expected from her.

"Bella," she started, hands twisting in her sleeves before she forced them still, "what are you doing?"

Not why. Not how. Just—what. As if she already understood motives didn’t matter as much as execution. I almost smiled at that (progress). But instead? I tilted my head and let silence stretch between us like a blade being sharpened...

Angela fidgeted under the weight of it all, shifting from one foot to the other as if she wanted to step closer and back away at the same time.

Finally, she blurted out, "I don't understand you."

I raised an eyebrow, but my tone was as even as always.

"Understand what?"

She swallowed hard.

"You."

I waited for her to elaborate, but she only fidgeted with the hem of her coat instead. It was a nervous habit—one that left fraying threads behind. I reached out without thinking and caught her fingers in mine.

She froze. And her next words came out in a tumble—too fast, as if they were a confession.

"You avoid everyone and never talk to anyone, but they're all talking about you."

I raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?"

Angela nodded, hair slipping forward to conceal her face. For someone so loyal and shy, she was surprisingly perceptive.

"Everyone can't figure you out. Edward can't, either."

Ah, there was the heart of it. I pulled away with studied nonchalance, letting her hand fall by her side.

"Maybe I don't want to be figured out."

Angela’s words—everyone can’t figure you out—linger like perfume on a blade. Predictably human, to assume the mystery must be solved. As if I were a puzzle they could pick apart with their dull little teeth.

Edward strains against silence, the school gossips weave theories in my wake, even Angela watches me with parted lips as if waiting for some grand reveal.

But here’s the secret they don’t grasp: I am not a riddle to be unlocked.
I am smoke between fingers—grasp too tight and I vanish entirely.
I am the punchline of a joke no one else heard.
And when they finally think they understand?

That’s when I rewrite all their scripts at once...

They all watch me now.

Angela with her quiet curiosity, Edward with his simmering frustration, Jessica’s petty envy turning sharp as rusted wire—even Mike Newton lingers in my orbit like some hopeful moon drawn into gravity’s pull.

But the question isn't why they watch. It's how long until they realize I'm watching back?

Edward thinks this is a stalemate (his silence versus mine).
Angela thinks she’s piecing me together stitch by stitch (as if loyalty grants her some special lens).
The others? They just want proximity to whatever drama they scent on the wind.

Let them scrabble at shadows while I carve the real game beneath their feet—stroke by deliberate stroke...

The rain taps against my window like a thousand tiny conspirators. Forks is drowning in its own melancholy, and the students scurry through the halls like rats sensing a storm.

Edward Cullen lingers—always lingering—just out of reach, his marble jaw tight with unspoken demands. He wants me to look, to flinch, to feed into his predatory mystique. But I don’t give him the satisfaction. Instead:

• I let Angela's fingers brush mine in Trig when she passes me a pencil (her pulse jumps under thin skin).
• I smirk when Jessica’s whispers follow me like gnats (let her choke on speculation).
• And Mike? Poor, predictable Mike—his gaze follows my every movement as if hypnotized by the mere illusion of interest... (Amusing.)

But Edward? Oh, he watches them too now. Not just me anymore—he sees how they orbit around me and doesn't know what that means yet... but he will soon enough...

By late afternoon, I began my experiment.

Canon had left Bella Swan fragile, brittle-boned, fainting at the sight of blood. I refused that weakness.

I started small, push-ups on the creaking floorboards of my bedroom, crunches until my ribs ached, stretches that made my joints scream. My body was soft, untrained, but malleable. In the cracked mirror, I studied myself with the same cold detachment I reserved for others, here the curve of a wrist too fragile, there the shadow of collarbone too sharp.

I would sharpen myself into something new. A body weaponized. Not prey. Not porcelain. Not Edward Cullen’s dream-girl puppet.

The air thickened with the smell of pine and rain through the open window. Outside, Forks brooded like a drowned kingdom. I could almost hear strings pulling at my window frame, invisible hands tugging to draw me back into the marble nightmare.

But I cut them with every rep, every bead of sweat.

My skin bruises easily, my joints threaten to fail at any moment... still, I keep going.

Push-ups and crunches in the middle of the night. Running in the rain.
I ache all over, bones grinding like shards of glass in my veins. But I push through.

I can see it already: the curves of my ribcage sharpening, the muscles in my arms and legs beginning to take on a new shape.

I am not a doll to be pulled and posed and thrown away.

I am a weapon

The ache is a constant now—my body remaking itself stitch by stitch under my command. Fingers that once trembled now grip with deliberate strength. Legs that faltered now carry me through the forest’s damp heart without hesitation.

I run until my lungs burn like I’ve swallowed embers, until the rain sluicing down my skin feels like armor rather than weakness. The pain is just another thread to weave into this new tapestry of defiance—proof that I am the sculptor here, not fate, not Cullen’s golden-eyed stare, not some predetermined damsel's script.

Let Edward watch from his marble tower as I carve myself into something sharper than his teeth...

A few weeks later.

Angela walked with me after school, her umbrella useless against the rain soaking her jacket. She hovered closer than usual, her words hesitant, watching me as though I were a puzzle with one missing piece.

“You looked… different today,” she murmured at last.

“Different how?” My voice was soft, baiting.

She hesitated, lips parting, closing. “Just… different. Stronger, maybe.”

A faint smile curved my lips. “That’s the goal.”

Her brow furrowed, but she didn’t ask more. She didn’t need to. She stayed close, shoulder brushing mine as though tethered.

Across the parking lot, Edward Cullen stood by his car, frozen in the rain like some angel abandoned from heaven. His golden eyes burned as Angela’s shoulder pressed against mine. His silence was a roar across the distance.

I tilted my head back just enough for him to see my smile before slipping into the truck.

Let him watch.

The whole drive home, my muscles ached from the run, the bruises on my knees and elbows pulsing beneath the sleeve of my jacket. The rain tapped against the windshield like skeleton fingertips, and I rolled my shoulders back, feeling the sharp edges of a plan coming together.

As I walked into the house, Charlie looked up from his armchair. "You look like you're getting stronger."

It wasn't a question.

I nodded anyway, sitting to unpack my bag. "I've been exercising more."

Charlie's observation was just that—an observation. No suspicion, no deeper meaning. But Edward? His golden eyes had followed my every move today with the intensity of a predator recognizing another predator.

Meanwhile, Angela’s quiet fascination grows bolder by the day. Yesterday, she "accidentally" brushed her fingers over my forearm when passing me a book in Trig—lingering half a second too long to be casual. Jessica watches us with narrowed eyes (how dare I claim Angela’s loyalty without playing her social games). And Mike Newton still hovers like an eager dog waiting for scraps...

But none of them matter compared to the real question: When will Edward break first?

Because even marble cracks under enough pressure...

That night, sleep found me again. And so did Edward.

Only this time, the puppet strings reached farther, tangling not only his marble limbs, but Angela’s soft silhouette. Mike’s laughing mouth. Charlie’s weary hands. All tethered. All swaying.

The strings were endless.

But in my hands—cold and steady—I held the knife that could cut them all.

And I woke smiling.

The nightmare shifted.

This time, I felt the weight of the knife in my hand—the hilt pressing into my palm like it was always meant to be there. Edward’s strings coiled around my fingers, whispering temptation (cut them free), but I didn’t move. Not yet.

I let him sway above me in perfect stillness—a marionette dangling over an abyss of his own making. The dream pulsed with anticipation, waiting for blood or surrender... and I?

I just smiled up at him through the dark before letting myself wake—with the blade still clutched tight in phantom grip.

Chapter Text

Forks has its own rhythm, a script written long before I ever opened my eyes in this body. A script I can feel tugging at me like undertow. Charlie in his plaid shirts and half-mumbled affection, the stench of fish clinging to the kitchen counters, the lazy sprawl of rain across the roof. Canon is persistent, stubborn. It wants me penned in its lines like an obedient actress, stumbling scene to scene with Edward as the inevitable climax.

But I’ve learned something about scripts—they can be rewritten. Or burned.

Charlie and I had gone fishing again that morning, the damp air clinging to our skin, the boat rocking gently in the water. He was quieter than usual, but then, Charlie was always quiet. That was part of the script too. He mumbled something about dinner, about being glad I was settling in. I gave him a smile sharp enough to cut through the silence.

Charlie stilled. His gaze darted through the rain like he was waiting for me to break.

I didn't.

Instead, I tilted my head and murmured in a voice cool as the rain, "Settled's a funny word."

He glanced at me from the corner of his eye. "Oh?"

"Settling is what happens when you give up trying for something better."

For a moment, the only sound was the rain tapping against the metal boat.

Charlie stared out into the mist. "You don't plan on settling, then?" There was an edge to his question—something sharper than curiosity, but not quite suspicion.

"One day maybe," I told him, looking out over the water, "I think it'd be cool to spend some time on a sailboat seeing what there is to see." My poles line tugged, so I began to reel slowly. 

Charlie watched for a beat, then shook his head like I was an unsolvable math equation.

"You're a strange kid, Bella."

The fish bit—a sharp tug on the end of the line. I reeled in a small flounder, deftly unhooking it and dropping it into the bucket.

"Yeah?" I murmured. "Not strange enough to scare you off yet, though."

He huffed something like a laugh, rough and fond. "Nah. You're stuck with me."

The fish flapped weakly in the bucket as I cast my line again, watching the ripples fade into gray water. The rain had soaked through my jacket by now, clinging cold against my skin—but I didn’t mind.

Forks was just another ocean to navigate. And if canon thought it could drown me? Well.

I already knew how to swim in silence...

We stayed out till noon, the sky darkening around us as clouds gathered overhead, rain falling in a steady stream. Charlie caught three more fish; I managed one. When the afternoon shadows had crept too long across the banks, he started the boat and we turned for home.

But when we got back, the phone rang. Sheriff business. It always does.

He muttered an apology, grabbed his jacket, and left me standing in the doorway with the echo of the canon’s tug pulling at my ribs: Bella cooks Charlie dinner. Bella does the dishes. Bella exists in domestic haze until Edward Cullen saves her from it.

Not tonight.

I left the fish in the sink, uncooked.

Instead, I stood at the kitchen window and watched Forks disappear under another relentless sheet of rain. Somewhere in those woods, golden eyes burned through shadows—waiting for their script to begin.

But I was already turning away from them. Already stepping out into that same rain as it soaked my hair dark against my neck...

Let him wait forever.

I scrubbed the counters anyway, because control is found in the small rituals. The sponge traced circles across laminate while my reflection in the window watched me back with a sharper jawline than before, arms beginning to shape themselves beneath soft sleeves. My body is a forge, and I am the blacksmith. Each repetition, each run in the rain, each bruise I press into my own skin—it all builds toward something unrecognizable from the girl canon wanted me to be.

By the time the kitchen gleamed, my decision was made. I sent Angela a text—deliberate, brief. Come over. Now.

I didn’t ask. I summoned.

She arrived half an hour later, rain dripping from her hair, her jacket clinging damply to her shoulders. Angela always looks like she’s about to apologize for existing. Tonight, her eyes darted toward me as if seeking permission to step inside.

“Hi,” she whispered, breath fogging in the threshold.

I smiled—slow, deliberate, a performance of warmth sharpened at the edges. “Come in.”

Her footsteps echoed too loudly in the hallway. My house felt cavernous with only the two of us, the rain whispering on every surface. I offered her tea, something fragrant and spiced, and she accepted like a penitent receiving sacrament.

We sat close on the couch, steam curling between us. Her knees brushed mine once, twice, until I left them pressed together. Her pulse fluttered beneath her collarbone like a trapped moth.

She watched the steam spiral up toward the ceiling and murmured, "Is it always this quiet here?"

I took my time stirring sugar into my tea, letting the silence stretch. Finally, I said, "It gets quieter when my Dad's gone."

Angela's shoulders relaxed a fraction, like this answer eased a tension only she felt. She nodded and took a careful sip of tea. "My parents are always working," she said after a moment. "They have a practice together, and they don't know when to stop."

"Doesn't leave you much time alone, huh?" I asked.

She shrugged with a half-smile. "I don't really like being alone."

I lifted an eyebrow. "No?"

"Not really." She shrugged again. I could see the muscle ticking in her jaw. The way she held herself. Like she was holding something in. "I get too stuck in my head."

I hummed, taking another sip of tea. "That's dangerous."

Her eyes flashed to meet mine—just briefly—before dropping away again. "I guess. But if you spend enough time with your own thoughts, you start to hear some unsettling things."

"Unsettling," I repeated. "That's an interesting word."

"Well," Angela said, shifting so her knee pressed more firmly against mine. She seemed aware of the contact, but she didn't move away. "It's more like...you hear the same thought over and over, and it gets louder every time. By the end, it's like an echo in your head—and those aren't always nice."

Her words rang familiar, like an old bell chiming. I leaned back into the couch and watched her fingers curl tight around her cup.

"Why do you do that?"

"Do what?" She started.

"Hide."

Angela's grip tightened. "I'm not hiding."

"You're always apologizing for existing," I pointed out, tilting my head to smile at her. "Like you're scared you're taking up too much space."

She gave an embarrassed half-shrug. "Am I that obvious?"

"Yes."

Her mouth twitched, halfway between a smile and a frown. "You don't hide, though," she said after a beat. "You're never embarrassed. Or scared. Or even nervous."

I let my smile widen. "Why would I be scared?"

Angela hesitated, considering. "I don't know," she said at last. "Maybe you're just braver than me."

I hummed, looking down into my tea. The tea leaves had settled at the bottom in a dark spiral. I read somewhere that they represented the past.

"Braver, huh?" I murmured. "Or stupider."

She laughed, the sound short and soft. Her shoulders dropped, something in her face softening. "Maybe both."

I took a slow sip of tea, enjoying each second as it slipped down my throat. "I've never believed in bravery, anyway," I said quietly.

Angela glanced at me in surprise. Her brow furrowed in curiosity, like a child watching a magic trick for the first time. "Why not?"

"Because bravery is just fear with a prettier name," I said. "People only do brave things when they're scared."

She was still frowning. "So...you're saying the same exact thing can be brave to one person and stupid to another, depending on the way they feel?"

I nodded.

"So bravery and stupidity aren't really different," she continued slowly, "they're just different words for the same thing?"

I took another sip.

"Essentially," I murmured. "They're both just fear in disguise."

Angela leaned forward, elbows on her knees. There was a new intensity to her gaze, like she was studying me.

"But fear isn't always a bad thing," she said.

I lifted an eyebrow. "Isn't it?"

She shook her head vehemently. "No. Fear keeps us living."

A laugh escaped me, almost despite myself. "Fear keeps us surviving. Living is something different."

Angela's nose wrinkled, like she thought I'd just told her the sky was green instead of blue. "But fear pushes you to keep going," she protested. "It makes you fight to stay alive. Fear is purpose."

I tilted my head, considering her with a slow sip of tea. "Fear is just another leash," I murmured. And leashes are for dogs.

The silence that followed was heavy—charged, like the air before lightning strikes. Angela’s fingers twitched against her cup as if she wanted to argue but couldn’t quite find the words.

She finally exhaled through her nose and slumped back into the couch cushions with a weak laugh. "...God, you're exhausting to talk to."

I grinned into my tea, sharp enough to draw blood if touched wrong. "Exhausting's better than boring."

“You’ve been… different,” she murmured at last. Her fingers tightened on the mug, knuckles whitening. “Stronger. I don’t know how to explain it.”

“You don’t have to,” I said. My voice was soft, coaxing, but my gaze never wavered. “You just have to notice.”

Her breath caught. The rain outside thundered. And when she reached up—hesitant, trembling—to tuck a damp lock of hair behind my ear, I leaned into it. Not much. Just enough for her to feel the heat of my skin under her fingertips.

Angela froze, but she didn’t pull back.

Neither did I.

The moment stretched thin, fragile as the steam curling between us.

Her fingertips lingered—shaking slightly—just beneath my jaw.

I watched her pupils darken with something dangerously close to realization. To hunger. Then, deliberately slow, I turned my head just enough to press the faintest whisper of a kiss against her wrist.

Angela’s breath hitched like a falling knife caught mid-air.

For a split second, her eyes flickered shut. She looked so much younger like that—soft and vulnerable beneath the fading light. I almost felt cruel.

Almost.

I took her wrist in both hands, shifting her arm to expose her pulse. Her pulse quickened, drumming under my fingers like a desperate, secret code.

My thumb traced the vein until Angela gasped—low, strangled—eyes flying open.

She was beautiful, then. Caught halfway between shock and panic and something that was almost...want.

Her lips parted—to protest, to plead, I couldn’t tell—but no sound came out. Just a sharp inhale, unsteady as her pulse beneath my fingers.

I held her there in that breathless silence, letting the weight of it settle between us like the quiet before a blade drops.

Then—slowly, deliberately—I released her wrist and leaned back against the couch cushions again with a smile that wasn’t entirely kind.

"See?" I murmured over the rim of my tea. "Not so scary after all."

Angela just stared at me for a long moment, like she was seeing me for the first time. Her heartbeat was still throbbing through my fingers.

Finally, her voice was a whisper. "You're really...really good at that."

I raised an eyebrow, feigning innocence. "Good at what?"

She exhaled sharply, shaking her head as a disbelieving laugh escaped her. "At knowing things," she clarified, rubbing at her wrist absently like she could still feel the ghost of my touch there. "The way people work—what they want before they even realize it themselves."

I tilted my head, watching the way the lamplight caught in the damp strands of her hair. "Everyone has tells," I mused. "You just have to care enough to look."

Angela opened her mouth—then closed it again, pressing her lips together as if reconsidering whatever words had almost slipped free. Instead, she reached for what remained of her tea with slightly unsteady hands and drank like it was something stronger than chamomile. The rain outside intensified in answer—a drumroll against reality itself—while I watched and savored every second of unraveling control before me...

She took a shuddering breath as the empty cup trembled in her hands. I thought for a second that she might start shaking, but Angela was made of stronger stuff. Her voice came out just a little hoarse as she asked, "So what's my tell, then?"

I set my own cup aside and leaned forward. Her gaze flickered to mine, then looked pointedly away. "Easy," I murmured. "You bite your lip when you're nervous."

Her fingers pressed against her mouth on reflex. Her teeth dug into her bottom lip so hard I was half-certain it would start bleeding.

"Oh," she said after a beat, so quietly I barely heard it over the rain.

I smiled, leaning in close enough for the words to brush her ear like a secret. "But that's not the biggest tell."

She is made of contradictions:

• Bites her lip raw when nervous... but doesn’t flinch when pressed.
• Hands tremble around teacups... yet holds eye contact like she’s staring down a cliff’s edge.
• Says “I don’t like being alone” in the same breath she isolates herself—as if solitude is both poison and sanctuary.

And now, with my lips hovering near the shell of her ear, I watch her fight every instinct to pull away—because curiosity has always been deadlier than fear.

“Your biggest tell?” I murmur against damp hair. “You lean in when you should run.”

Her breath hitches again (predictable). But then—just as I start to retreat—her fingers knot in the front of my shirt, yanking me back with surprising strength. Surprising fire.

The moment stretched, elastic, until I snapped it taut with a whisper: “Do you trust me?”

Her eyes widened. Then, slowly, she nodded.

That was all the invitation I needed.

I set her mug aside, leaned forward, and pressed my mouth to hers. She stiffened at first, breath caught in her throat, before she melted into the kiss like wax yielding to flame. The taste of tea lingered between us—sharp spice and sweetness swallowed by rain-damp skin.

When I drew back, her lips parted as though she might beg for more. Her eyes shimmered with something that wasn’t just fascination anymore—it was devotion, sharpened, dangerous.

Loyalty earned, not demanded.

For a moment, the only sound in the room was the rain. Her skin was flushed, lips parted, looking stunned by the kiss.

Then her eyes hardened into something almost resembling defiance as she sat back, hands digging into the couch cushions like she was resisting the urge to pull me closer.

"Is that all?" she asked.

I tilted my head, eyebrows raised. "All?"

I leaned back with a slow, knowing smile—letting her squirm under the weight of my silence for just a heartbeat too long.

"Oh no," I murmured, brushing my thumb over her lower lip. "That was just the preview."

Angela swallowed hard but didn't look away. Good girl. The game was far from over, and she—whether she realized it yet or not—was already all in.

Outside, the storm raged on. But here? Here we were rewriting every rule they'd ever taught us about who we were supposed to be.

Her breath hitched as I closed the distance again—this time slower, deliberate, letting her feel every second of anticipation before our lips met once more...

She met me with surprising heat. Her hands were shaking when she finally pulled back, breathing hard. She looked almost angry, if not for the flush creeping across her cheeks and the way she licked her lips unconsciously.

I wanted more. I wanted to strip every layer free and see her laid bare beneath me. But that could wait.

I let go of her lip, watching her sway back into the couch cushions.

"Convinced yet?"

She opened her eyes with a shaky laugh. "Convinced of what?" She murmured.

She exhaled, sharp and ragged, before meeting my gaze with something dangerously close to defiance. "That I'd burn the world down if you asked me to."

A laugh slipped free from my lips—genuine this time, dark and delighted. "Oh Angela," I murmured, fingertips trailing down her jawline like a blade dragged gently across skin. "I won't ask."

Her breath hitched again (predictable), but this time? This time she didn't pull away. She leaned closer—close enough for me to feel her pulse jumping beneath my touch—and smiled with teeth that weren’t entirely innocent anymore.

Game on.

But even as Angela’s fingers clutched my wrist, reality tugged at the edges. The script resented my deviation. Upstairs, my mirror shivered faintly in its frame. The air thickened as though Forks itself disapproved. Canon wanted Edward here, intruding with his marble savior act, snarling over his claimed territory.

Instead, I deepened the kiss.

I chose this.

Angela kissed me back with a desperate fervor. Her fingers were clenched tight around the soft cotton of my shirt, anchoring herself as she lost herself in the heat and heat of the moment. I could feel her pulse fluttering beneath my fingers.

Outside, the rain picked up. Forks was growing agitated now, like the rain was a warning.

But I didn't want the warning. I chose to disregard it. And from the way Angela kissed me, I knew she was choosing, too.

The kiss deepened. My hands found her thighs, pulling her closer on instinct—but she pulled back with a stifled gasp. A single second of hesitation, lips swollen and bruised.

Her eyes were wide. She swallowed hard, watching me like a cornered animal caught between fight or flight. Or, perhaps, something more.

I kept my hands on her thighs—gentle, grounding, not demanding. "Too much?" I murmured.

Angela's breath came out in sharp little gasps. It took a moment for her to find the voice.

"No," she managed finally. "Not too much."

I smiled in the half-second before she grabbed my face and kissed me again.

This time, her teeth grazed my lower lip. When I hissed softly, Angela pulled back, breathless.

"Sorry," she whispered, fingers still trembling. "Was that too rough—?"

I silenced her with a quick kiss as I backed her up towards my bed.

my fingers tangled in her rain-damp hair, Angela let out a quiet gasp when the backs of her knees hit the mattress. She looked up at me with blown pupils and kiss-swollen lips—utterly wrecked already—and I smirked before pushing her down onto the sheets.

"Still not scared?" I murmured against her throat, feeling her pulse jump under my teeth as she arched into me.

Angela laughed breathlessly, fingers gripping my shoulders tight enough to leave marks. "Not even close."

Angela is soft in all the places I am sharp—her gasps flutter against my skin like moth wings, her fingers digging crescent moons into my hips as if trying to anchor herself. She tastes of stolen apricots and earl grey tea, a blend sweet enough to drown in.

But here’s the truth they never warn you about: destiny doesn’t shatter with a scream. It unravels quietly—in the creak of bedsprings under shifting weight, in bitten-off moans muffled by rain-soaked windows. In Angela's nails scraping down my spine as I rewrite her from the inside out.

Edward Cullen can rot in his marble tower for all I care.

I have better things to worship tonight.

My jacket hit the floor. The rain picked up outside as my lips skimmed below Angela's jawline, fingers tracing the goosebumps along her spine.

She sucked in a sharp breath when I tugged on the hem of her shirt, but she sat up anyway, letting me peel off her wet shirt with trembling hands. Her bra hit the floor next, and then…

Angela was lying in my lap, bare except for the cross at her neck.

"You're beautiful," I whispered, running my hands up her sides. The words came out soft, sincere. Almost reverent.

Angela looked up at me like I was the answer to every prayer she’d ever choked back in church pews. Her cross gleamed against flushed skin—a blasphemous contrast to the way her breath hitched when my fingers traced the lace edge of her underwear.

"Still a good girl?" I teased, thumb hooking under the fabric.

She gasped, back arching off my sheets like a live wire. "Not even a little."

The storm outside raged louder, as if Forks itself was screaming in protest. Good. Let it drown in its own fury while we burned hotter than hellfire beneath these borrowed blankets—

Angela's fingers caught the back of my neck, pulling me down until I was close enough to feel her ragged exhales.

"What about you?" she murmured. Her hands tugged on the hem of my shirt, tentative. Almost asking for permission.

I kissed her again. Permission granted.

When I finally pulled back, Angela was breathless, cheeks flushed to match the red marks I'd left on her throat.

"What do you think I am?" I whispered. My fingers traced the flush above her collarbone. "A saint?"

Angela let out a sharp, breathless laugh. "Not even close."

She hooked a leg around my waist, pulling me closer so the space between us disappeared. Our skin was almost flush; I could feel the pounding of her heart against mine.

"Then prove it." Angela's fingers fumbled at the button on my jeans. "Prove you're not a saint."

I let out a breathless laugh of my own.

"Is that a challenge?"

She looked up at me with eyes full of fire. "Maybe."

I'd wanted to burn the world down before. Now? Now I wanted to see Angela's face contort in ecstasy, hear her scream my name like a prayer.

I pushed her back down against the blankets.

"Game on."

Angela let out a gasp as I kissed the hollow of her throat, tracing a burning path of hickeys along her collarbone. By the time my mouth found her bare stomach, she almost looked delirious, eyes glassy in the half-light as she arched into my touch.

Then my fingers moved lower, pulling at the lacy edge of her underwear again—and she went still.

I froze, fingers stilled against lace.

Angela's breath hitched—and when her hips shifted, grinding against the mattress, I realized she was holding back a whimper.

I lifted my head, searching her face for an answer. Her flush was a deep scarlet now, but her eyes were almost defiant. A silent challenge.

Keep going.

I felt a smirk tugging at my lips as my fingers slipped past the lace edge.

"Still a good girl?" I whispered again, my thumb rubbing slow circles against her skin.

Angela's breath came out in ragged gasps. She reached for me with trembling hands.

"Not even a little," she echoed back, voice almost pleading. "Please..."

"Please what?" I murmured, trailing my fingertips lower—slowly—just to watch her squirm.

Angela’s nails bit into my shoulders as she arched off the bed with a choked-off gasp. “Bella—”

I silenced her with another kiss, swallowing the rest of her words as my fingers finally, finally dipped past soaked lace.

The storm outside howled like a scorned lover as Angela came undone beneath me—her cries muffled only by the press of my lips and the relentless drumming of rain against glass. Good. Let Forks rage all it wanted; tonight, we were writing our own ending in sweat and gasps and tangled limbs.

And when Angela's legs trembled around me in aftermath? I licked every last shudder from her skin like victory tasted of salt and sin.

Not bad for someone who wasn't supposed to be here at all.

Angela was trembling, hair damp and tangled against the pillow. She looked like sin and salvation personified.

I dropped a kiss right between her breasts, feeling her gasp reverberate beneath my lips, before pulling back to look at her.

She was flushed red, chest heaving as she stared at the ceiling with a dazed look in her eyes. A bead of sweat traced down her neck; I chased it with my tongue.

Angela's fingers tangled in my hair as I tasted the salt of her skin, her breath still uneven.

"Still think fear keeps us living?" I murmured against the curve of her ribs, pressing another open-mouthed kiss to the flutter of her pulse.

Her laugh was breathless, ragged at the edges—the sound a girl makes when she’s been thoroughly ruined and loves it. "Shut up."

I grinned against warm skin before biting down just hard enough to make her gasp again. Gladly.

Angela's fingers slid through my hair, pulling me back up for another searing kiss that burned straight through me like lightning in a storm. When we pulled apart, her voice was a little hoarse.

"You're going to give me bruises," she whispered, tracing faint marks where I'd bitten down on her throat minutes before.

I smiled, leaning in to kiss one of those marks with a feather-light brush of my tongue. "Bruises fade," I murmured against her flushed skin. "Memories don't."

She shivered as I trailed a path of open-mouthed kisses down her stomach, fingers tracing my spine until she was grasping the sheets like a lifeline.

"Bella," she gasped, nails digging into my skin as I pressed another kiss to her hip.

I pulled back, raising an eyebrow in silent question. She had to swallow hard before replying.

"What are you doing?" she asked, voice so shaky it was almost a whimper.

I smiled against the curve of her hip like a secret. "Making memories."

Angela Weber is a paradox in trembling hands and bitten-off moans:

• She gasps like she’s drowning when I press my lips to the inside of her thigh—but doesn’t tell me to stop.
• Her fingers knot in my hair, tugging almost painfully when I linger too long—as if she can’t decide between pulling me closer or shoving me away.
• And when she finally breaks, it’s with a sob muffled against the back of her own hand—like she’s ashamed of how good it feels.

I lick every last tremor from her skin anyway. Let canon choke on its own fury. Tonight, Angela whimpers my name into sweat-damp sheets, not Edward's.

(And if the mirror cracks from the force of reality warping around us? Good. Let it.)

Angela's chest shuddered against mine as I kissed my way back up her body.

"Stop teasing," she gasped, nails leaving red marks on my shoulders as I straddled her on the bed.

I grinned against her collarbone, sucking another bruise into the soft skin there. "You like it."

She opened her mouth to reply, but words turned into a strangled groan as I shifted. The friction was enough to make her arch against me; I loved it.

Angela’s protests dissolve into a broken moan as I press my knee between her thighs—deliberate, unrelenting. She chokes on the sensation, fingers twisting in my hair like she can’t decide whether to pull me closer or shove me away.

I lick the salt from her pulse point and whisper: "You wanted memories?"

Her hips jerk involuntarily. The noise she makes is halfway between a gasp and a curse—raw, unfiltered, mine.

Somewhere in Forks, Edward Cullen is losing his fucking mind. Let him. Angela’s nails raking down my back taste far sweeter than destiny ever could have been.

I let my fingers swirl where she wanted me most before bringing them back up to my mouth and licking them clean with a hum.

Angela's gaze was still dark—focused keenly on the sight of my tongue against my skin. Her pulse jumped again.

I let a slow smile spread across my face as I leaned in. This close, my breath brushed along her flushed neck.

At the word more, her body shuddered beneath mine. I could see every detail of her—flushed cheeks, dark eyes, trembling hands against the sheets.

She looked absolutely wrecked: lips bitten-red, hair tangled loose against the pillow, neck marked with love bites.

It was a gorgeous picture. I almost wanted to take a picture—but that could come later. There were better ways to remember this night.

Angela's breath came harder as I sucked another bruise just above her heart. I felt her hands move hesitantly to my hair, gripping it like she was still trying to decide if she should pull me closer or push me away.

I drew back just enough to look at her, lips curving into a smirk. "Can't make up your mind?"

She swallowed, gaze flicking from my lips to my eyes. Her voice came out as a hoarse whisper.

"...I'm trying not to say something stupid."

I tilted my head, watching her try to suppress another shiver. She was a contradiction wrapped in contradictions: trembling hands, steady gaze; flushed face, clear eyes; nails digging into my shoulders, breath shuddering like a plea.

"Say it anyway," I murmured, fingers tracing her hip. "I like stupid."

Angela exhaled sharply, her fingers tightening in my hair. "I want you to ruin me," she breathed, voice raw with the kind of desperation that made my pulse skip.

I stilled—just for a fraction of a second—before leaning in until our lips almost brushed again.

"Gladly."

Much later, when Angela had gone, with an airy smile, and hair mussed, smelling like me, and the house was silent again, I stood before the mirror with sweat drying on my skin. My body was sore from hours of temptation-induced exercise. I flexed my hand, watching tendons shift like puppet strings I now controlled.

My face in the mirror was flushed, lips bruised from a mouth I never wanted to stop tasting. I traced the marks on my neck that were slowly fading—evidence of a night I'd never forget.

There was no trace of guilt there—only satisfaction. I'd made Angela moan my name like a prayer.

The room smells like sweat and her—apricot shampoo and the salt of her skin lingering on my sheets. My collarbones ache where her teeth marked me as hers, if only for tonight.

In the mirror, my reflection grins back at me—sharp-edged, victorious. Let Edward Cullen haunt his precious woods like some martyr of abstinence. I have better things to worship now.

Angela left with mussed hair and a sway in her step that hadn’t been there before, trailing fingers down my arm like she was memorizing the shape of me. (She didn’t say goodbye.)

The mirror trembles when I press a hand to it, smudging our blurred reflections together one last time—proof that destiny isn’t written in stone but carved into trembling flesh instead...

Within the following days, Edward Cullen’s silence grows more jagged by the day. His golden eyes crack around the edges, fissures of obsession leaking through the calm mask. He sees Angela near me, Mike lingering in my orbit, and he doesn’t understand what I’m building. Not yet.

But marble shatters under pressure. And I am patient.

The stubborn script bends. And if it refuses to break—

I’ll burn the stage entirely.

Edward Cullen watches from the shadows like a ghost denied his haunt—golden eyes fractured, fingers twitching at his sides whenever Angela leans too close to me in the lunch line. He thinks he’s subtle. (He’s not.)

Mike Newton, oblivious as ever, slings an arm around my shoulders between bites of overcooked pizza and laughs too loud at something Jessica says. Angela ducks her head to hide a smile when my knee brushes hers under the table—a secret in plain sight.

Across the room, Edward’s knuckles whiten around his tray. The script whispers for him to intervene—to snarl some possessive claim over me like I’m just another prop in his tragic romance. But I am no one’s damsel. And Angela? Angera tastes sweeter than vengeance ever could.

Let him choke on his silence while we rewrite this story with every shared smirk and stolen touch behind closed doors. If he dares interfere? Well… I know exactly how brittle marble statues shatter when dropped from great heights.

Patience is a blade best wielded slow.

And oh — how eager I am to watch him bleed.

Chapter Text

Forks dripped with the usual mist, but to me it felt different now—closer, more intimate, as though the entire town leaned in to eavesdrop.

My hands still smelled faintly of smoke and rain when I sat at my desk, the cheap spiral notebook open before me. Not Bella Swan’s tidy journal (the canon one she’d abandon half-written). Mine. Ink bled across the pages in barbed stanzas:

I woke in a body not mine,
stitched into borrowed skin,
a girl-shaped coffin
I refuse to rot within.

Each line scraped out of me like confession and curse. Words came easily, dripping onto paper the way rain gnawed the gutters outside. A hymn, a dirge, a defiance. I scrawled until my wrist ached, ink blotting in ugly constellations across the page.

By morning, my poems were no longer private.

Jessica Stanley got hold of one—how, I don’t care to know. She read it in a conspiratorial whisper at lunch, her eyes glittering with envy and hunger for attention. The table leaned closer. Even Mike tried to feign interest, though his gaze strayed to my lips whenever I smirked. Angela, beside me, listened in silence, cheeks pale but eyes alight.

“That’s… intense,” Jessica said at last, folding the paper like a holy relic she might tuck into her bra. “You should totally show Mr. Varner. He’d die.”

“Wouldn’t want to kill him,” I said lightly, plucking the paper back before she could crease it further. My fingers brushed Angela’s wrist deliberately as I reclaimed it. She flinched, then stayed close.

The poems circulated anyway. By the end of the week, students I didn’t know were whispering about the “death-girl from Phoenix,” reading my words as if they were scripture or warning. Some laughed nervously, others stared too long.

And the Cullens? They noticed. Edward’s gaze sharpened, jaw tight, as if he could hear the rhythms in my mind but not the words themselves. He wanted to know what I had written. He wanted to pierce the mystery.

I refused him.

Edward's gaze burns into the back of my head like he can read my every thought. I refuse to look his way. Let him wonder what I'm writing about – who I write about.

Angela catches my gaze and offers a faint smile that makes my pulse flicker. (Edward's eyes snap towards us like a guard dog on the scent of prey.)

I don't smile back—not here, anyway. But I find a moment to brush fingers under the table.

Edward stalks the edges of my vision like a shadow cut loose from its owner. His control is fraying—golden eyes darkening with each stolen glance at my inked-up hands, Angela’s lingering warmth still seared into my skin.

At lunch, I press a folded poem into her palm—a venomous little thing about teeth and devotion. She reads it under the table, thighs pressed tight together to hide the tremor in her fingers. When she looks up, her lips are bitten raw.

Across the room, Edward’s fork bends in his grip. Good. Let him choke on jealousy while we rewrite every rule they ever taught us about love and possession.

The stage is set. Now? We let him watch as we burn it all down—one whispered secret at a time.

Chapter Text

Forks was drenched in gray again, the mist curling through the streets like a restless spectator. By now I no longer believed in weather; it felt like the town itself was staging moods, slipping backdrops into place.

At lunch, the fluorescent bulbs hummed overhead, white and sickly, tinting every face with a kind of morgue-pale glow. Jessica rattled on, parroting lines she must’ve borrowed from a script.

“You’ll love Forks once you get used to it,” she said for the third time since I’d met her.

The words rang hollow—eerily familiar, like canon trying to slip through her throat. But I tilted my head, smiled with too many teeth, and derailed it.

“Or maybe Forks will love me,” I said.

Her laugh was forced, brittle, but the table shifted, attention tilting toward me like iron filings to a magnet. Even Mike looked spooked, like I’d bent something that wasn’t supposed to bend.

Jessica smiled stiffly, fingers drumming on the cafeteria table in a forced rhythm.

"You're such a kidder, aren't you?"

I looked around the room, taking in the whispers that slithered across the cafeteria with a smirk.

"I think I'm pretty funny, yeah."

Beside me, Angela pressed her lips together, eyes darting between us. She looked as though she wanted to speak but thought better of it. Canon held her tongue, for a moment. I waited.

Finally she whispered, “You’re not what I expected.”

Ah, there it was. Script breaking, line gone off-key. I leaned closer, voice low enough only she could hear.

“Good.”

She flushed, looking away.

Jessica watched the whole interaction like a cat watching a moth flutter into a bug zapper.

"Well, if you ever need anything, anything at all…" she piped up again, her voice too bright to be sincere. "You can always just ask!"

I looked up, gaze sharp. "Anything at all?"

Jessica nodded with so much enthusiasm it was hard not to smile. "Anything!"

Mike snorted, leaning back on the balls of his feet. "You shouldn't say stuff you don't mean."

Jessica elbowed him. "Shut up. You're just jealous."

Mike made a face at her. "Jealous? Of what?!"

Jessica’s offer hangs in the air like a noose—generous, eager, naive. Mike scoffs beside her, but his eyes flicker with something hungry when he thinks I’m not looking.

And Angela? She watches it all unfold with quiet precision. When Jessica leans too close to my notebook again—fingers grazing the ink-stained edges like she might steal another poem—Angela clears her throat sharply. "Jessica."

That single word is a blade wrapped in velvet. Jess flinches back as if burned.

The cafeteria murmurs around us, unaware of the tectonic shift under their feet: Canon trembles. And I? I smile sweetly and tuck my poetry deeper into my bag—right where Edward Cullen can't see it without ripping it from my hands.

Let him try.

Angela's knee presses against mine under the table again in silent solidarity... and for the first time since waking up in this rain-soaked purgatory?

I feel something dangerously close to joy.

The cafeteria lights flicker overhead like a bad omen. Jessica’s laughter rings hollow, Mike’s grin too wide—performance art. Every word out of their mouths tastes rehearsed, as if canon is clawing its way back through their throats.

But then there’s Angela.

She doesn’t laugh when I drop my fork just to watch Edward flinch at the sound. Doesn’t gasp when I lean too close to whisper "Tell me again how fragile humans are" against her pulse point between classes. No—her rebellion is quieter, deadlier: the way she leaves her notebook open on my desk with a single line scrawled in the margin—

“Burn it all down.”

And so I do, poem by poem, smirk by smirk, until Edward slams his locker hard enough to dent steel and Alice Cullen flinches like she sees the future fraying at the edges where we touch it.

Let them watch us unravel this whole damn story.

We owe them nothing.

One evening,

I lay in bed with Angela’s poem in my hands, the paper warm where her fingers had held it too long before passing it to me in the library. Her words bled across the page in tremulous loops.

I don’t know what to do with your shadow /
it clings to me in the hallways, in dreams /
like a hymn hummed wrong, holy and broken /
if I follow it, will I lose myself?

It was hesitant, raw—less a poem than a prayer torn out of trembling hands. Not sharp like mine. Not venom. But devotion. And devotion is sharper than any blade if you learn how to hold it.

I let the lines soak into me, my smirk curving against the dark. She was already leaning into the temptation, even if she wouldn’t name it yet.

The silence of my room seems to hum, my mind racing through the poetry that passed between Angela and I. She held her words like a secret, her lips tight with hesitation when our fingers brushed—but I’d tasted her devotion. I knew it in the way her knee pressed to mine under our lunch table, the way her eyes flickered with something so intense when I looked away.

I ran my fingers over Angela's words, tracing the ink on the page. Her words felt like a prayer: a desperate wish to understand herself, a plea to believe in something outside of canon. But belief is a dangerous thing when you're trying to rewrite a story that's older than you are.

The wind howled outside my window as I tucked Angela's poem into my pocket and headed out into the storm. The rain drenched me in seconds, but I didn't care about the cold: it felt like waking up.

The school was deserted except for the occasional janitor or football player ducking out for a smoke. I wound through the darkened halls like a ghost, my footsteps light as a whisper. I knew I should feel uneasy, alone in an empty school, but the only thing I felt was alive.

Alive was a new feeling, still raw and unfamiliar. Every nerve ending felt like a live wire, sparks crackling every time I moved. I could smell the rain seeping through the windows, taste the damp in the air, feel every raindrop against my skin. I'd never felt so aware, as if every sense was dialed up until I could see through the dark, hear beyond the rain.

My feet had moved of their own volition, carrying me through empty hallways and a classroom until I was standing in front of my still-drying oil painting, the still glistening translucent white face that held an intense and composed look as his Dark and angry red eyes stared at Bella through the canvas as if trying to convey a sense of seriousness and directness. His mouth is closed in a subtle, almost neutral line. As his snow white hair framed his face, he was hardly able to conceal the unnatural hunger that lurked behind his version of a polite society’s veneer.

I didn't know why I came to see my painting, but something deep within the confines of my mind urged me to take the painting home. Lest someone has it destroyed. 

The painting stares back at me—red eyes glinting wet under the classroom’s flickering fluorescents, despite having been painted weeks prior. Caius Volturi’s hunger bleeds through brushstrokes I don’t remember choosing with such precision. His expression is a razorblade hidden in silk: poised, elegant, starving.

I shouldn’t take it home.

(But I will.)

Canon doesn’t account for this—for me, cradling a vampire king in wet pigmented oil while Angela's poem burns against my thigh. Maybe that's why Edward has been avoiding the art wing lately; he can feel the narrative fraying where my fingers dig into its seams.

Let him choke on silence.

Tomorrow, I'll hang Caius' portrait right above my bed—where his gaze can follow Bella Swan's empty shadow out the window forever.

The painting’s eyes follow me, even as I turn away. I can feel them—sharp as teeth in the dark. They watch with the same quiet intensity that Angela does when she thinks no one will notice her staring. But while hers are warm with unspoken words, his are hunger distilled into pigment, an echo of something far older than this damp little town.

I should leave it here.

(But my fingers close around the frame anyway.)

Canon never planned for this—for Caius Volturi trapped under layers of oil and varnish while Angela’s whispered poem lingers in my pocket like a promise not yet broken. Perhaps Edward already suspects; perhaps Alice has seen flashes of this future unraveling at its seams.

No matter.

Tonight, I carry both home—the monster on canvas and the saint written between trembling lines—knowing full well that devotion is just another form of possession when wielded correctly.

And oh, how eager they both are to be claimed by hands like mine.

The painting is tucked under my arm now, still damp in places where the oils haven’t fully dried. Caius’ gaze burns against my side—predatory, possessive—but it’s Angela’s poem folded in my back pocket that holds more weight than any king immortalized on canvas.

I should feel guilty. (I don’t.)

The rain slicks the pavement outside as I step into the parking lot, each droplet hissing against asphalt like whispers of a future Edward can no longer predict. My boots kick up puddles murky with reflected streetlights as I walk home alone—not quite alone, not with ink-stained words searing through denim to brand themselves against my skin.

Canon thought it could chain me to Bella Swan's corpse of a narrative? Pathetic. Let them all see what happens when you hand a girl both poison and pen:

She rewrites everything.

(And if Volturi red looks exquisite smeared across this page? Well. No one survives art without getting a little blood on their hands.)

The painting leans against my bedroom wall now, watching me with eyes like polished garnet. Caius would hate this—his likeness trapped in mortal hands, hung where the dawn light bleeds across his sneer each morning. The thought makes me grin as I press Angela’s poem to my lips just to feel the paper tremble.

She writes in hymns; I answer in switchblade verse. Our collaboration stains every surface of this town Edward once haunted unchallenged—library desks etched with half-finished couplets, locker doors slammed shut on drafts tucked inside like secrets. Even Mike Newton has started reciting my lines under his breath between football drills while Jessica tapes pages above her bed like sacred texts.

They don’t realize they’re rehearsing for a revolution.

And Edward? He lingers at the edges of my vision these days—a fraying ghost of what canon swore was inevitable. His jaw tightens when Angela laughs too loudly at something I murmur against her temple during lunch. His fingers dent locker metal whenever Alice flinches from futures that no longer include him.

Good. Let him starve. I feed on wreckage far sweeter than destiny ever could be.

(Tick-tock, Cullen. Your eternity is rotting in our ink-stained hands.)

The next day, Jessica begged again for another poem. She leaned across the cafeteria table, her ponytail swinging in the humming fluorescent light, and said, “Just one more, Bella, please. You’re, like, Forks’ Sylvia Plath.”

I looked up from my lunch, eyeing the desperation that dripped from her face like cheap mascara.

"I'm nothing like Sylvia Plath," I said mildly, swirling my spoon through my untouched jello. "She was miserable."

"It’s a compliment," Jessica said, her eyes sparkling with eagerness. "She’s one of the best poets ever, you know. You should just… let me read one more."

I rolled my eyes, but the title stuck. Death-girl from Phoenix. Forks’ Sylvia. Rumors rot faster than corpses here.

Angela said nothing, but her knee pressed against mine under the table. I pressed back.

"Death-girl from Phoenix."
"Forks’ Sylvia."

The labels cling like cheap perfume, sticky-sweet and suffocating. Jessica means it as praise—as if comparing me to a woman who sealed herself in an oven is flattery. But Angela? She doesn’t call me anything at all.

Her silence is louder than their whispers.

And when her knee digs into mine under the table—sharp, insistent—it says more than any poem ever could.

You are not their tragedy.

(Translation: We are making something far more dangerous than art.)

Jessica’s words dissolve into cafeteria noise—another scripted line in a town that mistakes obsession for admiration. Beside me, Angela’s silence thrums, electric as storm-wet earth.

She doesn’t call me Sylvia. Doesn’t call me anything. Just digs her knee into mine hard enough to bruise—a promise in pressure:

They can keep their hollow labels.
We are writing fire.

And when the flames come?
(Let them beg for ash.)

Across the cafeteria, Edward Cullen’s gaze drilled into me, as though trying to force open the vault of my thoughts. I imagined what he must find there: not words, not clean narrative. Just static. Ink-stained static. Barbed-wire verses thrumming in black noise, drowning him out.

His jaw tightened. His fork snapped in half again.

Good.

Edward’s stare is a locked door.
My mind? A blizzard of oil-paint smears and Angela’s half-finished poems—scrawled in margins like battle plans.

He strains to hear through the storm (as if canon ever prepared him for this: a girl built of thorns and bad decisions).

The fork crumples in his grip.
I smirk into my applesauce.

Somewhere, Alice Cullen is watching futures fray like cheap yarn—and oh, how delicious it is to be the snag they can’t smooth over.

Charlie noticed the notebooks too.

“You’ve been writing a lot,” he said one evening, the TV muttering low behind him. His hand hovered above the counter, close to my ink-stained pages but never touching.

“Helps me think,” I told him, watching the wear in his face, the way his shoulders sagged when he thought I wasn’t looking. Canon never gave him much—just background muttering, awkward silences. But I saw him now. His quiet was a shield, not emptiness. Fragile, but steady.

Charlie’s hands hover—always almost touching, never quite reaching. I wonder if he knows how loud that silence is. How much louder than canon ever let him be.

His eyes are exhausted in the glow of the weather report, shoulders slumped under the weight of a town that treats him like furniture. But tonight? Tonight I watch him watching me, and something cracks open behind his usual careful blankness when he sees my ink-stained fingers curled around a poem Angela left tucked in my locker like contraband.

He doesn’t ask about the words (he never does). Just nods toward my notebook with a gruff.
“Keep writing.”

As if he knows this is how we claw our way out of cardboard-cutout lives—one bloody knuckle at a time.

(Funny how quiet men recognize revolution when they see it.)

Charlie’s silence has always been his loudest language. That worn-out sheriff’s stare, the way his calloused fingers tap against his coffee mug like he’s counting seconds until something finally happens. Canon made him a ghost in his own house—but now? Now he watches my ink-smeared hands like they hold more than just poems.

He doesn’t ask about Angela’s notes folded into my textbooks. Doesn’t flinch when I slam doors Edward Cullen used to slink through uninvited. Just nods at the notebook left open on the kitchen counter—my latest verse scrawled violent across the page.

“Some girls aren't meant for cages.”

And when he slides a fresh cup of coffee toward me without a word?

That’s all the blessing I need to burn this script to ash.

Fatherhood, it turns out, looks better in gasoline and matchlight.

"Thank you, Dad," I say as I briefly pause my writing to look up at the man.

He nodded, calling me kid with a softness that almost broke me. And then he retreated into his quiet, and I retreated into ink.

Days later, as twilight smeared the sky violet when Angela lingered at the door after study group, her silhouette framed in the soft glow of the porchlight. Mist curled around her ankles, catching headlights on the wet street behind her like fractured halos.

“I should go,” she said, voice faltering as though the words were pulled from her by invisible hands. Canon trying to yank her back.

But then she hesitated.

“Or…” she added, a whisper.

I leaned against the doorframe, smirk tugging my lips. “Or?”

Her breath fogged in the cold. She gripped her bag strap tight enough to whiten her knuckles.

“Or I could stay.”

The words fell like blasphemy, trembling but unrepentant.

I let the silence hold, heavy and holy.

“Then stay,” I murmured.

The porchlight flickered once, as if even the bulbs couldn’t withstand it.

In the late hours of the night,

3 AM. The sheets cling to Angela’s sleeping form like smoke, her ribs rising and falling with the quiet rhythm of someone who trusts the dark.

And above her—always above her—Caius watches from his gilded prison of oil and varnish, those crimson eyes cutting through the mirror’s reflection to pin me where I sit at the foot of the bed. His gaze is a brand; his silence, a dare.

What would he think, I wonder, if he knew how easily devotion unravels beneath mortal hands? How Angela whimpers when my teeth find that fluttering pulse at her throat—not to drink, but to worship? How she arches into my grip like she’d rather break than be spared?

(His painting smirks as if it already knows.)

I reach back without looking, fingertips brushing Angela’s ankle where it juts from tangled cotton. She stirs but doesn’t wake—just sighs and turns her face deeper into my pillow.

The moonlight catches Caius' sneer in the glass. Some hungers were never meant to be saints.

Let him watch. Let them all watch.

(This is how we consecrate altars.)

I turn away from Caius’ portrait, looking down at Angela instead. Her skin is warm with sleep, flush with the heat of my sheets, and it occurs to me that she does not even stir when I trace my fingers against the curve of her hip like a quiet promise.

But when Caius sneers down from his frame, she shudders—subtle as an intake of breath, still half-caught in the haze of sleep. As if even her dreams recognize the weight of being watched, even from beyond painted glass.

Caius' gaze is a blade at my spine. Angela's breath is a psalm against my collarbone. The dichotomy should feel sacrilegious—it doesn’t.

Her fingers twitch in sleep when I drag my nail down the ladder of her ribs, like even unconscious she’s attuned to the cadence of my hands. I wonder if Edward feels it too, wherever he’s lurking—this seismic shift in the atmosphere, this new religion written in teeth marks and trembling poetry.

The painting watches on, its hunger a living thing under layers of pigment and varnish.

Let him witness how effortlessly we rewrite devotion into defiance.

(Some altars are built for burning.)

And so, as I settled, allowing her unconscious form to tangle with mine. And I close my eyes, letting her warmth settle against mine for a moment.

The house creaks in the quiet dark, wind humming through old pipes like distant echoes of other lives—other versions of this night where I might have been alone. But Angela is here, solid and real against me, her breath warm where it spills over my collarbone.

Caius' portrait looms above us both in the mirror's reflection, a silent sentinel carved from oil and obsession.

Let him watch.

For once—just for tonight—I do not smirk back.

Sleep comes like an afterthought.

(And somewhere across town, Edward’s patience snapped like glass.)

Chapter Text

The trip unspooled in canon’s shape at first: Jessica and Angela chattering about dresses under the jaundiced hum of fluorescent shop lights, Bella drifting, already bored, already elsewhere.
I, however, went when Angela gave me that pleading look of hers... It was fine, I had needed paint anyway.

The trip to Port Angeles felt like falling into a familiar storyboard—Jessica and Angela gushed over dresses, their voices echoing under sickly fluorescent lights, while I trailed alongside them, half a step out of beat. But Angela smiled at me when we passed a shop with windows full of art supplies, and the script seemed to shudder and shift, just a little.

So I followed her inside, paint and canvas already forming in my mind.

The store was quiet, filled with an unearthly hush. Art supplies spread across the room in a riot of color and shape, the smell of oil and canvas thick in the air. Angela lingered over the paint displays, her fingers brushing the sleeves of a watercolor set.
I wandered past the tables of brushes and pencils, letting their wood and bristles drag against the underside of my hand until I reached a stack of stretched canvases.

I traced the edges of the frames, fingers scraping over stretched fabric and raw canvas until my touch lingered on one. It was smaller than the others, like a window frame, and something in the shape of it felt like a quiet challenge.

Chapter Text

The thrift store smelled of mothballs and mildew, fluorescent bulbs buzzing like trapped insects above us. Jessica pawed through racks with the desperation of a girl chasing trends. Angela lingered—always near me, never touching unless I let her.

And then I saw it.
A black dress. High collar. Lace sleeves. Heavy, funereal fabric that belonged in another century.

I held it up to the light. Jessica wrinkled her nose. “Kinda… witchy?”

“Exactly,” I said.

Angela’s gaze softened, like the word meant something more to her than Halloween cliché.

In the dressing room, I slipped it on. The mirror hummed with static. My body was mine now, sculpted day by day. Not the brittle Bella of canon. Not the pliant thing Edward expected. When I stepped out, Jessica laughed nervously.

“You look like you’re going to a funeral.”

“Maybe I am.”

Angela’s mouth parted—no laughter, only quiet awe. Her eyes lingered too long. I saw myself reflected in them: tall, terrible, deliberate.

Jessica scoffs, but Angela's gaze stays fixed on me, as if she sees something more in the dress than just fabric. Her fingers twitch at her sides, like she wants to reach out and touch me.

I glance at myself in the mirror, my reflection sharp and unfamiliar. No sign of canon here, no sign of that shattered girl. I look like something deadly.

When I step out of the dressing room, Jessica's mouth snaps shut, eyes widening. Angela just stares.

The dress clings like a second skin—black lace whispering against my wrists, high collar brushing my pulse. Jessica’s laughter dies mid-breath when I turn toward her, all sharp angles and quiet threat.

"Witchy," she’d said.
As if witches were just costumes and not women who burned.

Angela doesn’t speak. Doesn’t blink. Just watches me with darkening eyes, lips parted around some unspoken truth:
You look like vengeance.
You look like the end of something.

I tilt my head—just slightly—and let the fluorescent light carve me into something even canon wouldn't recognize.
A girl made of blade and bone.
A funeral no one saw coming.

(Some dresses aren't fabric. They're declarations.)

I share a lingering look with Angela, heat radiating between us, before glancing at Jessica. "Hey Jess, are those channel pumps over there?" I point across the store.

Jessica perks up immediately, like a bloodhound catching scent. "Oh my god, where—?" Her gaze snaps toward the shoe rack before she even finishes the sentence, already halfway across the store in her quest for designer lookalikes.

Leaving Angela and me alone in a pocket of quiet. The air between us is thick with something unsaid—something electric. My fingers brush hers as I adjust the sleeve of my dress, lingering just a second too long to be accidental.

Her breath catches. And I smile.

(Some diversions are gifts. Some touches are promises.)

"I like the dress," Angela murmurs, breaking the silence. Her gaze trails over the lace on my sleeves, the hollow of my throat. Her fingers brush my skin like a whisper.

"It suits you."

I want to laugh. Or shiver. Or grab her and kiss her senseless.

Instead, I just smile like I'm not burning under her gaze. "You don't think it's too... witchy?"

Her thumb slides up to the high collar, brushing over my pulse. My breath does catch this time.

Angela's lips curve in a small, secret smile, as if she knows the fire she ignites beneath my skin. "I think you could make anything look deadly."

Her touch lingers, lingers, like she's tracing a spell of her own across my collarbone. My fingers flex against the cool, blank canvas of the dressing room wall—trying to ground myself against the dizzying heat of her gaze.

We should not be doing this here.

"Besides," she continues, fingers tracing a lazy path down to my hips. The dress suddenly feels like an obstacle. "I like watching you in black."

Her gaze lingers on my collarbone, the hollow of my throat. I swallow, trying to keep my breathing steady.

"Oh yeah?" My voice has a sharp edge. "Any particular reason why?"

Angela's smile goes just a touch wider, fingers slipping under my chin—tilting my head up to meet her gaze.

"Well, for one," she murmurs. Her thumb brushes over my bottom lip, leaving me shivering. "It makes your skin look like cream against lace."

I swallow again, harder this time. My mouth goes dry as her eyes dip lower, skimming over the high collar—down to the shadow between my breasts.

She steps closer. "And then there's this..."

I feel like a fly in a spider's web—trapped, frozen, completely ensnared. My heart is racing, breath coming out in little hiccups.

Angela's thigh slots between mine, knee pushing my legs apart slightly. My hands flex against the wall, wanting to touch her and not daring to.

She leans in, her lips just a breath away from mine. "When you dress like this, you look like every fantasy my catholic grandmother would warn me against."

We're so doing this here..

My fingers finally move—grabbing the front of her shirt, yanking her in with a noise halfway between a gasp and a growl. The dressing room mirror rattles as I shove Angela against it, our mouths crashing together in something messy and perfectly feral.

Somewhere beyond the curtain, Jessica's voice chirps obliviously—
"Ugh, why do these sizes never make sense? Bella, does this look like a six to you?"

Angela nips at my lip in retaliation for my distraction. My nails dig into her hips on instinct—because screw subtlety when we're already burning alive.

The flimsy partition shakes with every stifled sound we rip from each other’s throats. Canon is so dead. And damn if we aren’t dancing on its grave.

(God may judge. But He isn't the one pinned against the mirror.)

"Try it on," My voice called out as my hand found its way under Angela's skirt.

Angela's breath hitched just barely, her face flushing pink. Her hips tensed against my fingers, as if resisting the urge to rock against me.

"Right now?"

I smiled, teeth dragging against the curve of her jaw. "Is that a problem, church girl?"

Angela's eyes fluttered half-closed, head tipping back as my hand brushed against her in all the right places. "No," she breathed, her voice a strangled gasp. "No problem at all..."

"Good." My teeth found the sensitive pulse at the base of her neck, biting down with just enough force to make her writhe. "Then strip."

Jessica's voice floated in from outside, oblivious. "Ugh, why is the lighting always so awful—"

Angela's eyes flickered over the flimsy partition with thinly-veiled panic, her cheeks flaming. So innocent.

"Try plugging in one of the lamp displays," I spoke, sliding to my knees.

The dressing room floor is hard beneath my knees—rough carpet biting into skin as I sink lower. Angela’s breath comes sharp above me, fingers tangled in my hair like an anchor.

Jessica’s muffled voice drifts beyond the curtain: “They don’t even have outlets back here—”

Angela stifles a whimper with her own wrist as my mouth drags over lace. The flickering fluorescents hum like a choir of voyeurs while I rewrite every bible verse she was ever taught.

Angela shuddered as the cool air bit against her skin, my hands smoothing down her hips and thighs with aching slowness.

Jessica's voice drifts from outside, oblivious: "Oh, good idea. They have a few at the counter—I'll be right back!"

My fingers curl against the back of Angela's bare thigh, tugging her towards me with deliberate care. She gasps, her free hand clamping the front of the mirror like a warning.

"Please."

I bury my face into the heat of her thighs, kissing my way up to her already slick Vulva, kissing and licking as I resisted the urge to moan at her taste.

Angela makes a strangled noise above me, fingers fisting in my hair. The mirror behind her fogs with every ragged breath, her body pressed against it like a flower caught in amber.

Jessica's voice floats in from the distance—“You were right! There is a plug over here—”

Angela tumbles over the edge of the glass as I kiss her exactly where she needs it, her nails scratching desperately against the cool surface.

"God—" Her voice breaks, sharp as a whisper.
I smile just against her skin.
And say nothing.

"Are you sure the store manager is okay with me just plugging this in here?"

Jessica's voice is too close, just beyond the flimsy partition that separates us from the rest of the world. But my focus narrows to this: Angela, trembling against me and clinging to the mirror like a lifeline.

I know exactly how to keep her quiet. The world outside can wait.

"If it's not blocked, it's fine!" I pulled away for a moment, my voice rough as I held up my fingers. A silent demand, Angela knew by now, to suck.

Angela’s breath stutters—but she doesn’t hesitate. Her mouth closes around my fingers with devotion, tongue swirling over them in slow, practiced circles.

Jessica hums outside, the faint click of a lamp being plugged in barely audible over the pounding of blood between our ears.

Angela’s lips stretch around my fingers as I push deeper, her moan vibrating against my skin—filthy and perfect. The mirror behind us trembles with every choked sound she muffles for me.

(Canon would combust at the sight. Good thing we already burned it.)

"Oh, thank god, there we go." Jessica's voice is bright with relief in the background. "Now I can finally see..."

I close my eyes, breathing in the scent of sweat and heat and something like pine, trying to keep my body still. Angela's hips are shuddering against my grip like she's fighting the urge to move.

Outside, Jessica hums under her breath.

We stay perfectly still, barely breathing as if we weren't one wrong sound away from being discovered.

I stood up, guiding my fingers out of Angela's mouth and kissing her as she let out a stifled moan of her taste on my tongue.

Angela whimpers into my mouth, her hands gripping my waist as if I might disappear. Our tongues tangle in a messy, possessive dance—her own taste still lingering between us like sin.

From the other side of the curtain, Jessica’s voice floats in cheerfully: “Bella? Do you think this one looks okay?”

Angela pulls away just enough to glare at me through her lashes—like this is my fault for making her forget where we are. I grin against her lips and adjust my dress with deliberate slowness before calling back.

"It's perfect."

(Canon is dead. Long live ruin.)

There's a pause outside as Jessica hums in consideration, followed by the scrape of hangers and more rustling.

"This one's cute," Angela breathes as her fingers trail over the lace at my collarbones, tracing the high collar. Her touch is so faint, I'm left shivering beneath her and the cold fabric of my dress.

"But I'd look like a nun."

Another pause. Then Jessica's laugh. "Yeah, maybe a little."

My lips found their way down her throat as whispered praises left my lips, when my saliva-soaked fingers returned to their warm, arousal-filled Netherland.

Angela arches into me with a gasp, her hands scrabbling at the thin straps of my dress as I work my fingers back into her with slow, deliberate precision.

Jessica’s voice drifts in again—“Okay, I’m gonna try this on—don’t peek!”

The curtain beside us rustles as she moves to another dressing stall. Angela bites down on my shoulder to muffle the sound of her moan when I curl my fingers just so. The mirror fogs beneath our shared breath—her body trembling against me like a live wire.

I whisper against the shell of her ear.
“You look holier than any nun right now.”

Angela comes apart in my arms—silent, shaking, sacred in her ruin. Her teeth mark my shoulder where she bit down to keep from crying out. The taste of copper blooms between us like an unholy sacrament.

Jessica hums to herself just beyond the curtain, blissfully unaware that we’ve turned this fluorescent purgatory into a chapel of our own making.

When Angela finally catches her breath, she presses her forehead to mine—her lashes wet, lips swollen from kissing me quiet. "You're going to kill me one day," she whispers raggedly.

I thumb the pulse at her throat and grin like a blade:
"Pray harder."

(Jessica never asks why Angela buys that shapeless turtleneck five minutes later. Some miracles go unnoticed.)

The following day, rumors began circulating at school. The black dress wasn’t “cute.” It was wrong. Too heavy, too formal. I wore it anyway. Every fluorescent bulb seemed harsher, humming against my skin. Forks High stared and whispered. Edward’s stare burned hotter than all of them. His silence snapped taut, golden eyes darkening with every step I took down those linoleum halls.

Jessica clung to my side, chattering about who noticed, who cared. She wanted to ride the current of my difference. Angela walked quieter, but closer, brushing against me like a shadow.

Edward watches my every move like a hawk—his stare like acid whenever it trails over my skin. He looks pissed more than anything else. Like the sight of me in that dress is a personal offense.

Jessica follows me around like some kind of pet. She won't stop talking about how "badass" I've become like she's trying to convince herself. Angela stays close. Quiet. Just a shadow in the background, watching, always watching.

I'm surrounded on all sides. A queen amongst vultures.

The day passes like a surreal, twisted dream. I'm surrounded by gossip, stares, and a hunger I can't quite name. Edward's golden eyes are like a brand on my skin. Every time I turn around, he's there—a lurking shadow in the background, silent and staring.

Angela stays close as ever, a constant presence. Her gaze follows me like a secret vow, the air between us thick enough to taste.

The halls feel like a funeral procession. And in the midst of the dead, I feel alive like never before.

It's in the lunchroom that it all comes to a head. Jessica yaps about some gossip while I fork through my food, uninterested. She keeps glancing over her shoulder like she's making sure a certain vampire isn't within earshot.

She leans closer, leaning her chin on her hands. "Guess what I heard." She waggles her eyebrows conspiratorially.

I don’t even glance up from my tray. “That you’re two seconds away from choking on your own nosiness?”

Angela snorts into her water. Jessica gasps—offended, but not actually deterred. She barrels on, undeterred:

"Mike Newton told Lauren Mallory that Edward Cullen hasn't blinked in three days. And now she's telling everyone he's either a robot or government property."

A beat of silence. Then—
The scrape of a chair two tables over.

Edward stands abruptly, his eyes burning holes into the side of Mike Newton’s skull like he's calculating how many ways he could dismember him before the first scream. His jaw is clenched so tight it could shatter marble.

Jessica squeaks and shrinks back into her seat like she just realized poking bears is fatal. Angela just smirks into her napkin. And me?

I take a slow sip of my drink and finally meet Edward’s gaze over the rim—letting my lips curl in challenge.

(Play stupid games, Win vampire-induced terror.)

The bell rings, shattering the tension like glass. Jessica exhales sharply—as if she'd been holding her breath the entire time Edward stared us down. Angela casually gathers her books, but I catch the way her fingers tighten around them just slightly.

Edward vanishes before anyone can blink—because of course he does. The drama is getting old already.

But as we head to class, Jessica leans in again, unable to help herself. "Okay but seriously," she whispers too loudly for discretion, "do you think he's actually like... a secret agent?"

I pause mid-step and look at her dead-on.

"Worse." My lips twitch toward something viciously amused. "He’s a teenage boy with an ego problem."

Jessica bursts into laughter while Angela presses two fingers to her temple—like she’s both exasperated and fighting off a grin at my audacity.

Meanwhile, somewhere in this godforsaken school. Edward Cullen just snapped another pencil.

(Dangerous? Maybe. But ruining his mystique is half the fun.)

The halls buzz with it now—the Edward Problem. Whispers follow me like shadows:
"Did you see the way he looked at Bella?"
"I heard he can make teachers forget entire class periods."
"Robot. Definitely a robot."

Jessica preens like she's single-handedly uncovered Area 51, while Angela walks beside me with the quiet satisfaction of someone holding a lit match near gasoline.

And Edward? Oh, Edward is fuming. His usual brooding silence has sharpened into something jagged—like every human stare is a personal insult to his ancient vampire ego.

Good.
Let him unravel.
Let them all gawk.

Meanwhile, I adjust my black lace sleeves and smile at nothing in particular.

(Godspeed, Mike Newton. May your dumbass survive the week.)

Angela and Jessica have been attached at the hip since lunch. They talk like my new dress is some kind of social revolution—and not just an excuse to piss off a vampire with an ego as delicate as a spider's web.

Edward is watching. A silent observer from the other end of the hallway. No longer glaring, per se, but just...watching.

And his gaze is as dark as it is hungry. Like he's starving.

The cafeteria is a feeding frenzy today.

Jessica won’t stop whispering—loud enough for half the table to hear, quiet enough to feign innocence. “Lauren swears she saw Cullen vanish into thin air by the gym.”

Mike Newton shovels mashed potatoes into his mouth like an absolute heathen and adds, “Dude doesn’t even breathe during chem lab.”

Across from me, Angela stirs her yogurt with clinical precision before deadpanning. "Maybe he's a vampire."

The table erupts in laughter—loud, obnoxious, human. I don’t join in. But I do flick my gaze toward Edward’s usual perch by the window… only to find his seat empty. His shadows gone.

And then—the distinct sound of splintering wood from somewhere outside.

(Tick-tock, Cullen.
Your mystique is bleeding out.)

Jessica walks with me to Biology after lunch—babbling about new rumors with the eager delight of someone discovering a secret. Angela walks on my other side, unbothered as ever, but her gaze is dark and watchful like she knows exactly how things will go.

When the bell rings, we file into the room to find Edward already there—brooding like a brooding statue in the back of the room.

He still stares.
His gaze still burns—hotter now.
But not with anger.

Something else.

The bell rings. The class shuffles to life—students packing up backpacks, chairs scraping against the floor.

Edward is the only one who doesn’t move. He's still sitting there, frozen in place, with a half-crumpled pencil in one fist and a shattered lab table beneath the other. He just looks at me.

A warning? An apology? A dare?

Jessica glances back, curious. Angela grabs my bag and tugs me toward the door with a silent plea in her eyes. Don't bait the tiger, you lunatic.

That night, in my candlelit room.

I worked on my painting of Marcus. Emerald robes dripping like mold off marble skin. A hollow saint, grief eating his face. Beside the canvas, the black dress draped over my chair like a second body.

Angela’s dress—emerald, still etched into my vision—bled into Marcus’s robes until I couldn’t tell if I was painting him or her. Candle flames haloed the figure, flickering blasphemy. Saints, lovers, monsters: all interchangeable.

The paint clung to my fingers, green and black. The brush slipped, streaking across the canvas like a wound.

The paint on my hands isn’t just pigment—it’s a confession. Emerald and black smeared together like sin, dripping from my fingers onto the canvas where Marcus’s hollow gaze stares back at me. Or is it Angela? The lines blur until I can’t tell martyr from muse anymore.

The candlelight wavers, casting shadows that writhe across the room like specters. My brushes are scattered in disarray, some stiff with dried color, others still wet with fresh damnation. The black dress hangs limp over the chair—a corpse I haven’t buried yet.

Downstairs, Charlie coughs during a commercial break—a mundane sound that feels miles away from this shrine of mine.

I press my thumb against the canvas, smearing Marcus's jawline into something unrecognizable. A fitting end for a saint. A better beginning for me.

(Some paintings aren't art. They're autopsy reports.)

I pondered what the man was doing in Volterra.. Was he sitting upon his throne, zonned out, reliving memories too far away to see clearly, whilst Aro made a spectacle with his gift on some poor vampire? Was he in whatever Library they had, sifting through old scrolls with his brothers at his side? Or was he walking the streets of Italy in need of an escape from the duties?

It caused a dull ache within my heart at the thought of the sad man. I hadn't known why, but there was a dull thud within each beat of my body's heart. 

I wonder if Marcus knows he’s a ghost.
If he realizes his throne is just an ornate cage.
If the library scrolls smell like dust—or decay.

Three thousand years of grief, and all he has to show for it is a coven that worships his silence like a sacrament. Aro parades his power, Caius sharpens cruelty like a blade… and Marcus? Marcus drifts through the halls of that fortress like smoke—barely there at all.

The ache in my chest isn’t pity.
It’s recognition.

(Some sorrows don’t fade. They fossilize.)

That night, sleep took me like drowning.

I dreamed of Angela in emerald, her hands folded like prayer. Marcus stood behind her, his robe the same green, his face a mask of mourning. She turned to me, lips parted as though to confess—but no sound came. Just the buzz of fluorescent bulbs echoing even in my nightmare.

Edward lurked in the dream’s corner, eyes like knives, but when he tried to step closer, static swallowed him whole.

The dream lingers like a stain.
Angela in emerald, hands clasped—not in prayer, but pleading.
Marcus behind her, a hollow saint carved from the same grief.

Edward tried to slither into the frame like a parasite, but my subconscious spat him out like venom. Even my dreams reject his narrative now. Good riddance.

I wake with paint still crusted under my nails and Angela’s name bitter-sweet on my tongue.

(Funny how canon corpses
never stay buried.)

And the black dress still hung where I’d left it. Forks sunlight—weak, pale, holy—slanted across it. For a moment, it looked like a relic, something a pilgrim would kneel before.

And maybe they would.

Let them whisper. Let Edward break his silence on the sharp edge of his own restraint.

I had dressed myself for war.

Chapter Text

The night was a wound split open. Forks breathed damp mist that clung to my throat, streetlamps sputtering halos against the wet asphalt.

I left the house under the guise of a late errand—bread, milk, an excuse Charlie wouldn’t question. In truth, I wanted to walk in the dark, to feel the hum of danger in my veins.

Edward trailed me.

I didn’t need to see him; the static shift in the air announced him. Tires whispered on wet gravel one block behind. Headlights flickered, then cut out. The predator thought himself subtle.

Edward Cullen follows like a bad habit. His car purrs behind me, tires whispering over rain-slick pavement. He thinks himself stealthy—thinks I don’t feel the weight of his gaze like hands circling my throat.

Pathetic, really.

I slow my steps just to hear his engine idle in frustration.

Would he kill me out here? Would he dare? The Edward of canon would rather self-flagellate than lay a finger on me—but this version reeks of something darker, something hungry. Not for blood (though that may come) but for control.

Too bad for him I left mine at home with the scalpel in my pocket.

(Run along, little lion. The lambs are learning teeth.)

The night was heavy, a cloak of rain-soaked silk. The streetlamps flickered, throwing Edward's silhouette against the wet pavement. I could almost hear him holding his breath, every muscle coiled like an animal's.

His car idled at the curb, but he didn't emerge. He was waiting.

I smirked and lit a cigarette instead of playing into his scenario, his fantasy. The match flared, sulfur burning sharp, a saint’s candle against the fog. Smoke curled around me like a psalm. Let him watch me walk alone. Let him choke on the fact that I didn’t need him to save me.

The cigarette burns between my fingers—holy fire in the gloom. Edward’s silhouette trembles in the driver’s seat, his grip on the steering wheel so tight I can hear the leather creak from here.

He wanted a damsel?
I gave him a wraith instead.

Let him watch as smoke curls from my lips like blasphemy made flesh. Let his golden eyes trace every step I take without him, every drag of nicotine and rebellion he can’t touch.

The streetlight flickers above me—once, twice—before surrendering to the dark.

Somewhere beyond it, Edward Cullen learns a hard truth:
Not all shadows answer to monsters.

At the corner store, I bought nothing but a pretzel and black nail polish. The cashier didn’t meet my eyes. Outside, Edward’s shadow lingered.

He wanted me afraid. I gave him nothing.

The pretzel tastes like salt and rebellion. The nail polish sits heavy in my pocket—black as a vow, black as his soul. Edward’s shadow stretches long across the pavement, a stain he can’t wash away no matter how hard he glares.

Let him watch me paint my nails right here on the curb like I don’t feel his presence carving into my spine. Let him seethe when I blow on them to dry—slow, deliberate, unbothered.

The cashier locks the door behind me with palpable relief.
Edward’s knuckles whiten around his steering wheel.

And somewhere beyond Forks—somewhere beyond him—Marcus Volturi lifts his head from an ancient book…
…and smiles.

(Not all wars are fought with teeth. Some are won by stillness.)

The pretzel wrapper crinkles in my pocket as I walk. The smell of rain and asphalt mixes with fresh polish - lacquer like a knight's armor drying on my fingertips.

Edward's car hasn't moved. I can feel his gaze like physical weight between my shoulder blades, but the game has shifted now. His predator's stillness meets mine, and finds it matches.

I pause beneath a streetlight to examine my nails - black as Volterra stone, black as Marcus' mourning robes catching candlelight. Let him see this armor. Let him understand: Some prey stop running.

The night hums with possibility as I turn down Maple Street, footsteps steady despite the shadow trailing behind me.

Somewhere across an ocean, three kings keep their vigil. Here in Forks? A queen within her own right walks home alone.

(Checkmate comes in many forms. Tonight it wears nail polish.)

At home, I finished painting Marcus.

The emerald robe spread across the canvas like drowned velvet, candlelight flickering over his hollow eyes. His face was both ruin and sanctity—skin stretched thin like old parchment, expression serene as a monk in prayer. I found myself tracing the angles of his mouth with my brush as though it were scripture.

I wondered if he already knew me, if my name was written on a reliquary in some chapel below Volterra.

I whispered aloud "San Marcus." The candle hissed as if in answer.

Marcus' robes gleam beneath my hands, emerald thread weaving across the canvas like bloodstained prayers. His expression is serene, almost beatific—and I can sense the sanctity of his suffering even before I finish painting it.

My fingers trace the outline of his jaw, fingers stained with paint… and I find myself whispering like a saint in supplication: "Sanctus Marcus, martyr et sanctus."

The candle burns bright. Outside, the clock strikes midnight.

The green bleeds like a wound beneath my brush. Marcus’ eyes stare from the canvas—knowing, ancient. I wonder if he feels this too, that thread pulling taut across continents between his hollowed-out ribs and mine.

Candle wax pools on the desk beside me. Somewhere beyond Forks, beyond even Volterra’s gilded cages, perhaps Marcus lifts his head from whatever tomb he haunts… and listens.

I press my thumb to wet paint—leaving fingerprints in the saint’s robes like I have any right to mark him at all.
(But then again, don’t we all crave hands bold enough to ruin us properly?)

The candle gutters out just as Charlie’s snores rumble through the floorboards below.
Dawn will come soon.
But for now—there is only this...

A girl with paint-stained hands.
A king who never blinks.
And the space between them,
dripping holy and hungry,
like an open vein.

The following morning was thick with Edward. His gaze pinned me in biology, in the cafeteria, even in the parking lot where the rain washed oil-slick rainbows into puddles. His restraint was unraveling.

Angela sat close, her hand ghosting mine beneath the table. Her quiet devotion steadied me, though hunger twitched inside my chest. Not for her alone. For something darker. Something nameless.

So I tested it.

Edward stares like an obsession, a knife sharpened to a point. His restraint is slipping. I can feel it in his gaze, in the way he leans forward to watch me in class like I'm some kind of caged animal.
Angela is close, her hand lingering near mine as though to offer some kind of comfort. Her touch calms me, though the restlessness beneath my skin hasn't abated. It's something less mundane than hunger. Something darker, more nameless, like the taste of blood in the back of my throat

Eric Yorkie tripped over his own words when I brushed his sleeve, leaned close enough that my breath stirred the hair at his temple. He flushed to his ears. Mike Newton’s jaw clenched when I let my fingers linger on his wrist as I passed him a napkin.

They weren’t what I wanted, but their tremors fed me.

Eric's stuttering voice echoes between us. Mike's flushed face. I test them like a hunter tests the teeth of her knife, sharp and cold.

They aren't what I'm hunting for.
They're not what I'm waiting for.
But their tremors and blushes and shivers and blushes are still something.

I feed on their nerves like I can feed on anything.
And I know Edward sees.

His mouth is set in a grim line. His knuckles white around his pencil.

Eric's stuttering voice echoes between us. Mike's flushed face. I test them like a hunter tests the teeth of her knife, sharp and cold.

They aren't what I'm hunting for.
They're not what I'm waiting for.
But their tremors and blushes and shivers and blushes are still something.

I feed on their nerves like I can feed on anything.
And I know Edward sees.

His mouth is set in a grim line. His knuckles white around his pencil.

The world is hushed when biology ends.
Angela pauses on the threshold, her hand hovering near my arm. Edward glides past in a shadow of fury.
I pretend not to notice.

Outside, the air is close and humid. Clouds cover the sky, heavy with the promise of rain.

But Angela saw. Her eyes darkened with something—jealousy, fear, longing, I couldn’t name it. Later, when she came over under the excuse of studying, I kissed her the way I wrote poetry: jagged, raw, more wound than balm. She let me.

Edward must have heard her heartbeat stutter against mine.

In my room, Angela trembles beneath my touch. Her fingers slide up my ribs like bruises. Her lips brush my neck like the sharp edge of a vow.
I could break her without trying.

And Edward's listening.

I taste the salt of her skin. Kiss each of her fingertips. Bite her lip when she moans.
(I wonder if he's jealous. I wonder if he's watching.)

Angela’s pulse flutters against my mouth like a trapped bird. I map the places where her skin burns hottest—the dip of her collarbone, the hinge of her jaw. She arches into me with a gasp that Edward hears from miles away, teeth bared to the night like some feral thing.

Good.
Let him rot in it.

My fingers trace scripture down Angela’s spine—verses about hunger, about devotion sharp enough to draw blood between teeth. She shivers, clutching my waistband like an oath she doesn’t know how to keep yet.

Somewhere beyond Forks:
A king lifts his head from centuries of grief—listening.
Somewhere closer:
A lion paces outside his cage, snarling at shadows he can’t claim anymore.

(The best prayers aren't whispered. They're moaned.)

We kiss until the shadows thicken into night, until I can taste Edward's frustration simmering across town.

I mark Angela like something sacred—a saint's relics on my tongue. I drink her gasps like sacramental wine. Her pulse thrums against my lips like a vow.

Edward listens to all of it. He paces like a predator in the street below.

I don't care.

Angela is the only sainthood I want at the moment.

Let him hear the pleasure I give her, the moans she elicits from my own throat. And let him know he will never have this, never will he have the permission I've given her.

The bed creaks beneath us. Angela’s breath hitches as my teeth graze her pulse point—deliberate, slow. I let every sigh, every whimper bloom loud enough to taunt the predator lurking beyond my window.

Edward hears it all...
The slide of fabric pooling on the floor.
The bitten-off moan when my hand skims lower.
My name gasped against Angela’s lips like a prayer she never knew she needed.

He is starving outside in the dark, clinging to his so-called nobility like a fraying rope. Pathetic. Let him choke on it—on us. Let him ache with the knowledge that some hungers can't be sated by hunting alone…

Some cravings require surrender.

(Run along now, little lion. This feast isn't for you.)

By nightfall, I dreamed of Marcus’s hands folded in benediction, Edward’s shadow bleeding at the corners of the vision like mildew, and Angela’s breath still hot on my skin.

Between saints and predators, I was becoming something else entirely.

The dream sticks like resin—Marcus’s hollow hands raised in blessing, Edward’s silhouette rotting at the edges, Angela’s mouth still seared into my collarbone like a brand.

I wake with paint under my nails and venom on my tongue.

Somewhere, Marcus tilts his head as if sensing the shift—a new player on his chessboard. Somewhere, Edward paces with golden eyes gone black with hunger he can no longer deny. And here? Here I stand between them both:
A girl sharpening her teeth on their obsessions.
A storm they never saw coming.

(Let them kneel. Or let them burn.)

Chapter Text

The pen jerks in my hand as though pulled by invisible strings. Ink spatters like blood across the page.

I don’t mean to write about them—but the Volturi seep through anyway. Marcus’ eyes, hollow as catacombs. Aro’s hand raised like benediction. Caius pale as a skull beneath candlelight. The words appear in a script I don’t recognize, like something older than me is whispering through the marrow of my bones.

Reliquary. Eucharist. Throne of ash. Crown of thorns.

The ink bleeds without my permission.

Marcus— his name carves itself into the paper like a blade through vellum, dark and deep. His sorrow stains every line, seeps between syllables like wine soaking an altar cloth.

Aro’s fingers twitch in the margins, spectral and grasping.
Caius grins from the white space, teeth bared in something too sharp to be human.

This isn’t my handwriting anymore—it’s theirs. A script older than my bones, older than Forks, older than saints or hunger or mercy. I am just the vessel shaking beneath its weight.

(Some stories aren't told. They possess.)

Marcus… Aro… Caius… Their names spill across the page like a litany: an endless litany of names, a litany of kings. Kings of what, I can only guess.

Something stirs in the back of my mind—a voice I can’t make out, an echo like a buried whisper. I almost reach for my pens again:
To write, to listen. But the voice comes in a wordless hum instead—ancient, implacable, and insistent like an itch beneath my skin.

My pulse stutters. I blot the ink, but the page drinks it down greedy as soil after rain.

Somewhere beyond Forks, I imagine a candle flickering in Volterra. Somewhere, Marcus tilts his head, listening. Perhaps with Cauis somewhere near, muttering ancient curses as a scroll or two rolls off their table. Maybe Aro is there somewhere, stalking the old shelves... as one of their guard reports to them.

The girl beyond the forest.

Those words ring in my bones like church bells chiming for midnight mass.
A new player on this chessboard.

In my peripheral, Edward’s shadow stirs like an unwelcome guest.
Danger, some distant voice hisses.
Yes.
A new power.
A pawn to use.

In the back of my mind, a whisper shivers:
Or a piece to capture.

I wake to the whisper of snow falling like feathers. The bedroom is still, a tomb of midnight hours.

Outside, the forest rustles in a quiet wind. The trees shiver—a rustling that reminds me of Marcus’s cloak, shifting silent as fog.

A new queen on the board, the forest sighs.

Mind reeling from the happenings of the night, I dress and make my way downstairs in the hopes of breakfast before mine and Charlie's weekly fishing trip, only to find that Charlie doesn’t wish to fish this time.
Instead, he slings a rifle over his shoulder and says, “C’mon, Bells. Gonna teach you something worth knowing.”

"what?"

Charlie adjusts his hunting jacket, his rifle resting over his shoulder like another limb.

"This," he says, "is what we men call 'buck season.' We're going hunting."

Charlie doesn’t ask if I want to go. He just knows—the way fathers know when daughters need something sharper than fishing lines and small talk. The rifle’s weight is foreign in my hands, but the thrill that races up my spine when I sight down the barrel? That feels like coming home.

Somewhere in the woods, a twig snaps. Edward Cullen isn’t the only predator here today.

(Let him smell gunpowder on my hands. Let him taste fear for once.)

"Yeah, alright," I say, grabbing my jacket and a pair of gloves...

And when we drive out past the tree line, dew still clinging to the ferns. He talks while loading shells with the easy rhythm of someone born to it—and I learn that his grandfather- My Great-grandfather, had fought in WWII, amongst jungle skirmishes, lessons passed down like inheritance. Guerrilla warfare, he calls it. Ambush. Patience. The art of letting the enemy think they’re the hunter.

The rifle feels heavier now—not with weight, but history. Charlie’s hands move over the bullets like they’re rosary beads, each one a whispered prayer from trenches and jungles I’ll never see.

"Wait for the shot to come to you," he says, and suddenly I understand:
This isn’t just about hunting.
It’s about bloodlines.
It's about turning prey to predator in a single breath.

Somewhere beyond these trees, Edward Cullen stiffens—aware for the first time that he might be in someone else’s crosshairs.

(Every dynasty starts with a girl learning to aim.)

Charlie loads another shell with hands that have known war. The forest holds its breath around us, dawn light cutting through the ferns like shards of stained glass.

"Your great-granddad survived Iwo Jima with two bullets and a knife," he says, voice rough as bark. "Said the real fight wasn’t in the shooting—it was in making the other guy think you weren’t there at all."

I press my cheek to the rifle stock, cold metal against skin. The scope’s crosshairs tremble—then steady.

Edward would hear the shot from miles away.
He wouldn’t hear me coming at all.

(Predators hate this truth: The best hunters don’t make a sound.)

The forest breathes with us—still, waiting. Charlie’s voice is a murmur beneath the pines: "Aim small, miss small." The scope’s world narrows to one trembling leaf, one shaft of light. My finger curls around the trigger like it was made to.

Edward would hear the bullet leave the barrel before I even fired.
But he wouldn’t hear my breath in the wind.
Wouldn’t smell gun oil over wet earth and fir needles masking my skin.

Forks thinks it knows monsters?
Let them learn what real stealth looks like.

(Hunting lesson #1: The quietest things cut deepest.)

Bang.

The gunshot shatters the forest quiet--the sound a shock through the trees. Birds flutter wild, startled out of cover. Charlie lays a steady hand on my shoulder. I can almost hear a grin in his voice.

"Damn,” he mutters, eyes searching the trees.
"Good shot."

And the woods settle into an uneasy quiet—the silence between predator and prey.

The recoil still hums in my bones. My hands don’t shake—they remember now. Charlie’s pride is a quiet thing, wordless as the bloodied buck strung up between two pines.

Edward will smell this: gunpowder and iron soaking into damp earth. He’ll hear the way my pulse thrums—not with fear, but certainty. Let him taste it like poison on his tongue. Let him choke on the realization:

Some prey learn to bite back.

(Hunting lesson #2: Even saints carry bullets.)

We drive back to the house with the radio humming. The woods are quiet behind us. Charlie drives with one hand, eyes watchful for a flicker of fur.

Edward may have heard the shot, or scented the buck’s cooling corpse. He might even be pacing in front of the house like a restless lion.

My skin prickles—a shiver between my shoulder blades. Something tells me I won’t have to seek him out after all.

He’ll find me, soon enough.

“Sometimes,” Charlie mutters, eyes on the trees, “the trick’s letting ‘em circle you. Makes you look weak. But the second they relax—that’s when you gut ‘em.”

I think of Edward’s headlights stalking me through the rain.
I think of Marcus’ quiet smile.
I wonder which kind of hunter I am supposed to be.

Charlie’s words linger like smoke in the truck cab—let them think you’re prey until their guard drops. I chew on this truth, let it settle deep.

Edward is circling. Marcus waits in shadows older than scripture. And me?
I am the knife being sharpened between them all.

Let Edward stalk my scent through Forks like a starving wolf; his hunger only makes him sloppier. Let Marcus watch from his throne of ashes; saints love a girl with blood under her nails.

The house looms ahead—windows dark, porch light flickering.
No cars idling in the driveway yet…
But oh, they’re coming.

(Hunting lesson #3: The best traps are baited with patience.)

The house is too quiet when we return. Charlie hangs the buck in the shed, its glassy eyes catching moonlight like accusation. I wash my hands three times, but the scent clings—copper and pine resin, wildness dried under my nails.

Edward will come tonight.
I know this like I know the weight of a scalpel in my pocket.

Let him try his hypnotic golden stare on a girl who’s stared down gun barrels and saints today. Let him whisper pretty lies about protection while my skin still thrums with buck’s-blood courage.

Marcus would appreciate the irony:
How quickly hunters become haunted.

(Final lesson: No one survives life with their innocence intact. Learn to strike before you get struck.)

The following Monday, within the confines of the cafeteria, the noise hummed low, as oil-slick chatter over trays of mystery meat.
Eric nearly drops his fork when I lean in close, whisper something meaningless in his ear. He flushes crimson, a living candle. Mike watches from across the table, his jaw tight, his hands fisted on the laminate.

The cafeteria reeks of grease and teenage desperation. Eric’s pulse jumps under the brush of my breath—so easy to unravel with just a tilt of my head, a half-lidded glance. Mike grinds his teeth loud enough to hear, grip white-knuckled around his tray.

Edward watches from his usual distance, statue-still in that absurdly perfect way of his. His gold eyes burn black at the edges today—hunger or fury, who can tell? Doesn’t matter.

Let him watch how effortlessly I pull their strings. Let him choke on this truth: I don't need fangs to make boys bleed.

(The Volturi would be proud. Caius especially.)

The cafeteria thrums like a wounded animal—Eric’s flustered laughter, Mike’s barely-contained snarl, Jessica’s narrowed eyes dissecting every glance I don’t bother to hide. Across the room, Edward is marble-still, his knuckles bleached white around his untouched tray.

Good. Let him seethe. Let him count every heartbeat I steal from these boys like pennies tossed at a saint’s feet.

Caius would smirk at the messiness of it all.
Marcus? He’d recognize this for what it is—
A girl learning to wield her own damnation.

(Funny thing about pawns: they never realize they're bleeding until it's too late.)

But Aro?

Aro would appreciate this—the way I make chaos with nothing but a glance, the way their hearts stutter when I lean in close. He’d tilt his head, amused, fingers twitching as if already itching to press against my temple and see the exquisite cruelty of it all.

Because this? This is his kind of game.
Not brute force like Caius.
Not mourning like Marcus.

No—this is power in its purest form:
The moment before the knife drops.
The second they realize they were never the hunter at all.

And Edward? Oh, he feels it too—that sickening lurch as he finally understands: I am no lamb. I am worse.

(Checkmate tastes sweetest when they never saw you coming.)

Later, in the library, I let my fingers trail Mike’s wrist when I hand him a book. His breath stumbles. Eric fumbles his notes, pages scattering like feathers. Their nerves taste sharp—metallic, almost edible.

Background noise.
Static.
But it steadies me, the way saints finger their rosaries when the silence gets too loud.

And all the while, Edward watches.

Mike’s pulse stutters beneath my fingers. He mumbles a flustered thanks, eyes darting anywhere but my face. Eric turns to hide the burn in his cheeks, nearly dropping his notes onto the library floor in his haste.

Static.
Cattle.

Behind them all, Edward’s gaze is a heavy weight, watching me gather power in the quiet.
His mouth is a thin line, jaw taut as piano wire.

He looks hungry or furious.

Maybe both.

"You're welcome," I murmured, locking eyes with Mike.

Mike mutters something—words lost in the hum of the library. His eyes dip to my mouth, then snap back up to my eyes as fast as a gunshot, as though afraid of what else he might find.

I lean in close—not because I want to, but because I can.
Because he will turn pink like a struck match, because he’ll let me, because he’s nothing to me but practice.

Edward doesn’t even bother to disguise his glare. I can almost see the snarl on his perfect lips.

Mike flushes at the whisper of my breath, the proximity an invasion he cannot escape. Even from across the table, Edward’s gaze is a brand—his golden eyes burning black with fury, jaw set in a grim grimace.

Good. Let him suffer.

I touch Mike’s wrist, linger. Let my fingers trail over his skin just long enough to feel his heartbeat stumble. Just long enough for Edward to catch the hitch in his breath.

The air between them smoulders.

"See you in history," I pull back as the bell rings, a faint smirk on my lips. 

Mike fumbles his books, nearly dropping them again. His lips stutter a farewell, eyes locking with mine then dropping away like a scolded child.

Edward's gaze follows like the sun—a scalding heat that nearly blisters, his whole body rigid in an effort to keep himself still.

In biology, I move to sit with Angela. His eyes carve me open. I imagine the inside of his head—shards of restraint rattling like glass about to shatter.

She’s mine.
I could end this—
Why won’t she let me in?

I feel his frustration slam against the static walls of my skull. Sparks skitter. Ink-static. I almost laugh. My mind is my cathedral. He claws at the door and finds only scripture nailed shut.

Angela’s hand ghosts over mine beneath the table, grounding me. Edward sees. His pencil snaps in half.

By nightfall, my journal is full of relics and prayers. Phrases that don’t belong to me. Sketches of Marcus’ hollow hands folded in eternal benediction.

The candle gutters low.

I whisper “Sanctus Marcus.”

Somewhere beyond oceans, I swear something stirs.

The pages are damp with something older than me. Reliquary. Obedience. Bones of saints. My hand moves without thought, sketching Marcus' fingers—pale as death, draped in silk like a corpse on display for worshipers to touch and weep over.

Edward seethes in the dark somewhere, unheard but felt, his anger useless against the distance I carve between us inch by ink-stained inch. Let him choke on it all—on Angela’s devotion, Mike’s hunger, Eric’s stuttering admiration... And this:

The candle drowns itself in wax just as my pen traces one last word across the paper—

VENITE ADOREMUS.

(Some altars aren't meant for kneeling.
They're built for burning.)

Chapter Text

The whispers came before dawn.

I awoke with ink dried against my cheek, her notebook splayed like a broken jaw on the bed. Candle stubs guttered on my nightstand. In the mirror, Caius. Had I not known better, I would have mistaken the reflection for what it seemed and not what it was, not painted, not framed, only there. His white fire was like a flame refusing to go out. On the easel, Marcus. Emerald robe heavy, his eyes already dimming into her.

I thought I'd heard a word in the air, the kind that did not belong to English. Adoramus. Not learned, not earned. It hissed through my half-sleep like scripture spoken by someone behind my shoulder.

I didn’t turn.

The shadows writhed before me like living things, whispers curling around the room like incense in a chapel. Adoramus.

Caius smiles from the glass, face like alabaster and hair like snow. He was a painting come to life, a statue bleeding ink and paint. Only when I spoke, his smile broadened—a crack in ice, a knife through flesh. His voice was a rasp, a whisper—like pages turning.

"My Queen,” Caius murmured. His eyes gleam like embers, his fingers twining at his chest as if in prayer. He spoke the language of cathedrals.

"Come worship."

The candlelight flickers, painting Caius’ reflection in hues of gold and shadow—alive, unholy, watching. His voice slithers through the dark in a language that carves into my bones:

"Adoramus te."

I don’t move. Don’t blink. The air thrums with something older than fear—older than saints or vows or him. The easel creaks; Marcus’ painted eyes gleam wet as fresh wounds in the gloom.

Edward Cullen is nothing compared to this.
His fury is a child’s tantrum next to their hunger.
Their whispers are scripture written in my blood now.

(They say kings are made by coronation.
I think they're carved from altars.)

Caius paces the room’s shadowed corners, his feet gliding over the floor like ice on glass. He stops at the foot of my bed, a hand hovering at the edge of the duvet as though longing to touch. His words are a whisper in my veins.

"Adoramus."

I watch my breath shiver in the dark.
Marcus stares.
Caius prowls nearer, the whisper still like prayer in his mouth, the word curling through the room.

"Adoramus."

I don’t dare breathe. Don't dare move as Caius crouches by the bed, fingers inches from the sheets.

"My Queen," he breathes. This close, the air tastes faintly of copper and iron; I wonder if he even breathes at all, or if the ancient kings breathe the same way I do. His hand twitches at the edge of the sheet, fingers twitching towards my leg.

"Come," he repeats, something like hunger in his eyes.

I swallow. He has not touched me, not yet, but my blood feels drawn towards his fingers as if it can taste the danger of him.

His voice is a razor—soft and cold and cutting. "Come."

This time, I stand.

My body moves before my mind can protest. The floor is cold under my bare feet, the air thick with the scent of old books and something darker—copper, incense, hunger. Caius does not smile as I rise to meet him. His fingers twitch at his sides like a wolf restraining its claws.

Behind him, Marcus watches from the canvas—silent as a tomb, eyes half-lidded in something between sorrow and recognition.

Edward’s jealousy is a candle compared to this wildfire.
The Volturi don’t ask.
They claim.

(What fools we are, to think we choose our own damnation.)

Caius does not reach for me—not yet. His presence alone is a vise around my ribs, his breathless stillness more commanding than any touch. His voice curls like smoke:
"You were born to be crowned."

Behind him, Marcus’ painted gaze flickers—something ancient stirring beneath the pigment. Aro’s absence hums between us like a third heartbeat.

Edward thinks he owns the night?
Let him try to claim me from them.

(Some thrones aren’t meant for sitting. They’re built for kneeling.)

Caius does not touch me—not with hands.
His voice is enough. It coils around my spine like venom, like scripture, like the slow drag of a blade between ribs. "Kneel," he murmurs, and my bones obey before my mind can scream.

Marcus watches from his portrait—mourning or approving, I can’t tell. The paint of his robes gleams wet as a fresh wound in the candlelight.

Edward Cullen dreams of possession?
The Volturi are possession.
Flesh and faith and fangs—all their dominion.

(They don’t ask for surrender. They take it from your still-breathing throat.)

"ᴮᵉˡ⁻"

"You first." The words were barely able to leave my lips, as a hand clapped onto my shoulder.

"..𝑩𝒆𝒍𝒍-... 𝑩𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒂!"

I gasped my body was yanked back as the freezing sting of cold air nipped at my bare feet, and the cold, hard ground offered no comfort. I was in the woods behind the house, and Charlie had been the one to wake me.

"-Nearly scared me half to death, kid, must've been sleep walking.. come on, let's get you warmed up," Charlie said, guiding my back to the house, but my eyes didn't stray from my icy hands.

It felt so real. Had it only been a dream?

A faint ringing still echoes in my ears, words of another language like an echo in my skull. My body thrums with something not quite awake, a restlessness that refuses to fade.

Charlie guides me back to the house, one hand still gripping my shoulder. The night air is cold enough to see my breath, but my thoughts stay with the words of the dream—adoring, belonging, begging. What could it have meant?

It feels like hours until we're back at the house, my body prickling with cold. Charlie opens the back door, and the warm air is like a shock against my skin.

The warmth of the house feels foreign—too bright, too human. Charlie rambles about calling Doctor Cullen as I rub my hands together, but all I can hear is the whisper still clinging to my skin.

Adoramus.

And when I glance at the mirror, for just a second—
Caius’ smirk lingers in the glass like smoke.

(Some dreams aren’t dreams at all.
They’re promises.)

The kettle whistles in the kitchen, too shrill for this hour. Charlie moves around me like I’m made of glass—careful, uncertain. His voice is a distant hum beneath the static still roaring in my skull.

Adoramus.

The word won’t leave my skin. It lingers in the creases of my palms, seeps into every shallow breath I force myself to take. Was it a dream? A warning? A summons?

And then there are my hands—still faintly blue at the fingertips despite the warmth of homecoming...
As if something unseen had gripped them tight enough to bruise.

(They say frostbite numbs before it burns. Maybe devotion works the same way.)

The morning following, the event was a weary one... Charlie took the morning off from work and let me stay home from school. Perhaps it was concern. Or perhaps it was something else that made him eye the woods beyond the windows as though they'd personally insulted our shared bloodline.

Charlie doesn’t say much—just nurses his coffee like it’s the last lifeline to sanity. His eyes keep flicking to the treeline, jaw working like he’s chewing on a curse.

I wonder if he knows.
If some part of him—some primal, hunting instinct—feels them watching back.

The Volturi don't just haunt dreams.
They stain reality.

(Funny how fear works. Even wolves smell smoke before they see fire.)

Charlie finally breaks the silence between us—the words harsh as broken glass.

"You scared the hell out of me last night,"

It's not an accusation. Just the truth. He has a look in his eyes like he knows something is wrong.

"Sorry, Dad." The words left my lips with a weary sigh, the lack of proper sleep gnawing at the edges of my bones. "I was asleep, I didn't know I was walking into the woods."

Charlie's voice is rough, like sandpaper against my sleep-deprived senses. He's not angry. Just worried, a parent searching the shadows for a predator even he doesn't understand.

"You don't usually sleepwalk."

I stare into my coffee. The dark liquid doesn't offer any clues, just my reflection—eyes too wide, skin too pale. "I guess I had a nightmare," I mutter, as though that explains anything.

Charlie studies me like I’m a crime scene he can’t quite piece together. My excuse hangs limp between us—just a nightmare. As if nightmares leave footprints in frost. As if they taste like copper and sacrament on your tongue when you wake.

The woods outside stay too still. No wind, no birds—just waiting. Like they’re watching to see if I’ll slip again... If I'll wander back into their grasp.

(Some doors, once opened, don't close so easily.)

The silence between Charlie and me isn’t just silence—it’s loaded. Like a gun half-cocked. He watches me stir my coffee like the spoon might reveal something, his cop instincts humming beneath the surface.

“You don’t usually sleepwalk.”
No. I don’t.

But since when has usual applied to me?
Since when have my nights belonged solely to me?

The woods are too quiet outside the window. Not even a rustle of leaves. As if the trees themselves are holding their breath—waiting for me to step back into their grasp, back into their world.

(Problem with nightmares? Sometimes they follow you into daylight.)

Charlie doesn’t mention the sleepwalking after that. Just keeps a watchful eye like a hunter patrolling the woods for wolves—ready to shoot at shadows.

I don't mention my dreams, either. They're too sharp in my mind—too real, with a copper scent that clings to my skin even after my eyes open.
Some people would call it madness. But I call it a blessing.

A blessing, for those who walk the line between worlds.

And it's the following evening, I lock myself in my room and tie my hand to my bed. I woke up with faint marks on my wrist, proof I'd nearly left my bed unknowingly during the night, though I do not remember dreaming of them again... 

But the memory lingers.
Even in daylight, every shadow feels a bit darker, like a predator just waiting to strike. Every glance over my shoulder feels like a warning, a whisper to run.

Even the moon seems like a mockery—full and bright through my window, as if mocking me. You're still here.

I wish it were a new moon instead. With no moon, there'd be fewer shadows.

A new moon would mean less light. Less opportunity to get lost, too. I lie awake in my bed as the moon climbs past the trees, a pale orb in a sea of black.

Something whispers my name—so quiet it might just be the wind.

It takes every ounce of willpower to stay put.

Just a dream, I tell myself, as though repetition can make anything true. But the wind still carries those whispers, and the trees hold their breath.

The waiting is the hardest part.

My days hadn't been any different, wake up, drown in coffee, school, home, Angela, dinner with Charlie, Bed with their painted eyes watching...

I needed sleep and a distraction, so after school ended one Friday, I ventured to Port Angeles, browsing the shops. It was by the following Monday that I had a job in a small Bookstore. 

The store was dim, cramped, heavy with dust and old glue. It smelled like rain-wet carpet, a graveyard of paper. 

The shop’s name is Blackbird Books—ironic, considering the dust and mildew cling like a funeral shroud. The owner, Mr. Adler, squints at me through round spectacles thicker than bottle glass. He doesn’t ask why a girl like me wants to work here—just hands me a pricing gun and points to stacks of yellowed paperbacks with cracked spines.

"Alphabetize by author," he rasps before vanishing into the backroom.

It’s perfect.
No one comes here except college kids hunting rare philosophy texts and elderly women who smell of lavender and camphor. No Jessica Stanley-types giggling over magazines. No Mike Newton hovering like an eager puppy… And most importantly? No Edwards.

Just silence—and the occasional whisper of pages turning somewhere in the stacks.

(Funny how some sanctuaries reek of decay.)

After all, the distraction was welcome... along with the accompaniment of a paycheck, and not an allowance, was not a total loss.

What caused me to falter slightly was that, midway through my shift, I saw an unexpected face clock in, taking up position behind the counter. Only blinking when his eyes landed on me once I'd resumed stocking books.

The boy, not a man—Riley Biers. Senior, baseball cap half-cocked, smile too loose for his own face.

“Hey. You go to Forks, right?”

I didn’t answer at first. Just pausing to watch the nervous way his hand tapped the register. Easy prey.

Finally, “Yes.”

“Thought so. You’re Swan, right? I’m Riley.”

His name landed like something provisional, a placeholder. I could already see him vanishing, see him becoming something else. His eagerness was raw meat.

"Bella's fine," I said, straightening up.

Riley’s gaze followed me as I moved down the row, a puppy on an overly-long leash. What a waste, I thought uncharitably as he trailed behind me.

He wasn’t hideous looking. Even the backward cap couldn’t take that from his strong jaw or sharp gaze. He could be beautiful... if he took off the damn cap.

"I've seen you in school," he offered, as I sorted a book. "You're hard to miss."

"Am I?" I raised a brow.

"Uh... yeah," Riley said, rubbing the back of his neck. His smile was nervous but steady—like he was trying too hard to be suave.

"Pretty girl like you... you stand out."

"Pretty girls get noticed all the time," I murmured, sliding the book onto the shelf. I could feel his gaze on the back of my neck as I reached for the next one. "I doubt I'm special."

Riley shuffled in place, shifting his weight back and forth between his feet. His fingers fiddled with a silver ring on his finger as he said.

"You're pretty in a.. different kind of way."

What a charming way to phrase it.

I pretended not to notice his nervous fidgeting as I slid the next book into place. "Different how?"

Riley’s eyes dart like trapped flies between my face and the shelves—as if looking at me directly might burn him. "You're just... not like other girls here," he mumbles, half-shrugging, as though that explains anything.

I almost laugh.
Not like other girls.
As if I don't hear that every time some boy thinks unique is a compliment instead of a warning label.

But then Riley does something unexpected—he pulls off his cap, running a hand through sweat-damp hair with a sigh. For the first time, his voice doesn’t sound rehearsed:
"You look like someone who’s already seen the worst of people."

Now that, I didn’t expect.

(Funny how often boys mistake scars for mystique.)

"And if I have?" My words linger in the air between us as the image of him manipulating newborn vampires for Victoria in the future came to my mind.

Riley hesitated, his fingers stilling against the book spine. His expression flickered—somewhere between curiosity and something sharper, like recognition.

"Then you'd know," he said carefully, voice dropping low enough that Mr. Adler wouldn't overhear from the back room, "that people like us... We don’t stay unnoticed for long."

The words settled between us—not quite a threat, not quite an offer. Just a quiet truth neither of us could deny.

(Funny thing about monsters. They recognize their own.)

An understanding formed between us

He showed me the back room. Stacks of unsorted books, a cracked coffeepot, light humming in broken pulses.

“You read a lot?” he asked.

My laugh was thin. “Constantly.”

And just like that, I had another orbiting me. Not Angela’s devotion. Not Edward’s hunger. But a boy who might follow might bend.

The back room's quiet was an odd kind of comfort. Light trickled through an old, dirty window, painting the room like a chapel. Books crowded every wall, their yellowing pages breathing dust with each breath.

Riley settled on the floor, spreading his legs across the worn carpet. His fingers ran along a book spine as he asked, "... What do you like to read?"

I leaned back against the wall, studying him in his element. His cap hung over his knee, giving him a more serious look.

"A little bit of everything," I said simply. "History, philosophy... a lot of true crime."

Riley's gaze flicked in my direction. "True crime, huh? So you like being scared."

"I like learning," I corrected, rolling a loose thread between my fingers. "Sometimes that means being scared."

Riley turned his head to look at me. His eyes were dark in the low light, calculating. There was an intelligence in his gaze that he usually hid beneath a cap and false grins. He seemed like a different person in this room.

"You think you learn useful things from reading all that dark stuff?" He asked, drumming his fingers on a pile of hardcovers.

"Maybe," I said, watching his restless fingers. "I'll let you know once I've read it all."

Riley chuckled, the sound rich and rough in the cramped room. "Good luck with that, princess."

Riley’s laugh is dark honey—too smooth for a boy who wears backward caps and fidgets like prey. Princess. The word lingers, sticky between us. I should hate it.

But his fingers pause mid-drum against the book spine when our eyes meet again—measured, assessing. Like he knows exactly what kind of chess piece I am before I’ve even moved.

And suddenly, Port Angeles doesn’t feel like an escape anymore…
It feels like a new game starting.

(Pawns never realize they’re being played until checkmate.)

In school, I continued with my ongoing games. Brushing against Eric’s wrist when passing his tray. It clattered, apples rolling like marbles across the floor. Jessica laughed sharp, high. Eric flushed, eyes fixed on Bella as if she’d branded him. I smiled—small, surgical. 

Eric flubbed a few more fumbles after that—stumbling over his words in class, missing passes on the field, knocking over his books in the hall. I almost felt bad for him, the way he kept stumbling. Like a puppet with its strings cut.

Almost.

Jessica was less than amused by the change. I caught her glaring at me across the cafeteria, scowling as she watched Eric turn into a blushing, clumsy fool.

The pity almost made me lose my lunch. Jessica, for all of her faults, was usually sharp-witted and well-spoken. Watching her reduced to a jealous, fuming creature—all because of a boy and his clumsy crush—seemed almost pathetic.

Or how, within the confines of the library,

Mike leaned over my shoulder, breathing too loudly. I whispered without lifting my gaze from the page, “You don’t even know what you want.”

His face twitched, caught between boyish defense and something baser. He muttered a half-scripted canon line—something about looking out for me.

I cut it in half with one look. Cold, sharp. He stepped back, shaken.

Mike’s retreat was almost comical—like a dog yanked back by an invisible leash. For all his posturing, he crumpled under the weight of my silence.

Angela observed this from her usual corner of the library, fingers steepled beneath her chin. She didn’t smile. Just watched—as if calculating how many more pawns would fall before I grew bored with this game.

(The problem with chess? Even queens get tired of moving in straight lines.)

But that hadn't been all I had returned to..

Not at all, I now noticed Riley where I hadn't before. walking through the halls, His locker across the hall from my own. His history class was across from my own. It was small things such as these that shook me from my previous beliefs that I had once held.

The Cullens, the group, were mere footnotes in this story, and now that the stings were severed, a new one was beginning to take shape.

Riley didn't seem surprised when I caught him watching from down the hall. If he cared for the gossip, he didn't show it. His face was a smooth, pale mask—a face he wore too well.

His expression didn't change when I locked eyes with him as I shut my locker. He leaned up against his own, arms crossed as he waited—patient, like he knew he had my attention already.

I let him hold it for a moment. Then I turned and walked away.

Riley doesn’t follow. He stays rooted at his locker, the ghost of a smirk curling at the edge of his lips—like he knows this isn’t over. Like we're both waiting to see who blinks first.

The Cullens might have been footnotes once, but Riley?
He’s shaping up to be an entire chapter.

(Funny how the quiet ones always hear the most.)

The air in the parking lot smelled of exhaust and damp gravel. Eric hovered too close. I leaned in, my breath ghosting his ear, mouth hovering at the edge of a kiss. He shook.

Mike’s hand touched my shoulder, clumsy, pleading. I let it linger a moment—long enough to let him believe—before stepping back. Both boys left staring, hollow-eyed, aching for something they couldn’t name.

They were practice runs. Training dummies. Pale imitations of Edward’s stalking hunger.

Their reactions came easily and with prediction. 

Mike stammered. Eric fumbled. The familiar dance of high school boys, tripping over themselves to get my attention.

Pathetic.

I held back a sigh. The more I watched, the more I felt like the only grown-up in a room full of children.

And then there was the one watching in the shadows.

Riley leaned back against a tree, a half-smoked cigarette in one hand. He was silent, for once not trying to get a rise out of me. Just watching.

A silent, dangerous player, I thought. The kind of challenge that made this game worth playing.

His fingers played idly with the cigarette, ash dropping like flecks of pale snow to the ground. He inhaled slowly, thoughtfully. I watched his mouth form a tight, hard line around the cigarette, the same as in the back room at Blackbird.

Catching me staring, he lifted an eyebrow as if to challenge me.

What are you going to do, princess?

I held his gaze, refusing to flinch.

He took another inhale off the cigarette, the ember dancing before his lips. The smoke curled, acrid, between us.

And then he shrugged. A slight, careless shift of his shoulders—as if to say, your turn.

The cigarette dangles between Riley’s fingers like a punctuation mark—waiting, taunting. He exhales, slow and deliberate, watching the smoke curl toward me like an invitation. Or a dare.

Mike stumbles through another half-formed excuse behind us. Eric mutters something about practice. Their voices blur into static—irrelevant, unnecessary. All that exists in this moment is Riley’s unbroken stare and the smirk playing at the edge of his lips as he flicks ash onto the pavement with bored precision.

I step forward.

He doesn’t move—just arches a brow when I pluck the cigarette from his grasp without breaking eye contact. The filter is warm where his mouth had been seconds ago; my lips press against it as I take a shallow drag before handing it back with exaggerated disinterest. Your turn. His grin sharpens at our little game of chicken played out in nicotine and exhales.

(Funny thing about players: They always forget they can be played too.)

Riley’s smirk only widens as I exhale. He leans closer, eyes glinting beneath the parking lot lights—a tiger in the cover of night.
He murmurs, "Didn't know you knew how to smoke."

"Usually only do when I'm painting." 

"That so?"

Riley takes another drag, watching the smoke curl between us like a serpent. He leans back against the tree, casual, effortless. I resist the urge to shiver.

"You some kind of tortured artist, then?"

"Amongst other things," I smirked, brushing a renegade strand of hair behind my ear as it swayed in the breeze.

Riley laughs—sharp, amused, genuine. "Well, that's cryptic," he murmurs. "And very melodramatic."

Riley’s laugh is a razor blade wrapped in velvet—too smooth to cut, too sharp to ignore. He tilts his head, studying me with the amused detachment of a god watching mortals stumble through their own tragedies.

"Melodramatic?" I echo, arching a brow. "Or just honest?"

His smirk deepens as he flicks the cigarette butt away with practiced ease. "Same difference."

And just like that—the game resets.
The pieces move again.

(Some players don’t realize they’re on the board. Not until it's too late.)

Over the course of the following week, I settled into my new rhythm. The dreams plagued me still, yes, though... I had a new distraction to take my mind off the alternative.

Angela at the lockers—her fingers brushed my hand, slow, deliberate. A wafer passed between them, a blasphemous communion. I almost shivered.

Edward’s silence pressed in all day since it had been the day after I had sleepwalked into that forest. I could still feel him trying, uselessly, against the static wall of my skull. Though I imagined his thoughts breaking like glass against my own ink-smear mind. Frustrated. Starving. Watching.

Marcus remained on the easel, untouched. Finished but waiting. Caius glared down from the mirror, washed in fluorescent hum. Together, they looked like icons pinned to the walls of a crooked cathedral. Saints, apostles, monsters.

I debated moving the paintings to my closet late one night when the ghostly apparition of Caius told me to 'come' once again. The only thing keeping me grounded as I slept was the twine keeping me from sleepwalking out into the night again.

Although as I lay there, headlights carved across my ceiling, slicing my room into cathedral aisles. I lay awake, paralyzed within the confines of my bed as the taste of Eric’s near-kiss and Angela’s brush of fingers still burned in my mouth.

The whispers kept coming. Not hers. Never hers.

They grew closer.

As I stared into the angry ruby of Caius's eyes, awaiting my alarm as Marcus wearily sighed from his place on my easel...

Chapter Text

The La Push shoreline breathed salt and smoke. Driftwood smoldered from a bonfire long extinguished, sea-spray biting my lips. Jacob laughed, hair falling into his eyes, and for a heartbeat I almost felt something like ease.

He spoke of engines and half-built motorcycles, his hands alive in the air. I watched the curve of his smile with something close to tenderness—though from a distance, as though looking through glass. A warmth I wanted to touch but not hold.

His voice was an anchor, but my mind was elsewhere.

—whispers.

The green of Marcus’s robe bled across my vision like afterimage. Caius’s pale mouth whispered Adoramus in the tide’s hiss. Their shadows curled at the edges of daylight, haunting me like I was already claimed.

Jacob didn’t notice. His warmth was too simple, too alive.

I let him lean closer when he showed me a bolt from his toolbox. Our arms touched. His skin burned hot, unearthly. I felt my mouth curve—affection, yes, but no hunger. He deserved better than my hollow tenderness.

It was odd, being friends with a boy.

Usually, I played a role—bait. Something pretty to look at. Something to be won.

But with Jacob? It didn't feel like a game. His attention was like the sun—warm, full, unconditional. It was almost enough to make me forget the dreams.

Almost.

Jacob’s laughter is too bright, too easy—like summer distilled into sound. I let myself bask in it, just for a moment. He leans over his bike engine, grease smeared across his knuckles like war paint, explaining pistons and gears with the enthusiasm of someone who truly cares.

His warmth is a temporary reprieve. A fleeting sunspot between storms.

But then—a whisper in the wind. A flicker of movement at the treeline that isn’t quite right. The hairs on my neck rise as I catch sight of something pale slinking between the pines before vanishing entirely.

(Monsters don’t disappear just because you find sunlight.)


"So Paul's paying you how much to fix his bike?" I asked, eyeing some part of the bike which was mostly smoothed out metal.

"Enough for a new carburetor," Jacob grinned, wiping grease off his hands with an old rag. "And maybe some tacos."

His smile was infectious—wide and uncomplicated. For a moment, I almost forgot about the shadows creeping at the edges of my vision. Almost forgot about the cold presence that clung to me like a second skin.

But then—

A crow shrieked from the treeline. My head snapped toward it, heartbeat stuttering in my chest.

Jacob followed my gaze, frowning slightly when he saw nothing there but swaying branches. "You okay?" he asked quietly.

I forced a smile back onto my face before turning to him again. "Yeah," I lied smoothly enough that even I believed it for half a second."Just thought I heard something."

Jacob studied me for another long moment before shrugging and going back to his engine—but not before sliding closer so our elbows brushed again as he worked.He knew. Not everything… but enough.*

(Some lies are kinder than others.)

In that moment, everything felt far too real—Jacob's warmth, the shadows that waited beyond reach, the weight of all the secrets I couldn't share.

But then Jacob laughed again, and it was easy enough to pretend none of it mattered.

"You sure you're okay?" he asked again, quieter this time.

I nodded, eyes still fixed on the treeline.

"Just tired, I guess."

Not entirely a lie.

Jacob’s hands still on the wrench when he hears the tremor in my voice. His grin falters—just for a second—before he nudges me with his elbow, deliberate and rough like he’s trying to shake the ghosts loose from my shoulders. "You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Bella."

The joke lands flat between us. I force a laugh anyway because that’s what friends do—they pretend not to notice when your hands shake or when your eyes flick toward shadows that aren’t there.

And then Jacob does something unexpected:
He tosses the rag aside and stretches out in the grass beside me, staring up at the sky instead of waiting for answers I won't give. "You don't gotta tell me," he says simply, as if silence is its own kind of honesty.

(Funny how kindness feels like armor sometimes.)

The sky stretches endless above us—blue and untouchable. Jacob’s breathing evens out beside me, calm as the tide rolling in just beyond the trees. He doesn’t push. Doesn’t pry. Just exists there, solid as the earth beneath us, while I teeter between wanting to spill every secret and fearing what might happen if I do.

Finally, he cracks one eye open to peer at me sidelong. “You know,” he muses, voice lazy with sunlight, “whatever it is? Probably not as scary when you say it out loud.”

I almost believe him.

(Lies taste bitter on my tongue, but silence tastes like cowardice.)

Though as the moment stretches and my thoughts swirl. I'm aware I can't just say 'oh, don't mind me, I'm just being stalked by Edward and plotting the Cullens' downfall while I'm sleepwalking because of some immortal vampire kings who at this point don't know of my existence...Probably..'


So instead I let out a slow breath, watching the clouds drift and say. "You ever feel like you're stuck in some... gothic horror novel?"

Jacob snorted, kicking a pebble with his boot. "Dude. We live near Forks. If anything, we're in a bad paranormal romance."

That startled a real laugh out of me—sharp and unexpected. He grinned, triumphant at pulling it from me.

"Fair," I conceded. "...Just feels like there's something watching sometimes."

His smile faded slightly as he followed my gaze toward the tree line again—instinctive, like part of him already knew what lurked there wouldn't be seen unless it wanted to be.

After a beat, he bumped his shoulder against mine again—warm, solid, real. "Then we'll just have to out-weird it," he declared.

(Funny how easy it is to lie when the truth sounds crazier.)

Jacob’s version of "out-weirding" my paranoia involves three things.

Revving his bike engine so loud it drowns out the forest whispers.

Teaching me to throw a punch ("In case the horror novel needs drama").

And insisting we eat our weight in frybread while he tells me Quileute legends—laughing when I ask if vampires are part of them, like it's all some ridiculous joke.

He doesn’t realize how close to the truth he is, teeth glinting in the sun as he grins at my poorly hidden flinch when he mentions "cold ones."

But that’s Jacob—burning too bright to fear shadows.

(Monsters hate sunlight. Funny then, how they keep finding me.)

The warmth of Jacob's laughter fades the moment I'm alone. Even the forest seems colder without his company. Shadows follow me like a shawl, whispering in the wind like the ones in my dreams. They cling to my body like they want to crawl beneath my skin. My eyes rake the treeline as I hurry home, heartbeat stuttering when I catch glimpses of movement just beyond my vision.

But every time I turn, there's nothing there.

Damn Cullens... I think as I drive down the road, the truck is humming as I turn onto my home's street.

The next day at school, the cafeteria stank of bleach and ketchup. Edward sat too still at his table, gold eyes burning holes through me. I pretended not to notice, though I felt him—static crackling at the edges of my mind, the brush of something pressing, slamming against ink walls he couldn’t breach.

It was almost funny, his restraint unraveling. The lion pacing, jaws snapping at bars he’d built himself.

Eric dropped his tray when I brushed my hand against his knee beneath the table. He stuttered through conversation, face gone scarlet. Mike shot him a glare, then me, his jealousy sharp as vinegar.

Edward’s pencil snapped between his fingers.

I smiled into my spork crust.

Too easy

If I tried, I could push back against Edward's mind, the walls as fragile as glass. But where was the fun in that?
Better to keep him guessing, to watch frustration darken his eyes and make him clench his jaw. I could almost see the gears turning, him wondering how much I knew about him and his secret family.

"Oh, for fucks sake, Edward," I heard Rosalie snap at him, clearly displeased with his continuous watching of me.

Rosalie's irritation crackled in the air like dry leaves. I didn't have to see her to know she was likely glaring at Edward like he was some kind of bug she wanted to crush underneath her designer shoes.

The corner of my lips twitched. Even without looking, I could feel Rosalie's icy glare slicing through Edward—disdain practically radiating off her in waves.

From across the cafeteria, Emmett chuckled into his sandwich, shaking his head at their silent argument like it was just another entertaining spectacle for him. Jasper sat rigid beside Alice, whose fingers tapped rapidly against the table—like she was watching something unfold that none of us could see yet.

And then there was Edward—his jaw locked tight enough to fracture marble as he forced his gaze away from me and back toward his untouched lunch tray.

Pathetic.

I took a slow sip of my drink before flicking my eyes up one last time… just in time to catch Rosalie rolling hers so hard I half-expected them to get stuck that way forever.

(Some cages aren't made of gold. They're made of family.)

I stretched my fingers, exhaling through my nose. The plastic fork in my tray bent under absent pressure—just a little too much force applied without thinking.

Jessica's voice cut through the hum of conversation. "Okay, what is up with you and Cullen today?" Her eyes darted between me and Edward’s table like she was watching a tennis match.

I shrugged, rolling an apple slice between my fingers before biting into it with deliberate slowness. "No idea what you mean."

Across the room, Alice twitched in her seat like she'd been shocked by something unseen.

Jess opened her mouth to press further when—

Edward’s chair screeched back so violently it toppled over behind him. The entire cafeteria went silent as he strode out without a word, Emmett scrambling after him with one last bewildered glance at Alice.

Jessica gaped after them before turning back to me slowly—realization dawning.

"...Oh," she said faintly.

I just smiled and took another bite of the apple.

(Checkmate.)

The silence in the cafeteria stretched on. Jess and Angela shot each other confused glances before Angela finally leaned toward me and asked.

"Uh… what just happened?"

"Fuck should I know?" The words came out uninterested. "It's Edweird being Edweird." I offer Angela a reassuring smile.

Angela blinked—slow, disbelieving—before her lips twitched into the tiniest smirk.

Jessica choked on her soda. "Edweird?" she wheezed between coughs, slapping the table as laughter shook her shoulders.

From across the room, Alice’s fork clattered onto her tray with a sharp clink. Even Jasper stiffened beside her like he’d just sensed an emotional grenade go off in our general direction.

But I just shrugged and popped another apple slice into my mouth, savoring the crisp crunch.

(Some games are more fun, when the pieces start to fight back.)

The nickname sticks.

By fifth period, Eric whispers it in the hall like a secret handshake. By lunch, Tyler imitates Edward’s brooding stance while Mike snorts into his milk carton. Even Jessica—once torn between jealousy and fascination—grins when someone mutters “Edweird” under their breath near the Cullens’ usual table.

Alice hasn’t looked at me all day. Her fingers tap arrhythmically against her desk like she's watching timelines splinter in real time—something not going according to plan for once. Good.

Meanwhile, Edward hasn't returned to school at all after storming out earlier... which is exactly how I prefer it.

(Funny how quickly royalty crumbles, when you refuse to play their game.)

With each passing hour, Edward’s absence becomes more and more conspicuous—and more and more satisfying.

Jessica's whispers with other girls in the locker room at gym turn into full-blown gossip by calculus, which spreads faster than fire through the school until even the most apathetic students whisper "Edweird" and "Cullen" with knowing faces.

Perfect.

I was walking alongside Angela towards our last class of the day, which we happened to share. 

Angela was uncharacteristically animated, her brown eyes shining as she launched into a rant about English—the teacher assigned a tedious assignment that even Angela found dull, not a common occurrence.

Just as she was about to launch into a detailed comparison of Wuthering Heights against Tess of the d'Urbervilles, her gaze jerked toward a commotion down the hall.
"What the hell?" she breathed.

The hall parted like the Red Sea—students scattering, locking lockers too quickly, conversations cutting off mid-sentence. And then I saw him.

Edward Cullen stood at the end of the corridor, his golden eyes blazing with something unhinged. His usually perfect hair was disheveled, fingers twitching at his sides like he was fighting the urge to—what? Grab me? Shake me?

Alice appeared beside him in an instant, her tiny frame rigid as she gripped his arm and hissed something low under her breath. But Edward didn’t move—just stared through me with a look so raw it bordered on feral.

Angela's grip tightened on my sleeve as she whispered: "Bella... what did you do?"

I swallowed hard but forced my feet forward anyway. Step by step until we passed them without faltering—until I could feel Edward’s gaze burning into my back like a brand long after we turned the corner.

(Monsters don’t like being mocked. Especially when they used to be gods.)

"What do you mean?" I feigned innocence, "I  don't even know who that is."

Angela’s look could’ve curdled milk.

“You don’t know—” She stopped dead in the hallway, eyes darting between me and the chaos unfolding behind us. Edward was still there, frozen in place like some tragic marble statue while Alice frantically whispered at him—probably plotting damage control for whatever PR disaster this would become for their perfect coven.

Angela leaned closer, lowering her voice to a hiss only I could hear: "Bella Swan, you are full of shit."

I bit my lip to keep from laughing as I grabbed her arm and tugged her toward class.

(Funny how quickly saints turn into sinners when someone finally calls them out.)

Angela’s look could’ve curdled milk.

“You don’t know—” She stopped dead in the hallway, eyes darting between me and the chaos unfolding behind us. Edward was still there, frozen in place like some tragic marble statue while Alice frantically whispered at him—probably plotting damage control for whatever PR disaster this would become for their perfect coven.

Angela leaned closer, lowering her voice to a hiss only I could hear: "Bella Swan, you are full of shit."

I bit my lip to keep from laughing as I grabbed her arm and tugged her toward class.

(Funny how quickly saints turn into sinners when someone finally calls them out.)

I grinned, looking at her, and whispered, "You should spend the night tonight."

Angela’s eyebrows shot up—surprised, but not opposed. She leaned in closer, voice dropping to a whisper. "What exactly are you plotting?"

I tapped my pen against the notebook. "Nothing too dramatic," I lied smoothly. "Just... a sleepover."

Her eyes flicked toward the windows—toward where Edward had been standing minutes before, now long gone—and then back to me with slow realization. A smirk tugged at her lips as she finally nodded once, decisive.

"Fine," she murmured under her breath as the teacher started lecturing. "...But if we end up on some true crime podcast because of this? You’re writing my eulogy."

(Allies come in surprising packages. Sometimes they even bring snacks.)

By four, I had clocked into my shift at the bookstore with Riley beating me by mere minutes.

The bookstore smelled of old paper and mildew, an archive disguised as commerce. Riley leaned against the counter, scanning a dog-eared manual on auto repair. He looked up when I walked in, a grin slanted, boyish.

“You again,” he said.

“I work here,” I returned.

He shrugged. “Still counts.”

We shelved books in silence broken only by his quiet humming. For a moment, I felt something uncanny coil beneath his skin—a shadow waiting to be born. He didn’t know it yet, but I did. A ghost of what he would become.

My hands trembled against the spines of history books. Caius’s reflection flickered in the polished metal of the register. Marcus’s eyes stared from the blank page of a ledger. I nearly dropped the pen when it began to write on its own—Latin words I didn’t know but my hand seemed to.

I tore the page out before Riley could see.

Riley didn’t notice, continuing to shelve books beside me in blissful ignorance. A lock of hair fell across his forehead, nearly concealing the scar at his hairline. His hums turned melodic, filling the silence between us without any effort as I finished sorting the history books.

His voice was warm like a crackling fire, familiar in a way that made me feel almost... comfortable.

Then the bell above the door chimed, announcing a customer.

A middle-aged woman with graying hair entered, her gaze skimming over the store—over me—with the air of a tourist who had accidentally ended up somewhere they didn't belong. Her gaze lingered on the aisle where Riley was still humming, and I could have sworn her eyes darkened.

She turned toward the history section instead, running her fingers along the spines in thought. Her fingers hovered over a book titled "History of the Pacific Northwest."

I leaned against the register, watching as she skimmed through the book’s contents. She looked harmless enough—if a little out of place with her pressed skirt and business shirt.

She must have felt my gaze, because suddenly her eyes flicked toward me. When we made eye contact, an unexpected jolt of recognition flashed across her face. She smiled, polite, and set the book back on the shelf.

She made her way toward the counter, hands folded in front of her. Up close, her eyes were unnaturally pale—almost translucent, despite her dark hair and olive skin color.

As I rang up her purchase, she tilted her head, studying me with the same interest one would observe an exotic specimen in a zoo exhibit.

Riley had finished shelving the books and leaned against the wall, watching our exchange with silent curiosity.

A strand of messy, dark hair peeked out from her hair, not matching the rest of her head.. I said nothing as I placed her book in a bag. feeling her blackened gaze on me, tracking my every movement.

"I’m sorry—I don't mean to stare."

Her voice was low, and almost soothing in a way. She tilted her head again, studying me with open curiosity.

Riley raised an eyebrow, still observing the exchange with open interest.

"You just… remind me of someone."

"...Oh yeah?" I didn't bother to keep the dry skepticism from my voice.

The woman nodded, eyes still locked on mine. There was something almost calculating in her gaze, like a chess player sizing up their opponent.

"You have a very unusual… energy about you, dear."

I tensed at the vague comment. "Right."

She chuckled, almost to herself, before continuing—her voice like silk. "And you don't seem to mind talking to me, despite my strange behavior?"

That caught me off guard. I shrugged, forcing nonchalance. "I've met weirder people."

Riley snorted in the background, his head still leaned against the wall as he watched the exchange with undisguised interest.

The woman chuckled as well, as if amused by my boldness.

"Oh? You're quite sharp, aren't you? I like that."

The door to the shop opened, revealing a woman with fair hair and even fairer skin. "Sulpi- we should've been going, ten minutes ago, what's taking so-"

The newcomer broke off abruptly mid-sentence the moment her gaze met mine across the store.

If the first woman looked like a calculating chess player, this newcomer seemed like a statue carved from ice. She watched me with detached curiosity, lips pursed and eyes wide.

It was the other woman who spoke first, voice oddly strained as she offered an explanation.

"My friend… just got caught up in a conversation."

I watched as this woman’s companion stepped forward, her frosty demeanor shifting into something almost... protective. Her pale fingers twitched at her sides like she was resisting the urge to grab the other woman—to pull her away from me.

Riley, still leaning against the wall, had gone unnervingly still. His easy smile vanished as his dark eyes flicked between us with new tension in his jaw.

The air thickened—charged like a storm about to break.

Then the woman chuckled softly and slid a business card across the counter toward me before turning away. "Another time," she murmured, cryptic but not unkind.

Her friend didn’t take her eyes off me until they were both out the door—the bell chiming behind them like an alarm.

(Some encounters are warnings dressed as coincidence.)

That night, Angela came over.

Charlie raised a brow but said nothing—only made us popcorn and asked about homework. His suspicion lingered, but softer than usual, as though he sensed Angela’s steadiness might do me good.

Angela sat next to me on the couch, her hand already reaching for a handful of popcorn. She'd changed from her school clothes into sweatpants and a faded Metallica shirt the moment we closed my bedroom door.

After shoveling popcorn into her mouth, she leaned back and groaned. "Ugh, I hate math."

I scoffed, reaching over and stealing some of her popcorn without asking. "Yeah, because you suck at it."

"Excuse me, miss honor roll?" Angela retorted, smacking my hand with the empty bowl. "My grades might not be as good as yours, but I don't need to be Einstein to see you've been acting weird lately."

I rolled my eyes, stuffing popcorn into my mouth to avoid responding. Angela was perceptive—sometimes a little too perceptive.

"I'm right, though. You've been spacing out in class, staring at the wall instead of taking notes…" Angela listed off the evidence on her fingers. Her eyes narrowed. "And don't think I didn't notice you doodle weird designs in your notebook instead of paying attention."

I froze, fingers clenched unconsciously around the popcorn. "Those are just doodles," I mumbled unconvincingly.

Angela just smirked, raising her eyebrows with smugness. "Uh huh. You know you can't fool me, right?"

Angela didn’t wait for me to answer. She leaned forward, popcorn abandoned, and fixed me with a look that could peel paint.

"Alright," she said, tapping her foot against the floor like a detective about to crack a case. "Spill it."

I sighed—because of course Angela wouldn’t let this go. Of course she saw through my half-hearted lies and evasions. That was her, always too sharp for her own good.

For the first time in weeks... I hesitated not because I wanted to lie—but because part of me wanted to tell someone. Someone who wasn't already tangled in this mess like Edward or Jacob or even Charlie.

But where would I even start? With dreams? With blood-red eyes and whispers from paintings?

(Truth is scarier than fiction, because once it's out—you can't take it back.)

"I-I've just been having nightmares recently and I'm a bit tired, is all." It's not a lie, I was tired, and I could consider dreams where I have to tie myself to my bed lest I wish to wake up in random places, nightmarish.

Angela studied me for a long moment, chewing her lip like she was deciding whether to push or let it drop.

"Okay," she finally said, leaning back against the couch. "...But if you ever want to talk about it, I’m here."

She reached over and snatched the popcorn bowl back from me with a smirk—clearly signaling the interrogation was over. For now.

The tension in my shoulders eased slightly as Angela switched topics effortlessly—venting about Jessica’s latest drama instead of pressing further into mine. She knew when to push and when to let things lie… one of the reasons we’d been friends for so long.

For once, I didn't feel like I had to keep track of every word leaving my mouth—no chess moves, no hidden meanings—just Angela filling the silence while I pretended things were normal.

But then...
I caught myself glancing toward my window more than once that night—half expecting shadows in the glass.

(Some habits are harder to break than others.)

I made sure it was locked before I pulled the curtains closed.

The easel still bore Marcus’s face, green robes gleaming in half-light. Caius hovered in my mirror, pale and skeletal, his mouth forever forming a word I couldn’t stop hearing.

Angela touched my shoulder gently. “You okay?”

I wanted to say no. I wanted to say I’m haunted. Instead, I smiled.

We sat cross-legged on my bed. She read lines from my notebook aloud, her voice catching on my jagged poetry, and then she lay beside me, her breath steady. I listened to it like prayer.

The weight of her presence beside me—warm, real—kept the shadows at bay longer than any lock ever could. Angela didn’t ask about the sketches scattered across my desk, or why my hands clenched the sheets like I was afraid they’d dissolve beneath me. She just existed there, a grounding force in the storm of my own making.

And when she finally fell asleep mid-sentence—her fingers still loosely gripping the notebook where she’d been mocking my "overly dramatic metaphors"—I realized…

This was what peace felt like.

(Funny how monsters shrink in the light of steady breathing.)

However, the reprieve didn't last long, for it was as I too joined Angela in sleep, I heard another.

"You see much of mine own brothers yet never of me consider me jealous, psūkhé mou."

The deep melodic voice caused my eyes to snap open. There I lay unable to move, Marcus in the easel as usual, cauis near the mirror, but a new figure stood beside the bed.

The figure at the edge of my bed was tall, slender, and covered in shadows, leaving only sharp features and a glimpse of pale skin. One arm rested above my head on the headboard as he leaned over—face close enough that I could almost feel his breath.

I didn't dare to move, but Marcus and Caius watched his every move with silent anger.

He was close enough that my vision blurred with the effort to focus on his details. In the thin light, I noticed his lips curve into a smirk—a dangerous, predatory expression in the dark.

Caius hissed in a warning, but the figure ignored it, lifting a hand to brush my hair from my face with a touch so light it was almost reverent.

"Such a prize"

Chapter Text

Canon whispers insist there’s a meadow waiting for me.
A clearing. A sunlit truth. A revelation with marble skin.

I never go.

The forest is dense and wet, branches lashing at my sleeves as if to turn me back each time I try to wander toward that script. My boots drag mud, the earth swallowing me whole, and yet the trees keep closing in, redirecting my steps.

It’s like the world knows I’m not meant to find it.

Instead: Angela’s warm hand beneath the classroom desk, hesitant but steady this time. A line crossed in the stale hum of fluorescent light. Her palm brushes my thigh through denim—almost reverent. Her pulse is quick, but not from fear. From want.

I tilt my notebook toward her, ink bleeding in jagged lines. A wordless pact. Her knuckles brush mine like a confession.

If Edward is watching—and he is—then this is holy blasphemy.

Edward can go screw himself.

That thought is enough to keep the corners of my mouth ticking upward. Angela grins in return, her brown skin warm against my pale fingers.

The teacher drones on about something—math, maybe—and Edward glares from across the room. I can practically hear his teeth grinding from here.

I don't bother looking away.

He stares like he's trying to burn his gaze into the back of my head.
Good luck.

Angela presses her knee against my leg beneath the desk—a warning to rein in my temper. For her, I'd bite my tongue. She was my anchor. My sanity.

But Edward's glare is relentless, like a dog gnawing on a bone. It pisses me off.

Angela's fingers squeeze mine. A signal. Behave.

I force myself to look down and exhale slowly, counting in my head until the irritation subsides.

When I glance back up, Edward is still watching... but he's not the only one.

A prickling sensation crawls up my spine—wrongness. Like the air has gone thin, like I’m being studied from just beyond my peripheral vision.

My fingers twitch around Angela’s hand under the desk. She shoots me a questioning look but doesn’t let go, grounding me as I force myself to glance toward the back of the classroom where shadows pool thicker between bookcases and windows.

Nothing moves there except dust motes drifting in pale light... and yet—

(Some eyes don’t blink.)

The sensation lingers long after the bell rings. Angela keeps hold of my hand as we walk—part protective, part possessive now, like she’s staking some silent claim.

Edward vanishes before I can so much as sneer in his direction. Coward.

But that other presence… that weight at the edge of my vision… it follows. Like footsteps matching ours too perfectly to be accidental. Like breath on the back of my neck when no one is there.

Angela feels it too; her grip tightens.

(Monsters hate witnesses.)

My skin crawls with the knowledge of being followed. Hunted.

Angela tugs me along, quick and sharp. Her brown eyes dart from one shadow to the next, searching, but I can’t shake the thought that whatever is stalking us—whatever is hiding —is watching from behind me, not in front.

I can’t see it—not clearly.

But I feel it—like pressure against my back, like breath too close to my skin. Angela's fingers dig into my wrist, her pulse a frantic drumbeat against mine as she drags me toward the crowded quad. Safety in numbers.

Only when we're surrounded by students does that sensation shift—pulling back just enough for me to breathe again... but not enough to disappear entirely.

It lingers in every window reflection I pass, darker than Edward ever was.

(Some hunters don’t need teeth to make you their prey.)

I guide Angela into the sea of students, and whatever watches loses us in the crowd. But I catch a flash of dark curls darting through the trees chasing after another silhouette too far to be discernible, and I know... This game has two new players. 

The trees swallow the figures whole—no sound, no trail left behind. Just the echo of rustling leaves and my own heartbeat pounding in my ears.

Angela exhales shakily beside me, her knuckles white where she still grips my sleeve. "What the hell was that?"

I don’t answer. Because I know. I’ve seen those dark curls before—felt that same predatory presence breathing down my neck in nightmares.

Edward isn’t the only monster here now… and he certainly isn't the most dangerous one.

(Run, but they'll always be faster.)

My mind briefly thinks of Victoria, James, and Laurent. But that didn't make sense; they never got far enough to the town, only to the outskirts, where they ate the occasional townie... These were different.

No, this isn’t Victoria’s coven. Their violence was obvious—blood in the snow, torn limbs left like breadcrumbs.

But this? This is a different kind of hunt. Quiet. Calculated. Like chess pieces moving while everyone else is distracted by the checkered board.

Angela releases my arm only to grab my hand instead, lacing our fingers together like an anchor against the storm brewing just beyond sight.

(If they want a game… then I won’t be playing by their rules.)

"I'll give you a ride home." My voice is steady despite the unease gnawing at my nerves. 

Angela nods, her fingers trembling against mine. I can see her gaze flicking toward the line of trees in the distance—still dark beneath their boughs—and a shudder runs through her.

"C'mon," I murmur, tugging her along, away from the forest. "Let's go."

At home, the television flickers. Charlie and Billy Black sit in the living room, the glow painting them in tired blues and yellows. A game murmurs low from the set. Cans of beer sweating on the table.

Jacob sprawls on the carpet, legs stretched long, warmth radiating like a hearthfire. His laughter fills the room easily, unforced. He’s earnest in a way that almost hurts to look at.

Jacob catches my eye and grins, lifting his soda can in a half wave. Charlie grunts hello, eyes flicking to our intertwined hands before jerking his head toward the kitchen in the universal we need to talk gesture.

I swallow a sigh and drop Angela's hand, reluctantly heading for the kitchen.

"Come here."

He opens his arms, and I go reluctantly, allowing myself to be folded into a hug that smells like motor oil and cinnamon. Home.

Charlie's voice is gruff, but his arms tighten around me anyway—solid, unshakable. The way they always have been since I was little.

"You know you can tell me anything," he murmurs into my hair. "Anything."

For a second—just one reckless second—I almost do.

But the weight of it all is too heavy to drop onto his shoulders now. So I bury my face against his shirt instead and exhale shakily, letting him hold me until the knots in my chest loosen just enough to breathe again.

(Some truths stay hidden to keep others safe.)

"I know."

I pull back before I give in to the traitorous part of my heart that wants to confess everything. Instead, I step back, forcing myself to breathe.

Charlie's hands linger on my shoulders for a moment before dropping back to his sides. He sighs again, the familiar worry etched deep on his face.

"Just… you can talk to me, kiddo. Whenever you're ready."

"I will," I reply automatically.

He knows it's a lie but doesn't call me on it. He just nods, his dark eyes searching my face like he could force the truth out just by looking hard enough. He doesn't, though. Charlie has always been more patient than me.

"I love you, Bells," he says softly.

I manage a small smile. "Love you, too."

We stand there a moment longer, caught in this silent moment of connection.

He finally steps back, clearing his throat as the world reemerges in a rush. Through the kitchen doorway, I can hear Jacob's laughter. Angela's quiet voice, answering him with another question.

Charlie jerks his chin toward the living room. "Well… you better get back to your friends. Don't keep 'em waiting."

"Alright..." I walk towards the doorway, then pause. "Hey, Dad," I look back at him.

"Yeah?"

Charlie lifts an eyebrow, a smile ticking at the corners of his mouth. "What's up?"

"I felt something watching me from the woods at school today..." I trail off, exhaling, "I just- If you do have to go to the woods, please don't go alone, whatever, whoever is behind the murders has friends and they know."

Charlie stiffens. His entire demeanor shifts—sheriff mode. He takes a slow step forward, voice dropping into something low and deadly serious.

"Tell me exactly what you saw."

I force my voice not to tremble as the memories hit me full-force. "Something was in the woods," I murmur, remembering the way the wind shifted around me. "I could sense a presence. It was silent. Almost like..."

I swallow back the rest, struggling for words. "It was dark. Predatorial."

Charlie's expression hardens—the cop in him taking over entirely. "You think it’s tied to the murders?"

I nod, not trusting myself to speak.

He swears under his breath, rubbing a hand over his face before locking eyes with me again. "I want you nowhere near those woods, you hear me? And if you even think something’s watching you again—" His voice cracks slightly before he firms it. "You call me immediately."

The weight of his fear hits harder than any order could.

(Some warnings, are really pleas for protection.)

"I will..But if you go searching, take some of the Quileute members." The words fell from my lips without permission, but it was better this way; the wolves wouldn't take kindly to any vampiric threats, even if Charlie didn't know about his friends' furry little secrets. "It's just all stories have some amount of truth behind them, and they may provide more insight and bodies on the lookout."

Charlie gives me a calculating look, his cop brain already ticking through the possibilities. I can practically see him weighing his options.

Finally, he nods. "I'll make some calls," he relents grudgingly.

And that's as close to permission as I'll get.

Charlie's face softens as he looks at me, some of the hardness in his eyes bleeding away. "You're too damn curious for your own good, kiddo," He mutters, but his voice is fond.

My shoulders drop, the tight knot of worry in my chest loosening a fraction.

I know it’s not a perfect solution—just a stalling tactic. But for once, Charlie doesn’t argue. He just exhales and ruffles my hair like he used to when I was little, his worry tucked behind the gesture.

Jacob watches us from the living room, his expression unreadable. I wonder if he knows. If the wolves have already scented something in those woods that even Edward hasn’t noticed yet…

But Jacob just grins at me when our eyes meet—warm, open—like nothing is wrong at all.

(Some lies are kinder than truth.)

I walk over and sit on the couch, let the glow wash over me. His shoulder brushes mine, all heat and pulse and living muscle. Comfort without hunger.

That’s the difference. Jacob is warmth I don’t crave. Edward is hunger I can’t touch.

One is a blanket on a cold night.
The other is a knife pressed to my throat.

I smile at Jacob, but it feels like wearing someone else’s mouth. Tender, but hollow. A counterfeit affection.

Jacob nudges me with his elbow, his grin lazy but knowing in a way that makes my chest ache.

"You're thinking too hard," he murmurs under the hum of the game and Billy’s quiet conversation with Charlie.

I huff a laugh—weak, but genuine this time. "Someone has to."

He rolls his eyes and bumps our shoulders together again—solid, easy warmth seeping into my skin like sunlight through glass.

Edward is fire I can’t put out. Jacob is an open door I never step through.

But right now? Right now it doesn’t matter. Because for this one moment—with Charlie safe and Billy arguing over some play call on TV while Angela watches from the armchair—everything feels almost normal.

Almost enough.

(Some illusions are kinder than reality.)

By Monday, the “Edweird” nickname has stuck. It slips from lips in hallways, a ripple of mockery that makes his jaw clench, his shoulders lock. Even teachers stumble over it once, disguising it as a cough.

His eyes find mine across the cafeteria. That molten gold has gone darker at the edges, hunger leaking through the cracks he pretends aren’t there.

And for a moment—just one—his restraint slams against my mind. A pressure. A weight. Like his hunger is reaching, pressing, almost tasting.

It feels like teeth scraping the walls of my skull.

I shove it back. Hard. Ink-static flares. His head jerks, his lips peel in the shadow of a snarl. And then it’s gone.

But the look he gives me says he knows what I did.

My breath hitches as the psychic attack evaporates just as quickly as It appeared. I catch Edward's expression across the cafeteria—glaring, possessive—then look away.

Angela gives me a curious look like she knows something happened, but all she asks is if I'm feeling alright.

I force a smile, ignoring the goosebumps on my arms. "Yeah. I'm fine."

"God, I can't believe your dad put out an issue for people not to go in the woods," Mike groaned, sitting down at the table. "My old man and I were gonna go camping, Bells."

"Do the math Mike people go in the woods and don't come out unless what's left is found," I deadpanned.

Mike blanched, his hand already creeping to the collar of his shirt. "Jesus, Bells. Why'd you have to put it that way?"

I shrug, popping a fry into my mouth with forced nonchalance. "Because sugarcoating it won’t stop whatever’s out there from turning people into mulch."

Across the cafeteria, Edward stares. His fingers twitch against his tray like he wants to crush it.

Mike shudders dramatically, but his laughter is nervous around the edges. "Alright, fine. Maybe we'll just… grill in my backyard instead."

Jessica snorts next to him. "Wow. The great outdoorsman Mike Newton defeated by—what was it?—mulch threats?" She flicks her hair over her shoulder as Angela hides a smirk behind her soda can.

(Monsters hate jokes more than they hate sunlight.)

I roll my eyes, ignoring the prickle of Edward's stare. "Mike was never that outdoorsy anyway. He needs running water and WiFi too much."

Mike groans, covering his face with a hand. "I hate all of you."

Jessica grins, slinging an arm around his shoulder. "Just admit it, Mike. Bigfoot would kick your ass."

"Oh, shut it," Mike grumbles, shoving her off. "You're the one who'd be too busy looking for a hair salon to survive more than five minutes."

Jessica gasps, hand flying to her chest in mock outrage. "Excuse you, I could survive just fine—with perfect highlights, thank you."

Angela nearly snorts soda out her nose.

Mike points a fry at me accusingly. "You started this."

I shrug, grinning around my own bite of food. "And I'd do it again."

Edward's tray clatters too loudly behind us as he stands abruptly—but I don't turn to look.

(Some tensions are best left ignored.)

Mike and Jessica's attention shifts to Edward as he disappears through the cafeteria doors.

Jessica frowns, lowering her voice. "Does he always have to be so... moody?"

Mike rolls his eyes. "It's Edward Cullen. Moody is what he does best."

"Maybe he ate too many lemons as a kid?" I suggest.

Angela snorts into her drink while Mike chokes on a laugh, thumping his chest with a fist. "That tracks," he wheezes.

Jessica raises an eyebrow. "Pretty sure that's not how digestion works."

I shrug, stirring my straw idly in my cup. "Some people just have the personality of a half-chewed lemon."

Across the cafeteria—somehow still within earshot despite being halfway out the door—Edward's shoulder visibly tenses beneath his stupidly perfect sweater.

Victory.

That night, the Volturi return.

Marcus stands cloaked in grief, head tilted, watching as though I were some fragile bird already broken in his hands. Caius prowls the dream’s edge, pale eyes gleaming like a wolf’s—snarling at what he can’t yet protect. And Aro—oh, Aro presses close. Too close.

A weight slams into my skull, not like Edward’s hunger but heavier, colder. Fingers pressing against a door. I feel him trying to pry the lock, to slip inside.

My breath hitches. My dream-body convulses, ink bleeding from my palms.

Marcus moves first, his hand raised, sorrow like a shield. Caius tears at the edges of the dream, his fury ripping the seams. Aro hisses, laugh-soft, delighted at the resistance.

I feel them clash inside me—sibling rivalry written not in words but in wills. Marcus mournful, Caius feral, Aro covetous.

Aro leans closer, fingers brushing my cheek.
"Let me in, sweet girl," he purrs. "We just want to talk."

Marcus glares at the touch. "Leave her be."

Aro gives a lazy wave of his hand. "It's just a dream, my dear brother. No harm will come of it."

Seriously, couldn't my subconscious summon new material... I mournfully think as I lie frozen in bed, dreaming yet unable to move or speak. Perhaps this was retaliation for me telling Cauis to kneel instead when these dreams first began, but now I have grown bored with them. Each night it is the same: my bed frozen, listening to the kings bicker as Marcus makes them keep their distance. 

I have recently taken to pretending I can't see or hear them to add a little spice to my nights... God, I need to find a way to control these dreams.

Aro huffs in annoyance. "She's so stubborn."

Caius rumbles agreement. "Like a mule with a carrot."

Marcus scoffs. "You would know about mules."

"Are you implying I resemble a mule, Marcus?" Caius growls, his expression taking a turn for genuinely offended.

Marcus just shrugs, a small glimmer of dry amusement in his eyes. "I'm just saying, mules are incredibly stubborn creatures. Much like you."

"Take that back," Caius snaps, taking a step forward. "I am not anything like a mule."

Marcus smirks, folding his arms across his broad chest. "If the shoe fits..."

For a moment, they glare at one another—Caius bristling with indignant anger and Marcus with smugly-suppressed laughter. Aro is fighting off his own chuckle as I lie trapped in the dream, feeling strangely like I'm watching a tennis match.

Eventually, Caius looks away with a snarl. "You're an ass."

"Your mother"

Marcus’s laughter rings out—clear, rich, genuine. It’s startling enough that even Aro whips his head around to stare.

Caius freezes mid-step, eyes widening in outrage. "What did you just say to me?" he hisses through clenched fangs.

Marcus wipes a tear from the corner of his eye before sighing—content in this small victory. "Still sounds like a mule."

As Cauis and Marcus continue going back and forth. It’s Aro who nearly breaks through. His fingertips brush the inside of my head—just a ghost of contact, but enough to sear. My temples pound, my teeth grind, and I almost let him.

But Marcus pulls. Caius shoves. Their power drives him back, out, leaving me gasping on candlelit stone.

I wake with sweat cold as rain on my back, my skull aching like I’ve been pried open and stitched closed wrong.

The meadow waits somewhere in Forks, but I’ll never see it.

Not when my nights belong to kings.

My hand flies to my hair—drenched, clammy—my skin slick with sweat. That strange, cold pressure still lingers just behind my eyes like a migraine.

I press the heels of my hands against my eyelids, groaning.

Angela stirs beside me, blinking in the darkness. "Bells? You okay?"

I lower my hands, forcing a smile despite the hammering in my skull. "Just a nightmare," I mutter, trying to rub the goosebumps from my arms.

Angela hums sympathetically, sitting up as she squints across the room at me. "Bad one?"

"Yeah..something like that," I run a hand through my hair. Guess that was kind of a change..

Angela sighs, flopping back onto her pillow. "Ugh, I hate those. The kind that stick with you even when you're awake." She rubs her face before turning toward me again. "Want to stay up and watch something dumb until we pass out?"

I blink at her—suddenly, overwhelmingly grateful for this girl who doesn't ask too many questions but still sees too much anyway.

"Yeah," I murmur, already reaching for the laptop on my desk. "That sounds perfect."

(Some nightmares fade faster when you’re not alone.)

Chapter Text

I had never been interested in mascara or lipstick before. Makeup had always struck me as a kind of camouflage—something girls put on to make themselves look softer, prettier, more palatable. But what I'd painted on that morning was the opposite of palatable. Angela sat cross-legged on my bed, kit of brushes and palettes open like surgical instruments. The room smelled of eyeliner wax and strawberry shampoo. Angela leaned close, steadying my chin as she traced a kohl line along my lower lid, then blurred it with a thumb until my eyes looked like shadows in a storm cloud. “You look like you could eat a man alive,” Angela murmured, half-awed, half-playful. I smirked, hollow. “That’s the point.” The mirror showed me something sharp and deliberate: cheekbones cut with contouring, lips blood-red edged in black. Less girl, more portrait. Angela lingered behind me in the reflection, fingertips grazing my shoulder as if testing whether the paint had changed the flesh beneath.

Angela steps back when she's finished, admiring her work and biting her lip. "Damn. I'm good," she declares finally.

A laugh escapes me despite the nerves fluttering in my chest. "I look like a... war goddess or something."

Angela grins, her eyes taking on a wicked gleam. "So do me next."

We trade places, the world spinning upside down as I turn toward the mirror. I'm not as confident or practiced with a makeup brush, but I do my best, lining Angela's eyes and outlining her lashes with liquid black. She's a vision of dark elegance, and a strange satisfaction unfurls in my chest. We look powerful. Dangerous. Unapproachable.

"You're perfect," I murmured, stealing a kiss.

Angela hums, lips buzzing against my skin. "That's my line," she murmurs, her breath warm with the scent of strawberries and lipgloss.

A shiver prickles my spine. "Well, I'm stealing it."

She laughs, fingers tracing my collarbone. "Possessive, much?"

I tug her closer, feeling suddenly bold. "Maybe a little," I whisper and catch her mouth with my own, savoring the taste of her lipgloss against mine. There's something addictive in the mix of strawberry and her familiar scent—clean, like sunshine and freesia and something uniquely Angela.

Her fingers tangle in my hair, gripping like she's afraid to let go, and I pull her half-crouched into my lap.

The world spins dizzyingly again—a hazy whirl of limbs and kisses and the soft sheets tangled around our legs. The room smells of strawberries and sugar, and Angela's laugh is a low, heady murmur against my skin. "Careful," she teases between kisses. "Don't want to ruin your makeup."

I pull back just enough to smirk, lips still brushing hers. "Worth it."

Angela hums, nipping at my bottom lip with playful defiance before I recapture her mouth—more insistent this time. The tension in the air shifts from teasing to something else entirely as her nails scrape lightly over my scalp.

"God," she breathes against me when we finally break apart—both of us flushed and disheveled—her pupils blown wide with want despite the humor lingering in her voice. "Definitely worth it."

(Some moments deserve ruinous devotion.)

The closeness of our morning carried through the school day. In biology Angela brushed My knee under the desk, casual enough to pass for accident but sustained long enough to be a choice. I had let it linger. It was not hunger, not fire—just warmth. A human tether, a hand steadying mine on the brushstroke.

At lunch the whispers broke like waves.
“Morticia cosplay.”
“Vampire chic.”
“She’s gone full goth.”

I paid no mind, merely moving through the cafeteria with the poise of someone walking to an execution and daring the crowd to cheer. The red-black lips curled faintly at the corner. and I sat down, unbothered, letting the noise orbit me like gnats.

The stares and hushed mutters follow us through the halls as I guide Angela toward our next class. The whispers grow bolder with every step, filling the air with hushed reverence like I'm some vengeful deity.

Angela leans toward me, her voice soft but edged with dry humor. "You're becoming a bit of a legend, you know."

I snort, shaking my head. "A legend of what? Freak of the week?"

Her gaze flickers over me—sharp and assessing—and she laughs again, this time tinged with a hint of awe. "You look like a warrior queen. It's kinda terrifying."

Edward, across the room, stiffened as if he’d been struck. His jaw locked, eyes hollowed. The hunger spiked off him in jagged bursts I could almost feel—a pressure against my skull, like ink scratching glass. I could imagine him slamming against my mind again and again, useless, his restraint corroding. I smiled at my tray of untouched food as though I'd had won....Again

Jessica stared, half-envious. Mike tried to joke, tried to pull her back toward normalcy, but her silence made his voice crumble into awkwardness.

Angela tugs me into our class just as the bell rings. We settle at the back of the classroom—our desks practically touching—and I pull out my notebook, feigning nonchalance despite the stares. Angela shifts in her seat, angling her body toward mine like a shield.

"You're kinda enjoying this, aren't you?" she murmurs, the corner of her mouth quirking up.

I give her a small smile. "Maybe a little."

Angela exhales a quiet laugh, shaking her head as she turns to face the front of the class—but her knee stays pressed against mine under the desk, warm and steady.

Edward doesn’t so much as glance back at me. His posture is rigid, his pen moving too sharply across his notes. I wonder if he’s imagining my neck beneath those hands of his—if he’s biting down on every impulse to reach again.

The thought makes my own pulse thrum in satisfaction.

(Some wars are won by simply refusing to bleed.)

The teacher launches into a lecture, but both Angela and I zone out. She doodles in the corner of her notebook, her knee pressed against mine—a silent touch of solidarity beneath the desk.

My thoughts are still half fixed on the tension lurking in the front of the room. Edward's shoulders are rigid, his jaw clenched. I can almost feel the tension rolling off him—a coiled spring waiting to snap.

When I left for work later, Riley was shelving a cart of paperbacks. He glanced up, caught sight of my painted face and the new precision of my movements. His brow furrowed, curiosity flickering behind the otherwise bland friendliness of his expression. He said nothing, but I caught the look before he ducked back to alphabetize mysteries, adjusting his clothes.

I filed it away. Another watcher. Another ripple.

I clock in silently, grab the next cart of returns, and start working—moving through the aisles with deliberate focus. But Riley keeps looking, like he’s trying to solve a puzzle I didn’t know I was part of.

His gaze lingers on my lips before darting away again when he thinks I won't notice.

Interesting.

I catch him again later—standing in the fiction section, pretending to straighten a pile of books. He's not as subtle as he probably thinks, although I suspect most people haven't looked close enough to realize yet.

His eyes follow me this time, sharp and curious like a cat. I continue my work, pretending I don't notice, and a small smirk tugs at my lips.

Two can play that game.

When I pass by him on my way to the front desk, Riley clears his throat—just a small noise, barely there.

"You're looking... different," he finally says, attempting nonchalance. His voice is casual but his fingers tap restlessly against the bookshelf beside him.

I pause just long enough to meet his gaze with deliberate blankness before shrugging and continuing past without a word.

Riley’s stare burns holes into my back as I walk away. He isn’t hungry like Edward—just fascinated.

Good.

(Some games don't require participation to be won.)

"I decided to try something new."

Riley nods, his eyes lingering on my makeup and my dark attire. "You...uh, wear it well," he says, his voice cracking slightly. He clears his throat. "You always do."

His words catch me off guard, and for a moment the mask slips. I can't tell if it's genuine or simple politeness, but his gaze feels honest.

"Thanks.." I finally reply, keeping my voice coolly casual.

His eyes catch on my red lips again before darting away.

Riley shifts his weight, suddenly very interested in the spines of the books beside him. "So, uh… big plans tonight? Or just trying to scare people at work?"

I raise an eyebrow. "Why not both?"

He laughs—real and startled—before catching himself and clearing his throat again. "Right." There’s a pause, then he adds almost shyly: "It works."

Interesting. Very interesting.

People react differently to sharp edges when they aren’t used to seeing them on you. Some flinch away like I might cut them if they get too close.

Others lean closer just to see if I will.

(And isn’t that always the way?)

I let my smirk widen just a fraction as I shelve the last book from my cart, feeling Riley's gaze flicker over me again like he can't help it.

"Guess we'll see how many customers I scare off before closing," I muse dryly.

He huffs a quiet laugh but doesn't deny it—his fingers tapping another nervous rhythm against the shelf.

Silence settles between us, heavy with something unspoken. Then, with an almost comedic abruptness, he blurts: "You should wear that lipstick more often."

And then immediately looks like he wants to dissolve into the carpet.

(Some things are better left unsaid... and yet.)

Riley suddenly turns an alarming shade of red and busies himself with aggressively straightening already-perfectly-aligned books. "I mean—not that you need it—you look fine either way, obviously—" He cuts himself off with a wince, clearly wishing the earth would swallow him whole.

I bite back a laugh and decide to take pity on him. "Thanks," I say simply, turning back to my cart before he combusts from sheer embarrassment.

The bell above the shop door jingles as customers walk in, saving us from further mortification.

(Some disasters are best left unacknowledged.)

The evening continues much the same—customers and Riley stealing furtive glances, Riley fidgeting, me pretending I don't notice either of it.

As closing time nears, I sort through the last cart of returns, my thoughts still circling the strange tension between us.

Finally the clock ticks past closing time, and I grab my coat from behind the front counter. Riley is sorting returns behind the counter, his gaze darting toward me then away.

He fidgets with a book for a moment before finally clearing his throat.

"Can I ask you something?"

I pause, coat half-shrugged on, and tilt my head. "Depends. Are you going to say something else that'll make you turn into a human tomato?"

Riley groans, rubbing his face with both hands—but he's laughing behind them, shoulders shaking slightly. "God. I regret everything."

Turns out Riley’s terrible at flirting but great at being mortified by his own attempts.

(Entertaining in its own way.)

"That obvious, huh?" he mutters from behind his hands. "I don't know why I'm like this. It's like… my brain gets to talking out loud and the words just come out." He groans again, dropping his hands and looking at me helplessly. "I swear I don't mean to make a complete ass of myself. I'm genuinely not this much of an idiot."

I try not to laugh. "You're doing a stellar job convincing me of that right now."

Riley shakes his head, sighing heavily. "See, that," he points an accusing finger at me, "that is exactly what I mean. The jokes are too dry. I'm not suave. Hell, I'm not even good at small talk."

His gaze drops to his hands, fingers drumming restlessly against the counter. A beat passes before he looks up again, suddenly sheepish. "Can I be completely honest with you?"

I cross my arms, leaning back against the counter. "At this point, I don’t think you could be anything but."

Riley exhales—half-laugh, half-defeat—before running a hand through his hair. “Fair.” His fingers tap once more against the countertop before he finally meets my eyes again.

“Look,” he starts, voice steadier now, less flustered and more... resolved. “I know I’m not subtle. And I know you could probably have your pick of half the guys in Forks if you wanted—” (doubtful, I think) “—but… would it be completely insane if I asked to take you out sometime?”

His mouth twitches at the corner as soon as he says it—already bracing for rejection or laughter or both.

(Some risks are worth tripping over.)

For a long second, I just stare at him—considering.

He doesn't flinch under it, doesn't backtrack with nervous rambling. He just waits, jaw set like he's already accepted whatever answer I'll give.

It's that—the steadiness in his silence—that makes me tilt my head.

Huh.

"Depends," I say finally. "You got any hidden talents besides awkward self-sabotage?"

Riley’s expression flickers—somewhere between hope and exasperation—before he exhales sharply. "That depends."

His fingers tap once against the counter, deliberate this time instead of nervous. "Do you consider a near-encyclopedic knowledge of 80's horror movies a talent? Because if so, I might be dangerously overqualified."

I raise an eyebrow. "You're telling me you're secretly interesting under all that 'oh God why did I say that' energy?"

He grins—slow, surprising in its confidence now that the initial stumble is past. "Guess you'll have to find out."

The confidence looks good on him—almost handsome, to be frank. A part of me feels almost annoyed at how he almost pulls it off.

Almost.

I shove that part aside.

"Alright," I say, pretending I haven't already made up my mind. "One date."

Riley blinks, looking genuinely startled. "Wait, you actually said yes?"

I scoff, rolling my eyes. "What, you were ready to make a complete ass of yourself but not willing to take yes for an answer?"

He laughs, incredulous and genuine. "I was so sure you'd say no."

I shrug. "Don't get used to it."

He shakes his head, grinning like he can't help it. "You're kind of terrifying, you know that?"

"That's the point," I deadpan, but I can't stop my own smile. "And you're kind of hopeless."

He snorts, pushing away from the counter to stand across from me. "Again, fair," he says, looking down at me. "You're also weirdly short for someone so goddamn intimidating."

I narrow my eyes at him, leaning back against the counter. "You are skating dangerously close to the line between 'flirting' and 'insulting' right now."

He raises his hands in mock-surrender, but there's mischief lurking in his gaze. He leans a hip against the counter, mirroring my casual stance, and grins.

"Come on," he teases. "Terrifyingly short."

I reach out to swat him on the arm, but he deftly dodges, still grinning like the smartass he is.

"I'm just saying," he teases, ducking away as I try again. "Not sure how someone that tiny got so freaking scary."

I huff, crossing my arms. "And yet here you are, voluntarily asking out the 'scary tiny one.'"

His grin doesn’t waver. "Yeah, well," he shrugs, "guess I like danger."

The audacity of that response actually makes me laugh—startled and unwillingly charmed. Riley beams like it's a victory.

Damn him.

That night, alone with my laptop open to strange forums about lucid dreaming, I rubbed a fingertip along my stained lips. As I wondered what it might mean to enter my Volturi dreams awake—to face Aro, Caius, Marcus on my own terms. To paint my mind with the same deliberate strokes I'd had painted her face.

Makeup as a mask. Makeup as a blade. Makeup as invocation.

Lipstick on the guillotine.

I frown, scrolling to the next page. The image search has moved on from celebrities to "everyday women" "most terrifying women in the world" "female CEOs who terrify male bosses" "female athletes who terrify male athletes" "most terrifying female professors" "most terrifying female scientists" "women who make other women feel threatened"

Every. Single. Image. Every single female face bears at least one sharp feature.

I sigh, running my hands through my hair.

So much for the myth of softness.

I think about how Angela had painted my lips earlier—how she’d blended kohl into my lash line like war paint. How people had stared at school, whispering "vampire chic." How even Riley couldn't look away despite his usual easygoing indifference.

None of these women are smiling in their photos either—not because they're unhappy, but because their expressions refuse to soften into something palatable. They don’t shrink themselves into sweetness or pretend to be approachable just to make others comfortable. They exist, unapologetically carved out of stone rather than molded from sugar—and that alone unsettles people enough to label them as terrifying.

It’s funny how often “terrifying” is just another word for unbreakable.
(And isn’t that exactly what I want?)

My gaze drifts back to the laptop, lingering on one photo in particular—one of several shots of a tall, dark-eyed woman with sharp features and a sharper smile. She's a CEO of some multi-million dollar company.

The headline under her picture reads: "The most terrifying female CEO in Silicon Valley."

I click on the article, skimming through the details—how she doesn’t apologize for taking up space, how her voice cuts through boardroom noise like a blade. How men in suits shift uncomfortably when she fixes them with a stare that dares them to underestimate her.

The comments section is worse:

"She'd be prettier if she smiled."
"No wonder she's still single."
"Someone should teach her some humility."

My lip curls. The same tired lines, over and over—as if ambition is only palatable when wrapped in softness. As if sharp edges are flaws instead of weapons honed by necessity.

A notification pings from my messages—Angela sending a meme of some cartoon character dramatically applying lipstick like armor before battle. I snort, typing back: "Accurate."

(Some masks aren't disguises at all.)

I close the laptop with a soft click, rubbing an absent hand over my eyes. The words of the articles and comment sections linger, echoing under my skin.

The most terrifying/unapproachable/dangerous/unattractive/difficult woman in the world.

My fingers find the edge of the computer screen, nails tapping an involuntary rhythm.

Terrifying.

It could be worse. I could be weak.

Chapter Text

The thrift shop smelled of dust and resignation. Racks of forgotten clothes sagged under the weight of decades, their fabrics yellowed, seams tired, buttons loose like missing teeth. I moved among them as though I were slipping through a mausoleum. My fingers skimmed the edges of garments—moth-eaten wool, cracked leather, chiffon stiffened with age—until they met velvet. Black, thick, clinging velvet, the kind that seemed to drink the dim light above me.

I paused. And lifted the sleeve. The mirror on the opposite wall was warped, its glass rippled so my reflection shimmered like water. I saw myself in it, strange and elongated, my face pale under the jaundiced lightbulb overhead. For a moment, it wasn’t my face at all—it was older, hollow-eyed, mouth bruised with a darker red than I had ever dared. Then I blinked, and it was gone.

And then it came, the faintest brush at the edge of my mind. Not mine. Something cool and foreign, sliding over the crown of my skull like the whisper of a silk glove. Not Edwards, though he was hiding behind the shoe racks. But Aro’s... his gift—so faint I could have dismissed it as nerves. But I knew the texture by now, curiosity that wasn’t my own, hunger from far away.

I exhaled, and the breath clouded the glass of the mirror, though the shop wasn’t cold. I let it linger, a ghostly oval hovering over my warped face. And I couldn't help but smile, because I was beginning to like the idea of being watched.

tighten my grip on the velvet sleeve, nails pressing into the fabric as that foreign presence—Aro’s ghostly touch—lingers at the edge of my mind. Not forceful, not invasive, just... observing. Like I’m a curiosity he can’t resist poking at from across whatever dreamscape separates us.

Edward shifts behind the shoe rack, tension radiating off him like static. He knows something is here too—but not what. His restraint is a living thing, clawing at his ribs to lunge forward and yank me away from this unseen threat he doesn’t understand but hates.

A slow smirk curls my lips as I raise my free hand and drag a single fingertip down the fogged mirror in deliberate slowness:

One line.
Two.
A cross.

The breath fades from the glass before I finish tracing another mark beside it—but for one second longer, Aro's presence thrums with unmistakable amusement before dissolving like smoke on wind.

Funny how predators always think they're hunters when they follow you home.

(Until you let them.)

I step back from the mirror, smoothing my fingers down the velvet sleeves of the coat. The fabric is black and heavy, swallowing the dull gray light like a piece of the night.

Edward appears behind me, silent and disapproving, his jaw clenched like he's trying to swallow his own tongue.

I shoot him a sidelong glance as I shrug on the coat. The fabric stretches over my chest, hugging closer than the thrift store mirror had let on.

"Relax," I say, raising an eyebrow. "It's not like you're paying for it."

The coat swallows me whole—sleeves too long, shoulders just a fraction too broad—but there's something delicious about drowning in fabric this dark. Edward watches me like I've dipped my hands in poison, his golden eyes flickering between the coat and the empty air where something had brushed against my mind moments ago.

"Don't look so constipated," I mutter, rolling up one sleeve with deliberate slowness. "It's just a coat."

His nostrils flare. "You know that's not what this is about."

I pause mid-adjustment and meet his gaze directly. The thrift shop’s jaundiced light turns his usually perfect features sallow—his beauty rendered fragile under its sickly glow.

"And whose fault is it," I say softly, "that this doesn’t feel half as dangerous anymore?"

He recoils like I've struck him.

Funny how monsters lose their teeth
when you stop fearing their bite.
(Even funnier when they notice.)

"Goodbye, Cullen," I walked toward the end of the aisle with my chosen items, only pausing at the end to look over my shoulder at him. "Try to stalk me again, and I'll reenact what I did to those men in Port Angelos with you in their place."

He freezes, gaze snapping to my face with a sharpness that could cut glass. The words hit harder in the shadows of the thrift shop, echoing between us like a threat.

"You wouldn't," he says softly.

"Wouldn't I?" I let my words linger as I resumed walking, leaving him brooding within the Asile.

My back prickles as I make my way to the cash register, as if I can feel Edward's gaze boring into the back of my skull. The boy behind the counter gives me a bored look, barely glancing up from his comic book. He takes my money and gives me my change with all the enthusiasm of someone waiting for the end of a very long shift.

"New coat?" he asks, not really caring.

"New coat," I confirm, my voice smooth as the velvet sliding through my fingers.

The boy barely nods before turning back to his comic, already forgetting me as I walk out into the overcast afternoon. The weight of Edward's stare still burns between my shoulder blades—a quiet promise of his self-loathing following me home.

I pull the coat tighter around myself and smile against its soft darkness.

(Some warnings taste like victory.)

The next morning I'd walked into school draped in a few of my spoils. Velvet jacket. Lace at my throat, imperfect but commanding. Tarnished silver rings dug against my fingers. I moved differently too, deliberate, each gesture an echo of something I’d dreamt, every step languid and theatrical, as though my own body were becoming an instrument instead of a cage.

People watched me like I was an exotic beast strolling among them—an animal that might lash out at a moment's notice or purr in their arms depending on its mood.

Most gave me a wide berth in the halls, averting their gazes as though I were something holy or terrifying in equal measure.

I kept my eyes ahead, my gaze sharp and daring anyone to speak.

People watched me like I was an exotic beast strolling among them—an animal that might lash out at a moment's notice or purr in their arms depending on its mood.

Most gave me a wide berth in the halls, averting their gazes as though I were something holy or terrifying in equal measure.

I kept my eyes ahead, my gaze sharp and daring anyone to speak.

Jessica was the first to try her luck. She stepped into the hallway a few feet in front of me, flanked by her usual entourage of giggling girls. Her eyes flicked to the velvet jacket and the tarnished silver rings—lingering on the coat's rich fabric.

"Nice coat," she said finally, turning a bright, insincere smile over her shoulder at me. "You look like a goth librarian."

"Thank you," I let the words fall from my lips as I walk past her and to my locker.

"Bella!" A voice called out as I turned to see Riley as the culprit. 

"Hello," I greeted, turning back to finish opening my locker.

"Ready for tonight?" he asked, leaning on the locker beside mine, with a casualness as his eyes roamed my body.

"I am," I glance at him, noticing his gaze. "You like?" I say with the same deliberate casualness. His gaze shifted up to mine, and a small, crooked smile curled his mouth in response.

"Like is kind of an understatement," he said. His gaze skimmed the edge of leather and velvet like a caress. "You look like an entire mood. Or a work of art. Or a walking, breathing work of art that makes me want to write—"

I raised an eyebrow. "Write what? Sonnets?"

He smirked, ducking his head slightly. "Sonnets are for nerds who can't handle honesty." His fingers twitched like he wanted to reach out, but he kept them jammed in his pockets instead. "I was thinking more like... graffiti."

That actually made me laugh—a sharp, startled sound that had a couple of students glancing over in surprise. Riley grinned wider at the reaction as if I'd just handed him some rare prize.

"Graffiti," I repeated dryly, adjusting the cuff of my sleeve with deliberate slowness. "Dangerously close to poetic there yourself, don't you think?"

He shrugged—unbothered by my teasing—and matched my steps as we turned toward class. "Guess you bring it out of me," he said easily before adding under his breath: "Terrifyingly short menace."

(Some truths taste better when whispered.)

At lunch, the cafeteria paused when I entered. Conversations dimmed. Forks scraped awkwardly. Someone muttered, “Morticia cosplay.” Another whispered, “vampire chic.” Nothing I hadn't heard before. But I could feel the attention ripple against me like static electricity, and I chose to wear it like armor.

Angela met me at the table, eyes wide with delight. She reached across the tray to touch my wrist, fingers lingering too long on the velvet cuff. “You look incredible.” It wasn’t just admiration—it was hunger, quiet and reverent. I allowed it, tipping my wrist so Angela could trace the lace.

Edward was across the room, unblinking. His jaw was locked so tight the tendon popped white against his throat. The book in his hand bent under the pressure of his grip until the spine cracked. He didn’t move. He couldn’t. His restraint was the only thing keeping his body from tearing open.

Jessica sneered to mask fascination. Mike stared, then looked away as though I'd had burned him. But I merely ate slowly, savoring the feel of their discomfort, letting the cafeteria heat coil around me. I felt like a queen draped in the wrong century, surveying a court that hadn’t realized it belonged to her.

Angela kept tracing the velvet of my sleeve, gaze raking my new clothes like a starving woman faced with a lavish feast. "Where in the actual hell did you find this coat?" she demanded, her fingers still skating over the material like she could taste the fabric's softness.

I shrugged, the movement slow and deliberate. "Thrift shop," I said dryly, taking my time to take another bite. "It was buried in the back. Probably been sitting there for decades."

Angela scoffed, eyeing the lace at my throat. "You never find anything this good shopping secondhand. You got damn lucky."

I smirked, swirling my straw through my drink lazily. "Luck had nothing to do with it," I murmured, meeting her gaze with deliberate amusement. "I knew what I was looking for."

Her fingers tightened slightly around my cuff before she released me with a small shake of her head—like she couldn’t decide whether to be impressed or exasperated by the answer.

Across the room, Edward’s knuckles had gone bone-white around his ruined book. The tendons in his neck stood taut beneath marble-pale skin as if he were holding himself together by sheer will alone. His golden eyes burned darker than usual—almost amber under the fluorescent cafeteria lights—and they never once left me.

(Some victories are silent.)

I finished my food deliberately slow, letting the cafeteria noise swell around us again as people grew bored of staring. By the time I stood to leave, even Edward had looked away—though his grip on the ruined book hadn’t loosened an inch.

Angela caught my wrist again before I could go. “You’re coming over tonight,” she said, not a question. “We need to take photos of this fit.”

I raised an eyebrow but didn’t argue—just let my lips curve into something knowing as I pulled free with a flick of lace-covered fingers.

Some invitations don’t need words at all.

The halls parted for me on my way out, whispers trailing in my wake like shadows stretching long behind royalty.

Funny how power shifts when you stop asking permission to take up space. (Funny how they notice.)

"We'll see, I have plans," I said honestly.

Angela's eyes flickered with something unreadable before she schooled her expression back into casual amusement. "Plans better than me draping you in every vintage necklace I own while forcing you to drink terrible wine coolers?" She twirled a strand of hair around her finger, the picture of forced nonchalance.

Across the cafeteria, Edward was standing abruptly—his chair scraping loud enough to draw glances—before striding out with his ruined book still clutched in one hand. The door swung shut behind him with unnecessary force.

I turned my attention back to Angela as if nothing had happened. "Maybe," I said lightly, tracing a chipped silver ring along my thumb absently. "But don't take it personally."

She studied me for a long moment before sighing dramatically and flopping back against her seat. "Fine. But if your 'plans' involve lurking in graveyards or brooding on cliffs like some romanticized Victorian ghost," she pointed a french fry at me accusingly, "I'm disowning you."

(Some threats are more affectionate than others.)

I rolled my eyes, leaning forward on folded arms. "You sound like you're speaking from experience," I teased, lips curved. "Is there a mysterious, brooding stranger lurking in the cemetery you've neglected to mention?"

"Shut up," she huffed, throwing the fry at me. It bounced harmlessly off my shoulder as she groaned into her hands. "God, you're terrible."

I bit back a smirk. "Hey, you're the one who likes me this way."

Later, before my last class of the day, I ducked into the library in need of returning some of the lucid dreaming books I'd checked out already, having taken notes. However, as quiet as the library was. With its dust in the air, thin sunlight slicing across the rows, such a piece wouldn't last in this doomed school. Eric and Mike had lingered near the back stacks, emboldened by memory of how she had humiliated them once before. They moved to intercept her—an awkward pincer movement, grins plastered on their faces like masks.

“Hey, Bella,” Eric said, voice cracking, “got more, uh, poetry to share?”

I didn’t stop walking. Instead, I leaned in just enough that my perfume—metallic, sharp, something like iron and roses—slipped into their nostrils. My voice was low, deliberate. “Do you really want me to notice you?”

They froze.

I smiled. Not warmly—sharply, like a scalpel held up to the light. Eric swallowed hard. Mike’s laugh stuttered and died in his throat. They stumbled back, muttering excuses, their retreat as graceless as their approach. And I let them go, the echo of power lingering on my tongue like dark wine.

From across the room, Edward watched. His knuckles were bloodless. The cover of his book crumpled under his fingers. He wanted to intervene, to stop me, to save me—or maybe to ruin me. He couldn’t tell anymore.

Angela, who'd been waiting near the exit, watched the whole exchange unfold, eyes wide. "Jesus," she said when they were out of earshot, her gaze raking the retreating pair. "I'm pretty sure Eric just pissed himself."

I shrugged, examining the chipped silver nail polish on my fingertips. "Serves him right."

Angela rolled her eyes. "You're heartless."

"Or just tired of people underestimating me."

She scoffed, looping her arm through mine. "I feel like you should sound less badass while wearing a coat with this much velvet."

"Not possible"

Angela snorted, giving my sleeve another dramatic tug. “Humble too, I see.”

I smirked, tilting my head just enough to let the overhead light catch the edge of a silver ring—cold and sharp against my fingers. "Would you like me any other way?"

She grinned, teeth flashing white against her plum-dark lipstick. "Absolutely not."

From the corner of my eye, I saw Edward’s spine stiffen where he stood lingering near the exit we'd just left—his ruined book still clenched between trembling fingers. His gaze burned hotter than before when it landed on me: half fury, half hunger that had nowhere left to go but rot.

I exhaled slowly through my nose and did not look back as we walked away.

Funny how quickly monsters forget
they were never your only option.

(Even funnier when they remember.)

Angela kept chattering as we walked down the hall, her fingers still toying with the velvet cuff on my sleeve. "I just need photos of you in this coat under at least six different lighting situations before—"

Edward appeared in front of us like a phantom, blocking our path down the hall. His gaze swept over me: sharp-eyed and biting.

Angela stopped mid-sentence, startled into a silence that didn't suit her at all.

"Cullen," The name left my lips as though it was a mere afterthought as my eyes met his in an interested, slightly annoyed glare.

His jaw tightened at my tone—at the way I looked at him like he was nothing more than an inconvenient obstacle. His golden eyes flickered between us, lingering on Angela’s fingers where they still brushed the velvet of my sleeve before snapping back to mine.

"Bella," he said stiffly, voice low enough that only we could hear it beneath the chatter of students in the hall. "We need to talk."

I arched a brow, slow and deliberate. "Do we?"

Angela sucked in a quiet breath beside me, her grip tightening slightly on my arm—not out of fear but anticipation. Like she was witnessing something dangerous unfolding right in front of her and couldn't decide whether to step back or lean closer for a better look.

(Some confrontations taste like poisoned sugar.)

Edward was in front of me again in the next instant. He'd moved so fast that even Angela let out a small gasp of surprise. "If you don't want me to make a scene," he hissed, "you'll come with me. Now."

I leveled him with an annoyed glare. "Hell no, you creep me out and I sure as hell am not going to do anything you say, perhaps the voltur-"

His entire body twitched at the mention of them—an involuntary, violent reaction that had the veins in his temples standing stark against marble-pale skin. His fingers curled like claws at his sides before he forced them still, but not before Angela let out another startled noise behind me. "How do you-"

"You don’t know what you're playing with," he ground out between clenched teeth. The fluorescent lights above flickered slightly—his control slipping enough to make the electricity in the air hum with unnatural energy.

I smiled lazily and stepped closer, tilting my head just enough to let him see how little I cared for his threats masked as warnings. "Oh? And you think you do?"

Edward inhaled sharply through his nose—like he was trying to physically swallow back whatever words wanted to tear free from him next—before abruptly spinning on his heel and stalking away down the hall without another word

Funny how quickly hunters falter
when they realize
they were never hunting prey at all. (But something far worse.)

"Edward," Rosalie appeared behind him from seemingly nowhere, eyes fixed on him with disgust. "She said No, leave it. The others are waiting."

Edward hesitated for a fraction of a second—long enough for Rosalie to grab his wrist in an iron grip and yank him back. Her lip curled as she looked him up and down like he was something filthy stuck to the bottom of her shoe. "Don't make me repeat myself," she hissed through clenched teeth before shoving him toward the exit with enough force that even he stumbled slightly.

For one perfect, silent moment, Edward actually looked... shocked. Like it hadn’t occurred to him until right then that none of them were on his side anymore—that they might not have been for a long time now. His throat bobbed once before he finally turned away from us entirely, stalking off without another word while Rosalie shot me an unreadable look over her shoulder before following after him.

(Some exits are quieter than screams.)

Funny how a king doesn’t realize he’s lost his crown
until the silence around him
is deafening.

(And I didn’t even have to lift a hand.))

Angela let out a slow, shaky breath as they disappeared down the hall. "What in the actual hell was that?" Her fingers tightened on my sleeve, not in fear—but something like exhilaration. Like she'd just witnessed something electric and dangerous and couldn't look away fast enough.

I smoothed down the velvet of my coat with deliberate nonchalance, watching where Edward had vanished around the corner before meeting her gaze again. "Just someone who forgot his place."

Later, after I made sure Angela had gotten home safely. I went to the bookstore later that evening; the air was quieter, with the hum of fluorescent lights steady overhead. I stacked a pile of books on lucid dreaming and nineteenth-century Gothic literature on the counter. Riley noticed.

“You’re into the weird stuff,” he said, not mocking but curious.

I looked up, met his eyes. He wasn’t gawking. He wasn’t dazzled like the others. He was interested.

“Dreams aren’t weird,” I replied. “They’re the only time the rules bend.”

He leaned against the counter. “You mean… when you realize you’re dreaming, and you can steer it?”

My lips curved. “Exactly. Control. Or maybe… letting go of control.”

They talked, really talked—for half an hour. About authors, about the grotesque in art, about why people fear mirrors. Riley listened, asked questions, and didn’t treat me like I was fragile or insane. It wasn’t compulsion, like Edward. It wasn’t hunger, like Angela. It was curiosity, and it drew me in.

When he and I went to dinner after our shift for our date, the conversation was simple. What did you want to do after high school? Favorite band this week? Family?

He took me to a small, quiet Thai place with dim lighting and worn vinyl booths. We shared plates of drunken noodles, fried rice, and spicy curry—talking long after we finished eating.

His feet brushed mine under the table. Our knees pressed together in unspoken, comfortable contact. And for once, I let them.

"You're staring," he murmured, taking a sip of his water. His foot brushed mine again, just a gentle touch.

I raised an eyebrow. "Is that such a crime?" I asked dryly, taking a sip of my own water.

He chuckled—soft, amused. "No," he said, eyes gleaming under the restaurant's low lighting, "but I've got an honest face. I might get flattered if you keep looking at me like that."

I smirked. "You think you're worth looking at that intently?"

He leaned back in his seat, spreading his knees wider under the table. His smile widened. "I know I am."

"Cocky," I murmured, resting my chin in my hand.

He shrugged. "I prefer the term 'confident.'"

I rolled my eyes but didn’t argue—just let the corner of my mouth curl as I took another slow sip of water. The ice clinked softly in the glass, a quiet punctuation to his ridiculous confidence.

Riley watched me, head tilted slightly, before reaching across the table to steal a bite of mango from my untouched dessert plate. He popped it into his mouth with deliberate slowness—eyes never leaving mine—as if daring me to protest.

I didn’t.

Instead, I leaned forward just enough to rest my elbow on the table, fingers tracing idle circles around the rim of my glass without breaking eye contact for even a second.

(Some silences are louder than words.)

"So, you want to go to music school, but your mother doesn't approve." 

His forehead creased—not annoyance at me, but at the topic. "She thinks I'll be better off going into business with my dad after high school. Says music is fine as a hobby, but nothing to stake a career on."

"What if you studied to be an archaeomusicologist?" I suggested sipping my drink, "You'd get to study music whilst having a stable income and work on your own personal music in your free time."

His expression flickered—suddenly sharp, suddenly considering. He set his fork down slowly. "Archaeo... what?"

"Musicologist," I repeated, lacing my fingers under my chin. "Basically, studying the history of music across cultures. Digging up old scores, reconstructing lost instruments—how people used sound to communicate long before written language." My lips curved as his eyes widened slightly with interest. "Stable paycheck for your parents' peace of mind... and plenty of weird gaps in history to fuel your own compositions on the side."

Riley sat back in the booth with a low exhale like he was mentally rearranging entire life plans right then and there. "...You’re terrifyingly good at this," he muttered after a beat.

Funny how futures can change
over mango slices
and half-formed ideas whispered between bites. (And isn’t that just delicious?)

"It's a talent," I murmured, watching him rake a hand through his hair in thought. He looked younger, eyes slightly wide with what might have been hope.

"I had no idea anything like that existed," he confessed—not like an admission of fault, but like some revelation he hadn't even known could exist until then.

I let myself smile just a bit, tracing an idle pattern on the tablecloth. "Sounds like a win-win scenario to me."

"I'm starting to think you might be too good to be true," he said, eyes narrowing. "You go from looking scary enough to freeze people in their tracks to giving life advice like a damn fortune cookie."

I raised an eyebrow. "And you've gone from cocky to full-blown paranoid in a span of ten minutes. Should I be flattered?"

Funny how the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done
wasn’t wearing claws or velvet,
but offering someone hope in a Thai restaurant.

(And watching them actually take it.)

"Maybe," he replied, leaning forward on his forearms. "Or maybe I just have trust issues and have no idea how to handle someone actually giving me sound, non-parent-suggested life advice."

I smirked, but he continued before I could retort. "Seriously, every single other time I've tried to bring up my future with someone, they give me the same old BS lines. 'You should just follow your parents' advice, or 'stick it out until you get a real job first' and other crap like that. Except you."

I arched an eyebrow. "You're saying I'm better at life coaching than your own parents?"

His lips curled against the rim of his soda glass. "And somehow more realistic than my own college counselor."

I couldn't help smiling then—just a ghost of it across my lips, quick and small. "I've never had anyone accuse me of being realistic before."

He smirked, leaning back against the booth and folding his hands over his stomach. "You're a walking oxymoron," he replied, eyes glinting. "Everything about you is a contradiction. Scary, intimidating... and weirdly good to talk to. It's unnerving."

Funny how the things they call contradictions
are just proof that I’m more
than what they tried to box me into.

(And you—you saw it all.)

I swirled my straw in my drink, watching the ice cubes clink lazily against the glass before meeting his gaze again. "So what’s your verdict?" My voice was quiet—not hesitant, but waiting. "Unnerving in a bad way... or unnerving in a 'keep talking' kind of way?"

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Definitely the 'keep talking' kind," he murmured, expression half-teasing and half genuine hunger. Like he could devour a novel full of my words and still be itching for a sequel. "I feel like if I leave this restaurant without some kind of life plan set up, I'm going to go crazy trying to figure all your contradictions out for the foreseeable future."

I smirked, something sharp and oddly pleased dancing in my chest. "Careful, that sounds like the start of a terrible addiction," I replied casually. "You might actually start enjoying our conversations."

"Oh, I'm already addicted," he confessed shamelessly. "Addicted to actually talking about my future with someone instead of being told to just shut up and take whatever path my parents have already decided for me. Addicted to someone actually having answers for what I want to do, not just what my parents want for me. Addicted to the idea of actually enjoying my career instead of dreading it."

The weight of his words settled between us—raw, unfiltered. The restaurant noise faded into the background as I studied him over the rim of my glass. He wasn’t just flirting anymore; this was something deeper, something real.

I tilted my head slightly. "So what now?" My voice was softer than before, stripped of its usual edge. "You go home and tell them you're chasing music history instead of business school?"

Riley exhaled through his nose, lips quirking as he leaned forward again—close enough that I could see the flecks of gold in his eyes under the dim light. "Now," he said slowly, holding my gaze with an intensity that sent a shiver down my spine despite myself, "you help me draft an argument so solid even they can’t tear it apart." A beat passed before he added with a smirk: "...And then maybe we get dessert."

Funny how easily
a single conversation
can unravel entire futures.
(And stitch them back together better.)

That night after I returned from my date, I laid the rest of my cleaned spoils across my bed, figuring I might as well sort the rest and store them: Another velvet jacket, lace gloves, tarnished jewelry. The lamplight caught the threads and made them shimmer faintly, like veins of silver running beneath the fabric. I slipped them on, one by one, watching in the mirror as I transformed.

My reflection looked older, harder. Shadows carved her cheekbones into hollows. The lace gloves made my hands look like they’d been dressed for a funeral. I stared until the lines of my face blurred, until I wasn’t sure if I was dressing myself, or if the dream-version of Me—the one who stood in vaulted marble halls with kings who whispered my name—was dressing me.

A chill slid down my spine. And for once, I welcomed it.

The jacket settled over my shoulders like a second skin—heavy with the weight of something older than me, something hungry. The silver rings caught the dim lamplight as I flexed my fingers, watching their tarnished edges gleam dully.

A whisper of movement at the edge of my vision made me stiffen.

Not real, I told myself sharply.

But when I turned—just slightly—I could’ve sworn the shadows clinging to my bedroom wall stretched longer than they should have. Darker. Almost... breathing.

Funny how quickly armor becomes skin
when you stop fearing what it attracts. (And what if they were right to fear you all along?)

Chapter Text

By thursday, Forks had rewritten me into myth.
I heard it in the cafeteria—hissed between straws and fries: witch, succubus, Morticia cosplay gone rogue. Someone said I slept in a coffin. Someone else swore they saw me light a candle in my locker, chanting in Latin. None of it was true, but all of it was useful.

I didn’t bother correcting them.
I leaned into it.
School wasn’t a hallway, it was a masquerade hall—fluorescents like chandeliers, every whisper a mask shifting in the crowd.

Angela played her part perfectly: eyes soft, smile subdued, slipping me homework answers like she was kneeling at an altar. When Jessica pressed too close with questions—What lipstick is that? Did you really say no to Mike?—Angela would cut in, effortless shield. Jealousy pinched Jessica’s face; awe hollowed her out. She didn’t know which mask to wear.

Jacob stopped by after school—Billy and Charlie bent over the TV, some game on, their laughter warm and ordinary. Jacob’s presence was heat, uncomplicated and steady. I could almost sink into it. Almost. But it wasn’t hunger, wasn’t the pull. It was comfort without teeth. Tenderness I didn’t crave.

When I excused myself upstairs, the contrast sharpened. The mirror caught my reflection in velvet and lace; the mask looked back at me.

That night the dream shifted.
Ash floated like snow across marble floors. A masquerade of the dead: faces pale, eyes empty, and at the center—three kings.

Caius stood nearest, protective as a blade drawn. Marcus hovered just behind, gaze mournful, a shadow pulling at me. And Aro—he circled like smoke, whispering against my ear, masks reveal more than they hide, little one.

Their robes brushed the floor. Their eyes weighed me down. And when Aro’s voice slipped colder, reaching inside my skull, Marcus and Caius moved closer—circling, defending. Saints carved of ash and hunger.

I woke with my pulse heavy, lips dry, the masquerade still stamped behind my eyelids.

Not real, I repeated to myself as I pushed myself out of bed.  

The clock on my wall read 2:04 A.M.  

The silence of the night pressed against my skin as I pulled open the curtains, leaning my palms on the sill.  

The shadow of a maple tree reached toward the glass, branches curling like fingers.  

"Not real ", I whispered—to myself or the shadows, I couldn't say which.

The air in my room was thick with the scent of candle wax and old velvet—smells that clung to my skin like a second layer. I exhaled slowly, running a gloved hand over the pile of books on my desk: Myths & Legends of Old Europe, Gothic Architecture: A History, something on lucid dreaming with dog-eared pages.

Outside, rain began to patter against the window—soft at first, then heavier, as if the sky had finally decided to spill its secrets all at once.

I tilted my head toward the sound before reaching for a half-burned taper on my nightstand. The match struck sharp in the dark; flame flickered alive between my fingers. Shadows waltzed across the walls as I held it aloft—watching wax drip slow as blood down its length before setting it carefully into its holder.

Ash floated like snow across marble floors.

A shudder crawled up my spine—not from fear but something deeper, something that tasted suspiciously like recognition.

Funny how dreams don’t feel like dreams

when they leave fingerprints

on your waking skin.

(And what does that make you?)

I leaned back in my chair, stretching my fingers—they still tingled from the cold. Another quick glance outside showed nothing but a curtain of rain—no shadowy hands, no flickering streetlights through the maple tree. Empty. Quiet.

It was all so... normal.

My eyes roamed around my room for the millionth time—taking in the velvet jacket tossed over the foot of my bed, the worn books scattered on my desk, the shadows cast by the lamp at the edge of my bedside table.

Nothing looked out of place.

I turned back to my desk, reaching for the half-burned taper without thinking—then stopped. My hands were shaking just slightly, fingers curling into fists before smoothing out.

A breath hissed through my teeth.

Get a grip.

I ran a hand over my face the early hour and previous exhaustion clinging to my bones like  a second skin.

The bed creaked faintly as I collapsed back onto it, my body sinking into the mattress like an anchor into water. My limbs felt leaden, weighed down by fatigue and the lingering unease of dreams that clung to me like cobwebs. The rain outside was a steady rhythm now—soothing in its constancy—but sleep felt miles away.

I stared at the ceiling, counting the cracks in the plaster until my vision blurred.

This is ridiculous.

With a sharp exhale through my nose, I rolled onto my side and grabbed Myths & Legends off the nightstand with more force than necessary—if I couldn’t sleep, might as well dissect every folklore reference to kings made of ash until dawn.

Funny how exhaustion feels heavier, when your mind refuses to stop digging graves for dead things.

(And isn’t that just tragic?)

The words swam before me in the low lamplight, blurring together into a jumble of inkblots. I forced my eyes to refocus, scanning the paragraphs for something, anything that felt familiar.

Nothing did.

Frustrated, I tossed the book aside and slid my legs over the side of the bed. The floor was cold underfoot as I reached for the taper and lit it again.

Light flared, illuminating the edges of the room in warm orange. Incense smoke curled through the air, sweet like vanilla and bitter with something darker.

I blew out a breath, watching the smoke twist in the air with an almost hypnotic effect.

Focus.

With a groan, I raked a hand through my hair. My thoughts were a tangled jumble of images and half-formed dreams: the kings cloaked in ash; a marble floor stained grey with shadows; three figures circling like predators around a flame.

I shut my eyes, head still spinning. The last thing I needed was to start seeing things that weren't there. It was the middle of the night, I was tired. That was all.

I exhaled sharply, pressing the heels of my palms against my eyelids until bursts of color bloomed behind them. The silence of the room pressed in—too loud, too heavy—until even the sound of my own breathing grated against my nerves.

With a muttered curse, I grabbed Myths & Legends again and flipped to a random page:

The Kings in Ash

Legends speak of three rulers who walked through fire unscathed—their skin untouched by flame, their robes trailing cinders like royal cloaks...

I slammed the book shut so hard dust puffed from its pages.

Outside, wind lashed rain against the windowpane like fingernails dragging down glass. The candle flickered wildly before steadying—casting long shadows that slithered up the walls before stilling just as quickly.

My reflection watched me from across the room: hollow-eyed and pale under tangled hair with fingers clenched white-knuckled around leather binding as if it could anchor her here in this reality instead of whatever dream kept trying to claw her back under...

All through the next day, a cloud of fatigue that I had grown accustomed to since the dreams began followed me.

Every word from the teachers' mouths was muffled through static, like I was trying to listen to them from the bottom of a pool. All I caught were fragments—history, mythology, architecture, legends, myths — words that danced around the edges of my consciousness like flames.

Angela and Jessica shot me curious glances when I caught myself staring out the window for the fourth time, mind stuck on the shadows of the maple tree that reached like hands toward the glass.

"You look like you didn't get much sleep," Angela murmured as we left for lunch.

I gave her a tired smirk. "Define sleep."

Her lips pursed in concern, but she didn’t push—just looped her arm through mine as we walked, letting the silence between us settle like snowfall.

Meanwhile, across the cafeteria, Edward was watching me again—his golden eyes sharp with something I couldn't place. Annoyance? Suspicion? Either way, his glare was practically tangible from here.

I took an exaggerated bite of my apple just to watch his nose wrinkle in disgust before turning back to Angela with a shrug. "Some people need hobbies."Funny how easy it is

to weaponize an apple

when you’re too tired to care.

(And isn’t it hilarious how he flinches like I just pulled a knife instead of a Honeycrisp?))

Angela hid her laugh behind her hand, eyes flickering between me and Edward’s stiff retreating back as he stalked away. "You enjoy that way too much," she murmured, shaking her head.

I took another slow, deliberate bite—juice dripping dangerously close to my wrist just for the drama of it—before answering. "It’s the little things in life."

She followed my glance and grimaced. "He's been staring again?"

I hummed, taking another deliberate bite of my apple. "Seems I'm under his microscope."

He didn't look away, expression still caught between irritation and something more calculating. I held his gaze as Angela huffed next to me. "...Shouldn't he take a hint soon?"

“Like how he should’ve taken it weeks ago?” I set down my apple suddenly repulsed juice dripping onto my hand.

Angela huffed again, shaking her head. "He's persistent, I'll give him that."

"More like a pain in the ass," I muttered, flicking an annoyed glance back at him. His gaze darted away like I'd finally scored a hit—a tiny twitch of irritation flickering across his eyes before he regained his usual composure.

"Honestly, don't know what his problem even is." Angela sighed. "He's been giving you the creeps since the first day and now he acts like you kicked his dog or something."

I snorted, crumpling my banana-crusted pizza wrapper into a tight little ball. "Maybe I did. With the power of my mind."

She rolled her eyes, but an amused smile was tugging at the corner of her mouth. "You should use it more often then. It'd be great for getting people to shut up in class."

I smirked, tilting my chin up in mock confidence. "What can I say? I have a gift."

She shoved my arm lightly. "I hate you."

"No, you don't."

She shook her head, still grinning. "No," she admitted. "I don't, even if you are a pain."

I grinned back, flicking the balled-up pizza wrapper into the trash from a few feet away. "Damn right."

She laughed, but it was drowned by the sudden hush that fell over the cafeteria. Something about it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, like everyone had gone silent in the middle of a sentence. Angela tensed next to me, fingers tightening on her water bottle.

When I turned to see what had caused the sudden shift, I found Edward standing at our table—too close, as always. His golden eyes burned with an intensity that bordered on unhinged.

"Can we talk?" he demanded, voice low enough that only we could hear it beneath the hum of frozen whispers around us.

I didn't bother looking up from my drink. "Still no."

His jaw clenched so hard I swore I heard his teeth grind together before he abruptly turned on his heel and stalked out of the cafeteria—leaving behind a ripple of shocked murmurs in his wake.

Funny how some people never learn

that "no" isn’t an opening for negotiation

but a wall.

(And not everyone scales them well.)

The rest of the day seemed to blur into itself, trapped in the sleepy haze my days were filled with. Until I found myself at home staring at cauis and Marcus’s portraits debating on if I  should paint Aro’s Perhaps then I might be released from my dreams and finally wake without feeling half dead.

Night found me back in my room, brush in hand as I stared down a blank canvas. The room was silent as a grave, save for the hum of the ceiling fan above and the distant sound of rain outside—a soothing rhythm against the window.

The portrait of Caius and Marcus stared back at me from the wall, their faces familiar even as my thoughts spiraled around in circles like water down a drain.

The clock on my bedside read 1:00 A.M

Perfect painting weather, I thought wryly.

I sighed, setting down my brush and stepping back to examine the canvas. I'd spent the last twenty minutes staring at it, trying to force some form to appear—a face, a shape, a shadow, something that might resemble even a portion of the dreams that still played behind my eyelids like a film reel.

A sharp exhale through my nose broke the quiet of the room. This is stupid, I thought, turning away from the blank canvas with an irritated twitch of my fingers. I could've been asleep by now. Or at least trying.

The air in the room felt thick, charged with something restless—like the moment before a storm breaks. I picked up the brush again, swirling dark paint onto my palette like spilled ink.

If I painted him, would they stop haunting me?

My hand hovered over the canvas, hesitating. What if—what if giving form to Aro in pigment and brushstrokes only anchored him deeper into my subconscious? What if it made everything worse?

I swallowed hard.

Then—with a slow exhale—I pressed bristles to blank space and began.

Funny how exorcisms work:

sometimes holy water is just paint

and prayers are just brushstrokes

(And maybe that’s enough.)