Julien Gregg's Life and Death at Twilight: The Vampire Saga
You may know the story of Twilight but you don't know it like this. I was given a challenge to write a fanfiction version of all four books and merge them with The Vampire Saga. That was impossible as things were in the story for a few reasons. What follows is Book 1: Life and Death at Twilight. This is the first book of Twilighted: The Vampire Saga. Follow Beau Swan as he arrives in Forks, Washington to live with his father and glimpses the vampires for the very first time. This is the love story that Twilight was with a bunch of twists and out right changes. I hope you like it. I make no money from this and it was written in fun. Please read it that way. This book is heavily based on the book by Stephenie Meyer but it is a Julien Gregg book and a Vampire Saga tale no less. Expect the strong adult themes, violence and murder that come along with one of my books.
Some notes on what you're about to read. Merging this with The Vampire Saga required a few changes to the setting of the story. For one thing I decided that if it was supposed to be set in The Vampire Saga world the story had to take on the required change of when it was told. If you've read any of The Vampire Saga you know that a considerable amount of time has passed in that storyline. Then you also know the psychic gifts of the vampires in The Vampire Saga. They are similar to what Alice and Edward can do, but what Jasper does is unheard of. The trackers aren't all that hard to incorporate. So I'm going to ask you, the reader, to believe in a little magic. In this storyline I will say that Carlisle, Jasper and Alice were all sired by Darian Lane from The Vampire Jessup. If you remember, Darian was the product of a long line of demigods. His blood might inspire different gifts than the normal. Then, of course, there's the fact that my vampires cannot turn females. We have Esme, Alice and Rosalie. I won't give the game away by telling you here how I dealt with that problem, just know that I did deal with it. Please don't lynch me and give the story a chance. So come with me to the strange world of 2150, and please understand that this is no longer a young adult romance.
Life and Death at Twilight
The Vampire Saga Twilighted
Chapter 1
PREFACE
Death is something I'd had to think a lot about over the past year but never quite like this. Though I have to say that dying this way, in the place of one that I love is probably the most selfless thing I've ever done. I thought of this as I looked into the cold eyes of my killer.
FIRST SIGHT
I stared out the window at the sunny desert sand as my mom drove me to the airport. Not much had been said between us since we'd left. Phil and I had shaken hands and then he'd hugged and kissed my mother and we were off. My mother was silent I'm sure because she was trying not to talk me out of my decision. I was silent because I was trying not to beg her to turn around and forget that I'd ever decided to leave. We drove with the windows rolled down. It was eighty degrees in good old Phoenix and the sun was shining in a clear, perfect sky. I was wearing my favorite shirt, a white sleeveless tank with black jeans and my favorite tennis shoes on my feet.
A small town exists in the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State. That small town's name is Forks and it exists under an almost constant cover of clouds known to shower the town and surrounding area with rain a lot more than anywhere else in the United States of America. My mother escaped from the town of Forks with me when I was a few months old. Now I was going back and it had been my idea. I'd spent every summer in Forks until I was fourteen. I'd put my foot down then, so for the past three summers Charlie, my dad, had vacationed with me for two weeks out of the summer in sunny California.
Why was I going back? Well that was easy enough. My mother, young for her age had fallen in love with a young baseball player named Phil. He's a semiprofessional baseball player who travels a lot. My mother stayed with me in our small two bedroom apartment most of the time but I could tell it made her unhappy. So I'd exiled myself to Charlie's for the next year and a half of my scholastic career. Eighteen months of endless rain and probably snow. It was probably going to drive me crazy. Well all right, that's a bit melodramatic even for me. My mom says I have a very active imagination. I guess she's right. Knowing that didn't help. I loved Phoenix. I loved the sun. I loved having the windows open all winter. I was going to miss it like crazy.
My mother says we look so much alike that we look more like brother and sister than mother and child. She's right about that I suppose we get mistaken for siblings a lot. She never lets on but I know this thrills her. She loves to be thought of as young. We look alike but not as much as she thinks. Her winter blue eyes, so much like my own are open and childlike, her lips are full and her expression is one of wonder most of the time. My winter blue eyes have been described as cold and weary. My own lips were a bit thinner than hers with my constant scowl that kept most people from talking to me. It was into those winter eyes that looked so much like my own that I was staring now. They looked a bit frazzled and afraid.
"Beau, you know you don't have to do this," my mother said, not for the first time since I'd made this decision. We were standing outside the airport. I was clutching my one and only bag. We'd pooled our resources to supplement my winter wardrobe but it was almost nonexistent. My carry on item was a winter coat.
"I want to go," I said, telling the same lie that I'd been telling for weeks. I was ordinarily such a bad liar that people knew when I was lying. I'd told this one so much that I almost believed it myself.
"All right," she sighed. "Tell your father I said hello."
"I will."
"I'll see you soon, sweetheart," she said. "You can come home any time you want."
I saw the sacrifice in her eyes as she said it and my resolve strengthened.
"Don't worry about me, Mom," I said. "It'll be good to spend some quality time with Dad."
Yet staring into her wide, worried eyes I felt almost panicked. How could I leave my loveable, harebrained mother on her own? I'd been taking care of her for most of my life. I had no friends other than her. I'd had no time for friends. I'd had budgets to write, checkbooks to balance and groceries to buy. I hoped that Phil would do these things for her and more. I suddenly thought about how she frequently forgot to pay bills like the electric and phone bills. Phil had his work cut out for him. She hugged me and then I walked into the airport, refusing to look back in fear that I'd go running back to her if I did.
Then it was about a three hour flight from Phoenix to Seattle and then another hour on a smaller plane that jerked and shimmied more than I liked from Seattle to Port Angeles. After all of that there was an hour car ride to Port Angeles to Forks. Flying was never a big deal to me. The hour stuck in the car with Charlie however would likely be hell. Charlie had been really good about the whole thing. Of course he was getting to spend more time with me. After the flight from Port Angeles he was waiting for me with the cruiser. It was raining but I didn't see it as an omen. I'd already said my goodbyes to the sun. Rain here was inevitable.
The police cruiser I was expecting. Charlie is the chief of police in Forks. Visions of being driven around the small town in the cruiser were what had got me to thinking about buying a car. I had limited resources but I wasn't looking forward to looking more like a freak than I already was. Then there were the red and blue lights on the top. Nothing stops traffic like a police cruiser. All I needed was for the kids at school, who probably wouldn't like me anyway to see me arrive in that car.
I stumbled off the plain and Charlie put a hand on my shoulder to steady me. He laughed a bit which annoyed me and then gave me a one armed hug as he said, "It's good to see you, Beau. How's Renée?"
"Mom's great," I said, trying to smile. "It's good to see you, too Dad."
Calling him Charlie was against his rules so I'd have to remember that. He patted me on the shoulder and then stepped back a bit. We were both embarrassed. Neither of us enjoyed displaying affection. He was probably worse about it than I was but then I wasn't so sure of that. We climbed into the cruiser and the awkward silence began. I watched the soggy landscape pass me by with a sigh. This was it. I was really going to Forks.
"I found a great car for you," Charlie said into the growing silence.
"What kind of car?" I asked, suspicious of the way he'd said "great care for you" as opposed to just a "great car".
"Well it's a truck actually," he said, pointedly not looking at me. "A Chevy."
"What does it look like?" I asked already more suspicious because he wouldn't even glance in my direction.
"Do you remember Billy Black from La Push?" he asked. La Push was the small Native American Reservation on the coast.
"No," I lied.
"He used to go fishing with us when you were here for the summers," he said.
Ah, I thought. That's why I pretended not to know who he was talking about. Fishing with Charlie was almost as awkward as this car ride. I tended to block out unpleasant things. I found life was better when I did that. Now I was wondering what Billy Black had to do with the truck that Charlie thought was "great for me". I waited in silence until he told me.
"He's in a wheelchair now and can't drive," he went on when I said nothing. "He gave me a great deal."
"What year is it?" I asked, not fooled for a moment.
"Well he's done a lot of work on the engine," he said, evading my question and making me more suspicious. "It's like new."
"Did he buy it new?" I asked. He couldn't have thought I'd give up that easily.
"Well no," he said, looking out his own window. "He bought it in the twenties I think."
"What year is it?" I asked again.
"Well I think it was new in the nineteen fifties or sixties," he said sheepishly.
"Ch-Dad I don't know anything about cars," I said, thinking of a million protests to go with what I'd already said.
"Beau, really the thing runs really great," he said quickly.
The Thing, I thought. That had potential as a nickname or something.
"How much of a deal am I getting?" I asked.
"Well, now I kind of already bought it for you," he said. "Sort of like a homecoming present."
Wow, it was free!
"You didn't really need to do that, Dad," I said. "I was going to buy myself a car."
"Well I wanted to do it," he said, blushing. "I want you to be happy here."
There was no point in my telling him that I would never be happy in Forks. He didn't need to suffer with me. I suffered pretty good all on my own. Being very embarrassed by any form of emotional stuff Charlie was silent the rest of the way to Forks. I didn't do anything to start a conversation up again either. Charlie and I were alike in that one little way. Neither of us liked anything emotional. So we continued in silence as we rolled into town. There wasn't much to see really. There was the police station where Charlie worked, the diner where Charlie ate most of his meals and various smaller businesses along what I thought of as the strip. Then we turned down a familiar road and parked in front of the small two story house that I'd spent summers in before I'd had my fit. It was the same small two bedroom house he'd lived in with my mother in the early days, the only kind of days their marriage had. Parked in the street in front of the house was my new, well new to me, truck. It was a dull, faded red color with big rounded fenders and a bubble shaped cab. To my huge surprise I loved it. I wasn't sure if it would run, but I could see myself driving around Forks in it. It was one of those old iron things that you see at the scene of a crash undamaged next to the pile of rubble that had been the foreign car that was destroyed by it. There was also the fact that cars from that time were in fashion again. I had no idea what had been done to make them run but here was a living model right in front of me.
"Wow, Dad! I love it!" I said excitedly as I got out of the cruiser.
"Well now you're welcome," he grumbled in his awkward way.
It took only one trip to get my stuff in the house, up the stairs and to the front bedroom that had been mine for my entire life. I looked around the room at the hardwood floor. The full sized bed with its blue comforter and pillows and the little desk in the corner where now a second hand computer was located. I saw the phone line stapled to the wall next to the door molding and thought, yes, even in this day and age there are still DSL lines. It had been one of Renée's stipulations. She'd demanded a way to keep in touch with me that wasn't a phone.
"It looks good, Dad," I said as I turned to face him. He was standing in the doorway.
"Salesperson helped with the bed stuff," he said with red cheeks. "You like blue right?"
"Blue's fine," I said.
He nodded and then went back down the stairs. The really great thing about Charlie is that he doesn't hover. I put my clothes in the dresser and it didn't take long. Then I walked into the one bathroom and put my shaving kit in there. Then I sat on my bed and tried not to think about the sound of the rain on the roof. I sighed in defeat though. I was really going to be miserable here but there was no way I was going to let either of my parents see just how miserable I'd be.
I sat there and watched the already dim light get darker and darker as I thought about the coming morning. Forks High School had an astounding three hundred and fifty-seven, now fifty-eight students. There were more than eight hundred people in my entire class in Phoenix. The kids here had known each other all their lives. They'd grown up together. Hell, their grandparents had grown up together. I'd be the odd one out, the new kid. If I couldn't find my place in school with over three thousand people I knew my chances here were bleak. I didn't relate well to people. Even my mother, who I was closer to than anyone else in the world, was never in sync with me, never in harmony. At times I wondered if I was seeing the same world around me that others saw with their own eyes. Maybe there was a glitch in my brain. That might be the cause but what mattered was the effect. Tomorrow would be only the beginning.
I didn't sleep well that night. The rain kept its steady patter on the roof. Plus it was making a strange whooshing sound all night. I pulled the comforter and pillow over my head but was never really able to drown it out. I finally fell asleep around midnight when the rain died down to a drizzle. Then it was unfocused nightmares I succumbed to. I woke to thick fog that blanketed the house until it was all I could see out my window. I could feel the claustrophobia creeping up on me. The sky was never visible here. It was like a strange cage you couldn't escape. Breakfast with Charlie was a very quiet affair. He wished me luck at school. I thanked him without telling him his wish of good luck was a waste of his breath.
After he left I sat there at the old square oak table in one of the un matching chairs. The kitchen had dark paneled walls, bright yellow cabinets and white linoleum on the floor. Nothing had changed in any of the years since I'd been here the last time. The yellow cabinets were my mother's touch. He hadn't changed it in nearly seventeen years. She'd been attempting to bring in some sunshine. Pictures lined the wall above the fireplace. The wedding picture of Charlie and my mom in Vegas made me uncomfortable. There were pictures of me in various stages throughout my life, starting with the day I was born. A helpful nurse had snapped that shot. It was followed by a progression of pictures of me up to last year. I was going to have to figure out what I could do to get Charlie to take those pictures down. It was just inescapable in this house to not see that Charlie had never gotten over my mother. It made me feel bad and though I didn't want to be too early at school, I couldn't stay in the house another moment. I donned a jacket and headed out into the drizzle.
The drizzle swirled around me, clinging to my hood and nearly soaking it through. I couldn't stand there and admire my truck because I wanted to get out of the cold and wet. Inside the truck it was dry. Someone had cleaned it up yet I could still smell tobacco and peppermint. I turned the key and the engine roared to life with such volume that I was startled. It had to have one flaw. I mean it was nearly two hundred years old and though they'd done something to make it run after all this time, they'd done nothing to quiet the engine. I supposed it couldn't still run on gasoline and oil. Those were ancient forms of fuel. I laughed at myself for being scared and drove down the road.
Even though I'd never seen the high school it was easy to find. I just drove slightly out of town and there it was. It looked like a series of brown brick cottages. I parked in front of the very first building. It had a sign over the door indicating that this was the main office. There were no other cars parked in front of the building, so I knew I was probably not supposed to park there. I decided to get directions here instead of wandering around the parking lot like a freak. So I opened my door and got out of my truck though I'd have rather stayed where it was warm and dry. I followed the little stone path that wound through the dark green hedges, taking a deep breath before opening the door.
It was very bright inside and a bit warmer than I liked. The office was small with a little waiting area with soft padded chairs, plush carpet that had to have come from another century and walls that were nearly covered with notices and awards. As if there wasn't enough green outside whoever had decorated had placed many plants that grew everywhere in large pots shaped like animals. A long cluttered counter cut the room nearly in half. There were wire baskets full of paper and brightly colored flyers taped to the front. There were three desks on the other side and one was manned by a thin dark haired woman with thick glasses. She was wearing a brown t-shirt that made me suddenly feel overdressed in my sweat shirt and jeans.
"Can I help you, dear?" she asked as she looked up at me.
"I'm Beauregard Swan," I told her and saw the recognition in her dark eyes as if I were expected and talked about in gossip circles. Son of the Police Chief and his strange ex-wife, returned at last.
"Of course," she said as she dug through the basket of papers on her desk. "I have your schedule right here, dear. There's a map of the school as well." She brought a sheaf of papers over to the counter to show me. We went over where my classes were and she tried to help me sort through the map. Then she smiled and handed me a slip of paper to give to my first teacher and said she hoped, like Charlie that I'd be happy here in Forks. I gave her a smile but wasn't sure it was convincing.
When I went back out into the rain I got to my truck and followed the throng of students as they drove into the parking lot. I was happy to see that though the cars weren't nearly as ancient as mine they were older, nothing too flashy. In Phoenix we'd lived in one of the middle-class neighborhoods. It was common to spot a sparkling Mercedes or Porsche in the student lot. The nicest car in this lot was a bright and shiny Volvo that looked like it had come from the same era as my truck but had been much better cared for. I pulled into an empty spot, turning off the engine quickly so it didn't draw attention.
I consulted the map in the truck, trying to memorize the pathways to my classes. Hopefully I wouldn't have to walk around with it under my nose all day. I put everything in my backpack and sighed. I lied to myself, telling myself that I could do this and no one was going to bite me or anything. I laughed at myself and stepped out of the truck. I kept my face pulled back in my hood as I walked away from the truck. The sidewalk was crowded with students. I noticed that my plain black hooded jacket drew no attention and sighed in relief. I found the building with the large black "3" on it and noticed that my breathing was gradually getting to the point of hyperventilation as I put my hand on the door. I held my breath for a few seconds as I followed two students that I paid absolutely no attention to into the building.
My first classroom was a bit small. The people in front of me stopped just inside the door to hang up coats and hats on a long row of hooks. I copied them. They were both boys with pale faces one with blonde hair and bad skin, the other with dark hair that stood up in a mess of spikes all over his head. At least my skin tone wouldn't stand out here. I took my slip of paper to the teacher whose name was Mr. Charles Kennedy. He looked at me with wide eyes when I said my name. I wanted to melt into the floor. He did send me to an empty desk at the back without making me introduce myself. I was grateful for that even though all of the students managed to gawk at me even though they were in front of me. Of course I blushed and kept my eyes down on the reading list. It was basic: Shakespeare, Chaucer, Falkner. I'd read everything. I silently wondered if I'd remembered to pack my folder of old essays and also wondered if that would be cheating. I argued with myself as Mr. Kennedy droned on with his lesson.
The bell rang, a tinkling sound like breaking glass as a hulking boy with very dark hair and eyes came up to me. He smiled at me and I tried to smile back. "You're Beauregard Swan, right?"
"Beau," I corrected him automatically. Everyone around us seemed to be listening in.
"So what's your next class?" he asked.
"Um, Calculus with Markson," I said, consulting my schedule. "Building six." Now everyone was looking at me.
"I'm headed to building four," he said with another grin. "I'm Eric." Yup, definitely over-helpful. I smiled.
"Thanks."
We donned our jackets and headed outside. The rain had picked up and I swore the people behind us were walking a bit too close. Perhaps I was paranoid.
"So this isn't like Phoenix, huh?" he asked with another smile.
"Not really," I said.
"Does it rain much there?" he asked.
"About four or five times a year," I replied.
"Wow, what's that like?"
"Sunny," I said.
"You don't look tanned," he said, stating the obvious.
"Yeah, maybe that's why they kicked me out," I said, trying to joke.
"Ha!" he laughed a bit more than necessary. "Funny."
We walked around the cafeteria to the north buildings by the auditorium. Eric walked me right to a door which was clearly marked and wished me good luck. Then he turned and headed off. I braced myself and went inside. The rest of my morning passed in about the same fashion. My Calculus teacher, Mr. Markson, who I would have hated anyway just because of the subject he taught forced me to stand in front of the class and introduce myself. I stammered out my name and that I was from Phoenix and then made my way to the only open seat at the back where I sat down and kept my head down.
One boy sat next to me in both Calculus and Spanish. He also walked alongside me to the cafeteria for lunch. He was a few inches shorter than me with light brown spiked hair and chocolate colored eyes. I couldn't remember his name, so I just smiled and nodded a lot as he talked about teachers, classes and his friends. I didn't even bother to keep up. He led me to a table with a bunch of his friends. He introduced me to everyone and I immediately forgot everyone's names. Eric from English waived at me from across the room and it was there at that moment when I first saw them.
They were sitting at a corner table on the other side of the cafeteria. There were five of them in all. They didn't appear to be talking, and they definitely were not eating though there were trays full of food in front of each of them. They weren't staring at me, unlike most of the other students. It was none of these things that made them stand out in my attention. They didn't look anything alike. One of the three boys was big - muscled like a bodybuilder with dark curly hair. Another was taller and a bit leaner, not muscular but toned with honey blonde hair. The last was lanky and less bulky with bronze colored spiked hair. He looked younger than the other two. They looked like college students or possibly teachers rather than students. The girls were opposites. The tall one was beautiful, the way models in magazines were beautiful. Her hair was golden and flowed to the middle of her back in soft waves. The other was tiny like a pixie, thin almost to the extreme with black cropped hair that was short and pointed in every which direction in untidy spikes. Yet they were all exactly alike. Every one of them had a golden hue to their skin, the only students in the whole school who looked like they got sun more than occasionally. They all had really beautiful features, making them look like models from magazine covers. I couldn't stop staring at them.
I stared at them because they were so different yet so similar. They were all inhumanly beautiful though two of the boys looked a bit dangerous like they were bred for violence. They looked like they'd been painted by an old artist with faces of angels. It was hard to decide who was most beautiful, maybe the perfect blond or the bronze haired boy. They were looking away from each other, staring at nothing in particular that I could figure. As I watched the smaller girl got up, took her tray and walked quickly away, dumping the tray in the trash and sitting it on the pile on her way out the door. My eyes swept back to the others who remained there unmoving.
"Who are they?" I asked the boy from my Spanish class, whose name I had forgotten.
As he looked up to see who I was talking about, although he probably already knew from the tone of my voice, the thinner more boyish boy looked at him. He looked at him for only a moment before his eyes flickered to mine. He looked away just as quickly as he'd looked at me, quicker than I could, though I blushed and dropped my eyes in an instant. In that one look, he'd looked completely uninterested. It was as if he had called his name and he'd looked up to see who had called to him but already decided an answer wasn't needed. A girl on the other side of our table giggled with a blush. She was looking at the table like I was.
"That's Edward and Emmett Cullen, and Rosalie and Jasper Hale. The one who left was Alice Cullen," she said. "They all live together with Dr. Cullen and his wife."
"They're very good looking," I said to the girl who's name I finally remembered was Jessica.
"Yes!" she said, smiling wide. "They're all together though, Rosalie and Emmett, and Jasper and Alice I mean. And they live together." Her voice was shocked and full of all the condemnation of a small town. If I was being honest though this would cause gossip in most circles in Phoenix.
"Which ones are the Cullens?" I asked. "They don't look related at all."
"Well they're not related by blood," she said. "Dr. Cullen is young. I think in his twenties or early thirties. They're all adopted. The Hales are like brother and sister, twins I think. They're the blonds and they're foster children."
"Uh, they look kind of old for foster children."
"They are now," she said. "Jasper and Rosalie are both eighteen, but they've been with Mrs. Cullen since they were little. She's their aunt or cousin or something."
"That's really nice of them to take care of all of those kids when they're so young," I said.
"I guess so," Jessica said, though she sounded reluctant. I got the impression that she didn't like the Cullens or Hales. "I think that Mrs. Cullen can't have children of her own though," she added as though that made her any less kind.
Throughout the conversation I'd had the impression that Jessica harbored some sort of resentment against Dr. Cullen and his wife. Then I saw the way she looked at the kids and I was sure she was jealous. They all continued to look away from each other, eating nothing and saying not a word. It was a bit strange.
"Have they always lived here in Forks?" I asked, sure I'd have noticed them during my summers here.
"No," she said in a voice that said clearly that I should understand that even though I was a new arrival. "They moved down here like two years ago or so from Alaska."
Huh, I thought. Kindred spirits. Outsiders like me. I felt relieved that I wasn't the only outsider and I wasn't the most interesting by far. As I sat there examining them the youngest one of the Cullens looked over at me. I looked away quickly but not before I noticed that he seemed to be looking at me with some strange sort of anticipation in his eyes.
"Which one of them is the young one with the reddish hair?" I asked, looking over at him for a second. He was still staring at me but not like the other students. He looked slightly frustrated. I looked away again.
"That's Edward," she said, eyeing me shrewdly. "Don't waste your time. He doesn't date. Apparently no one here is good looking enough for him."
That sounded to me like a clear case of sour grapes. I wondered when she'd asked him out and he'd turned her down. I put my hand in front of my mouth to hide my smile. Looking over at him I noticed that he wasn't looking at me anymore but even from the side it was evident that he was smiling like he'd heard her and thought it funny. Moments later the four of them got up and gracefully, even the brawny one, walked out of the cafeteria, dumping their trays and stacking them as they went. The young one, Edward didn't look at me again.
I sat at the table with Jessica and her friends longer than I would have if I'd been sitting alone. I was anxious not to be late for class on my first day. One of my new acquaintances, who considerately reminded me that her name was Angela, had Anatomy II with me the next hour. We walked to class together in silence. It seemed that she was shy. I was fine with that because I couldn't stop thinking about Edward Cullen and his untidy bronze hair or the fact that Jessica seemed to understand that I was interested in Edward. I guess no one had ever paid enough attention to me to notice before. It wasn't a bad thing though. Even here in Forks people were no doubt used to the sexual fluidity of teenagers.
When we walked into the classroom, Angela smiled at me and then went to sit at a black-topped lab table like the ones I was used to. She already had a lab partner. In fact everyone seemed to other than one student. Next to the center aisle there was one spot open. I recognized Edward Cullen because of his untidy bronze hair. He was sitting next to the only available seat. I noticed this as I walked down the aisle to the teacher's desk to introduce myself. I was watching Edward out of the corner of my eye. Just as I passed by him he sat up, rigid in his seat. He stared at me again but this time there was unmasked fury on his face. His eyes were opened wide, but they were filled with malice. He looked more than hostile, more than furious. I looked away from him quickly, blushing. I stumbled and banged into a desk making the two girls there laugh.
Mr. Brennan signed my slip and handed me a book. There was no nonsense about an introduction. We were going to get along famously. Sure he had no choice but to send me to the only available seat. I just kept my head down as I went to the center aisle and slowly moved toward the table. I sat down next to him but I was confused by his hostile stare. I didn't look at him while I put my book and notebook on the table in front of me. I did see him from the corner of my eye. He was sitting as far from me as the table would allow. I wondered if I smelled bad or something. Unfortunately the lecture was on cellular anatomy. I'd already studied that. I took extra careful notes anyway, keeping my eyes on my notebook.
I couldn't stop from taking quick occasional peeks at him. During the whole class he never relaxed. His position was stiff on the edge of his chair, sitting as far from me as possible the whole time. His hand was clenched into a fist on his thigh. I noticed the tight muscles of his arm and realized that he wasn't as simply toned as he'd looked beside his brothers. I peeked at him one more time and nearly gasped with regret. He was staring at me with unbridled fury, unmasked revulsion. I flinched and sank into my chair, finding the phrase "if looks could kill" running through my mind. Was this his normal behavior? I thought about Jessica's bitterness at lunch and wondered if this was what she was so bitter about. Maybe she wasn't as shallow as I'd thought.
When the bell finally rang loudly, I jumped. Edward Cullen shot out of his seat. He was much taller than I'd thought. He turned his back to me and then he was out the door faster than I could blink. I sat there in my seat, staring after him. Why was he so mean? It wasn't fair. I hadn't done anything to make him hate me so much. I thought about it as I gathered my books slowly. I tried to block out the images of his unbridled hatred from my mind.
"Hey, Beau," Mike said as he came to stand beside me. "What did you do to Cullen?"
"Is that who sat next to me?" I asked, pretending ignorance. "I never said a word to him."
"Huh," he said. "Come on. We'll walk to gym together."
Did they all know my schedule better than I did? It was probably a safe bet. With only eight hours in the day and so few students it wasn't hard to believe that they'd naturally know my schedule when it nearly matched so many of theirs. Mike walked beside me and chattered the whole way which made me feel better. He talked about the fact that he'd moved here from California when he was ten so he understood how much I missed the sun. He talked about guy things and I just nodded here and there. I hadn't had any friends in Phoenix so I never knew what to say to anyone. Thankfully Mike didn't seem to need me to say anything.
Coach Cunningham gave me a uniform but didn't make me dress out for class. I sat in the bleachers, watching four volley ball games going on at the same time and thought about all of the injuries I'd both received and inflicted during volley ball games. I felt like I might throw up so I tried to think of something else. Of course that something else was Edward Cullen. I couldn't believe his reaction to me. He'd seemed mildly interested and slightly frustrated in the cafeteria. Then in Anatomy he'd acted as if I was poison or something. I didn't get it. I couldn't wait to get out of the school and go home where I would be safe from questions, teachers and Edward Cullen.
Finally the final bell rang. I went back to the office to turn in my paperwork. Edward Cullen was at the counter when I entered. I recognized his untidy bronze spikes. He evidently hadn't noticed that I'd come in because he was still arguing heatedly with the secretary whose name I somehow remembered was Miss Darling. It didn't take long for me to understand what they were arguing about. He wanted out of his seventh hour Anatomy class.
"Switch it with any other hour," he said. "Move my schedule around until it works, please, Miss Darling."
"Edward," she said softly. "I'm sorry but there's no other class."
"Never mind," he said. "I can see it's fruitless. I suppose I'll have to endure it."
He spun around and stopped when he was faced with me. Then he glared at me again, backed up a step and then hurried around me and out the door. I just stared at the closed door in silence for a moment. Then I turned in my paperwork, refused to answer any questions and got the hell out of there. I felt safer when I was in my truck. I started the engine and it rumbled to life again. This time I didn't care. I didn't care about anything but getting home.
"How did your first day go, Beau?" Charlie asked when he came in two hours later.
"Fine," I lied, but it came out forced and I was sure he didn't believe me.
"Make any friends?" he asked, looking embarrassed again.
"Oh sure," I said, trying to keep the bite out of my voice. "A boy named Mike Newton was really cool."
"Newton," he said, sounding a bit better. "Good family."
"Well I've got homework," I said and fled the kitchen.
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