She wore blue jeans with a hole in one knee and frayed ends that hung across her bare feet. The jeans sat low on her hips, exposing two inches of pale skin. An unbuttoned white blouse covered a gray T-shirt that clung to her body. The man in the long black coat watched. It was the first time he'd noticed the scars that marked her arms and disappeared into the darkness. They piqued his curiosity.
She put a cigarette to her lips, pulled a plastic lighter from her pocket. She walked to the edge of the balcony, which was off the back of the house she shared with her father, a rustic two-story on the edge of town. It rested up against an expanse of woods that ran all the way to Canada. She stroked the lighter with her thumb, the rope-like muscles in her forearms tensing with the movement as she sparked a flame. She blew a heavy stream of smoke into the foggy air, put her elbows on the railing and leaned forward.
He watched from the woods. Three days and nights now, watching, wondering. It was frustrating. It was enrapturing.
Isabella Swan. He rolled the name over his tongue and listened as the sound floated away, swallowed by the woods that surrounded him.
He thought of his own name, Edward Masen, a name he had not uttered in decades. He had long ago given up the need for names. He occasionally used one for pleasure, though never his real one. Edward had spent decades wandering the nation's roadways, picking off select victims in select towns for a few weeks or a few months and moving on. He had come to believe the world was his playground, and he treated it as such. He had learned the hard way that this was his nature now; he had no choice but to follow it.
What he wanted, he took. When he was hungry, he fed. If his targeted victim was in the public, he would charm her until he got her alone. The need for a name would sometimes arise, but it would go away as soon as he'd taken what he needed.
But this. This girl. This Bella Swan, as her father thought of her. She confounded him.
He'd parked her truck in the mud beside her driveway, abandoned it there three days ago after disposing of the clerk's body. He had not left the spot he found in the woods since.
Her thoughts remained her own, but her father's were easily captured. Charlie Swan, the same cop Edward had seen on his way into town, was the police chief of Forks, Washington. He commanded a small force in a small town, and he believed the job agreed with him.
But with his daughter, Charlie Swan was frustrated.
She had had no visitors in the three days since she escaped from Edward, nor had she told anyone what happened. The town had launched a massive search for the missing clerk, Mike Newton, but still Bella remained silent. That puzzled Edward. She had seemed upset when she found out the boy was dead. What was it with this girl?
Edward knew he was risking his own safety by staying there. He needed to feed. He needed to remain alone, hidden. There were forces more powerful than him in the world, and he had spent decades avoiding them by doing precisely that: remaining alone.
When troubles arose, as they sometimes did, he was an expert at avoiding them, using his mind-reading power to stay one step ahead. A governing coven, the Volturi, enforced the law among vampires. The only law that mattered was absolute secrecy. All the laws were meant to support this one. Vampires were forbidden from revealing themselves to humans, either purposely or accidentally. This included keeping hunts as inconspicuous as possible. Only foolish vampires crossed the Volturi.
Edward wasn't foolish. The Volturi were always in the back of his mind. Though he didn't always follow their rules, he was a careful hunter when he could be, and he'd become quite good at covering his tracks when he couldn't afford to be careful. Sometimes, humans had to be slaughtered, whether or not clues were left behind.
His habits occasionally required him to adopt an identity for a while, perhaps to ingratiate himself to a new victim, to blend in if he were in a large city where he might stay for months.
But, after his encounter with Bella, he found himself considering what name to use should he find that he wanted to stay in this new town. He favored the Pacific Northwest in the summer for its cloud cover. It allowed him to move about in the daytime more often than he could otherwise. His condition forced him to wear the coat, and it was easier to explain in the summer than it would be in a warmer climate. Even the faintest sunlight would make his skin shimmer unnaturally. It would call attention to him.
What's more, he realized that, although he'd arrived in town with the intention of feeding for a few weeks and moving on, he was now thinking of Forks as a possible long-term home. He might rent an apartment, he thought, keep his hunting down to a human every couple of weeks. He could do that. He had not had a home since before he was turned, and the thought stirred something dark that had long been hidden inside him.
He shook off the memories and smiled at his own ridiculousness. He would not stay. He would not need a name. He would talk to no one but his victims, his meals, and there wouldn't be a need to tell them who he was before he took what he wanted and slaughtered them.
I will use my birth name, he decided. It's a fine name. A bit old fashioned, but it seemed, somehow, appropriate. He hadn't used it in ages and thought himself ridiculous for avoiding it.
No. He resolved that he wouldn't go after the Swan girl. Therein lay danger. Fervor breeds carelessness. Carelessness can get you burned. Edward was anything but careless. But ... it wouldn't hurt to watch. To learn. From a distance. She was a curiosity to him. He had never before met anyone whose thoughts he could not read. Even in life, he had earned something of a reputation for being able to read people well. Becoming a vampire had strengthened this skill beyond any human measure.
But there was more than that. Bella Swan was not just a mere curiosity. Her smell was overpowering. Her ability to resist him and escape was unprecedented. Never before had he lost a meal. Never before had he wanted one so badly.
He continued watching her there on the balcony. She hugged herself, as if a chill had come over her. When she lifted her head again, he could swear she looked directly at him. That was impossible, but it seemed true. Edward was concerned that he wanted it to be true.
One corner of her mouth seemed to lift ever so slightly, and she appeared to speak. To whom she might be speaking was a mystery, as her father had gone to bed a half hour earlier. Even so, Edward probed Charlie's mind, assuring himself that he was asleep.
Edward had learned much from Charlie already. Bella came to live with him just before her junior year of high school. She'd lived with her mother in Arizona since the divorce, some years before. But Charlie didn't dwell on the details, so Edward was uncertain what had drawn her to Forks. He knew that once she arrived, she began to stay out late. She came home drunk or stoned more than once, and threatened to run away. Charlie suspected she was in trouble, but he didn't know how to approach her.
She and Charlie hardly spoke. He longed for a relationship with her, but he didn't know how to express it. He had no experience with teenage girls, and she had no experience with a father.
They drew apart. Though thoughts of Bella occupied Charlie's mind all the time, he didn't know what to do. Bella spoke to no one. She appeared to have no friends.
And now Charlie was worried. He suspected that Bella knew more than she was admitting about Mike's disappearance.
Edward watched now as Bella continued talking. He listened closely. His hearing was impeccable, even at this distance.
"God, Bella. Get over yourself," she whispered. "Nobody gives a shit what you think, anyway."
Oh, he realized. She must be talking to herself. He shook his head in defeat, disgusted with himself and his inability to read her, disgusted with his need to do so. At the same time, this new environment intrigued him. He had grown so used to reading people that being forced to figure things out on his own gave him, he hated to admit, a thrill.
He lit another cigarette and dug his hands into his pockets. He ground his heel into the dirt and scowled.
Bella finished her cigarette. She flicked the butt over the side of the balcony and walked back inside. She left the sliding glass door open a few inches, perhaps to let some cool air in.
Edward gave in to his hunger and fed on two rabbits, an unsatisfying but necessary departure from his norm. There was nothing essentially wrong with animal blood. It did keep his kind nourished. He had met entire clans that sympathized with humans and subsisted entirely on animal blood. He was disgusted by such creatures and considered the vampires who lived that way traitors to their nature. He reveled in his true nature, not only because of the pleasure he derived from letting his monster out, but also because there was nothing in the world quite like the rush that human blood provided.
He had come to believe that creatures like him were created to gorge on human blood, as a virus is meant to infect, or a fish meant to swim. By killing, he was fulfilling his destiny.
This girl, Bella Swan, seemed to be proof of that. Why would such a specimen exist, after all, if she were not meant to be devoured?
Edward wiped the blood from his mouth and headed toward her house. With the door left open, it should be easy to get inside.
-30-
A/N You guys are so cool. Thanks for the follows and reviews and whatnot. I am sooo excited about where this story's heading. I wish I could write faster. I have so much awesometastic stuff planned I need to get it out of my head and onto the page. If only real life didn't get in the way. ;) Anyway, I'll see you around here again in a week or two.
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