No one knew that Bella was in the woods.

It had started with the slamming of a screen door, Bella's frustration with Charlie brimming into some uncharacteristically loud frustration, boots squeaking in their bothersome chippers against the wood. Coming home, she'd practically smelled the argument brewing when Charlie had commented on Edward's absence being an exception to the rule, like he was noting it as an opportunity. Just past dusk she was three knife chops into a carrot when her frustration from one of her father's irritatingly passive-aggressive comments about "that Cullen kid" had made the knife slip into her finger. With the flicking hand motions of the immediate stinging, she'd peeled out one cutting remark and knew then that it was starting.

"Honestly, Bells, are we just going to pretend that the last several months—what he did to you—that none of that happened? That I didn't have to watch that happen to my daughter?"

"That would be fantastic."

Then he tried to mention her best friend. The name had barely made it out of Charlie's mouth before she'd stiffened in resistance to the pain of the subject, snapping back, "That's not fair. He won't talk to me, he doesn't call—And you know that."

"It's all the more reason I'm worried. What's his big grudge against the Cullens? He never seemed to buy into Billy's stories, it can't be that—"

"So you trust his opinion over mine!?..." This next part would feel like such a waste of words, a demonstrative lie: "What if I told you I was going to marry Edward, Dad? Would you maybe try to get used to him then?"

"Are you?"

It hadn't been the truth, but it had seemed like the best example for laying it out to him. She feebly replied, in a tone sounding like a question. "...Yes. Eventually."

"Oh, this isn't like you. What, is he pressuring you? Why in God's name are you thinking about getting married already?"

"He's not..." Her voice had started weakening with watery anger, at him and herself, for all the impossibility of honesty. "He's not like you think."

"Bells—"

"You're not listening to me..." She'd just thought, Dammit, maybe even said it out loud, and stomped into her rain boots while her father tried to reason with her, his words blurring together and never reaching her. She couldn't know about the last thing he'd said because she was going out the front door into the spitting spring rain outside, and then she'd taken a good distance by storm until she was somewhere far into the woods, probably somewhere close to the blind path she'd wandered morosely that other time.

She was messed up about that too, today. Her mood was scorching up the wire, and she couldn't quite tell why, couldn't calm herself down. Accompanied with the drowning of her senses into the dripping rain and endless trees, her stress catapulted into a bottomless apathy, and she hardly cared about the fact that she was probably going to end up lost.

So, as it happened, she was angry when it came. Her blood was rapid and charging, the very sweetness and the scent becoming some whole other beckoning invisible red ghost.

In the damp cold of that deep May night in Forks, exactly a month before she was to graduate from high school, Isabella Swan was found in the darkness of the forest by a strange man named Ivan. His eyes were red as cherries.

She saw the details immediately when he approached her: the stance, the leisurely walk of a moment that was only the blink of one night amidst a century. The paleness of the skin when it came into view, and the obvious hunger under the brows; the fact seemed to reveal itself rather slowly, suspended and clutching onto every stitch of realization in the half-minute before he appeared fully to her, and then flashed her an inviting sentence of a smile.

Hatred moved in her helplessly, a drowning emotion packaged pointlessly through the sudden adrenaline. She could tell the difference by now, and suddenly was seized as if in realization that the evil had no end. They were perhaps not everywhere in the world but still always anywhere, and so very few were like the ones she knew. She could tell exactly what kind he was.

She acted before the shock of her sudden and viciously ironic plight could overtake her, and spoke. Her voice came out shaky, immediate.

"My blood wouldn't be very good for you."

The tall inhuman man had brown hair, with a general slight and starved appearance that made his obvious strength somewhat mocking. He wore a honey-colored shirt that lent a soft glow to the snow of his skin. He lived up to the unimaginable beauty as well as the terrifying confidence of so many vampires Bella had met before, and on all the occasions that Bella had been just a flashing movement away from the fatal hunger, she had trembled and only managed to protest weakly for her life. This night, though, Bella was not only shaking but bridled by genuine fury that seemed heightened by a refusal to accept the genuine danger; She thought in a rapid daze: Death or life, how long would such an event take to settle into Alice's mind? Could she have already seen Bella standing in the woods in such obvious danger? Surely they would be looking for her already?

And just maybe, the wolves...

She would have to stall him for as long as she could.

This may not be very difficult, considering the bemused expression he had on his face at her comment. He was even too astonished to speak at first, but seemed to hardly doubt that he had the upper hand. He blinked, and smiled.

"You know what I am?"

"Yes," Bella replied. Her voice was not without obvious fear, but defiant.

He tilted his head in curiosity, and she knew he would at least entertain her protests in light of this interesting information. "But how can that be?—Would you like to sit for a while?"

"I'd prefer to stand at my own funeral."

He laughed in loud, genuine amusement, a sort of musical echoing bark like a bobcat yawning. "I see, I see...Really, you are kind of endearing. May I ask your name?"

She made a point not to look around, not to look like she was thinking about breaking a run for it, because she knew better, and she wanted him to know she knew better. Even with her knowledge of the fact that any escape without help was completely impossible, the instinctive and powerful urge to flee was still nipping at the back of her mind. But she looked the man right in the face and replied, "Bella."

"Ah." He bowed his head. "My name is Ivan. And can I say that I'm surprised—"

"You should listen. You realize the company I keep would be very unhappy if you hurt me, don't you?"

"...Right—So you have managed to befriend a few? You realize that's quite rare..."

"There isn't much I don't know about vampires," Bella interrupted. "Anything I don't know I plan on finding out eventually."

Ivan, finally seeming to consider some hesitance with her, nonchalantly stepped aside to lean against a tree. "You mean that they want to..."

"Yes."

Seeming slightly surprised by this situation, but all the while certainly amused, Ivan seemed to weigh a variety of thoughts pertaining to both the astonishment and inconvenience of the situation. As his thoughts thickened, Bella tried to figure out how many minutes had passed, as well as a flimsy estimate of how long it could take her vampires to get to her, assuming, of course, that they knew she was in danger. Her frantically muddled thoughts could not begin to speculate whether they'd first go searching through all the forests in Forks at top speed, or if they'd race to her house to follow her scent from there. Edward's average from her house to his was four minutes, and then maybe it was one or two more minutes to where she stood from there; and considering the urgency...

Her thoughts were interrupted by Ivan laughing again, seeming very light-spirited about the situation at hand. "This is very, very strange. Kind of a fine entertainment. Look, enlighten me: Why?"

Bella swallowed. "Why...Do I want to..."

He nodded.

His curiosity was going to save her life; she had no room to feel that any question was too personal. She swallowed, trying to calm the detectable racing of her heart. "I'm in love with one."

Rather than showing a particular amount of surprise, Ivan seemed to consider her answer for a while and resolve that it made sense. She decided in that anxious pause to ask him a question, which felt strangely like she was actually trying to stimulate conversation. "I'm sure you're just passing through Forks?"

"Of course," he replied, smiling as if this really was a polite meeting. "And I was surprised to catch the scent of so many others, here and there. So far I've distinguished five...It's particularly strong in the woods, and near the school. I thought it was very curious. Are they all a family?"

"Yes," Bella spoke solidly, but with her hands wringing together, allowing a pause so that her ears could pick up any sign of approach. There was nothing but the quiet slaps of rain, branches creaking against each other. "The Cullens. You haven't heard of them?"

"I have not." His amused face brightened at the promise of this gossip. "Though I'm sure they are talked about—a clan of that size? I've never even..."

So Bella explained that there were actually seven, and told him all of their names, all the guises and occupations they put on so that they could live among people. She left out details of any of their gifts, but mentioned that Carlisle was well-acquainted with the Volturri, which seemed to interest him. He seemed quietly pleased with any information she could give him, so she wavered on, attempting to bury her fear under the countenance of one who was granting privileged information. This seemed capable of charming him, but she weakened. In every second that no one saved her, her nerves continued to slowly decompose. When her bravery snagged in her throat and she could hardly say anything more, her arms crossed over her chest protectively, and as if sick to her stomach, she weakly walked over to a large log Ivan had previously invited her to sit on, and lowered herself onto it, waiting.

He was eyeing her curiously, obviously not understanding why her fear would escalate over the minutes, perhaps having concluded that her previous confidence was merely utter stupidity. When her shivering glance met his eyes, she realized there was a good amount of cold wetness streaming down her cheeks.

How long. How long had she been in the woods with this monster. Edward. Where are you?

She looked away from Ivan as he sat down next to her. After a brief moment, he produced a square of paisley cloth from a pocket and held it out to her. In a kind of senseless automatic reaction, she took it with her hand but could only hold it on her knee, clenching it so tightly that her knuckles paled.

"Hmm. I'm guessing you realize now that as long as I burn your remains and cover my tracks well enough..." Of course she'd heard that before, in the woods from someone like him...

She was closer to sobbing now, a faint wail escaping from her chest. When she replied, her voice was hateful and strangled.

"Act like a gentleman, would you."

He chuckled.

The rain was stopping.

"He's going to tear you apart," Bella choked out. "He'll find out—he'll find you...Someone will find out..."

Ivan relished her desperation with a smirk. "And why are you so sure?"

Bella's arms tightened in their shaking restraint as he reached his hand over and rested it lightly on hers.

She glared down at his white fingers. "I guess you could say I have friends in strange places."

Instead of laughing at her, he pressed his lips together and examined her badly covered horror with genuine interest. After a moment he said quietly, "You are a fascinating young woman, Bella. I'm quite happy we met. I don't think you'll understand this, but it should give me a unique kind of pleasure in taking your life."

Then Bella gasped, not out of a heightened fear from what Ivan was just saying, but in realization; at lightning speed, her mind, dwindling frightfully into the corner of the imagination that impossibly attempts to grasp the experience of death, the concept of blackness, of perpetual ignorance and thoughtlessness, had made her realize in one flinching shock why Alice did not know that she was about to be killed.

Ivan was disinterested in immediately restraining her when her whole body flicked up: she jumped off the log and ran forward a few steps, and she began screaming a name she had not mentioned to him; calling for a man, an other creature.

The wind seemed to pick up as the cold hand clenched fiercely around Bella's wrist.

It broke.