Chapter 1: The argument

I was at the airport waiting for mom and Phil to arrive for my, cringe, wedding. It was in two weeks time and while mom was pissed that Alice orchestrated the whole thing I was glad she did. Mostly. I had no idea what she's planning actually. Knowing Alice I'm just happy she was kind enough, note the sarcasm, to plan seats for my family and friends and not only their vampire friends and the whole town. Some times I wonder if she realizes that this big thing is not my scene at all.

I remember the words of the man in the gas station where I stopped on my way here. I had stopped to fill in the thing that Edward bought me and two men wanted to take its picture.

"". . . went at it with a flamethrower in the online video. Didn't even pucker the

paint."

"Of course not. You could roll a tank over this baby. Not much of a market for one over here. Designed for Middle East diplomats, arms dealers, and drug lords mostly."

"Think she's something?"

the short one asked in a softer voice. I ducked my head, cheeks flaming.

"Huh," the tall one said. "Maybe. Can't imagine what you'd need missile-proof glass and four thousand pounds of body armor for around here. Must be headed somewhere more hazardous."

Body armor. Four thousand pounds of body armor. And missile-proof glass? Nice. What had happened to good old-fashioned bulletproof? Well, at least this made some sense—if you had a twisted sense of humor.

It wasn't like I hadn't expected Edward to take advantage of our deal, to weight it on his side so that he could give so much more than he would receive. I'd agreed that he could replace my truck when it needed replacing, not expecting that moment to come quite so soon, of course. When I'd been forced to admit that the truck had become no more than a still-life tribute to classic Chevys on my curb, I knew his idea of a replacement was probably going to embarrass me. Make me the focus of stares and whispers. I'd been right about that part. But even in my darkest imaginings I had not foreseen that he would get me two cars.

The "before" car and the "after" car, he'd explained when I'd flipped out. This was just the "before" car. He'd told me it was a loaner and promised that he was returning it after the wedding. It all had made absolutely no sense to me. Until now.

Ha ha. Because I was so fragilely human, so accident-prone, so much a victim to my own dangerous bad luck, apparently I needed a tank-resistant car to keep me safe. Hilarious. I was sure he and his brothers had enjoyed the joke quite a bit behind my back.

Or maybe, just maybe, a small voice whispered in my head, it's not a joke, silly. Maybe he's really that worried about you. This wouldn't be the first time he's gone a little overboard trying to protect you.

I sighed. Yeah right. Sometimes I felt as if I was the riot of this 'family'. The person to be shown that they really are human. I know it's wrong of me to think this way but I really can't help it sometimes. Thankfully the flight was not late al all and in record time I saw them and broke to a run. I jumped in Renee's arms letting her sooth me in a way she hadn't done since I was a little girl. I allowed Phil to drive the thing, as I had named it in my head, as both he and Renee had rolled their eyes when they saw it and Phil repeated the words from the man in gas station.

Barely two hours later Edward called me to say that the Cullen's wouldn't be meeting us to officially introduce the two families as something important had happened and they needed to discuss it. We'd meet tomorrow and he hung up before I could answer. We had decided we would spend the night together for the month before the wedding, or rather Edward decided.

Instead dad took us all to the lodge and we had dinner there under the watchful eye of everyone in Forks that knew who my mom was and the whole story that went down between my parents. AKA the whole town of Forks.

The next day I ignored the planned meeting at Port Angeles and I drove myself to the Cullen's place to see what kept them. The air was heavy when I got in and I felt as if I had stepped in a war zone.

The whole family was seated around the big table in the dining room. Esme had told me that the only reason this table even existed, besides its job as a prop, was for family decisions. I remembered clearly the last one, whether I would be turned in a vampire or not. This time an extra chair was set next to Edward and I took it.

"What's wrong?"

I asked no one in particular and got no answer. Carlisle took a breath and informed me that he was in Los Angeles the previous days to meet an old friend that had asked him to get a sample of a compound. It was supposed to be a cure for vampirism. He knew that it worked on their kind of vampire; apparently there are more than one kind. Anyway this vampire called in a favor of Carlisle and wanted him to run an experiment on a cold one and see how well it worked. So here they were. They didn't want it to go public and from what I heard and experienced of the Volturi I could understand it.

They were holding a family meeting to see if any of them wanted to take it and Carlisle would monitor the subjects to see how it worked. He was thinking that he needed at least two volunteers. One man and one woman.

Surprisingly no hands were raised. I was a little surprised by that. From what I knew of them they should be fighting each other to be picked.

Rosalie had said she would give up everything to be a mother and have children as the choice on her becoming a vampire had been taken away from her.

Edward had claimed that if he could be human for me he would do it, not to mention he'd do anything to keep me human.

Alice didn't know her life as a human besides what she had found out last year and didn't know what she was missing. Not to mention that Alice wasn't Alice without her gift and I don't know how well that would work. Now that I think about it the same goes for Edward...

Emmett had no problem either way although I know for a fact that Emmett loves being the strongest vampire and I couldn't really see him as a human.

Esme had no ties to her human life and didn't want to become human again.

Carlisle was the same not to mention that had found inner peace and he would be the researcher,

Last but not least Jasper. He felt guilty for taking so many human lives and was actually the only one that had no problem doing it. I admired him for that and promised to myself that I would hurry to make friends with him as soon as he did it, if he did. Of course if the low voiced argument his decision caused with Alice was any indicator I would probably be locked in a high tower by Edward by then.

When I dared to voice my questions, who gave this cure to Carlisle, what other kind of vampire he was, when they'd do it, and why Rosalie and Edward refused to when they had a lot of reasons to go through with it everyone jumped up as if they hadn't even noticed I was there.

Carlisle opened his mouth to answer my first two questions but Edward interrupted him.

"Bella this doesn't concern you, it's a family issue. Shouldn't you be home?"

I saw red and I could see the shock on all faces besides Rosalie and Alice's. I took a calming breath and glared at jasper when I felt a wave of artificial calmness crush onto me and he got the point and stopped.

"Doesn't concern me? We're engaged Edward what you do concerns me. How is it any different than me becoming a vampire?"

"Bella"

"Shut up Edward. What you do concerns me, unless you want to deal with the Volturi, my parents and the whole town when there is no bride next to you next Sunday yourself"

With that I got up and left driving straight home and my parents' arms. Sometimes a girl wants her parents to console her and tell her everything is going to be ok, even if it's a lie.