Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns all.

Rated M for several reasons.

Prologue

BPOV

I can't believe I am actually back in Forks. Of my own free will no less.

No, actually I can, it's raining and despite being mid-afternoon, dark enough to feel like the onset of the end of the world. Or perhaps that's just my mood. End of the world like.

Charlie got me a car, or a Chevy truck to be precise. It hadn't even occurred to me to want something in Phoenix but no way was I moving to a new / old town to be ferried around in his cruiser, I had every intention of using my meagre savings to get something. In spite of my misgivings at his description I fell in love with it the moment I saw it parked in the street. It has presence.

Which is why I'm taking it for a test drive now instead of crying in my room.

I am pleased for my mom, really, Phil is a good guy. And it isn't either of their faults he moves around a lot playing ball. But I could see it made her sad when she felt obliged to stay at home with me and so eventually I decided to move back to live with my dad, Charlie, at least for a while.

I'm dreading school tomorrow. There will be less people there in total than I had in my entire junior class in Phoenix. Not that it makes any difference in the grand scheme of things, I didn't fit there and I am resigned to repeating that feat here. I always seem to be somehow out of step with the world around me. My mom calls that being seventeen. I think it's just me.

I do love this truck, it's slow and solid, but with my track record for accidents, of every kind, that's a good thing. I think. And the noise isn't so bad, now I've worked out the optimum sound level on my iPod to drown out the engine.

For some reason I feel a strong desire to just keep driving as the highway leads me out of town but with I heavy sigh I turn off, down the local road with the fallen trees on the corner that Charlie said would bring me back into town.

On a narrower road the huge trees lining it are oppressive, almost blotting out the grey sodden sky.

I shiver, suddenly keen to be back in the sanctuary of my old bedroom and alone with my morose thoughts.

Suddenly a huge animal bursts from the trees to the left and instinctively I jerk the wheel, locking up the big old tyres and sending the truck into a sideways skid on the wet surface.

Crap.

It feels like I'm twirling slowly and gracefully across the road but the speed of the approaching wall of trees tells me that I'm not, I am in fact hurtling towards what is probably going to be a very painful impact. Charlie always says it isn't the speed of the accident, it's the sudden stop we humans aren't designed for . . . .

The back of the truck slides off the asphalt and crashes downwards, swinging the rest of the truck with it. And it keeps going down until it hits something with an enormous bang and the cab starts to tilt back over the bottom.

Glass shatters and metal shrieks in tortured protest as my unrestrained body pings around the cab like a squash ball on a court. This probably isn't going to end well.

...

When I open my eyes I find myself looking straight into the face of angel.

He's beautiful. A strong handsome face framed by wavy blonde hair, eyes of the strangest gold, almost metallic looking and ringed with long thick blonde lashes that sweep his cheek when he blinks.

He smiles at me, parting his full sculpted lips and showing a mouthful of perfect white teeth.

"What happened?" My voice sounds weak, wrong.

"You overturned you truck." His voice is smooth, velvety with a hint of an accent I can't quite place.

I frown in confusion. I vaguely remember that. I skidded I think. I just can't remember why. My thoughts are sluggish but even so they slip away from me when I try to focus on them. My attention keeps being captured by the golden angel.

"Where am I?"

"At the side of the road. I pulled you out of the wreckage."

"Have you called my Dad? Does he know, is he coming?"

"I haven't called anyone. Your lungs are punctured."

What? I feel fine, no pain.

"How, how do you know?"

"I can hear the blood filling them."

I frown again. I can't hear anything. Although I do seem to be struggling to breathe, I can't quite seem to get enough air.

"What's going to happen?" I whimper as fear twists my insides.

"Don't worry about a thing." My angel replies softly, pressing a brief kiss to my numb lips. "I'll look after you."

He lowers his head and briefly there is a stinging pain in my neck followed by a sensation of spreading warmth.

His hair tickles my face.

A feeling of peace and serenity steels over me and I relax, floating weightless, letting my eyes fall shut.

It's so easy to ignore the vicious snarling sounds that erupt around me sometime later, I can barely hear them anyway.

JPOV

Edward is waiting for me as I approach the house.

"She saw?" It's a rhetorical question, he wouldn't be waiting for me if she hadn't. My poor long suffering wife and her visions of the future.

"She did. The kiss did not impress her much, to be honest."

"She was bleeding, dying, it would have been a shame to waste her blood, it was exquisite."

"If you say so Jasper." He sighs, kicking away from the tree he's leaning on and starting for the house. "Did you kill the werewolf?"

"Eventually. They're very strong." I twist to show him the tear an in my shirt and healing bite mark on my side.

"Were there anymore?"

"No, I spent the night searching but I couldn't scent any, not even down at La Push."

"Then we might not have to leave in an undignified hurry with a pack of shape shifters baying at our heels."

He's annoyed and I don't need my gift to feel it. Jasper screws up again. Bad Jasper.

"How was school?" I ask casually.

"Boring. The long awaited arrival of the new girl didn't happen, it was probably as well you weren't there, even I could detect the faint pall of depression hanging in the air."

He loathes high school as much as I do, if for slightly different reasons. He says the banality of everyone's thoughts drives him mad but it's all that fresh blood wandering around like an all you can eat buffet that drives me mad. My control was a hundred times better before I became a vegetarian.

I follow him up the steps to the door but he pauses on the threshold.

"Alice said she couldn't see what you decided to do with the body."

"I haven't yet. Its years since I've been chased off my kill, I was a little distracted." I shrug, more interested in getting to Alice. "I stashed it where no one will find it. I'll go back and bury it later."

I don't bother putting on airs and graces for Edward, he can read my mind. He knows my empathy doesn't give me the issues with dining on humans the others think I have, I can influence their emotions so they all die happy. If I've a mind to.