Not many sought out the rainy, dreary town of Forks, Washington. Tucked away by flocks of looming spruce and blanketed by moss, it was the perfect place for the Cullens to reside for the time being. Scarcely anyone ever came in, and the town’s population dwindled generation by generation as fresh-faced graduates ventured off for more than what this place could offer.

It was perfect. The most Edward ever had to worry over — if it could even be considered worrying — were the occasional petty high school gossip or the stench of wet dog whenever the shapeshifters from La Push came into town. Jasper, a newly turned, was another problem, but so far it’d been smooth sailing.

Until talks of a new girl transferring took the population of Forks High School by storm. It was amusing, in a way, and irritating in every other way. Now, Edward had to deal with the internal ramblings of Mike Newton brainstorming fifty different ways to pick her up; Lauren Mallory’s green-eyed vitriol; Jessica’s superficial, two-faced niceties.

A part of him, long-buried and long-forgotten, squeezed inexplicably. It was some misplaced instinct — the strong protecting the weak, perhaps — that he felt the compulsive urge to fish the girl out from this den of hormonal, insecure hyenas. She seemed more than disconcerted by the onslaught of attention sent her way. Maybe that resonated with him.

Any good will withered out by the time biology class rolled around, however. It began with an inhale of air — of blood so nauseatingly sweet his head spun — and what was a detached, sort-of pity for the new girl became an irrational resentment. Not ever in the last eighty years had he smelled blood that threatened to shatter the careful, fascimile constraints of humanity he’d trained in himself. That Carlisle had fostered and placed faith in.

For a terrifying moment, Edward’s predatorial instincts reared its vicious head. Thrashing and pounding against his skull was the vision of his methodical, ruthless slaughter of all these kids — his classmates — and one unsuspecting new girl and her ambrosial blood. For a terrifying moment, he almost became the monster he always knew himself to truly be.

For what? For this puny creature? This one girl, whose mind was frustratingly, eerily quiet no matter how much he tried to pry. Why did she have to move here, in this forgotten town deep in Washington’s forests, of all places? Why did she have to personally come and dismantle his peace?

Edward held his breath, his impossibly handsome features twisting with revulsion. He angled himself away, widening the distance between them as much as he could, yet it all seemed futile. His instincts buzzed and hummed restlessly. He felt too big in his own skin; ready to burst.