Falling To The Sun | B. Swan + E. Cullen

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Blinking slowly, Roman forces her eyes to focus, squeezing tightly as her stomach lurches as she adjusts herself. 

She's in her truck, the boy she doesn't know driving behind Bella's red pickup. Her hand comes to her forehead at the harsh stab of pain in her head as pieces start to slowly come back to her. 

"Holy shit!" she shrieks, jolting painfully against the seatbelt.

The driver shoots her a look. "Hey, relax! You know for a girl that hangs out with vampires, you're surprisingly scared easy." 

The world crumbles, her brain turning to mush as all logical thought process is replaced with white-noise. Vampires? Vampires?! Vampires. 

It suddenly makes much more sense, how odd the Cullen's are. Stunningly youthful, impossibly beautiful and pale. They never eat, never come to school on the few days that it's sunny. They're all together, like together-together, in a way that parents, even adoptive and foster parents, shouldn't be okay with. The terrible insults -- leech-lover and bloodsucker. Laurent, the crazy man with red eyes. Golden yellow, beautiful eyes. 

She lurches from the car the moment it stops, tumbling to her knees as she heaves. Tears soak her cheeks. 

This was all too much. It was impossible. Impossible. Vampires and werewolves weren't real. They were stupid things that you saw in cheesy movies. How was it possible for them to exist the entire time and have no one be the wiser? How could LaPush, a place where her friends live, where she visits, have werewolves? How could she-- 

Her thoughts take a terrible turn, his face flashing behind her eyelids. Edward. How could Roman be so enchanted by a man, so bewitched, when she didn't know a thing about him? How could she be in love with a vampire? 

Because clearly it wasn't the wolves that were eating the hikers, there would be a sign of that, of an animal eating people, and roman felt foolish for not noticing it sooner -- but then she didn't know that vampires existed so what the fuck. 

There were vampires running around the woods eating people. 

"Roman?" Bella's voice hits her hard, jolting through her, and for once it doesn't soothe and comfort as she's used to. It hits her and she feels like a cat with her hackles raised defensively. "I'm so sorry. I should have said something sooner. I should have warned you." 

"She's not taking this as well as you did," the boy points out with a snicker. 

"Shut up, Jared," Embry hissed. 

"She didn't know, about any of this," Bella whispers. 

Roman groans miserably, sitting back on her feet and wiping at her eyes with her sleeves. 

"Oh man, I'm sorry, dude," Jared says, patting her head awkwardly. 

She swats his hand from her head, using him instead to hoist herself up and keep herself steady as she wobbles. 

It takes her a moment to gain her bearings, to face Bella with a set expression, as serious that she could make herself, frowning. 

The other girl was paler than normal, a little shiny with sweat, but she didn't seem to be affected by any of this, by any of the news, and if she had clearly only just learned of the werewolves, then it must mean that she knew what the Cullen's were this entire time. 

She knew who Laurent was when he came for them, of the dangers that she was stepping out to every day she worked. 

"You knew what that man was, in the woods. You knew that thing was still out there," she accused, words coming out hoarse. "How could you not tell me, Bella! I know how to protect myself against animals, but I don't with those, those demons!"