Picking up the Pieces

A New Start

Author's Note: This is a little different than my other stories. For one, there is no Phil. Renee and Charlie were separated for a bit, but never divorced. Bella came to live with her father when he got a better job offer in Forks, and Renee was soon going to join them with Bella's little sister, Addallee, who's been battling cancer since she was four.

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The Swanelle coven started completely by accident. First was when the Cullen's had left. I no longer wanted to live, not as a human or a vampire or anything else, but bouts of nausea and weight gain when I hadn't eaten at all prompted me to seek help.

I was pregnant.

I didn't know who to confide in, at first. I knew I'd only slept with one person, and that person just so happened to be a vampire, so this child wasn't normal. That, and I was only a week pregnant and I looked three months. I finally decided to confide in my best friend, Angela, but...something happened...

“Does it have to do with the Cullen's leaving?” she asked me suspiciously as she closed her bedroom door. I nodded my head as she led me to her bed, where we both sat down. That's when she noticed it...my large stomach. “Oh my god, Bella,” she gasped softly, seeing the bruised spots poking out from the bottom of my shirt. Right then and there, she knew something was up. She gestured with her hand to my stomach and I nodded my head, lifting my shirt up. She held her hand over, sighing. “Vampire.”

My eyes bugged out and I jumped, startling her, but she had started it. “Excuse me?” Angela was a human and she never hung around the Cullen's, so how did she know what they were? What my baby was?

That's when she smiled an all-knowing smile at me, and I saw her picking at her locket. I just realized that I'd never seen her without it, so I was shocked when she undid the clasp and took it off. As soon as it was off her neck, her body made a drastic conversion into only what I could call a transformation.

Her body paled, especially her face, and her eyes turned a golden yellow...just like the Cullen's. Her hand, that was still near my midsection, was ice cold, and her body looked indestructible. I sighed, shocked but not afraid, for I had been through too much to allow this to freak me out. I was sad that she hadn't told me, but she only knew, now, that I knew, so it wasn't her fault.

That's when her hand started to glow, and she placed it on my stomach. The bruises, all of a sudden, disappeared, and my stomach felt somewhat better than it had in days.

I looked up at her, my eyes brimming with tears. “You can heal.”

She nodded shyly, but looked ashamed. I quickly hugged her, not caring that she didn't tell me, before, because I knew, now. “You can help me, then?”

Angela smiled, nodding her head. “Of course. You're my best friend, and if this birth is anything like my sister's, then you're going to need all the help you can get.”

My eyes seemed to bug out even more, at that. “Maizi is a...” I trailed off, causing Angela to giggle.

“Yes, she's part vampire,” she replied with a smile. “We were all changed while my mother was pregnant. Somehow, Maizi became only part vampire, and will change automatically when she reaches the age of maturity.”